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Naked Lunch is a surreal masterpiece from Cronenberg.

tt0102511

After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally murders his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa. Not an adaptation of beat writer William S. Burrough's novel but a mix of biography and an interpretation of his drug- induced writing processes combined with elements of his work in this paranoid fantasy about Bill Lee, a writer who accidentally shoots his wife, whose typewriter transforms into a cockroach and who becomes involved in a mysterious plot in North African port called Interzone. Wonderfully bizarre, not unlike Burrough's books. Roger Ebert wrote "While I admired it in an abstract way, I felt repelled by the material on a visceral level. There is so much dryness, death and despair here, in a life spinning itself out with no joy." Director David Cronenberg gives us a bizarre, dream-like world that nevertheless has a distinct logic of its own. Peter Weller is terrific in the lead role; this couldn't have been an easy performance to create, as he has to serve as an anchor for the audience and establish some sanity in an insane world.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-166

ur26897720

title: Naked Lunch is a surreal masterpiece from Cronenberg. review: After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally murders his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa. Not an adaptation of beat writer William S. Burrough's novel but a mix of biography and an interpretation of his drug- induced writing processes combined with elements of his work in this paranoid fantasy about Bill Lee, a writer who accidentally shoots his wife, whose typewriter transforms into a cockroach and who becomes involved in a mysterious plot in North African port called Interzone. Wonderfully bizarre, not unlike Burrough's books. Roger Ebert wrote "While I admired it in an abstract way, I felt repelled by the material on a visceral level. There is so much dryness, death and despair here, in a life spinning itself out with no joy." Director David Cronenberg gives us a bizarre, dream-like world that nevertheless has a distinct logic of its own. Peter Weller is terrific in the lead role; this couldn't have been an easy performance to create, as he has to serve as an anchor for the audience and establish some sanity in an insane world.

"I feel very insecure without a typewriter in the house..."

tt0102511

Not for all tastes. Writer-director David Cronenberg's appropriately-loose adaptation of William S. Burroughs' cult 1959 novel--his script inspired more by Burroughs' life than by his literature--this tale of a drug-addicted exterminator lost among perverted American expatriates in Tangier is satisfyingly grotesque for about an hour. Counseled (or rather, egged on) by demonic talking roaches, the exterminator takes to writing a book after accidentally killing his wife; fleeing New York City, he meets by chance his dead spouse's lookalike and her husband, a quietly menacing homosexual with a typewriter fetish. Not particularly well-made, though Cronenberg certainly gained the trust of his actors and succeeds in not making them look foolish. Begins intriguingly but gradually loses steam, the shock factor having worn off. Judy Davis connects with the audience in an extraordinarily immediate way, but Peter Weller is too laconic to carry the rest of the weight. *1/2 from ****

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-140

ur0989035

title: "I feel very insecure without a typewriter in the house..." review: Not for all tastes. Writer-director David Cronenberg's appropriately-loose adaptation of William S. Burroughs' cult 1959 novel--his script inspired more by Burroughs' life than by his literature--this tale of a drug-addicted exterminator lost among perverted American expatriates in Tangier is satisfyingly grotesque for about an hour. Counseled (or rather, egged on) by demonic talking roaches, the exterminator takes to writing a book after accidentally killing his wife; fleeing New York City, he meets by chance his dead spouse's lookalike and her husband, a quietly menacing homosexual with a typewriter fetish. Not particularly well-made, though Cronenberg certainly gained the trust of his actors and succeeds in not making them look foolish. Begins intriguingly but gradually loses steam, the shock factor having worn off. Judy Davis connects with the audience in an extraordinarily immediate way, but Peter Weller is too laconic to carry the rest of the weight. *1/2 from ****

"Its a Kafka high.."

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and a hell of a trip! Cronenberg mixed elements from the "Naked lunch" novel with elements from Burrough's life and some of Burrough's other novels (obviously "the Exterminator"), to pull off this brilliantly hallucinogenic, unsettling and extremely funny piece of film.For people who like strange, haunting, unsettling, larger-than-life movies with an edge ("Brazil", "Delicatessen", "Erendira", "Satyricon", "Eraserhead", "The Devils", "Santa Sangre", and of course Cronenberg's "Existenz"...) - count me in -, this is a real treat.Perhaps David's most beautiful cinematic achievement to date (these color schemes are mesmerizing!), Naked Lunch has a great sense of humor that won't be perceived as such by many movie-goers, just like with most other Cronenberg movies, that are mistakenly taken as dead serious works.Giant bugs with talking anuses, centipedes and cockroaches, typewriters as characters, nested/folded hallucinations... a hell of a trip, and I enjoy every single second of it. "A literary high", "a Kafka high"... a Cronenberg high. One of my favorite movies ever. Highly recommended unless you live in a artistically sanitized world - you'd only be disgusted and confused. Oh and beware, keep the kids away, this is strictly adult stuff.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-112

ur0843641

title: "Its a Kafka high.." review: and a hell of a trip! Cronenberg mixed elements from the "Naked lunch" novel with elements from Burrough's life and some of Burrough's other novels (obviously "the Exterminator"), to pull off this brilliantly hallucinogenic, unsettling and extremely funny piece of film.For people who like strange, haunting, unsettling, larger-than-life movies with an edge ("Brazil", "Delicatessen", "Erendira", "Satyricon", "Eraserhead", "The Devils", "Santa Sangre", and of course Cronenberg's "Existenz"...) - count me in -, this is a real treat.Perhaps David's most beautiful cinematic achievement to date (these color schemes are mesmerizing!), Naked Lunch has a great sense of humor that won't be perceived as such by many movie-goers, just like with most other Cronenberg movies, that are mistakenly taken as dead serious works.Giant bugs with talking anuses, centipedes and cockroaches, typewriters as characters, nested/folded hallucinations... a hell of a trip, and I enjoy every single second of it. "A literary high", "a Kafka high"... a Cronenberg high. One of my favorite movies ever. Highly recommended unless you live in a artistically sanitized world - you'd only be disgusted and confused. Oh and beware, keep the kids away, this is strictly adult stuff.

"Exterminate all rational thought"

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First of all, I can think of at least two things wrong with that title. Rest assured that there are no nude luncheons to be enjoyed in this movie; author William S. Burroughs described the title as referring to "a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork." Which doesn't really make it any clearer. The IMDb plot description gives some clue of the plot: "After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally murders his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in an Islamic port town in Africa." David Cronenberg's adaptation weaves in autobiographical details of Burroughs' life, including his copious drug use, and the accidental shooting of his wife Joan Vollmer (reportedly during a botched game of "William Tell" with a loaded pistol).The film thus combines the narrative of the novel "Naked Lunch" with a fictional story of its conception – kind of like 'Adaptation (2002),' only with crazy bug alien things which morph from one's typewriter. The main character is played by Peter Weller, an underrated stalwart of the 1980s whose credits include 'Robocop (1988)' and the cheesy action classic 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984).' I didn't make much sense of 'Naked Lunch,' but it did make me want to find out more about Burroughs and his work. The film is handsomely photographed and edited, not as dizzyingly manic as Terry Gilliam's similarly drug-soaked 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)' and less trashy than Cronenberg's 'Videodrome (1983).' I might have to track down the novel to read.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-146

ur10334028

title: "Exterminate all rational thought" review: First of all, I can think of at least two things wrong with that title. Rest assured that there are no nude luncheons to be enjoyed in this movie; author William S. Burroughs described the title as referring to "a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork." Which doesn't really make it any clearer. The IMDb plot description gives some clue of the plot: "After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally murders his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in an Islamic port town in Africa." David Cronenberg's adaptation weaves in autobiographical details of Burroughs' life, including his copious drug use, and the accidental shooting of his wife Joan Vollmer (reportedly during a botched game of "William Tell" with a loaded pistol).The film thus combines the narrative of the novel "Naked Lunch" with a fictional story of its conception – kind of like 'Adaptation (2002),' only with crazy bug alien things which morph from one's typewriter. The main character is played by Peter Weller, an underrated stalwart of the 1980s whose credits include 'Robocop (1988)' and the cheesy action classic 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984).' I didn't make much sense of 'Naked Lunch,' but it did make me want to find out more about Burroughs and his work. The film is handsomely photographed and edited, not as dizzyingly manic as Terry Gilliam's similarly drug-soaked 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)' and less trashy than Cronenberg's 'Videodrome (1983).' I might have to track down the novel to read.

This is a film that jolted me in my sleep and made me awake, days after I saw this.

tt0102511

This is a film that jolted me in my sleep and made me awake, days after I saw this. Some scenes are terribly brilliant in this surreal drama.Thanks to Criterion, because of which I got to know of this film, and picked it up from their collection. David Cronenberg is one of the outrageous directors existing today. He does not seem to compromise with his vision and tries to be so true to the material that it frightens the viewers very much. I wonder if I can ever see this on a big screen, in theater somewhere. Will they dare to put it up, will there be audience in the first place? I really doubt. yet, this is one of the finest surreal dramas that was made in 1990's.A week after I watched it, I just woke up as I got a scene from this film in a dream. Damn, even today (which is a month after I watched it) as I type the review, the hairs strands are standing on forearms. Creepy it is and totally insane too. I wonder how such a subject was chosen to be presented.This is an adaptation of the novel by the same name, written by William S. Burroughs. I wonder whether those who have read it imaging the details presented in the book, also have been through nightmares as I did watching this film.Nevertheless, this is a very important aspect of art and film making and indeed it is needed. I appreciate the courage of the director and more so the producers. Obviously, this is not a film for everyone, even for the generally weird people, but it's for those who have a liking for aesthetics of weird, nightmarish, disgusting things.I cannot reveal characters or the plot points coz that would make any reader of this review miss the fun, given that he chooses to see the film. It's definitely worth a one time watch and that perhaps is enough for a lifetime as it would not be easy to erase from memory either. It has tremendous impact undoubtedly. A 4/5 for one of the terrific and even terrible surreal movies

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-157

ur17029428

title: This is a film that jolted me in my sleep and made me awake, days after I saw this. review: This is a film that jolted me in my sleep and made me awake, days after I saw this. Some scenes are terribly brilliant in this surreal drama.Thanks to Criterion, because of which I got to know of this film, and picked it up from their collection. David Cronenberg is one of the outrageous directors existing today. He does not seem to compromise with his vision and tries to be so true to the material that it frightens the viewers very much. I wonder if I can ever see this on a big screen, in theater somewhere. Will they dare to put it up, will there be audience in the first place? I really doubt. yet, this is one of the finest surreal dramas that was made in 1990's.A week after I watched it, I just woke up as I got a scene from this film in a dream. Damn, even today (which is a month after I watched it) as I type the review, the hairs strands are standing on forearms. Creepy it is and totally insane too. I wonder how such a subject was chosen to be presented.This is an adaptation of the novel by the same name, written by William S. Burroughs. I wonder whether those who have read it imaging the details presented in the book, also have been through nightmares as I did watching this film.Nevertheless, this is a very important aspect of art and film making and indeed it is needed. I appreciate the courage of the director and more so the producers. Obviously, this is not a film for everyone, even for the generally weird people, but it's for those who have a liking for aesthetics of weird, nightmarish, disgusting things.I cannot reveal characters or the plot points coz that would make any reader of this review miss the fun, given that he chooses to see the film. It's definitely worth a one time watch and that perhaps is enough for a lifetime as it would not be easy to erase from memory either. It has tremendous impact undoubtedly. A 4/5 for one of the terrific and even terrible surreal movies

Cronenbugging out...

tt0102511

There was a time when the only filmmaker making films who seemed like a likely candidate to bring Philip K. Dick's A SCANNER DARKLY to the Big Screen was David Cronenberg. Maybe not... What NAKED LUNCH has to say about WRITING is interesting; what it has to say otherwise is open to interpretation. "Guilt is the key," we're told at one point. Certainly, guilt played a big part in Burroughs's life as a writer- but, beyond that...? "Exterminate all rational thought," Peter Weller as Bill Lee says: "I gave up writing when I was ten. Too dangerous. I've found my profession. I'm an exterminator." Huffing the poisons he sprays to exterminate bugs causes him to hallucinate (Or DOES it...?). He sees a large bug, which literally talks out of its ass; it tells him that his wife is from Interzone, Incorporated and that she must be killed. He meets a Mugwump, a creature that quite literally OOZES sex, who gives him a ticket to Interzone and suggests that he procure a typewriter- a Clark Nova ("It has mythic resonance.")- and begin writing. He visits Dr. Benway (Roy Scheider), who mixes up a "cure" for Lee's wife. Says Benway: "It's like an agent- an agent who's come to believe his own cover story, but who's in there, hiding in a larval state, just waiting for the proper moment to hatch out." Lee then kills his wife (played by Judy Davis) while playing "William Tell" (a game wherein you shoot an apple off of someone's head). He then flees into the Interzone. There, his typewriter metamorphosizes into a talking bugwriter and he wonders (of homosexuals): "Could I be one of those sub-human things...?" He is, of course, and comes to the conclusion that "America is not a young land. It is old... and dirty and evil." Says the bugwriter: "... a writer lives the sad truth like anyone else. The only difference is- he files a report on it." Cronenberg has filed his report, and NAKED LUNCH is it. Unfortunately, Cronenberg, like David Lynch, began to take himself so seriously that he started doing things just for the sake of being weird. And, like Lynch, he eventually began to parody himself.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-162

ur1530907

title: Cronenbugging out... review: There was a time when the only filmmaker making films who seemed like a likely candidate to bring Philip K. Dick's A SCANNER DARKLY to the Big Screen was David Cronenberg. Maybe not... What NAKED LUNCH has to say about WRITING is interesting; what it has to say otherwise is open to interpretation. "Guilt is the key," we're told at one point. Certainly, guilt played a big part in Burroughs's life as a writer- but, beyond that...? "Exterminate all rational thought," Peter Weller as Bill Lee says: "I gave up writing when I was ten. Too dangerous. I've found my profession. I'm an exterminator." Huffing the poisons he sprays to exterminate bugs causes him to hallucinate (Or DOES it...?). He sees a large bug, which literally talks out of its ass; it tells him that his wife is from Interzone, Incorporated and that she must be killed. He meets a Mugwump, a creature that quite literally OOZES sex, who gives him a ticket to Interzone and suggests that he procure a typewriter- a Clark Nova ("It has mythic resonance.")- and begin writing. He visits Dr. Benway (Roy Scheider), who mixes up a "cure" for Lee's wife. Says Benway: "It's like an agent- an agent who's come to believe his own cover story, but who's in there, hiding in a larval state, just waiting for the proper moment to hatch out." Lee then kills his wife (played by Judy Davis) while playing "William Tell" (a game wherein you shoot an apple off of someone's head). He then flees into the Interzone. There, his typewriter metamorphosizes into a talking bugwriter and he wonders (of homosexuals): "Could I be one of those sub-human things...?" He is, of course, and comes to the conclusion that "America is not a young land. It is old... and dirty and evil." Says the bugwriter: "... a writer lives the sad truth like anyone else. The only difference is- he files a report on it." Cronenberg has filed his report, and NAKED LUNCH is it. Unfortunately, Cronenberg, like David Lynch, began to take himself so seriously that he started doing things just for the sake of being weird. And, like Lynch, he eventually began to parody himself.

Filming The Unfilmable

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David Cronenberg films the unfilmable. Though almost nothing like the book the title get's it's name from it's nonetheless an excellent film about the life and works of author William S. Burroughs. Like "I'm Not There", "Naked Lunch" takes a fragment...(read more)ed persona and mixes autobiography into fiction, and cuts them together. So it helps to know a few things about William S. Burroughs before going on. Things like he "accidentally", shot and killed his wife in Mexico while tryng drunkenly to perform this films William Tell Routine, an event which would start Burroughs in his writing career(William and "Tell" being a strange coincidence for a writer named William), he was addicted to various drugs until his death in his 80's, heroin longer than any, did once work as an exterminator, spent a good deal of time in Tangiers and North Africa, was monotone voiced and always sharply dressed, though the film shows him as more bi-sexual than gay(he did have children), but was overwhelmingly gay(read a few of his books and you will get the overwhelming part). Was also an expert marksman, a gun enthusiast, and afraid/obsessed of centipedes. His friends in the film(who help get his book published) are supposed to be young versions of beat writers Jack Kerouc and Alan Ginsberg. If you look closely you can see that several different places are built out of the same sets, as the protagonist Bill Lee, doesn't really go anywhere, but into his head. (Oh the murder aspect of the Burroughs story is also basis of another film from 2000 with Kiefer Southerland as Burroughs, called "Beat", but it's not so great.) But does any of that really explain why the type writers are insects who speak out of their assholes? Well the asshole story in the car ride, is a "routine' he used to do at dinner parties, as well as the asshole in general being both for Burroughs as a gay man a place of desire(or desires not spoken) and a social symbol of everything in life we avoid or would rather not say. As for what the title "Naked Lunch" means, it's the point during a meal when one looks down their fork and realizes what it is they've been consuming and eating all this time, where the true nature of the meal is revealed(not that this get's discussed in the movie) Without any of that information and before I started reading Burroughs, I had no idea what was going on, in this movie save something about drug addiction, sexual identity confusion, and paranoia (which it is too) afterwords though I was amazed at how much David Cronenberg was able to bring together. It's not really an adaptation of "Naled Lunch" the book, but a Burroughs inspired film about Burroughs, that uses the techniques, preoccupations, and ideas of the author and his life to tell a Burroughs story. Because any type of literal adaptation of the book would probably be banned in every country on Earth...well maybe not Japan where incidentally you can buy the insect/asshole type writer (Who can say Christmas wish?) So yeah if you like "wierd movies" you'll like this, if you like William S. Burroughs or David Cronenberg you should like it, everyone else though, approach with caution, even for "drug" cinema, there really isn't anything like this

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-123

ur15982856

title: Filming The Unfilmable review: David Cronenberg films the unfilmable. Though almost nothing like the book the title get's it's name from it's nonetheless an excellent film about the life and works of author William S. Burroughs. Like "I'm Not There", "Naked Lunch" takes a fragment...(read more)ed persona and mixes autobiography into fiction, and cuts them together. So it helps to know a few things about William S. Burroughs before going on. Things like he "accidentally", shot and killed his wife in Mexico while tryng drunkenly to perform this films William Tell Routine, an event which would start Burroughs in his writing career(William and "Tell" being a strange coincidence for a writer named William), he was addicted to various drugs until his death in his 80's, heroin longer than any, did once work as an exterminator, spent a good deal of time in Tangiers and North Africa, was monotone voiced and always sharply dressed, though the film shows him as more bi-sexual than gay(he did have children), but was overwhelmingly gay(read a few of his books and you will get the overwhelming part). Was also an expert marksman, a gun enthusiast, and afraid/obsessed of centipedes. His friends in the film(who help get his book published) are supposed to be young versions of beat writers Jack Kerouc and Alan Ginsberg. If you look closely you can see that several different places are built out of the same sets, as the protagonist Bill Lee, doesn't really go anywhere, but into his head. (Oh the murder aspect of the Burroughs story is also basis of another film from 2000 with Kiefer Southerland as Burroughs, called "Beat", but it's not so great.) But does any of that really explain why the type writers are insects who speak out of their assholes? Well the asshole story in the car ride, is a "routine' he used to do at dinner parties, as well as the asshole in general being both for Burroughs as a gay man a place of desire(or desires not spoken) and a social symbol of everything in life we avoid or would rather not say. As for what the title "Naked Lunch" means, it's the point during a meal when one looks down their fork and realizes what it is they've been consuming and eating all this time, where the true nature of the meal is revealed(not that this get's discussed in the movie) Without any of that information and before I started reading Burroughs, I had no idea what was going on, in this movie save something about drug addiction, sexual identity confusion, and paranoia (which it is too) afterwords though I was amazed at how much David Cronenberg was able to bring together. It's not really an adaptation of "Naled Lunch" the book, but a Burroughs inspired film about Burroughs, that uses the techniques, preoccupations, and ideas of the author and his life to tell a Burroughs story. Because any type of literal adaptation of the book would probably be banned in every country on Earth...well maybe not Japan where incidentally you can buy the insect/asshole type writer (Who can say Christmas wish?) So yeah if you like "wierd movies" you'll like this, if you like William S. Burroughs or David Cronenberg you should like it, everyone else though, approach with caution, even for "drug" cinema, there really isn't anything like this

Naked Lunch

tt0102511

I read a few comments on this movie here and I understand that many people hate this movie. To be honest, I used to hate this movie too. The first time I watch it, I stop watching after one hour. It was too weird, disturbing, creepy and the story was not understandable for me. But after that I couldn't stop thinking about this movie, so I decided to watch it again. And I kinda like it. I don't know how, but this movie really keep me interested the second time.Naked Lunch is a movie adaptation of famous novel from William S. Burroughs. But is also more than that; it's an unique mix of biography (many events in the movie appear also in Burroughs life), fantasy, bizarre creatures and hallucinations under the influence of drugs. It's hard to tell the story of the movie, because it's really hard to find out what's the point of the story. But that's what is making this movie so great... you can interpreted the whole thing in many ways.The movie is focusing on bug exterminator William Lee ( famous Burroughs pseudonym) and his wife Joan, who are both addicted to the bug powder. Lee is having a strange ability to communicate with bizarre creatures, especially the typewriter, who is changing into big bug, and after he kill his wife in "William Tell" junkie routine, he is send to the fictional port in North Africa called Interzone. From there, the whole line between reality in fiction is deleted and everything is focused on the process of writing the work, called Naked Lunch.Like I said before, it's hard to review this movie. It's that kind of movie, where you like it or hate it. David Cronenberg is famous by his bizarre movies, but here he's really over the top with disturbing images, controversy and brutal violence (in one scene, a bug is raping a innocent man inside the cage, in other scene a guy is having sex with his dead wife). The first half an hour of the movie the story is understandable, but after that everything is chaotic and a huge "artistic" mess. That's why I like this movie. Because it's nearly impossible to find out the real point of the story, you can interpreter the whole movie in your own way.The acting is great; Peter Weller is great as an emotionless William Lee and Judy Davis is also very convincing as mysterious Lee's wife. There is also a small role of Roy Schneider as a diabolic Dr. Benway and he's really great, even through he's not appearing a lot.The music is really great and goes along with the bizarre environment, even through I'm not a big fan of experimental jazz. The special effects and images of the bugs are really convincing and scary.Overall... this movie is not for everyone. The people won't like it because of many weird images and story. If you like to go over the borders of reality, Naked Lunch is the best ticket to go "far beyond the reality". When you're watching it, you feel like being on drugs. It's like watching Twin Peaks on heroin or any other "hard - core" drug. Artistic masterpiece.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-120

ur16991786

title: Naked Lunch review: I read a few comments on this movie here and I understand that many people hate this movie. To be honest, I used to hate this movie too. The first time I watch it, I stop watching after one hour. It was too weird, disturbing, creepy and the story was not understandable for me. But after that I couldn't stop thinking about this movie, so I decided to watch it again. And I kinda like it. I don't know how, but this movie really keep me interested the second time.Naked Lunch is a movie adaptation of famous novel from William S. Burroughs. But is also more than that; it's an unique mix of biography (many events in the movie appear also in Burroughs life), fantasy, bizarre creatures and hallucinations under the influence of drugs. It's hard to tell the story of the movie, because it's really hard to find out what's the point of the story. But that's what is making this movie so great... you can interpreted the whole thing in many ways.The movie is focusing on bug exterminator William Lee ( famous Burroughs pseudonym) and his wife Joan, who are both addicted to the bug powder. Lee is having a strange ability to communicate with bizarre creatures, especially the typewriter, who is changing into big bug, and after he kill his wife in "William Tell" junkie routine, he is send to the fictional port in North Africa called Interzone. From there, the whole line between reality in fiction is deleted and everything is focused on the process of writing the work, called Naked Lunch.Like I said before, it's hard to review this movie. It's that kind of movie, where you like it or hate it. David Cronenberg is famous by his bizarre movies, but here he's really over the top with disturbing images, controversy and brutal violence (in one scene, a bug is raping a innocent man inside the cage, in other scene a guy is having sex with his dead wife). The first half an hour of the movie the story is understandable, but after that everything is chaotic and a huge "artistic" mess. That's why I like this movie. Because it's nearly impossible to find out the real point of the story, you can interpreter the whole movie in your own way.The acting is great; Peter Weller is great as an emotionless William Lee and Judy Davis is also very convincing as mysterious Lee's wife. There is also a small role of Roy Schneider as a diabolic Dr. Benway and he's really great, even through he's not appearing a lot.The music is really great and goes along with the bizarre environment, even through I'm not a big fan of experimental jazz. The special effects and images of the bugs are really convincing and scary.Overall... this movie is not for everyone. The people won't like it because of many weird images and story. If you like to go over the borders of reality, Naked Lunch is the best ticket to go "far beyond the reality". When you're watching it, you feel like being on drugs. It's like watching Twin Peaks on heroin or any other "hard - core" drug. Artistic masterpiece.

Lots of style, lots of substance and most of the audience lost in the plot.

tt0102511

William S. Burroughs novel "Naked Lunch" was at one time called an unfilmable novel. Who better to prove this thought wrong than David Cronenberg, the director of The Fly, Scanners and the Brood. Cronenberg's vision of Burrough's book is stylish, well acted, and about as strange as a movie can get.Bill Lee (Peter Weller) is an exterminator in 1953, and has resorted to using his own homemade substance to kill the bugs. His wife Joan Lee (Judy Davis) soon became addicted, and the police soon find that this substance is an illegal narcotic. After locking him in their interrogation room with a giant bug, Bill discovers the truth. The bug begins talking to him and tells him that his wife is not really his wife, which leads to an accidental murder of his wife, lots of giant bugs, talking typewriters and just a downright strange movie.Peter Weller gives a monotonous performance, like he's depressed or doesn't care, and it works really well. The backup cast doesn't have a whole lot of screen time, but Judy Davis, Ian Holm and Roy Schieder make the movie better with their performances. Typical of Cronenberg's films, he made sure this movie was a character piece along with a hallucinatory piece of sci-fi weirdness.The special effects here are really interesting. The main bug/bug typewriter is a disgusting puppet, or sometimes stop motion animated, and it's a neat character. All the bug effects are good looking, as are all the gross effects. One scene involves a typewriter growing a male appendage and transforming into an odd creature. All these effects are fittingly gross and great to look at, at the same time."Naked Lunch"'s plot is what probably will turn most people off to it. It's confusing, and often hallucinatory, and what is actually happening is often in the air, but if watched with enough attention, this movie can be figured out. Even if it isn't figured out, this still isn't a bad way to spend two hours. It's entertaining, funny, morbid, macabre and everything else you could expect from a movie about an addictive drug, talking bugs, secret agents and transforming typewriters.My rating: *** out of ****. 116 mins. R for language, violence, sexuality and drug use.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-127

ur4195782

title: Lots of style, lots of substance and most of the audience lost in the plot. review: William S. Burroughs novel "Naked Lunch" was at one time called an unfilmable novel. Who better to prove this thought wrong than David Cronenberg, the director of The Fly, Scanners and the Brood. Cronenberg's vision of Burrough's book is stylish, well acted, and about as strange as a movie can get.Bill Lee (Peter Weller) is an exterminator in 1953, and has resorted to using his own homemade substance to kill the bugs. His wife Joan Lee (Judy Davis) soon became addicted, and the police soon find that this substance is an illegal narcotic. After locking him in their interrogation room with a giant bug, Bill discovers the truth. The bug begins talking to him and tells him that his wife is not really his wife, which leads to an accidental murder of his wife, lots of giant bugs, talking typewriters and just a downright strange movie.Peter Weller gives a monotonous performance, like he's depressed or doesn't care, and it works really well. The backup cast doesn't have a whole lot of screen time, but Judy Davis, Ian Holm and Roy Schieder make the movie better with their performances. Typical of Cronenberg's films, he made sure this movie was a character piece along with a hallucinatory piece of sci-fi weirdness.The special effects here are really interesting. The main bug/bug typewriter is a disgusting puppet, or sometimes stop motion animated, and it's a neat character. All the bug effects are good looking, as are all the gross effects. One scene involves a typewriter growing a male appendage and transforming into an odd creature. All these effects are fittingly gross and great to look at, at the same time."Naked Lunch"'s plot is what probably will turn most people off to it. It's confusing, and often hallucinatory, and what is actually happening is often in the air, but if watched with enough attention, this movie can be figured out. Even if it isn't figured out, this still isn't a bad way to spend two hours. It's entertaining, funny, morbid, macabre and everything else you could expect from a movie about an addictive drug, talking bugs, secret agents and transforming typewriters.My rating: *** out of ****. 116 mins. R for language, violence, sexuality and drug use.

Cronenberg Does Burroughs

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After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator (Peter Weller) accidentally murders his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa.In order to recreate the beat movement, Cronenberg turned to jazz, as he saw beat writing as jazz with the typewriter as instrument. Howard Shore, Cronenberg's regular composer, did a fine job recruiting the necessary talent. (Weller, interestingly, has a background in jazz and even received a master's degree.) Cronenberg has used scenes from "Exterminator", "Junky" and others, as well as "Naked Lunch". So this film could have been titled just about anything, as it is not a straight transfer of the book it borrows its name from. He also created the idea of using bug powder as a drug; Burroughs wrote on drugs and exterminating, but had never himself combined the two. Indeed, the whole bug theme was greatly expanded by Cronenberg, leading to the creatures that are very much something up Cronenberg's traditional theme of the "new flesh".Roy Scheider came on board because he asked to be, having been a big fan of Burroughs. This is fortunate for everyone, as he is among the best actors in the business and makes an excellent Benway. Who else was up for the role is unknown.Prior to the shooting, Peter Weller met with William Burroughs, of whom he was a big fan. Burroughs apparently had slight objections to the casting because of Weller's looks, but Weller felt he was playing William Lee, not Burroughs, so there was no need to directly imitate the voice or looks of the author. This was a wise choice on Weller's part.The film presents women in an interesting way. Cronenberg relies on Burroughs' view of women as an alien species. Without ever getting misogynist or anti-women, the story does tend to create a sense of "the other" regarding women. What this says about Burroughs is unclear -- of course, he had a complicated sexuality, but was it something more? What is needed is more Julian Sands.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-163

ur1234929

title: Cronenberg Does Burroughs review: After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator (Peter Weller) accidentally murders his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa.In order to recreate the beat movement, Cronenberg turned to jazz, as he saw beat writing as jazz with the typewriter as instrument. Howard Shore, Cronenberg's regular composer, did a fine job recruiting the necessary talent. (Weller, interestingly, has a background in jazz and even received a master's degree.) Cronenberg has used scenes from "Exterminator", "Junky" and others, as well as "Naked Lunch". So this film could have been titled just about anything, as it is not a straight transfer of the book it borrows its name from. He also created the idea of using bug powder as a drug; Burroughs wrote on drugs and exterminating, but had never himself combined the two. Indeed, the whole bug theme was greatly expanded by Cronenberg, leading to the creatures that are very much something up Cronenberg's traditional theme of the "new flesh".Roy Scheider came on board because he asked to be, having been a big fan of Burroughs. This is fortunate for everyone, as he is among the best actors in the business and makes an excellent Benway. Who else was up for the role is unknown.Prior to the shooting, Peter Weller met with William Burroughs, of whom he was a big fan. Burroughs apparently had slight objections to the casting because of Weller's looks, but Weller felt he was playing William Lee, not Burroughs, so there was no need to directly imitate the voice or looks of the author. This was a wise choice on Weller's part.The film presents women in an interesting way. Cronenberg relies on Burroughs' view of women as an alien species. Without ever getting misogynist or anti-women, the story does tend to create a sense of "the other" regarding women. What this says about Burroughs is unclear -- of course, he had a complicated sexuality, but was it something more? What is needed is more Julian Sands.

Decadent and sickening

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This is a film that leaves you disoriented, at least disoriented. A writer can only become a writer when all limits and all no matter how light and slight ethical definitions have been flushed down the toilet of our minds. The women he wants he kills and the women he does not want are men and the men he wants he gives them to some barbarian as so many sacrificial victims. Frankly who is speaking of repressed homosexuality? Here we reach a maximum that cannot easily be imitated and equaled. The writer needs to get high on something to get de-blocked, un-blocked, moving. He gets high on terminating powder that kills cockroaches, which is normal since we are speaking of a repressed cock-lover, or on all kinds of other powders and essences derived from all kinds of other caterpillars or centipedes or millipedes or million-pedes, you want it you have it. What's more that experience leads him to some creative paradise in northern Africa, speaking of politically correct that is a record of incorrectness. And then the next stage is some kind of police state that looks like some kind of gulag camp in which you can only enter if you kill a woman in front of the guards. Then the bug-typing-machines are nicely quaint today in the time of word-processors and computers. What's left after these 110 minutes? The vision of a decadent totally corrugated and disjointed if not dys-functioning world that does not have one iota of truth in it but that is not even attractive. In other words never ever ever become a writer. It is slavery, alienation and it leads to the most criminal side-effects that have nothing special in them.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-121

ur3836774

title: Decadent and sickening review: This is a film that leaves you disoriented, at least disoriented. A writer can only become a writer when all limits and all no matter how light and slight ethical definitions have been flushed down the toilet of our minds. The women he wants he kills and the women he does not want are men and the men he wants he gives them to some barbarian as so many sacrificial victims. Frankly who is speaking of repressed homosexuality? Here we reach a maximum that cannot easily be imitated and equaled. The writer needs to get high on something to get de-blocked, un-blocked, moving. He gets high on terminating powder that kills cockroaches, which is normal since we are speaking of a repressed cock-lover, or on all kinds of other powders and essences derived from all kinds of other caterpillars or centipedes or millipedes or million-pedes, you want it you have it. What's more that experience leads him to some creative paradise in northern Africa, speaking of politically correct that is a record of incorrectness. And then the next stage is some kind of police state that looks like some kind of gulag camp in which you can only enter if you kill a woman in front of the guards. Then the bug-typing-machines are nicely quaint today in the time of word-processors and computers. What's left after these 110 minutes? The vision of a decadent totally corrugated and disjointed if not dys-functioning world that does not have one iota of truth in it but that is not even attractive. In other words never ever ever become a writer. It is slavery, alienation and it leads to the most criminal side-effects that have nothing special in them.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

A masterpiece of interpretive surrealism for Burroughs fans

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Lots of people will hate this film, and some will love it. The bottom line is, if you enjoy, respect, or feel that you understand the work of William S. Burroughs, you should see this film. If you don't know what I am talking about, you should probably not see this film. The following pedantic and potentially inflammatory review, like this film, pulls no punches and makes no apologies for itself. Read on if you dare. _________If any three of the following conditions apply see Naked Lunch:YOU 1. ...know what the term "visual metaphor" means.2. ...are a Burroughs, Kerouac or Ginsburg fan.2a. ...are not a fan, but know and respect Burroughs, Kerouac or Ginsburg3. ...can't see how the book Naked Lunch could make a good film.4. ... believe that Peter Weller is an underrated actor.5. ...thought any of the following films were 'lightweight': Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, The Last Wave, Heavenly Creatures, Dead Ringers.6. ...have lived in the New York area for 15 or more years.7. ...know the relationship between improvisational jazz, poetry, and modern art.8. ...think you understand what Andy Warhol was trying to do. 9. ... are curious about what the process of writing a novel is like. 10. ...spend a lot of time arguing with inanimate objects.11. ...without knowing the content of this film, can see a potential relationship between sexual ambivalence, guilt, paranoia, addiction, typewriters and over-sized talking insects.You should NOT see this film if any of the following apply:YOU1. ...consider homosexual love to be evil, wrong, and something you can not sympathize with or understand. 2. ...use the phrase "he's on drugs" to explain behavior and ideas that do not make sense to you.3. ...do not like or respect Burroughs, Kerouac or Ginsburg, and you know who they are. 4. have a concept of challenging literature as the latest John Irving novel (no offense to Mr Irving intended - he's easily as great as Burroughs, just sort of mainstream and pop). 5. ..like films which you can walk away from easily.6. ...don't want to see any film which requires a second viewing to feel as if you've really got any of it.7. ...view films strictly as a form of entertainment.8. ...without knowing the content of this film, you can not imagine a potential relationship between sexual ambivalence, guilt, paranoia, addiction, typewriters and over-sized talking insects.9. ...don't care to understand most of the following review. 10. ...consider ambiguity and loose ends in a film to be "plot holes" and consider any film which has them to be 'flawed'._________________William S. Burroughs is widely regarded as one of America's greatest writers of fiction. A friend and mentor to Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsburg, Burroughs helped to create the genres of 'beat' - American literary high modernism, and/or post-modernism. He provides highly tactile ironic, seductively repulsive descriptions of the everyday which are at once accurate, fragmented and surreal - in other words - Burroughs recreates the feeling and mood of his time and his experience with hermeneutic precision. Cronenberg's Naked Lunch is an amalgamation of Cronenberg's interpretation and experience of reading Burroughs, Burroughs own life, and Burrough's legendary novel, Naked Lunch. There are six or more plots operating in six or more interacting layers throughout the film, and the action centers exclusively on Burrough's alter-ego, Bill Lee, as he attempts to discover the relationships between all of these plots. The plots I identify (and an interested viewer will generally be able to identify many more that this) are Burrough's relationship with Joan, Lee's relationship with Joan, Lee's drug addiction, Burrough's drug addiction, Lee's investigations into the secret society of drug trafficking at the edge of the world in Interzone, Burrough's struggle to create/discover himself. However, the theme of the film is more an issue of the Lee/Burroughs character trying and, in the end, failing, to make sense of the connections between these plots. It is a very self-conscious, personal, brilliantly developed and visually intense film. Yet, despite its self-exposure and openness, the film maintains a certain distance from its audience, as if it has taken on the life given it by Cronenberg and Burroughs and established its own unique personality, which will keep its audience at a certain distance. To really appreciate this, you must watch the film at least a few times.It is especially significant that Burroughs gave his approval for this project. Burroughs' writing is intensely personal and artistic, and his willingness to allow Cronenberg to position himself and his experience of Burrough's work within the film, and to decenter Naked Lunch is as powerful a testimony to Burrough's own integrity as an artist as it is to Cronenberg's vision. Most of the people who acted in this film really wanted to be involved in it and it shows. Ian Holm and Roy Scheider are always great. Peter Weller, a big Burroughs fan and a severely underrated actor gives what may be the performance of his lifetime, Judy Davis and Julian Sands are both perfectly cast and powerful in their roles. This films imagery is necessarily disturbing, disorienting, and, at times, quite comic. Very much in keeping with the feel of Burrough's work.See it. You don't have to like it to respect it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-87

ur3824745

title: A masterpiece of interpretive surrealism for Burroughs fans review: Lots of people will hate this film, and some will love it. The bottom line is, if you enjoy, respect, or feel that you understand the work of William S. Burroughs, you should see this film. If you don't know what I am talking about, you should probably not see this film. The following pedantic and potentially inflammatory review, like this film, pulls no punches and makes no apologies for itself. Read on if you dare. _________If any three of the following conditions apply see Naked Lunch:YOU 1. ...know what the term "visual metaphor" means.2. ...are a Burroughs, Kerouac or Ginsburg fan.2a. ...are not a fan, but know and respect Burroughs, Kerouac or Ginsburg3. ...can't see how the book Naked Lunch could make a good film.4. ... believe that Peter Weller is an underrated actor.5. ...thought any of the following films were 'lightweight': Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, The Last Wave, Heavenly Creatures, Dead Ringers.6. ...have lived in the New York area for 15 or more years.7. ...know the relationship between improvisational jazz, poetry, and modern art.8. ...think you understand what Andy Warhol was trying to do. 9. ... are curious about what the process of writing a novel is like. 10. ...spend a lot of time arguing with inanimate objects.11. ...without knowing the content of this film, can see a potential relationship between sexual ambivalence, guilt, paranoia, addiction, typewriters and over-sized talking insects.You should NOT see this film if any of the following apply:YOU1. ...consider homosexual love to be evil, wrong, and something you can not sympathize with or understand. 2. ...use the phrase "he's on drugs" to explain behavior and ideas that do not make sense to you.3. ...do not like or respect Burroughs, Kerouac or Ginsburg, and you know who they are. 4. have a concept of challenging literature as the latest John Irving novel (no offense to Mr Irving intended - he's easily as great as Burroughs, just sort of mainstream and pop). 5. ..like films which you can walk away from easily.6. ...don't want to see any film which requires a second viewing to feel as if you've really got any of it.7. ...view films strictly as a form of entertainment.8. ...without knowing the content of this film, you can not imagine a potential relationship between sexual ambivalence, guilt, paranoia, addiction, typewriters and over-sized talking insects.9. ...don't care to understand most of the following review. 10. ...consider ambiguity and loose ends in a film to be "plot holes" and consider any film which has them to be 'flawed'._________________William S. Burroughs is widely regarded as one of America's greatest writers of fiction. A friend and mentor to Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsburg, Burroughs helped to create the genres of 'beat' - American literary high modernism, and/or post-modernism. He provides highly tactile ironic, seductively repulsive descriptions of the everyday which are at once accurate, fragmented and surreal - in other words - Burroughs recreates the feeling and mood of his time and his experience with hermeneutic precision. Cronenberg's Naked Lunch is an amalgamation of Cronenberg's interpretation and experience of reading Burroughs, Burroughs own life, and Burrough's legendary novel, Naked Lunch. There are six or more plots operating in six or more interacting layers throughout the film, and the action centers exclusively on Burrough's alter-ego, Bill Lee, as he attempts to discover the relationships between all of these plots. The plots I identify (and an interested viewer will generally be able to identify many more that this) are Burrough's relationship with Joan, Lee's relationship with Joan, Lee's drug addiction, Burrough's drug addiction, Lee's investigations into the secret society of drug trafficking at the edge of the world in Interzone, Burrough's struggle to create/discover himself. However, the theme of the film is more an issue of the Lee/Burroughs character trying and, in the end, failing, to make sense of the connections between these plots. It is a very self-conscious, personal, brilliantly developed and visually intense film. Yet, despite its self-exposure and openness, the film maintains a certain distance from its audience, as if it has taken on the life given it by Cronenberg and Burroughs and established its own unique personality, which will keep its audience at a certain distance. To really appreciate this, you must watch the film at least a few times.It is especially significant that Burroughs gave his approval for this project. Burroughs' writing is intensely personal and artistic, and his willingness to allow Cronenberg to position himself and his experience of Burrough's work within the film, and to decenter Naked Lunch is as powerful a testimony to Burrough's own integrity as an artist as it is to Cronenberg's vision. Most of the people who acted in this film really wanted to be involved in it and it shows. Ian Holm and Roy Scheider are always great. Peter Weller, a big Burroughs fan and a severely underrated actor gives what may be the performance of his lifetime, Judy Davis and Julian Sands are both perfectly cast and powerful in their roles. This films imagery is necessarily disturbing, disorienting, and, at times, quite comic. Very much in keeping with the feel of Burrough's work.See it. You don't have to like it to respect it.

