9/10 - Phenomenal film. First off, the cinematography is breathtaking. Just absolutely stunning. The mise en scene, as a whole, is great as well as the scenery was top-notch. In addition, the soundtrack made me absolutely swoon. If I had not already been swept off of my feet, the soundtrack would have swept me off my feet, but in the end, it just serves as further evidence of the sheer beauty of this film. Just wow. In terms of the story, I thought it, as well, was beautifully presented. From the early encounters to the very end, there is a certain beauty to the interaction between the characters as Dunbar adjusts to his new situation. In terms of the acting, Kevin Costner and a cast of relative unknowns did a great job. Initially, I was unsure about Costner and did not like his performance that much in the beginning, but as the film progressed, he won me over completely. The final note I want to make is on the length. It is three hours, so it is up there in terms of time, but it never really shows its length. Instead, it almost tricks you into thinking it is much shorter in the way it utilizes every second to tell its story.



8/10 - Wow, so my brain is mush. Right when you think it cannot get weirder, it absolutely shocks you and does exactly that. One of the things this film does really film is not just confuse you, but make you feel as though you are experiencing what Jacob is experiencing. The bizzare things he sees suddenly effect you as though it is happening to you. I also really loved the religious imagery and how it ties into the film so neatly and adds a true metaphysical spin to this story. This is undoubtedly one that you will have to watch twice to truly understand and see all the signs pointing to the ending. I always thought that films such as A Clockwork Orange or Requiem for a Dream would be the most jarring and flat out...just what films I would ever watch, but no, this one takes the crown. It is also a tough one to write a review on since I do not want to give anything away. Just make sure that if you have time and the opportunity is presented that you watch this one. It will mess with you in ways you never anticipated.

One complaint I have is that it sort of went over the top at times. Once you know what angle they were trying to play, some scenes almost feel as though they are excess with the sole goal of further terrifying the viewer and not necessarily progressing much.



7/10 - Good film here. If I was rating based on undoubtable influence, my rating would be higher, but since I am not, it is what is. I love the cinematography and the score, oh my God, the score is phenomenal. The editing is also really good. Clint Eastwood is also great as expected in his trademark role as the "Man With No Name" and I really did enjoy Sergio Leone's direction, even if it entirely cheesy. However, what does prevent me from loving these spaghetti westerns even more is two-fold. Firstly, this one is particular was a tad long and drawn out. I feel as though it could have been a bit shorter and still accomplished the same as it did in three hours. Next up, and the most egregious, the dubbing. Ugh, I hate dubbing and here, it is baaaaddddd. There are moments when it is not as noticeable, but there are so many times when it is painful how bad it is. While the praise this one receives is very appropriate for a film of this caliber, I cannot enjoy it as much as most for those two reasons.



3/10 - Consistently offensive (to varying effectiveness), The Dictator is funny in spots, but is also filled with jokes that are too stupid to be funny. Now of course this was not trying to be a fantastic film or anything, but I do wish that the jokes were way more consistent. In addition, in terms of story, the romantic aspect added to this one did not actually add anything to the movie at all and in fact subtracted from the movie. More dictatorship, less random, forced, and unnecessary romance. At the end of the day, this one is not a trainwreck like I feared it might be and could be a good movie to watch if you want a few good laughs and a hilarious speech on dictatorships, but sadly other than that, there is not much to see. As I said before, this one could have been a lot better if it had been a lot more consistent.



2/10 - Hilariously bad. The film starts off with an interesting premise but it eventually gets drowned out as David Lynch just tries to do as much weird crap as he can. The end result is a grotesque, unpleasingly disturbing film that wishes it was something that it was not. Lynch likes to believe this is a remake of "The Wizard of Oz", but he has to have taken to much acid to believe that. Multiple random references that vary in how much sense they make (on a scale from no sense at all to a little sense if you really think about it) does not make it a remake of "The Wizard of Oz". On top of that, with some exceptions, the acting was just bad. Nicolas Cage was good in this, however, so there is that positive. At the end of the day, "Wild at Heart" is a collection of disturbing images with very little effort done to connect them. I love a good weird movie with a random assortment images, but there has to be some connecting factor but the leap from the much more realistic scenes to the weird as all hell surrealistic scenes is a leap I do not know how to make, nor do I think I want to. I wanted to like this one, but at the end of the day, I simply cannot.



I didn't purposely watch three movies released in 1990 in the same week on purpose. I swearz.