BoyActors - Reviews/Ratings by diogenes

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Reviews by diogenes

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350 reviews/ratings - 18 pages (20 reviews/ratings per page)

The Kissing Place (1990)

Besides playing on contemporary anxieties concerning more than one (largely mythical) folk devil, this movie lends credence to the discredited pseudoscience of 'recovered memories'. If one can get past this, then it is actually a very dramatic rollercoaster ride of a film, and Nathaniel Moreau is undoubtedly a fine young actor.

My Movie Rating:

5 / 10

The Last Boy (2019)

The characterisation is just not strong enough, and the whole thing's just too low key. The film poster (above) is a lot more exciting than the actual film! By no means a disaster, but still I can't really recommend it.

My Movie Rating:

5 / 10

Mercury Rising (1998)

Not a bad movie as such, but just too trite and formulaic to be deeply meaningful. Not really my cup of char. Miko Hughes' performance as the autistic kid, though, was stunning.

My Movie Rating:

5 / 10

The New Adventures of Pinocchio (1999)

I am inclined to agree with Cinefan (below). (The similarities to 1996's "The Adventures of Pinocchio" with Jonathan Taylor Thomas are due to its being conceived as a sequel to that movie.) Also, am I the only person to find the fish-humans VERY, VERY DISTURBING?

My Movie Rating:

5 / 10

Robin Hood Junior (1975)

Exuberantly silly.

My Movie Rating:

5 / 10

Skippy and the Intruders (1969)

What worked well in a 25 minute format seems terribly overlong stretched to 1 1/2 hours. Skippy herself is quite superfluous in this story. The final sequence on the sand dunes is visually quite impressive. Overall, it's a pity that they chose not to do anything more imaginative with the feature length format than just attempting to stretch a fairly humdrum 'Skippy' episode to fill the available time. A 'skipped' opportunity (sorry!).

My Movie Rating:

5 / 10

Die Abenteuer des Huck Finn (2012)

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

Air Bud (1997)

Inoffensive, utterly predictable by-the-numbers feelgood movie. May be of interest to small children (ages 0-5).

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

Archangel (1990)

The cinematic equivalent of conceptual art. It's all incredibly stylised and 'witty'. There are also some hilarious scenes (a man throttling another man with his own intestines!). This film can thus be entertaining, but only in a sort of intellectual way - one enjoys it in the same way one can enjoy a good joke. And this is the problem. Its intellectuality completely eclipses any possibility of aesthetic response, and thus it fails as a work of art. This film constantly foregrounds directorial technique in a way which obscures any 'themes' the film might otherwise have. It's as though with each scene the director is waving his arms in your face, saying 'Look at me! Aren't I CLEVER! Oh, the cleverness of me!' Having said that, I did like the scenes with the boy.

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

The Boy (2016)

The mansion in which this movie is set had a quite sumptuous, gothic look, the doll does get to seem quite creepy, and the plot (despite certain implausibilities) did carry me along. However, I was a little disappointed by the 'reveal' at the end, the overall narrative was quite undistinguished, and the 'jump scares' are such as any viewer familiar with the genre could see coming well in advance. A rather unremarkable, forgettable film - though maybe my horror palate has just become too jaded!

N.B. Jett Klyne only appears in old photos in this movie, not in person.

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

Cocoon (1985)

Old people. Doing it. Mmmm, that's what we pay our cinema tickets to see! Let's be honest, there's only one reason to watch this movie, and it doesn't involve pensioners putting their falsies in before snogging, or the aliens' swimming pool mimicing the effects of Viagra. In fact, it is difficult to see what the point of this lame movie is at all. Barret Oliver has only a minor role in this film, though he is (as always) an extraordinarily enchanting actor.

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

Darkness (2002)

The threat posited by this movie is too vague and there aren't any real scares. Oooh, the 'darkness', which is pure evil, steals PENCILS. How, um, mildly annoying of it. The rapid flashes of scenes at certain moments, which are presumably designed to create a sense of tension, soon get tedious. There are several lacunae in the narrative as well. The mother's handwaiving and improbable explanation for the marks on Paul's body was just irritating. And why did the original group who were looking to sacrifice their children want to do this? What did they hope to gain? I didn't quite get that. And eclipses don't happen 'every 40 years' at any one particular place on Earth. And at the end the 'darkness' can take the form of Carlos, Regina's boyfriend, and DRIVE A CAR. Can an abstract concept drive a car? Hmmm.... Perhaps it was just too darn subtle for my puny intellect!

