Bjork - Volumen Plus DVD

Advantages: great songs, great videos
Disadvantages: doesn't include any more up-to-date stuff

...This video contains some of Madonna's best videos since the release of her Immaculate Collection album. It includes all the singles from the classic Ray of Light album, plus the excellent Beautiful Stranger. Madonna's videos are always innovative and interesting to watch, and the songs ain't bad too! The first track is Bad Girl, and the video stars Madonna and Christopher Walken is some murder/spy type tale that I haven't quite grasped. Next is Madonna's cover of Fever, with Madonna sporting red hair and body paint. Not a great song, though. Rain is a really good video, very stylish and it hasn't really dated although it is now 8 years old. Secret is another good black and white video and a good song. Take a Bow's theme is bullfighting, and it is a strong track that got to No.1 in America although it didn't even make the Top 10... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: compelling visuals, some great acting
Disadvantages: some overdone visuals, some weak acting

...A cynical, feelbad musical, this is by turns brilliant and embarrassing. Weirdly, the parts that don't work seem to be that way by design. Icelandic elfin singer Bjork's plays Selma, a downtrodden factory worker who is going blind, and who works round the clock to raise the money for a sight saving op for her son Gene. Occasionally, she has a Singing detective style musical reverie. Her acting veers from deeply affecting to terrible, and her co-stars David Morse and Catherine Denenvue are equally uneven, Morse's smooth US acting style clashing violently with Bjork's freeform weirdness, and Denenvue's cool Euro art style. Director Lars Von Trier uses the same seemingly accidnetal camcorder Dogma style he pioneered with The Idiots, and makes the melodramatic story whizz along. Only during the dance numbers is the film let down by his... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: It might turn into a masterpiece halfway through, but life's too short to bother.
Disadvantages: I have a max of 255 characters in this box, my list would take up far more than that.

...I just don’t know where to start really… I had been eager to see this film for absolutely ages, and so when my library got it in stock I took it out immediately. I wonder whether it is a good idea to try and write a review on a film that I didn’t actually see through to the end. I got half way through and just couldn’t stand it any longer – I don’t remember that last film that I didn’t watch to the end. This is how bad I think this film is… **So What’s It About?** Bjork plays Selma, a single parent Czech immigrant who is losing her sight rapidly. It is a hereditary condition that is operable, so she has been saving hard, working long hours in a factory, so that her 10 year old son will be able to have an operation when he is 13. She is determined that he will not inherit her... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful