Reviews

Watched this last night. I'm keen on Karen Gillan, Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh, Paul Giamatti, and several other actors in this. They can all act and deliver great dialog and characterizations. It's a pity they weren't given anything to work with here.

The director (who also wrote this) wants to be Tarantino. Well, Navot Papushado, cash it in now. You have no sense of timing and you apparently can't write a good script nor even steal a good plot line. There are comic books with more coherent plots and more believable bad guys.

Phrases like "turgid writing," "badly-timed," "unbelievable execution," "plot holes" (spoiler: how did they take over the diner at the end?), and "goes nowhere" all came to mind as I watched this.

The TL;DR is "This movie is like a Tarantino film if you stripped out the snappy, quotable dialog, the fight scenes that keep you glued to the screen, and the complexity and occasional unexpectedness of the characterizations, to leave a good cast with nothing to do but bull their way through an awful script and cash their paycheck and leave."

I'll remember the director/writer's name but only to make sure I don't make that mistake again.

****SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER!!! Don't read this if you haven't seen the episode!!!!*****

As is almost always the case with CJ, it was a good story and there was interesting tension and snappy dialog. What really got me angry was the Ministry of Homeland Security snatching Bug. His reappearance at the end was good, but I think we saw foreshadowing in his reaction to some PTSD stuff for him later this season in reaction to the torture he was subjected to. Be nice if the arrogant little jerk who got things wrong was held accountable, but that's not going to happen.

(BTW, I found the depiction of the HS agents on the show perfectly believable. Friends who I work with actually met a Homeland Security agent in Seattle a year ago. He'd been a cable installer prior to that and was bragging about how he could make us 'disappear'.)

I kind of feel that Billy Crystal did this film in part to get closure with his father (who died when Billy was 15). It's an amazingly good film and shows off the depth of acting Billy Crystal and Alan King can do. They played very well off of each other in this movie.

It's always nice to see JoBeth Williams on the screen, who I've always thought was scrumptious.

A number of the extras who work with Alan King are extras who you've seen in films forever.

**SPOILER**

Whenever I tell people about this, I tell them about the recurring question Billy Crystal asks his father: "Don't you feel like a putz?" The final punchline of the joke is a classic. (If you haven't seen the film, I'm not going to reveal that much--it's very moving and has even made me think of something similar.)

Go see it. You'll sniffle and laugh throughout.

You know, I never thought I'd say this kind of thing--I'm a big fan of the "Alien" series and the "Godfather" movies--but the violence in this was completely over the top.

I was skimming this movie on DVD to see what it was like and I landed on the brief exposition by Andy Garcia about one of the characters who was an accomplished torturer. In 15 seconds, I saw enough to convince me I just didn't want to see this movie. It was completely egregious violence and really unpleasant. Electrical torture of someone that caused electrical burns and smoke? The torturer gnawing off the first joint of his own fingers so he couldn't be identified in prison? Nooooo, I think not. This ain't funny and I didn't feel like it furthered the plot or the characterizations at all. It was just unpleasant.

I think the thing that most people will be commenting on is how wonderful it is to see Will Farrell do something with depth. Yes, I know that "Dying is easy; comedy is hard," but I feel deeply touched by the quality of his performance. POSSIBLE SPOILER: I was tearing up at several points in the movie, particularly when he handed the ms. back to Kay Eiffel and said "I loved it."

I'd like to comment on Emma Thompson's portrayal of an author. I know a lot of fiction authors (it's my line of work and, well, it makes for good parties :D ) and I could see some of them in her characterization. It ~felt~ real. The self-absorption was certainly fun. :)

The rest of the primary characters were very good, too. Dustin Hoffman did an excellent job as an English Lit. professor. Maggie Gyllenhaal was delicious, bubbly, and the perfect yin to play off Will Ferrel's yang and, as always, I would follow Queen Latifah anywhere. Hell, even the ~sound track~ was good! I'm going to go buy a CD in January if I don't find one in my stocking next week. :)

I would love to see more of Will Farrell like this. Sure, I may be one of the few people who enjoyed "Bewitched"--though that was for Nicole Kidman as much as anything--but I think that the fluffier stuff he's been doing has been... well, fluffy. A lot of it's good, fun, light entertainment, but this movie feels like it may last for its dramatic value. It tells a good story.

I was 11 when this show was on. I recall my mother being very fond of it and encouraging me to watch it because of (I think) Jack Cassidy in particular, though she was fond of the whole cast. I can still recall great swathes of dialog from this show, which proves that it was dazzlingly funny and that I clearly watch too much TV. :) The episode where they think everyone's been poisoned (Kenneth Mars: "Dick, I took to the hospital a *stiff* *CAT*!"), or when Dick and friends went up to the cabin and had already been driven crazy by Hamilton Camp, and **SPOILER ALERT JUST IN CASE** body-Englishing--unsuccessfully--the starter on Hamilton Camp's car and having everyone come home after a week with beards (Camp: "Mistuh Hollistuh, when you shave it off, you want to be sure to use an electric razuh." Dick: "Why?" Camp: "Because the pipes ah turned off and theyuh's no hot watuh!" Dick grabbed the goldfish bowl). Kenneth Mars reading a book when Dick and Paula want to sneak out ("Whatcha reading?" "'War and Peace'." "Where are you?" "Page 17."). And on and on and on....

The show was vastly, amazingly funny. I've not seen it since it was on, yet I can remember a considerable number of the scenes and dialog. I'm very sorry that it wasn't continued because it was bloody brilliant. And writing this, I realize how very much I miss it. :(