SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

lathe-of-heaven I don't know what it is about this film, and this genre is not by any means even my favourite type of movie (I usually incline much more toward Horror, Science Fiction, and FILM NOIR) BUT... There is just something very magical about this film that completely involves me at many levels. It is obviously very clever, but it does not have the overbearing cynicism of most films of this type. The CHARACTERS are extremely cynical to a fault, but the film isn't. As a matter of fact, the director playing off this fact creates a lot of great and amusing scenes.I sure don't know what Lizreed was smok'n when she wrote her review, but 'Totally disappointing'...??? Seriously...? And 7/10 found THAT useful...? Perhaps they were all smok'n together...Anyway, this is one of the few films where I laugh almost constantly; not in a 'NAKED GUN' kind of way, but just at the throwaway lines and little visuals at the peripherals and in the background. It's rare to find a movie of this type that is scathingly clever but isn't mean spirited, as many scathingly clever people can be. I was amazed at how the film quite genuinely evoked so many different emotions. I could feel the complete ennui and crushing boredom that this group of 'friends' felt. I could very much feel the many different facets of humour presented. I felt the joy at the most cynical and annoying character finding the person he found and the type of person she was. And lastly, without giving too much away, I felt the powerful emotions that the lead, Grover, was feeling at different points in the film.Eric Stoltz is a VASTLY underrated actor; I really like the guy. And, it has been a while since I have seen it, but I remember that I REALLY like Noah's other film starring Eric Stoltz called 'MR. JEALOUSY'. I hadn't realized until looking up the director of this film just now that he also directed that one. I am not at all surprised since it has a similar quality as this one, but if I remember correctly, it is a little lighter in tone.And, the way that the director structured the story with the flashbacks throughout and at the end REALLY pack quite a punch and make the primary point of the film very well.It's funny, I do NOT give out '10's very often and ESPECIALLY not at all for these types of films. Normally I reserve those for Classics like '2001', 'THE SHINING', 'BLADE RUNNER' or 'ISHTAR' (heh, just kidding... :) But, there is just some special quality to this film that works perfectly and to me anyway completely engages you at every level in a very powerful way, but without being a total downer. It could be that this movie just resonates with me in a way that it may not with others. I come across many films here where some say it is their absolute favourite film and it does nothing for me. I think this one could be highly subjective since it deals mostly with this group of college people.

Terrell Howell (KnightsofNi11) Sophsitication, wit, and charm abound in Noah Baumbach's directorial debut, Kicking and Screaming. It's a movie about life. It's a movie about love. It's a movie about growing up. It's not about growing up in the childhood sense, but growing up as in maturing into true adulthood, post schooling. Kicking and Screaming is an ensemble film about a group of friends who have just graduated college and are now forced to take the next steps in their lives as they emerge into the real world. Some of them cope better than others, but they all struggle to find meaning in a post scholastic existence where they aren't quite sure what will become of them. The film is a sort of stream of consciousness, almost rambling foray into adult life in which we must make something of ourselves. It is a smart film, it is a sophisticated film, but it's almost too smart for its own good.We learn a few key things from Kicking and Screaming. One. Noah Baumbach is a smart guy who knows how to write and has a keen sense of reality and what makes us human. Two. He may be too smart to make a coherent and entertaining story about human interaction and psychology. And three. Having so many things on one's plate is overwhelming and it causes a film to lose all sense of purpose. Baumbach tackles a lot of subjects with Kicking and Screaming, but they sort of all run into each other and get tangled up with one another that this film loses its direction starts to feel less and less like a film and more like an astute psychological study that lacks any real emotion.I feel like the characters in Kicking and Screaming aren't as much human as they are simply vehicles for Baumbach to exemplify offbeat quirks and complex relationships. He's created very diverse and very smart characters, but they don't connect on the emotional level that is necessary for this film to work. Baumbach obviously knows what he is doing with this film but he barely misses the mark, only by throwing in too many quirks and too many off kilter personality traits that turn these characters into test subjects instead of humans. That being said, I enjoyed this film for its intelligence and integrity, but the flaws are there and they hold back the film from being really great. Kicking and Screaming would make a great psychological research paper that detailed hypothetical situations and closely examined the human interaction in these situations but, as a film, it lacks the extra step that makes the art of cinema something more than a research paper can accomplish.You can't diss anybody in this film for what they accomplish. I have lots of respect for the keen awareness Noah Baumbach displays about life in this film. It is certainly a good film and it is smarter than the average dribble we see today, but it's far from perfect. It isn't something I would watch again, but I don't regret checking it out for its fascinating sophisticated qualities.

