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      Special Effects

      1996 40m Documentary List
      43% 7 Reviews Tomatometer 29% 100+ Ratings Audience Score Filmmaker Ben Burtt shows how special effects are used in movies like "King Kong," "Independence Day," "Jumanji." John Lithgow narrates. Read More Read Less

      Audience Reviews

      View All (17) audience reviews
      Audience Member For m this was an interesting look at mid-'80s NYC, following around a director who kills a woman in his own apartment, then eventually contrives to get her husband (under suspicion for the murder!) to reenact the murder on camera for the film that he's working on. It's an interesting watch, with Eric Bogosian playing things pretty fast and loose just to see what he can get away with, and I absolutely loved his apartment. Worth a look if you have the chance. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review Audience Member Interesting, but sleazy picture. The lead actress is so horrible and almost completely torpedoes the whole movie, but listening to Cohen's ideas on the picture, gives me a different appreciation for the whole thing. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review jack c just because your movie is about trash doesn't mean you can escape being trashy all the time. Eric Bogosian goes a ways to making this watchable. But if I want a filmmaker satirizing his own genre, I'll stick with De Palma and Body Double, or even the opening/ending of Blow Out. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review walter m Have you ever noticed that there is always one guy who ruins the topless photo shoot for everyone else? In this case, it is Keefe(Brad Rijn) who tries dragging his wife Andrea(Zoe Tamerlis) back home to Oklahoma from New York. She will have none of it, escaping out the bathroom window before seeking out disgraced film director Chris Neville(Eric Bogosian). However, she realizes too late what he intends his next project to be... Wearing its low budget proudly on its sleeve(so much so, that some of the dialogue seemed to be fading out at times), "Special Effects" is a movie that wants to have its exploitation and complain about it, too. That it works as well as it does is down to Eric Bogosian's natural intensity. In this case, he puts it to good use playing a director who cannot tell reality from make-believe anymore. With a backdrop of a gloriously sleazy and tawdry 1980's New York City and a loft that is alternately tacky and awesome, this movie could also be seen as a warning against the glamour of filmmaking. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member (**): [img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/icons/icon13.gif[/img] Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member An aspiring actress is killed by a director who films the act so he can use the footage to make his new film look authentic after his last one bombed and ran way over budget on f/x. Decent but Larry Cohen has done better. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

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      Critics Reviews

      View All (7) Critics Reviews
      Nick Schager Lessons of Darkness A significant (if ultimately chaotic) entry in the director's canon of ramshackle tributes to the dark, dangerous, voyeuristic allure of the cinema. Rated: B Feb 6, 2006 Full Review Walter Goodman New York Times Coherence is not the strong point here. May 21, 2003 Full Review David Nusair Reel Film Reviews An often excruciatingly interminable thriller... Rated: 1/4 Nov 25, 2020 Full Review Adrian Martin Film Critic: Adrian Martin Every sequence is like a rough sketch for a film Larry Cohen would do properly if he had the time and the money. But what great ideas he has! Jun 26, 2020 Full Review James Kendrick Q Network Film Desk It is as if Cohen had a list of ideas he wanted to incorporate, but no real sense of how to articulate them, so they all wind up in a big, messy stew. Rated: 2/4 Oct 24, 2016 Full Review Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews An uneven homage spoof on auteurs like Hitchcock, Powell and Ferrara. Rated: B Jun 6, 2010 Full Review Read all reviews

      Movie Info

      Synopsis Filmmaker Ben Burtt shows how special effects are used in movies like "King Kong," "Independence Day," "Jumanji." John Lithgow narrates.
      Director
      Ben Burtt
      Genre
      Documentary
      Original Language
      English
      Runtime
      40m