chuffhooya

The Grey Zone (2001)

The truth is always shocking! 10 points.

People, sadly, this happened.

When I saw this movie, I WOKE UP.

NO ONE on earth can anymore be any kind of racist or even Nazi.

I will personally see to that. The youth nowadays, and people everywhere, are again really often of right-wing "national" attitude. That is wrong.

Humanity has to work together on the whole globe against the new fascism as described by Aaron Russo in his true docu "America: Freedom to Fascism", against what now happens since 1999 to half a million Falun Gong mass murdered and tortured and organ-bereft in Chinese concentration camps - and since 1999, now in 2010, no one did anything against the Chinese Falun Gong holocaust! Bush transformed USA into a fascist police state where everyone can be arrested for no reason, and in 1913, Congress was tricked and bribed into letting the Fed. Reserve Bank print US money, no more backed by gold. The "Internal Revenue Service" is an illegal, criminal organization, enforcing wanton, unjustified "taxes" which are unapportioned and contradict the US constitution.

Many Americans are opposed against Obama for no reason. Obama only repaired the Bush-damaged economy. Obama is black, that is why.

In Africa, Simbabwe, people are often too stupid to see that it's different in the case of Mugabe, not a socialist, but a mass-murderer.

Nazis are simply evil. The world didn't learn anything since 1945, and will only learn until every human being has been extremely victimized, tortured, murdered. then people will slowly start to realize if they don't fight fascism, they will all die.

It takes bravery to act against an evil overpower. Nevertheless. Dying for the cause against REAL evil of fascism is way better than just to live peacefully, ignoring the suffering of millions of others who are mass murdered and tortured. The problem: When people are not sensible to that matter, they often don't immediately identify with the victims, because those victims have been dis-righted, discriminated, have been declared "sub-humans", which are Nazi words. The only sub-humans are the Nazis, the biggest evil of all time.

I myself found a book from 1937, printed in Germany. It shows only ODIN, the viking god, and Greek gods, it does't show any Christian or Jewish contents, but only refers to Africans as "primitve peoples".

Also, I found a dictionary from Germany from 1892. It shows several negatively described words under the German word "Jude" for "jew": TO JEW (german: "Jüdeln") meaning to cheat in business, lots of other negative descriptions of Jewish matters. No wonder. If even a dictionary from the center of military Bismarck state Prussia speaks clear antisemitic racism, hatred against Jews, it had to come out that way. Too few people realize that, and that such a thing, such mass murder and torture, can always happen again and does in the sad case of not communist, but in fact fascist China.

People! Realize! Go away from being racists or Nazis! Or I will personally fight all Nazis, and that is a major promise I will keep. cheerio!

The Master of Disguise (2002)

Great movie except false Bush-asslicking

OK. First off: The only bad thing in this movie is the short scene where the main actor plays GW Bush.

Bear in mind this flick was produced (paid-for) by Sony Entertainment USA.

Of course, their headquarters (boss-etage) are in Japan, which still bears a grudge against USA because of Pearl Harbour and Hiroshima/Nagasaki.

But Japan was allied to the German Nazis, and USA had to defeat fascist Japan in those times. Much later, in the 60ies and 70ies only, America became corrupt and abusive in the Corean and Vietnam wars, which were unnecessary like the later Bush Senior and Bush Junior propaganda money oil wars. Both Bushs caused the biggest economical crisis in mankind's history, bigger even than 21 and 24 in Germany.

Because of Bush alone, who let 911 happen in spite of some 10 warnings and 5 FBI investigations prior to 911, crushed by the Bush administration to have a reason to cease Saddam's oil, because Cheney found out USA's oil would soon run out, as well as the Saudi arabian oil, because of Bush alone, USA is now filled with poverty and racist hatred, a very bad development.

The main actor, "master-disguised" as GW Bush, retrieves the stolen constitution from crook Devlin Bowman, after which the latter is thrown into the pool by that faked GW Bush.

Therefore, GW Bush is displayed positively, as a "hero" in this movie.

The whole rest of the movie, foremostly the main actor's impersonation of not only Robert Shaw's "Jaws" role, but also of Peter Sellers doing an Indian chap, as well as Peter Sellers playing a female role ("you foool"), and some other persona clichés, is just great.