"Exterminate all rational thought. That is the conclusion I have come to. "

tt0102511

Exterminator Bill Lee finds himself following his wife into an addiction to the bug powder he uses. After accidentally killing her, he descends into a hallucinatory existence in which he imagines himself a secret agent answering to a series of bizarre creatures. He channels his energies into writing "reports" on his delusional mission, while trying to break his addiction. The story loosely reflects events in the life of author Burroughs as he wrote the novel.Author Burroughs wrote this novel while he was on drugs and most of the things that take place did happen in real life, most notably Burroughs accidentally killing his wife. So when you add Canadian David Cronenberg into the mix, it makes Naked Lunch one of those movies that will leave you scratching your head. Not to say that Naked Lunch is weirder then Videodrome, but it certainly is up there.When you watch a film where the lead character talks to his typewriter after he imagines it transform into a bug who speaks out of it's anus....you wonder to yourself can this be any good? Naked Lunch is definitely a film that you either love or hate, but ironically I'm neither. For those who are fans of Cronenberg, Burroughs, or Weird Films, then definitely check this out.Peter Weller is the perfect choice for this character, who is clearly insane. He has gone past the melt-down stage of his life and entered a zone of unimaginable thought. Iam Holm plays the nasty old writer who is married to Joan, who is also Lee's wife. Judy Daivs is the leading lady the plays the two characters, who in Burroughs mind tripping novel are the same.Naked Lunch is exactly what you would expect from the weird mind of Cronenberg who brought us such films like Videodrome and The Fly. Nothing new here, we see aliens, talking anus bugs, huge centipede people and so on. Cronenberg adapts the novel to the screen and uses the dialogue beautifully. He knows what colours to use in this style of film and the work.The film does suffer from it's length, it stretches to about 2 hours. With that time length it drags in some places and many might be turned off from it's confusing plot line. Which I still do not fully comprehend. But that is the ultimate goal from a film such as this, along with any film from Kubrick. If you fully understand it, then the artist has failed at what they have tried to do. The ending to Naked Lunch may confuse some people, but think hard enough and those who discover the reason behind it will link it to the rest of the film and might enjoy it a little more.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-102

ur1878251

title: "Exterminate all rational thought. That is the conclusion I have come to. " review: Exterminator Bill Lee finds himself following his wife into an addiction to the bug powder he uses. After accidentally killing her, he descends into a hallucinatory existence in which he imagines himself a secret agent answering to a series of bizarre creatures. He channels his energies into writing "reports" on his delusional mission, while trying to break his addiction. The story loosely reflects events in the life of author Burroughs as he wrote the novel.Author Burroughs wrote this novel while he was on drugs and most of the things that take place did happen in real life, most notably Burroughs accidentally killing his wife. So when you add Canadian David Cronenberg into the mix, it makes Naked Lunch one of those movies that will leave you scratching your head. Not to say that Naked Lunch is weirder then Videodrome, but it certainly is up there.When you watch a film where the lead character talks to his typewriter after he imagines it transform into a bug who speaks out of it's anus....you wonder to yourself can this be any good? Naked Lunch is definitely a film that you either love or hate, but ironically I'm neither. For those who are fans of Cronenberg, Burroughs, or Weird Films, then definitely check this out.Peter Weller is the perfect choice for this character, who is clearly insane. He has gone past the melt-down stage of his life and entered a zone of unimaginable thought. Iam Holm plays the nasty old writer who is married to Joan, who is also Lee's wife. Judy Daivs is the leading lady the plays the two characters, who in Burroughs mind tripping novel are the same.Naked Lunch is exactly what you would expect from the weird mind of Cronenberg who brought us such films like Videodrome and The Fly. Nothing new here, we see aliens, talking anus bugs, huge centipede people and so on. Cronenberg adapts the novel to the screen and uses the dialogue beautifully. He knows what colours to use in this style of film and the work.The film does suffer from it's length, it stretches to about 2 hours. With that time length it drags in some places and many might be turned off from it's confusing plot line. Which I still do not fully comprehend. But that is the ultimate goal from a film such as this, along with any film from Kubrick. If you fully understand it, then the artist has failed at what they have tried to do. The ending to Naked Lunch may confuse some people, but think hard enough and those who discover the reason behind it will link it to the rest of the film and might enjoy it a little more.

Good

tt0102511

Without question this is one of the grimmest films ever. Here's a story about a place most people might not be able to conceive: where things are dying, where people survive off liquor and candy, where those who are supposed to love us shove knives into our backs. It will bring you to tears and make you laugh. All characters are unhappy souls, surviving in a grim world. It's an amazing work and everything I had hoped for. From an artistic standpoint, there were some plot elements and character developments I didn't think were totally needed. They do however drive the story, which seemed to be their purpose, so I can accept them.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-161

ur54692175

title: Good review: Without question this is one of the grimmest films ever. Here's a story about a place most people might not be able to conceive: where things are dying, where people survive off liquor and candy, where those who are supposed to love us shove knives into our backs. It will bring you to tears and make you laugh. All characters are unhappy souls, surviving in a grim world. It's an amazing work and everything I had hoped for. From an artistic standpoint, there were some plot elements and character developments I didn't think were totally needed. They do however drive the story, which seemed to be their purpose, so I can accept them.

Inland Empire

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I feel like I should like this a lot more than I find myself able to. It has a lot of the creative staples I'm looking for in film; a film about film; the narrative of an apparent reality as controlled from powers above; it references film noir, with the writer as private investigator fishing inspiration from a detective plot about a drug cartel in imaginary north Africa; it reaches outside the fiction to grab from the life of its original author so that we're never sure where one mind ends and the other begins. It is Cronenberg doing Burroughs as much as the other way around.The idea here of course is that our writer exterminates rational thought. We get to breathe in the hallucinogenic fumes of that extermination, with the world of the film so tangled from the get-go it gives the impression that disentangling anything from what seems like the ravings of a drug fiend is going to be hard work.It's not though, because even though the writer hides from it, thought finds him exactly from what he's obsessed about destroying. Words come to him from the most unlikely sources; at some point the typewriter is typing itself. So our writer, the conscious persona stylized as the gruff private dick, the Sam Spade, is merely the medium, the conduit from the place where words are formed to where they can be arranged in the semblance of a narrative - and the images for the film we are watching to be arranged in the film we are watching. It is a fascinating parallel between the life that created the work and the fictional life that is supposed to enact that creation.Of course the narrative was guided from inside all along, by the writer hallucinating the circumstances of life - or living it, for Burroughs himself - that helter skelter produce for him a story. The source of inspiration, a woman, he replicates from life inside the fantasy.It's overall a heady piece of surreal jazz that I can appreciate, not so much the quirky imagination with monsters sipping their drink in bars, I welcome the preposterousness though I'm not as delighted as others, but definitely the desire to grant us a vision of the private workings of the mind. Writing as investigating. But ultimately shaped and controlled from obsession.What doesn't work personally, I believe Cronenberg inherited directly from The Maltese Falcon. Lynch also made a career by inverting the narrative devices of film noir, but he had a natural propensity for images - Cronenberg seems to have learned his - and so he knew to invert from films that also did; Sunset Blvd., In a Lonely Place, Mabuse. Cronenberg instead takes from a type of film where the detective essentially navigates with words - and often his gun. So not in space and by thinking in place of seeing. that means we get a lot of talk about going places but we rarely travel to go, the images never travel us. But hey, how preposterous is it to claim that a film featuring talking typewriters and that is also based on the writings of an author is talky? I just want to point you at Barton Fink. I like a lot of the softened jazzy look in this, the brightly-lit artifice, but it lacks the strong atmospheres that I find in the Coen film.No, I think this a modestly successful work, but one that is ultimately more convoluted than is worth to make sense.The Wenders/Coppola film Hammett from '82 faced the same problem; another studio-bound semi-noir about writer Dashiel Hammett as the private dick investigating a case in the boundaries between the reality that inspired his fictions and the fictions that inspired the reality that we see in the film. How to make time for resonance in the middle of so much material to work into the same film? I suspect that at the time it came out, when we didn't yet have Lynch (and in '91 we didn't really have him), this may have felt like possibly dangerous stuff, forbidding even. Alas we've had these wonderful inland abstractions since that this seems a little clunky and cumbersome.But I also suspect as with several other films by Cron that it will rise in my estimation with time.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-148

ur17699578

title: Inland Empire review: I feel like I should like this a lot more than I find myself able to. It has a lot of the creative staples I'm looking for in film; a film about film; the narrative of an apparent reality as controlled from powers above; it references film noir, with the writer as private investigator fishing inspiration from a detective plot about a drug cartel in imaginary north Africa; it reaches outside the fiction to grab from the life of its original author so that we're never sure where one mind ends and the other begins. It is Cronenberg doing Burroughs as much as the other way around.The idea here of course is that our writer exterminates rational thought. We get to breathe in the hallucinogenic fumes of that extermination, with the world of the film so tangled from the get-go it gives the impression that disentangling anything from what seems like the ravings of a drug fiend is going to be hard work.It's not though, because even though the writer hides from it, thought finds him exactly from what he's obsessed about destroying. Words come to him from the most unlikely sources; at some point the typewriter is typing itself. So our writer, the conscious persona stylized as the gruff private dick, the Sam Spade, is merely the medium, the conduit from the place where words are formed to where they can be arranged in the semblance of a narrative - and the images for the film we are watching to be arranged in the film we are watching. It is a fascinating parallel between the life that created the work and the fictional life that is supposed to enact that creation.Of course the narrative was guided from inside all along, by the writer hallucinating the circumstances of life - or living it, for Burroughs himself - that helter skelter produce for him a story. The source of inspiration, a woman, he replicates from life inside the fantasy.It's overall a heady piece of surreal jazz that I can appreciate, not so much the quirky imagination with monsters sipping their drink in bars, I welcome the preposterousness though I'm not as delighted as others, but definitely the desire to grant us a vision of the private workings of the mind. Writing as investigating. But ultimately shaped and controlled from obsession.What doesn't work personally, I believe Cronenberg inherited directly from The Maltese Falcon. Lynch also made a career by inverting the narrative devices of film noir, but he had a natural propensity for images - Cronenberg seems to have learned his - and so he knew to invert from films that also did; Sunset Blvd., In a Lonely Place, Mabuse. Cronenberg instead takes from a type of film where the detective essentially navigates with words - and often his gun. So not in space and by thinking in place of seeing. that means we get a lot of talk about going places but we rarely travel to go, the images never travel us. But hey, how preposterous is it to claim that a film featuring talking typewriters and that is also based on the writings of an author is talky? I just want to point you at Barton Fink. I like a lot of the softened jazzy look in this, the brightly-lit artifice, but it lacks the strong atmospheres that I find in the Coen film.No, I think this a modestly successful work, but one that is ultimately more convoluted than is worth to make sense.The Wenders/Coppola film Hammett from '82 faced the same problem; another studio-bound semi-noir about writer Dashiel Hammett as the private dick investigating a case in the boundaries between the reality that inspired his fictions and the fictions that inspired the reality that we see in the film. How to make time for resonance in the middle of so much material to work into the same film? I suspect that at the time it came out, when we didn't yet have Lynch (and in '91 we didn't really have him), this may have felt like possibly dangerous stuff, forbidding even. Alas we've had these wonderful inland abstractions since that this seems a little clunky and cumbersome.But I also suspect as with several other films by Cron that it will rise in my estimation with time.

An extraordinary mind trip

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Knowing that the guy that originally portrayed Robocop was playing a drug addict in this film and talking bugs being involved in some way or form were the two main things that attracted me to Naked Lunch. David Cronenberg is kind of hit or miss with me, but his best work is really outstanding. There is actually one thing that occurs in Naked Lunch that could have also served as the tagline of the film that would've made me see the film even sooner. "A typewriter gets an erection." Huh? You read that right. Somebody like me is going to see a movie with that kind of description just because it's so strange. Naked Lunch is a bizarre experience that slides rather effortlessly into Cronenberg's eccentric and visually stunning résumé.Naked Lunch has a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas atmosphere to it, which is interesting since Terry Gilliam was originally someone interested in making Naked Lunch into a film. Naked Lunch is a novel by William S. Burroughs that many labeled as "unfilmable." Even though I've never read a Burroughs novel, I certainly have the desire to now that I've seen this extraordinary film. While you have a fairly good idea whether William Lee (Peter Weller) is actually an Interzone investigator on a special mission or is actually just a writer hallucinating under the mountainous pile of drugs he's become addicted to while secluding himself in a small town, it's seeing this world William has supposedly been thrown into through his eyes that makes the film entertaining and worthwhile. Typewriters are actually insect-like creatures that talk and give advice, alien looking creatures called Mugwumps can't seem to choose which side they should be on, and everything seems to keep coming back to centipedes in some way or another. Meanwhile William Lee is just struggling for another fix and scrambling to write an entire report.The 1991 mind trip also feels like an indirect sequel to Videodrome, another Cronenberg film. The makeup effects in Cronenberg's earlier work like Scanners and The Fly are remarkable. Practical effects have always been able to stand the test of time at least twice as long as computer generated effects. While certain effects feel slightly dated in Naked Lunch, like the parrot cage scene and the scene where William's affair with Joan Frost (Judy Davis) culminates, but most of the effects (such as the Mugwump's appearance in general and all of the typewriter effects) are fairly spectacular for being twenty years old.Naked Lunch obviously won't be for everyone. It's a little on the slow side at times, doesn't have a lot of action, Peter Weller speaks incredibly softly throughout the entire film and may come across as annoying to some (I thought it was brilliant, myself), features bisexuality, and is incredibly weird. But if you're a fan of any of Cronenberg's previous works, love bizarre cinema in general, or just want a taste of something different (REALLY insanely different) from the normal, everyday Hollywood fluff, then Naked Lunch is an unusually fantastic trip to embark on.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-143

ur5811408

title: An extraordinary mind trip review: Knowing that the guy that originally portrayed Robocop was playing a drug addict in this film and talking bugs being involved in some way or form were the two main things that attracted me to Naked Lunch. David Cronenberg is kind of hit or miss with me, but his best work is really outstanding. There is actually one thing that occurs in Naked Lunch that could have also served as the tagline of the film that would've made me see the film even sooner. "A typewriter gets an erection." Huh? You read that right. Somebody like me is going to see a movie with that kind of description just because it's so strange. Naked Lunch is a bizarre experience that slides rather effortlessly into Cronenberg's eccentric and visually stunning résumé.Naked Lunch has a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas atmosphere to it, which is interesting since Terry Gilliam was originally someone interested in making Naked Lunch into a film. Naked Lunch is a novel by William S. Burroughs that many labeled as "unfilmable." Even though I've never read a Burroughs novel, I certainly have the desire to now that I've seen this extraordinary film. While you have a fairly good idea whether William Lee (Peter Weller) is actually an Interzone investigator on a special mission or is actually just a writer hallucinating under the mountainous pile of drugs he's become addicted to while secluding himself in a small town, it's seeing this world William has supposedly been thrown into through his eyes that makes the film entertaining and worthwhile. Typewriters are actually insect-like creatures that talk and give advice, alien looking creatures called Mugwumps can't seem to choose which side they should be on, and everything seems to keep coming back to centipedes in some way or another. Meanwhile William Lee is just struggling for another fix and scrambling to write an entire report.The 1991 mind trip also feels like an indirect sequel to Videodrome, another Cronenberg film. The makeup effects in Cronenberg's earlier work like Scanners and The Fly are remarkable. Practical effects have always been able to stand the test of time at least twice as long as computer generated effects. While certain effects feel slightly dated in Naked Lunch, like the parrot cage scene and the scene where William's affair with Joan Frost (Judy Davis) culminates, but most of the effects (such as the Mugwump's appearance in general and all of the typewriter effects) are fairly spectacular for being twenty years old.Naked Lunch obviously won't be for everyone. It's a little on the slow side at times, doesn't have a lot of action, Peter Weller speaks incredibly softly throughout the entire film and may come across as annoying to some (I thought it was brilliant, myself), features bisexuality, and is incredibly weird. But if you're a fan of any of Cronenberg's previous works, love bizarre cinema in general, or just want a taste of something different (REALLY insanely different) from the normal, everyday Hollywood fluff, then Naked Lunch is an unusually fantastic trip to embark on.

It's Chronic "Movie-Time" Constipation

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Naked Lunch is definitely the kind of flick that'll get most "thinking" people either burping, or farting, or, most likely, doing both at the same time, long before the picture is even over the rainbow. I'm not kidding.Naked Lunch is gastronomical! It's when you stop to consider that one of the main characters in Naked Lunch is in actuality a "talking" sphincter (it's true), that this will excuse any foul response to this poor-excuse-of-a-movie, without any apologies required.I have to say that it was actually really comical at times when this babbling butt-hole and Bill (Peter Weller) were engaged in one of their many screwy conversations, or whatever. I mean, what, in the hell, are you supposed to say to a sphincter? Go ahead! Try talking to your own sometime and see what kind of a response you inevitably get from it.It did kind of strike me ironically that, here in Naked Lunch, it just happened to be this extremely vocal arsehole who was calling all the shots with Bill, ordering him around, and telling him to do this and that. Yeah, irony-of-ironies, Bill, a grown man, is being bossed and bullied around by, of all things, Sir Admiral Anus . It's, naturally, all fun and games at first, but, typically, as novelties often go, this gabbing, little Corn-hole gets to be a total pain-in the-butt (literally) after a short while.It took (of all the lopsided-minds in this world) the most whacked-out one of them all (director, David Cronenberg) to bring Naked Lunch to the big screen. Any idiot with half a brain in his head could have told this nut (which I'm sure they did) that the William Burroughs' novel of the same name was impossible to film. But, Cronenberg, believing himself to be creating the work of a genius from the work of another genius forged ahead like a real, little trooper and produced an utterly awful film. Bravo, Cronenberg! You can have your Naked Lunch, and eat it, too.I won't even try to outline the ludicrous plot of Naked Lunch, 'cause, let's face it, there ain't one. In that way it's exactly on par with the Burroughs' novel.Right from the start Naked Lunch is absolutely nonsensical to the nth degree. The story runs off in so many different tangents, seemingly all at once, that it will make your poor, little head spin-spin-spin. I'd confidently say that you'd probably have more luck getting a clear story just talking to your own sphincter, rather than try to piece together Naked Lunch's rectal-mess.So, as I suggest, leave all your worldly troubles behind you and come on down to the Breakfast Club where they're serving a scrumptious Naked Lunch for your Last Supper.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-159

ur27361979

title: It's Chronic "Movie-Time" Constipation review: Naked Lunch is definitely the kind of flick that'll get most "thinking" people either burping, or farting, or, most likely, doing both at the same time, long before the picture is even over the rainbow. I'm not kidding.Naked Lunch is gastronomical! It's when you stop to consider that one of the main characters in Naked Lunch is in actuality a "talking" sphincter (it's true), that this will excuse any foul response to this poor-excuse-of-a-movie, without any apologies required.I have to say that it was actually really comical at times when this babbling butt-hole and Bill (Peter Weller) were engaged in one of their many screwy conversations, or whatever. I mean, what, in the hell, are you supposed to say to a sphincter? Go ahead! Try talking to your own sometime and see what kind of a response you inevitably get from it.It did kind of strike me ironically that, here in Naked Lunch, it just happened to be this extremely vocal arsehole who was calling all the shots with Bill, ordering him around, and telling him to do this and that. Yeah, irony-of-ironies, Bill, a grown man, is being bossed and bullied around by, of all things, Sir Admiral Anus . It's, naturally, all fun and games at first, but, typically, as novelties often go, this gabbing, little Corn-hole gets to be a total pain-in the-butt (literally) after a short while.It took (of all the lopsided-minds in this world) the most whacked-out one of them all (director, David Cronenberg) to bring Naked Lunch to the big screen. Any idiot with half a brain in his head could have told this nut (which I'm sure they did) that the William Burroughs' novel of the same name was impossible to film. But, Cronenberg, believing himself to be creating the work of a genius from the work of another genius forged ahead like a real, little trooper and produced an utterly awful film. Bravo, Cronenberg! You can have your Naked Lunch, and eat it, too.I won't even try to outline the ludicrous plot of Naked Lunch, 'cause, let's face it, there ain't one. In that way it's exactly on par with the Burroughs' novel.Right from the start Naked Lunch is absolutely nonsensical to the nth degree. The story runs off in so many different tangents, seemingly all at once, that it will make your poor, little head spin-spin-spin. I'd confidently say that you'd probably have more luck getting a clear story just talking to your own sphincter, rather than try to piece together Naked Lunch's rectal-mess.So, as I suggest, leave all your worldly troubles behind you and come on down to the Breakfast Club where they're serving a scrumptious Naked Lunch for your Last Supper.

undeniably interesting despite all its flaws

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It's 25 minutes too long, and has a plot that's maddeningly complicated even for Cronenberg (who gave us the headtrips of "Videodrome" and "eXistenZ," as well), but "Naked Lunch" is filled with images that burn themselves onto your memory with violent authority. The Burroughs novel on which it's based was an unashamed mess given longevity by its 'obscenity' which made it controversial at the time of publication. The film is fueled by a consistently frightening 'waking-nightmare' quality (what is real and what isn't), accompanied by Middle-Eastern settings and images of typewriters turning into bugs and sprouting sexual organs. The lighting is precise and skillfully zeroes in on a character's eyes to emphasize the tone of their drug-addled state, and some scenes of withdrawl are presented with an accuracy unseen in mainstream film. David Cronenberg is a talented director, certainly one of my favorites, but "Naked Lunch" is, in its own way, as carelessly indulgent as Burroughs's book. The plot is hard to decipher and the metaphors are a bit heavy-handed (DDT as a substitute for heroin, etc.), but it's an undeniably entrancing film all the same, with some offbeat humor, a mood-setting musical score (by Cronenberg mainstay Howard Shore) and spirited acting (Peter Weller is a fine facsimile of Burroughs). "Naked Lunch" isn't a headtrip on par with David Lynch's "Eraserhead," but it is diverting.7/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-50

ur1193248

title: undeniably interesting despite all its flaws review: It's 25 minutes too long, and has a plot that's maddeningly complicated even for Cronenberg (who gave us the headtrips of "Videodrome" and "eXistenZ," as well), but "Naked Lunch" is filled with images that burn themselves onto your memory with violent authority. The Burroughs novel on which it's based was an unashamed mess given longevity by its 'obscenity' which made it controversial at the time of publication. The film is fueled by a consistently frightening 'waking-nightmare' quality (what is real and what isn't), accompanied by Middle-Eastern settings and images of typewriters turning into bugs and sprouting sexual organs. The lighting is precise and skillfully zeroes in on a character's eyes to emphasize the tone of their drug-addled state, and some scenes of withdrawl are presented with an accuracy unseen in mainstream film. David Cronenberg is a talented director, certainly one of my favorites, but "Naked Lunch" is, in its own way, as carelessly indulgent as Burroughs's book. The plot is hard to decipher and the metaphors are a bit heavy-handed (DDT as a substitute for heroin, etc.), but it's an undeniably entrancing film all the same, with some offbeat humor, a mood-setting musical score (by Cronenberg mainstay Howard Shore) and spirited acting (Peter Weller is a fine facsimile of Burroughs). "Naked Lunch" isn't a headtrip on par with David Lynch's "Eraserhead," but it is diverting.7/10

A visionary masterpiece from David Cronenberg.

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I can't say I enjoyed "Naked Lunch," but watching it was an experience unlike any other. It got inside my brain. At times, I felt absolutely appalled. Only those with very strong stomachs will be able to handle it, and it will change the way you view many things - typewriters, mainly. Yet, at the same time, it's entirely fascinating and unique - and Peter Weller ("RoboCop") delivers a fantastic performance.You may have trouble finding a plot synopsis for "Naked Lunch," and that's mostly because it doesn't have one. It's about a bug exterminator who gets hooked on his own bug powder, accidentally kills his wife, flees to the Interzone and starts writing reports to typewriter bugs. What are the reports? Why is he writing them? What does any of it have to do with the beginning? I had no idea. I don't really think that's the point.Cronenberg adapts the "unfilmable" novel by Burroughs and turns it into a semi-biographical story. Weller is clearly imitating Burroughs from beginning to end with the low, grave voice and the movie mixes elements from the book with elements from Burroughs' real life.All in all, I'd say you should see this if you want to really screw up your head. It'll leave you feeling dazed. You should NOT see it if you are accustomed to mainstream Hollywood and you thought "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was the weirdest movie you've ever seen - this makes "Loathing" look like a formulaic Jerry Bruckheimer action movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-104

ur1173088

title: A visionary masterpiece from David Cronenberg. review: I can't say I enjoyed "Naked Lunch," but watching it was an experience unlike any other. It got inside my brain. At times, I felt absolutely appalled. Only those with very strong stomachs will be able to handle it, and it will change the way you view many things - typewriters, mainly. Yet, at the same time, it's entirely fascinating and unique - and Peter Weller ("RoboCop") delivers a fantastic performance.You may have trouble finding a plot synopsis for "Naked Lunch," and that's mostly because it doesn't have one. It's about a bug exterminator who gets hooked on his own bug powder, accidentally kills his wife, flees to the Interzone and starts writing reports to typewriter bugs. What are the reports? Why is he writing them? What does any of it have to do with the beginning? I had no idea. I don't really think that's the point.Cronenberg adapts the "unfilmable" novel by Burroughs and turns it into a semi-biographical story. Weller is clearly imitating Burroughs from beginning to end with the low, grave voice and the movie mixes elements from the book with elements from Burroughs' real life.All in all, I'd say you should see this if you want to really screw up your head. It'll leave you feeling dazed. You should NOT see it if you are accustomed to mainstream Hollywood and you thought "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was the weirdest movie you've ever seen - this makes "Loathing" look like a formulaic Jerry Bruckheimer action movie.

"Exterminate all rational thought."

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On the first viewing, I watched it all the way through, and for the first time ever I determined that this must be the weirdest film ever made. That sentiment has now been completely supplanted by my exploration of David Lynch films, with Eraserhead and Inland Empire topping my list of weirdest movies ever seen. Much like a Lynch film, however, Naked Lunch eschews the notion of developing a plot and focuses more on crafting a strange, surreal, nightmarish experience. In this film, you can expect to dive into a world of walking talking bugs, mutating typewriters, and shady characters who are never what they seem. There are a few shocking instances of strange imagery with strong sexual subtexts, and scenes of cold, wicked, disturbing murder.Based partly on William S. Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch and partly off of the author's biography, the Naked Lunch film succeeds at taking an "unfilmable" subject and bringing it to the big screen. It does so by establishing a solid baseline narrative, with the actual writing of the titular book as the main drive of the story. As such, the film tacks on elements of the original book around that structure, and touches upon some stark themes regarding substance abuse and the breakdown of reality. It's pretty odd to slap together giant bugs and drugs with the writing process, but in its own twisted way the film makes perfect sense: it's basically the story of a writer (possibly William Burroughs himself) who abuses drugs to escape grief, but finds the purest escapism in his writing and winds up regressing further and further away from reality.The film is competently-made, with quality photography and editing. Acting can be rather dry, but Peter Weller is impeccable as the protagonist. Judy Davis, Ian Holm, and Roy Sheider add some quality talent to mix. Writing is pretty decent, especially in the way it builds the story from the given elements without using too much exposition, forcing the audience to interpret things for themselves. This production has some wickedly awesome make-up effects; most other sets, props, and costumes are decent. The music score is comprised of some really cool jazz.David Cronenberg's film is remarkable in many respects, especially in the way it takes a piece of literature without tangible form and shapes it into a something cinematically presentable. However, it still stands as one of the most bizarre films I have seen, and chances are that you'd have to be a connoisseur of such cinema to truly enjoy this type of insanity (and you may need a strong stomach for certain scenes). I'd say that if you enjoyed films like Eraserhead or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, then you may enjoy Naked Lunch as well. For casual audiences, I can only recommend a rental, if at all interested.4/5 (Entertainment: Pretty Good | Story: Uhhhh… | Film: Good)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-152

ur24364152

title: "Exterminate all rational thought." review: On the first viewing, I watched it all the way through, and for the first time ever I determined that this must be the weirdest film ever made. That sentiment has now been completely supplanted by my exploration of David Lynch films, with Eraserhead and Inland Empire topping my list of weirdest movies ever seen. Much like a Lynch film, however, Naked Lunch eschews the notion of developing a plot and focuses more on crafting a strange, surreal, nightmarish experience. In this film, you can expect to dive into a world of walking talking bugs, mutating typewriters, and shady characters who are never what they seem. There are a few shocking instances of strange imagery with strong sexual subtexts, and scenes of cold, wicked, disturbing murder.Based partly on William S. Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch and partly off of the author's biography, the Naked Lunch film succeeds at taking an "unfilmable" subject and bringing it to the big screen. It does so by establishing a solid baseline narrative, with the actual writing of the titular book as the main drive of the story. As such, the film tacks on elements of the original book around that structure, and touches upon some stark themes regarding substance abuse and the breakdown of reality. It's pretty odd to slap together giant bugs and drugs with the writing process, but in its own twisted way the film makes perfect sense: it's basically the story of a writer (possibly William Burroughs himself) who abuses drugs to escape grief, but finds the purest escapism in his writing and winds up regressing further and further away from reality.The film is competently-made, with quality photography and editing. Acting can be rather dry, but Peter Weller is impeccable as the protagonist. Judy Davis, Ian Holm, and Roy Sheider add some quality talent to mix. Writing is pretty decent, especially in the way it builds the story from the given elements without using too much exposition, forcing the audience to interpret things for themselves. This production has some wickedly awesome make-up effects; most other sets, props, and costumes are decent. The music score is comprised of some really cool jazz.David Cronenberg's film is remarkable in many respects, especially in the way it takes a piece of literature without tangible form and shapes it into a something cinematically presentable. However, it still stands as one of the most bizarre films I have seen, and chances are that you'd have to be a connoisseur of such cinema to truly enjoy this type of insanity (and you may need a strong stomach for certain scenes). I'd say that if you enjoyed films like Eraserhead or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, then you may enjoy Naked Lunch as well. For casual audiences, I can only recommend a rental, if at all interested.4/5 (Entertainment: Pretty Good | Story: Uhhhh… | Film: Good)

Surreal and weird movie that didn't amaze me or anything but it's still a good film

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Now this can be a difficult film to sit through for some and may even come off a bit slow. It's thought provoking and you really need to focus on the madness of this film in order to figure out what is going on when it comes to the story. I couldn't figure out entirely what was going on after watching it the first time and I was heavily paying attention. Now some people compare this to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" which is a more popular film that revolves around the side effects of drugs. And basically is the more popular film between the two since it has Johnny Depp, it's more easy to follow despite the craziness and it's just more of a entertaining film overall. But I am gonna have to appreciate "Naked Lunch" and the ballsy directions David Cronenberg went with this flick. It's a very bizarre and weird movie all the way through, even when it comes to the characters and not just the premise and background of the story. The difficult part might be to differentiate what is hallucination and just fantasy and what is real. Even if some parts may appear like hallucinations it can be really happening just not how the protagonist views it as. The weirdness may start off overwhelming and you don't really get exactly what is going on, but as it progressed I got used to it fairly early on. Even if it feels like it's all over the place a lot of times. Since it has a lot of plots and layers going on at once. This isn't a movie I would watch again, but it's a weird trip that I can see why some people might appreciate and enjoy and others wouldn't. I personally think I liked it but just not immensely or anything like that. And also found it slow despite the strange imagery that actually really does connect with the story. But a movie driven by expression system, this one does quite a good job while blending in with the madness. It actually made me want to read the book this movie is based on, since I heard the book is even stranger. And since this is movie is based on a personal novel by William Burroughs made it more interesting as well.7.3/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-155

ur22171966

title: Surreal and weird movie that didn't amaze me or anything but it's still a good film review: Now this can be a difficult film to sit through for some and may even come off a bit slow. It's thought provoking and you really need to focus on the madness of this film in order to figure out what is going on when it comes to the story. I couldn't figure out entirely what was going on after watching it the first time and I was heavily paying attention. Now some people compare this to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" which is a more popular film that revolves around the side effects of drugs. And basically is the more popular film between the two since it has Johnny Depp, it's more easy to follow despite the craziness and it's just more of a entertaining film overall. But I am gonna have to appreciate "Naked Lunch" and the ballsy directions David Cronenberg went with this flick. It's a very bizarre and weird movie all the way through, even when it comes to the characters and not just the premise and background of the story. The difficult part might be to differentiate what is hallucination and just fantasy and what is real. Even if some parts may appear like hallucinations it can be really happening just not how the protagonist views it as. The weirdness may start off overwhelming and you don't really get exactly what is going on, but as it progressed I got used to it fairly early on. Even if it feels like it's all over the place a lot of times. Since it has a lot of plots and layers going on at once. This isn't a movie I would watch again, but it's a weird trip that I can see why some people might appreciate and enjoy and others wouldn't. I personally think I liked it but just not immensely or anything like that. And also found it slow despite the strange imagery that actually really does connect with the story. But a movie driven by expression system, this one does quite a good job while blending in with the madness. It actually made me want to read the book this movie is based on, since I heard the book is even stranger. And since this is movie is based on a personal novel by William Burroughs made it more interesting as well.7.3/10

Naked Lunch

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From director David Cronenberg (Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly), the article in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die had a very image taken from the film, so I was looking forward to seeing it. Basically, set in New York City, 1953, exterminator William 'Bill' Lee (RoboCop's Peter Weller) who finds out his wife Joan (My Brilliant Career's Judy Davis) is using his bug killing insecticide powder as a drug, and when he is arrested he is exposed to it himself. The exposure causes Bill to hallucinate, and he sees a giant bug, his controller, that tells him he is a secret agent, and he is assigned to kill his wife, said to be part of an organisation called Interzone Incorporated. He at first ignores what he seeing and being told, even killing the bug, and then he returns home to see Joan is sleeping with his writer friend Hank (Nicholas Campbell). After a short while of this happening Bill wants to try and shoot a glass off the top of his wife's head with a gun, imitating William Tell, and in his attempt he accidentally kills her. He has unintentionally completed his "mission", and in his visions he flees to Interzone, where he writes reports for his controller, who appears to him as a bug shaped typewriter, and later as an alien style creature. Under the influence of various mind-altering substances, Bill seems consumed and cannot escape this fantasy world, and his next mission is to find Dr. Benway (Roy Scheider), by seducing the doppelgänger of his dead wife, Joan Frost (Davis). He finds out that the doctor is the mastermind of the narcotics operation making the drug "black meat", created from the guts of centipedes, and with his report he leaves Interzone for Annexia. Bill is stopped at the border and uses a pen to prove he is writer, he is allowed to pass with this being sufficient proof, and he again wants to try the William Tell trick shooting a glass of Joan Frost's head, but again he misses and accidentally kills her, and it ends with him heading for Annexia. Also starring Sir Ian Holm as Tom Frost, Julian Sands as Yves Cloquet, Monique Mercure as Fadela, Michael Zelniker as Martin, Robert A. Silverman as Hans, Joseph Scorsiani as Kiki, Peter Boretski as Creature Voices and Yuval Daniel as Hafid. I will admit I did not understand whatever made up and fantasised story was meant to be going on, but I don't think it matters, everything going on is strange and bizarre. That is what makes this film all the more watchable, you can just admire the pretty good cast doing the nonsensical stuff, accompanied by some terrific special effects and extraordinary creatures appearing, it really is like an acid trip, an interesting fantasy drama. Good!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/reviews-150

ur4248714

title: Naked Lunch review: From director David Cronenberg (Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly), the article in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die had a very image taken from the film, so I was looking forward to seeing it. Basically, set in New York City, 1953, exterminator William 'Bill' Lee (RoboCop's Peter Weller) who finds out his wife Joan (My Brilliant Career's Judy Davis) is using his bug killing insecticide powder as a drug, and when he is arrested he is exposed to it himself. The exposure causes Bill to hallucinate, and he sees a giant bug, his controller, that tells him he is a secret agent, and he is assigned to kill his wife, said to be part of an organisation called Interzone Incorporated. He at first ignores what he seeing and being told, even killing the bug, and then he returns home to see Joan is sleeping with his writer friend Hank (Nicholas Campbell). After a short while of this happening Bill wants to try and shoot a glass off the top of his wife's head with a gun, imitating William Tell, and in his attempt he accidentally kills her. He has unintentionally completed his "mission", and in his visions he flees to Interzone, where he writes reports for his controller, who appears to him as a bug shaped typewriter, and later as an alien style creature. Under the influence of various mind-altering substances, Bill seems consumed and cannot escape this fantasy world, and his next mission is to find Dr. Benway (Roy Scheider), by seducing the doppelgänger of his dead wife, Joan Frost (Davis). He finds out that the doctor is the mastermind of the narcotics operation making the drug "black meat", created from the guts of centipedes, and with his report he leaves Interzone for Annexia. Bill is stopped at the border and uses a pen to prove he is writer, he is allowed to pass with this being sufficient proof, and he again wants to try the William Tell trick shooting a glass of Joan Frost's head, but again he misses and accidentally kills her, and it ends with him heading for Annexia. Also starring Sir Ian Holm as Tom Frost, Julian Sands as Yves Cloquet, Monique Mercure as Fadela, Michael Zelniker as Martin, Robert A. Silverman as Hans, Joseph Scorsiani as Kiki, Peter Boretski as Creature Voices and Yuval Daniel as Hafid. I will admit I did not understand whatever made up and fantasised story was meant to be going on, but I don't think it matters, everything going on is strange and bizarre. That is what makes this film all the more watchable, you can just admire the pretty good cast doing the nonsensical stuff, accompanied by some terrific special effects and extraordinary creatures appearing, it really is like an acid trip, an interesting fantasy drama. Good!

