A British American psychological thriller directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring Theresa Russell, Gary Oldman, Christopher Lloyd, Colleen Camp and Seymour Cassel.
A woman whose husband neglects her meets a stranger in a restaurant and begins a complex relationship with him. The husband spends all of his time with model trains or cheating on his wife with a nurse at the hospital he works at.
This was that type of strange that only Nicolas Roeg can create. The plot was a little on the confusing side. Is this young man real or does the woman have an imaginary friend? Add the inconclusive ending and it's nearly incoherent. The characters were definitely acted very well. Being famous movie stars and all, they lived up to their reputations. The video was mostly straight forward storytelling. There were some odd shots and scenes as well. My favorite was the young man playing with the husband's train set. The audio was shoddy and uneven. This was the standard inaudible dialogue problem. Overall, a weird film by a weird director. I'm giving it the weird pink rating because I think it's his strangest work.
A British drama directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring Art Garfunkel, Theresa Russell and Harvey Keitel.
A man whose girlfriend is in the hospital remembers their relationship together. He is a psychology professor and she is crazy. The cops are questioning him after he brought her in for a drug-induced coma.
Holy non-linear plots, Batman! Everything was all out of sequence, but it ended up only making sense at the very end. All of the scenes came together to produce a relatively coherent whole. The two main characters were developed well and their relationship was shown in great detail. The video was pretty standard, straight forward and run of the mill. There was some nudity and sex, but the most shocking ingredient was the operating room at the hospital. The audio was nothing to get excited about either. Overall, this was about the characters and their relationship. I rate it o.k.
A British drama directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring Miranda Richardson and Donald Sutherland.
an architect and her boyfriend move into a farmhouse that their new neighbors used to live in. The women in each house are dealing with pregnancy issues and the neighbor grandmother is a witch.
The award for least ability to tell a story in film goes to Nicolas Roeg. The plot of this, as with his other films, doesn't make much sense. There is a surface level where we see the people in locations and hear their dialogue, but the deeper level of meaning is a mystery. This was produced like a horror film. The grandmother was talking to someone or something that was never visible (maybe she was crazy and talking to the dog). There were these close-up shots of the puffball fungus that were so menacing that I thought there would end up being a monster in it. After one of the grandmother's chats with the dog, the screen is engulfed in flames. All of this buildup of horror elements led to the anticlimax where nothing really happened. There was also sex. Lots of loud sex. The video and audio were great though. The composition, framing and camera-work were phenomenal. There were even well-done special effects that looked like something magical. Overall, exactly what I should have expected from Roeg. With Mike Leigh, it seems like nothing is happening when the deep meaning is being presented. With Nicolas Roeg, it seems like deep meaning is being presented when nothing is happening. Crazy Brits. I rate this o.k. because it was such a well-made disappointment.
A British American drama directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring Gene Hackman, Mickey Rourke and Joe Pesci.
A gold miner makes a discovery and becomes rich in 1925. Years later, he fears that his daughter and her boyfriend are trying to get his money. There are also mobsters who actually are out to get his money.
What was that? I have very little idea of what I watched. The plot was not communicated clearly. Scenes would happen and seem to have apparent meaning, but what came after would make it seem like it was a dream or someone telling a story. Far from feeling like I knew the characters personally, frequent costume and acting changes kept me guessing who the characters were. The video was done quite well, once we discount the story-telling aspect. The scenes that looked best were set in 1925 when the man was surrounded by wolves or walking through the cave full of gold. The audio was passable. I could hear everything and it was mixed properly. Overall, this failed to meet one of the primary objectives of film in general: to tell a story. Subsequently, I have to rate it poor.
A British drama adventure directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring Oliver Reed.
A man obsessed with the story of Robinson Crusoe decides to live on a deserted island for a year. He finds a woman who is willing to go with him and they spend all of their money to make it happen. Once they get to the island, the man spends his time playing or laying around, while the woman wanders. It ends up being more difficult than they thought.
This was enjoyable to watch. I liked the plot and characters, mostly because I am just finishing reading Robinson Crusoe myself. It turns out that the part about the personals ad is art mirroring life, because that is how Amanda Donohoe got her part in the film. I wondered how they did the malnutrition bodies. Did they actually starve themselves, or have skinny body-doubles? When the characters were portrayed healthy, Amanda Donohoe spent much of her time walking around naked, learning to use a shotgun naked, etc. Unfortunately, the malnutrition scenes were naked too. The video was mostly very bright, despite the depressing situation that the characters were in. The audio was alright. I could hear the dialogue and the soundtrack music stayed very far in the background. Overall, a decent movie with some positive qualities. I rate this adequate.
A British crime drama directed by Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell, starring Mick Jagger.
A mafia tough-guy has some business go awry and must hide until he can escape the country. Fortunately, he overhears a rock star's conversation in a train station that leads him to a hidden apartment. The other tenants of the building are hippies who feed him mushrooms. This sends him on a psychedelic journey of self-discovery until the other mafia hit men show up.