This movie is good, but sadly, and be it only in a really short scene, it had to pay tribute to the former awkward US president GW Bush, which like his father is a complete idiot.

I personally don't care for people who don't share my political view.

What I say here and how I see it all is the truth, and nothing but it. Anyone contradicting me is simply wrong.

The first commentator was embarrassed about many other negative comments. If that big number of negative comments is not based on the much too positive, slimy GW Bush scene, I don't agree to the majority of other commentators. Anyway, American people are known nowadays for a long time already to be totally, helplessly stupid, because under-educated.

The slapstick including structural violence also in this movie is one sign how the American crowd is made to laugh: By primitive, violent, in fact not funny jokes, which are only funny because of the scenery, the music and cutting of the movie.

And why Brent Spiner never EVER alludes to his Data Star Trek role, is out of comprehension. Would that be too much dis-illusion for the average, dull and racist American crowd? Probably, yes. Those repeated fart-jokes are really not so funny after some time, anymore.

It depends what the other criticizers refer to in their critics. I think most people are too stupid to judge anything. And I think, oh, I'm lying; I KNOW that I am high above the average IQ of most people.

Cheerio to all people who think and see as I do. Live long and prosper and ciao!

The Addams Family (1964)

It's a Gothic, precious delight to be different

... Actually, one should compose all this when in a very Gothic mood or life phases. To all Goths: be thee greeted.

... Where should one begin? With the everlasting Elk's Head over their fire-place or with the gorgeously Elvira-like looks of Morticia, the house's lady, or with any other creepy, individual, Gothic or eery detail in their house?

... Or with the fact which is told, not shown, that this family keeps monsters and other things, among them a cut-off, living and moving hand as a servant (which is always shown and a part of the family, for one thing), in their cellar?

An important fact is surely that Gomez, the family's patriarch, has got a lot of money from inheritance, he also dabbles in stocks, but rather unsuccessfully, and prides himself in any financial loss - also a strong sign and mark stone of their spirituality, and big part of the whole Gothic setting and genre. They got money, so they can in fact afford to lose it, which shows also a lot of elitism, an old form even of some kind of aristocratism, but purely carved out in the hooded, dark from the outside, but innerly most goodly shape of a very small part of society, a marginal phenomenon in the sixties as well as again in the late two-thousands, a kind of relic of old intellectuals as depicted somewhat evillish in the eigthies movie "Gothic", also, it's quite important to know that the author of "Frankenstein", Mary Shelly, hung around with Byron and other chaps who were quite outside from normal society, kind of even "above" it, as one could entitle it.

It's a political and social issue, rather a real conflict, that is shown most precisely throughout the whole masterpieces of the episodes of the original sixties bw series. There have been many remakes, some of them rather really bad like the new colored series, some of them too much overly goth-styled, yes: goth-decadently made movies like the one from the early nineties, where Morticia suddenly speaks a superb french when in the original, she is lovingly American, a true good American, unlike maybe the majority of "normal", "civile" people, as well as Gomez is.

This is the only real, true thing. I am a mega goth, a "Grufti", as we call it in German, a "Gruft" being a crypt, some eery cellar where the bones of the ancestors lie. ... .-)

... I am also musician and love Bauhaus and their "Bela Lugosi's Dead" and play and sing it myself. I will also do some rock covers of the Addams' anthem.

Mind always the care put into each character, the love and light inside all darkness as it may seem from outside to people who in fact are a lot darker than the Addams. Each word they say is always a monument to Gothic culture, to good comedy with authentic thought in the background, rendering the show through and through endowed with not only grace, but depth.

Can I possibly give any more commendations and compliments, yes outcries of admiration?

... For me, all this "gothic" is more than some joke. It's my life. When I first read Poe and then Lovecraft... I shan't ever forget the delight in the obscure, my young, now a little older, still burning curiosity towards the unknown, also the supernatural, the mystical, the true field of intellectual activity, as is - at least for me - not, never only the study and book rooms, where its occupants simply and banally dry out in the dusty, life-apart, yes delusional air of pseudo academy. Oh, how this sounds now again as if Poe himself could have written it, of course better than my humble version. The one who strives outside of the normal is the pioneer, the true progressive one.