Indulgent Games

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A couple of psychos terrorize a family at its remote vacation home. Frisch makes a scary villain, but the three actors playing the family are not very convincing, with the couple's nonchalant attitude towards their son particularly odd. Haneke is not so much interested in creating a thriller as in showcasing his indulgent brand of filmmaking. Here the German director has his villain break the "fourth wall" with asides to the audience. While such a device is fine for comedy, it is wholly inappropriate for a serious film. There's a scene where the screen is basically frozen for about ten minutes. And then there's a scene with the remote control that defies explanation. Pure indulgence.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-280

ur2590596

title: Indulgent Games review: A couple of psychos terrorize a family at its remote vacation home. Frisch makes a scary villain, but the three actors playing the family are not very convincing, with the couple's nonchalant attitude towards their son particularly odd. Haneke is not so much interested in creating a thriller as in showcasing his indulgent brand of filmmaking. Here the German director has his villain break the "fourth wall" with asides to the audience. While such a device is fine for comedy, it is wholly inappropriate for a serious film. There's a scene where the screen is basically frozen for about ten minutes. And then there's a scene with the remote control that defies explanation. Pure indulgence.

Terrifying and disturbing

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A tale of two handsome young men who torture a family of three to death. One can envision Peter and Paul (or Beavis and Butthead, as they call each other throughout the film) in their black SS uniforms, riding crop in one hand whilst the other drops another canister of Zyklon B. The acting is superb throughout, and the film's setup for a sequel is a neat tip of the hat to the slasher genre. Compelling but hard to watch.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-48

ur0102677

title: Terrifying and disturbing review: A tale of two handsome young men who torture a family of three to death. One can envision Peter and Paul (or Beavis and Butthead, as they call each other throughout the film) in their black SS uniforms, riding crop in one hand whilst the other drops another canister of Zyklon B. The acting is superb throughout, and the film's setup for a sequel is a neat tip of the hat to the slasher genre. Compelling but hard to watch.

Funny Games is a dark and disturbing film that will grip the viewer to the end.

tt0119167

Two psychotic young men take a mother, father, and son hostage in their vacation cabin and force them to play sadistic "games" with one another for their own amusement. Michael Haneke always likes to challenge his audience, but even among his more controversial films Funny Games stands out. The story follows the logic of a nightmare; uneasy tension gives way to unreal horror as you stare in disbelief at what's happening on screen. This is one of the most gripping films about the dark side of human nature I have ever seen; pure cinematic entertainment and yet it goes beyond that. Funny Games is a dark and disturbing film that will grip the viewer to the end.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-342

ur26897720

title: Funny Games is a dark and disturbing film that will grip the viewer to the end. review: Two psychotic young men take a mother, father, and son hostage in their vacation cabin and force them to play sadistic "games" with one another for their own amusement. Michael Haneke always likes to challenge his audience, but even among his more controversial films Funny Games stands out. The story follows the logic of a nightmare; uneasy tension gives way to unreal horror as you stare in disbelief at what's happening on screen. This is one of the most gripping films about the dark side of human nature I have ever seen; pure cinematic entertainment and yet it goes beyond that. Funny Games is a dark and disturbing film that will grip the viewer to the end.

Two young men force a family to play sadistic "games" with one another for their own entertainment

tt0119167

A family formed by father (Ulrich Muhe) , mother (Susanne Lothar) , son and their dog, arriving at their lake house and settle into its vacation home . There happens to be the next stop for a pair of psychopathic young , articulate, white-gloved serial killers on an excursion through the neighborhood . They take the family hostage in their cabin and all of them are physically and mentally submitted to coercion , torture , punches , kicks and many others things .Violent as well as disturbing film about two psychotic young men take a mother , father, and son hostage in their vacation cabin and the family is forced to participate in a number of sadistic games in order to stay alive . This is a thought-provoking exploration of our violent society by means of two young delinquents and how depictions of violence reflect and shape our culture, a middle-class family submits violence, and death foisted upon them by two young , unexpected, white-gloved visitors at their vacation retreat near a lake. Violent film dealing with a familiar deconstruction in the way violence is portrayed in the media . Good acting from protagonist duo , Ulrich Muhe and Susanne Lothar , marriage in real life , and both of whom sadly deceased . Actress Isabelle Huppert was offered the lead role of Ann but turned it down as she thought both the film and the lead character's hardships were too disturbing to portray , she regretted the decision later after seeing it, but still admitted she probably wouldn't have the courage to do it . Director Michael Haneke has said that he never intended 'Funny Games' to be a horror film ; instead his idea was to make a film with a moralistic comment about the influence of media violence on society , it's a subject that Haneke is quite passionate about. When the film was screened at Cannes in 1997 it shocked the audience badly enough that many viewers, including some film critics, walked out of the screening. This ¨Funny Games¨ was remade in English-language adaptation (2007) , starred by American roles , as George Farber (Tim Roth), his wife Ann (Naomi Watts), his son Georgie (Devon Gearhart) and two violent young men, Peter (Brady Corbet) and Paul (Michael Pitt) .The motion picture was well directed by Michael Hanake . Hanake is considered to be one of the best European filmmakers and Twice winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for The white ribbon (2009) and Amour (2012); as playwright he directed a number of stage productions in German . He has directed various brooding and engaging films ¨Cache¨ , ¨Time of the wolf¨ , ¨The piano teacher¨, ¨Unknown code¨ , ¨Benny's video¨, ¨The seventh continent¨ and ¨The castle¨ also starred by marriage Ulrich Muhe and Susanne Lothar .

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-321

ur3270789

title: Two young men force a family to play sadistic "games" with one another for their own entertainment review: A family formed by father (Ulrich Muhe) , mother (Susanne Lothar) , son and their dog, arriving at their lake house and settle into its vacation home . There happens to be the next stop for a pair of psychopathic young , articulate, white-gloved serial killers on an excursion through the neighborhood . They take the family hostage in their cabin and all of them are physically and mentally submitted to coercion , torture , punches , kicks and many others things .Violent as well as disturbing film about two psychotic young men take a mother , father, and son hostage in their vacation cabin and the family is forced to participate in a number of sadistic games in order to stay alive . This is a thought-provoking exploration of our violent society by means of two young delinquents and how depictions of violence reflect and shape our culture, a middle-class family submits violence, and death foisted upon them by two young , unexpected, white-gloved visitors at their vacation retreat near a lake. Violent film dealing with a familiar deconstruction in the way violence is portrayed in the media . Good acting from protagonist duo , Ulrich Muhe and Susanne Lothar , marriage in real life , and both of whom sadly deceased . Actress Isabelle Huppert was offered the lead role of Ann but turned it down as she thought both the film and the lead character's hardships were too disturbing to portray , she regretted the decision later after seeing it, but still admitted she probably wouldn't have the courage to do it . Director Michael Haneke has said that he never intended 'Funny Games' to be a horror film ; instead his idea was to make a film with a moralistic comment about the influence of media violence on society , it's a subject that Haneke is quite passionate about. When the film was screened at Cannes in 1997 it shocked the audience badly enough that many viewers, including some film critics, walked out of the screening. This ¨Funny Games¨ was remade in English-language adaptation (2007) , starred by American roles , as George Farber (Tim Roth), his wife Ann (Naomi Watts), his son Georgie (Devon Gearhart) and two violent young men, Peter (Brady Corbet) and Paul (Michael Pitt) .The motion picture was well directed by Michael Hanake . Hanake is considered to be one of the best European filmmakers and Twice winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for The white ribbon (2009) and Amour (2012); as playwright he directed a number of stage productions in German . He has directed various brooding and engaging films ¨Cache¨ , ¨Time of the wolf¨ , ¨The piano teacher¨, ¨Unknown code¨ , ¨Benny's video¨, ¨The seventh continent¨ and ¨The castle¨ also starred by marriage Ulrich Muhe and Susanne Lothar .

Education, not entertainment

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I didn't want to keep watching but I found myself sort of riveted to the spot, unable to act - the same situation as the victims in this film. The film left me feeling disgusting and badly shaken, at the story itself, at the fact that I had sat there and watched the whole damn thing, at how real the suffering was. It's like how people slow down to look at a car crash, but it's not just a bit of blood, it's two whole hours.One of the most effective parts of the film to me was how Paul (the "leader" of the pack) continued to manipulate and psychologically "corner" all the characters, constantly making it sound like his actions were perfectly reasonable, and the victims were the ones at fault.The most ineffective part in my opinion was the Paul's interaction with the audience. Quite frankly, it just seemed silly, and the film would have managed to get its point across without that. It reminded me that it was just a film, and was the only way I could detach from it.But for what it is, it is outstanding film. It takes a very important place in the history of cinema violence.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-262

ur5771352

title: Education, not entertainment review: I didn't want to keep watching but I found myself sort of riveted to the spot, unable to act - the same situation as the victims in this film. The film left me feeling disgusting and badly shaken, at the story itself, at the fact that I had sat there and watched the whole damn thing, at how real the suffering was. It's like how people slow down to look at a car crash, but it's not just a bit of blood, it's two whole hours.One of the most effective parts of the film to me was how Paul (the "leader" of the pack) continued to manipulate and psychologically "corner" all the characters, constantly making it sound like his actions were perfectly reasonable, and the victims were the ones at fault.The most ineffective part in my opinion was the Paul's interaction with the audience. Quite frankly, it just seemed silly, and the film would have managed to get its point across without that. It reminded me that it was just a film, and was the only way I could detach from it.But for what it is, it is outstanding film. It takes a very important place in the history of cinema violence.

Excellent thriller

tt0119167

Michael Haneke wrote and directed Funny Games in Germany in 1997. He did an American shot for shot remake in 2008. Both are very good thrillers but I'll use the original for a review. Georg, his wife Anna, their son Schorschi and the pet doggie, Rolfi arrive at the family lake house for some leisure time. They are members of the German upper class who enjoy the good things in life. They are introduced by their neighbor, Fred, to Peter and Paul, who soon impose themselves by destroying a phone and breaking eggs of the perfect home. When asked politely to leave, Paul kills the loyal pet and Peter breaks Georg's leg with a nine iron; ouch that hurt! Paul quizzes the lucky threesome by asking them if they would like to bet whether they will be alive by nine o'clock the next morning. The two psychopaths argue back and forth in a comical manner and when other neighbors visit, Anna tells them that they are friends. Murder and mayhem ensue to an interesting conclusion which is a satisfying and believable one; Haneke has made a biting and entertaining thriller.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-304

ur14295241

title: Excellent thriller review: Michael Haneke wrote and directed Funny Games in Germany in 1997. He did an American shot for shot remake in 2008. Both are very good thrillers but I'll use the original for a review. Georg, his wife Anna, their son Schorschi and the pet doggie, Rolfi arrive at the family lake house for some leisure time. They are members of the German upper class who enjoy the good things in life. They are introduced by their neighbor, Fred, to Peter and Paul, who soon impose themselves by destroying a phone and breaking eggs of the perfect home. When asked politely to leave, Paul kills the loyal pet and Peter breaks Georg's leg with a nine iron; ouch that hurt! Paul quizzes the lucky threesome by asking them if they would like to bet whether they will be alive by nine o'clock the next morning. The two psychopaths argue back and forth in a comical manner and when other neighbors visit, Anna tells them that they are friends. Murder and mayhem ensue to an interesting conclusion which is a satisfying and believable one; Haneke has made a biting and entertaining thriller.

All the cinema villains combined look like Bambi when compared to Paul & Peter

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Most of what I have on my heart regarding this movies has been already written in the previous reviews. However I just have to add my two cents, because this movie is truly extraordinary. I can't give 10/10, because this movie is really unpleasant to watch. It's the kind of movie you don't want to see again. Ever. I found myself shivering during certain scenes and at some point I was even nauseous. Haneke did tremendous job by toying with the audience. While the viewer is watching the family being tortured, the pain is literally transfered from the screen onto the viewer. I had a strange feeling that I'm part of the film. This doesn't happen to you when you're watching "normal" movies. Here you're not only the viewer. You're the part of the game. By the way I had to admire the references to Beavis and Butthead or Tom and Jerry, where its entertainment is based on violence and ugliness... in the easy and accepted form of course, but still. Whatever these points questioning violence in entertainment are accurate or not, this movie does one thing that art should and/or must be doing. It will move you. Doesn't matter in what direction, but it will leave a mark in your mind for sure.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-303

ur3940978

title: All the cinema villains combined look like Bambi when compared to Paul & Peter review: Most of what I have on my heart regarding this movies has been already written in the previous reviews. However I just have to add my two cents, because this movie is truly extraordinary. I can't give 10/10, because this movie is really unpleasant to watch. It's the kind of movie you don't want to see again. Ever. I found myself shivering during certain scenes and at some point I was even nauseous. Haneke did tremendous job by toying with the audience. While the viewer is watching the family being tortured, the pain is literally transfered from the screen onto the viewer. I had a strange feeling that I'm part of the film. This doesn't happen to you when you're watching "normal" movies. Here you're not only the viewer. You're the part of the game. By the way I had to admire the references to Beavis and Butthead or Tom and Jerry, where its entertainment is based on violence and ugliness... in the easy and accepted form of course, but still. Whatever these points questioning violence in entertainment are accurate or not, this movie does one thing that art should and/or must be doing. It will move you. Doesn't matter in what direction, but it will leave a mark in your mind for sure.

Weak

tt0119167

A clumsy, groping attempt at a self-referential/fourth wall assaulting slasher flick. I'm pleased to be able to say that Michael Haneke has gone on to make an almost incomparably better film examining narrative, memory, assumption and fiction-or-reality in Hidden (Caché).In Funny Games however, we are simply presented with an oil-black farce of manners which attempts auto-development by getting the principal maniac to talk to camera. That (and another couple of poorly executed ideas) is too little presented with too heavy a hand. There is none of the sleight of direction that characterises David Croenenberg's genre-kaleidoscoping A History Of Violence, nor the more thorough scripting of Man Bites Dog (C'est arrivé près de chez vous).Haneke is spoilt with a freakishly committed, self-effacing central performance from Susanne Lothar as the mother. It can't disguise the film's shortcomings though. 3/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-225

ur2206551

title: Weak review: A clumsy, groping attempt at a self-referential/fourth wall assaulting slasher flick. I'm pleased to be able to say that Michael Haneke has gone on to make an almost incomparably better film examining narrative, memory, assumption and fiction-or-reality in Hidden (Caché).In Funny Games however, we are simply presented with an oil-black farce of manners which attempts auto-development by getting the principal maniac to talk to camera. That (and another couple of poorly executed ideas) is too little presented with too heavy a hand. There is none of the sleight of direction that characterises David Croenenberg's genre-kaleidoscoping A History Of Violence, nor the more thorough scripting of Man Bites Dog (C'est arrivé près de chez vous).Haneke is spoilt with a freakishly committed, self-effacing central performance from Susanne Lothar as the mother. It can't disguise the film's shortcomings though. 3/10

Arguably The Most Realistic Home Invasion Movie, That's Guaranteed To P*ss You Off.

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"Funny Games" and I have a history. Back in 2012 when I was 20 years old, I viewed the American remake of "Funny Games U.S" (2007) and hated it with a passion. Why did they not fight back? Why did they not make a getaway at the very moment the invaders leave? Finally an act of defence is instantly "rewound", and I felt I had been spat in the face. Jump to 2014, and now more fully aware of director Michael Haneke's original intentions. He wanted to make a movie set in the United States, but for budgetary reasons had to settle for Austria. The entire film was also not intended to be a horror film, saying he wanted to make a message about violence in the media by making an incredibly violent, but otherwise pointless movie.Two young men hold a family hostage, and begin to torture them with sadistic games. The men proceed to break mundane cliché's typically seen in horror movies, and also make a bet that the 3 family members will be dead by 9.am the following morning. The leader Paul (Arno Frisch) constantly breaks the fourth wall, addressing the slim chances they have as well as your expectations of how the events usually pan out."Funny Games" runs at a smooth pace blurring reality and fantasy, remaining a very dialogue driven and beautifully shot story. All the tropes of the genre are laid out and after viewing both versions twice, I can confidently say I adore the original and still don't think much of that remake. I respect the shot for shot decisions, love that they replicate the sets to a tee and I adore those actors (Tim Roth, Naomi Watts, Michael Pitt). Still, I remain very put off a by a lot of what I considered short comings. Final Verdict: "Funny Games" goes against the rules and comes off more as a parody. In a lot of ways it could be the most violent torture flick ever, and very little blood is actually seen. I respect what Michael Haneke set out to do and in the recent waves of typical horror movies nowadays, I'm glad this exists to point out how mundane all this excessive violence really is. 7/10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-338

ur48102834

title: Arguably The Most Realistic Home Invasion Movie, That's Guaranteed To P*ss You Off. review: "Funny Games" and I have a history. Back in 2012 when I was 20 years old, I viewed the American remake of "Funny Games U.S" (2007) and hated it with a passion. Why did they not fight back? Why did they not make a getaway at the very moment the invaders leave? Finally an act of defence is instantly "rewound", and I felt I had been spat in the face. Jump to 2014, and now more fully aware of director Michael Haneke's original intentions. He wanted to make a movie set in the United States, but for budgetary reasons had to settle for Austria. The entire film was also not intended to be a horror film, saying he wanted to make a message about violence in the media by making an incredibly violent, but otherwise pointless movie.Two young men hold a family hostage, and begin to torture them with sadistic games. The men proceed to break mundane cliché's typically seen in horror movies, and also make a bet that the 3 family members will be dead by 9.am the following morning. The leader Paul (Arno Frisch) constantly breaks the fourth wall, addressing the slim chances they have as well as your expectations of how the events usually pan out."Funny Games" runs at a smooth pace blurring reality and fantasy, remaining a very dialogue driven and beautifully shot story. All the tropes of the genre are laid out and after viewing both versions twice, I can confidently say I adore the original and still don't think much of that remake. I respect the shot for shot decisions, love that they replicate the sets to a tee and I adore those actors (Tim Roth, Naomi Watts, Michael Pitt). Still, I remain very put off a by a lot of what I considered short comings. Final Verdict: "Funny Games" goes against the rules and comes off more as a parody. In a lot of ways it could be the most violent torture flick ever, and very little blood is actually seen. I respect what Michael Haneke set out to do and in the recent waves of typical horror movies nowadays, I'm glad this exists to point out how mundane all this excessive violence really is. 7/10.

A different kind of horror

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Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" is more disturbing, horrifying, haunting, and ultimately thought-provoking than anything churned out by the Hollywood mainstream horror industry today.The film is brilliantly photographed and acted, with long static shots that build unbearable amounts of tension, forcing the viewer to watch the terror unfold and daring you to look away. Another interesting tool Haneke employs here is the breaking of the "fourth wall." The villains occasionally smirk or wink at directly at the camera or reference the film and audience in character. A very unusual and yet disturbing tactic.As for the message of the film, it's obvious: violence is not entertainment, but something to be loathed and condemned. Some may argue that by conveying this message through the depiction of violence is hypocritical or oxymoronic, but I disagree. The villains (and the filmmakers) constantly taunt and tease the viewer and our protagonists, asking us if we're entertained, if the film is long enough. Haneke is trying to make the point that while we sometimes watch a violent film for entertainment, we forget how horrific and revolting it really can be. Therefore, "Funny Games" is a difficult film to categorize. I suppose, at face value, it is a horror film (albiet a "thinking-man's" horror film), but is also a social satire with a clear message and theme. It's truly unique and shockingly bold (although I predict many may disagree).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-276

ur9237072

title: A different kind of horror review: Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" is more disturbing, horrifying, haunting, and ultimately thought-provoking than anything churned out by the Hollywood mainstream horror industry today.The film is brilliantly photographed and acted, with long static shots that build unbearable amounts of tension, forcing the viewer to watch the terror unfold and daring you to look away. Another interesting tool Haneke employs here is the breaking of the "fourth wall." The villains occasionally smirk or wink at directly at the camera or reference the film and audience in character. A very unusual and yet disturbing tactic.As for the message of the film, it's obvious: violence is not entertainment, but something to be loathed and condemned. Some may argue that by conveying this message through the depiction of violence is hypocritical or oxymoronic, but I disagree. The villains (and the filmmakers) constantly taunt and tease the viewer and our protagonists, asking us if we're entertained, if the film is long enough. Haneke is trying to make the point that while we sometimes watch a violent film for entertainment, we forget how horrific and revolting it really can be. Therefore, "Funny Games" is a difficult film to categorize. I suppose, at face value, it is a horror film (albiet a "thinking-man's" horror film), but is also a social satire with a clear message and theme. It's truly unique and shockingly bold (although I predict many may disagree).

Funny Games is a creepy and sickening horror film, although it turns out to be more of an endurance test by the end.

tt0119167

Funny Games is the 1997 German horror film written and directed by the talented Michael Haneke. It is about a wife and husband named Anna (Susanne Lothar) and Georg (Ulrich Muhe), and their son Georgie. They drive down to their luxurious vacation home by the water. They're all set to put the boat in the water, and start their dream vacation when two young men knock on the door. The two young, and strangely polite and illiterate, guys are named Paul (Arno Frisch) and Peter (Frank Giering), and after just a few minutes Anna is beginning to get uncomfortable. They start making excuses and refuse to leave until Paul finally takes a golf club and injure Georg's leg. From there on in the two guys make a bet that the family will not be alive by 9:00 the next morning. And until that time they play torturous and mind bending psychotic games with the family until they almost completely lose their wits.This is quite a hard film to review since for a while I just had no clue what to write about. But now that I've had two days to think about it a little, I have a few comments. Let me start off by saying that Funny Games is an extremely disturbing film. I read up on it before I watched it and knew to expect the violence, but nothing prepared me for the shocking nature of the movie. Most of the violence occurs off screen or is implied but blurred out in the corner of the screen. Very much of the violent acts, save for the golf club scene, are all psychological and require the viewer to imagine the pain and terrifying misery this family must be feeling. This makes Funny Games all the more potent but definitely not for everyone. I am sure many people walked out of the theater or turned it off when watching it. Some viewers either didn't know what Funny Games was about before-hand or their expectations for the violence was completely disoriented.The acting is very strong from all the actors. Ulrich Muhe is excellent as the concerned father who in the end just fails to do anything to stop the situation. Susanne Lothar is also excellent, and I'd like to congratulate the make up department because they made her look like a woman that has just been dragged through the burning embers of hell. Arno Frisch and Frank Giering play their parts to the T. Although Frisch makes his character Paul creepier and more psychotic-seeming than Peter. However Peter does turn out more insecure than Paul. Other than these four, plus the boy playing the son, there are not many other actors throughout the movie. So essentially these actors have to carry everything on their own shoulders, and they do quite a fine job.Michael Haneke said in interviews that what he was trying to do with Funny Games was toy with the audience, and make them feel guilty for enjoying violence in the media and especially movies. Though not so much back in the 1990s, and more in the 2000s, people seemed to enjoy and crave gory torturous films. Funny Games was remade in 2008 in English not only to widen its audience, but also because it fits more with the new generation. This original version of Funny Games was not quite as fitting as it would be today. But if it was punishing the torture craving audiences Haneke wanted, he sure did it quite well. There are a couple of scenes in the movie when the lead villain Paul acknowledges the audience, and either gives them a leering grin or actually talks to them and/or asks them a question. This is where Haneke goes too far. We get his point clearly so he really doesn't need to go all "Ferris Bueller" on us. The one thing you should probably never do in a film is have a character verbally interact with the viewer. It works in some films usually for comic relief, but for Funny Games it detracts from the emotional response to the film, and is just not necessary. However all in all peoples' thirst for violence is a controversial topic, and I'm glad at least one director out there is addressing it. Some did not like this movie because it doesn't follow horror movie clichés and what you expect to happen backfires on you. Almost everything you expect is demolished in Funny Games, so expect the unexpected.Funny Games may be sickening and torturous to its violence-hungry audience, but it is an experience. While many people were just plain out disturbed by this movie, I was disturbed in a different way. I've seen what the new generation's torture porn genre has to offer. So the film did not really make me cringe or send shivers down my spine, I was more disgusted and hateful to the two villains. However therein lies the point of Funny Games, it is more of an endurance test by the end. If you're enjoying the torture going on, then this is a learning experience for you. If you are repulsed by it then you're pretty much human. I give Funny Games a 3 out of 4. For some strange reason I still want to see the remake.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-236

ur4246818

title: Funny Games is a creepy and sickening horror film, although it turns out to be more of an endurance test by the end. review: Funny Games is the 1997 German horror film written and directed by the talented Michael Haneke. It is about a wife and husband named Anna (Susanne Lothar) and Georg (Ulrich Muhe), and their son Georgie. They drive down to their luxurious vacation home by the water. They're all set to put the boat in the water, and start their dream vacation when two young men knock on the door. The two young, and strangely polite and illiterate, guys are named Paul (Arno Frisch) and Peter (Frank Giering), and after just a few minutes Anna is beginning to get uncomfortable. They start making excuses and refuse to leave until Paul finally takes a golf club and injure Georg's leg. From there on in the two guys make a bet that the family will not be alive by 9:00 the next morning. And until that time they play torturous and mind bending psychotic games with the family until they almost completely lose their wits.This is quite a hard film to review since for a while I just had no clue what to write about. But now that I've had two days to think about it a little, I have a few comments. Let me start off by saying that Funny Games is an extremely disturbing film. I read up on it before I watched it and knew to expect the violence, but nothing prepared me for the shocking nature of the movie. Most of the violence occurs off screen or is implied but blurred out in the corner of the screen. Very much of the violent acts, save for the golf club scene, are all psychological and require the viewer to imagine the pain and terrifying misery this family must be feeling. This makes Funny Games all the more potent but definitely not for everyone. I am sure many people walked out of the theater or turned it off when watching it. Some viewers either didn't know what Funny Games was about before-hand or their expectations for the violence was completely disoriented.The acting is very strong from all the actors. Ulrich Muhe is excellent as the concerned father who in the end just fails to do anything to stop the situation. Susanne Lothar is also excellent, and I'd like to congratulate the make up department because they made her look like a woman that has just been dragged through the burning embers of hell. Arno Frisch and Frank Giering play their parts to the T. Although Frisch makes his character Paul creepier and more psychotic-seeming than Peter. However Peter does turn out more insecure than Paul. Other than these four, plus the boy playing the son, there are not many other actors throughout the movie. So essentially these actors have to carry everything on their own shoulders, and they do quite a fine job.Michael Haneke said in interviews that what he was trying to do with Funny Games was toy with the audience, and make them feel guilty for enjoying violence in the media and especially movies. Though not so much back in the 1990s, and more in the 2000s, people seemed to enjoy and crave gory torturous films. Funny Games was remade in 2008 in English not only to widen its audience, but also because it fits more with the new generation. This original version of Funny Games was not quite as fitting as it would be today. But if it was punishing the torture craving audiences Haneke wanted, he sure did it quite well. There are a couple of scenes in the movie when the lead villain Paul acknowledges the audience, and either gives them a leering grin or actually talks to them and/or asks them a question. This is where Haneke goes too far. We get his point clearly so he really doesn't need to go all "Ferris Bueller" on us. The one thing you should probably never do in a film is have a character verbally interact with the viewer. It works in some films usually for comic relief, but for Funny Games it detracts from the emotional response to the film, and is just not necessary. However all in all peoples' thirst for violence is a controversial topic, and I'm glad at least one director out there is addressing it. Some did not like this movie because it doesn't follow horror movie clichés and what you expect to happen backfires on you. Almost everything you expect is demolished in Funny Games, so expect the unexpected.Funny Games may be sickening and torturous to its violence-hungry audience, but it is an experience. While many people were just plain out disturbed by this movie, I was disturbed in a different way. I've seen what the new generation's torture porn genre has to offer. So the film did not really make me cringe or send shivers down my spine, I was more disgusted and hateful to the two villains. However therein lies the point of Funny Games, it is more of an endurance test by the end. If you're enjoying the torture going on, then this is a learning experience for you. If you are repulsed by it then you're pretty much human. I give Funny Games a 3 out of 4. For some strange reason I still want to see the remake.

You're on their side, so who will you bet with?…Funny Games

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I've been meaning to write a review for Michael Haneke's Funny Games since rewatching it Halloween night. I had seen it for the first time around 3-4 years ago on IFC and was blown away by its inventiveness. It definitely holds up today as a sharp thriller and satire for our culture of wanting to see pain and torture on screen. With movies like Saw coming to theatres now, it may be even more relevant than it was in 1997. Word had it that Haneke, after the huge success of his most recent film Caché, would be remaking the film for English language audiences next year. I had reservations about this, but eventually heard it would be a revisioning not a strict copy in English, (although pulling a Gus Van Sant—Psycho—would be cool to satirize America for being too lazy to either learn German or read subtitles that they need a Hollywood adaptation). Whether this is true or not, the film has gotten underway as I've heard from an old friend how he has been cast as a stand-in for one of the troubled youths. Although unknowingly, Brett Vanderbrook has finally gotten me on track to review Funny Games with his jogging my memory a couple weeks late.One knows they are in for a treat right off the bat watching a family drive along a road guessing classical music. All of a sudden the sound cuts to a heavy metal scream and the entire car ride is displayed, complete with the family still swaying their heads, with the jarring guitars and hoarse voice. The family finally reaches their vacation place and sets up to get a fishing excursion going and dinner cooking. When their neighbor's houseguests come over to help, the film really starts going. These two young boys, played with playful malice by Arno Frish and Frank Giering, begin to mess with the family psychologically until the confrontation escalates to violence. To make the proceedings more fun, they eventually strike a bet on whether the captors will survive the night. This would seem strange at first until the director does the unthinkable and breaks the fourth wall. Yes, the antagonists start to converse with the audience, making the viewer into an accomplice, allowing the torture to continue. Credit Haneke here as the first moment of using the camera as a character is so subtle, one will think, "wow that was weird, I almost thought he was looking at us."Funny Games is a comment on the fact that we as moviegoers enjoy to watch torture happen on screen. We feel safe knowing that the events transpiring are fake, yet feel inclined to watch them play out. By talking to the audience, Haneke is showing that these characters are conscious of their activities and are almost asking the audience if they should continue on their treacherous ways. Of course you could just walk out of the theatre or turn off the TV, but instead you become enthralled and need to see what happens. Just by finishing this film you yourself become that which it is a commentary on. One reason, however, besides the psychological reasoning, keeping you in your seats is the emotionally draining performances by Susanne Lothar and Ulrich Mühe. Their anguish at the helplessness of their situation towards themselves and their son is heartbreaking. They are at the mercy of their captors and must bear with the "games" until their fate is decided. You need to watch the excruciatingly long single take around three-quarters in, and see true cinema greatness. What Orson Welles did technically with his opening to Touch of Evil, Haneke does here emotionally. To be able to change mood from being defeated, to scared, to angry, to helpless, to utter sadness is amazing. If Naomi Watts even comes close in the remake to what Lothar did here, she will be guaranteed that Oscar she was robbed of for Mulholland Dr.Hopefully Haneke knows what he is doing with a retelling of his brilliant Funny Games. I must admit I recently told my friend Brett that Haneke was a God of cinema, mostly because of the jealousy that he gets to work on a movie with him no matter in what capacity. While that statement is a bit premature, being that I've only seen this film by him, I do own his filmography and in the near future will most certainly be able to make that declaration again feeling justified in doing so.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-207

ur2020154

title: You're on their side, so who will you bet with?…Funny Games review: I've been meaning to write a review for Michael Haneke's Funny Games since rewatching it Halloween night. I had seen it for the first time around 3-4 years ago on IFC and was blown away by its inventiveness. It definitely holds up today as a sharp thriller and satire for our culture of wanting to see pain and torture on screen. With movies like Saw coming to theatres now, it may be even more relevant than it was in 1997. Word had it that Haneke, after the huge success of his most recent film Caché, would be remaking the film for English language audiences next year. I had reservations about this, but eventually heard it would be a revisioning not a strict copy in English, (although pulling a Gus Van Sant—Psycho—would be cool to satirize America for being too lazy to either learn German or read subtitles that they need a Hollywood adaptation). Whether this is true or not, the film has gotten underway as I've heard from an old friend how he has been cast as a stand-in for one of the troubled youths. Although unknowingly, Brett Vanderbrook has finally gotten me on track to review Funny Games with his jogging my memory a couple weeks late.One knows they are in for a treat right off the bat watching a family drive along a road guessing classical music. All of a sudden the sound cuts to a heavy metal scream and the entire car ride is displayed, complete with the family still swaying their heads, with the jarring guitars and hoarse voice. The family finally reaches their vacation place and sets up to get a fishing excursion going and dinner cooking. When their neighbor's houseguests come over to help, the film really starts going. These two young boys, played with playful malice by Arno Frish and Frank Giering, begin to mess with the family psychologically until the confrontation escalates to violence. To make the proceedings more fun, they eventually strike a bet on whether the captors will survive the night. This would seem strange at first until the director does the unthinkable and breaks the fourth wall. Yes, the antagonists start to converse with the audience, making the viewer into an accomplice, allowing the torture to continue. Credit Haneke here as the first moment of using the camera as a character is so subtle, one will think, "wow that was weird, I almost thought he was looking at us."Funny Games is a comment on the fact that we as moviegoers enjoy to watch torture happen on screen. We feel safe knowing that the events transpiring are fake, yet feel inclined to watch them play out. By talking to the audience, Haneke is showing that these characters are conscious of their activities and are almost asking the audience if they should continue on their treacherous ways. Of course you could just walk out of the theatre or turn off the TV, but instead you become enthralled and need to see what happens. Just by finishing this film you yourself become that which it is a commentary on. One reason, however, besides the psychological reasoning, keeping you in your seats is the emotionally draining performances by Susanne Lothar and Ulrich Mühe. Their anguish at the helplessness of their situation towards themselves and their son is heartbreaking. They are at the mercy of their captors and must bear with the "games" until their fate is decided. You need to watch the excruciatingly long single take around three-quarters in, and see true cinema greatness. What Orson Welles did technically with his opening to Touch of Evil, Haneke does here emotionally. To be able to change mood from being defeated, to scared, to angry, to helpless, to utter sadness is amazing. If Naomi Watts even comes close in the remake to what Lothar did here, she will be guaranteed that Oscar she was robbed of for Mulholland Dr.Hopefully Haneke knows what he is doing with a retelling of his brilliant Funny Games. I must admit I recently told my friend Brett that Haneke was a God of cinema, mostly because of the jealousy that he gets to work on a movie with him no matter in what capacity. While that statement is a bit premature, being that I've only seen this film by him, I do own his filmography and in the near future will most certainly be able to make that declaration again feeling justified in doing so.

Simple Sadism

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Ok, I get it. But get this: making this movie is an act of sadism directed at an audience no more deserving of its suffering than the victims in the film itself. Mr. Haneke is lucky I never saw this before I bothered to see the rest of his 'ouevre'. He's one filmmaker who is now in my viewing Siberia....out of reach, out of touch, out of mind.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-114

ur0105072

title: Simple Sadism review: Ok, I get it. But get this: making this movie is an act of sadism directed at an audience no more deserving of its suffering than the victims in the film itself. Mr. Haneke is lucky I never saw this before I bothered to see the rest of his 'ouevre'. He's one filmmaker who is now in my viewing Siberia....out of reach, out of touch, out of mind.