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

Free Willy (1993)

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

The Golden Compass (2007)

I was bored to tears by this movie. I had to struggle to avoid falling into unconsciousness followed swiftly be coma and then rigor mortis. But then (full disclosure) I read the whole trilogy many years ago and afterwards felt that I had rather wasted my time. The elements of the story are so clumsily and almost thoughtlessly put together (daemons are supposed to be our souls, or something. Are they physical? Do they defecate?). I find it hard to believe that Pullman's novel would have been as celebrated as it was if it were not billed as some sort of atheist propaganda. Certainly the 'Magisterium' - an obvious stand-in for the Catholic Church - is presented in a sort of simplistic, historically-illiterate manner as the root of all evil. There is one point in the first book of the trilogy when the separation of a person from their daemon is presented as the equivalent to circumcision (another sort of cutting) - and at this point I thought 'maybe the novel is about to get interesting'. Except that the point is left hanging in the air and is undeveloped (and, in any case, Christianity, in contrast to the other Abrahamic faiths, abolished circumcision - another example of the author's overall clumsiness with his ideas). So there really isn't much to grab one's interest. The prevalence of CGI in this movie is, I suppose, inevitable, but I always find CGI annoying.

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

The Human Comedy (1943)

Saroyan's novel was a mixture of humorous vignettes on the one hand, and endless homilies delivered by the adults to Homer (and occassionally even to Ulysses), on the other - homilies which are packed with a lot of woolly uplift, and contain lines such as 'love is immortal, hate dies every minute' that are essentially meaningless. Unfortunately, this film has chosen to go mainly with the latter aspect of Saroyan's story. The raid on the apricot tree has mercifully been included (a superb performance by Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer - who is definitely the best thing in this movie, despite being denied a credit). But it is a pity that we don't get (for example) Ulysses caught in the animal trap. Saroyan's novel was hardly a masterpiece, with its cast of two-dimensional, goody-two-shoes characters, but by placing its emphasis on the already excessive sentimentality of the novel, and cutting back on the humorous content, the film becomes something of a two-hour endurance test. Perhaps still worth watching for the two or three good scenes. Mickey Rooney does his best as always with the material he's given. Jackie Jenkins is a charmer in the scenes in which he appears.

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003)

The opening scene with Billy (Shaun Fleming) was great, a masterclass in clever and suspenseful horror. Unfortunately, this was also the high point of the movie. My favourite character was the gorgeously butch female bus driver - so why on earth was she dispatched so quickly? Her departure left a busload of annoying late teens competing with each other in machismo and stupidity, their equally annoying girlfriends, and a creature that spent most of its time licking bus windows (not very hygienic! - clearly the Creeper isn't worried by germs) and generally faffing around rather than just getting on with it and making a hearty, nourishing meal of the lot of them. Yawn!

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)

Well, all that one can say is that the boy (Cameron CJ Adams) is great - but the movie is a pile of syrupy, cloying, sentimental toss, an overdose of sugar that leaves you feeling slightly sick. Never mind. Watch it for CJ, and mourn the fact that he never got to read a decent script.

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

The Omen (2006)

Strangely lifeless retelling, with lots of dull, greyish colours. The original version is better by far. There really was very little point to this film.

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

Pinocchio (2008)

Surprisingly crap. One is always aware that Robbie Kay is 'acting' - he's completely unnatural. The dialogue is in the artificial modern style that has become the fashion with British films and TV programmes generally. Perhaps it is *not* so surprising that a British version of Pinocchio made in the 21st century would be crap.

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

Reg'lar Fellers (1941)

A rather poor movie with a messy, unconvincing plot, and paper-thin characters. The only good thing about this movie is Carl Switzer (Alfalfa) singing "The Last Rose of Summer", as only he could. Indeed, it's probably worth seeing the film just for that. This was Switzer's first film after leaving the 'Our Gang' series, and really his genius deserved so much better than the terribly poor script he was handed here.

My Movie Rating:

4 / 10

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