It's indescribable how progressive the Addams are. All goth put aside, they are a field example for good morals and ethics, even also politically, but lets stick to educational stuff for now. They are so tolerant. They understand all the creatures that just look evil. Shall anyone come right here and tell me they'd be any kinda "evil", the Addams. Not true. Nowhere.

... It's the world that stands upside down. It's the Addams who are in fact really "normal" or "good", SO is it, say what you will. Gothic forever - Bela Lugosi's undead (I really got some Hungarian grand mother, rest in peace, and personally, I am anti-Zionist, BUT still Jewish, and 9 tenths of my family have been gassed in Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen along with the rest of the 6 million Jews who were killed and tortured by Hitler and his followers.

... So, this series is not only for me, but to any good human being more than "just" some kind of style-fulfilling, call it "gothic" or "eery" series. much, unimaginably much more than that. Because the Addams stand for the victims.

Recall that point once where some other visitor says something about Salem, a place where they "burned witches", as he says it? Then, Morticia takes up a really decidedly gloomy posture and just says "Oh, I'm happy they don't do that anymore..."

-- Of course, it's hilarious and I laugh out loud all the time. But:

The witches were no witches. They were pagan or Jewish, harmless plant healer women. It's just an example of how the evil inquisition destroyed the lives of more than many thousands of innocent, hard-working people, as later did the Nazis.

Soldier Blue (1970)

Excellent, very hard at end, but always depicting perfectly

Soldier Blue.

"True Blue" still goes a proverb for Americanism.

"OMG", "oh my gosh"... What is there to write.

I haven't really "watched" the movie, I've browsed thru it and looked at the most important spots.

Of course, the -- ATT. SPOILER!-- massacre at the end is the main "hanger" of the movie, and not only of this movie, and not only of movies in general.

I got some funny, perhaps in fact not so funny analogy to the movie "Nevada Smith", in which -- SPOILER!-- McQueen plays an avenger of his brutally murdered mother, as well as in some modesty to "Geronimo":

Movies like the ones we're talking about here show how it really was in the wild west. Compare them to just any run-along John Wayne-flick, and you'll end up realizing Wayne's quite "ok", and surely not any kind of psycho murderer, not even in any name of a military power, he is in the extreme contrary not only displayed-as, but IS also for me a kind of "poser of a hero". BUT still, what you realize is, that also Wayne, like many other western stars, have been put into a quite awkward position of mere liars.

Our white history is one big lie.

This movie shows it. How this dirty old general preaches after the --SPOILER:-- massacre, that the whites brought peace and order to those lands, this is just bizarre. Bizarre and inhumane and to the utmost fascist.

This movie shows what already some more than hundred years ago, America succumbed to and, by the way, did again during the Bush-era from 2000 to 2008, in which two totally unnecessary, purely propaganda-wars were fought, only to bring disorder to Irak and Afghanistan, in which country the much more peaceful Obama is now really trying to help. Obama's policy is thru and thru peace and tolerance oriented. It is clear that the right has also some parts which deserve respect, but very often, they are mixed up with any kind of Nazis, KKKers and such racist and intolerant, violent groups.

I couldn't watch this movie. The pain would have been too great, first identifying with the characters and then seeing them suffer so much.

It is enough to HELP those people in danger. I do not need to suffer with them, if I only watch a movie, I don't really help them by watching, but by doing something for oppressed people.

Frankly, I can only pluck a guitar in a good way when I have the good conscience that I did some office work, as well as political, journalist things, before.

This is a super movie. Bravo. Showing how the soldiers are part of a fascist/ capitalist system, and how needless murder and rape is committed by rogues, employed by a so-called "civilized" army, and how the west REALLY was won, namely by the blood of the innocent and totally harmless and extremely indeed "civilized" ones.