The Impact of a 12-Gauge Shotgun

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This film wounds the spirit with its nihilistic overtones and comes out swinging, punching hard. The villains are incredibly sinister and I empathized with their victims vulnerabilities, anger, agony, and fear. Be sure you're sitting during the second half or your knees will give way.A family of three takes a holiday at their country cottage. While the husband and young son are setting their sailboat into the lake, the mother begins to be tormented by two young strange men. Before long, the three find themselves held hostage and targets of evil and degrading humor.Make no mistake. This is a nasty thriller with a bite that will leave a bruise. If you are looking for a feel-good, uplifting affair, skip this. But if you are looking for a film that will stir your emotions and tighten your drum, look no further.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-230

ur9403697

title: The Impact of a 12-Gauge Shotgun review: This film wounds the spirit with its nihilistic overtones and comes out swinging, punching hard. The villains are incredibly sinister and I empathized with their victims vulnerabilities, anger, agony, and fear. Be sure you're sitting during the second half or your knees will give way.A family of three takes a holiday at their country cottage. While the husband and young son are setting their sailboat into the lake, the mother begins to be tormented by two young strange men. Before long, the three find themselves held hostage and targets of evil and degrading humor.Make no mistake. This is a nasty thriller with a bite that will leave a bruise. If you are looking for a feel-good, uplifting affair, skip this. But if you are looking for a film that will stir your emotions and tighten your drum, look no further.

Suffering? You ain't seen nothing yet...

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I watched this year's remake of "Funny Games" prior to the original, simply because its sick-with-irony trailer got me extremely curious. Granted, this goes against my usual process of viewing a remake's precursor prior to the remake itself, but I couldn't help myself. By the end, I was astonished by writer-director Michael Haneke's audacity in telling a macabre home-invasion story devoid of Hollywood glamour, humor, and mercy–remake or no, it's still one of the ballsiest exercises in visceral, reality-based horror ever released by a major studio.So, when I decided to give the original "Funny Games" a spin (mere days after my viewing of American version), I was filled with presupposition toward how much I would appreciate the original (with the twists of Haneke's shot-for-shot remake still mapped out in my mind)–similar to a sadistic "bet" our captors make with their prey, I was wondering if this earlier, German-language version would survive on its own terms. And, while each version is practically identical (save for some subtle nuances in the performances, the slightly varied location design, and–of course–the spoken language), both quite miraculously carry the same visceral, jaw-dropping sucker-punches as the other. Unlike the much-derided American remakes of "The Vanishing" and "Les Diaboliques," Haneke sees no need to let either culture off the hook, especially when each has its own prominent history of violence, on- and off-camera.Ironically, the references to metalhead couch potatoes Beavis and Butt-Head probably seemed like an incendiary bitch-slap to the passive glamorization of American filmed violence in the 1997 version, but there is an even stronger sense of irony when the MTV-hosted duo are referenced in the remake–on the shores that birthed them, and the cult following of Generation Y-ers that has accumulated in the years since the show's cancellation (a sure sign that our passivity, if anything, is more pronounced now). It's subtle observations like this that give both versions of "Funny Games" an added resonance.If anything takes some getting used to in the 1997 film, it's the general unfamiliarity of the cast. After seeing a collection of familiar performers run through Haneke's horrifying 2008 experiment, the German cast begins with a studied approach to the performances that eventually loosens into hysteria and desperation that is just as convincing as their remake counterparts. It is truly stunning how Haneke mines the same static framing and intense performances to ends that are equally effective in both films (even knowing the outcome of a protracted long take following a pivotal off-screen event, I found the experience just as emotionally agonizing to witness).While it may seem hypocritical to "side" with Haneke (at least in the context his film creates), especially when I patronize (and am prone to enjoying) films that frequently downplay the reality of human suffering, the effect in both versions of "Funny Games" is undeniably powerful–these are difficult, ugly, and emotionally draining films crafted with undeniable (and remarkably subtle) purpose. If there's any catharsis to be had from them, it will be in the introspection and assessment of your own attitudes toward violence.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-250

ur1193248

title: Suffering? You ain't seen nothing yet... review: I watched this year's remake of "Funny Games" prior to the original, simply because its sick-with-irony trailer got me extremely curious. Granted, this goes against my usual process of viewing a remake's precursor prior to the remake itself, but I couldn't help myself. By the end, I was astonished by writer-director Michael Haneke's audacity in telling a macabre home-invasion story devoid of Hollywood glamour, humor, and mercy–remake or no, it's still one of the ballsiest exercises in visceral, reality-based horror ever released by a major studio.So, when I decided to give the original "Funny Games" a spin (mere days after my viewing of American version), I was filled with presupposition toward how much I would appreciate the original (with the twists of Haneke's shot-for-shot remake still mapped out in my mind)–similar to a sadistic "bet" our captors make with their prey, I was wondering if this earlier, German-language version would survive on its own terms. And, while each version is practically identical (save for some subtle nuances in the performances, the slightly varied location design, and–of course–the spoken language), both quite miraculously carry the same visceral, jaw-dropping sucker-punches as the other. Unlike the much-derided American remakes of "The Vanishing" and "Les Diaboliques," Haneke sees no need to let either culture off the hook, especially when each has its own prominent history of violence, on- and off-camera.Ironically, the references to metalhead couch potatoes Beavis and Butt-Head probably seemed like an incendiary bitch-slap to the passive glamorization of American filmed violence in the 1997 version, but there is an even stronger sense of irony when the MTV-hosted duo are referenced in the remake–on the shores that birthed them, and the cult following of Generation Y-ers that has accumulated in the years since the show's cancellation (a sure sign that our passivity, if anything, is more pronounced now). It's subtle observations like this that give both versions of "Funny Games" an added resonance.If anything takes some getting used to in the 1997 film, it's the general unfamiliarity of the cast. After seeing a collection of familiar performers run through Haneke's horrifying 2008 experiment, the German cast begins with a studied approach to the performances that eventually loosens into hysteria and desperation that is just as convincing as their remake counterparts. It is truly stunning how Haneke mines the same static framing and intense performances to ends that are equally effective in both films (even knowing the outcome of a protracted long take following a pivotal off-screen event, I found the experience just as emotionally agonizing to witness).While it may seem hypocritical to "side" with Haneke (at least in the context his film creates), especially when I patronize (and am prone to enjoying) films that frequently downplay the reality of human suffering, the effect in both versions of "Funny Games" is undeniably powerful–these are difficult, ugly, and emotionally draining films crafted with undeniable (and remarkably subtle) purpose. If there's any catharsis to be had from them, it will be in the introspection and assessment of your own attitudes toward violence.

Have Fun

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Two seemingly well-educated young men, who call each other Paul and Peter among other names, approach a family on vacation. They are, apparently, friends of the neighbors, and, at the beginning, their true intentions are not known. But soon, the family is imprisoned and tortured in its own house violently, which the viewers are forced mostly to imagine and to share a certain complicity with the criminals. It might be some kind of game with the lives of husband, wife, son, and dog, but why are they doing it?I'm perfectly fine with a movie where the goodies is against the baddies. I'm perfectly fine that the film breaks a fourth wall. I'm perfectly fine that the baddies have no motivation to play "games" with the goodies. I'm not perfectly fine that the film is trying to be unfair.Throughout the film, the baddies have the upper hand. You must know that before watching the movie. It's like the director wants the baddies to win. Okay, the movie starts off well. It gets your attention. The second act comes and you're completely surrounded by suspense!Then...when it reaches about an hour and twenty minutes, the film goes downhill. You see the point in the film: The audience will not get what they want. This is not your average goodies vs. baddies film. I've told you the baddies have the upper hand. It's just that the film is not fair that makes the film go downhill.The fact some horror movies are and are not good is not because the baddies win or the goodies win. It's how the movie is shown. In almost every baddie vs. goodie, no matter who wins, they both have a fair chance to win; like 1 vs. 1. This film presents a new plot point: 1 vs. 1000. 1 being the goodie and 1000 being the baddies. I may be exaggerating but you get my point. I would rather have the movie have clichés than making the movie unfair.With great performances, good satire laughs, and a disappointing last thirty minutes, the movie is bad. There's no point to the film at all. The audience gets no rewards at the end. From that moment the credits roll, you'll be thinking, "Is this a joke?" A cop out, you may say OR just completely unfair.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-227

ur8334868

title: Have Fun review: Two seemingly well-educated young men, who call each other Paul and Peter among other names, approach a family on vacation. They are, apparently, friends of the neighbors, and, at the beginning, their true intentions are not known. But soon, the family is imprisoned and tortured in its own house violently, which the viewers are forced mostly to imagine and to share a certain complicity with the criminals. It might be some kind of game with the lives of husband, wife, son, and dog, but why are they doing it?I'm perfectly fine with a movie where the goodies is against the baddies. I'm perfectly fine that the film breaks a fourth wall. I'm perfectly fine that the baddies have no motivation to play "games" with the goodies. I'm not perfectly fine that the film is trying to be unfair.Throughout the film, the baddies have the upper hand. You must know that before watching the movie. It's like the director wants the baddies to win. Okay, the movie starts off well. It gets your attention. The second act comes and you're completely surrounded by suspense!Then...when it reaches about an hour and twenty minutes, the film goes downhill. You see the point in the film: The audience will not get what they want. This is not your average goodies vs. baddies film. I've told you the baddies have the upper hand. It's just that the film is not fair that makes the film go downhill.The fact some horror movies are and are not good is not because the baddies win or the goodies win. It's how the movie is shown. In almost every baddie vs. goodie, no matter who wins, they both have a fair chance to win; like 1 vs. 1. This film presents a new plot point: 1 vs. 1000. 1 being the goodie and 1000 being the baddies. I may be exaggerating but you get my point. I would rather have the movie have clichés than making the movie unfair.With great performances, good satire laughs, and a disappointing last thirty minutes, the movie is bad. There's no point to the film at all. The audience gets no rewards at the end. From that moment the credits roll, you'll be thinking, "Is this a joke?" A cop out, you may say OR just completely unfair.

George: Why are you doing this to us? Paul: Why not?

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Watching "Funny Games" (1997) directed by Michael Haneke for the first time was an unforgettable visceral experience. It was the horror that really scared, devastated, and stayed with me long after the final scene was over. I can't easily recall another movie that made me go through the same emotions as the innocent victims in the movie did, to feel the same helplessness, hopelessness, despair, humiliation, and horror. I could not stop thinking of how illusory and fragile nature of happiness and safety is and how easy it is to shatter and destroy them. Is it a blessing or curse not to know what lies ahead and not be able to change the future? It's been several years since I saw the film but it still makes me shiver just to think about it."Funny Games" can be first mistaken for yet another conventional thriller where the good guys always win in the end and the evil is punished. Wrong, not by Haneke. He shocks you, he hits you in the gut, and then, he shocks you again. Haneke's is a true horror for his monsters don't look like the creatures from hell. No, "they are among us", they are nice and polite, well read, shy and ironic, they have the names from the new Testament, Paul and Peter, they talk with the soft refined voices but they are monsters nevertheless who have no regard for a human life and who want to play their sadistic funny games to the extreme."Funny Games" is a controversial film and I've read many reviews and comments that call it "a failure", accusing the film and its creator of not having said anything new or original on the connected subjects of violence, the media, and voyeuristic audience. It may not be a new or original subject Haneke dissects in his film but how he did it, his matter-of fact approach to the material and the seemingly unemotional manner affected me deeply, and I don't think I would ever forget this film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-220

ur1098460

title: George: Why are you doing this to us? Paul: Why not? review: Watching "Funny Games" (1997) directed by Michael Haneke for the first time was an unforgettable visceral experience. It was the horror that really scared, devastated, and stayed with me long after the final scene was over. I can't easily recall another movie that made me go through the same emotions as the innocent victims in the movie did, to feel the same helplessness, hopelessness, despair, humiliation, and horror. I could not stop thinking of how illusory and fragile nature of happiness and safety is and how easy it is to shatter and destroy them. Is it a blessing or curse not to know what lies ahead and not be able to change the future? It's been several years since I saw the film but it still makes me shiver just to think about it."Funny Games" can be first mistaken for yet another conventional thriller where the good guys always win in the end and the evil is punished. Wrong, not by Haneke. He shocks you, he hits you in the gut, and then, he shocks you again. Haneke's is a true horror for his monsters don't look like the creatures from hell. No, "they are among us", they are nice and polite, well read, shy and ironic, they have the names from the new Testament, Paul and Peter, they talk with the soft refined voices but they are monsters nevertheless who have no regard for a human life and who want to play their sadistic funny games to the extreme."Funny Games" is a controversial film and I've read many reviews and comments that call it "a failure", accusing the film and its creator of not having said anything new or original on the connected subjects of violence, the media, and voyeuristic audience. It may not be a new or original subject Haneke dissects in his film but how he did it, his matter-of fact approach to the material and the seemingly unemotional manner affected me deeply, and I don't think I would ever forget this film.

The moral of the story is: Don't let ANYONE borrow your eggs!

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I actually saw the remake of Funny Games first, as it was on Film4 and obviously they're going to show the American one with A-list actors because who's going to want to see a load of nobody's whilst reading? You may as well find yourself a nice book! Of course if you can't tell I'm being sarcastic for I love foreign films. However, I fail to see why people have such strong feelings against the remake because it is shot-for-shot and line-for-line the same, and you can't go saying that it's a rip-off because Michael Haneke wrote and directed both versions of the film himself. I'm guessing he saw Funny Games as an important film (which it most definitely is!) and so decided to remake it for a slightly lazier English-speaking audience. It's certainly better than dubbing!Anyway I finally decided to buy the original as the remake is one of my favourites any way and I might say that I found the original slightly better, just for the pure fact that it's unknown actors in the roles (maybe apart from Ulriche, because I've seen him in a few things) which makes everyone seem quite ordinary, thus adding to the already stark realism. I also think that Naomi Watts is too attractive to be playing the ordinary mother. Also, this version fells slightly grittier because of the older cameras. None of this HD lark in our day kids! (I don't know why I'm saying that, I'm only 18 myself!) Despite all these differences the content and directing is exactly the same which is the most important part by far!It took me a while to actually understand the message of Funny Games when I first saw it (I was probably way too young!) but now I can appreciate it's clear and important message on violence in the media, and why we want to watch it. There's a great moment of profound realism when the camera doesn't move, and the actors barely move for what feels like 10 minutes! You suddenly realise that is watching a couple suffer like this really entertainment? It's certainly hard-hitting and extremely brave. Funny Games almost feels like a simulated home invasion film. It makes you think that this could be you, and it's a terrifying thought.The introduction to our two psychopaths is an oddly compelling one. I say oddly because it starts with a conversation about borrowing some eggs and for some reason it's a really compelling scene. The camera barely moves so you feel yourself becoming slowly immersed into the story and you know that something is going to escalate soon, and it does, spectacularly. The psychopathic duo (Peter and Paul or Tom and Jerry or Beavis and Butthead as they're called throughout the film) are supremely chilling due to their lack of empathy. They're also very polite, making them quite different to your average killers. It's later revealed that, through that wonderful technique of breaking the fourth wall, they're terrorising this family for our entertainment. How postmodern I hear you say! Bodger's probably having a postmodern attack right this second!Things unfold in a gripping manner. Whilst some shots may feel like they're going on for too long, that is also the beauty of the film, as it makes it feel so real and involving. At times it feels like a live stream of Big Brother without the birds tweeting in the background! It's very disturbing, and succeeds in being disturbing with very little use of on-screen violence. Funny Games is wildly unpredictable as it breaks all the conventions of a home invasion film so you really have no idea what's going to happen next. The film ends so suddenly and is actually very upsetting to behold. It's also full of suspense and has some seriously thrilling moments.It's clear from the opening titles that this is going to be no ordinary film as we hear such high-culture opera in the very middle-class car which then gets marred with some screaming death metal music. It's creepy, yet humorous at the same time. Funny Games possesses such immense power and it's an experience you're unlikely to forget. However if you're inexperienced with this type of genre then you may be in for a shock. I still find this film shocking despite having seen such home invasion shockers such as Inside and Mother's Day. Nevertheless it's an extremely important film, and one which I'd recommend.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-317

ur25364506

title: The moral of the story is: Don't let ANYONE borrow your eggs! review: I actually saw the remake of Funny Games first, as it was on Film4 and obviously they're going to show the American one with A-list actors because who's going to want to see a load of nobody's whilst reading? You may as well find yourself a nice book! Of course if you can't tell I'm being sarcastic for I love foreign films. However, I fail to see why people have such strong feelings against the remake because it is shot-for-shot and line-for-line the same, and you can't go saying that it's a rip-off because Michael Haneke wrote and directed both versions of the film himself. I'm guessing he saw Funny Games as an important film (which it most definitely is!) and so decided to remake it for a slightly lazier English-speaking audience. It's certainly better than dubbing!Anyway I finally decided to buy the original as the remake is one of my favourites any way and I might say that I found the original slightly better, just for the pure fact that it's unknown actors in the roles (maybe apart from Ulriche, because I've seen him in a few things) which makes everyone seem quite ordinary, thus adding to the already stark realism. I also think that Naomi Watts is too attractive to be playing the ordinary mother. Also, this version fells slightly grittier because of the older cameras. None of this HD lark in our day kids! (I don't know why I'm saying that, I'm only 18 myself!) Despite all these differences the content and directing is exactly the same which is the most important part by far!It took me a while to actually understand the message of Funny Games when I first saw it (I was probably way too young!) but now I can appreciate it's clear and important message on violence in the media, and why we want to watch it. There's a great moment of profound realism when the camera doesn't move, and the actors barely move for what feels like 10 minutes! You suddenly realise that is watching a couple suffer like this really entertainment? It's certainly hard-hitting and extremely brave. Funny Games almost feels like a simulated home invasion film. It makes you think that this could be you, and it's a terrifying thought.The introduction to our two psychopaths is an oddly compelling one. I say oddly because it starts with a conversation about borrowing some eggs and for some reason it's a really compelling scene. The camera barely moves so you feel yourself becoming slowly immersed into the story and you know that something is going to escalate soon, and it does, spectacularly. The psychopathic duo (Peter and Paul or Tom and Jerry or Beavis and Butthead as they're called throughout the film) are supremely chilling due to their lack of empathy. They're also very polite, making them quite different to your average killers. It's later revealed that, through that wonderful technique of breaking the fourth wall, they're terrorising this family for our entertainment. How postmodern I hear you say! Bodger's probably having a postmodern attack right this second!Things unfold in a gripping manner. Whilst some shots may feel like they're going on for too long, that is also the beauty of the film, as it makes it feel so real and involving. At times it feels like a live stream of Big Brother without the birds tweeting in the background! It's very disturbing, and succeeds in being disturbing with very little use of on-screen violence. Funny Games is wildly unpredictable as it breaks all the conventions of a home invasion film so you really have no idea what's going to happen next. The film ends so suddenly and is actually very upsetting to behold. It's also full of suspense and has some seriously thrilling moments.It's clear from the opening titles that this is going to be no ordinary film as we hear such high-culture opera in the very middle-class car which then gets marred with some screaming death metal music. It's creepy, yet humorous at the same time. Funny Games possesses such immense power and it's an experience you're unlikely to forget. However if you're inexperienced with this type of genre then you may be in for a shock. I still find this film shocking despite having seen such home invasion shockers such as Inside and Mother's Day. Nevertheless it's an extremely important film, and one which I'd recommend.

Why are you doing this? Why not?

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There was a point in the film where one of the perpetrators turns not to the victims, but to us, those that are watching the film, as asks us if we feel they have a chance of winning a bet on their lives. It is clear that we are part of the film. In what way? Maybe we have become so used to violence that it is a game - a funny game - to us. Maybe we need to be reminded that real people are involved in violence. It is not a game.I have already seen the 2007 version of this film. It is exactly the same script, just different actors. Somehow, it seems more real here in the original German.It will definitely make you think.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119167/reviews-277

ur2171244

title: Why are you doing this? Why not? review: There was a point in the film where one of the perpetrators turns not to the victims, but to us, those that are watching the film, as asks us if we feel they have a chance of winning a bet on their lives. It is clear that we are part of the film. In what way? Maybe we have become so used to violence that it is a game - a funny game - to us. Maybe we need to be reminded that real people are involved in violence. It is not a game.I have already seen the 2007 version of this film. It is exactly the same script, just different actors. Somehow, it seems more real here in the original German.It will definitely make you think.

Christopher Guest Loses His Touch

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Christopher Guest and his ad-libbing ensemble take aim at folk music in this mockumentary about a folk music festival."Best in Show" was a diluted and less funny product of the same formula that made "Waiting for Guffman" such a comedy classic, and "A Mighty Wind" dilutes the formula even more. There's not much to remember about this film other than the Academy Award-nominated song "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow," a lovely little tune sung in the film by Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, a married folk act who have found themselves drifting apart from each other over the years. The storyline might have had some real dramatic potential, but it's buried underneath all of the other narrative threads and Guest's determination to keep his film glib and inconsequential.Grade: C

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310281/reviews-273

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title: Christopher Guest Loses His Touch review: Christopher Guest and his ad-libbing ensemble take aim at folk music in this mockumentary about a folk music festival."Best in Show" was a diluted and less funny product of the same formula that made "Waiting for Guffman" such a comedy classic, and "A Mighty Wind" dilutes the formula even more. There's not much to remember about this film other than the Academy Award-nominated song "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow," a lovely little tune sung in the film by Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, a married folk act who have found themselves drifting apart from each other over the years. The storyline might have had some real dramatic potential, but it's buried underneath all of the other narrative threads and Guest's determination to keep his film glib and inconsequential.Grade: C

Improvising Never Looked So Real

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What "Best in Show" and "Waiting for Guffman" contrasts from other ensemble comedies is that the directors give the stars the liberty to improvise their lines and let them express their interpretations of the situations they face in their respected scenes. Very few directors have the bravery to perform such a task, but director/performer Christopher Guest manages to do that and succeeds. This gives these top comic stars the opportunity to just let their comedic juices flow naturally."A Mighty Wind" differs from the other two aforementioned is that instead of being focusing on an ensemble cast, it predominately concentrates on two characters, folk singers Mitch (Eugene Levy) and Mickey (Catherine O'Hara). The storyline is pretty easy to follow. A group of folk singers from the 1960's get together again for a concert credited by their creator Irving Steinbloom. The main attraction are Mitch and Mickey, who were once a singing but it ended in an ugly break-up. Mickey moved on to marry the legendary Leonard Crabbe (Jim Piddock), while Mitch unfortunately hit rock bottom.Overall the cast of talented performers naturally throw themselves into their roles. Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge, Spinal Tap alums Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Guest himself are all effective in their performances. But it was Levy and O'Hara that stole our hearts and it was a shame they were rejected winning Oscars because they went over the limit in providing comedy and giving a lifelong lesson that settling their differences won't be solved by having an affair. There's no gregarious sex scene or any cheesy serenading from a bedroom window or something like that. Nothing forced comes out of these characters as they express their passion through subtle methods like body language and facial emotions. This is a romantic comedy with such amazing chemistry it'll melt your heart like a hot knife through butter. But one could argue that Eugene and Catherine have known each other when they first broke into entertainment over 35 years ago when they were alums on the popular Canadian sketch comedy "SCTV". The real flaw in this movie that with so many stars in such little time, so many of the stars have very little to do, that their roles are underused. The scene where Mitch and Mickey kiss may not appeal to many, but I really thought it was one of the more pivotal scenes in the movie. It was so touching and may even put you in tears. Of course for the music lovers of all genres, the singing was very entertaining. This talent pool can do it all and all so poignantly. The humor is not over-the-top zany like in other Guest films. Instead we have a romantic comedy/musical about two poor souls trying to work their problems out.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310281/reviews-272

ur12327230

title: Improvising Never Looked So Real review: What "Best in Show" and "Waiting for Guffman" contrasts from other ensemble comedies is that the directors give the stars the liberty to improvise their lines and let them express their interpretations of the situations they face in their respected scenes. Very few directors have the bravery to perform such a task, but director/performer Christopher Guest manages to do that and succeeds. This gives these top comic stars the opportunity to just let their comedic juices flow naturally."A Mighty Wind" differs from the other two aforementioned is that instead of being focusing on an ensemble cast, it predominately concentrates on two characters, folk singers Mitch (Eugene Levy) and Mickey (Catherine O'Hara). The storyline is pretty easy to follow. A group of folk singers from the 1960's get together again for a concert credited by their creator Irving Steinbloom. The main attraction are Mitch and Mickey, who were once a singing but it ended in an ugly break-up. Mickey moved on to marry the legendary Leonard Crabbe (Jim Piddock), while Mitch unfortunately hit rock bottom.Overall the cast of talented performers naturally throw themselves into their roles. Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge, Spinal Tap alums Harry Shearer, Michael McKean and Guest himself are all effective in their performances. But it was Levy and O'Hara that stole our hearts and it was a shame they were rejected winning Oscars because they went over the limit in providing comedy and giving a lifelong lesson that settling their differences won't be solved by having an affair. There's no gregarious sex scene or any cheesy serenading from a bedroom window or something like that. Nothing forced comes out of these characters as they express their passion through subtle methods like body language and facial emotions. This is a romantic comedy with such amazing chemistry it'll melt your heart like a hot knife through butter. But one could argue that Eugene and Catherine have known each other when they first broke into entertainment over 35 years ago when they were alums on the popular Canadian sketch comedy "SCTV". The real flaw in this movie that with so many stars in such little time, so many of the stars have very little to do, that their roles are underused. The scene where Mitch and Mickey kiss may not appeal to many, but I really thought it was one of the more pivotal scenes in the movie. It was so touching and may even put you in tears. Of course for the music lovers of all genres, the singing was very entertaining. This talent pool can do it all and all so poignantly. The humor is not over-the-top zany like in other Guest films. Instead we have a romantic comedy/musical about two poor souls trying to work their problems out.

A Fascinating Fusion of Folk Music and Mockumentary

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The music is captivating, the acting ingenious with the fictional documentary format usually presented is such powerful and insightful ways that highlight an underlying emotional theme, and the amazing scene ending performance that revolves around the possibility of a kiss. The weakness or possible blemish of this movie that detracts from a classic status is the uneasy tone of this movie that waivers between realism as perhaps best depicted in a movie such as UNREAL: THE OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF STARTING OVER (2004) or the much more consistent and funny parody presented in SOAPDISH (1991). There are brief scenes, attempts that like live, comedy club acts, there are scenes that are really touching, dramatic, and mildly funny and then there are over-the-top, overly acted attempts at comedy that seem to fall flat. Overall, this is an entertaining, bold effort that carries the evening, but it is not without its unnecessary blemishes.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310281/reviews-276

ur0972645

title: A Fascinating Fusion of Folk Music and Mockumentary review: The music is captivating, the acting ingenious with the fictional documentary format usually presented is such powerful and insightful ways that highlight an underlying emotional theme, and the amazing scene ending performance that revolves around the possibility of a kiss. The weakness or possible blemish of this movie that detracts from a classic status is the uneasy tone of this movie that waivers between realism as perhaps best depicted in a movie such as UNREAL: THE OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF STARTING OVER (2004) or the much more consistent and funny parody presented in SOAPDISH (1991). There are brief scenes, attempts that like live, comedy club acts, there are scenes that are really touching, dramatic, and mildly funny and then there are over-the-top, overly acted attempts at comedy that seem to fall flat. Overall, this is an entertaining, bold effort that carries the evening, but it is not without its unnecessary blemishes.

Jolly, affectionate and often surreal folk satire

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An easy-going and pleasant comedy. Folk music isn't so much the target of Guest/Levy's satire as the documentary form (I felt The Last Waltz well and truly lampooned here). I also like the discreet way in which the passing of time from the folk heyday is marked. Sex is a licit topic of open discussion for many of the protagonists, though it seems odd or clunky to modern characters' sensibility. There's also a wonderful written set piece in which the term "nowtro" replaces retro (don't ask, just watch).That said, I felt that the film was probably a bit underwritten, relying on the technical aptitude of the cast (which is assured). Either the manner in which characters behave towards one another is based on their histories - in which case there's not quite enough backstory - or the idea is to create vignettes of artistic caprice based soley in the present, in which case it felt undercooked.Nonetheless, and in no small measure to a beautifully composed and performed digetic soundtrack, the film is celebratory. An easily overlooked wholesomeness to 60s American music history is well-honoured. 5/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310281/reviews-269

ur2206551

title: Jolly, affectionate and often surreal folk satire review: An easy-going and pleasant comedy. Folk music isn't so much the target of Guest/Levy's satire as the documentary form (I felt The Last Waltz well and truly lampooned here). I also like the discreet way in which the passing of time from the folk heyday is marked. Sex is a licit topic of open discussion for many of the protagonists, though it seems odd or clunky to modern characters' sensibility. There's also a wonderful written set piece in which the term "nowtro" replaces retro (don't ask, just watch).That said, I felt that the film was probably a bit underwritten, relying on the technical aptitude of the cast (which is assured). Either the manner in which characters behave towards one another is based on their histories - in which case there's not quite enough backstory - or the idea is to create vignettes of artistic caprice based soley in the present, in which case it felt undercooked.Nonetheless, and in no small measure to a beautifully composed and performed digetic soundtrack, the film is celebratory. An easily overlooked wholesomeness to 60s American music history is well-honoured. 5/10

Meet the Folkers!

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`A Mighty Wind' is not based on irritable bowel syndrome disorders. That story is based in a galaxy very `fart, fart' away. `A Mighty Wind' is mockumentary guru Christopher Guest's latest effort. The film mocks the corny, but yet, heartfelt world of folk singers. What the `folk' would guest invite himself to mimic such a ludicrous musical profession? Because guest has the creativity, goofiness, and intellect to just about mock anything he chooses. The folk characters in `a mighty wind' include: Mitch & Mickey, The Folksmen, and The New Main Street Singers. And yes folks! They are wacky folkpeople! Guest included his usual improvisational master posse of actors: Eugene Levy, Catherine O' Hara, Parker Posey, Ed Begley, Micheal Mckean, Harry Shearer, Fred Willard, Bob Balaban, John Michael Higgins, and of course Guest himself. Most notably, Levy levies up his unique talent once again with his boisterously entertaining performance as Mitch. Willard also continues his will to be a mighty funnymen with successful results. However, I must state that `A Mighty Wind' did blow it at times. Guest flocks around too much with the finale concert instead of `folkusing' more on these folk characters. Nevertheless, `A Mighty Wind' is a recommended viewing. Don't be a `mother folker'! Check it out! That's all folks!!!! *** Average

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310281/reviews-213

ur0489763

title: Meet the Folkers! review: `A Mighty Wind' is not based on irritable bowel syndrome disorders. That story is based in a galaxy very `fart, fart' away. `A Mighty Wind' is mockumentary guru Christopher Guest's latest effort. The film mocks the corny, but yet, heartfelt world of folk singers. What the `folk' would guest invite himself to mimic such a ludicrous musical profession? Because guest has the creativity, goofiness, and intellect to just about mock anything he chooses. The folk characters in `a mighty wind' include: Mitch & Mickey, The Folksmen, and The New Main Street Singers. And yes folks! They are wacky folkpeople! Guest included his usual improvisational master posse of actors: Eugene Levy, Catherine O' Hara, Parker Posey, Ed Begley, Micheal Mckean, Harry Shearer, Fred Willard, Bob Balaban, John Michael Higgins, and of course Guest himself. Most notably, Levy levies up his unique talent once again with his boisterously entertaining performance as Mitch. Willard also continues his will to be a mighty funnymen with successful results. However, I must state that `A Mighty Wind' did blow it at times. Guest flocks around too much with the finale concert instead of `folkusing' more on these folk characters. Nevertheless, `A Mighty Wind' is a recommended viewing. Don't be a `mother folker'! Check it out! That's all folks!!!! *** Average

The comedy is a bit too sincere, but the songs will make you cheer

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Christopher Guest is one of the most versatile filmmakers working today; when he and Eugene Levy work on a script, the end result is usually something special. And continuing with a collaboration that began with "Waiting for Guffman," we now have "A Mighty Wind"...a mockumentary about a folk-music revival that is simply too sincere for its own good. That's not to say it isn't funny in spurts--Levy's 1960s folk-music casualty, Ed Begley Jr.'s random bursts of Yiddish, and Fred Willard's hilariously lame band manager--but it ultimately comes up short in the comedy department, to the point where you're left wondering if Guest just wanted to make a fake documentary about the folk revival out of respect. Indeed, Guest's reliable troupe of comedic players (including Levy, Catherine O'Hara, John Michael Higgins, Michael McKean, Jane Lynch, and Harry Shearer, among others) are in top form, but their lines seldom produce the hearty laughs we've come to expect, and the characters are too hastily introduced (the film is limited by its 90-minute run time; Guest's work would actually be better translated to a fake-reality TV series). This, however, is forgivable, since all of them sing well enough to produce an incredibly rousing (and applause-worthy) finale, where all the musicians participate in a public-television tribute to honor their recently-deceased former manager. While no "Spinal Tap," "A Mighty Wind" has its worthwhile moments (it's just a shame there aren't more of them).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310281/reviews-257

ur1193248

title: The comedy is a bit too sincere, but the songs will make you cheer review: Christopher Guest is one of the most versatile filmmakers working today; when he and Eugene Levy work on a script, the end result is usually something special. And continuing with a collaboration that began with "Waiting for Guffman," we now have "A Mighty Wind"...a mockumentary about a folk-music revival that is simply too sincere for its own good. That's not to say it isn't funny in spurts--Levy's 1960s folk-music casualty, Ed Begley Jr.'s random bursts of Yiddish, and Fred Willard's hilariously lame band manager--but it ultimately comes up short in the comedy department, to the point where you're left wondering if Guest just wanted to make a fake documentary about the folk revival out of respect. Indeed, Guest's reliable troupe of comedic players (including Levy, Catherine O'Hara, John Michael Higgins, Michael McKean, Jane Lynch, and Harry Shearer, among others) are in top form, but their lines seldom produce the hearty laughs we've come to expect, and the characters are too hastily introduced (the film is limited by its 90-minute run time; Guest's work would actually be better translated to a fake-reality TV series). This, however, is forgivable, since all of them sing well enough to produce an incredibly rousing (and applause-worthy) finale, where all the musicians participate in a public-television tribute to honor their recently-deceased former manager. While no "Spinal Tap," "A Mighty Wind" has its worthwhile moments (it's just a shame there aren't more of them).

Funny, But Endearing!

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I haven't seen any of Christopher Guest's films prior to this film A Mighty Wind, but I've heard many good things about them. They seem to be mean-spirited, but often hilarious. After watching A Mighty Wind, I concluded that this film is less funny than I thought it would be (it still is funny), but how it wasn't mean and it treated it's subject with some respect. But as this is still a mockumentary, it still pokes fun at everything. There is also some good folk music to go along and there is actually good tunes worth listening to.Christopher Guest's film is about how after a longtime music producer passes away, three folk groups from the 1960's reunite to perform a concert to memorialize the man who got these bands famous.The acting is pretty good and it seems like the cast made their characters more personal, which added depth to the story. Christopher Guest does a good job as a member of the Folksmen as well as Michael McKean and Harry Shearer. Catherine O'Hara does a solid job as Mickey but Eugene Levy truly shines as Mitch and he reminds me of the aging rock star who is always high or on drugs. Finally, Fred Willard is hilarious as the manager of the Main Street singers especially when he goes out spurting his catchphrases.Overall, A Mighty Wind is a solid mockumentary that is mostly funny, but surprisingly heart-warming. It has many good tunes to listen to as this film celebrates the life of folk music. The film seems a little odd at times, but that is because it has a strange sense of humor. But as this film likes to point out, the answer is always blowin' in the wind. I rate this movie 8/10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310281/reviews-284

ur17646017

title: Funny, But Endearing! review: I haven't seen any of Christopher Guest's films prior to this film A Mighty Wind, but I've heard many good things about them. They seem to be mean-spirited, but often hilarious. After watching A Mighty Wind, I concluded that this film is less funny than I thought it would be (it still is funny), but how it wasn't mean and it treated it's subject with some respect. But as this is still a mockumentary, it still pokes fun at everything. There is also some good folk music to go along and there is actually good tunes worth listening to.Christopher Guest's film is about how after a longtime music producer passes away, three folk groups from the 1960's reunite to perform a concert to memorialize the man who got these bands famous.The acting is pretty good and it seems like the cast made their characters more personal, which added depth to the story. Christopher Guest does a good job as a member of the Folksmen as well as Michael McKean and Harry Shearer. Catherine O'Hara does a solid job as Mickey but Eugene Levy truly shines as Mitch and he reminds me of the aging rock star who is always high or on drugs. Finally, Fred Willard is hilarious as the manager of the Main Street singers especially when he goes out spurting his catchphrases.Overall, A Mighty Wind is a solid mockumentary that is mostly funny, but surprisingly heart-warming. It has many good tunes to listen to as this film celebrates the life of folk music. The film seems a little odd at times, but that is because it has a strange sense of humor. But as this film likes to point out, the answer is always blowin' in the wind. I rate this movie 8/10.