ametaphysicalshark "Kicking and Screaming" really depressed me. I'm not sure what I was expecting, having seen only "The Life Aquatic" as an example of notable writer-director Noah Baumbach's work (and of course that film was written with Wes Anderson, and directed by Anderson, so I wasn't sure how much of it was Baumbach's), but nothing I read specifically about "Kicking and Screaming" lead me to expect what I got: one of the most devastating films ever made, and one which while not on par with stuff like "The Graduate" formally, remains one of the very best 'where-is-my-life-going-after-college' movies ever made. It also boasts perhaps the smartest use of flashbacks in a recent American film.I was thinking this would be sort of like a Wes Anderson film but it's really more what Kevin Smith would have written circa 1994-1997 if his parents were critical thinkers instead of lower-middle-class Catholics, and if he'd been writing about students and recent college grads instead of deadbeats lounging about convenience stores and malls and comics writers involved in bizarre love triangles. Perhaps that's selling this short because as much as I am drawn to some of Smith's work he could never come close to capturing the sort of melancholy Baumbach absolutely nails with this film.The film isn't really brilliant, mostly because it is really plot-less (which wouldn't be a problem usually but read on) and especially since outside of Eric Stoltz's philosophizing bartender I found nothing particularly interesting about any of the supporting cast. The main emotional pull for me was with Grover (Josh Hamilton) and Jane (Olivia d'Abo)'s story. Jane is pretty much the ideal realization of all the odd, quirky, lovely, bizarre, pretentious, disaffected, writers I had crushes on in university and even before and after that time, and the few I was fortunate enough to date. Ideal really because she's a deeply flawed character. Outside of this core story "Kicking and Screaming" relies primarily on Baumbach's witty banter. The trouble is that I found few of the characters to be all that interesting outside of Grover, Jane, and Chet.Baumbach's direction initially seems primitive but every so often he surprises with a genuinely sophisticated shot. I assume he got better as he went on and that stuff like "The Squid and the Whale" is entirely sophisticated but he already showed a lot of promise with this film. While again I didn't find the film perfect, I connected so much with Grover and with the place in their lives that all these people are that I found the film genuinely devastating at time. When focusing on Jane and Grover it is absolutely phenomenal, and the final scene, I admit, almost made me cry.

Jason Forestein I saw this film when it first came out on VHS because it had Eric Stoltz on the cover and, I thought, anything with Eric Stoltz must be good. It was the mid-1990s, after all, and I had first become acquainted with the man through Pulp Fiction--he was so cool! He was also everywhere, even in some particularly banal films (Killing Zoe, anyone?), and, at the time, I grouped this flick with those. Having sat down and watched Kicking and Screaming (in the wake of absolutely adoring the Squid and the Whale), I am sorry I relegated this movie to a "lesser Eric Stoltz film." It should be in the category of stellar post-collegiate ennui films. The wit and insightfulness, as well as an unwavering decision to present people as they really are and not idealized versions of themselves, are here, as they were in the Squid and the Whale. Kicking and Screaming is not quite so acerbic as the later film (rightly so, says I, the subject matter doesn't warrant it), nor is it as slick a production. Baumbach was clearly learning what it meant to be a director, so while his writing is, as always, top-notch, visually speaking, there's something lacking. I don't find that to be too much of a detriment to the film, though, because, sometimes, we go to the movies to listen to characters talk. Baumbach has a great ear for intricate, though slightly unrealistic, dialogue. The writing in this movie owes a lot to Whit Stillman's Metropolitan and Barcelona (and Chris Eigeman's presence only makes this connection more apparent), but rather than a drawing room comedy for the UHB crowd, Kicking and Screaming is determinedly middle-class (upper-middle class, probably). The narrative arc of this film is inessential. Basically, four guys refuse to move on after their college graduation. Nothing momentous happens in their lives; they simply live like, gulp, I have in the few years since finishing my bachelors. I mean, I don't work in a video store (thank you very much, I have a respectable office job), but the concept of dragging your feet into adulthood is a feeling I, and a lot of my friends, often feel. Watching a movie like this, then, as much as it makes you laugh, can also make you wince knowingly. It's that knowledge that I now have that I think made it possible for me to see the wonderful nature of this film. I have lived this life, so now I see the humor.