Look at the John Wayne western "How the west was won", and you'll get cheap jokes and probably another of Wayne's kicks in the ass of a "criminal". My gosh when will people get it. "Dancing with Wolves" was good on one hand, cuz it also shows the crimes of the west, BUT Costner only tries to make himself a hero, when he doesn't really deserve that! Many whites have tried to take the hero-role for themselves, when the ones who suffered were the Cheyenne, the Cherokee, the Apachee, the Mohicans, the Irocese, and so on. "Cherokee... TATA TATA- TATA TATA- ..marchin' on the trail of tears, who who who CHEROKEE - TATA TATA- oh! -TATA TATA-- marchin' on the TRAIL of tears, ohhh.... Wham!

TATA- They lived in peace TATA not long ago.. TATA. A mighty Indian tribe... TA TA TA... but the winds of change... had made them realize, that the promises were LIES, yea... (analogy here: The movie "Geronimo" and others)

So much to bear and all that pain left them in despair they had lost their faith and now they had to learn there was no place to return NOWHERE THEY COULD TURN... CHEROKEE... marchin' on the trail of tears...

-- solo ....

(EUROPE)

Edit: Right some 2, 3 posts after this my comment, "Merklekranz" calls this movie's acting by Candice Bergen weak and disrecommends it with the pseudo argument, it would be "anti-war-propaganda". Well, YES, that it IS, anti-war-propaganda. Which is the ONLY good propaganda. Which IS no propaganda, at all. War is ALWAYS bad for all, for the rich AND the poor, for the economy, war is ALWAYS death. How this individual tries to justify ANY kind of killing is inexplainable and unforgivable. This guy hasn't learned his lesson in life. Bergen and the other guy who plays the soldier blue both play great and utter more words than just four. This guy is wrong the whole line along. WAR is the ONLY propaganda. Shocking to see some folks even try to justify extreme crimes committed by their own ancestors to people who lived in America long before the white men came with their alcohol and money and corruption and prostitution and social inequality, their class system, to speak with Marx's words.

Democracy, NOT slavery, NOT war, THAT is what BLUE, what America should be. Obama is showing us how.

Per qualche dollaro in più (1965)

It's a laugh but a good laugh

This is not your average movie comment.

Most importantly first: I know that Klaus Kinski, who plays a tiny side role in this classic flick, said himself that he liked to take on roles which demand no high-profiled playing, but which were paid well.

Kinski's attitude is in itself disillusioned and sarcastic.

The soundtrack is somewhat naturally Italo-dominated and very heroificating the main actors, Clint and that other one, the so-called "Monk", which in fact saves the whole movie from being just another mainstream delusional product.

Like "Django", this is your typical italo-"spaghetti western".

But in "Django", there is a REAL story about someone the watcher CARES about, and really deeply.

Attention, SPOILER: Of course I sympathize with the monk (I rather laugh about Clint), and of course I see the disturbedness of our plain and unchanging evil guy, only called "Ninjo". But when I look into the eyes of Ninjo, I see despair, I see repeated beatedness in his childhood, I see his own abusedness by others.

I would be careful with such psychos, but I would NEVERTHELESS try to help him, psychically.

Well, of COURSE, in the wild wild west, it would REALLY have been better if the real evil guys would have been shot fast. But that was VERY rarely the case. OK, all westerns show the cruelty of the wild west. But many westerns only show us ONE story in which at the end, the good ones prevail.

Note that I wrote "good" without any quotation marks, before. That was intended. I believe personally in good and evil, as simple and dull as it may sound.

But I don't believe that the good mostly vanquishes evil, I believe in the near exact contrary.

In the real wild west, people like the ones that the monk and Clint are displaying, would have a lot smaller chance of survival. True, there were some few ones who shot really well.

Anyway, this movie is only offering revenge in the form of the death of the other as a solution, it shows a lot of fictionally and individually worthless "evil" (NOW mark the quotation marks!) guys getting shot by two people who kill for money. Oh, how honorable. In this setting, the movie intends to make it believable that at least a few good ones where there among the bounty hunters? Or does this movie unphilosophically laugh upon itself? Surely, the audience laughs a lot. Some people might utter some lots of admiring and pseudo-professional super-admiring statements about this movie, saying it would have maybe been "underrated" for a long time until the early 2000s. The main comment on IMDb says this movie would be "hard" or "brutal", whoa, I laugh myself to death. This movie isn't showing any blood, nearly! This is a soap-opera, it's like caressing my beloved cat in comparison to "Silence of the lambs" or then even terrible, unethical movies like "Hostel" and "Saw", which I cannot watch, at all.