Dry, Subtle, Ad-Libbed Comedy With a Big Heart

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Christopher Guest and company tackle the super-cheesy folk music scene of the '60s in their own unmistakable way. While its status among Guest's other pictures could be debated, I don't think there's any question it's his most complete effort. Tremendously funny at points, it also tells a straight, coherent story and ties in a stunning successful emotional hook. The laughs aren't quite as loud or as rapid-fire as they were in Spinal Tap; however, the tone also isn't nearly as flippant, which is a major reason why it's able to settle down and deliver something truly sweet at the climax. Of course, the original music is once again outstanding, with lyrics that are more subtly funny and not nearly as brazen, and is spectacularly performed by the cast of ad-lib legends. It's an ensemble piece in every definition of the word, with the mockumentary style of the first sixty minutes providing more than enough background to emotionally invest its audience for the grand finale in Town Hall. Effectively funny and heartwarming in even doses, A Mighty Wind is a great continuation of the troupe's legacy.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310281/reviews-278

ur26266323

title: Dry, Subtle, Ad-Libbed Comedy With a Big Heart review: Christopher Guest and company tackle the super-cheesy folk music scene of the '60s in their own unmistakable way. While its status among Guest's other pictures could be debated, I don't think there's any question it's his most complete effort. Tremendously funny at points, it also tells a straight, coherent story and ties in a stunning successful emotional hook. The laughs aren't quite as loud or as rapid-fire as they were in Spinal Tap; however, the tone also isn't nearly as flippant, which is a major reason why it's able to settle down and deliver something truly sweet at the climax. Of course, the original music is once again outstanding, with lyrics that are more subtly funny and not nearly as brazen, and is spectacularly performed by the cast of ad-lib legends. It's an ensemble piece in every definition of the word, with the mockumentary style of the first sixty minutes providing more than enough background to emotionally invest its audience for the grand finale in Town Hall. Effectively funny and heartwarming in even doses, A Mighty Wind is a great continuation of the troupe's legacy.

watchable misfire

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There are two substantial problems with this film, neither making it unwatchable, although I confess they did make me feel uncomfortable. The first is that director Guest cannot capture any of the various "documentary" camera styles widely known with the necessary degree of accuracy; this isn't cinema verite, nor do we get successful sequences of talking heads. Even the concert scenes fail to emulate concert documentaries. Visually, then, we are always reminded that we are not watching a documentary but a mockumentary - we can't really allow ourselves the 'willing suspension of disbelief' such a satire requires from us. This problem is exasperated by some of the actors' performances who are trying way too hard to be funny, rather than play straight and let the ridiculous situations call out laughter.The second problem is more troubling; the music is too good! Most of these songs are not "mock folk music," they ARE '60s style folk songs. Take even the title track: "A Mighty Wind" as a title is amusing in that it evokes flatulence; but by the time you get to such lyrics "a mighty wind of freedom/ blowing for you and me" you wonder where the joke is? That is after all exactly what many folkies thought was going on in the '60s, which makes the song dynamically expressive of that era.Comparisons with "This is Spinal Tap" are of course unavoidable. The songs of "Spinal Tap" came to within a hair's breadth of real heavy metal, but push comes to shove, most real heavy metal songs escape their own pretentiousness by 'rocking out,' they are, bottom line, just variant forms of traditional rock songs; Spinal Tap, to make their point and remain funny, kept their pretentiousness meter pushed to 11.Another issue in comparison indicates where "Mighty Wind" goes wrong. Both heavy metal and folk music had substantial sub-cultures develop around them. But when "Spinal Tap" was released the heavy metal sub-culture was alive and thriving, about to receive new blood with bands in NYC ad LA. The folk music subculture was dead by 1977; a lot of folkies did end up in business or academia and moved quietly into the suburbs (those refusing this route gathered 'round the Grateful Dead, a phenomenon requiring a whole other movie to explore). Consequently, a "where are they now" satire about folk singers ultimately requires a satire on 'midddle America,' and of course that's really too broad a subject for a film that wants so much to highlight the music involved.In short then, "A Mighty Wind" fails to explore humorously the historical dissonance between where folk musicians came from and where they ended up - a dissonance captured powerfully (with much unintentional irony) in the study of Jerry Garcia's friendship with David Grisman, "Grateful Dawg." It's a dissonance strong enough to have fueled the addiction that killed Garcia; it is a dissonance that still quietly influences our current politics and cultural reference points. And while director Guest clearly tries to stab insightfully into the the heart of this dissonance, he doesn't even scratch the surface; that the Folksmen are last seen playing in the foyer of a casino maybe ironic, but since they are, in the last analysis professional musicians trying to earn a living, the irony is all about the casino, not the musicians. Their talent, and the entertainment value of their songs, remain untouched; it is simply not the '60s anymore.Entertaining, but more for the music than the comedy, which is faint praise indeed.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310281/reviews-271

ur4627372

title: watchable misfire review: There are two substantial problems with this film, neither making it unwatchable, although I confess they did make me feel uncomfortable. The first is that director Guest cannot capture any of the various "documentary" camera styles widely known with the necessary degree of accuracy; this isn't cinema verite, nor do we get successful sequences of talking heads. Even the concert scenes fail to emulate concert documentaries. Visually, then, we are always reminded that we are not watching a documentary but a mockumentary - we can't really allow ourselves the 'willing suspension of disbelief' such a satire requires from us. This problem is exasperated by some of the actors' performances who are trying way too hard to be funny, rather than play straight and let the ridiculous situations call out laughter.The second problem is more troubling; the music is too good! Most of these songs are not "mock folk music," they ARE '60s style folk songs. Take even the title track: "A Mighty Wind" as a title is amusing in that it evokes flatulence; but by the time you get to such lyrics "a mighty wind of freedom/ blowing for you and me" you wonder where the joke is? That is after all exactly what many folkies thought was going on in the '60s, which makes the song dynamically expressive of that era.Comparisons with "This is Spinal Tap" are of course unavoidable. The songs of "Spinal Tap" came to within a hair's breadth of real heavy metal, but push comes to shove, most real heavy metal songs escape their own pretentiousness by 'rocking out,' they are, bottom line, just variant forms of traditional rock songs; Spinal Tap, to make their point and remain funny, kept their pretentiousness meter pushed to 11.Another issue in comparison indicates where "Mighty Wind" goes wrong. Both heavy metal and folk music had substantial sub-cultures develop around them. But when "Spinal Tap" was released the heavy metal sub-culture was alive and thriving, about to receive new blood with bands in NYC ad LA. The folk music subculture was dead by 1977; a lot of folkies did end up in business or academia and moved quietly into the suburbs (those refusing this route gathered 'round the Grateful Dead, a phenomenon requiring a whole other movie to explore). Consequently, a "where are they now" satire about folk singers ultimately requires a satire on 'midddle America,' and of course that's really too broad a subject for a film that wants so much to highlight the music involved.In short then, "A Mighty Wind" fails to explore humorously the historical dissonance between where folk musicians came from and where they ended up - a dissonance captured powerfully (with much unintentional irony) in the study of Jerry Garcia's friendship with David Grisman, "Grateful Dawg." It's a dissonance strong enough to have fueled the addiction that killed Garcia; it is a dissonance that still quietly influences our current politics and cultural reference points. And while director Guest clearly tries to stab insightfully into the the heart of this dissonance, he doesn't even scratch the surface; that the Folksmen are last seen playing in the foyer of a casino maybe ironic, but since they are, in the last analysis professional musicians trying to earn a living, the irony is all about the casino, not the musicians. Their talent, and the entertainment value of their songs, remain untouched; it is simply not the '60s anymore.Entertaining, but more for the music than the comedy, which is faint praise indeed.

Really clever and challenging film that toys with convention and gender situation.

tt0119164

With The Full Monty, you have a film that entertains; humours; deals with real life issues that were very sensitive to some and also a film that takes clichés and ideas we have about certain archetypes and manipulates them. The Full Monty is really at time a very bizarre although touching look at the crisis' men faced in Northern England at the time of production although the situation was far more serious ten years previous to these events. The film plays with the notion of obligatory scenes, draws us into thinking one thing before surprising us with another and generally makes a mockery out of stereotypes.The film begins with a short series of scenes revolving around the city of Sheffield, a Yorkshire based city. It'll sound silly but I had a hard time in deducing whether or not this was genuine. Certainly the footage seems real but the voice-over was surely a 'mocking' voice; spoofing that upper-class, posh voice-over you used to get dictating the football highlights or informing us over newsreels. If the voice was genuine, why was it not a northern voice of Yorkshires respective area? The manipulation and toying with what's what has only just begun. Then there is the immediate downbeat 'cut' to thirty years later and an empty factory in a drab looking area of the world – surely we are meant to laugh, but in doing so you are laughing at great failure and a heartache of epic proportions since so many people lost so many jobs to do with factories as well as mines.Then again perhaps this newsreel footage early on is a reason why the film did so well in America. At a time when the American cinemas were lapping up 'dark' comedies in Pulp Fiction, Fargo and Go, The Full Monty can certainly be seen as a 'realist' urban drama focusing on respective inhabitants of a certain built up area. Does it matter if it's Los Angles or Las Vegas or Sheffield if the general material is so similar? The reason the newsreel introduction is so perfectly placed is because it informs us of the setting, tells us what things used to be like before hitting us with some dark comic timing – we are informed, entertained and then humoured.Then there is the film's primary theme. The film is about a group of men who, in times of desperation, must scrape the bottom of the barrel in order to get by. In this case, factory workers must 'relegate' themselves to the level of strippers. This idea that one archetype that is the hard bodied, macho steel worker must become a male stripper is just the beginning. Indeed, Gaz (Carlyle) the leader of the gang vents his evident hatred of male strippers very early on in the film labelling them homosexual and generally insulting them to this degree - it is a set up that he will come to regret doing. But the other members of the group act as interesting distractions of humour above anything else. Indeed, when they must dance in front of the male dominated panel during the auditions, the panel must look (or gaze) on in a reluctant homoerotic manner because if they do not, they cannot judge whether the audition is a good enough dancer; if they cannot judge that, they cannot say whether he can make the team and then there's no team which means no job and they're back to square one.So this idea that identity is something we all fabricate is raised here. British films Chariots of Fire showed us males can be track athletes; Brassed Off showed us men can get together and partake in a brass band and in a few years time, Billy Elliot showed us males can be ballerinas. It is just that The Full Monty tells us males can adopt the role of strippers on demand. But it is more than unemployment the protagonist Gaz must go through. He has is domestic issues, his divorce and the possibility of loosing his son – there is a scene in which a social service member asks the son about 'how often does you father take his clothes off in front of you?' Do we laugh at this? Do we feel frustrated that Gaz isn't being allowed to set thing straight? Or do we do both? The film again challenges us to laugh or question how involved we are with the situation, much like the opening newsreel scene. The situation is set up, developed and then shot down again.But the film pays with convention and the obligatory. The training montage is thrust upon us before being unpredictably cancelled again when there is a sudden cutting of the music during a training routine – apparently someone did it wrong again. Then there is the scene in the living room when everyone must bare all for the first time. The door opens and you expect it to be the home owner's wife, but the film's smarter for it to be merely that. Although the best idea the film raises is its gender point if view. When the lads look at a porn magazine, they realise that they themselves will be the object of the gaze when they perform to loads of women but they dismiss this early on – they are male, they're different, right? Wrong, and this realisation I think should be shared by an audience who have been brought up on 'shot, reverse shot' in Hollywood films. The Full Monty challenges, informs but also entertains on several different levels.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-166

ur0855231

title: Really clever and challenging film that toys with convention and gender situation. review: With The Full Monty, you have a film that entertains; humours; deals with real life issues that were very sensitive to some and also a film that takes clichés and ideas we have about certain archetypes and manipulates them. The Full Monty is really at time a very bizarre although touching look at the crisis' men faced in Northern England at the time of production although the situation was far more serious ten years previous to these events. The film plays with the notion of obligatory scenes, draws us into thinking one thing before surprising us with another and generally makes a mockery out of stereotypes.The film begins with a short series of scenes revolving around the city of Sheffield, a Yorkshire based city. It'll sound silly but I had a hard time in deducing whether or not this was genuine. Certainly the footage seems real but the voice-over was surely a 'mocking' voice; spoofing that upper-class, posh voice-over you used to get dictating the football highlights or informing us over newsreels. If the voice was genuine, why was it not a northern voice of Yorkshires respective area? The manipulation and toying with what's what has only just begun. Then there is the immediate downbeat 'cut' to thirty years later and an empty factory in a drab looking area of the world – surely we are meant to laugh, but in doing so you are laughing at great failure and a heartache of epic proportions since so many people lost so many jobs to do with factories as well as mines.Then again perhaps this newsreel footage early on is a reason why the film did so well in America. At a time when the American cinemas were lapping up 'dark' comedies in Pulp Fiction, Fargo and Go, The Full Monty can certainly be seen as a 'realist' urban drama focusing on respective inhabitants of a certain built up area. Does it matter if it's Los Angles or Las Vegas or Sheffield if the general material is so similar? The reason the newsreel introduction is so perfectly placed is because it informs us of the setting, tells us what things used to be like before hitting us with some dark comic timing – we are informed, entertained and then humoured.Then there is the film's primary theme. The film is about a group of men who, in times of desperation, must scrape the bottom of the barrel in order to get by. In this case, factory workers must 'relegate' themselves to the level of strippers. This idea that one archetype that is the hard bodied, macho steel worker must become a male stripper is just the beginning. Indeed, Gaz (Carlyle) the leader of the gang vents his evident hatred of male strippers very early on in the film labelling them homosexual and generally insulting them to this degree - it is a set up that he will come to regret doing. But the other members of the group act as interesting distractions of humour above anything else. Indeed, when they must dance in front of the male dominated panel during the auditions, the panel must look (or gaze) on in a reluctant homoerotic manner because if they do not, they cannot judge whether the audition is a good enough dancer; if they cannot judge that, they cannot say whether he can make the team and then there's no team which means no job and they're back to square one.So this idea that identity is something we all fabricate is raised here. British films Chariots of Fire showed us males can be track athletes; Brassed Off showed us men can get together and partake in a brass band and in a few years time, Billy Elliot showed us males can be ballerinas. It is just that The Full Monty tells us males can adopt the role of strippers on demand. But it is more than unemployment the protagonist Gaz must go through. He has is domestic issues, his divorce and the possibility of loosing his son – there is a scene in which a social service member asks the son about 'how often does you father take his clothes off in front of you?' Do we laugh at this? Do we feel frustrated that Gaz isn't being allowed to set thing straight? Or do we do both? The film again challenges us to laugh or question how involved we are with the situation, much like the opening newsreel scene. The situation is set up, developed and then shot down again.But the film pays with convention and the obligatory. The training montage is thrust upon us before being unpredictably cancelled again when there is a sudden cutting of the music during a training routine – apparently someone did it wrong again. Then there is the scene in the living room when everyone must bare all for the first time. The door opens and you expect it to be the home owner's wife, but the film's smarter for it to be merely that. Although the best idea the film raises is its gender point if view. When the lads look at a porn magazine, they realise that they themselves will be the object of the gaze when they perform to loads of women but they dismiss this early on – they are male, they're different, right? Wrong, and this realisation I think should be shared by an audience who have been brought up on 'shot, reverse shot' in Hollywood films. The Full Monty challenges, informs but also entertains on several different levels.

Bits and Pieces from Across the Pond

tt0119164

Charming film from the other side of the pond about a bunch of working class blokes at the ends of their ropes who decide to stage a strip show for cash. The gimmick is that they promise to go "the full monty," much to the delight of their wives and girlfriends."The Full Monty" was a minor sensation in 1997, and started a movie trend that exists to this day: the little indie film that could and makes it all the way to the Best Picture category at the Academy Awards. I don't know that it's quite that good, but you could probably fit three "Full Monty"s into one "Titanic," the film that DID win Best Picture that year, and if I had to pick one of them to watch again now, I'd pick the naked dudes over the sinking ship any day.Grade: A-

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-173

ur4532636

title: Bits and Pieces from Across the Pond review: Charming film from the other side of the pond about a bunch of working class blokes at the ends of their ropes who decide to stage a strip show for cash. The gimmick is that they promise to go "the full monty," much to the delight of their wives and girlfriends."The Full Monty" was a minor sensation in 1997, and started a movie trend that exists to this day: the little indie film that could and makes it all the way to the Best Picture category at the Academy Awards. I don't know that it's quite that good, but you could probably fit three "Full Monty"s into one "Titanic," the film that DID win Best Picture that year, and if I had to pick one of them to watch again now, I'd pick the naked dudes over the sinking ship any day.Grade: A-

A Funny Movie With Lots of Heart That Has An Impact.

tt0119164

The Full Monty is not just for women, Britons, and homosexuals. I am non of these and I found this to be a great flick. It just happens to have male strippers from England. The movie is about the struggle to make ends meet, loyalty, and self esteem. These are serious issues, but only Brits could give each a silver lining. Well not just Brits, they just do it the best.As a comedy, I did not find the movie to be very funny. Some bits were humorous, but not much. It is rare for me to like a comedy that I did not find funny as this one did. Mostly just Brits get this kind of humour as it is plagued with British slang. I don't care that it wasn't very funny, it was still amusing and enjoyable. Judging from the reviews, I might be the only one that thinks so.The Full Monty is about a group of men who worked at a steel plant that went down under and are now unemployed. Gary "Gaz" (Carlyle) loves his son and must find employment for unpaid child support payments in order to gain any sort of custody. His best friend, Dave (Addy) thinks that his wife has fallen out of love with him and must deal with being overweight. They stumble upon a strip club and see hundreds of women paying to see Chippendales. They get the idea to to become strippers themselves and go full monty (completely nude). They find the most unlikely guys to help. Despite being an English movie, there is no real offensive nudity. Just a few scenes with shirtless guys and butts briefly shown. That was the one element I was unsure about before watching this. I'm sure the Unrated version is worse. As a movie, I liked how everything was built up. The last 45 minutes or so was when it really zoomed for me. But what makes this such a wonderful film is the themes of unemployment, loyalty and self-esteem. A bunch of guys with no jobs have to resort to do something anybody can do just to make a buck. In the beginning, we see Gaz and Dave stealing metal from the plant and trying to sell them. That is how desperate they are. The guys are too scrawny and too ugly to be strippers, but they do not care. Gaz needs the money fast or else he will lose the most important thing in his life. The others need money in order to keep their pride alive and keep their families together. That is were the self-esteem factor ties in. They know they're ugly and not lean, so they have second thoughts about following through. Dave is overweight, so he has the biggest problem image-wise. They have hit the rock bottom, so they feel completely worthless. At first none of them are up to it, but they have nothing to lose so they take risks and build up their confidence. Admirability towards these men grows. They are loyal and band together, but must stay together when the going gets tough. Each have their own reasons for joining, but all have the same reasons for thinking about quitting. Each man is a piece of the puzzle that is needed for a successful show and a rebuild in their lives.This is one of those great movies where I was not caught up in the moment. It was mostly after the fact when it impacted me the most. Nothing is wrong with that. Any sort of emotional impact from a movie says a lot.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-189

ur31261952

title: A Funny Movie With Lots of Heart That Has An Impact. review: The Full Monty is not just for women, Britons, and homosexuals. I am non of these and I found this to be a great flick. It just happens to have male strippers from England. The movie is about the struggle to make ends meet, loyalty, and self esteem. These are serious issues, but only Brits could give each a silver lining. Well not just Brits, they just do it the best.As a comedy, I did not find the movie to be very funny. Some bits were humorous, but not much. It is rare for me to like a comedy that I did not find funny as this one did. Mostly just Brits get this kind of humour as it is plagued with British slang. I don't care that it wasn't very funny, it was still amusing and enjoyable. Judging from the reviews, I might be the only one that thinks so.The Full Monty is about a group of men who worked at a steel plant that went down under and are now unemployed. Gary "Gaz" (Carlyle) loves his son and must find employment for unpaid child support payments in order to gain any sort of custody. His best friend, Dave (Addy) thinks that his wife has fallen out of love with him and must deal with being overweight. They stumble upon a strip club and see hundreds of women paying to see Chippendales. They get the idea to to become strippers themselves and go full monty (completely nude). They find the most unlikely guys to help. Despite being an English movie, there is no real offensive nudity. Just a few scenes with shirtless guys and butts briefly shown. That was the one element I was unsure about before watching this. I'm sure the Unrated version is worse. As a movie, I liked how everything was built up. The last 45 minutes or so was when it really zoomed for me. But what makes this such a wonderful film is the themes of unemployment, loyalty and self-esteem. A bunch of guys with no jobs have to resort to do something anybody can do just to make a buck. In the beginning, we see Gaz and Dave stealing metal from the plant and trying to sell them. That is how desperate they are. The guys are too scrawny and too ugly to be strippers, but they do not care. Gaz needs the money fast or else he will lose the most important thing in his life. The others need money in order to keep their pride alive and keep their families together. That is were the self-esteem factor ties in. They know they're ugly and not lean, so they have second thoughts about following through. Dave is overweight, so he has the biggest problem image-wise. They have hit the rock bottom, so they feel completely worthless. At first none of them are up to it, but they have nothing to lose so they take risks and build up their confidence. Admirability towards these men grows. They are loyal and band together, but must stay together when the going gets tough. Each have their own reasons for joining, but all have the same reasons for thinking about quitting. Each man is a piece of the puzzle that is needed for a successful show and a rebuild in their lives.This is one of those great movies where I was not caught up in the moment. It was mostly after the fact when it impacted me the most. Nothing is wrong with that. Any sort of emotional impact from a movie says a lot.

Comedy That Deals With Real Issues

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In the 1970's, Sheffield, England was a booming city that had a very uplifting economy and steel was the hottest staple that came out at that time as a public relations informer told me. By the 1990's came around, due to lack of funding, a lot of the steel mills were sadly foreclosed. Unemployment was on the rise, people had to seek jobs elsewhere and those who have built their reputation in these companies struggled to adapt to either menial jobs or just plain stayed home and just collected welfare checks. Gaz (Robert Carlyle "Once Upon A Time") who's a divorced man lost custody to his teenage son as his wife found another man, who happens to be more financially secure than him. He continues to make sporadic visits on occasion to see his son Nathan (Willian Snape), but goes beyond as he makes Nathan a close companion. Desperate for money, Gaz finds a way he can make a substantial amount of cash. After hearing about a group of male strippers called the Chippendales come to town they seem to make a rather handsome profit in a rented hall that's usually packed. Gaz along with his friend Dave (Mark Addy) believe they could make the same amount by putting on a similar show.The only problem is that the gentlemen they recruit to bare their all are just average looking people, not the same type of prim and dashing individuals that are the Chippendales. And what's even worse is that their dancing skills are even worst than me (which is bad because I'm in theatre). The rest of the ragtag wannabe strippers include a former factory foreman Gerald (Tom Wilkinson), and a drifter named Horse (Paul Barber) who in spite of a bad hip is able to teach them a few moves. What's very curious to me is why in the world would these women be interested in seeing not so good-looking guys take their clothes off after getting much satisfaction from the Chippendales? Gaz suggests that they might get the upper hand if they're brave enough to go the full monty by baring all. The whole idea was trashed from the start as they fear that their bodies just don't have that mass appeal to get ladies the attention as one fears he's too skinny, the other fears he's too obese and the other is just too old to bear all.In all seriousness, "The Full Monty" touches on issues about finding work and that even though it's great and rewarding to have a job, there's always a possibility that the company you work for will not be around forever. And when you lose that job because of foreclosure you feel like everything you have done was all for nought. Sheffield is the primarily example of a once sprawling city where the power balance between men and women were abolished because men in that town were unable to provide for their families. Gerald who has not had a job in six months has been lying to his wife. But when he could no longer provide for his family, his wife wants him to break up. This might have happened in Gaz's situation with his wife before the movie takes off. The film closely links Dave's insecurities is to do anything to avoid becoming jobless. In fact the closest relationship is with Dave and his wife.The cast is entirely British and most people who live on North American soil may not be familiar to this group of relative unknowns. Carlyle is probably best known for his role as Mr. Gold (Rumpelstiltskin) from the TV series "Once Upon a Time", but even though he is the leading performer here, his performance is not the best one here. The real standouts are Addy's Dave and Wilkinson's Gerald. We root for the men not because they're bearing their gifts to the ladies, but because these men are trying to win back their livelihood so they could become more employable. Wilkinson seems to be the most comfortable of the trio, but his opportunities are quite scarce and it shows. Too bad that Paul Barber's Horse doesn't get much airtime. He seemed more energetic of the characters but there was not much story to make him more developed."The Full Monty" is one of many films to feature the poor state of the British economy In some ways it's a bit of an homage to "Brassed Off". Even the brass band featured in a dire situation in an early scene was just pure irony. But it's still a good comedy and even though it's over-the-top in content, the situation the characters face are real and may reflect that of the situation of the economy we're facing as I speak.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-182

ur12327230

title: Comedy That Deals With Real Issues review: In the 1970's, Sheffield, England was a booming city that had a very uplifting economy and steel was the hottest staple that came out at that time as a public relations informer told me. By the 1990's came around, due to lack of funding, a lot of the steel mills were sadly foreclosed. Unemployment was on the rise, people had to seek jobs elsewhere and those who have built their reputation in these companies struggled to adapt to either menial jobs or just plain stayed home and just collected welfare checks. Gaz (Robert Carlyle "Once Upon A Time") who's a divorced man lost custody to his teenage son as his wife found another man, who happens to be more financially secure than him. He continues to make sporadic visits on occasion to see his son Nathan (Willian Snape), but goes beyond as he makes Nathan a close companion. Desperate for money, Gaz finds a way he can make a substantial amount of cash. After hearing about a group of male strippers called the Chippendales come to town they seem to make a rather handsome profit in a rented hall that's usually packed. Gaz along with his friend Dave (Mark Addy) believe they could make the same amount by putting on a similar show.The only problem is that the gentlemen they recruit to bare their all are just average looking people, not the same type of prim and dashing individuals that are the Chippendales. And what's even worse is that their dancing skills are even worst than me (which is bad because I'm in theatre). The rest of the ragtag wannabe strippers include a former factory foreman Gerald (Tom Wilkinson), and a drifter named Horse (Paul Barber) who in spite of a bad hip is able to teach them a few moves. What's very curious to me is why in the world would these women be interested in seeing not so good-looking guys take their clothes off after getting much satisfaction from the Chippendales? Gaz suggests that they might get the upper hand if they're brave enough to go the full monty by baring all. The whole idea was trashed from the start as they fear that their bodies just don't have that mass appeal to get ladies the attention as one fears he's too skinny, the other fears he's too obese and the other is just too old to bear all.In all seriousness, "The Full Monty" touches on issues about finding work and that even though it's great and rewarding to have a job, there's always a possibility that the company you work for will not be around forever. And when you lose that job because of foreclosure you feel like everything you have done was all for nought. Sheffield is the primarily example of a once sprawling city where the power balance between men and women were abolished because men in that town were unable to provide for their families. Gerald who has not had a job in six months has been lying to his wife. But when he could no longer provide for his family, his wife wants him to break up. This might have happened in Gaz's situation with his wife before the movie takes off. The film closely links Dave's insecurities is to do anything to avoid becoming jobless. In fact the closest relationship is with Dave and his wife.The cast is entirely British and most people who live on North American soil may not be familiar to this group of relative unknowns. Carlyle is probably best known for his role as Mr. Gold (Rumpelstiltskin) from the TV series "Once Upon a Time", but even though he is the leading performer here, his performance is not the best one here. The real standouts are Addy's Dave and Wilkinson's Gerald. We root for the men not because they're bearing their gifts to the ladies, but because these men are trying to win back their livelihood so they could become more employable. Wilkinson seems to be the most comfortable of the trio, but his opportunities are quite scarce and it shows. Too bad that Paul Barber's Horse doesn't get much airtime. He seemed more energetic of the characters but there was not much story to make him more developed."The Full Monty" is one of many films to feature the poor state of the British economy In some ways it's a bit of an homage to "Brassed Off". Even the brass band featured in a dire situation in an early scene was just pure irony. But it's still a good comedy and even though it's over-the-top in content, the situation the characters face are real and may reflect that of the situation of the economy we're facing as I speak.

CHeeRFuLLY FuNNY & SPaRKY ***6/10***

tt0119164

This film, as far as I see it wasn't a hit. The film at times does have it's moments, like scenes where the boys are practicing their strip act, and drive the hired muscle out their friend's house by being half naked. I can understand why the film was so successful in the UK, using typical situations and dialects that appeal to the drama viewing audiences over here, but compared to the likes of TRAINSPOTTING and LOCK, STOCK & TWO-SMOKING BARRELS doesn't present anything revolutionary in British cinema diection...though they seemed to know it pretty well when I was in Japan, and it was something like NUMBER #3 or #4 in the rental charts at the time (videos are too expensive to buy in Japan, so the majority just rent them out). The plot may seem a bit insucnificant to American viewers, and indeed a little slow geting off the ground, but, and this is the trickey bit, is what the film is saying to the people of Britain. The backdrop being the fact that the working class in the 1980's have took a slump because of the demonic Thatcher , and now these people are so desperate to graft, they'll do just about anything that get them money without too much agro. It's not so much a story about stripping, but more about desperation, deprevation, and graffting. Indeed it can be said that this is DEFINATELY not a film for democrats or conservatives. OK to watch if your British, but teh dialect wil seem incomprehensible to foreigners. Worth a watch though for the chuckle ***7/10***

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-81

ur0802407

title: CHeeRFuLLY FuNNY & SPaRKY ***6/10*** review: This film, as far as I see it wasn't a hit. The film at times does have it's moments, like scenes where the boys are practicing their strip act, and drive the hired muscle out their friend's house by being half naked. I can understand why the film was so successful in the UK, using typical situations and dialects that appeal to the drama viewing audiences over here, but compared to the likes of TRAINSPOTTING and LOCK, STOCK & TWO-SMOKING BARRELS doesn't present anything revolutionary in British cinema diection...though they seemed to know it pretty well when I was in Japan, and it was something like NUMBER #3 or #4 in the rental charts at the time (videos are too expensive to buy in Japan, so the majority just rent them out). The plot may seem a bit insucnificant to American viewers, and indeed a little slow geting off the ground, but, and this is the trickey bit, is what the film is saying to the people of Britain. The backdrop being the fact that the working class in the 1980's have took a slump because of the demonic Thatcher , and now these people are so desperate to graft, they'll do just about anything that get them money without too much agro. It's not so much a story about stripping, but more about desperation, deprevation, and graffting. Indeed it can be said that this is DEFINATELY not a film for democrats or conservatives. OK to watch if your British, but teh dialect wil seem incomprehensible to foreigners. Worth a watch though for the chuckle ***7/10***

Exemplary post-Thatcherite feelgood drama

tt0119164

You can leave your hat on. Alternatively you can cast it into the air with all the abandon of the graduate or the homecoming serviceman. It's a terrific film, making you blow away tears with bellylaughs. Robert Carlyle leads a super cast with all the ferocity of Trainspotting's Begbie (plus a soft centre that we encounter again in the subsequent Angela's Ashes). The others plays their types as if they weren't: all manner of concealed male neuroses are documented in the melodrama, no doubt as a counter-riposte to the 90s fad of ladette-ism.Peter Cattaneo really likes the set-piece, picaresque approach to film making. So do I, when it's carried off in this manner - without fuss and with a sure grip on the pacing and larger view of the picture. There are one or two set pieces (the famous 'dole-queue' scene) which don't have a necessarily contiguous dramatic function but really let the work breathe and smile. But the film's great achievement is its triumphant escapism, the irresistibility of its humour and exuberance that leaves you bouncing out the theatre despite the testy social realism that has midwifed all the joy. Super 8/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-165

ur2206551

title: Exemplary post-Thatcherite feelgood drama review: You can leave your hat on. Alternatively you can cast it into the air with all the abandon of the graduate or the homecoming serviceman. It's a terrific film, making you blow away tears with bellylaughs. Robert Carlyle leads a super cast with all the ferocity of Trainspotting's Begbie (plus a soft centre that we encounter again in the subsequent Angela's Ashes). The others plays their types as if they weren't: all manner of concealed male neuroses are documented in the melodrama, no doubt as a counter-riposte to the 90s fad of ladette-ism.Peter Cattaneo really likes the set-piece, picaresque approach to film making. So do I, when it's carried off in this manner - without fuss and with a sure grip on the pacing and larger view of the picture. There are one or two set pieces (the famous 'dole-queue' scene) which don't have a necessarily contiguous dramatic function but really let the work breathe and smile. But the film's great achievement is its triumphant escapism, the irresistibility of its humour and exuberance that leaves you bouncing out the theatre despite the testy social realism that has midwifed all the joy. Super 8/10

Nowhere near as bad and what I expected

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The thing that stands out about this movie is that it seemed to have brought a new phrase into the English language, and that is "going the full monty." Generally it means to take off all of your clothes, but in another way it simply means going all of the way. One thing is true, not many movies can claim to have had an impact on the English language, but this one has.Now, the concept of a movie about male strippers doesn't really appeal to me. One would expect it to be rated R, but it is not. The ratings say that it contains nudity, but for an M rating all you can expect to see is bare bums, and yes that is what you do see. The Full Monty is actually about much more than simple male strippers: it is about self pride, image, unemployment, and simple trust. It is a movie with a lot of depth but is also quite funny.The Full Monty is set in the city of Sheffield in Yorkshire, England. The movie opens with an expose on Sheffield being a boom town with the steel industry, but 25 years later the steel mill has closed down and the city is suffering from high unemployment. This seems to be a common idea that runs through English television – the bleakness of life and the hopelessness of unemployment. I remember before the last English election when the Conservative Party lost to the Labour Party, that they interviewed people in some of the English towns where unemployment was very high, and the people had simply lost hope. So has it happened in this movie: people have lost hope to the point where they no longer wish to live.But there is hope on the horizon: Gaz and Dave, the main characters, sneak into a female only strip show and realise that these guys are getting paid ten pounds a head to simply take off their cloths. This gives Gaz an idea: he has much more than these guys, and he is willing to go the Full Monty, so why not get involved. So he and Dave get some people together to become male strippers with them.I expected the movie to be about them going on the nightclub circuit, becoming really famous, and then loosing everything: but it is not the case. Rather it is about the relationships between the people and the work the do to get to the strip show at the end. It is about their pride and overcoming it to humiliate themselves in front of a lot of ladies. It is also about how they try to hide this from everybody to save themselves the embarrassment.It seems that hiding things from people is another aspect of this movie. Dave hides the fact that he is becoming a male stripper from his wife, thinking that she is going to deride him because he is over weight. The truth is, she really doesn't care. She don't care if he is overweight: she loves him the way he is and she doesn't care if he goes the full monty.Then there is Dave and Gaz's former foreman. He has been unemployed for six months, yet he is ashamed of it and keeps this from his wife. As such she continues to go obliviously spending as if he were still working. She still has her dreams of going skiing. In the end, when she finds out, her quote is "I can handle the television being reposed, but what I cannot stand is that you kept this from me." This relationship is one on assumptions. The partners assume to much about each other and discover that in the end they really don't know that much about each other at all.The shame of stripping against the shame of being unemployed is what really runs through this movie. There is the bleakness of Job Club and the dole queue, lightened up by the strippers starting to dance to a song playing over the radio. Then there is the shame that they face when they are caught practicing in an abandoned factory. Not only do they face a mocking police force, but also the story hits the front page, and everybody knows. But then, they discovered that this newspaper article is the best advertising they could have got.The Full Monty is much better that I originally expected. It is not simply a movie about male strippers, but about the characters that they are and the struggles that they face trying to find a niche in society. Rather than being a movie that one compromises on when trying to find one at a video store, it should be one that is on the too see list.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-179

ur27175177

title: Nowhere near as bad and what I expected review: The thing that stands out about this movie is that it seemed to have brought a new phrase into the English language, and that is "going the full monty." Generally it means to take off all of your clothes, but in another way it simply means going all of the way. One thing is true, not many movies can claim to have had an impact on the English language, but this one has.Now, the concept of a movie about male strippers doesn't really appeal to me. One would expect it to be rated R, but it is not. The ratings say that it contains nudity, but for an M rating all you can expect to see is bare bums, and yes that is what you do see. The Full Monty is actually about much more than simple male strippers: it is about self pride, image, unemployment, and simple trust. It is a movie with a lot of depth but is also quite funny.The Full Monty is set in the city of Sheffield in Yorkshire, England. The movie opens with an expose on Sheffield being a boom town with the steel industry, but 25 years later the steel mill has closed down and the city is suffering from high unemployment. This seems to be a common idea that runs through English television – the bleakness of life and the hopelessness of unemployment. I remember before the last English election when the Conservative Party lost to the Labour Party, that they interviewed people in some of the English towns where unemployment was very high, and the people had simply lost hope. So has it happened in this movie: people have lost hope to the point where they no longer wish to live.But there is hope on the horizon: Gaz and Dave, the main characters, sneak into a female only strip show and realise that these guys are getting paid ten pounds a head to simply take off their cloths. This gives Gaz an idea: he has much more than these guys, and he is willing to go the Full Monty, so why not get involved. So he and Dave get some people together to become male strippers with them.I expected the movie to be about them going on the nightclub circuit, becoming really famous, and then loosing everything: but it is not the case. Rather it is about the relationships between the people and the work the do to get to the strip show at the end. It is about their pride and overcoming it to humiliate themselves in front of a lot of ladies. It is also about how they try to hide this from everybody to save themselves the embarrassment.It seems that hiding things from people is another aspect of this movie. Dave hides the fact that he is becoming a male stripper from his wife, thinking that she is going to deride him because he is over weight. The truth is, she really doesn't care. She don't care if he is overweight: she loves him the way he is and she doesn't care if he goes the full monty.Then there is Dave and Gaz's former foreman. He has been unemployed for six months, yet he is ashamed of it and keeps this from his wife. As such she continues to go obliviously spending as if he were still working. She still has her dreams of going skiing. In the end, when she finds out, her quote is "I can handle the television being reposed, but what I cannot stand is that you kept this from me." This relationship is one on assumptions. The partners assume to much about each other and discover that in the end they really don't know that much about each other at all.The shame of stripping against the shame of being unemployed is what really runs through this movie. There is the bleakness of Job Club and the dole queue, lightened up by the strippers starting to dance to a song playing over the radio. Then there is the shame that they face when they are caught practicing in an abandoned factory. Not only do they face a mocking police force, but also the story hits the front page, and everybody knows. But then, they discovered that this newspaper article is the best advertising they could have got.The Full Monty is much better that I originally expected. It is not simply a movie about male strippers, but about the characters that they are and the struggles that they face trying to find a niche in society. Rather than being a movie that one compromises on when trying to find one at a video store, it should be one that is on the too see list.

Excellent.. One of my all-time favourite comedies!...

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There are very few films these days that make me laugh out loud but this one managed it six or seven times! Having spent most of my adult life in the north of England, I find the humour in this one quite refreshing. It's not all fun and games though, there is quite a lot of drama to be found here and it's this element that gives the humour more bite. Great performances all round with (for me), Tom Wilkinson standing out, although they were all praiseworthy. Over all, a comedy set against the gritty reality of unemployment and all that brings. If, like me, you've been avoiding this one, don't put it off any longer, you can thank me later!SteelMonster's verdict: HIGHLY RECOMMENDEDMy score: 8.7/10You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-183

ur29798050

title: Excellent.. One of my all-time favourite comedies!... review: There are very few films these days that make me laugh out loud but this one managed it six or seven times! Having spent most of my adult life in the north of England, I find the humour in this one quite refreshing. It's not all fun and games though, there is quite a lot of drama to be found here and it's this element that gives the humour more bite. Great performances all round with (for me), Tom Wilkinson standing out, although they were all praiseworthy. Over all, a comedy set against the gritty reality of unemployment and all that brings. If, like me, you've been avoiding this one, don't put it off any longer, you can thank me later!SteelMonster's verdict: HIGHLY RECOMMENDEDMy score: 8.7/10You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

The money shot...

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THE FULL MONTY was one of those movies that HURT to watch: by the time I left the theater, my face was actually sore from smiling. It's laugh-out-loud funny and moving at once. The predicament our heroes find themselves in is one that all too many of us have experienced at one time or another. (I wish I'd thought of doing something like this when I was really down and out- and in better shape...) Robert Carlyle has long been one of my favorite actors- in part because of this movie (not to mention HAMISH MACBETH or 28 WEEKS LATER); he's great as the down-and-out father forced to do SOMETHING to distance himself from The Dole and all its attendant stigma. The scene of the guys standing in line listening to music that gets their proverbial engines running had me laughing out loud in the theater. (I remember a scene from HAMISH MACBETH that STILL brings a smile to my face. A newcomer to his jurisdiction comments on his name by saying: "To be or not to be- THAT Macbeth?" "No," replies Carlyle: "THAT'S Officer Hamlet.")

