AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Warhol_Superstar_no_5 Most of the critical resistance to this 2009 film demonstrate a reluctance to engage with the material, and I feel I don't exaggerate when I say that this doesn't reflect the sad state of film criticism as much as it does a numbness towards the human condition; We spent the bulk of our lives not challenging the perceived gender roles that color our relationships, both sexual and platonic, why would we want to confront their internal dissonances within a movie? As one might expect from an adaptation of a David Foster Wallace book, this isn't a film about a single subject or theme. It is, like its construct, multi-layered, with multiple points of thematic entry. Yet, it coheres from every angle, as long as the viewer is sensitive to what it truly accomplishes best: a tightrope walk between satirical and the emphatic. To quote one of the characters: "Pay attention to the documentarian, not the documentary." This is not to say that the film is centered solely on the interviewee/protagonist - Sara - alone, though her personal life plays a big part in establishing a major theme: The gaze - the sense of being watched by the subject that objectifies you, and its effects on both men AND women. The gaze is allegorized when Sara's ex, Ryan, delivers a heartbreaking monologue about a girl confronting her rapist, in a scene so powerful it actually gives life to the concept without seeming forced or trivial. As he tells his story, in a fit of hostility, Ryan himself breaks down in front of Sara's gaze, unable to confront the undecipherable desire of the other. Another important scene that stands out in relation to this theme is the monologue about one of the subjects' father, a black washroom attendant who never makes eye contact with the men whom he serves.As I said, this is not a film about a protagonist, nor is it about the men being interviewed. It a confrontation of an unspoken, irreducible barrier between people, the trauma at every point in which one recognizes the real in the other, unfiltered through preconceived notions of gender (or, as the washroom scene demonstrates - class/ racial) performativity. Brief Interviews is structured as a series of monologues interwoven to a point of exhaustion, leaving a space of meaning, a gestalt impression of woman's desire, unknown to men, unknown to the women themselves - how could they know? As the film implies, the fairer sex only comes into existence within the male gaze, and when men bring themselves to reflect on her essence they only confront the abyss of their own desire.Together, Wallace's dialogue, the film's relentlessly non-linear yet considered editing, and documentary-like verisimilitude evoke a polished, faux-Brechtian quality, which works to its advantage: the more attention drawn on the artifice of the relationships depicted and less on the diegetic, the more we are prompted to step outside the personal dramas that shape our own perception of what it means to be a male or female viewer, and watch the film on its own terms - or at the very least, consider our own male or female subjectivity on its own terms. Brief Interviews With Hideous Men is a character study of an elusive post-feminist subject that remains elusive by the end of the study. It is not all an exercise in futility, however, as one leaves with a sense that it may have been staring us right in the eye all along.

Ryan K. Mega Misogynist Film of the Moment: Brief Interviews With Hideous Men 10 Decsexdrugsmoney.comThis movie has a pretty recognizable cast. A lot of NBC actors were involved in the making of this movie. There's like four people from The Office in it. But its not a comedy. Its like an art house, weird, documentary / drama. A few highlights throughout, but not that big of a story plot, because the plot is all about telling stories. In the movie, the main character, Sara Quinn (played by Julianne Nicholson) is a grad student conducting interviews with various men of different backgrounds for a research paper. This also follows a life changing breakup with her boyfriend. She seeks to discover a reason why men doom their relationships with women by doing this case study. The movie is directed by John Krasinski (jury still out on this guy) who takes some pretty good pictures, but didn't edit right, so slow people might get lost early in. Its a crawler of a movie. The dialogue, which consists of a lot of monologue and testimony, is on point and strong. Some of the characters are endearing, but many of the men serve to reinforce stereotypes of misogynist men in the modern era, and nobody portrays that very well (bad casting-shucks NBC!). At times, it seems like feminist propaganda. But the movie is based on a book by David Foster Wallace, and unless that a masculine pen for a femme, it couldn't be feminist. Well it damn sure ain't misogynist.Quinn unlocks the inner thoughts of the 100 or so men in the clinical interviews where they open up about relationships with women while her personal life turns into a mess (but a polite one. no Hagen-daz or bon bons and hate fests with the girls). In doing so she is hoping to understand why her boyfriend has made her feel so bad. Some like subject #17 blame the women for the failures. Some like subject #30 are happily married and in love (but only because his trophy wife stayed a trophy wife through 50). Some, like #42 and #15, are Freudian cut examples of what a man should be. A student shares a horrific story with her, stretching her notions of manhood, like an outlier on a graph, and she begins to gain insight finally. She thinks she understands it. Men are unique. Men are simple. They say they are unfaithful. They say they are sorry. They are all cowards. She thinks that men only see women as things. But when her boyfriend returns to explain the break-up, she learns the truth about the way men love.2/4 Stars. Worth watching once. But only with your lover as a conversation piece.—— Ryan Mega sexdrugsmoney.com