I ate some really good spaghetti to my beloved monk and Kinski, and I was in fact very amused by all three of em, well, all four, including the actor playing Ninjo. That they allowed Kinski only one or two words is a scandal.

When the camera is showing distanced settings directly on the landscape, when the music is swelling, I have my thoughts about existence, and about the unnecessary cruelty of mankind, and also about the nice moments, the love, the sharing, the happiness.

Yea, surely there IS something behind this actual pseudo-western, there is a critical attitude, the one of Mister Sergio Leone who directed it, there IS his strong statement that counter-death was all they had back then when their very lives were threatened - did I say "threatened"? OK, so this movie takes bounty hunters whose lives they themselves put into danger in order to enrich themselves, and Leone surely does this fully on purpose, only to compare the bounty hunters' not super-high ethics to the even lower ones of others.

While Leone surely doesn't say it would always have been like this, while I myself admire Leone for the other great stuff he shot (note the merely literal [?] similarity between "shooting" a film and actual gun-shooting...), I have to say to Mister Leone that this flick of his is rather funny than positively pathetic - being European, I know that most Americans use the word "pathetic" in a negative way, but this is their own language salad or abuse. "Pathos" derives from Greek and means the grandeur of a situation or of speech, for instance. Only the wannabee-western-like, in fact totally UN-western-like music is pathetic in this movie, the rest is tricking the audience into thoughts of their own as the "now they shoot them, then they them"-story progresses - the movie HAS got a good pace, though, and IS not only well-watchable, but a MEGA delight to the casual as well as the aficionado watcher.

But to someone who demands more of movies, this is not a great gift.

Clint's much later "Unforgiven" can be entitled a sequel of this movie, if you want. Some ugly evil men kill innocents, and then the revenge starts.

"Django" reaches the heigths of big westerns, I like it even more, because it always stays modest. And lovely. This Django character REALLY made me identify with him. Also the actor who here plays the monk had a similar effect on me.

Dark Star (1974)

Cool bearded hippies traveling at impossible light speed

comment bout darkstar

Some 15 minutes after the beginning, a pilot says:

"... cruising at light speed..."

• Well, he should have read more Einstein.

Or Carpenter should have. Lightspeed IS NOT. One big NO,NO.

Apart from that, I like the movie. I wish we would have so humane and politically left hippies with beards in space.

But that's not gonna happen so soon.

I quit watching the movie. OK it is politically correct and the only reasonable answer to CLEAR CRAP like desperate and poor Kubrick's "Space Odyssey 2001" which was in itself commercial and FAR away from Kubrick's OWN ideals!

But if "Darkstar" ain't realistic, it won't keep its timelessness.

By stating this phrase: "CRUISIN AT LIGHTSPEED" which is simply ridiculous, the whole movie is destroyed.

What remains is Carpenter's excellent country song about the stars that look brighter if watched together, and the bearded man looking at the poster of a woman while listening to the music.

That is the last I watched in this movie. We live in different times.

Things have gone a lot more in the right direction, I mean, politically.

Which is the WRONG direction. Sadly. Bush has destroyed USA's economy in order to enrich himself and his colleagues by warmongering.

No matter whether it's Vietnam or Irak, things haven't changed.

But Einstein who said light speed is not achievable for any existing matter except light itself, Einstein was already there long before Mr. Carpenter.

Any SF-movie director should have read his physics. Point and over.

Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008)

Verhoeven's totally critical and satiric movie suffers from a lack of understanding from most audiences

It is clear that IMDb has gone marbles.

Look at the first comment on this movie's main page here on IMDb.

The bro is talking about "CGI" (which are special effects) and how the movie "looks".

This commentator does prove that he does not at all understand what this movie is trying to convey.

All ST movies are the same in that respect. Behind the curtains, in the background happens the corruption, and in the foreground, unhideable war and killing is justified by wrong values like "honor" etc. - just like in the Korean, Vietnam and Afghanistan and lastly in the Irak wars.

