Reviews

I should have guessed, when the first scene was of Adele wiping Clair's butt and showing the green colored poo to the camera, what I was in for. I love Charlie Kaufman...I love Eternal Sunshine, Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. But this movie was morose, self-indulgent and just plain boring.

I have a theory that sometimes film makers who have experienced some success create something just terrible, and realize it is terrible, but go through with it anyway, just to see how people react.

The sheep in Hollywood often tout these films as "groundbreaking", "courageous" or "cutting edge". They seem unwilling to admit to themselves that such a darling of the movie industry is capable of producing something that is, well, just bad. It's OK...and actually falls right into what Charlie Kaufman has taught us. We are all fallible, sometimes hugely and embarrassingly so. This is Synecdoche.

I'm in no way done loving Charlie Kaufman. I'm sure once he ups his dosage again, he'll produce something new that has some redeeming qualities. I'll be waiting and eager to forgive and forget.

I rented this movie to watch with my 15 year old. I was a college freshman the year it was released and I haven't seen it since. I remember it making some big powerful statement. Well, I ended up feeling pretty embarrassed watching this with my kid. All it really did this time around was make it clear how far we've come with representing youth cinematically since people like Cameron Crowe have come on the scene.

The Breakfast Club now seems amateurish, laughably overacted and over-scored (Judd Nelson's speech about this family beating on him) and just well, again, pretty embarrassing.

Additionally, it offered a pretty sh**ty message for young women. Molly Ringwald ends up sucking face with a guy who verbally abuses her all day...and Ally Sheedy ends up with a guy who would have been embarrassed to be seen with her until Molly Ringwald made her into a mini-me. Geez, makes you realize how an entire generation of supposedly liberated women ended up marrying guys who treat them like garbage, and are now addicted to plastic surgery.

I think the only thing the Breakfast Club is good for anymore is to look back upon, roll our eyes a bit and be proud of how far we've come!

What on earth was up with the five minutes or so at the end of the film making a footnote of the fact that Edith Piaf had lost her only child several years prior to meningitis? We spend an enormous amount of time on her relationship with Marcel Cerdan, whose death is clearly made out to be the most pivotal point in her life, yet the fact that her child died is nearly insignificant in the film. I'm not sure if this represents how seriously screwed up Ms. Piaf's values were, or that of the film's creators, or that of society in general, but how deplorable - that the most tragic event in her life was the death of her married lover, not of her child. Thank goodness most women in the "real world" have better values than what is represented by Ms. Piaf's character in this film.

Perhaps I'm just simple minded, or have had too easy of a life, but I have absolutely no desire to spend two hours and twenty minutes of my time watching another person's utter train wreck of a life. This movie made me sad for the memory of Edith Piaf...how embarrassing to live an entire life and make such lovely music only to be portrayed 40 years later as merely a spoiled, drug-addicted puppet with absolutely no redeeming qualities. And if this portrayal is accurate, why oh why would we celebrate her life by making a movie about it?

I'm not saying everying should be Disneyfied and I understand that tragedy is long standing cinematic tradition, but for my money, I'd rather see movies about women who actually managed to overcome the obstacles in their lives, and not simply succumb to them. There are so many positive stories out there to be told, why must we wallow in such dreariness?

I saw this film last night. It's the story of a family who has been suffering for 23 years since the tragic death of a 7-year-old son (brother). There is wonderful chemistry between Frank Redmond (Peter Mullan) and his adult son Rob (James Sives), and the undercurrent, so to speak, between them is relayed to the viewer beautifully. To me the most poignant scene in the movie was where these two characters meet on a bridge, walking in opposite directions. Frank asks his son if he has time for a cup of coffee, and Rob says he does not, and they continue past each other. We then see his son sitting in a café alone drinking a cup of coffee. It's such a subtle exchange, but it portrays perfectly the depth of their ambivalence toward each other. They simply can't think of anything to say, good or bad.

Billy Boyd's character seems written just for him, and the scene with his mother is great. Brenda Blethen as always is fabulous, as the doting, "glue-that-holds-the-family-together" mom with a secret that shows she's not the doormat you may imagine.

This movie is about relationships, what tears them down and what finally fixes them, and as such there is almost bound to be a slow spot or two, just like there are in real relationships. I'm not sure what could have been done to fix this - all the scenes were necessary, with the exception of the puking scene, which I always dislike and find utterly expendable.

Overall it was a good film, and there's the bonus of getting to see a lot of Peter Mullan, not in the acting sense, just in the "seeing a lot of him" sense, which isn't a bad thing. :o)

OK...let me start by saying that I have almost no knowledge of Johnny Cash, and never heard of June Carter before this movie was released. I FINALLY got to see this movie on DVD, and it was very good, but I just can't believe that Reese Witherspoon won the Oscar over Felicity Huffman in TransAmerica. I think Whitherspoon did a wonderful job and definitely was deserving of the nomination, however when compared with what Huffman accomplished in her role, it wasn't even a close second. The way my nay-saying friends explain it is, "but she SANG!" Which is great, but if we are talking about giving away the award based on voice manipulation, again, I think Huffman wins. I think mainstream America got it's way on this one.

As a side note, (remember I don't know much about Johnny Cash), the film didn't do anything in the end to resolve the impression that he was a socially-stunted, skirt-chasing, fall-down drug addict, who essentially embarrassed June Carter (on stage) into marrying him. Sounds like a guy any of us would tell a girlfriend or daughter to stay far away from. Because it is stated that they remained married for many years, until dying within a few months of each other, we can assume that he cleaned up his act for good...but if you look at it logically, she actually placed herself and her daughters in a very precarious situation. I know romance is romance, especially when it comes to the Hollywood ending, but if it had been my best friend, I'd have told her she was CRAZY!