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-188

ur1530907

title: The money shot... review: THE FULL MONTY was one of those movies that HURT to watch: by the time I left the theater, my face was actually sore from smiling. It's laugh-out-loud funny and moving at once. The predicament our heroes find themselves in is one that all too many of us have experienced at one time or another. (I wish I'd thought of doing something like this when I was really down and out- and in better shape...) Robert Carlyle has long been one of my favorite actors- in part because of this movie (not to mention HAMISH MACBETH or 28 WEEKS LATER); he's great as the down-and-out father forced to do SOMETHING to distance himself from The Dole and all its attendant stigma. The scene of the guys standing in line listening to music that gets their proverbial engines running had me laughing out loud in the theater. (I remember a scene from HAMISH MACBETH that STILL brings a smile to my face. A newcomer to his jurisdiction comments on his name by saying: "To be or not to be- THAT Macbeth?" "No," replies Carlyle: "THAT'S Officer Hamlet.")

A social commentary? NO!

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But, this movie is one thing. It IS funny. There is a lot to like about this movie starting with the acting. All of these guys are very good actors, and the characters are people we all can associate with. In addition, the single female lead, Lesley Sharp (playing Jean) is really good. She provides a great balance to this movie. However, it is the overall sense of humor in this movie that I find so appealing. Imagine the BALLS necessary for a group of VERY ordinary guys to go out on stage and strip. The scenes leading up to the performance are some of the funniest moments in movie history.Anybody who says this is not funny stuff just doesn't have a sense of humor.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-89

ur0100964

title: A social commentary? NO! review: But, this movie is one thing. It IS funny. There is a lot to like about this movie starting with the acting. All of these guys are very good actors, and the characters are people we all can associate with. In addition, the single female lead, Lesley Sharp (playing Jean) is really good. She provides a great balance to this movie. However, it is the overall sense of humor in this movie that I find so appealing. Imagine the BALLS necessary for a group of VERY ordinary guys to go out on stage and strip. The scenes leading up to the performance are some of the funniest moments in movie history.Anybody who says this is not funny stuff just doesn't have a sense of humor.

Short, sweet comedy with heart...and skin

tt0119164

Male nudity is not the main dish served in "The Full Monty," it's just the building block for comedy and drama. It's mostly the idea of it and then some shots of men in thongs and bare bottoms, but you never get what the title alleges. I suppose depending on who you are, that will get you to watch the film or disappoint you."The Full Monty" is a straight-forward British comedy accompanied by some family drama. A couple unemployed steelworkers (Carlyle and Addy) struggle to make ends meet when they take notice that there's money to be made in stripping. They bring some other men into the mix, including Tom Wilkinson, and form a group, keeping it silent from there families, except Carlyle's character from his son, who tags along.The real heart of this film is that these men are doing this for noble reasons: Carlyle wants joint custody of his son, Addy's character is dealing self-confidence issues and Wilkinson's character doesn't want to disappoint his wife's vacation plans. While they all lie, they come to terms with that in the film. Then there's plenty of British humor to go around as these men deal with humiliation and desperation.The biggest problem with this film is its 90 minute run time. While I'm impressed with what director Peter Cattaneo and writer Simon Beaufoy fit into that short time, the plot is awfully simple for this type of film and the characters aren't nearly as tapped into as they could be. The humor is also somewhat limited and there's definitely potential for more."Full Monty" is a nice, quick, change-of-pace comedy that takes a good idea and does a solid job of turning it into a film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-168

ur2496397

title: Short, sweet comedy with heart...and skin review: Male nudity is not the main dish served in "The Full Monty," it's just the building block for comedy and drama. It's mostly the idea of it and then some shots of men in thongs and bare bottoms, but you never get what the title alleges. I suppose depending on who you are, that will get you to watch the film or disappoint you."The Full Monty" is a straight-forward British comedy accompanied by some family drama. A couple unemployed steelworkers (Carlyle and Addy) struggle to make ends meet when they take notice that there's money to be made in stripping. They bring some other men into the mix, including Tom Wilkinson, and form a group, keeping it silent from there families, except Carlyle's character from his son, who tags along.The real heart of this film is that these men are doing this for noble reasons: Carlyle wants joint custody of his son, Addy's character is dealing self-confidence issues and Wilkinson's character doesn't want to disappoint his wife's vacation plans. While they all lie, they come to terms with that in the film. Then there's plenty of British humor to go around as these men deal with humiliation and desperation.The biggest problem with this film is its 90 minute run time. While I'm impressed with what director Peter Cattaneo and writer Simon Beaufoy fit into that short time, the plot is awfully simple for this type of film and the characters aren't nearly as tapped into as they could be. The humor is also somewhat limited and there's definitely potential for more."Full Monty" is a nice, quick, change-of-pace comedy that takes a good idea and does a solid job of turning it into a film.

Baring It All for Child Support?

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It's hard to believe this Scottish git (Carlyle) played Hitler (Rise Of Evil), but it is a good chick-flick or film for a date! I learned Mark (Still Standing, Flintstones) Addy is really British and from that he was also in "A Knight's Tale" - one of the best all-time movies ever - as a plot line, it's a bit, um, stripped? The continuity was a bit strained too, A guard stealing 2 jackets from a store and he's not chased down? In the UK? Really! As for two of the strippers suddenly being gay, with no indication of such a proclivity was really pushing the envelope! As for the end, while hilarious... we all know true "Bobbies" even if they found the guys stripping past their skivvies as being truly hilarious, they would still be arresting those guys with blankets handy, trust me! The theme of 700 lbs for maintenance is a bit stretched, isn't that only partial settlement for a regular stipend? Doesn't unemployment count for something? For hilarity it's a god-send, but for logic? That leaves you, ah, bare!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-132

ur3387906

title: Baring It All for Child Support? review: It's hard to believe this Scottish git (Carlyle) played Hitler (Rise Of Evil), but it is a good chick-flick or film for a date! I learned Mark (Still Standing, Flintstones) Addy is really British and from that he was also in "A Knight's Tale" - one of the best all-time movies ever - as a plot line, it's a bit, um, stripped? The continuity was a bit strained too, A guard stealing 2 jackets from a store and he's not chased down? In the UK? Really! As for two of the strippers suddenly being gay, with no indication of such a proclivity was really pushing the envelope! As for the end, while hilarious... we all know true "Bobbies" even if they found the guys stripping past their skivvies as being truly hilarious, they would still be arresting those guys with blankets handy, trust me! The theme of 700 lbs for maintenance is a bit stretched, isn't that only partial settlement for a regular stipend? Doesn't unemployment count for something? For hilarity it's a god-send, but for logic? That leaves you, ah, bare!

"Excuse me... nobody said anything to me about the Full Monty"

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I remember this movie when it originally came out. It looked interesting, but I was younger at the time and I wasn't allowed to watch R-rated movies. Later, I finally saw this movie about three years ago on HBO. I laughed my a** off. It was so freakin' funny and I still think it is funny. I bought the "Fully Exposed" two disc DVD and I still love this movie. Yeah some people don't understand British humor, but I love it still. I grew up watching Bristish shows like "Mr. Bean" and "Are You Being Served?" I love those shows and I love this movie, I think it is one of the best comedies ever made. I highly recommend it, you will laugh as hard as I did.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-164

ur15577250

title: "Excuse me... nobody said anything to me about the Full Monty" review: I remember this movie when it originally came out. It looked interesting, but I was younger at the time and I wasn't allowed to watch R-rated movies. Later, I finally saw this movie about three years ago on HBO. I laughed my a** off. It was so freakin' funny and I still think it is funny. I bought the "Fully Exposed" two disc DVD and I still love this movie. Yeah some people don't understand British humor, but I love it still. I grew up watching Bristish shows like "Mr. Bean" and "Are You Being Served?" I love those shows and I love this movie, I think it is one of the best comedies ever made. I highly recommend it, you will laugh as hard as I did.

Hot Stuff

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I watched "Full Monty" directed by Peter Cattaneo first time when it was released ten years ago in 1997, became a surprising hit, and was nominated for several Academy awards. The movie instantly became one of my favorites. I don't know how close to the realities of British life it is/was but "Full Monty" is irresistible, and it features the songs of Donna Summer and Tom Jones that fit adorably to the story. I saw it again few days ago and it has not lost any of its original charm. It is funny but it is more in the realm of dramedy which is my favorite genre.Few things I've noticed this time: Nothing is more tiring than doing nothing. Men are really very sensitive and insecure creatures. They have to have respect for themselves and this is a great movie about how far the desperate men would go to regain it. I think every boy would dream about having a father like Carlyle's Gaz - he is more like a buddy, not a father.Did I mention that after seeing the movie first three times I bought a Donna Summer's CD? And...The finals scene is spectacular. Our heroes learned something during the two weeks they were preparing for the show. They learned how to like themselves the way they are and how to respect themselves and with that knowledge came something else: "coordination, skill, timing, fitness, and grace" and they were fabulous during their one and only performance.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-160

ur1098460

title: Hot Stuff review: I watched "Full Monty" directed by Peter Cattaneo first time when it was released ten years ago in 1997, became a surprising hit, and was nominated for several Academy awards. The movie instantly became one of my favorites. I don't know how close to the realities of British life it is/was but "Full Monty" is irresistible, and it features the songs of Donna Summer and Tom Jones that fit adorably to the story. I saw it again few days ago and it has not lost any of its original charm. It is funny but it is more in the realm of dramedy which is my favorite genre.Few things I've noticed this time: Nothing is more tiring than doing nothing. Men are really very sensitive and insecure creatures. They have to have respect for themselves and this is a great movie about how far the desperate men would go to regain it. I think every boy would dream about having a father like Carlyle's Gaz - he is more like a buddy, not a father.Did I mention that after seeing the movie first three times I bought a Donna Summer's CD? And...The finals scene is spectacular. Our heroes learned something during the two weeks they were preparing for the show. They learned how to like themselves the way they are and how to respect themselves and with that knowledge came something else: "coordination, skill, timing, fitness, and grace" and they were fabulous during their one and only performance.

Full Marks

tt0119164

"The Full Monty" is one of those movie ideas that takes off and flies. Thoroughly British at its inception, it's now been turned into an American stage musical. The theme of working men discarded by Capitalism is practically a movie genre and Britain's post-industrial wastelands are prime territory for such films. However, we Brits are not alone in being shafted by our politicians and big employers and that's what gives this film international appeal.Despite the film's grim foundations, it's a laugh-out-loud comedy which has that all-important feel-good factor. All the main male characters have demons of redundancy and inadequacy to confront and I defy you not to cheer at least internally when they step confidently up on stage and begin to strip at the end of the film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119164/reviews-158

ur8345459

title: Full Marks review: "The Full Monty" is one of those movie ideas that takes off and flies. Thoroughly British at its inception, it's now been turned into an American stage musical. The theme of working men discarded by Capitalism is practically a movie genre and Britain's post-industrial wastelands are prime territory for such films. However, we Brits are not alone in being shafted by our politicians and big employers and that's what gives this film international appeal.Despite the film's grim foundations, it's a laugh-out-loud comedy which has that all-important feel-good factor. All the main male characters have demons of redundancy and inadequacy to confront and I defy you not to cheer at least internally when they step confidently up on stage and begin to strip at the end of the film.

Disgusting and depraved, and that's just the opening segments; but a brilliant film documenting all things sordid within a decaying world full of decaying minds.

tt0097108

There's a lot to admire in Peter Greenaway's 1989 film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, on an aesthetical level as well as on a visceral level; so mush so that the really nasty, ugly, distasteful and full on content comes across as quite beautiful in its sordid inclusion whilst the fancy sets and stunning cinematography deliberately sits uneasily and in stark juxtaposition with most of what's going on and who's instigating it. Affairs are had; fully grown men are humiliated and abused but come staggering back for more; certain individuals are interrogated and tortured; obsessive behaviour over a fellow human being is played out whilst a lot of eating, swearing and grotesque conversations about all things sordid unravel.If one were to classify the film as one of the gangster variety, and gracefully acknowledge the Thatcher-driven theories that come with it, one would deem it only fitting that the British film industry would begin and conclude the decade of the 1980s with John MacKenzie's gangster film The Long Good Friday, and all the Thatcher-driven theory which revolves around that film with its dealing of expansion and globalisation; ongoing relationships with the Americans and constant threat of the I.R.A; before ending with The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, a film that deals with powerful, menacing individuals and those caught up in the web that engulfs them. Note how both Hoskins' and Gambon's powerful, predominant characters are portrayed throughout either pieces at either end of Thatcher's reign as prime minister.At the centre of the film is that all encompassing, powerful individual; a man named Albert Spica, a role that Michael Gambon plays with a perverse aplomb in spitting vile, depraved lines of dialogue; an individual whom abuses those closest to him, be they personal or professional; the dinner guest from Hell, a frothing mad; psychotic creation from the mind of Greenaway who degrades everyone around him, labelling them "mules" and going so far as to highlight the incompetence of one character, that they'd probably find it difficult to "organise a rape in a brothel". The world may revolve around him within the world of the film but he is a mere supporting player to his wife Georgina (Mirren) and bookshop proprietor Michael (Howard) in the film overall. Gambon's performance is one of those instances in which the greatest individual acting performance of the film is the one that belongs to a character we do not necessarily revolve around, but is still rather prominent, thus causing it to stick in memory along with the overall plight of the primary characters. This often causes films to come across as better than they actually are when they're able to call on such back up in the form of such a powerful acting performance; but it isn't the case here.The film begins with an odd, disturbing sense of symmetry as Albert and his criminal cohorts arrive at a French restaurant he has recently bought out; the walkway to the entrance and the manner in which two trucks are parked near the entrance to which ninety percent of the film will play out is an extravagant and iconographic way in which to start. It's an announcing of the location, a distinct establishment of the place in question; like a thin, rocky walkway over the fires and flames below as you descent down the ramp into a Hellish reality populated by disturbed people and passive onlookers sitting at other tables seemingly oblivious to most of the action that plays out. The grotesque first action of the piece twinned with a very low, numbing and pulsating sound effect - a series of noises akin to machinery, or distant explosions, which become really apparent later on during Albert's internal anger that rages following the awareness of some developments plunges the audience, indeed entrenches them, within a frightening world.Such is the power of the screenplay and the assurance of the direction, that a full hour travels past before a character that isn't Albert Spica speaks to someone else; the aforementioned Michael and Georgina whom exchange looks around a restroom area in the company of some harsh, red lighting signalling danger as Georgina's red dress omits similar messages. The meeting works on a number of levels, initially and foremost because of the previous time spent in building the character of Albert and the kind of person he is; we sense danger if he were to find out his wife were with another man. But the scenes the two share with each other, at least initially, are in stark comparison to Albert's constant talking and persistent rudeness. These two share silence, they share moments in which they merely look at one another before branching out, and it's quite jarring given the preceding sequences. When Albert comes as close as he does to catching her early on, the rush into spoken word in response to him is quite the jolt in conversational exchange between the two.Ninety percent of the film unfolds at the location of the restaurant, a mixture of the restroom area; a large dining area; a kitchen and an outside car park-come-entrance. The entire place as one is a distorted, disturbingly intertextual blend of the post-modern with cubist inspired walls and objects such as table layouts and toilet cubicle formality; a blending of 19th Century locales in the grime of the kitchen with the smut and pomposity of ancient Rome in both the exquisiteness of the dining area and the attitudes therein. This odd, period setting sense blends with a futuristic dystopian feel about proceedings, especially apparent in Albert's minions sitting, usually motionless in a robotic daze, as everyone else around them appears to return to the restaurant each night despite the animal that is Albert in consistent proximity. This blending sits unnaturally and uncomfortably, but deliberately so; gripping the film with confusion and terror and gripping us throughout the process.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097108/reviews-169

ur0855231

title: Disgusting and depraved, and that's just the opening segments; but a brilliant film documenting all things sordid within a decaying world full of decaying minds. review: There's a lot to admire in Peter Greenaway's 1989 film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, on an aesthetical level as well as on a visceral level; so mush so that the really nasty, ugly, distasteful and full on content comes across as quite beautiful in its sordid inclusion whilst the fancy sets and stunning cinematography deliberately sits uneasily and in stark juxtaposition with most of what's going on and who's instigating it. Affairs are had; fully grown men are humiliated and abused but come staggering back for more; certain individuals are interrogated and tortured; obsessive behaviour over a fellow human being is played out whilst a lot of eating, swearing and grotesque conversations about all things sordid unravel.If one were to classify the film as one of the gangster variety, and gracefully acknowledge the Thatcher-driven theories that come with it, one would deem it only fitting that the British film industry would begin and conclude the decade of the 1980s with John MacKenzie's gangster film The Long Good Friday, and all the Thatcher-driven theory which revolves around that film with its dealing of expansion and globalisation; ongoing relationships with the Americans and constant threat of the I.R.A; before ending with The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, a film that deals with powerful, menacing individuals and those caught up in the web that engulfs them. Note how both Hoskins' and Gambon's powerful, predominant characters are portrayed throughout either pieces at either end of Thatcher's reign as prime minister.At the centre of the film is that all encompassing, powerful individual; a man named Albert Spica, a role that Michael Gambon plays with a perverse aplomb in spitting vile, depraved lines of dialogue; an individual whom abuses those closest to him, be they personal or professional; the dinner guest from Hell, a frothing mad; psychotic creation from the mind of Greenaway who degrades everyone around him, labelling them "mules" and going so far as to highlight the incompetence of one character, that they'd probably find it difficult to "organise a rape in a brothel". The world may revolve around him within the world of the film but he is a mere supporting player to his wife Georgina (Mirren) and bookshop proprietor Michael (Howard) in the film overall. Gambon's performance is one of those instances in which the greatest individual acting performance of the film is the one that belongs to a character we do not necessarily revolve around, but is still rather prominent, thus causing it to stick in memory along with the overall plight of the primary characters. This often causes films to come across as better than they actually are when they're able to call on such back up in the form of such a powerful acting performance; but it isn't the case here.The film begins with an odd, disturbing sense of symmetry as Albert and his criminal cohorts arrive at a French restaurant he has recently bought out; the walkway to the entrance and the manner in which two trucks are parked near the entrance to which ninety percent of the film will play out is an extravagant and iconographic way in which to start. It's an announcing of the location, a distinct establishment of the place in question; like a thin, rocky walkway over the fires and flames below as you descent down the ramp into a Hellish reality populated by disturbed people and passive onlookers sitting at other tables seemingly oblivious to most of the action that plays out. The grotesque first action of the piece twinned with a very low, numbing and pulsating sound effect - a series of noises akin to machinery, or distant explosions, which become really apparent later on during Albert's internal anger that rages following the awareness of some developments plunges the audience, indeed entrenches them, within a frightening world.Such is the power of the screenplay and the assurance of the direction, that a full hour travels past before a character that isn't Albert Spica speaks to someone else; the aforementioned Michael and Georgina whom exchange looks around a restroom area in the company of some harsh, red lighting signalling danger as Georgina's red dress omits similar messages. The meeting works on a number of levels, initially and foremost because of the previous time spent in building the character of Albert and the kind of person he is; we sense danger if he were to find out his wife were with another man. But the scenes the two share with each other, at least initially, are in stark comparison to Albert's constant talking and persistent rudeness. These two share silence, they share moments in which they merely look at one another before branching out, and it's quite jarring given the preceding sequences. When Albert comes as close as he does to catching her early on, the rush into spoken word in response to him is quite the jolt in conversational exchange between the two.Ninety percent of the film unfolds at the location of the restaurant, a mixture of the restroom area; a large dining area; a kitchen and an outside car park-come-entrance. The entire place as one is a distorted, disturbingly intertextual blend of the post-modern with cubist inspired walls and objects such as table layouts and toilet cubicle formality; a blending of 19th Century locales in the grime of the kitchen with the smut and pomposity of ancient Rome in both the exquisiteness of the dining area and the attitudes therein. This odd, period setting sense blends with a futuristic dystopian feel about proceedings, especially apparent in Albert's minions sitting, usually motionless in a robotic daze, as everyone else around them appears to return to the restaurant each night despite the animal that is Albert in consistent proximity. This blending sits unnaturally and uncomfortably, but deliberately so; gripping the film with confusion and terror and gripping us throughout the process.

I don't think the world is ready for this kind of film

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Its as though an alien made this movie. Its really disturbing. I loved it. Some great directing. Very great acting. This film is practically theatrical. A great script. A great plot. Lots of symbolism. Some really heavy humour. Very English and pompous and rude. This film is drenched in scarlet sin. After you watch it you feel as though your soul and has turned all murky but it was still very much worth watching. A good laugh for those "special" few who are open minded enough to enjoy this really true masterpiece. I would not know for sure which genre to place it. A cult classic maybe. This is basically the story of the owner of a French restaurant, he is English and far from being classy enough to fill this post, very far.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097108/reviews-147

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title: I don't think the world is ready for this kind of film review: Its as though an alien made this movie. Its really disturbing. I loved it. Some great directing. Very great acting. This film is practically theatrical. A great script. A great plot. Lots of symbolism. Some really heavy humour. Very English and pompous and rude. This film is drenched in scarlet sin. After you watch it you feel as though your soul and has turned all murky but it was still very much worth watching. A good laugh for those "special" few who are open minded enough to enjoy this really true masterpiece. I would not know for sure which genre to place it. A cult classic maybe. This is basically the story of the owner of a French restaurant, he is English and far from being classy enough to fill this post, very far.

Stylized

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This was a rather common place story of adultery but it is filmed in a very stylized manner with many rather gross scenes. The ending is shocking and a tad disgusting. Some great performances by Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon. Don't see it on a full stomach. I think Helen Mirren is a wonderful actress and I've enjoyed her in every movie, and TV show, she has been in.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097108/reviews-79

ur0608898

title: Stylized review: This was a rather common place story of adultery but it is filmed in a very stylized manner with many rather gross scenes. The ending is shocking and a tad disgusting. Some great performances by Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon. Don't see it on a full stomach. I think Helen Mirren is a wonderful actress and I've enjoyed her in every movie, and TV show, she has been in.

Very Theatrical... Very Brilliant!....

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I love the visual style of this film; it's very theatrical but with huge backdrops; some of the scenes in the restaurant almost look like they're filmed in an aircraft hanger. The use of colour is quite brilliant, even down to the actor's costume changing colour as they move from room to room. I thought the music fitted the piece quite brilliantly too (aside from the operatic stuff – those that have seen it will know what I'm referring to). All the performances were excellent; in particular Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon; they both really shone in this one! It's certainly one I'll be seeing again sometime and one I heartily recommend although some may find certain scenes distasteful (definitely not for the youngsters!).SteelMonster's verdict: HIGHLY RECOMMENDEDMy score: 8.9/10You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097108/reviews-185

ur29798050

title: Very Theatrical... Very Brilliant!.... review: I love the visual style of this film; it's very theatrical but with huge backdrops; some of the scenes in the restaurant almost look like they're filmed in an aircraft hanger. The use of colour is quite brilliant, even down to the actor's costume changing colour as they move from room to room. I thought the music fitted the piece quite brilliantly too (aside from the operatic stuff – those that have seen it will know what I'm referring to). All the performances were excellent; in particular Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon; they both really shone in this one! It's certainly one I'll be seeing again sometime and one I heartily recommend although some may find certain scenes distasteful (definitely not for the youngsters!).SteelMonster's verdict: HIGHLY RECOMMENDEDMy score: 8.9/10You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

About art and ways to consume it

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Greenaway again, with his penchant for symbols and obscure symmetries where the scatological is strangely balanced by the cerebral, the chaotic by the orderly. For some reason this one among his filmography served as his brief foray into the limelight. Actually it makes some sense why. It's the most readily decipherable and eminently rewarding in the short term. The least puzzling, while retaining some appearance of the puzzle.There's one bright spot in this, a conversation between the cook and wife where we see her struggle despite herself to recreate an experience she lived. Without outside confirmation how could it have been real, she wonders. Without someone to observe, how much is in and off the mind? As usual with Greenaway, a lot of this is also about the creative process. About making cinema, about gorging in it with utter disregard for its secrets or delicate flavors, about cataloging its long list of obscure knowledge. About crude, violent tempers who crave immediate pleasures loitering about in a place where small marvels are created out of humble, ordinary essentials.The place also deserves a mention. Above all the kitchen as the subterranean laboratory where mercurial alchemies are concocted, and where art finally takes its ironic revenge from the thuggish lifestyle of the newly rich that has used it as commodity and social leverage. Outside the restaurant it's pitch black and dogs cross and recross through billows of fog. The magical touch of Sacha Vierny again.It's not a great film and rather goes down easy, but perhaps it will inspire newcomers to seek other more important films by this man.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097108/reviews-173

ur17699578

title: About art and ways to consume it review: Greenaway again, with his penchant for symbols and obscure symmetries where the scatological is strangely balanced by the cerebral, the chaotic by the orderly. For some reason this one among his filmography served as his brief foray into the limelight. Actually it makes some sense why. It's the most readily decipherable and eminently rewarding in the short term. The least puzzling, while retaining some appearance of the puzzle.There's one bright spot in this, a conversation between the cook and wife where we see her struggle despite herself to recreate an experience she lived. Without outside confirmation how could it have been real, she wonders. Without someone to observe, how much is in and off the mind? As usual with Greenaway, a lot of this is also about the creative process. About making cinema, about gorging in it with utter disregard for its secrets or delicate flavors, about cataloging its long list of obscure knowledge. About crude, violent tempers who crave immediate pleasures loitering about in a place where small marvels are created out of humble, ordinary essentials.The place also deserves a mention. Above all the kitchen as the subterranean laboratory where mercurial alchemies are concocted, and where art finally takes its ironic revenge from the thuggish lifestyle of the newly rich that has used it as commodity and social leverage. Outside the restaurant it's pitch black and dogs cross and recross through billows of fog. The magical touch of Sacha Vierny again.It's not a great film and rather goes down easy, but perhaps it will inspire newcomers to seek other more important films by this man.

Dazzling, Poetic, Spectacular

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I see that quite a few people got quite a bit out of this. I see some of it. Some I see not at all. But what IS important here is that this film can generate such discussions, such thoughts, such artistry and philosophical posing(phrasing if you prefer). I will look at the film straight-on(as much as possible) as it is undoubtedly surreal. It is other-worldly. The story in simplistic terms is about a horrible, vile, odious thief named Albert who has a lovely wife named Georgina - who is not satisfied on many levels with her brutish, vulgar, common, loud, sadistic thief husband. This husband owns perhaps the most chic restaurant in town. It is a tapestry of beautiful colors with a mix of unreality generously garnishing it. I have seen very few films that rival this in its use of colors and lighting(Mario Bava's films come to mind as someone similar). Director Peter Greenaway(also the writer) does such a splendid job "painting" this film for indeed it looks visually like a moving painting or poem or some other aesthetic endeavour. Anyway, I digress, this thief and his wife are eating dinner when the eyes of Georgina meet with those of a timid, bookish man named Michael eating and reading at his table. Their eye meeting is sex(not unseen in this case) and explodes eventually into physical passion. The affair is eventually uncovered and Voilla! we get one of the grossest, bizarre, poetic(again that word) denouements in film history. This film is not big on plot and action but on emotion, passion, feeling, disgust, hate, love, sex, etc... Greenaway is the real star with both his urbane, witty, sadistic script and, more importantly, with his eye for aesthetics and innate beauty. He creates a very real film in a very unreal world. The restaurant is like no other in the world. Its parking lot is the same. Even the meat trucks are done in the most grand guignol fashion and have more in common with a scene from Sweeney Todd then anything about meat. The kitchen is huge with one man shirtless, a small boy singing what sound like melodious fugues, and there is Richard the French cook who gets his crowning moment in the final act of the film. The music by Michael Nyman is almost as important as the director's artistic lens. It pervades and moves each scene. And finally, though not unimportant in any way, is the acting of Michael Gambon as Albert, Helen Mirren as Georgina, Richard Bohringer as Richard and Alan Howard as Michael. All shine in their roles but Mirren and Gambon are moving. Mirren, the woman who won an Oscar playing Elizabeth II, is just the sexiest thing on screen in her lingerie, or eating her asparagus, or caressing her lover. She, like the camera lens, the music, moves symphonically. Gambon, however; is the real acting star. He is the pillar of disgust. He is putrid. He is wonderful in his role. I would even go so far to say he is delicious(but let's leave that for Alan Howard shall we). I guess I am gushing. This film deserves it. I do not often sit down to watch something and just become entranced with it. I knew when I finished this film that I had witnessed not just a film nor a great film but art. The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover is just that. Make no mistake.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097108/reviews-181

ur0166205

title: Dazzling, Poetic, Spectacular review: I see that quite a few people got quite a bit out of this. I see some of it. Some I see not at all. But what IS important here is that this film can generate such discussions, such thoughts, such artistry and philosophical posing(phrasing if you prefer). I will look at the film straight-on(as much as possible) as it is undoubtedly surreal. It is other-worldly. The story in simplistic terms is about a horrible, vile, odious thief named Albert who has a lovely wife named Georgina - who is not satisfied on many levels with her brutish, vulgar, common, loud, sadistic thief husband. This husband owns perhaps the most chic restaurant in town. It is a tapestry of beautiful colors with a mix of unreality generously garnishing it. I have seen very few films that rival this in its use of colors and lighting(Mario Bava's films come to mind as someone similar). Director Peter Greenaway(also the writer) does such a splendid job "painting" this film for indeed it looks visually like a moving painting or poem or some other aesthetic endeavour. Anyway, I digress, this thief and his wife are eating dinner when the eyes of Georgina meet with those of a timid, bookish man named Michael eating and reading at his table. Their eye meeting is sex(not unseen in this case) and explodes eventually into physical passion. The affair is eventually uncovered and Voilla! we get one of the grossest, bizarre, poetic(again that word) denouements in film history. This film is not big on plot and action but on emotion, passion, feeling, disgust, hate, love, sex, etc... Greenaway is the real star with both his urbane, witty, sadistic script and, more importantly, with his eye for aesthetics and innate beauty. He creates a very real film in a very unreal world. The restaurant is like no other in the world. Its parking lot is the same. Even the meat trucks are done in the most grand guignol fashion and have more in common with a scene from Sweeney Todd then anything about meat. The kitchen is huge with one man shirtless, a small boy singing what sound like melodious fugues, and there is Richard the French cook who gets his crowning moment in the final act of the film. The music by Michael Nyman is almost as important as the director's artistic lens. It pervades and moves each scene. And finally, though not unimportant in any way, is the acting of Michael Gambon as Albert, Helen Mirren as Georgina, Richard Bohringer as Richard and Alan Howard as Michael. All shine in their roles but Mirren and Gambon are moving. Mirren, the woman who won an Oscar playing Elizabeth II, is just the sexiest thing on screen in her lingerie, or eating her asparagus, or caressing her lover. She, like the camera lens, the music, moves symphonically. Gambon, however; is the real acting star. He is the pillar of disgust. He is putrid. He is wonderful in his role. I would even go so far to say he is delicious(but let's leave that for Alan Howard shall we). I guess I am gushing. This film deserves it. I do not often sit down to watch something and just become entranced with it. I knew when I finished this film that I had witnessed not just a film nor a great film but art. The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover is just that. Make no mistake.

"Bon apetit, Albert, that's French"...

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Revenge has never been served so deliciously and artistically. The visuals, the costumes, the set decoration, the changing colors cinematography and the soundtrack in this darker than dark comedy are stunning - the grandmasters were working on the movie. Among them Peter Greenaway, first and foremost a painter and a fine one, his brilliant cinematographer Sasha Verny, his astounding composer Michael Nyman who used for the movie the incredible "Memorial", and Jean-Paul Gaultier who designed the costumes. It also helped that Helen Mirren (as the long suffering wife, Georgina who in the end will serve her husband very well cooked revenge) and Michael Gambon (Albert- the thief, the gangster, the embodiment of pure evil and the owner of the swank restaurant) were two stars. Alan Howard plays a regular guest to whom Georgina is attracted to and carries on an affair with in the restaurant's restrooms and later in the back rooms, with the help of the Artist-cook (Richard Bohringer).Every frame of each Greenaway's movie looks and feels like an exquisite painting. "A Zed and two Naughts" is Greenaway's homage and admiration for Vermeer. "The Draughtsman's Contract" quite openly refers to Caravaggio, Georges de la Tour and other French and Italian artists. "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover", a fully realized vision of the director, a professional painter Peter Greenaway, is his tribute to the great Flemish and Dutch painters, Frans Hals, in particular. His large group portrait is constantly seen in the background of the hall in the London restaurant Le Hollandais that means "The Dutchman". I see Peter Greenaway as Hieronymus Bosch of the cinema, the creator of enormously beautiful, divine canvas depicting all horrors of hell that only humans can inflict on one another.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097108/reviews-154

ur1098460

title: "Bon apetit, Albert, that's French"... review: Revenge has never been served so deliciously and artistically. The visuals, the costumes, the set decoration, the changing colors cinematography and the soundtrack in this darker than dark comedy are stunning - the grandmasters were working on the movie. Among them Peter Greenaway, first and foremost a painter and a fine one, his brilliant cinematographer Sasha Verny, his astounding composer Michael Nyman who used for the movie the incredible "Memorial", and Jean-Paul Gaultier who designed the costumes. It also helped that Helen Mirren (as the long suffering wife, Georgina who in the end will serve her husband very well cooked revenge) and Michael Gambon (Albert- the thief, the gangster, the embodiment of pure evil and the owner of the swank restaurant) were two stars. Alan Howard plays a regular guest to whom Georgina is attracted to and carries on an affair with in the restaurant's restrooms and later in the back rooms, with the help of the Artist-cook (Richard Bohringer).Every frame of each Greenaway's movie looks and feels like an exquisite painting. "A Zed and two Naughts" is Greenaway's homage and admiration for Vermeer. "The Draughtsman's Contract" quite openly refers to Caravaggio, Georges de la Tour and other French and Italian artists. "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover", a fully realized vision of the director, a professional painter Peter Greenaway, is his tribute to the great Flemish and Dutch painters, Frans Hals, in particular. His large group portrait is constantly seen in the background of the hall in the London restaurant Le Hollandais that means "The Dutchman". I see Peter Greenaway as Hieronymus Bosch of the cinema, the creator of enormously beautiful, divine canvas depicting all horrors of hell that only humans can inflict on one another.

Greenaway's best movie...beautiful and disturbing

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When I saw this movie years ago at the cinema I thought it was an instant classic and one of the best British movies ever made (seeing as I've only seen it once I'd have to see if that judgement still stacks up-but writing a review based on first impressions is valid, I think).The plot of the movie isn't that complicated-the title of the movie pretty much gives you the major players of the story and you can imagine how things turn out...especially if you substitute "thief" for "thug" and add into the mix the thief finding about his wife's lover! As for that other great British movie I reviewed today, Excalibur, this movie has still left me with two lasting impressions: 1) the imagery and 2) the score.As for the imagery-original Movie Show reviewer David Stratton, I think, made a comment that perhaps I would never have picked up on myself (even knowing this information didn't mean I noticed it when I later saw the movie!)-namely, the use of colours. The gist of this is, I think, that the movie is colour coded-blues, reds, or what have you. What I have in mind is just how the images in the movie work their spell on you-they are mesmerising, hypnotic, enchanting. Perhaps this effect only works because of the score.As for the score-long time collaborator to director Peter Greenaway, Michael Nyman, has once again done a remarkable job in scoring a Greenaway film (another great example of this is for the Greenaway movie "A zed and two noughts"). It features a boy soprano or something (the age of castratos is thankfully over!). The way that the score and the images combined for a spellbinding effect was magnificent.Now, for some warnings-despite the spellbinding nature of this movie, there is some content which is challenging-I mean violence and worse. There is one nasty scene where a man has paper or something brutally jammed into his mouth with some sort of implement.More disturbing is a scene of a 'special' dish. It does give a killer line though-the wife's suggestion of what part of the dish to eat and why. Brilliant line!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097108/reviews-163

ur4025773

title: Greenaway's best movie...beautiful and disturbing review: When I saw this movie years ago at the cinema I thought it was an instant classic and one of the best British movies ever made (seeing as I've only seen it once I'd have to see if that judgement still stacks up-but writing a review based on first impressions is valid, I think).The plot of the movie isn't that complicated-the title of the movie pretty much gives you the major players of the story and you can imagine how things turn out...especially if you substitute "thief" for "thug" and add into the mix the thief finding about his wife's lover! As for that other great British movie I reviewed today, Excalibur, this movie has still left me with two lasting impressions: 1) the imagery and 2) the score.As for the imagery-original Movie Show reviewer David Stratton, I think, made a comment that perhaps I would never have picked up on myself (even knowing this information didn't mean I noticed it when I later saw the movie!)-namely, the use of colours. The gist of this is, I think, that the movie is colour coded-blues, reds, or what have you. What I have in mind is just how the images in the movie work their spell on you-they are mesmerising, hypnotic, enchanting. Perhaps this effect only works because of the score.As for the score-long time collaborator to director Peter Greenaway, Michael Nyman, has once again done a remarkable job in scoring a Greenaway film (another great example of this is for the Greenaway movie "A zed and two noughts"). It features a boy soprano or something (the age of castratos is thankfully over!). The way that the score and the images combined for a spellbinding effect was magnificent.Now, for some warnings-despite the spellbinding nature of this movie, there is some content which is challenging-I mean violence and worse. There is one nasty scene where a man has paper or something brutally jammed into his mouth with some sort of implement.More disturbing is a scene of a 'special' dish. It does give a killer line though-the wife's suggestion of what part of the dish to eat and why. Brilliant line!

Still not sure if I love or hate this movie

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It's been almost 17 years since I saw this movie and I still don't know whether I liked it or hated it. It may be termed a flawed masterpiece at best or a bloody mess at worst. One problem is that I was really never sure what genre it fit: was it horror, drama, or farce? Some directors can blend different elements seamlessly but I didn't see that here. And if this movie was a political commentary on Thatcherism, I missed it completely - The Full Monty does a better job and is more fun to watch. If there is some other allegory contained here, I would like to know what it is - even the director/writer isn't telling.On the plus side: the plot was easy to follow, the acting superb, and the cinematography interesting to say the least, and I love everything Helen Mirren is in. This is tempered however with what I saw was unnecessary and gratuitous nudity and violence that did not really advance the storyline. Some of the visual imagery was very repugnant.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097108/reviews-156

ur3783654

title: Still not sure if I love or hate this movie review: It's been almost 17 years since I saw this movie and I still don't know whether I liked it or hated it. It may be termed a flawed masterpiece at best or a bloody mess at worst. One problem is that I was really never sure what genre it fit: was it horror, drama, or farce? Some directors can blend different elements seamlessly but I didn't see that here. And if this movie was a political commentary on Thatcherism, I missed it completely - The Full Monty does a better job and is more fun to watch. If there is some other allegory contained here, I would like to know what it is - even the director/writer isn't telling.On the plus side: the plot was easy to follow, the acting superb, and the cinematography interesting to say the least, and I love everything Helen Mirren is in. This is tempered however with what I saw was unnecessary and gratuitous nudity and violence that did not really advance the storyline. Some of the visual imagery was very repugnant.

