Reviews

As a man I have never indulged in the stereotypical male interests that might measure my worth as an alpha male. I don't like cars (I don't have a drivers license and I am thirty years of age) and I don't care for sports. The one stereotypical male activity that I fallen prey to is I have, over the years, become a human bottle. Any pain that I have experienced over the years, I have bottled up and let it twist apart my insides until I can no longer function. Up until this film was released, I had never seen a performance that embodies this male weakness so perfectly like the one Paddy Considine delivers as a broken man in the film 'In America.' His portrayal of a man struggling with the loss of his son is absolutely heartbreaking. Every word, facial gesture, vocal intonation is a carefully crafted display of a man who is so broken and destroyed inside that every time he appeared on screen, an immediate lump would form in my throat. Having experience loss, I not only saw myself but I saw what I wasn't ready to accept. That is the mark of a truly great performance, when the actor is a mirror that you see yourself reflected in. Paddy Considine does this wonderfully. He plays the character like a sad song. A song that is a slow burning builder that you know will reach a crescendo eventually because it gets to a point where it has to reconcile the plain truth that there is nowhere else to go. when this moment happens in the film it is one of the single most heartbreaking moments I have ever seen captured on film.

Don't get me wrong, all of the performances in the film are wonderful. Samantha Morton (who has never turned in a bad or mediocre performance), Djimon Hounsou is wonderful and the Bolger sisters show remarkable insight for their age. But it was Paddy Considine's performance as Johnny, a broken man who has to endure the pain of watching his family wait him out while he shuts down, is the real triumph.

It was a travesty that he never received a Best Actor Nomination at the 2002 Academy Awards.

Every once in a while a film comes along that is both difficult to sit through and at the same time you feel better when you come out the other end of it.

I am about thirty-five minutes into this movie and I have to say, it's a tad too much. I am not surprised, that is what I expected. To say the movie is heavy-handed is a huge understatement. That is not to say that the move is bad, it has heart and I am sure that the people involved had a 're-inventing the wheel' mentality while making this film. Some of the performances are quite good. Ben Foster is brilliant at moments, he just tends to push the 'Al Pacino' button at times and it gets a little too much, Emilie Hirsch is quite a lot of fun to watch regardless of the movie (i.e. Lords Of Dogtown), Justin Timberlake has a lot of potential (give him three-four movies, Shrek the Third excepted as one of those movies) and Bruce Willis is awesome (Hudson Hawk included. "What the hell is wrong with Hudson Hawk, by the way.) But I have about forty-five minutes to an hour left, so if the movie does a complete about-face and gets it together and opts for saying something of real value as opposed to how many times they say the f word in an hour and forty minutes then I will write another post apologizing and eating a load of crow.

incredible.If i was a writer i could only hope to write something as layered and inventive as this screenplay. I wish Paul Thomas Anderson could average a movie every two years. Everyone in this movie gives amazing performances and with the script and direction that pta provides, it would be hard to mess this film up. I was completely moved and left breathless after I saw this movie when it first hit theaters. Tom Cruise gives his best performance and Philip Seymour Hoffman brings subtlety and honesty to a character that would have been headed for cheese ville if put in the hands of a lesser actor. I don't want to give anything away, just see it! See it like there is no tomorrow. Kevin Smith can make fun of this movie all he wants to, but let's be honest, Jersey Girl can suck my b---s.

Not being a child from a product of divorce, after seeing this movie I can appreciate the push and pull that manifests from divorce. Now, I am positive that not all broken homes are this broken, but Noah Baumbauch creates an environment that makes you squirm and want to cry all at the same time. All of the performances are near perfection and are executed with utmost conviction. I find that Jeff Daniels is one of those actors who get better with every movie he does. He is completely unlikeable in this movie yet you feel for him and you want him to get it together. Very few actors can play a prick and yet you are rooting for him and there are a few points in the film where you even buy into his bullshit as much as his oldest son (played by Jesse Eisenberg) does. The Squid and The Whale is not the most uplifting of fare, but it is a must view for anybody who appreciates film, not movies, film.

this movie was not very good. it could have been quite good. the script was flawed (pretty much taken verbatim from the documentary and a lot of the acting was very 'after school special). The standouts were Emile Hersch and heath ledger but that's pretty much as far as it goes. the tony Alva character has some of the worst lines and deliveries in the movie. stacy peralta is an okay documentary filmmaker, but as a writer, not so much. what can i say, i really wanted to like the movie, but i ended laughing my ass off at some of the dialogue. if David fincher was involved the movie would have been light years better than it was.but hey, what are you gonna do? those goes are making movies and i am bitching about it. so, in the long run, who's the one who's not that good?

I recently saw crash feeling all of the Oscar pressure and to be honest with you, i wasn't all that impressed. Don't get me wrong, some of the performances were quite good but that wasn't enough to make feel anything but deja vu for this movie. I say deja vu because it smacks of Magnolia, Short Cuts, Pulp Fiction and many other superior ensemble pieces. It seems that Paul Haggis just rented those movies and sort played it safe and stuck to what would manipulate heart strings. I also don't appreciate a movie that wag's it's finger in my face, yeah, i get it, it's about race and inter-connection and all of that, but the film was way too obvious. Do yourself a favour and rent Magnolia or Short Cuts, they are smarter films and they explore their themes in a nuanced and interesting way.

4/10

The last thirty seconds of the last episode with Ron Howard playing the famous movie executive makes me think that they might make an arrested development movie. This can't be it for this show. This is one of the best shows ever. Cancel skating or dancing with prison breakers that are grounded for life or whatever bullshit programming they are going to replace this show with. I guess a heck of a lot of emmy's and critical acclaim is bringing Fox's stock so they will replace it with something that won't 24 fans heads hurt. I really hope they are going to make it into a movie. If they do I have the perfect title

"Arrested Development:Operation Hot Mother."