Reviews

Save yourself and avoid this one! I give this a 2 only because some of the acting is good. Scorcese is going for something here, so it's not lazy filmmaking. But I feel like I got the message about 45 minutes into the movie and it didn't go anywhere from there. In all fairness, I missed the last 20-30 minutes because I just couldn't take it anymore. Some ruthless cutting of the screenplay would have helped some, but I don't know if there's much to salvage. The experience of seeing this was rather like having a really stressful day at work where nothing actually gets accomplished. A lot of the ladies are beautiful, but the sex is ugly - demeaning to both women and men. Oh, but I guess it's really about Wall Street. And the motivational speeches to the troops go on forever. I don't think there was a scene in this film that employed any economy of storytelling whatsoever. One critic (approvingly) described this as the last half hour of Goodfellas stretched out to three hours and that's pretty true. It reminded me a bit of the single-mindedness of Raging Bull, but was much harder to sit through. I think it's a bad sign when you start hoping that some of the characters will die of an overdose just so they'll shut up.

Being in the computer biz I was interested in some of the ins and outs of the rise to glory of Facebook. This movie has the feel of truth as far as the character of the individuals depicted and what I know of the backstory. But for me that was the problem. Almost everyone in the film was creepy and despicable, and the lesson I drew was that this is the way things work in the Brave New World of virtual friendships. That's fine as far as it goes but by the time I escaped the theater I had a dank aftertaste in my mouth.

The dialog is pretty snappy. I kind of liked the music, but it was a bit overbearing in those big disco/party scenes. I try to avoid these in real life, preferring to have conversations with people where I can actually hear and understand what that other person is saying. I didn't have the choice here.

Too many scenes were just irritating to watch. Is everyone at Harvard really a complete, overbearing, condescending superficial bore with an overinflated sense of entitlement? Interesting scene with Larry Summers, who has always struck me as one of these. But it gets tiresome.

Who do you root for in this movie? After more than an hour and a half I the only one I found was the girl from B.U. that called Mark and asshole and blew him off. His partner is decent but hopelessly naive, the other parties in the lawsuit are only marginally less creepy and arrogant than the main character.

Easily the most overrated movie of the year.

I got the gist of this movie within the first 15 minutes and kept with it hoping it would go somewhere. I'm sure this is a very accurate portrayal of this gambler, but it revealed absolutely nothing about the man. Remorse he expresses later in the film is puzzling and I'm not sure he believes it. I sure don't know what his girlfriend sees in him. God knows it's at best a dreary experience hanging out with him. I don't know if it's the screenplay itself or the director or what. Intriguing performances from Murray Chaykin (always great) and John Hurt. There is an interesting thematic thread of the greed that orbits the central character. In the end however, the redeeming elements were only barely enough to keep me awake to end (if you could even call it that). I love some of Hoffman's work but he's made several of these studies of utter obsession that are punishingly boring. I found it striking that one reviewer called this a dry comedy. I'll have to look up "comedy" in the dictionary and see if perhaps it has an alternate meaning.

I found myself really appreciating the acting and admiring the honesty of the writing to a degree. But I wound found myself not giving a damn about any of the spoiled brats or their kids, so i didn't even make it through the whole picture. I read review that talked about the humor and hilarity. Missed that completely. Maybe what I found awkward painful, pathetic and sad was something others found amusing. At the same time I can see how it might resonate strongly with others. I generally feel Jeff Daniels is underrated and his is a generous performance. The same goes for Laura Linney. I gave up on it because it didn't seem to be heading anywhere but down. Nor was I invited to appreciate much about the characters.

I was totally hooked on this show back in the 70s. Way out there, really dry. There are times when they'd set up a joke for several episodes running then spring the punchline on you. They tried to clone this into that show SOAP, but they added a laugh track that had the effect of killing the humor (at least for me). They really went out on a limb. That episode where Dabney Coleman stares silently into the camera for five minutes may be the most I've ever laughed at a TV show ("Look me in the eye and decide if Merle Jeter should be the next mayor of Fernwood"). I'm amazed that someone let them get away with this show.

For a while the Lifetime channel brought this back. I wasn't sure if it would be as hilarious a second time around but it was. After a few weeks Lifetime pulled it for Unsolved Mysteries.

TVLand made a better attempt a few years ago. It went on longer and they got Martin Mull and Fred Willard to emcee. Great stuff !! Once again it didn't go on too long. I don't know what useless stuff is in its place.

If anyone hears of this one getting replayed or made available on DVD, send me an email !

The premise sucked me in, but it was clear about 30 seconds in that this was either David Lynch or something seriously terrible. Interesting to watch just to run through the fundamentalist laundry list. I can be a sucker for a stirring spiritual piece (Romero comes to mind), but there was nothing spiritual whatsoever about this one. The message seems to be that we must all pretend we have an iq of 80 (or simply get a lobotomy - Jennifer what happened to ya?) and blindly follow the Bible without any sort of self-examination whatsoever or we'll trigger the second coming. It's the kind of attitude that makes people fly jumbo jets into 110 story buildings (I work around the corner from the site of the former WTC). I like to think that God is a little greater than that.

The events may seem a bit contrived (by an action movie standard, though, not in the slightest), but for good reason. In that way it was more like a stage script in the best sense, with the competition of ideas right in front of you. This is actually an intelligent Hollywood movie (didn't know they still made them) that takes you on a journey with two characters to the depths of their respective characters. It goes to the edge of the moral dilemmas much as Woody Allen's probing Crimes and Misdemeanors. I found it brave work on the parts of Sam Jackson and Ben Affleck in that they were playing protagonists but didn't shy away from dark and troubled behavior. It's a tribute to the director that all the actors looked great and come across with dimension. Toni Collette continues shine as the one of the best character actors in the biz. Dylan Baker had me chuckling excessively.

For my money this beat all the year's Oscar nominees. Be warned, it might actually make you think. Even when it's over.

I'm also rather partial to 8 Men Out, the only other baseball movie that I like without reservations. Movies about baseball usually fall short, particularly in the way the baseball games themselves are portrayed. You have absurdly metaphorical, fairy tale games (The Natural), or unnecessarily exaggerated action (Bull Durham - I mean does the kid have to be so ridiculously wild?). This movie actually feels like the baseball I've played (though not as well) and watched.

Make no mistake this is a Disney movie. It's a sentimental story. Thankfully it doesn't play the sentimentality in a sentimental way, avoiding that getting-hit-over-the-head lessons trap that so many Hollywood movies fall into. All the secondary characters are clearly drawn. And Dennis Quaid does first class work, making a multi-dimensional character that also serves the story quite clearly. A very satisfying flick.

This is an extremely underrated film. It has a deliciousness, shot in whiskey tones. Mitchum's voice-over, with all the wry Chandler-esque tired wisdom, strikes a great balance of period, humor and self-awareness. Charlotte Rampling lives up to the sad, irresistible breathtaking beauty that you try to imagine reading some of Chandler's books. There was another Mitchum-Marlowe (The Big Sleep), and he was certainly born to play this role, but it missed the taste. Not so with this one. It's positively redolent. Great mystery story and lots of fun.