Is Greenaway a truly great artist or he merely seems so?

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I saw this in 1990, shortly after it came out. I was eighteen back then, and the movie impressed me so much, I saw it three times in a week. When I watch it now, I realize how pretentious the movie is. It has some very strong visual works, but the dialogue and the situations are ridiculous, not to mention the gratuitous shocks Greenaway imposes on the audience. To the uninitiated, Greenaway seems to be a masterful artist, but the more you watch great movies by great directors (Tarkovsky, Kiarostami, Hou, Imamura, Godard), you realize he is more of an impostor than a real artist. And Greenaway's misanthropy means his films has no real insight on human nature, the characters in his movies are constructions not flesh-and-blood people. Yet, there is not denying the strength of his vision.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097108/reviews-9

ur0305809

title: Is Greenaway a truly great artist or he merely seems so? review: I saw this in 1990, shortly after it came out. I was eighteen back then, and the movie impressed me so much, I saw it three times in a week. When I watch it now, I realize how pretentious the movie is. It has some very strong visual works, but the dialogue and the situations are ridiculous, not to mention the gratuitous shocks Greenaway imposes on the audience. To the uninitiated, Greenaway seems to be a masterful artist, but the more you watch great movies by great directors (Tarkovsky, Kiarostami, Hou, Imamura, Godard), you realize he is more of an impostor than a real artist. And Greenaway's misanthropy means his films has no real insight on human nature, the characters in his movies are constructions not flesh-and-blood people. Yet, there is not denying the strength of his vision.

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover

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I heard about this film because of its sexual content and a few of the actors starring before finding out it one of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die in the book of the same name, so that made me even more keen to see it. Basically high-class Le Hollandais Restaurant, run by French chef Richard Borst, the Cook (Richard Bohringer) has been taken over by vicious, malevolent and sadistic English gangster Albert Spica, the Thief (Sir Michael Gambon), and he makes numerous nightly appearances at the restaurant as host to dining parties of fellow thugs. With no interest and respect for the feelings and integrity of his staff and customers Spica's despicable behaviour causes many confrontations and he loses some of their company, but he gets away with taking their money. The one who suffers the most from his intolerable attitude is his finely bred and beautiful spouse Georgina Spica, the Wife (Dame Helen Mirren) who is forced into joining in his activities, and she often is victim to his abusive comments and occasional disrespectful actions. She has obviously had enough, and she soon enough catches the eye of and starts a passionate affair with bookshop owner and regular restaurant customer Michael, the Lover (Alan Howard), and with the help of the staff she manages to continue it right under her husband's nose. Eventually Spica does find out about the affair, and despite having no clothes Georgina and Michael escape from his raging tirade in the back of a truck containing rotting meat and vegetables, and they hide out in the bookshop, the always singing soprano boy working at the restaurant brings them food provided by Borst. Spica tortures the boy to find out where the bookshop is, and while Georgina is with the boy recovering in hospital, Spica's men torture Michael, force-feeding him pages from his books, choking and bleeding him to death, and Georgina discovers his body when she returns. In grief and rage she decides to exact her revenge on her husband in the only way she knows how, the gangster was heard shouting that he would kill and eat Michael when he found him, so she begs Borst to take Michael's body and to cook it, after a while of refusal he eventually agrees to this. The end sees Spica losing his restaurant business with financial downfall, and all the people he was horrible to him are gathered to watch his comeuppance, and Georgina brings out the cooked body of Michael and forces Spica at gunpoint to eat a mouthful of the body, forcing him to gag, and she shoots dead. Also starring Tim Roth as Mitchel, Ciarán Hinds as Cory, Gary Olsen as Spangler, Ewan Stewart as Harris, Roger Ashton-Griffiths as Turpin, Ron Cook as Mews, Liz Smith as Grace, Doctor Who's Alex Kingston as Adele, singer Ian Dury as Terry Fitch, Diane Langton as May Fitch and Roger Lloyd-Pack as Geoff. Gambon gives a brilliantly grotesque performance as the cruel and hateful criminal who only cares about himself, Mirren is really good clothed and unclothed as the long suffering wife who finds strength and true love, and the supporting cast all get their good moments as well, and the direction of Peter Greenaway is well paced and executed. This film obviously made an impact during the time of its release, especially for its controversial and thought provoking material, the use of nudity and graphic violence and dark sense of humour, the best scenes are definitely a sex scene at the same time as some chopping and food preparation and of course the hilariously gross ending, I would absolutely recommend this risqué and marvellous black comedy drama. Dame Helen Mirren was number 7 on The 50 Greatest British Actresses, and she was number 5 on Britain's Finest Actresses, the film was number 91 on The 100 Greatest Sexy Moments. Very good!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097108/reviews-184

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title: The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover review: I heard about this film because of its sexual content and a few of the actors starring before finding out it one of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die in the book of the same name, so that made me even more keen to see it. Basically high-class Le Hollandais Restaurant, run by French chef Richard Borst, the Cook (Richard Bohringer) has been taken over by vicious, malevolent and sadistic English gangster Albert Spica, the Thief (Sir Michael Gambon), and he makes numerous nightly appearances at the restaurant as host to dining parties of fellow thugs. With no interest and respect for the feelings and integrity of his staff and customers Spica's despicable behaviour causes many confrontations and he loses some of their company, but he gets away with taking their money. The one who suffers the most from his intolerable attitude is his finely bred and beautiful spouse Georgina Spica, the Wife (Dame Helen Mirren) who is forced into joining in his activities, and she often is victim to his abusive comments and occasional disrespectful actions. She has obviously had enough, and she soon enough catches the eye of and starts a passionate affair with bookshop owner and regular restaurant customer Michael, the Lover (Alan Howard), and with the help of the staff she manages to continue it right under her husband's nose. Eventually Spica does find out about the affair, and despite having no clothes Georgina and Michael escape from his raging tirade in the back of a truck containing rotting meat and vegetables, and they hide out in the bookshop, the always singing soprano boy working at the restaurant brings them food provided by Borst. Spica tortures the boy to find out where the bookshop is, and while Georgina is with the boy recovering in hospital, Spica's men torture Michael, force-feeding him pages from his books, choking and bleeding him to death, and Georgina discovers his body when she returns. In grief and rage she decides to exact her revenge on her husband in the only way she knows how, the gangster was heard shouting that he would kill and eat Michael when he found him, so she begs Borst to take Michael's body and to cook it, after a while of refusal he eventually agrees to this. The end sees Spica losing his restaurant business with financial downfall, and all the people he was horrible to him are gathered to watch his comeuppance, and Georgina brings out the cooked body of Michael and forces Spica at gunpoint to eat a mouthful of the body, forcing him to gag, and she shoots dead. Also starring Tim Roth as Mitchel, Ciarán Hinds as Cory, Gary Olsen as Spangler, Ewan Stewart as Harris, Roger Ashton-Griffiths as Turpin, Ron Cook as Mews, Liz Smith as Grace, Doctor Who's Alex Kingston as Adele, singer Ian Dury as Terry Fitch, Diane Langton as May Fitch and Roger Lloyd-Pack as Geoff. Gambon gives a brilliantly grotesque performance as the cruel and hateful criminal who only cares about himself, Mirren is really good clothed and unclothed as the long suffering wife who finds strength and true love, and the supporting cast all get their good moments as well, and the direction of Peter Greenaway is well paced and executed. This film obviously made an impact during the time of its release, especially for its controversial and thought provoking material, the use of nudity and graphic violence and dark sense of humour, the best scenes are definitely a sex scene at the same time as some chopping and food preparation and of course the hilariously gross ending, I would absolutely recommend this risqué and marvellous black comedy drama. Dame Helen Mirren was number 7 on The 50 Greatest British Actresses, and she was number 5 on Britain's Finest Actresses, the film was number 91 on The 100 Greatest Sexy Moments. Very good!

Masterpiece

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Gorgeous, insane and utterly brilliant. I'd seen a few Peter Greenaway films prior to this, but none of them have particularly worked for me. This one just blew me away. Michael Gambon plays a crook who has bought a share of a fancy French restaurant. This means he can spend every night sitting in the middle of the restaurant loudly barking his particular brand of rudeness at his minions (including Tim Roth and Ciaran Hinds) and his put-upon wife (Helen Mirren). Mirren is so sick of her life she wanders off to the bathroom to have anonymous sex with a book-reading customer (Alan Howard). After a few nights of this, Gambon catches on and, well, the results aren't that pretty. Two things in particular stand out in this one: first, Gambon. Holy crap, he is one of the most brazen bastards ever to be seen (and especially heard) in the cinema. The performance is utterly brilliant. I hate this guy, don't get me wrong, but I could listen to him yell for hours and I wouldn't stop laughing. Second: the production design. It's one of the neatest looking films I've ever seen. Shot on an elaborate sound stage, the restaurant (and its exterior) are color coded. It's brilliant. My favorite bit of it are the urinals in the men's room: a shoulder-high pillar in the very center of the bathroom with the urinals on each side, so the urinators have to stare right into their neighbors eyes as they pee. The story has an allegorical meaning, apparently about Thatcher, but at this point that's only a historical footnote. The film holds up great with all its nuttiness. My only minor complaint: the last sequence is a tad too straightforward. But, really, I absolutely loved this. It's one of the best films I've seen in a while.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097108/reviews-189

ur0391152

title: Masterpiece review: Gorgeous, insane and utterly brilliant. I'd seen a few Peter Greenaway films prior to this, but none of them have particularly worked for me. This one just blew me away. Michael Gambon plays a crook who has bought a share of a fancy French restaurant. This means he can spend every night sitting in the middle of the restaurant loudly barking his particular brand of rudeness at his minions (including Tim Roth and Ciaran Hinds) and his put-upon wife (Helen Mirren). Mirren is so sick of her life she wanders off to the bathroom to have anonymous sex with a book-reading customer (Alan Howard). After a few nights of this, Gambon catches on and, well, the results aren't that pretty. Two things in particular stand out in this one: first, Gambon. Holy crap, he is one of the most brazen bastards ever to be seen (and especially heard) in the cinema. The performance is utterly brilliant. I hate this guy, don't get me wrong, but I could listen to him yell for hours and I wouldn't stop laughing. Second: the production design. It's one of the neatest looking films I've ever seen. Shot on an elaborate sound stage, the restaurant (and its exterior) are color coded. It's brilliant. My favorite bit of it are the urinals in the men's room: a shoulder-high pillar in the very center of the bathroom with the urinals on each side, so the urinators have to stare right into their neighbors eyes as they pee. The story has an allegorical meaning, apparently about Thatcher, but at this point that's only a historical footnote. The film holds up great with all its nuttiness. My only minor complaint: the last sequence is a tad too straightforward. But, really, I absolutely loved this. It's one of the best films I've seen in a while.

Depply Beautiful

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I don't know how good this movie is and I don't care because I loved it. It left me kind of numb. Moved, transported, enchanted. That's exactly how I want to feel when I get out of a movie. "Finding Neverland" gave it to me, in spades. Johnny Depp, hey Johnny you're the best we've got. I forgot that it was you two minutes into the movie, I only knew I loved that character. That in itself is part of the many miracles the movie has in store. Yours, is a performance of perfect beauty. Kate Winslet is quickly becoming my favourite actress. Julie Christie is, was and always will be my "Darling" but Freddie Highmore, you and your brothers gave me one the best evenings in a movie theatre I had in a long, long, time. My girlfriend just read my comment over my shoulder, her comment was very succinct: "You write like a woman" Okay, let's see if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Good night kids.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-280

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title: Depply Beautiful review: I don't know how good this movie is and I don't care because I loved it. It left me kind of numb. Moved, transported, enchanted. That's exactly how I want to feel when I get out of a movie. "Finding Neverland" gave it to me, in spades. Johnny Depp, hey Johnny you're the best we've got. I forgot that it was you two minutes into the movie, I only knew I loved that character. That in itself is part of the many miracles the movie has in store. Yours, is a performance of perfect beauty. Kate Winslet is quickly becoming my favourite actress. Julie Christie is, was and always will be my "Darling" but Freddie Highmore, you and your brothers gave me one the best evenings in a movie theatre I had in a long, long, time. My girlfriend just read my comment over my shoulder, her comment was very succinct: "You write like a woman" Okay, let's see if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Good night kids.

Perfect!

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Finding Neverland is the story of how struggling playwright J. M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) created Peter Pan, inspired by an equally struggling widow (Kate Winslet) and her four rambunctious boys. Exquisitely detailed, with sumptuous and elaborate set pieces, Marc Forster's filming of the Allan Knee play is artful without being arty.Johnny Depp is perfectly cast as Barrie, although there's the usual caveat that Johnny Depp is perfectly cast in almost anything. He might well be the best actor working today, especially since he refuses to let himself become typecast. Hard to believe now that he used to be on that old Fox TV show, isn't it? Depp is dead-on earnest as the wise, soulful Barrie, who becomes a sort-of surrogate father to the four Davies boys, whose father has since passed away (although in real life he hadn't yet died when Barrie met the family).Although the movie is about the creation of Peter Pan, at its heart are smaller dovetailing storythreads about relationships, particularly those between Barrie and his wife, Mary (Radha Mitchell), Barrie and Sylvia Davies (Winslet), and Barrie and the youngest Davies boy, Peter (Freddie Highmore). Depp's mastery of expression and pathos are on display here, as he turns in an utterly commanding, pitch-perfect performance; his Oscar nomination for this role was well deserved indeed.Depp is supported by an excellent cast that looks like it's been performing the roles for years. In particular, Winslet and Mitchell were magnificent, as was the venerable Julie Christie, who plays Sylvia's mother Mrs. Emma du Maurier. Dustin Hoffman turns in decent work as Charles Frohman, the proprietor of the playhouse in which Barrie's plays were performed (in other words, his patron). As Depp is now, Hoffman was long known for being able to disappear into a role - his roles in the 1970s alone are mighty eclectic indeed.This is a sheer beauty to behold, a movie that should certainly stand the test of time to be regarded in a few decades as a true classic. Your jaw will drop at some of the set pieces on display - check out the pirate ship! - and you'll marvel at the jaunty forays into the imagination of the playwright who never grew up. Finding Neverland will have even the most jaded and heartless melting and shimmering with pure, unadulterated joy.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-434

ur0543054

title: Perfect! review: Finding Neverland is the story of how struggling playwright J. M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) created Peter Pan, inspired by an equally struggling widow (Kate Winslet) and her four rambunctious boys. Exquisitely detailed, with sumptuous and elaborate set pieces, Marc Forster's filming of the Allan Knee play is artful without being arty.Johnny Depp is perfectly cast as Barrie, although there's the usual caveat that Johnny Depp is perfectly cast in almost anything. He might well be the best actor working today, especially since he refuses to let himself become typecast. Hard to believe now that he used to be on that old Fox TV show, isn't it? Depp is dead-on earnest as the wise, soulful Barrie, who becomes a sort-of surrogate father to the four Davies boys, whose father has since passed away (although in real life he hadn't yet died when Barrie met the family).Although the movie is about the creation of Peter Pan, at its heart are smaller dovetailing storythreads about relationships, particularly those between Barrie and his wife, Mary (Radha Mitchell), Barrie and Sylvia Davies (Winslet), and Barrie and the youngest Davies boy, Peter (Freddie Highmore). Depp's mastery of expression and pathos are on display here, as he turns in an utterly commanding, pitch-perfect performance; his Oscar nomination for this role was well deserved indeed.Depp is supported by an excellent cast that looks like it's been performing the roles for years. In particular, Winslet and Mitchell were magnificent, as was the venerable Julie Christie, who plays Sylvia's mother Mrs. Emma du Maurier. Dustin Hoffman turns in decent work as Charles Frohman, the proprietor of the playhouse in which Barrie's plays were performed (in other words, his patron). As Depp is now, Hoffman was long known for being able to disappear into a role - his roles in the 1970s alone are mighty eclectic indeed.This is a sheer beauty to behold, a movie that should certainly stand the test of time to be regarded in a few decades as a true classic. Your jaw will drop at some of the set pieces on display - check out the pirate ship! - and you'll marvel at the jaunty forays into the imagination of the playwright who never grew up. Finding Neverland will have even the most jaded and heartless melting and shimmering with pure, unadulterated joy.

Johnny Depp Plays a Normal Human Being, For Once

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This gloopy biopic about J.M. Barrie and the events that inspired "Peter Pan" almost made me angry at how grossly manipulative it was, and all the more angry that it managed to work on me anyway.Johnny Depp plays Barrie in one of the only roles he's played in the last many years that resembles a real living person. Kate Winslet and Freddie Highmore are both terrific as a brother and sister who befriend Barrie, much to the disapproval of a stern and uptight mother (Julie Christie).The film's final scenes, in which Winslet's character dies gracefully while Barrie unleashes a barrage of fantasy to help make her last moments on earth tolerable, are maudlin and unforgivingly sentimental --- and they managed to have me reduced to sobs.Grade: B

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-639

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title: Johnny Depp Plays a Normal Human Being, For Once review: This gloopy biopic about J.M. Barrie and the events that inspired "Peter Pan" almost made me angry at how grossly manipulative it was, and all the more angry that it managed to work on me anyway.Johnny Depp plays Barrie in one of the only roles he's played in the last many years that resembles a real living person. Kate Winslet and Freddie Highmore are both terrific as a brother and sister who befriend Barrie, much to the disapproval of a stern and uptight mother (Julie Christie).The film's final scenes, in which Winslet's character dies gracefully while Barrie unleashes a barrage of fantasy to help make her last moments on earth tolerable, are maudlin and unforgivingly sentimental --- and they managed to have me reduced to sobs.Grade: B

An entertaining drama that plays fast and loose with the facts

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This is the story of J.M. Barrie, the man behind Peter Pan, a fictional figure who, true to form, hasn't aged since his inception over a hundred years ago.The cast is well-assembled, with Depp delivering a top-notch performance as always. That's not to disparage the others, including film veterans Julie Christie and Dustin Hoffman. Even the child actors, particularly Freddie Highmore, are convincingly authentic.The directorial style is accomplished, with Marc Forster quietly adding to a resume of diverse and challenging films. Here the action flits seamlessly from fantasy to fact, often within the same scene.Let it be known that the script deviates freely from fact. While I normally can't stand screenwriters 'improving' history this film is not an egregious offender since the script is mostly devoid of cliché. One of the most interesting questions that the characters are confronted with is how to maintain innocence in the face of life's trials and tribulations. This is not a meaningless Hollywood fluff piece, it is a film that attempts to provoke thought while it entertains.If you're looking for historical accuracy, look elsewhere. Otherwise, just enjoy this film for what it is.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-603

ur17822437

title: An entertaining drama that plays fast and loose with the facts review: This is the story of J.M. Barrie, the man behind Peter Pan, a fictional figure who, true to form, hasn't aged since his inception over a hundred years ago.The cast is well-assembled, with Depp delivering a top-notch performance as always. That's not to disparage the others, including film veterans Julie Christie and Dustin Hoffman. Even the child actors, particularly Freddie Highmore, are convincingly authentic.The directorial style is accomplished, with Marc Forster quietly adding to a resume of diverse and challenging films. Here the action flits seamlessly from fantasy to fact, often within the same scene.Let it be known that the script deviates freely from fact. While I normally can't stand screenwriters 'improving' history this film is not an egregious offender since the script is mostly devoid of cliché. One of the most interesting questions that the characters are confronted with is how to maintain innocence in the face of life's trials and tribulations. This is not a meaningless Hollywood fluff piece, it is a film that attempts to provoke thought while it entertains.If you're looking for historical accuracy, look elsewhere. Otherwise, just enjoy this film for what it is.

The Wings of Imagination

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The real J.M. Barrie was influenced and inspired as a child in Scotland by the adventurous stories of Robert Louis Stevenson of pirates, Indians and kidnapped boys. As a young journalist in London in the peak years of the Gilded Age his vivid imagination took him from novels to stage-plays. Barrie loved games and founded a cricket club with fellow writers Arthur Conan Doyle and P.G. Wodehouse. An old nugget describing his personality tells of his comments upon himself and others that often appeared in the newspapers. He once remarked to H.G. Wells, "It is all very well to be able to write books, but can you wiggle your ears?" It was in the very early years of the 20th Century, now 101 years ago and the same year that in the windy Outer Banks of North Carolina that the Wright Brothers took flight that Jamie Barrie's Peter Pan soared into the air on wires in the London stage. Marc Forester's fascinating film biography adapted by David Magee from Allan Knee's play, "The Man Who Was Peter Pan," now comes to us in this delightful, moving account, 'Finding Neverland.' It presents historical reality between lushly imagined expeditions to a fictitious Neverland. It's performed impeccably by Johnny Depp as Sir James Mathew Barrie and an extraordinary cast under the able direction of Marc Forster.This is the loveliest film of the year, highly recommended. Bring Kleenex for the final scenes and see how difficult it is to leave the theater and return to today.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-122

ur0028288

title: The Wings of Imagination review: The real J.M. Barrie was influenced and inspired as a child in Scotland by the adventurous stories of Robert Louis Stevenson of pirates, Indians and kidnapped boys. As a young journalist in London in the peak years of the Gilded Age his vivid imagination took him from novels to stage-plays. Barrie loved games and founded a cricket club with fellow writers Arthur Conan Doyle and P.G. Wodehouse. An old nugget describing his personality tells of his comments upon himself and others that often appeared in the newspapers. He once remarked to H.G. Wells, "It is all very well to be able to write books, but can you wiggle your ears?" It was in the very early years of the 20th Century, now 101 years ago and the same year that in the windy Outer Banks of North Carolina that the Wright Brothers took flight that Jamie Barrie's Peter Pan soared into the air on wires in the London stage. Marc Forester's fascinating film biography adapted by David Magee from Allan Knee's play, "The Man Who Was Peter Pan," now comes to us in this delightful, moving account, 'Finding Neverland.' It presents historical reality between lushly imagined expeditions to a fictitious Neverland. It's performed impeccably by Johnny Depp as Sir James Mathew Barrie and an extraordinary cast under the able direction of Marc Forster.This is the loveliest film of the year, highly recommended. Bring Kleenex for the final scenes and see how difficult it is to leave the theater and return to today.

A Great Story of Creating a Great Story

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"Finding Neverland" was really an enchanting tale for the masses to enjoy. Eight years ago at the theatres, I had the pleasure of seeing this movie and it was truly something you don't see everyday from the life in the fast land pictures that has infested the screens over the past few years. It is a rare find to see an exhibition of story filled with fantasy, imagination and an original story about the inspiration of J.M. Barrie and the muses he took in creating one of the greatest classical children stories of all time, "Peter Pan".Johnny Depp stars as Mr. Barrie, a Scottish writer who falls through troubled times because his previous work was a complete bust. As he was walking through the park, he runs into Sylvia Davies (Kate Winslet) and her four sons and they get together for a warm and friendly chat. As the film progresses, they start to get closer and it eventually leads Barrie to write his greatest work which would become a classic in the making.The centrepiece of the film is on Barrie and his closeness to the Davies clan and by using his observation skills to understand children's behaviour, the path that led to the creation of "Peter Pan" and adding Indians and Pirates for added texture to the iconic children's story.Marc Forster who also directed the 2001 hit "Monster's Ball" was behind the director's chair in this one adds magic towards the character of Barrie as we follow him through the whole process that led his masterpiece that is "Peter Pan". Depp was excellent in his portrayal as Barrie and the Scottish accent was spot on and his performance was quite sublime. Great performances by the cast, especially from Kate Winslet, Julie Christie and Dustin Hoffman (he played Captain Hook in "Hook" go figure!). But the real standout was from Freddie Highmore who played the youngest boy Peter Davies and his bravado materializes near the end.I truly believe that this was one of the best films that came out in 2004. If you've seen movies like "Big Fish" than this movie will surely please you.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-659

ur12327230

title: A Great Story of Creating a Great Story review: "Finding Neverland" was really an enchanting tale for the masses to enjoy. Eight years ago at the theatres, I had the pleasure of seeing this movie and it was truly something you don't see everyday from the life in the fast land pictures that has infested the screens over the past few years. It is a rare find to see an exhibition of story filled with fantasy, imagination and an original story about the inspiration of J.M. Barrie and the muses he took in creating one of the greatest classical children stories of all time, "Peter Pan".Johnny Depp stars as Mr. Barrie, a Scottish writer who falls through troubled times because his previous work was a complete bust. As he was walking through the park, he runs into Sylvia Davies (Kate Winslet) and her four sons and they get together for a warm and friendly chat. As the film progresses, they start to get closer and it eventually leads Barrie to write his greatest work which would become a classic in the making.The centrepiece of the film is on Barrie and his closeness to the Davies clan and by using his observation skills to understand children's behaviour, the path that led to the creation of "Peter Pan" and adding Indians and Pirates for added texture to the iconic children's story.Marc Forster who also directed the 2001 hit "Monster's Ball" was behind the director's chair in this one adds magic towards the character of Barrie as we follow him through the whole process that led his masterpiece that is "Peter Pan". Depp was excellent in his portrayal as Barrie and the Scottish accent was spot on and his performance was quite sublime. Great performances by the cast, especially from Kate Winslet, Julie Christie and Dustin Hoffman (he played Captain Hook in "Hook" go figure!). But the real standout was from Freddie Highmore who played the youngest boy Peter Davies and his bravado materializes near the end.I truly believe that this was one of the best films that came out in 2004. If you've seen movies like "Big Fish" than this movie will surely please you.

Better than expected

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I've got to say that I approached this film with some trepidation. The reviews weren't sparkling, but I've got to say that I found it quite a pleasant experience. The film is about the eternal child that is J M Barrie who wrote Peter Pan. He befriends a widow, or more precisely, her children and builds the fantasy world that will eventually spawn Peter Pan. His wife is obviously somewhat skeptical about the relationship which drives Barrie further into his imaginary world.This is very well acted and directed with a relatively slow pace which is very pleasing. Johny Depp rarely has an off day and he's on form again here. I've always find Kate Winslett alluring and she's also quite well (type)cast in her part. Well worth 7/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-73

ur2449095

title: Better than expected review: I've got to say that I approached this film with some trepidation. The reviews weren't sparkling, but I've got to say that I found it quite a pleasant experience. The film is about the eternal child that is J M Barrie who wrote Peter Pan. He befriends a widow, or more precisely, her children and builds the fantasy world that will eventually spawn Peter Pan. His wife is obviously somewhat skeptical about the relationship which drives Barrie further into his imaginary world.This is very well acted and directed with a relatively slow pace which is very pleasing. Johny Depp rarely has an off day and he's on form again here. I've always find Kate Winslett alluring and she's also quite well (type)cast in her part. Well worth 7/10

Peter Pan

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The boundless imagination of James Mattew Barrie the man behind 'Peter Pan', the classic literature that speaks to the child in all of us. Finding Neverland traverses both fantasy and everyday reality, melding the difficulties and heartbreak of adult life with the spellbinding allure and childlike innocence of the boy who never grows up. An emotional tale. It all begins with the successful Scottish playwright J.M Barrie watching the opening of his latest play to the ho-hum reaction among the polite society of Edwardian England. A literary genius of his times but bored of the same old themes, Barrie is clearly in need of some serious inspiration. Unexpectedly he finds it one day on his daily walk with his dog in a London park. Barrie encounters four fatherless boys and their beautiful recently widowed mother. Despite the disapproval of the boy's grandmother and the resentment of his own wife, Barrie becomes a good friend to the family, engaging the boys in tricks, disguises, games and sheer mischief, creating play-worlds of castles and kings, cowboys and Indians, pirates and castaways. He transforms hillsides into galleon ships, sticks into mighty swords, kites into enchanted fairies and the four kids into the lost boys of Neverland.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-533

ur9619380

title: Peter Pan review: The boundless imagination of James Mattew Barrie the man behind 'Peter Pan', the classic literature that speaks to the child in all of us. Finding Neverland traverses both fantasy and everyday reality, melding the difficulties and heartbreak of adult life with the spellbinding allure and childlike innocence of the boy who never grows up. An emotional tale. It all begins with the successful Scottish playwright J.M Barrie watching the opening of his latest play to the ho-hum reaction among the polite society of Edwardian England. A literary genius of his times but bored of the same old themes, Barrie is clearly in need of some serious inspiration. Unexpectedly he finds it one day on his daily walk with his dog in a London park. Barrie encounters four fatherless boys and their beautiful recently widowed mother. Despite the disapproval of the boy's grandmother and the resentment of his own wife, Barrie becomes a good friend to the family, engaging the boys in tricks, disguises, games and sheer mischief, creating play-worlds of castles and kings, cowboys and Indians, pirates and castaways. He transforms hillsides into galleon ships, sticks into mighty swords, kites into enchanted fairies and the four kids into the lost boys of Neverland.

A Strong, Somewhat Magical Film

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The beginning 20 or 30 minutes of the film seemed to move with slow, almost languid movements that threatened to put me to sleep. There were suggestive flights of fancy such as "Big Fish" that never seemed to quite push the envelope of delight. Nevertheless and overlooking John Depp's accent, this movie build slowly and like a magic present, it kept unfolding its mysterious until the fantasy and the poignant reality met in the great bittersweet ending. The tender, unassuming relational angles and tensions, the backdrop of a Peter Pan Classic, the suggestive hints of humor of Dustin Hoffman, and the underlying premise of childhood and adulthood all packaged into a resonating exposure onto the big screen is a feast for the eyes and mind. Eight out of Ten Stars.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-143

ur0972645

title: A Strong, Somewhat Magical Film review: The beginning 20 or 30 minutes of the film seemed to move with slow, almost languid movements that threatened to put me to sleep. There were suggestive flights of fancy such as "Big Fish" that never seemed to quite push the envelope of delight. Nevertheless and overlooking John Depp's accent, this movie build slowly and like a magic present, it kept unfolding its mysterious until the fantasy and the poignant reality met in the great bittersweet ending. The tender, unassuming relational angles and tensions, the backdrop of a Peter Pan Classic, the suggestive hints of humor of Dustin Hoffman, and the underlying premise of childhood and adulthood all packaged into a resonating exposure onto the big screen is a feast for the eyes and mind. Eight out of Ten Stars.

A bit over-sincere, but well done

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I didn't really think of the film as anything exceptional, neither exceptionally bad nor good. The production was excellent, all the actors including even the children were top notch. I think the story kind of simplified some things that should have been left more up in the air, for example Julie Christie's mom character was too evil and one dimensional in the early parts of the film and then her transformation was handled much too quickly to be convincing that she actually came to like Barre in any way. Even more so with the author's wife, who fluttered about on the periphery of the film never really being given any meaty scenes, and then brought back for closure reasons in the middle of the finale. She barely even qualified as 2 dimensional though I would blame it on the script and not the actress. I thought the scenes with Depp and Winslet were well done, just restrained enough to be realistic to the time period but also to convey their mutual feelings that go beyond respect or just affection.I got the feeling that if this had been a film about one of my favorite writers, I would have loved it. It was very much a tribute -- I can't even remember ever seeing Depp play such a "good guy". Maybe that was part of the problem, I don't know. In the end it was nothing special for me.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-550

ur0178741

title: A bit over-sincere, but well done review: I didn't really think of the film as anything exceptional, neither exceptionally bad nor good. The production was excellent, all the actors including even the children were top notch. I think the story kind of simplified some things that should have been left more up in the air, for example Julie Christie's mom character was too evil and one dimensional in the early parts of the film and then her transformation was handled much too quickly to be convincing that she actually came to like Barre in any way. Even more so with the author's wife, who fluttered about on the periphery of the film never really being given any meaty scenes, and then brought back for closure reasons in the middle of the finale. She barely even qualified as 2 dimensional though I would blame it on the script and not the actress. I thought the scenes with Depp and Winslet were well done, just restrained enough to be realistic to the time period but also to convey their mutual feelings that go beyond respect or just affection.I got the feeling that if this had been a film about one of my favorite writers, I would have loved it. It was very much a tribute -- I can't even remember ever seeing Depp play such a "good guy". Maybe that was part of the problem, I don't know. In the end it was nothing special for me.

Believe

tt0308644

I believe in many things, truly, because believing is one of those obligatory terms of life. If you don't believe in something, it would be having no reason to be alive.That said, believing is maybe the main message of this film. In many moments, when we're watching it, maybe we can realize how simple it is, just because there's nothing totally outstanding about it, visually. But its story, is just one of those that carry you all along, no matter what. You don't have to be a kid to enjoy this one, in fact, it shows adults some things also.The characters in this film are as warm and natural as possible. You know what happens here is no fantasy, it is reality. You could easily see this events any day in your ordinary life. These kids meet the man and they just can't let him go. And the greatest thing, it's that it could be because of them, but mainly it is because of him. This is a man who has so much inside waiting to let go and show, and he has found the people to reveal these things.Then there is acting. Johnny Depp is a genius, in everything he's ever done. He knows just, no the right, but the only notes, for the specific moments in this film, and in many others. How does he do it? Well, I don't mind to know if he continues to show magic every time he's on screen. Here he has given another performance of those he can only give. Freddie Highmore reaches some moving extremes, handling them very well, becoming the revelation of the young cast. And Kate Winslet is wonderful.There's just a lot of things that make this movie what it is. You just go and see it for yourselves and let go imagination to those sometimes unreachable places.But you have to believe...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-289

ur4751428

title: Believe review: I believe in many things, truly, because believing is one of those obligatory terms of life. If you don't believe in something, it would be having no reason to be alive.That said, believing is maybe the main message of this film. In many moments, when we're watching it, maybe we can realize how simple it is, just because there's nothing totally outstanding about it, visually. But its story, is just one of those that carry you all along, no matter what. You don't have to be a kid to enjoy this one, in fact, it shows adults some things also.The characters in this film are as warm and natural as possible. You know what happens here is no fantasy, it is reality. You could easily see this events any day in your ordinary life. These kids meet the man and they just can't let him go. And the greatest thing, it's that it could be because of them, but mainly it is because of him. This is a man who has so much inside waiting to let go and show, and he has found the people to reveal these things.Then there is acting. Johnny Depp is a genius, in everything he's ever done. He knows just, no the right, but the only notes, for the specific moments in this film, and in many others. How does he do it? Well, I don't mind to know if he continues to show magic every time he's on screen. Here he has given another performance of those he can only give. Freddie Highmore reaches some moving extremes, handling them very well, becoming the revelation of the young cast. And Kate Winslet is wonderful.There's just a lot of things that make this movie what it is. You just go and see it for yourselves and let go imagination to those sometimes unreachable places.But you have to believe...

Rigging The Ballot Box

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A naked attempt at having it both ways: Oscar contention, and the commercial need to fill the seats with a child audience (bulldozed into this narrative).Huge disappointment because of the lack of imagination. No exploitation of the times, the Edwardian architecture.Neverland itself is visually imagined no more deeply than a play, as stage sets, right down to the undulating cardboard cutouts that make up the "sea".This couples with the narrative hypocrisy: Peter Pan is all about NOT growing up, and yet this entire story is crushed by the baggage about growing up: Depp in his relationship to his wife, the eldest boy in relation to the grandmother, young Peter in relation to the world.Depp is on target, Winslet is miscast, Hoffman is his usual nattering self...his own turn at Hook was better, a scary concept.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-521

ur8708196

title: Rigging The Ballot Box review: A naked attempt at having it both ways: Oscar contention, and the commercial need to fill the seats with a child audience (bulldozed into this narrative).Huge disappointment because of the lack of imagination. No exploitation of the times, the Edwardian architecture.Neverland itself is visually imagined no more deeply than a play, as stage sets, right down to the undulating cardboard cutouts that make up the "sea".This couples with the narrative hypocrisy: Peter Pan is all about NOT growing up, and yet this entire story is crushed by the baggage about growing up: Depp in his relationship to his wife, the eldest boy in relation to the grandmother, young Peter in relation to the world.Depp is on target, Winslet is miscast, Hoffman is his usual nattering self...his own turn at Hook was better, a scary concept.

Beautiful, Moving Movie with Very Few Flaws

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I had heard that this was merely a "chick flick." Hey, my wife is the one who wanted to go see it. As it turned out, I went with three other guys, and we all loved it.Some movies entertain; some teach; some open up new worlds. This movie opened up new worlds. With each passing scene, carefully woven from the previous ones, it was like crossing yet another threshold into another world. The story unfolded deeper and deeper with each new scene, each layer adding not to complexity (the story is rather simple), but to the depth. Depp and the others (esp. the young actor who played Peter) easily lead the audience deeper and deeper into the paths of authenticity, healing, love, friendship and the triumph of inner strength. The other characters, likewise, garnish the central story excellently.The only flaw I saw is, I'm sure, a matter of taste and perspective; I felt the grandmother was simply too two-dimensional and not as believable as she should have been, though she, too, had some beautiful moments that truly added to the film.Having much experience with divorce (being a divorce attorney) I found the unfortunate relationship between Depp's character and his wife believable to a tee: two people deeply in love with each other yet more committed to personal pursuits than tending the difficult relationship we call marriage. Ironically, though Depp's character ultimately became the main caretaker of the four boys, by following the tender feelings of his heart, he allowed his marriage to evaporate by not following the other tender feelings of his heart.Nearly perfect. I give it a 9 out of 10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-194

ur1164393

title: Beautiful, Moving Movie with Very Few Flaws review: I had heard that this was merely a "chick flick." Hey, my wife is the one who wanted to go see it. As it turned out, I went with three other guys, and we all loved it.Some movies entertain; some teach; some open up new worlds. This movie opened up new worlds. With each passing scene, carefully woven from the previous ones, it was like crossing yet another threshold into another world. The story unfolded deeper and deeper with each new scene, each layer adding not to complexity (the story is rather simple), but to the depth. Depp and the others (esp. the young actor who played Peter) easily lead the audience deeper and deeper into the paths of authenticity, healing, love, friendship and the triumph of inner strength. The other characters, likewise, garnish the central story excellently.The only flaw I saw is, I'm sure, a matter of taste and perspective; I felt the grandmother was simply too two-dimensional and not as believable as she should have been, though she, too, had some beautiful moments that truly added to the film.Having much experience with divorce (being a divorce attorney) I found the unfortunate relationship between Depp's character and his wife believable to a tee: two people deeply in love with each other yet more committed to personal pursuits than tending the difficult relationship we call marriage. Ironically, though Depp's character ultimately became the main caretaker of the four boys, by following the tender feelings of his heart, he allowed his marriage to evaporate by not following the other tender feelings of his heart.Nearly perfect. I give it a 9 out of 10.

