Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

treywillwest This may not be as unique a film as Kiarastami's Close-Up, but just as a movie-watching experience I would rank this as my favorite of the director's works. I can't really say why exactly I liked the film so much, and that may be part of its magic. At one point one character advises another that to truly love another means not asking them any questions. To love, then, is to accept that the other may lead you down paths that you do not know you want to take. (And indeed you really might not want to take them). To love something is to accept that they or it might lead you astray, might lie to you. This film, I think, offers the viewer that choice. It invites you to love it, but ultimately takes you where you may not want to go. You're still better off, I think, for following it down the rabbit-hole.

cindyy-montoya This so called film is about as empty as my bowels after drinking five gallons of prune juice. It was slooooooooooow and jumped around from one idea to the next. This film has a serious case of ADD and never follows one train of thought. There are scenes that hook you in, making you think it will go somewhere... Then it just disappears into thin air. I feel like it's the long uphill struggle on a roller coaster, only when you get to the highly anticipated top, the tracks flat-line for five miles going two miles per hour and then switches tracks and goes up again. Many of the side stories go absolutely nowhere and dissolve into thin air. Who is this old man? In the beginning of the film the main character is told she must see this man and she'll understand why when she gets there. I still don't understand. Is he supposed to take care of her? The film also makes the boyfriend look like a bad person, but his girlfriend lied to him. She is the one at fault for not telling him she was a prostitute. The end of the movie is absolutely worthless. The man spends his time walking around looking out the windows only to be hit by a rock. The end. Where was the plot? Oh yeah, it called in sick and decided to move as far away from the movie as possible. This review jumps around with incomplete thoughts to simulate how the whole movie went.If movies were compared to food, a good movie would have the appetizer, followed by the side dishes and main course, then a sweet dessert conclusion. This movie had no meat, nothing sweet, and nothing nutrisious to eat! It was more like a bag of expired potato chips, each chip being as boring as the last, nothing different. Pretty soon all of the chips (movie scenes) are gone and you're just looking in an empty bag with no filling satisfaction. If this movie were manifested in joke form it would go like this:Knock knockWho's there?WhoWho who?Knock knockWho's thereBananaBanana who?Oh look my flight has arrived!!!Yes... The randomness is well... Random. To put it in a nutshell, this film will give me brain cancer. (Note there isn't even a good conclusion to my own review... Again simulating the movie)

Don Palathara This is one of the very few good films I have watched in a while. This film is criticised for being simple, but Kiarostami's craft is almost flawless and very realistic. There are times when I questioned the duration of real-time in the film as he opt not to use jump cuts to show the shift in time, but except that minor glitch, this film was highly tense, deep and meaningful at so many levels. Unlike the superficial Hollywood garbage we get to see everyday, Kiarostami's films show us real people with real problems. Probably one of the very few directors who can claim to have real class in this present era. I started watching this film after reading an interview with the director. The film did not disappoint me even a little bit. I am ashamed that I did not come across his name before.

Ruben Mooijman I had never before seen a film by Abbas Kiarostami. But he is an esteemed film maker, having won a Palme d'Or in Cannes, and Iranian directors have quite a reputation, so I thought I could enjoy this movie. How wrong I was. The most appropriate word to describe this film is annoying. It consists of extremely long shots with a static camera, confusing dialogue, and distracting side stories that don't serve any purpose. I have nothing against slow movies, in fact sometimes I like them a lot. But in this movie, the director seems to make all possible efforts to make everything as least attractive as possible. The audience has to endure slow conversations about whether the lead character resembles someone on a painting, or about the crush a woman has had all her life on an aging neighbour. That would be tolerable if it served any purpose, if it added something to the story or the mood of the film. But it doesn't.The camera registers a day in the life of Akiko, a student who secretly works as a call girl. She ignores her grandmother who calls her to have lunch during her visit to Tokyo, but instead visits a bar and takes a taxi to visit a client, although she is supposed to prepare her exams. By pure coincidence, the client meets her boyfriend, who doesn't know about her work, and her secret life is exposed. All this in a few excruciatingly long and slow scenes. Of course, there are people who argue that this kind of film deliberately denies the rules of mainstream movie making. It's different, and we're not used to that. Why does everything have to serve a purpose? Why can't things just happen because they do? Just like in real life? And why are we annoyed when these things are filmed with a motionless camera, instead of with fast edited, slick camera movements? True. It can be quite refreshing to see directors moving away from what movies are supposed to look like. But in this case, it felt too much like showing off. By trying to do his own thing, Kiarostami neglects the needs of the audience. The best thing about this movie is the Ella Fitzgerald song it's named after, which is featured on the soundtrack.