Disappointingly assembly-line Australian pic: Wacky, colorful characters cut from every other Aussie film I've seen to date (okay, that's a broad generalization, I know). Probably didn't help that I'd seen 'R & J' and 'Moulin Rouge' first. Entertaining, liked the back-room Ballroom Dance Competition politics - but found it all to be glitz masking triteness.

 It's of the Errol Morris-brand of filmmaking in the vein of 'Fast, Cheap...' and 'Mr. Death'; more of a cross-section of vagary that envelopes you; it's pretty much a rotating set of wierd characters, most of them elderly, all of them, indeed, failing, as the characters in the aforementioned films do, to deal with nature (you may have a different take, it struck me that all of them had a general qualm with biological makeup or nature in general, in that, were they photographed more gallantly, they could have easily been slid into 'FC & OOC'. But, you know, I felt the same way about 'Mr. Death'.) Still say Morris works best when he's doing, essentially, bio-pics (see: 'BHOT' and 'TBL').
- - - (Dear Ben, TBL is not a biopic. What in the blue blazes where you thinking when you said it was? I mean, really? - Randy - (this might be a slight misquuote, sorry if it's a word or two off)
- - - Randy, good question, thanks for writing in. TBL - no, not a biopic. Dunno what I was thinking grouping it in that way. (I don't have the strength to argue the other way. I thought about it, but I'm just too damn tired. Sorry).

For the tens of thousands who have contacted me in the last few days, unleashing their disdain and boredom in the very face of this film, I say - with the utmost gratitude and respect due - many, many curse words.

Where did I go for fifteen minutes during the saggy plateau there in the middle section. Everything else is pure Pixar.

Could have told you blindfolded that the source novel was written by Roche (the film itself is like Jules and Jim, only not fun); At once a maddening meditation on the strange whims of love and, at center, a coming-of-age tale that's not altogether generally irrelevant. Too bad the scenes in English sound just melodramatic enough to make suspect the rest of the film, which is in French.

Another of the great eye and ear candy achievements in Greenaway's best period (1982-1991, excepting, of course, The Belly of an Architect); Somehow, amidst the flurry of taxonomy left over from more experimental, less coherent visions (The Falls) and an eye toward absolutely scattershot over-told pieces (Dante's Inferno, another one that I half love, half hate) - a movie like A Zed and Two Noughts, which is, essentially, beautifully written dialogue in about a half-formed story, laid over gorgeous sets, set to Nyman's haunting piano repetitions, can't be considered tough. It's so simple to let the truly bizarre nature of Greenaway envelope you - probably because he is such a master of moods. Still makes me wonder, to this day, how people can watch ordinary - or even remotely artistic - movies and make the quip: "It was...you know, different".

"No, my dear, this is fucking different."

(A Zed and Two Noughts is time lapsed footage of decaying animals, a plot about twin zoologists whose wives were killed in a car accident with a swan, a woman left with one leg (from the accident) who wants the other removed, an angry zookeeper and his mistress who want the zoologists to disassociate from the one-legged woman, lest they be discovered as the - - - culprits? And there's more...)

Here's what I've been telling everyone: this version actually seems to flow better. Here's what every other critic on the face of the earth has been telling everyone: the same fucking thing. We have a word for an opinion shared by all who hold sway: fact.

I will never watch a movie you loved as an (ignorant) teenager again. I will never watch a movie you loved as an (ignorant) teenager again. I will never watch a movie you loved as an (ignorant) teenager again. I will never watch a movie you loved as an (ignorant) teenager again. I will never watch a movie you loved as an (ignorant) teenager again. I will never watch a movie you loved as an (ignorant) teenager again. I will never watch a movie you loved as an (ignorant) teenager again. I will never watch a movie you loved as an (ignorant) teenager again.  (And so on...)

It's the kind of compelling realism we expect from Fuller, which makes it all the more annoying that it isn't based upon a true story. Nevertheless, it actually feels more regimented, less forcefully about social change and, in its favor, it takes place in a mental hospital - so Fuller's over-the-top direction doesn't call up confused irritation.

So simple, so instructional, so easy to watch - yet not a single character with a souul. (There isn't a single frame containing Truffaut - who plays the lead - where we don't double-take, thinking he is Ralph Fiennes. So, double kudos to those of you fortunate enough to have seen it before 1993).

[ fill in own review here; there's no possible way for me to write either objectively or subjectively on this film ]