The ST movies are the big exception among the action movies. They specifically convey critical and independent judgment, they convey hard facts against indoctrinating (=brainwashing) lies spread by the VERY government which makes money by starting wars under false pretenses and maintains its power by means of maintaining (and NOT EVER winning, for money is only made by keeping up the war) a state of war.

I cannot understand which employee of IMDb put that other comment on the first page. There should be more engagement at IMDb concerning reasonable selection of comments!

In fifty years, we gonna remember those movies, the good ones. But not comments like the first one on this movie. Such people are exactly as naive and dumb as Rico in the movie. Who doesn't realize that the movie purposely de-identifies from Rico, from the whole shown information, has not understood anything.

Robin of Sherwood (1984)

"Don't trust the Lion!"

The greatest compliments to the other commentator here at IMDb who asked himself why this series didn't "get stuck" in its time to last a lot longer like many other series in the 80s did.

It is not true the series would have gotten worse if further continued.

I will at the end of this my comment post some thoughts about the other movie realizations, rather: attempts of the Robin Hood legend.

First of All, Robert Addie (Gisburne), you are among us all, you live forever.

Nothing is as fun as the entire two, if one wants, three seasons of this absolutely unique series. And at the same time absolutely agreeing with the mostly new and revolutionary findings of Terry Jones' history documentations about Egypt, Greece, Rome, Konstantinopel, the Goths and Barbarians, and the middle ages and crusades (...yes, THE Monthy Python-Terry Jones):

If you have seen those brilliant and funny Jones-Docs you will better, much better understand all the historical background stuff Carpenter, the writer of the Robin of Sherwood-series (which happens to be the brother of John Carpenter, who made "The Thing", their third brother makes music), intended to tell us.

The writer of "Dick Turpin", "Catweazle" and the first two seasons of "Robin of Sherwood", called "Kip" Carpenter, is my movie overlord. He's better than all those others who criticize his "sword-and-sorcery" element or "defectiveness" (taken from the Robin of Sherwood Webring) of this series (that I can not see) or have other non-fundamented criticism of which there existed a lot back then and still now.

That's why, when you get to know this "Robin of Sherwood" better, you'll be severe. You will at first loathe the third season. Not only that: I did myself go thru this, and on top of it, I have only taken up the first two seasons into my deepest heart - DESPITE the fact that Praed, the actor of Robin, left this series, because after the series had enormous success, he was offered a probably better paid role in an absolutely ridiculous Canadian series called "The new Adeventures of Jules Verne" - already the title reveals the emptiness of the whole project. Praed went for money, and not for fame, he didn't stick with his gang and kin, I mean: as actors.

Actors who personally represent the afterwards "really", in our present time famous and legendary faces and characters of the Robin-Legend. The potential of this series could and should have been let blossomed a lot more without any degrading niveau of content and historical message and rebellious accuracy regarding current political issues.

Again, obligatory to say: A change of the main role was forced by Praed's stupid decision of leaving Robin of Sherwood for a silly remake-series of the Verne-tales and brilliantly woven into the filming of the story. Still it is in some aspects a catastrophe.

Anyway: If one is informed about this, and that Connery was maybe really advertised by his father, but that the young Connery DID NOT AT ALL "chase Praed away", how I prejudicially thought in the first place, then one can absolutely enjoy the 3rd season. Sad here is that the script was not anymore written by Superman Kip Carpenter, so we don't have anymore that critical and free-thinking historical background like i.e. in "The Witch of Elsdon", or in "The King's Fool", two episodes of the first series that is A) funny, B) historically educating and C) brilliantly acted. ===

"Don't trust the Lion!"