Good, but too simple, definitely not one of the year's best

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"Finding Neverland" is a lot like "Ray", though not as good. They are both about men whose childhoods are practically destroyed by family tragedy but who create something magical and long-lasting in their adult lives, through the influence of others. "Ray" was about a very influential black singer; "Finding Neverland" is about the writer of "Peter Pan". Both premises could've been made into great movies. But, strangely, only "Ray" was great.Oh, "Finding Neverland" was good, but it was just too simple too be even compared to many of this year's movies, including "Kill Bill: Vol. 2", "Collateral", "The Passion of the Christ", "Closer" and "The Life Aquatic". Not to say simple movies aren't as good as complex ones, but the solutions this movie offers seems a lot more geared for children than adults, or even all-ages. I'm wondering if this is on purpose, because the film is essentially a bio-pic, and bio-pics are generally not one of children's basic genres.Of course I may be alone on this, everyone else seems to love it, but I find it very surprising that this film could inspire any form of adult. Its main message is "with your imagination you can accomplish anything", which we've all heard, since we were very young, from many sources. Of course maybe it takes a simple little movie to remind you of it.So the Scottish Sir James Barrie (Johnny Depp) has writer's block, and his last play was a flop, and his impresario (Dustin Hoffman) is getting skeptical. His wife Mary Ansell (Radha Mitchell) is a little distant – he is not least at fault – and he spends his days sitting in the local park, writing in his notebook. One day he finds that a little boy is lying under his shoe, and then he meets the boys' brothers, and widow mother, Sylvia Llewelyn-Davies (Kate Winslet). Immediately he is smitten with the family, but not romantically, mind you. No, in a way Sir Barrie wants to be the boys' brother, and Sylvia's son.But some people get in the way: Sylvia's mother, Mrs. Emma du Maurier (Julie Christie), Mary, and one of Sylvia's sons Peter (Freddie Highmore) are all fiercely against the union of James and the Davies family. Of course, to everyone but James, Sylvia and the other boys their time together looks scandalous and, well, creepy, but they understand that they are all just a big, happy family.Johnny Depp is skillful in playing characters that are in their own element – actually, come to think of it, all of his leading characters have some strange quirk that puts them in their own world. An android with sharp hands, an illiterate Buster Keaton fan, the worst film director of all time, one of the best drug dealers of all time, a drunken fruity pirate, a deadly CIA agent, and a shadowy author…take your pick. All of them completely different, except for the similarity of being one hundred percent unique. And now another to add to the list: Sir J.M. Barrie. This character's quirky curse is that his childhood was all but stolen from him (for reasons I wont spoil), and so he spends his adult life trying to steal it back. Yes, indeed, there is no romance between James and Sylvia, because at the age James is really at, girls to him are a still unfamiliar being who are there to look nice and clean (which makes his wedding with Mary a complete mystery). But James has still the wisdom and experience of an adult, so he seems less like he has a problem than a cute quirk. Johnny Depp balances this perfectly, it's a great performance.But not as great as that of Liam Neeson, Jamie Foxx, Tom Cruise, Paul Giamatti or Bill Murray. I seriously think this film is being over-praised. Depp was great, but not amazing, and most of the rest of the cast is underused – especially Hoffman – though Radha Mitchell shines. The movie itself isn't really a mass achievement either…sure, the costumes, sets and cinematography were great, but I think all that should be second to the writing and direction, which, I'm sad to say, isn't all that great. And there's an awkward scene at the end with Winslet, in her house, that would work a lot better as a dream or some sort of fantasy.So it's not a must-see, but you would enjoy parts if you watched it, and Depp and Mitchell turn in some good work, so I won't discourage you from seeing it. Just watch the other movies I mentioned first.7/10.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-210

ur1903880

title: Good, but too simple, definitely not one of the year's best review: "Finding Neverland" is a lot like "Ray", though not as good. They are both about men whose childhoods are practically destroyed by family tragedy but who create something magical and long-lasting in their adult lives, through the influence of others. "Ray" was about a very influential black singer; "Finding Neverland" is about the writer of "Peter Pan". Both premises could've been made into great movies. But, strangely, only "Ray" was great.Oh, "Finding Neverland" was good, but it was just too simple too be even compared to many of this year's movies, including "Kill Bill: Vol. 2", "Collateral", "The Passion of the Christ", "Closer" and "The Life Aquatic". Not to say simple movies aren't as good as complex ones, but the solutions this movie offers seems a lot more geared for children than adults, or even all-ages. I'm wondering if this is on purpose, because the film is essentially a bio-pic, and bio-pics are generally not one of children's basic genres.Of course I may be alone on this, everyone else seems to love it, but I find it very surprising that this film could inspire any form of adult. Its main message is "with your imagination you can accomplish anything", which we've all heard, since we were very young, from many sources. Of course maybe it takes a simple little movie to remind you of it.So the Scottish Sir James Barrie (Johnny Depp) has writer's block, and his last play was a flop, and his impresario (Dustin Hoffman) is getting skeptical. His wife Mary Ansell (Radha Mitchell) is a little distant – he is not least at fault – and he spends his days sitting in the local park, writing in his notebook. One day he finds that a little boy is lying under his shoe, and then he meets the boys' brothers, and widow mother, Sylvia Llewelyn-Davies (Kate Winslet). Immediately he is smitten with the family, but not romantically, mind you. No, in a way Sir Barrie wants to be the boys' brother, and Sylvia's son.But some people get in the way: Sylvia's mother, Mrs. Emma du Maurier (Julie Christie), Mary, and one of Sylvia's sons Peter (Freddie Highmore) are all fiercely against the union of James and the Davies family. Of course, to everyone but James, Sylvia and the other boys their time together looks scandalous and, well, creepy, but they understand that they are all just a big, happy family.Johnny Depp is skillful in playing characters that are in their own element – actually, come to think of it, all of his leading characters have some strange quirk that puts them in their own world. An android with sharp hands, an illiterate Buster Keaton fan, the worst film director of all time, one of the best drug dealers of all time, a drunken fruity pirate, a deadly CIA agent, and a shadowy author…take your pick. All of them completely different, except for the similarity of being one hundred percent unique. And now another to add to the list: Sir J.M. Barrie. This character's quirky curse is that his childhood was all but stolen from him (for reasons I wont spoil), and so he spends his adult life trying to steal it back. Yes, indeed, there is no romance between James and Sylvia, because at the age James is really at, girls to him are a still unfamiliar being who are there to look nice and clean (which makes his wedding with Mary a complete mystery). But James has still the wisdom and experience of an adult, so he seems less like he has a problem than a cute quirk. Johnny Depp balances this perfectly, it's a great performance.But not as great as that of Liam Neeson, Jamie Foxx, Tom Cruise, Paul Giamatti or Bill Murray. I seriously think this film is being over-praised. Depp was great, but not amazing, and most of the rest of the cast is underused – especially Hoffman – though Radha Mitchell shines. The movie itself isn't really a mass achievement either…sure, the costumes, sets and cinematography were great, but I think all that should be second to the writing and direction, which, I'm sad to say, isn't all that great. And there's an awkward scene at the end with Winslet, in her house, that would work a lot better as a dream or some sort of fantasy.So it's not a must-see, but you would enjoy parts if you watched it, and Depp and Mitchell turn in some good work, so I won't discourage you from seeing it. Just watch the other movies I mentioned first.7/10.

marvelous

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I have never been disappointed by anything Johnny Depp ever did. What makes this film really special is how magic it is able to create with its content and its subtle, powerful performances. Julie Christie and an amazing cast help give the story dimensions and ground it reality. Hope the academy members recognizes this fine work and honor it accordingly, especially the work of that young actor who plays Peter. He was truly remarkable. This is a lovely movie that will make you believe with its gentle touches and the use of real emotions, unlike some overdone and over the top work out there where CGI kills human emotions.Beautiful score, gorgeous photography, and outstanding acting... a remarkable work of art.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-66

ur2115026

title: marvelous review: I have never been disappointed by anything Johnny Depp ever did. What makes this film really special is how magic it is able to create with its content and its subtle, powerful performances. Julie Christie and an amazing cast help give the story dimensions and ground it reality. Hope the academy members recognizes this fine work and honor it accordingly, especially the work of that young actor who plays Peter. He was truly remarkable. This is a lovely movie that will make you believe with its gentle touches and the use of real emotions, unlike some overdone and over the top work out there where CGI kills human emotions.Beautiful score, gorgeous photography, and outstanding acting... a remarkable work of art.

Magical Barrie Tale

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"Finding Neverland" is not based on my relentless pursuit to visit The Playboy Mansion. It is also not based on my own dreams to seize supreme pun powers in a literary fantasy-land called "Cleverland". Anyway, "Finding Neverland" is Director Marc Forster's enchanting narrative on the inspiration behind "Peter Pan". Obviously, the centerpiece of the story is J.M. Barrie, the Scottish author of "Peter Pan". This fervent jewel of a film focuses on Barrie's friendship & kinship with four fatherless Scottish juvenile lads and their moribund mother. I really dipped into Depp's subdued, but yet, goodwill performance. By previously taking on a swashbuckler role in "Pirates of the Caribbean" and now an author who inspired a fairytale which a swashbuckler is the villain, one can state that Depp is hooked on the spearing seaman thing. I guess a "pirate's life for him". Kate Winslet scores high with yet another winning performance as the courageous mother, Sylvia Davies. Freddie Highmore also sparkles as Peter, the young Davies boy which becomes the primary emphasis of Barrie's inspiration. Because of his stellar work, Highmore should rank "high" in the child actor department by receiving "more & more" lucrative acting gigs. Hollywood, Are you ready for Freddie? Dustin Hoffman (playing Theatre Director Charles Frohman) and Julie Christie (playing the controlling grandmother Emma Du Maurier) contribute their well-respected expertise to their roles. But the hero of this tale is not Johnny Depp, nor Peter Pan, nor J.M. Barrie, and not even Wendy. It was Director Marc Forster's illuminating vision of Barrie's experiences with the Davies. With "Monster's Ball" and now "Neverland", Forster proves that he is a Director "forceter" to be reckon with. Screenwriter David Magee developed a tender dialogue that will cause viewers to be "finding handkerchiefs". So straighten up and fly right and visit "Finding Neverland". **** Good

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-167

ur0489763

title: Magical Barrie Tale review: "Finding Neverland" is not based on my relentless pursuit to visit The Playboy Mansion. It is also not based on my own dreams to seize supreme pun powers in a literary fantasy-land called "Cleverland". Anyway, "Finding Neverland" is Director Marc Forster's enchanting narrative on the inspiration behind "Peter Pan". Obviously, the centerpiece of the story is J.M. Barrie, the Scottish author of "Peter Pan". This fervent jewel of a film focuses on Barrie's friendship & kinship with four fatherless Scottish juvenile lads and their moribund mother. I really dipped into Depp's subdued, but yet, goodwill performance. By previously taking on a swashbuckler role in "Pirates of the Caribbean" and now an author who inspired a fairytale which a swashbuckler is the villain, one can state that Depp is hooked on the spearing seaman thing. I guess a "pirate's life for him". Kate Winslet scores high with yet another winning performance as the courageous mother, Sylvia Davies. Freddie Highmore also sparkles as Peter, the young Davies boy which becomes the primary emphasis of Barrie's inspiration. Because of his stellar work, Highmore should rank "high" in the child actor department by receiving "more & more" lucrative acting gigs. Hollywood, Are you ready for Freddie? Dustin Hoffman (playing Theatre Director Charles Frohman) and Julie Christie (playing the controlling grandmother Emma Du Maurier) contribute their well-respected expertise to their roles. But the hero of this tale is not Johnny Depp, nor Peter Pan, nor J.M. Barrie, and not even Wendy. It was Director Marc Forster's illuminating vision of Barrie's experiences with the Davies. With "Monster's Ball" and now "Neverland", Forster proves that he is a Director "forceter" to be reckon with. Screenwriter David Magee developed a tender dialogue that will cause viewers to be "finding handkerchiefs". So straighten up and fly right and visit "Finding Neverland". **** Good

Beautiful film

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This is beautiful simple story of people, personal tragedy and dealing with grief. It is also a story about marital expectations and how when those expectations don't come true people don't learn to adapt in order to save their marriage. Plus it's a story about always keeping the child inside us alive no matter how old we get. Johnny Depp is brilliant as usual and Kate Winslet is extremely good. I was also impressed with Julie Christies' character. She could have been all bad but the writer decided to strike a good balance. The boys were delightful and the play actors were fun to watch as they struggled with their parts. Dustin Hoffman was good in a very small part. It's a magical film and worth at least a wonderful Saturday afternoon matinée with someone you love.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-179

ur1062771

title: Beautiful film review: This is beautiful simple story of people, personal tragedy and dealing with grief. It is also a story about marital expectations and how when those expectations don't come true people don't learn to adapt in order to save their marriage. Plus it's a story about always keeping the child inside us alive no matter how old we get. Johnny Depp is brilliant as usual and Kate Winslet is extremely good. I was also impressed with Julie Christies' character. She could have been all bad but the writer decided to strike a good balance. The boys were delightful and the play actors were fun to watch as they struggled with their parts. Dustin Hoffman was good in a very small part. It's a magical film and worth at least a wonderful Saturday afternoon matinée with someone you love.

Just Believe

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I finally saw Director Marc Forster's "Finding Neverland" on DVD. It is an absolutely wonderful movie that is so very touching. It is a great movie. It was one of the best movies of 2004-- very deserving of its Academy Award nominations. Johnny Depp as J.M. Barrie, author of "Peter Pan", is simply awesome. Depp again demonstrates that he is the most gifted and versatile actor of his generation. Depp has this mercurial air about him, and is so present in every scene-- he is just being. There is a breathtaking scene half way through "Neverland", where young George expresses concern about his Mother (Kate Winslet), and Barrie (Depp) acknowledges George (a very good Nick Rod) for becoming a young man right before his eyes, "...The boy is gone. In just the last 30 seconds..." Young Freddie Highmore as Peter Davies, the muse of Peter Pan, is amazing. Peter's on screen relationship with James Barrie is deeply compassionate and inspiring, and makes "Finding Neverland" a very special movie and experience.Screen writer David Magee's "Finding Neverland" is based on the play by Allan Knee, "The Man Who Was Peter Pan". Magee's words are equally magical. "Neverland" tells the story of how J.M. (James) Barrie created Peter Pan in 1904. Barrie (Depp) at the time was a renowned play-write, who is in the midst of a dry spell. He along with his benefactor and producer, Charles Frohman (Dustin Hoffman, who injects a great light touch), have weathered a stage flop. Barrie must create something that audiences will embrace. Barrie develops a relationship with a widow, Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet), and her four young boys, George (Nick Roud), Jack (Joe Prospero), Peter (Freddie Highmore), and Michael (Luke Spill). Barrie is married, and his wife Mary (a good Radha Mitchell) is not pleased that her husband is spending all his time with another family. Though their marriage seems to have died years ago. Also displeased is Sylvia's mother, Mrs. Emma du Maurier (Julie Christie). By Barrie spending so much time with the family, Sylvia's value is depreciated. In a more contemporary sense people start talking about Barrie, in particular his spending time with the Davies boys. There is a strange and unintentional allusion to Michael Jackson, a Peter Pan fan, but that goes no further.Barrie notices that Peter, who is at first resistant to him, seems in a hurry to grow up, thinking that things are less painful as an adult. Peter has taken the death of his father especially hard. In a stirring scene with Barrie, Peter tells him that he will not tolerate adults "lying" to him. That had happened with his father. Kate Winslet plays the strong Sylvia who is keeping her family together, and at the same time battling her mother (Christie) for her sons' futures. Kate also guards a secret. Julie Christie is a excellent as Emma du Maurier-- she is not at all what she first appears to be. This in part illustrates what is so special about "Finding Neverland"-- it celebrates the very best in people. Freddie Highmore is the standout as Peter, though the rest of the Davies boys are amazing and such mature performers.The last 20 minutes of "Finding Neverland" is so very touching and inspiring. I now will read Barrie's "Peter Pan". I finally got that "Peter Pan" is not just a fairy tale, rather a metaphor. We all grow old, in this we don't have a choice in the matter. However, if a part of us remains young, the part that makes the world always new and miraculous, not necessarily believing in fairies, rather remembering what that was like, then we grow old, without being truly old. Maybe that is finding Neverland. Barrie says to Peter at the end, "Just believe." That is well said. Forster and Depp have made something very special here, and have also made a bold request of the audience in "Finding Neverland". Just believe.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-371

ur1016453

title: Just Believe review: I finally saw Director Marc Forster's "Finding Neverland" on DVD. It is an absolutely wonderful movie that is so very touching. It is a great movie. It was one of the best movies of 2004-- very deserving of its Academy Award nominations. Johnny Depp as J.M. Barrie, author of "Peter Pan", is simply awesome. Depp again demonstrates that he is the most gifted and versatile actor of his generation. Depp has this mercurial air about him, and is so present in every scene-- he is just being. There is a breathtaking scene half way through "Neverland", where young George expresses concern about his Mother (Kate Winslet), and Barrie (Depp) acknowledges George (a very good Nick Rod) for becoming a young man right before his eyes, "...The boy is gone. In just the last 30 seconds..." Young Freddie Highmore as Peter Davies, the muse of Peter Pan, is amazing. Peter's on screen relationship with James Barrie is deeply compassionate and inspiring, and makes "Finding Neverland" a very special movie and experience.Screen writer David Magee's "Finding Neverland" is based on the play by Allan Knee, "The Man Who Was Peter Pan". Magee's words are equally magical. "Neverland" tells the story of how J.M. (James) Barrie created Peter Pan in 1904. Barrie (Depp) at the time was a renowned play-write, who is in the midst of a dry spell. He along with his benefactor and producer, Charles Frohman (Dustin Hoffman, who injects a great light touch), have weathered a stage flop. Barrie must create something that audiences will embrace. Barrie develops a relationship with a widow, Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet), and her four young boys, George (Nick Roud), Jack (Joe Prospero), Peter (Freddie Highmore), and Michael (Luke Spill). Barrie is married, and his wife Mary (a good Radha Mitchell) is not pleased that her husband is spending all his time with another family. Though their marriage seems to have died years ago. Also displeased is Sylvia's mother, Mrs. Emma du Maurier (Julie Christie). By Barrie spending so much time with the family, Sylvia's value is depreciated. In a more contemporary sense people start talking about Barrie, in particular his spending time with the Davies boys. There is a strange and unintentional allusion to Michael Jackson, a Peter Pan fan, but that goes no further.Barrie notices that Peter, who is at first resistant to him, seems in a hurry to grow up, thinking that things are less painful as an adult. Peter has taken the death of his father especially hard. In a stirring scene with Barrie, Peter tells him that he will not tolerate adults "lying" to him. That had happened with his father. Kate Winslet plays the strong Sylvia who is keeping her family together, and at the same time battling her mother (Christie) for her sons' futures. Kate also guards a secret. Julie Christie is a excellent as Emma du Maurier-- she is not at all what she first appears to be. This in part illustrates what is so special about "Finding Neverland"-- it celebrates the very best in people. Freddie Highmore is the standout as Peter, though the rest of the Davies boys are amazing and such mature performers.The last 20 minutes of "Finding Neverland" is so very touching and inspiring. I now will read Barrie's "Peter Pan". I finally got that "Peter Pan" is not just a fairy tale, rather a metaphor. We all grow old, in this we don't have a choice in the matter. However, if a part of us remains young, the part that makes the world always new and miraculous, not necessarily believing in fairies, rather remembering what that was like, then we grow old, without being truly old. Maybe that is finding Neverland. Barrie says to Peter at the end, "Just believe." That is well said. Forster and Depp have made something very special here, and have also made a bold request of the audience in "Finding Neverland". Just believe.

The nominee that got away.

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Marc Forster's Finding Neverland is what I like to call "The Oscar nominee that got away". I didn't know it was an Oscar nominee until a few months ago. But I must say it deserved to be. It's not really a movie that people look back on and think about and quote on. But it should be(though I must say that I couldn't quote it).Johnny Depp gives one of his best performances as James M. Barrie, a playwright who met a widow(Kate Winslet) and her children, and his relationship with them led him to create one of the most classic stories of all time.Depp's performance is marvelous. I don't think i've heard a better Scottish accent before in my life. But thats not why his performance is so wonderful. Depp reaches into your hearts(and the characters) and tugs on your heart strings. Really, a wonderful performance.The other performances are wonderful also. Kate Winslet(she can never let us down) gives a delightful performance also. And so does Freddie Highmore, who was Barrie's interest for his main character(you'll have to see it in order to find out what the story is).The whole movie really tugs on your heart strings. And it also has a wide imagination, as you can tell by the scenes when Barrie and the kids are make believing. The movie shares their imagination, and its really wonderful.I was so touched by the imagination and the final scene of it. Oh, the final, most beautiful scene of Finding Neverland. That scene did something very hard to do. Something that only E.T., Toy story 3, and Up ever did. It got a tear out of me. Ashamed? Yes, I am. But its really such a wonderful and imaginative film that you just may do the same.A

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-646

ur22881716

title: The nominee that got away. review: Marc Forster's Finding Neverland is what I like to call "The Oscar nominee that got away". I didn't know it was an Oscar nominee until a few months ago. But I must say it deserved to be. It's not really a movie that people look back on and think about and quote on. But it should be(though I must say that I couldn't quote it).Johnny Depp gives one of his best performances as James M. Barrie, a playwright who met a widow(Kate Winslet) and her children, and his relationship with them led him to create one of the most classic stories of all time.Depp's performance is marvelous. I don't think i've heard a better Scottish accent before in my life. But thats not why his performance is so wonderful. Depp reaches into your hearts(and the characters) and tugs on your heart strings. Really, a wonderful performance.The other performances are wonderful also. Kate Winslet(she can never let us down) gives a delightful performance also. And so does Freddie Highmore, who was Barrie's interest for his main character(you'll have to see it in order to find out what the story is).The whole movie really tugs on your heart strings. And it also has a wide imagination, as you can tell by the scenes when Barrie and the kids are make believing. The movie shares their imagination, and its really wonderful.I was so touched by the imagination and the final scene of it. Oh, the final, most beautiful scene of Finding Neverland. That scene did something very hard to do. Something that only E.T., Toy story 3, and Up ever did. It got a tear out of me. Ashamed? Yes, I am. But its really such a wonderful and imaginative film that you just may do the same.A

True Magic

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Who would have thought the life of playwrite J.M. Barrie could be as exciting as his most famous story about a troupe of lost boys? It seems to be pretty close here, as Finding Neverland details the life of Barrie (Depp) as he writes his most famous play, Peter Pan. Barrie is inspired by watching a family of boys playing in the park, accompanied by their mother Syliva (Winslet). Barrie begins playing with the boys more and more often, as their youthful imaginations help him to remember his own, and inspire him to write a play of true magic.Director Marc Forster couldn't possibly have made a more different film than his last, the extremely dramatically heavy Monster's Ball - in fact, just about all they have in common is that both are quality works. And Finding Neverland is indeed a quality work, with Forster throwing in little magic touches here and there (the door to Barrie's bedroom shows a vast, sweeping landscape, representing the fantastic dreams he will have) and some superb cinematography to give the audience a sort of portal into Barrie's incredible imagination. (the camera flies, fairy like, over the audience watching Peter Pan for the first time, set to a soundtrack of children's laughter)Johnny Depp, while using a great Scottish accent, is a joy to watch as Barrie, the man who was never afraid to be a child again. He proves yet again that few actors of his generation are capable of so totally immersing themselves into a character, and playing them to the fullness of their ability. Kate Winslet is also terrific, if not quite matching Depp's level, as the harried mother of the children Barrie befriends. Surprisingly, even Sylvia's children turn out to be excellent actors, in particular newcomer Freddie Highmore, playing Peter, an overly serious who tries to grow up too quickly after the death of his father. Julie Christie is a strong presence as the snotty "you love to hate her" mother of Sylvia, who tries to prevent Barrie from spending time with their family, because it lowers the family's social standing. But she isn't just the stereotypical evil grandmother - her character has much more depth than that, and we are actually allowed an explanation for her snide ways. Dustin Hoffman also has a brief but essential appearance as Charles Frohman, the producer of Barrie's plays who is skeptical of the magical content in his benefactor's latest. Hoffman proves his standing as an iconic actor, raising many a chuckle in a few all too brief scenes.It's an astonishingly flawless piece of work - pitch perfect performances all around propelling a wonderful script, all handled by a terrific and capable director with a wonderful sense of story and magic. With little touches of imagination sprinkled throughout, Finding Neverland perfectly captures the tone of magic and wonder that Barrie's play was supposed to instill in the first place. It's a shame there are so few films which turn out so uniformly beautiful as this.-10/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-440

ur3728510

title: True Magic review: Who would have thought the life of playwrite J.M. Barrie could be as exciting as his most famous story about a troupe of lost boys? It seems to be pretty close here, as Finding Neverland details the life of Barrie (Depp) as he writes his most famous play, Peter Pan. Barrie is inspired by watching a family of boys playing in the park, accompanied by their mother Syliva (Winslet). Barrie begins playing with the boys more and more often, as their youthful imaginations help him to remember his own, and inspire him to write a play of true magic.Director Marc Forster couldn't possibly have made a more different film than his last, the extremely dramatically heavy Monster's Ball - in fact, just about all they have in common is that both are quality works. And Finding Neverland is indeed a quality work, with Forster throwing in little magic touches here and there (the door to Barrie's bedroom shows a vast, sweeping landscape, representing the fantastic dreams he will have) and some superb cinematography to give the audience a sort of portal into Barrie's incredible imagination. (the camera flies, fairy like, over the audience watching Peter Pan for the first time, set to a soundtrack of children's laughter)Johnny Depp, while using a great Scottish accent, is a joy to watch as Barrie, the man who was never afraid to be a child again. He proves yet again that few actors of his generation are capable of so totally immersing themselves into a character, and playing them to the fullness of their ability. Kate Winslet is also terrific, if not quite matching Depp's level, as the harried mother of the children Barrie befriends. Surprisingly, even Sylvia's children turn out to be excellent actors, in particular newcomer Freddie Highmore, playing Peter, an overly serious who tries to grow up too quickly after the death of his father. Julie Christie is a strong presence as the snotty "you love to hate her" mother of Sylvia, who tries to prevent Barrie from spending time with their family, because it lowers the family's social standing. But she isn't just the stereotypical evil grandmother - her character has much more depth than that, and we are actually allowed an explanation for her snide ways. Dustin Hoffman also has a brief but essential appearance as Charles Frohman, the producer of Barrie's plays who is skeptical of the magical content in his benefactor's latest. Hoffman proves his standing as an iconic actor, raising many a chuckle in a few all too brief scenes.It's an astonishingly flawless piece of work - pitch perfect performances all around propelling a wonderful script, all handled by a terrific and capable director with a wonderful sense of story and magic. With little touches of imagination sprinkled throughout, Finding Neverland perfectly captures the tone of magic and wonder that Barrie's play was supposed to instill in the first place. It's a shame there are so few films which turn out so uniformly beautiful as this.-10/10

Wow.

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In 1998 there was some serious controversy over the Best Picture Oscar, which was a toss-up between Saving Private Ryan and Shakespeare in Love. My position was that while Saving Private Ryan is inarguably one of the greatest war films ever made, Shakespeare in Love was a historical epic that managed to tell an in-depth story about Shakespeare's life that is not necessarily historically accurate, but accurate as far as what very little is known about Shakespeare himself. It was a story that was built upon theories of what may have happened in his life to lead him to write the plays that he wrote, and the movie took us back to that time in his life and told an incredible story which makes perfect sense as far as the content of his plays. It was almost like time travel the connections were so sharp. Finding Neverland takes something of the same tactic, tying in people from J.M. Barrie's life to the characters that he created in his plays.Granted, this took place in the early 20th Century and not the early 17th Century, as in Shakespeare's case, and much more is know about Barrie's life than Shakespeare's, but the film tells such a moving and beautiful story that it reinvents the Peter Pan legend, which has by now become such an enduring classic that it almost seems like the vast majority of people alive today grew up on it. It brightened the childhoods of innumerable people, and this brilliant film breathes new life into the story.I've heard numerous criticisms of the film that I don't care to acknowledge or dignify, and surely there are countless reviewers and critics who think they're clever by pointing out the connection between the title of the movie and Michael Jackson's recent lawsuits. I've seen and heard many such comments, and I am always struck by what an efficient method it is for a person to cheapen a great movie and, at the same time, to clearly illustrate their own intellectual shallowness and utter lack of anything important or interesting to say.Johnny Depp fits flawlessly into the role of Barrie, a man who struggled to make a career as a playwright writing plays that he thought the lawyers and doctors in his audience wanted to see, before finally just writing what he believed in with the people in mind that he wanted to entertain – children. He was indeed a pioneer of children's literature, which is why it comes as a surprise to me that people are so quick to jump to conclusions about his interest in children and their entertainment. He was a child at heart, and the children saw him as one of their own. One of the first things that I learned when I studied Children's Literature at the University level was that it is adults, NOT children, that impose sexual meaning onto children's stories. Countless examples can be found in Alice in Wonderland, for example, and have also tarnished the reputation of Walt Disney himself.Classics of children's literature invariably come from people who spend the majority of their time concerned with entertaining children, and I'm thrilled to see that there are still major filmmakers and actors who can see that and look beyond things like the Michael Jackson scandals, which themselves may or may not be true. Personally, I think it is at least as likely that Michael Jackson is either completely insane and literally thinks he's a child himself or that he harbors the same interest in children that Barrie did, which was a completely harmless connection with his inner child, something that the vast majority of adults in the world could use more of.I heard of a study that concluded that children smile something like 200 times a day, while adults smile something like six times a day. That's exactly the kind of thing about which a movie like Finding Neverland is designed to remind us all. When we meet Barrie he is pacing backstage at the opening night of one of his plays, which turns out to be a tremendous flop. He's sitting in the park not long after, mulling over his failed effort, and meets the boys about which his classic play Peter Pan ultimately becomes based upon.The adventures that Barrie and these boys, as well as their mother, have, become the fascinating tour through the life of one of the most creative and fascinating minds in literary history. Finding Neverland is a biography, of sorts, and while the term Inspired by True Events may be the one that describes a story that is based very loosely on a true story, any creative liberties taken with Barrie's life serve only to make his story into more of a captivating fairy tale than it might otherwise have been. The conclusion of the film, for example, where Neverland appears in the boys' house to the wondrous delight of their sick mother is unlikely, but rarely are creative liberties taken with greater success. The only dry eyes in the house, as they say, will indeed be found in the heads of the audience members who display the same bitter frigidness as the grandmother in this movie.And here is the most interesting thing about the way the movie is structured and designed – If you find yourself completely unmoved by it, then it is you that the movie is designed to inspire.Bravo.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-228

ur0562732

title: Wow. review: In 1998 there was some serious controversy over the Best Picture Oscar, which was a toss-up between Saving Private Ryan and Shakespeare in Love. My position was that while Saving Private Ryan is inarguably one of the greatest war films ever made, Shakespeare in Love was a historical epic that managed to tell an in-depth story about Shakespeare's life that is not necessarily historically accurate, but accurate as far as what very little is known about Shakespeare himself. It was a story that was built upon theories of what may have happened in his life to lead him to write the plays that he wrote, and the movie took us back to that time in his life and told an incredible story which makes perfect sense as far as the content of his plays. It was almost like time travel the connections were so sharp. Finding Neverland takes something of the same tactic, tying in people from J.M. Barrie's life to the characters that he created in his plays.Granted, this took place in the early 20th Century and not the early 17th Century, as in Shakespeare's case, and much more is know about Barrie's life than Shakespeare's, but the film tells such a moving and beautiful story that it reinvents the Peter Pan legend, which has by now become such an enduring classic that it almost seems like the vast majority of people alive today grew up on it. It brightened the childhoods of innumerable people, and this brilliant film breathes new life into the story.I've heard numerous criticisms of the film that I don't care to acknowledge or dignify, and surely there are countless reviewers and critics who think they're clever by pointing out the connection between the title of the movie and Michael Jackson's recent lawsuits. I've seen and heard many such comments, and I am always struck by what an efficient method it is for a person to cheapen a great movie and, at the same time, to clearly illustrate their own intellectual shallowness and utter lack of anything important or interesting to say.Johnny Depp fits flawlessly into the role of Barrie, a man who struggled to make a career as a playwright writing plays that he thought the lawyers and doctors in his audience wanted to see, before finally just writing what he believed in with the people in mind that he wanted to entertain – children. He was indeed a pioneer of children's literature, which is why it comes as a surprise to me that people are so quick to jump to conclusions about his interest in children and their entertainment. He was a child at heart, and the children saw him as one of their own. One of the first things that I learned when I studied Children's Literature at the University level was that it is adults, NOT children, that impose sexual meaning onto children's stories. Countless examples can be found in Alice in Wonderland, for example, and have also tarnished the reputation of Walt Disney himself.Classics of children's literature invariably come from people who spend the majority of their time concerned with entertaining children, and I'm thrilled to see that there are still major filmmakers and actors who can see that and look beyond things like the Michael Jackson scandals, which themselves may or may not be true. Personally, I think it is at least as likely that Michael Jackson is either completely insane and literally thinks he's a child himself or that he harbors the same interest in children that Barrie did, which was a completely harmless connection with his inner child, something that the vast majority of adults in the world could use more of.I heard of a study that concluded that children smile something like 200 times a day, while adults smile something like six times a day. That's exactly the kind of thing about which a movie like Finding Neverland is designed to remind us all. When we meet Barrie he is pacing backstage at the opening night of one of his plays, which turns out to be a tremendous flop. He's sitting in the park not long after, mulling over his failed effort, and meets the boys about which his classic play Peter Pan ultimately becomes based upon.The adventures that Barrie and these boys, as well as their mother, have, become the fascinating tour through the life of one of the most creative and fascinating minds in literary history. Finding Neverland is a biography, of sorts, and while the term Inspired by True Events may be the one that describes a story that is based very loosely on a true story, any creative liberties taken with Barrie's life serve only to make his story into more of a captivating fairy tale than it might otherwise have been. The conclusion of the film, for example, where Neverland appears in the boys' house to the wondrous delight of their sick mother is unlikely, but rarely are creative liberties taken with greater success. The only dry eyes in the house, as they say, will indeed be found in the heads of the audience members who display the same bitter frigidness as the grandmother in this movie.And here is the most interesting thing about the way the movie is structured and designed – If you find yourself completely unmoved by it, then it is you that the movie is designed to inspire.Bravo.

A Beautiful Film! Depp is a Champ!

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'Finding Neverland' is A Beautiful Film, that melts your heat. Also, The Versatile Johnny Depp delivers an Impeccable Performance as playwright J.M. Barrie.'Finding Neverland' Synopsis: The story of J.M. Barrie's friendship with a family who inspired him to create Peter Pan.'Finding Neverland' is beautifully written, directed & acted. It's among those GEMS, that have been made to be adored. A heart-warming, emotional film, that truly deserves a repeat viewing.David Magee's Screenplay is heart-warming & emotional. Marc Forster's Direction is appropriate. Cinematography is excellent. Editing is sharp. Art & Costume Design, are perfect. Jan A. P. Kaczmarek's Oscar-Winning Original Score, is indeed great.Performance-Wise: As mentioned, The Versatile Johnny Depp delivers an Impeccable Performance as playwright J.M. Barrie. This is his ONLY Performance that can Compete with his Path-Breaking Performance in the Tim Burton Cult-Classic 'Ed Wood'. Kate Winslet as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, gives a terrific performance. Dustin Hoffman as Charles Frohman, is lovely, as usual. Julie Christie is good. Kelly Macdonald as Peter Pan, deserves a special mention.On the whole, 'Finding Neverland' is a GEM! Two Big Thumbs Up!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-650

ur8503729

title: A Beautiful Film! Depp is a Champ! review: 'Finding Neverland' is A Beautiful Film, that melts your heat. Also, The Versatile Johnny Depp delivers an Impeccable Performance as playwright J.M. Barrie.'Finding Neverland' Synopsis: The story of J.M. Barrie's friendship with a family who inspired him to create Peter Pan.'Finding Neverland' is beautifully written, directed & acted. It's among those GEMS, that have been made to be adored. A heart-warming, emotional film, that truly deserves a repeat viewing.David Magee's Screenplay is heart-warming & emotional. Marc Forster's Direction is appropriate. Cinematography is excellent. Editing is sharp. Art & Costume Design, are perfect. Jan A. P. Kaczmarek's Oscar-Winning Original Score, is indeed great.Performance-Wise: As mentioned, The Versatile Johnny Depp delivers an Impeccable Performance as playwright J.M. Barrie. This is his ONLY Performance that can Compete with his Path-Breaking Performance in the Tim Burton Cult-Classic 'Ed Wood'. Kate Winslet as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, gives a terrific performance. Dustin Hoffman as Charles Frohman, is lovely, as usual. Julie Christie is good. Kelly Macdonald as Peter Pan, deserves a special mention.On the whole, 'Finding Neverland' is a GEM! Two Big Thumbs Up!

Never Say Never

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The whole idea of Peter Pan always annoyed me as a kid, and even more so lately thanks to the real life plight of Wacko Jacko and his Neverland ranch. As such, I had great reservations about "Finding Neverland." The whole "unlock your imagination" and "inspired by a true story" nature of the plot seemed trite, and from the earliest previews it was obvious Kate Winslet's character was going to die. But even so, thanks to solid direction from the up-and-coming Marc Forster, and engaging performances from the entire cast (most notably of course Johnny Depp sporting an excellent accent and Kate Winslet fantastic as always) this wishy-washy tear jerker was kept afloat in spite of itself. In the end we are charmed by a nice period piece showing us how J. M. Barrie found inspiration for his most famous work after befriending a widow and her young sons. It's a crowd pleaser, even though this sappy pseudo-factual stuff is not normally my cup of tea.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308644/reviews-304

ur1069062

title: Never Say Never review: The whole idea of Peter Pan always annoyed me as a kid, and even more so lately thanks to the real life plight of Wacko Jacko and his Neverland ranch. As such, I had great reservations about "Finding Neverland." The whole "unlock your imagination" and "inspired by a true story" nature of the plot seemed trite, and from the earliest previews it was obvious Kate Winslet's character was going to die. But even so, thanks to solid direction from the up-and-coming Marc Forster, and engaging performances from the entire cast (most notably of course Johnny Depp sporting an excellent accent and Kate Winslet fantastic as always) this wishy-washy tear jerker was kept afloat in spite of itself. In the end we are charmed by a nice period piece showing us how J. M. Barrie found inspiration for his most famous work after befriending a widow and her young sons. It's a crowd pleaser, even though this sappy pseudo-factual stuff is not normally my cup of tea.