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24.58.30.215
I missed this one in the theaters but I see its now out on DVD. It looks interesting......... any recommendations?
Follow Ups:
Its just opened here.
I didn't have high expectations of this, just another mid life crisis movie, but I was very pleasantly surprised.
It was at times quite confrontational and at other times people were laughing out loud.
I think it was all round good acting, a script that didn't try to have a punchline at the end of every scene and a believability in the characters.
Very worth seeing, in my opinion.
a solid movie experience - what I call a slice of life movie - I usually like Jeff Daniels and sometimes do not care for the characters Laura Linney play but it is the opposite in this movie, Daniels is dispicible. The children do nice acting too.
explain why you thought so.
It has been a while since I saw it at the theater but I remember him hitting the tennis balls at his wife and trying to turn the kids against her. Also I thought he was judgemental, petty and shallow. Remember the philostine (sp) scene with his son?Maybe it was all a reaction to the divorce bit still not much of a guy IMO.
".......but I remember him hitting the tennis balls at his wife and trying to turn the kids against her. Also I thought he was judgemental, petty and shallow. Remember the philostine (sp) scene with his son?"....... I just watched this movie and while I agree with the tennis ball bit, I never got the impression he was trying to turn the kids against her. Daniels' character (Bernard) was hardly shallow, but he was certainly judgemental and an intellectual snob. Of course, the wife had a few faults of her own, namely her inability to be faithful to her husband. In fact, by the end of the movie I had lost track of how many affairs she'd had over the course of their marriage - at least three, I think. Both of the parents (actually the kids too, although they didn't recognize it) were terribly lonely and longed for some type of emotional connection. Although the youngest boy's actions were the most dramatic (and disturbing) each of the four was acting out.
He treats his opinions on art as though they are facts, not opinions. He is contemptuous of people who hold other opinions. He is pompous. He is sarcastic and basically mean. He is self-centered and ultimately completely selfish. There is nothing admirable about him, except that at some level, he loves his sons. But since his actions harm them, what good is his ineffectual feeling of love.
..... although I do agree with most of what you wrote. If you take away his 2 sons and his (ex) wife, he's got nothing. Sure he's an arrogant, selfish prick but w/o those 3 people, all his saracasm and snobbery hurts no one but himself. Even though he fancies himself as an intellectual, he is unable to recognize that brain power is not all that important when it comes to connecting with people, and ultimately being happy. One thing I really liked about the film is that it doesn't make it clear that he does (or doesn't) come to grips with this fact by the film's end. I think the eldest son does, but Bernard? I don't know. Certainly Bernard is not an admirable man, and its very likely that he inflicted some psycholigical wounds on his sons, but I think that the kids' mother contributed a few as well.
In fact, perhaps he deserves more sympathy as a flawed human being, still I felt his behavior made him a pretty corrupt and generally lousy person. Perhaps "despicable" is too strong; the word I used in my mini-review was "reprehensible."I would have to say however that he is hurting more than just himself. You can see in his older son that, by emulating his father's attitudes and behavior, he is quite possibly headed in a bad direction himself. In fact, this is part of the point of the movie, the reflection of the parents in the children.
definitely this is worth seeing. This is a family drama, the family in the process of breaking apart. In a movie like this, the acting is all important, and Jeff Daniels is almost perfect as a pretty reprehensible person. Laura Linney is dependably good as well as his wife, with her own flaws. And the 2 boys are good. Good dialog, good locations.
e
v
look at his... creation.
You wrote: "A modest gem of filmmaking, unmasking the hypocrisy of academics and illustrating how the apples fall."
A gem unmasking
hypocrisy.
A gem illustrating
how
apples
fall.
Wow.
Busy little gem,
that.
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