Unlike many other characters that wished him dead for the sake of their own gain of power, Richard Lionheart, as shown in RoS and as in real history, was a greater authority than John or others, but used it only for his wicked idea of the crusade and the war against Normandie in France. He slaughtered and had slaughtered much more than tens of thousands of Christians, Muslims and Jews in the "wholy" crusades, and his soldiers even devoured the children they slayed out of hunger or poverty. On top of that, after his capture by the Saracens (muslims) in the crusades, Britain was squeezed out for his ransom, 100.000 marks (at that time, 11th century, comparable to approx. 30 Billion - 30'000'000'000.- Dollars of current value), to get him safely back, and then he just visited England for a month to return to Normandie (in France, where the Norman Invaders went first) for the crusades (one learns that in the episode "The King's Fool"). For this new crusade, possibly kind of a revenge for his capture, Richard Lionheart again "drains the country of money" (cited out of Clive Mantle's mouth, when he lectures Robin in being critical with even the King). Robin criticizes this warfare unsocial ruling of Richard's, he addresses Richard himself, telling him "The poor gave everything to set you free, how CAN you ask more of them?" - Richard: "...Give me your courage and strength, not your words!" ...Later, in private, Richard orders the assassination of Robin...

So, the crusaders were the real "barbarians".

P.S: Already when I watched Kostner in 91, I got upset, because after-wards, I found out in history course in school that Richard was not that good just man as displayed by Sean Connery in his appearance at the end of "Prince of the Thieves". Well, as Terry Jones would put it: It is a lie, a treacherous lie!" Sean plays humorist and charismatic, and his son does a better job than expected in the third season of "Robin of Sherwood".

Again: Praed is, according to my info up to now, the one who left Sherwood for a stupid Verne-series nobody with brains will EVER remember or want to remember.

Robin Hood (1991)

Why such a Magnum-like looking main character?

Today, Costner is less popular than he was when he did "Dances with Wolves", which was his last really good movie (like Metallica's last good album, the Black one, for many many metallers and grufties the tombstone of that band, and really, much later in the end of the nineties, Metallica commented in news articles against Napster, so that they became commercial is out of question as proved hereby).

So, for me, as for anyone who wants to indulge in medieval stuff that is authentic and not too much cliché-Hollywood, this movie wins highly over the great concurrent which we have all seen, "Prince of Thieves", that is admittedly done with a lot of humor, but also in a too Hollywood-style-overloaded way.

By the way, the opening font of the title is the same as in the famous video game "Deadly Shadows", probably the designers of the latter took it from this movie.

Well-done is the story with the longbows. But the Norman soldiers are better in "Robin of Sherwood", the series.

The worst thing is the main actor. I like him personally, I mean... I don't know him and I'm a pure hetero, huhu... no, wit aside: I don't like the way he presents himself in the movie, it really DESTROYS the whole atmosphere and in front of all the authenticity and therefore the convincing factor of the movie, when the main actor has got a strong American accent!

It's impossible that anyone spoke like that in middle-age Europe!

All other actors are English, I don't know why they took such a Magnum-facsimile and if it had to be him, why they couldn't even let him take some crash-course in medieval English (possibly with Jeremy Brett, the best Holmes EVER, who quite had undergone some speaking handicaps, or Geoffrey Bayldon, the actor and brilliant medieval speaker in "Catweazle", a work of the writer and ex-actor Kip Carpenter, as is "Robin of Sherwood", the measure this movie here has to cope with!)?

When they pay such a lot for it? Maybe, the producers were only after people's money at the cinema counter and the box-office - Robin Hood himself, if he ever existed, like Willhelm Tell or even King Arthur and Merlin, went for fame and not money.

The whole person-to-person relations are either too seemingly macho-like or too comically overdone - when Prochnow is rejected by Marian played by Thurman, a cunning watcher recognizes the overwhelming countenance of the noble Prochnow which is hidden by him in a great effort of controlled rage. Thurman can't adequately cope with that ground-sticking niveau of acting craftsmanship.

So, it is not convincing that in the plot as defined by the legend, she turns him down. because we can hardly imagine Thurman turning Prochnow down.

Sorry to all, it is like that, admit it or not.

To me, every second of the first two series of "Robin of Sherwood" is totally convincing, this series (maybe not the third one with that Connery-son), I took up into my heart's deepest regions.

I cannot do that with this movie, sadly. It is not good enough. It is well done is many, many aspects, but the display of all the important personal relations is making a joke out of the whole movie.

Many here said it was "WAY" better than Costner's Version. But back in 1991, I can't recall or imagine that they all would have said the same. Back then, we were ALL fascinated by Costner, admit it, folks!

Pope Joan (1972)

Is this movie good or bad now...

I briefly, upon commencing my commentary, read all the not so many other comments here.

