SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

g-bodyl Bright Lights, Big City is by all means not an awful film and in fact, it's actually quite interesting. But with the subject material given, the movie should have been better. Despite my holding interest, boring would be a word to accurately describe the movie. Seriously, it seems like the only thing the guy does in the film is snort coke and that grows old fast. But it was interesting to watch a Kansas guy barely holding his own in a big city while struggling mightily with his inner demons.James Bridges film is about a guy named Jamie Conway who is a fact-checker for a huge New York magazine, but at nights he is a convulsive partier with a bad cocaine addiction. He is also struggling with his past as he moved to New York to get away from anything and he is also having problems with his estranged wife who left him as her career exploded.The acting is actually pretty good. This is a good attempt for Michael J. Fox to get rid of his "good-guy" image and I think he mostly succeeds. But by the end, I still sympathized for the guy. There are some good supporting turns by Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Robards here.Overall, I dearly wanted to love this film, but I wasn't able to. I liked the film enough, but I was kind of disappointed at the end result. The movie looks good, makes some good points, and tries to be your typical 80's movie. I should also mention it has a killer soundtrack. But, I guess it wasn't meant to be. It was still interesting and a rather good watch and so I rate this film 7/10.

a-p-bcvgmrssv I recently D.V.R.'d "Bright Lights, Big City," to once-and-for-all give it a real chance. Over the years, I've caught clips of it, but never really saw and/or appreciated it. So, since it's been on T.V. a bit more these days, I decided to D.V.R. it while I still had the chance. I wasn't disappointed, I am a life-long Michael J. Fox fan, and I was glad to have the chance to see one of his more serious post-"Family Ties," "Back to the Future," roles of the '80's. He was real good in his poignant, compelling and touching role as a talented, successful, but troubled and misguided young man dealing with two recent major blows in his life: The death of his beloved mother (A situation I can personally relate to), and his break-up with his beautiful, talented, aspiring model wife. There were parts that were of course depressing and sad, but there were witty, funny, and introspective parts that made this film well worth a try. OH, MAJOR SPOILER ALERT HERE, READ OVER TO END: One main point of this film that deserves true credit is that it didn't go with a truly depressing and downbeat ending; Fox's character really faced reality and decided to go on the right, better-guided path for a change. "Bright Lights, Big City," in my humble opinion, is NO "Back to the Future," by any means, but it did it's job well with story-telling and acting. Kudos to the movie and Michael J.

videorama-759-859391 This is one of my favourite Michael J Fox movies. We really get to see him in a dramatic role, though I hadn't bothered with that turkey, Light Of Day. This refreshingly original film was something totally different totally for me, a hard hitting drama that plays well on screen, though it might of not had the impact, the novel intended. An R rating slapped on, as a few were back in the day, supposedly for drug use, like Fox's bleeding nostril when he does too much coke, didn't make much sense. We see two hot women kissing in a cubicle, when Jamie (Fox) walks in then quickly retreats, spouting a funny response of dialogue, in that great comic timing of his. Could this be another reason. Whatever it is, nothing should of stopped people under 18 from seeing this. Jamie Conway's life is a mess, which he refuses to acknowledge. The first anniversary of his mother's passing is coming up. His beautiful model girlfriend (Cates-really) a heartless b..ch has reappeared in his life, choosing a career over a sunken Jamie. His prim and demanding boss, an editor of a magazine, an old hag, is pushing him to finish an article, where he'd rather be doing drugs, or trying to write that aspiring never to published novel. Also little brother has just popped into town. As an anti drug movie, this one works well. In the face of mishap, loss, whatever, drugs are not the solution, and it doesn't help when you're swayed by slime bag friends. Fox does well, though he's not great. Though really, he's never been as good an actor as people have been led to believe. Shining performances comes from Cates and Sutherland. Robards was fun to watch too, and Wiest was great as always, as Fox's mother, seen in flashbacks, that we're a bit heavily laid on. BLBC is an engrossing, if intriguing drama about young 80's New Yorkers, and the drug and disco scene, and we can't forget the coma baby. The scene with Fox again confronting Cates who says to him in casual tone, "How are ya?" where Fox is just thunderstruck, and crashes back against a transvestite, is probably one of three memorable moments. But Fox fan should like it. Well made drama, that should be viewed time and time again, even for under 18's.

moonspinner55 It must have struck cinematographer Gordon Willis as highly ironic that he would shoot a film with the title "Bright Lights, Big City". Willis, known for his fabulous work with dark, muted colors and characters in shadows or silhouettes, seems absolutely lost within this night-life milieu, which isn't bright and hardly seems big. Jay McInerney adapted his own 1984 novel about a would-be writer in New York City whose job in the research department of a prominent magazine (Gotham!) is constantly threatened by his drug use, which may stem from a broken marriage and memories of his deceased mother. It's not difficult to pinpoint what went wrong here: although Michael J. Fox may seem well-cast from the outset, it clearly becomes apparent he's in over his head. Fox (whose plastic voice-over narration was probably supposed to sound hard-boiled) is too well-scrubbed and corn-fed to be convincing as a party maniac; acting disoriented by blinking his eyes heavily and tightening his thin mouth, Fox is strictly a morose good-time guy, mourning the separation from fashion model spouse Phoebe Cates. But there's nothing at stake for this kid when he stays up all night (except for his job at the magazine, which hardly matters to us since the sequences set there are wholly unconvincing). Director James Bridges takes an episodic approach to the narrative, but his continuity (or perhaps the editing) is sloppy and gummy, and the people in Fox's small circle aren't terribly interesting. And did the movie go through a budgetary crisis? The weak nightclubbing scenes look barren and cheap (aside from some city vistas and subway rides, the picture could easily take place in Passaic, New Jersey for all we know). When Fox goes out on a blind date with Tracy Pollan, we know instantly these two clean-cut kids will click on their appearance alone: they look like an upscale young couple coming home from a Republican fundraiser. There's nothing dangerous about Michael J. Fox or his approach to this part. He drinks, he snorts, he swears, but he doesn't live the highs and lows of an addict on the edge. Or, is this guy an addict? There's no visual punch in Bridges' staging to suggest he's anything more than a spoiled kid looking for a girl to adore him. *1/2 from ****