Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

suesmith3 This movie had superb acting talent across about 2.5 generations of actors- and all of this talent is just wasted.The writing is poor, disjointed and does not tell either a good overall story or good individual stories. Slow, boring, bad. A real waste of talent.I do not know what the budget was but it had to be small. Still with Danner & company the results should have been much better. The viewer is dragged through a bunch off scenes that do not connect with each other at all. Don't waste your time.

Poseidon-3 Thanksgiving rolls around for an upper-middle-class Maine family and the parents open their door, in some cases rather reluctantly, to their four children and a few others. Quirky Holloman is still living at home. Depressed Wyle is returning home for the first time in years following a dust-up with his father Scheider. Stone-hearted Moore with her husband Kerwin and handsome, successful Vartan with his girlfriend Davis round out the family. (A couple of friends, Duva and Bauer, attend for Thanksgiving dinner.) As the dysfunctional siblings converge at their parents' home, their varied issues are observed and their inherent inability to get along is examined. Scheider prefers to stay to himself, sometimes taking long walks while the mother Danner attempts to soothe everyone with her warm amiability. Wyle is nervous about meeting up with his ex-girlfriend Bareikis, Moore comes upon a long-forgotten childhood admirer (LeGros) and Holloman seems to take particular interest in Kerwin, who Moore frequently ignores. Naturally, on Thanksgiving Day, tempers flare and a bit of a confrontation occurs. However, nothing is really solved or healed and everyone starts off on their separate ways again. This film has a gorgeous, elegant look to it. The cinematography highlights the pretty surroundings and the attractive cast. Unfortunately, the story is just a bit too threadbare and disjointed to really hold the viewers attention completely. Director Freundlich has done the near impossible. He has made 90 minutes seem like 180 minutes. Scenes don't drag on. On the contrary, many of them are very, very brief. It's just that not enough ever seems to happen and the fact that many of the characters are unsympathetic doesn't help in putting the film across. Wyle is quite one-note throughout and is not captivating enough to carry his portion of the film. Moore is steely and striking-looking and provides more than a few interesting moments along the way, but her story is never fully fleshed out or explained. Davis injects a welcome dose of personality and humor into the film. LeGros also adds zany energy to his scenes. Danner is radiant. Her classy looks and manner and her acting skill aid the film enormously, though, like several others, there isn't a lot for her to work with. Vartan, in particular, has a virtually meaningless role. Holloman overacts in order to come up with something to do. It's nice to see Kerwin amongst all the others and he does a good job in his role. Scheider is also solid, though his behavior is, like so much else, left without explanation. It's an attractive, well-performed film which, sadly, doesn't have an involving enough script to warrant a feature film. It feels hollow at its core, despite the acting talent assembled for it. Though it is to be commended for avoiding a huge, unrealistic revelation or massive conflict, it can't escape a sort of "so what" feeling by the time it has limped through to its conclusion. Even the director admitted that it was all "played out" by the 86 minute mark.

preppy-3 A heavily dysfunctional family gets together for Thanksgiving. We see their interactions and their inability to connect with each other.Very quiet and somber with touches of humor. This is a slow, moody film. Some people will love this, others will hate it. I personally wasn't too thrilled (I found it much too slow and quite a few people left the screening I attended) but I can see why some people like this. It has a great cast and is very well-acted and written. The direction seems a little off though. So, if you're into a quiet, moody study of a family--this is for you. Also it is interesting to watch now for the cast--some of them were unknown when this came out and have gone on to bigger and better things. There are two great sequences:The children's' reactions when their parents start to tell them about their sex life and, at one point, one woman sees a huge spider who is killed by her boyfriend. She says, "That was a huge spider! It would have whomped Charlotte's ass!" That line had me giggling for 10 minutes and has never left me--and I saw the film back in 1997!

tedg Spoilers herein.I am usually able to avoid getting wrapped up in celebrity gossip and such. Sometimes, the widely known reality of who a person is becomes part of the cinematic presence, and in that case I don't feel guilty exploring an off-screen persona. Christina Ricci is the someone like this for me.But there is another reason to worry about the external life: when it affects the art of a treasure. Julianne Moore is one of our most frighteningly intelligent actresses. I especially appreciate her `folded' acting, which presents several character-related dialogs at once. She - and a very few of her colleagues - lift film to a level that advances the whole society.In nearly every project she does something interesting, even when the filmmaker is oblivious to the more nuanced spaces available. But not here.This project is a mess. Yet another `character-driven' group encounter. There are dozens and dozens of these, the first respite of a theatrical mind thinking they know something about cinema. They CAN work, but we need something more than simply walking through damaged lives. This project is somewhere between `Affliction' and `Big Chill,' but where they open lives, this views them remotely. We do have the requisite precious tinkly music. We do have some very stylized exterior shots (very nice) to emphasize opening of issues compared to the claustrophobia of the house.The template requires a play-with-the-play. In `Chill' it was the video; `On Golden Pond' had the fishing drama. Here is the Rabbit book. Could have been more clumsy, but not by much.Moore's character had lots of opportunity for the kind of folded projection she's famous for. In another project she would have gone ahead and filled these multiple channels between her presence and us - like say in her Altman projects where he just leaves ALL of that up to the actor. But here, she sticks to what the director intends, and that is depressingly one-dimensional. Community theater stuff.Why should I care? Well because this thick talent is now her husband. Will it matter? I don't know. I have a database of projects where the director and actor are lovers. Sometimes an intelligent director can lift a mundane actress: as in the Robbins/Sarandon; Welles/Hayworth; Mamet/Pidgeon; Figgis/Burrows; De Palma/Allen; Fellini/Masini; Wenders/Kreuzer; Allen/Keaton-Farrow; Coen/McDormand; Branagh/Thompson; Cameron/Hamilton; Godard/Karina-Wiazemsky; Besson/Jovovich; Burton/Marie; Harlin/Davis pairings. Sometimes it doesn't matter, each just does their own thing (Newman/Woodward and lots of others). A few other effects, but the result is a small number of well-defined outcomes among several dozen such couplings. But there are also cases where the director/lover ruins the actress (Minelli/Garland; Beatty/Christie; Hallstrom/Olin).What family drama will transpire in Julianne's life? Will it be like this film, in both character (she is a gallery receptionist and a failed artist) and form? Will we lose our champion?Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.