Brilliant! The plot was unique and quite provocative at the time it was released. I thought the characters fit their roles and were acted well. The main character was more interesting because of changes in his identity, world view and thought process. A dynamic character! Who would ever think to have one of those? The video was a little dark and grainy, but pretty good. They didn't try to go way over the top with the mushroom trip, but showed him in strange situations, questioning reality and reacting to the hippies. The audio had audible dialogue, good use of British slang and appropriate soundtrack music for the time and subject matter. Overall, I think this was done properly and checks all my criteria boxes. I rate it good. This is definitely worth watching!
A British comedy drama directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring Tony Curtis and Gary Busey.
Joseph McCarthy visits Albert Einstein at a hotel room with threats of preventing his speech the next day. During the night, Marilyn Monroe visits to discuss relativity, but is interrupted by her husband, Joe DiMaggio.
This was all "WTF?" moment, nothing else. The plot made sense on a very shallow level of people in the hotel room, but there were flashbacks and hallucinations mixed in as well. The characters were played convincingly. The video looked really good for 1985 and the special effects were expertly done. The audio was not so hot. It was overall a little quiet and some of the dialogue and music got lost, but other sections were normal volume. I rate this adequate because it was expertly crafted, but not quite coherent.
A British Italian thriller directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland.
The daughter of a married couple drowns in a pond. The husband is then working on restoring a church in Italy when the wife meets a mysterious duo of older women. One of the women seems to have psychic powers and is predicting disaster in the family. The wife is called away back to England where her son in school has had an accident. The husband thinks that he sees the wife still in Italy, with the old women and goes to the police.
The pros outweigh the cons on this one, making it worth watching. The plot was a little confusing and choppy. There were some sections that were unclear, like the daughter's death. The characters were memorable and acted their roles very well. The dialogue seemed poorly written, though because it led to some of the plot confusion. An example of this is the Husband calling his wife at the school in England. It seemed like she was lying to him or evading his questions, but it turned out that she was being honest. Video is where this shines. The shot compositions, framing and editing were amazingly artsy. Everything from the English countryside with the pond to the ancient labyrinth of Italy looked good because of proper lighting and exposures. They used steady tripod shots and rough, handheld shots in all the right places and there was some compositing. The daughter appearing in the waters of Italian canals was done very tastefully. There was an extended sex scene which was interspersed with footage of the couple putting their clothes on. I know that it makes a bold statement, but am at a loss for what that statement is. The audio was another good point. I could hear all of the dialogue. Even though some was in Italian, it did more to establish the setting than drive the plot. The all-classical music soundtrack worked wonderfully to set the mood. Overall, watch this for the video aspect. I rate it good.
An adventure directed by Nicolas Roeg.A father goes on a picnic with his daughter and son. The father begins shooting at his offspring, until he decides that they are going to avoid his shots. He then sets the car on fire and shoots himself. The older daughter salvages what she can from the picnic and the siblings run away, stranded in the Australian outback. They wander until they are on the brink of death, at which point they find an oasis that dries up overnight. They decide to stay there the following day, in hopes of the water returning. At this point, an aboriginal young man appears and becomes their guide. They can't help but follow him until they can find a way back to civilization.Great film! It starts out tragic and disastrous, but turns into a psychedelic spiritual journey at some point. The camera goes wild in the outback, shooting whatever and showing short clips of the characters. Eventually things become coherent again as the native Australian is on a killing spree. He kills any animal in sight, and where they are, there are a lot of animals. Suddenly a jeep with shotgun hunters passes by and he sees them killing animals at about 1 animal per second. I saw jealousy in his eyes at this point, in awe of greater killing machines. He eventually goes insane and hangs himself in a tree after meditating among the bones of the dead in skeleton paint and scaring the sister by dancing provocatively, leaving the siblings on their own. At this point, a unique truck passes on the road. Now, I've heard of "18 wheelers" before, but never a "42 wheeler"! I have to rate this best. This is going into my collection.
A fantasy directed by Nicolas Roeg, produced by Jim Henson and based on the book by Roald Dahl.A boy and his grandmother take a vacation at a hotel that is hosting a convention of witches who want to turn all the children in England into mice.Casino may have the fucking record for repetition of the word "fuck", but this blows that number out of the fucking water with "grandma". I can't find an exact number or a script to count for myself, but I fucking guarantee the number beats Casino's "fuck" by at least double in half the time. Every fucking word out of that kid's fucking mouth is "grandma!"! Obviously, it got to me. This would have been a great film if they hadn't fucked it up with "grandma". I'm giving it a really fucking bad review. See how repeating a word this fucking much gets on your fucking nerves?
A drama directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring David Bowie.David Bowie is a drunken alien. He's involved in a giant corporation and has a girlfriend. Sometimes he has visions of his home world.The audio and video were both horrible.Between glasses of Beefeater gin, a non-linear plot tries to develop and I would imagine that writing, planning and filming this went in the same manner. It would probably be best appreciated in a similar fashion. I'm rating it bad for poor quality and plotlessness.