Austin Layne Brief Interviews With Hideous Men is a movie that is so unafraid to openly criticize the feminist movement and, more importantly, the effects it has had on men. But to call the movie masculist or an example of the Men's Movement would be to contradict the entire point of the movie.John Krasinski makes his debut as writer/director and also does a little bit of acting with this film. Most people know him from his fantastic portrayal of the sarcastic Jim in The Office. On The Office John Krasinski is a smirking young man who always has a witty remark to make. Here he is a tad more than that...Don't get me wrong, the movie has several comedic scenes, which are presented through the film's interesting narrative structure which mostly consists of the titular interviews, such as when one subject states his trouble with sexual relationships is due to his screaming of "Victory for the forces of Democratic freedom." Sure this is funny at first, but over the course of the movie as we keep coming back to this man, we see that the more he talks about it the less he treats it with humor. This is where the movie begins to make its point.In each interview the men begin to speak in a way that is humorous but then becomes less and less comedic as they speak about it. Because they realize the truth of what they are saying. They understand that they shouldn't make a joke out of it because it isn't funny for men to get hurt by women. The movie is essentially several examples of this, aside two vignettes where one man describes how to be an actual "good" lover and another discourses on whether or not he should love or hate his father for being the passive bathroom attendant.Few of the men are hideous, even in a spiritual way and I believe the movie's title refers more to the way the woman who interviews them would like to see them and how easy it is for her to demonize them and call them hideous and think that they aren't human beings. This is the movie's final message, that everyone is a human being and that everyone should be seen as such.The movies ending is one of the few perfect endings I've seen from a movie. It shows John Krasinksi's character tell a story to his ex-girlfriend and conductor of the interviews about the hippie he cheated on her with and how she was once raped, but could see the humanity in her rapist and that in that moment he realized he could never lose her. But she left shortly afterwords. It then shows a flashback to before any of the interviews were conducted and why the interviewer is conducting them. Her college professor friend asks her why. When she begins to answer he says something like "Don't tell me the reasons, tell yourself" Then it ends with nothing else but a quote from David Foster Wallace, the author of the book on which the movie is based. Which is perfect, because to try to extend it beyond the point of desolation that the movie ends on would be an exercise in futility.To cap off this lengthy analysis of the movie, I would like to plead to John Krasinski, who said he probably won't write and direct another movie, to reconsider this position, because you are a fantastic writer/director.

kailualaird Caveat: I have read nearly everything David Foster Wallace has written, including his treatise on the mathematics of infinity (twice).I've spent the last ten minutes sitting here wondering how to format all the thoughts I have about this movie. As a translation, it was superb. The ultimate book/movie translation, in my very limited memory, is No Country For Old Men. Sure, sure, Messers Miller and Rodriguez did an outstanding job with Sin City (and the only reason I may give more weight to No Country may be that I am older, and it is nearer in my mind), but the Coen brothers made me feel like I did as I read Cormac McCarthy's words.John Krasinski did the same with Brief Interviews, and in some ways I think his challenge was the greater. I just finished watching this less than an hour ago. I will definitely be watching it again, and recommending to others.