One could say they contradict each other, some love it, more others tend to see the cast wasted and the whole experience of watching this movie degraded.

Maybe some rich Hollywood producers just engaged a well-known actor crew.

Especially Schell and the old actor, playing the old pope and looking to me like Sir Laurence Olivier, really seem a high-leveled cast - of course, maybe it's not an important chapter of history, maybe, as always in normal first-view cinema cuts, the whole work of art has been re-cut over and over , but Liv Ullman is great, and Schell plays wonderfully spicily.

I would say that it is excellent and very satisfying that we got such a lot of critically conscious minds here at the IMDb commentary corner of this movie, even if there are only eight comments, nine now.

But please: Laudate correctum et accusate correctum, mihi filii et filiae ["Praise the right and accuse the right, my sons and daughters" - it's just a phrase in Latin I made up :-) ].

Bad is the production unit of the movie, that would be for example departments like editing, management (including casting: the resulting cast choice was superb, but only motivated by the intention of taking well-known stars to make the movie a success - still the actors shine and rise above all that business and greed), but then also the direction, governed by the script.

But I think that the subject of a Pope Joan is a well-chosen one, it fits into my medieval fascination about Robin of Sherwood (which is NO children's series AT ALL!!!), Catweazle (also not only good for kids), Excalibur, King Arthur and so on, and of course, Lord of the Rings.

The one saying this would not lead to any remake was CLEARLY wrong.

A remake would be superb, if not done like all those many really wasted movies from 2000 on:

I would HATE it if it looked like "Ghost Ship" (One Samuel Jackson or similar, all others teens, unwatchable from the start) or "Troy", where this stupid Pitt is playing an ancient Greek homosexual warlord in a rather ridiculous fashion, totally unconvincing. Also the camera-shots here are important. Over 30 minutes pass by and you're only watching the boys have fun. Well' I'm a hetero, and freely admit I like peppered video content. But if I go watch a movie, it should be what's written on the label. I don't wanna see Superman if I go to "Batman" either. Watching "Troy", you're worse off - you don't get Superman, you get a jerk that flirts around all the time with his favorite "boyfriend" and then shortly bashes some "evil" Trojans down.

Modern cinema. Disgusting. No offense meant to ANY gay guy.

It's clear that this movie (Troy) presents long overthrown clichés along with a badly acted and cut script and scenery.

What's also clear is, that most modern remakes are done in EXACTLY that fashion. Because people don't care anymore, people mostly don't have culture and style, meaning autonomy and criticalness of thought, anymore.

Or take "Titanic". Basically you can take all and remake it so that there is a budget of approx. some 100 Million Dollars, but the movie itself is either too FX-overloaded, or the acting is so bad that its unwatchable if you got SOME tiny brains, I really LAUGH OUT LOUD here.

Lord of the Rings is different there, as we all agree, cuz Jackson's not only interested in money, but also in fame which is much more important, and I mean that! I enjoyed watching Pope Joan, but also enjoyed a lot the critical atmosphere here, even if too critical.

All actors got screwed and betrayed by their directors and producers in their early times.

I enjoyed Pope Joan for its acting performances - as an intellectual, I loathe for example the institution of the church, and as a pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist, alternative, but traditional Jew, I am very much in opposition towards the state of Israel and its current deed or crime of attacking the Lebanon. Already in the Sixties, the Israelis destroyed Beirut, they bombed it to the ground. But please, let us commit neither antisemitism, nor, as I said, too much blindness towards the sins of the state of Israel.

It is the source of many wars, but nevertheless fascinating and a REAL imagination of Zion or "Paradise" or "Heaven", that all continental religions, except maybe the pagan, partially Nordic culture, have a strong feeling of connection towards Jersalem. I say "Next in Jerusalem" and I mean peace and understanding by that, which implies critical reflection and the struggle against many inhumane acts of both state, institutions and the individual.

I cut away any too emotional pseudo-religious meaning of the movie in its every second in my mind and there we go: As stated by others here, ONLY THE FINEST ACTING.

Those re-cutters and money-givers did NOT succeed in wasting those actors Ullman and Schell, I think, it's very unjust that the movie got so little attention in 72.