Beanbioca
As Good As It Gets
WillSushyMedia
This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
Zandra
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
BasicLogic
Don't bombarded me with how extraordinary, witty, intelligent....a masterpiece, or a must-see. This film actually is so pretentious, gave you an era of 17th century England, gave you a murder mystery, then in the end, another killing, gave you a naked guy in oily paint, urinating, mimic like a statue, sometimes on the roof, sometimes on a pedestal, or climbed on the gate. 12 paintings for 12 fornications with 6 each with the mother and the daughter. What were you trying to tell us? A screenplay mixed with ancient sex and murders? An early primitive porn movie in Shakespearean style? Or with Tudor touch? Yet this ridiculous movie has a magic power to make most reviewers wear an Emperor's Clothes, claiming how great, how deep, how intelligent this movie is. But I'd like to tell you, this film sucks big time! If you wanted to do a porn movie, show us some real flesh or meat, man. If you want to tell us a murder, show us some cunning moves how it was done. This film is like a fart, so stink, yet mucho reviewers told you it smelled so good and so lovely. No, it's NOT! It really stinks, man.
lasttimeisaw
UK maverick filmmaker Peter Greenaway's Venice main competition entry in 1982, arguably his feature debut, a period picture steeped in highbrow phraseology, sumptuous baroque costumes and elusive intrigues. In 1694, rural Wiltshire, Mr. Neville (Higgins), an eloquent, stuck-up draughtsman strikes a contact with Mrs. Virginia Herbert (Suzman), to complete 12 landscape drawings of her estate during the absence of her husband Mr. Herbert (Hill), with a proviso that Mrs. Herbert must meet him in private and consent to actions gratifying his pleasure, which Mrs. Herbert condones. Later, Sarah Talmann (Lambert), Mr. Herbert's sole daughter approaches to Mr. Neville with a new proposal, but this time, she should be the recipient of their carnal knowledge, moreover, maybe there is also a hidden agenda behind it, as we apprehend that Sarah is married to Mr. Talmann (Fraser), yet they have no heir to inherit the Herberts' fortune. A sinister turning point hits when Mr. Herbert's body is found in the moat around the estate, soon the presumption that clues of the said murder can be unobtrusively garnered from Mr. Neville's 12 drawings, unfortunately puts the latter in a perilous situation. In the final deciding crunch, Mr. Neville seems to be designated as the fall guy by a clique lead by the jealous Mr. Talmann, but nothing substantial of the conspiracy theory comes to full disclosure at last. The only unbidden witness of the appalling denouement is the camouflage man, a full-frontal figure at times inexplicably skulks out on the roof when the residents are dining al fresco, hides invisibly among the creepers, or straddles the bronze horse as a medieval knight, and finally gobbles up the pineapple. Greenaway contrives at great length to frame the 12 drawings with his principally stationary camera angle and a vaguely anachronistic apparatus, an expedient stems from his artist upbringing and magnificently instils each and every scene with painting-like allure and precision, which balances out the elocutionary hyperbole in a positive way. A core cast marshaled by Higgins, who triumphantly struts his haughtiness in an unstinting mode, precisely up to his last breath, whereas Janet Suzman puts on an imperial air spiked with a tense impression of self-inflicted dejection, she might be as clueless as the scapegoat, but is certainly swell in her cogent diction about pomegranate and deities. Anne-Louise Lambert, the ethereal Australian beauty from Peter Weir's PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975), is quite unrecognizable (much as everybody else) under the elaborate garments, but pulls off a brilliant equivocation in contrast to Hugh Fraser's competently rebarbative impersonation of upper-crust impotence. Predominantly, composer Michael Nyman's Purcell-inflected accompanying score hones perfectly the Baroque decadence and essentially Greenaway's inimitable work remains as aloof, indecipherable and tongue-in-cheek as it aims to be.
SnoopyStyle
Mr. Neville is a young arrogant artist full of himself. He is contracted to make landscape estate drawings by Mrs. Virginia Herbert. She has a bitter relationship with her wealthy landowning husband who leaves on a trip. She submits to Neville sexually as part of the contract. There is also her daughter Mrs. Talmann and her husband Mr. Talmann. The couple is childless taking care of his nephew. Mrs. Herbert tries to revoke the contract but Neville refuses. Mrs. Talmann blackmails Neville into entering a similar contract pointing out items in his drawings which indicate "misadventure". When Mr. Herbert is found dead in the moat, Neville is horrified to discover that he's the leading suspect.This is an unusual film. It's a Shakespearian sex romp with a murder mystery. The style has long takes and mid to long distance visuals. The movie lost me the first time around. It can meander and the story can be mercurial. It would help a lot if the murder is shown even if the perpetrators are not. The individual clues need accompanying flashbacks to show that part of the crime. This has a certain amount of beauty and weird originality but it's not easy for everyone.
Jeremy Benjamin
Peter Greenaway originally intended this film to be over three hours long, but he was eventually made to edit it down to 103 minutes. Well, maybe the three hour version would have made some sort of sense, but the shorter version makes none! There are all kinds of elements essential to understanding the story which do not appear in the film, and which you will only know about from reviews which undoubtedly themselves were dependant on explanations by the film makers. This is an example of pretentious nonsense being lavishly praised by weak minds afraid to call the emperor naked. It is best to see this film without having read what it is supposed to be about, as that is an objective state of mind. No film should require to be explained to reasonably intelligent people. This is art-house drivel.
