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The Conversation, a review by Antares

The Conversation (1974) 68/100 - Nothing drives me more crazy than when a director plays the audience for a bunch of suckers, and that's exactly what Francis Ford Coppola does with The Conversation. The film starts out rather dry, but still intriguing as we are given insight into the covert world of surveillance and eavesdropping. It is here where the film really shines. But halfway through, it kind of loses steam and only comes back to life at the very end. Now I can forgive a film that lags a bit if the payoff makes up for it. But the payoff here is a bit of manipulation by Coppola that defies the laws of science. This is just a cheap way to trick the audience, and a lazy way to show that you really didn't have much of a story in the first place, so you had to resort to this kind of cheap carny trick. The minute it happened I felt as if I had just been duped by a crooked Three Card Monty dealer. I thought about giving this a much lower rating, but the first hour is rather good and of course, the sound in this film is excellent. But when all is said and done, this film for me, is not worthy of the lofty position it is given by many in the film world.

What the color coding means...

Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is

(From Antares' Short Summations on August 16th, 2012)

Spotlight, a review by Antares

Spotlight (2015) 88/100 - I thought I'd never utter or type these words...I've lost my love for films. I've spent a lot of money amassing a large collection of DVDs, which mostly sit in folders, unwatched. Over the last few years, I've bemoaned the fact that a majority of the films coming out of Hollywood are complete crap. A couple of nights ago, I was searching through the Redbox website, and after meandering throughout all the cinemuck, saw Spotlight. I've been pretty much out of the loop as to what's been coming out over the last year, but I knew that this had won the Oscar for Best Picture. I grew up in Massachusetts during the time frame of these atrocities and having attended Catholic schools for 12 years, thought this film might be the one that restores the fire in the dying embers of my film flame... it did. I love a good "journalist investigation" film and this has to rank up there with some of the best. After I finished the film, I went on Criticker and read some of the reviews there. I was surprised to see so many people trashing it, from what I felt, was a misunderstanding of what the film was made for. It's purpose wasn't to make a groundbreaking, technical masterpiece, nor was it made to stir up the crimes of the Catholic church. It was made to show how important a Free Press is to OUR freedom and security. We live in a world where everything is being crammed into either a 15 second sound bite or a 140 character Tweet. It's all disposable information and that's what the corporations, who have taken over our country want. If it's disposable, it's also desensitizing and an apathetic and passive populace is easy prey.

Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is

(From Antares' Short Summations on April 15th, 2016)

My PILOT Marathon, a review by Rich

CUTTING IT - SERIES ONE - PILOT





CHICK SERIES!
But saying that it was ok, but not really much to grab a fella unless you are into bitching between hairdressers.



(From My PILOT Marathon on June 3rd, 2008)