OH MY GOD!!! I've always had this scene stuck in my head of a road trip through the desert with the song "Daniel" by Elton John playing as background music and I've never actually seen it (that I remember) until last night when I watched this DVD. Talk about deja vu! My mom must have taken me to see this movie in the theater when I was 7 or 8 years old. Upon seeing it again, I also now understand why when a woman is suddenly widowed in a movie, my gut reaction is "she's been freed." Of course they aren't going to write a story where a woman is widowed early on and doesn't somehow prevail...but this particular story is especially poignant, mainly because she immediately gets involved with a real sh**head (played by Keitel) ...a mistake many women make in real life after suddenly finding herself alone. A pre-teen Jodie Foster turns out a great performance, and Scorcese's direction is as good as always. A great movie and a vintage womens-lib piece that is still applicable today. Girls - keep your jobs, keep your skills, get your education. Because if he drops dead or walks out (which > half of them do) guess who has to pay the bills and feed the kids? My only problem is, in the end that they had to "sell out" and have her stick with Kris Kristofferson after he beats on her kid. BAD Hollywood ending. BAD!

I picked up this DVD from the public library, mainly because it is part of the Criterion Collection, which usually represents pretty good films. But egads! I'm sorry, but adding spastic flute music and very, VERY long fades of bad art work do not a good movie make. It just drrrrraaaaaaggggggggggggggggggged, and I felt like Robert Altman was thinking, let's make the worst movie we can, add some unbelievably pretentious and overblown "arty" elements to it, and see how many sheep out there we can get to say "oooooooo, wow, it's AMAZING! So cutting edge. So cryptic." Guys....it's awful! I usually can live without violence in movies, but when Spacek did a header into the pool, I cheered out loud. However, what followed seemed like an hour of hospital room coma scenes and I thought, my GOD, it has to get better. And that's what kept me watching, as I think is the case with many folks out there. We need to just find the ability to chuckle at ourselves a bit and say "ok, Altman got me on this one." Don't watch it again and again, searching for the meaning in it all. In the literature included with the DVD there is a statement, something like, "It was Altman's goal to shoot the entire movie with no screenplay." That explains why we see, literally 45 seconds of footage of a person walking from a car into a bar. Just walking. Nothing's going to fall on his head. Nothing's going to happen. He's just walking. Still walking. Anyway, if you want to watch a good movie about dysfunctional relationships and women, rent "The Hours".

You will quickly stop seeing the film's main character, Bree, as merely a transsexual woman, and will see her for who she really is. Just another person trying to get through the day feeling good about herself. This film is filled with the most universal of dilemmas. Who hasn't felt self-doubt about a major impending decision? Who hasn't tried to conceal something about him or herself? Who hasn't tried to take the fast track to healing, because the actual process is so daunting and painful we'd risk a lifetime of unresolved inner conflict to avoid it? Who's family doesn't drive them crazy...especially over subjects where their advice wasn't followed? This is a great film for folks who are a little closed-minded about transsexualism, homosexuality, or any human trait where people differ from their own idea of what is "normal". Regardless of anyone's prejudices, I think it would be difficult not to root for Bree. Viewers want her to be happy and to gain some sort of closure in her life so she can finally feel whole. This is a beautiful movie, with a striking screenplay seasoned with just the right number of chuckles and tears. And the acting and directing is extraordinary. Really, it just works...go see it and take your friends.

I saw this show on Broadway. Trying to adapt a perfect play into a movie must be very difficult, so maybe the solution is, other than adapting the scenery for film, why change it?

I saw the movie last night and despite what you'll read below I want to say, I DID enjoy the movie and I thought the actors did a fine job. I have loved Minnie Driver in every role she's had and this one is no different. Carlotta is an over-the-top head case, and Ms. Driver plays her beautifully.

And the sets are way cool - the moving arms holding the candelabras, the candles emerging from the water and the scene with the chandelier falling were really stunning.

Now for my 3 complaints.

1 - In my opinion, the only thing added by the cemetery scene at the end of the film was unnecessary length. We didn't need to be shown again that the Phantom continues to pine away for Christine. The entire story is about his obsession with her. Also, making us look at Raoul old is one thing - but did he have to be old and decrepit? Phantom of the Opera, the play, is spectacular fantasy and reality checks like this don't serve the story. Now, I will admit that I did not read the book, so perhaps this scene was in there. But 99% of us are basing our experience on the play where everyone is young and strong and (mostly) beautiful. The way the play ended, with Christine and Raoul sailing offstage to their future together was perfect. And I never asked myself, "Gee, I wonder what happened to them after they left the Opera House that day."

2 - I'm not sure what happened to the song "Masquerade", but I thought the Madonna-like dancing was out of place. A little too "C'mon, Vogue" for my taste.

3 - My friend tells me that this last gripe is especially petty and that I should use my imagination a little more. Sorry, guess I'm lazy! It bothered me that the Phantom's mask was too small to have hidden the scars we later saw that covered most of the right side of his head - to well behind his right ear. Also, his hair changes to thin, stringy light brown, from thick and black. You never see a wig get pulled off, so how can this be? Continuity errors (if that's what these are called) really bug me. Like the scene when Christine is first taken to the Phantom's lair and there is a lock of hair falling in front of her shoulder that is curled very nicely, then in the next shot, it's barely wavy...then it's curly again. I'm sorry - but this stuff drives me NUTS and I don't understand how a film gets released without someone noticing things like that. Maybe someone who works in the industry can explain to me why this sort of thing happens.

Other than these minor complaints, I would recommend seeing this movie, and I intend to return with my daughter once it opens.