Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

PersianPlaya408 Permanent Midnight,First-Viewing, owned pirated DVD,(David Veloz)- Ben Stiller, Elizabeth Hurley, Maria Bello, Janeane Garafalo, Owen WilsonAn interesting true story of a TV writer (Stiller) who's heroin addiction causes him to go from a successful TV writer to working at McDonald's. This is David Veloz's directorial debut, and only film for that matter (watch this film and you will know why). The directing is not professional, and the transition between past and present is almost impossible to recognize, (is he telling us its not important?). Stiller gives a relatively good performance, didn't think he could handle a serious role like this, he wasn't bad, atlhough not great, as the script was pretty boring. The rest of the cast are OK, Owen Wilson is probably the stand-out, as Stiller's best friend. Overall, the screenplay was boring, the direction was not good, and the cast was convincing but not that great since the roles were pretty dull. It could have been much better, had someone like Charlie Kaufman wrote it (he wrote the amazing script for the story of Chuck Barris, a game show host in George Clooney's 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind'. 7/10

salciuco@inwind.it The movie narrate the true story of Jerry Stahl,a Hollywood tv writer slave of heroin,but not because he would "unpack",but for stop to feeling bad.At first sight Jerry Stahl seems a normal gay guy ,but if you looking better you can see a dark shadow in his personality , a dark shadow where grow up his ghost's pain,that it change in destruction of himself.A pain in appearence inexplicable,but always present.Ben Stiller is very good in the character of Jerry Stahl,and his decline phisical and psychic is worthy to biggest drama hollywood actors.I admite Stiller,but he is remember from a pubblic only for less movie,as "There's something about Mary",that it's not a bad movie,but neither a deeply movie as "Permanent Midnight".This story may report to the story of John Belushi,but the movie that it narrate"Wired" not is very succesful.My rate is 7.

TxMike SPOILERS - Even thought this is a pseudo-autobiography, in the movie it is presented as the story of Jerry (Ben Stiller) in recovery, meeting a girl (Maria Bello) in recovery, and the two of them trying to figure out if they can make a go of it, initially meeting at a cheap motel for casual sex, and by the end of the movie realizing they love each other. Their conversations result in a number of Jerry's memories which are shown in flashback form.Whether this is a good movie depends on what one expects to get out of it. "Permanent Midnight" tries to be entertaining in spots. To wit, Jerry picks up a German girl, they have meaningless sex, and at climax she yells, "My God, my God, I'm being f**ked by a Jew!" Very marginal humor. This is not a very entertaining film, but it is gripping simply for the realization that some people actually try to navigate their lives that way. During this period, the real Jerry Stahl was writing for popular 1980s series like "Moonlighting", "Alph", and "Northern Exposure." Anyway, during his addiction phase Stahl represents himself as a person with little self-control, lying, needing drugs to get through any stressful situation. Then, when he first tries to rehabilitate, bad friends drag him down. I am glad I saw this film, however I cannot recommend it strongly. However, I now realize that thirty-something Maria Bello might be my new favorite female actress, after seeing her here, in "Coyote Ugly" and in "Duets." She is uniquely attractive and a very natural actress, I think I could enjoy watching her in anything!

EdYerkeRobins I think Ben Stiller is typecast; I've only seen him play quirky Jewish guys in comedies. He's quite good at that (because that's basically what he is), but I was very interested to see him in a serious role, so I rented this film. Unfortunately, the film is unevenly paced and rather humdrum.The film's pace is really off, because it tries to cram at least a year and a half's worth of events into 80 minutes. The story is told in segments, meaning the film jumps around a lot; Jerry (Stiller) switches dealers and loses friends out of the blue, but more importantly, the entire period between when he is in rehab and when the film begins is alluded to but is noticeably absent (how and why DID he come to that "fateful" fast food job?). The film focuses mainly on the beginning of Jerry's downfall due to addiction, but never tells the whole story (he never seems to hit addiction's true rock bottom). The segway between these sequences - Jerry telling another ex-addict more of his "story", should've been done away with; its totally unnecessary and serves only to lead to an ending that makes little sense, even within the context of the segways.Besides all the missing sequences leaving gaping and occasionally confusing holes in the story, the story left isn't terribly interesting. The "drugs cause successful man to become a desperate shadow of his former self" plot is second only to the "Hollywood doesn't give a damn about anyone" subplot in its simplicity. It's been done before, and if it hasn't, it sure seems like it has, including the "telling the story to another sympathetic ex-addict" aspect. Perhaps including some of the aforementioned missing segments would have given the story the extra kick it needed.The story is the only problem with the film, the performances are excellent. Stiller is just as good in a dramatic role (although, somewhat ironically, his character is a quirky Jewish addict), and Elizabeth Hurley gives an excellent supporting performance as Jerry's marriage-of-convenience-wife who actually cares about him, but gets the fall-back from his addiction instead (her response to these incidents is only hinted at, and should have been extended on). Janeane Garofalo is another great supporting character (Jerry's agent) that deserved more screen time. Besides sporting great performances, there are a few inspired scenes, though due to the story's disjointed order, they feel just as "dropped in" as the rest of the story's major developments.There's nothing outright wrong with the film, it's just missing too much. If the film had run for the length of a regular film it probably would've filled in enough of the holes that it'd work better.