One of those little “we’re suddenly turning into adults and WTF do we do now” movies. So: Not nearly as good as Garden State. But not nearly as fuckinghorriblybad as Last Kiss. Yes, the valley between those two is my latest measuring stick for this kind of movie. Which means it was pretty “middling”. Some nice moments. Some funny moments. Not just a story about one chick; really about how four (or more) different people are all dealing with the same person’s death, and finding out how each of them actually knew him in a very different way.

I realize Jennifer Garner was pregnant during filming but it seemed they went a little overboard on how dumpy they had her dressed. Give her some better clothes and my opinion would have gone up a few points, which might sound weird but if you’ve seen it I think you know what I mean. Kinda odd to have the random boys wearing cuter clothes than the only “normal” girl in a film!

Enjoyable. But not a GREAT flick.

p.s. Kevin Smith basically plays himself. And he’s pretty hilarious.

Honestly, I have no idea what this movie was supposed to be about. And when I say “no idea”, by that I mean “no fucking clue in any way” and anyone who says they did is full of fucking shit. For example, if you read a review that says “this part of the movie was a criticism of society’s xxx”. Just LAUGH TO YOURSELF and say “You pulled that OUT OF YOUR ASS man.”

There was one (or maybe two) storylines that you could PSEUDO interpret to yourself in a Mullholland Drive kind of way. In other words, so in some scenes she’s an actress, but in some scenes she thinks she is really the part that she was just playing in other scenes, now she thinks she’s ACTUALLY her. OK, that was the one percent of the movie that was explainable in any way.

When I say this movie is at least 90,000 times MORE confusing and MORE dislinear and MORE disjunctive and MORE fucked up than Mulholland Drive (which I actually did like in quite a few ways), I think I am underestimating.

And to those obviously insane David Lynch fans who went all out with the applause at the end: Hello, WHAT were you applauding? Everyone in my row just looked at each other and said WHAT IN THE FUCKING HELL WAS THAT ALL ABOUT? And no, I wasn’t the only person in my row!!!!!!!!

And p.s. it was three hours long. Three hours of lots of stress and tension and uncomfortable icky scenes and three hours of complete and utter confusion.

More a real “musical” than, say, Walk the Line or Ray, both of which featured singing but only when the actors were on stage. Whereas this has those random “I’m talking to you but wait, now I’m singing to you!” moments.
Eddie Murphy was GREAT. Not a character you really LIKED but he did a great job and he was one of the most humorous parts of the movie, which in some ways I felt was missing some humor. One song that went on way too long, and when I checked afterward, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way… Jennifer Hudson was pretty impressive and the movie only affirms the fact that Beyonce sings about as well as…J Lo. Or me. Or you. Anybody can sound “good” mixed correctly; only some people can sound “great” and neither one of them falls into that category; Jennifer does.
Really hated Jamie Foxx in this, and not all because of who he was playing. Seemed to have a really sullen sticking-out-his-bottom-lip, barely-moving-his-mouth thing going on.
Overall, good performances, good singing. Seems like a bunch of real-world stories (Supremes, Jacksons, etc.) all sort of thrown into one fictional story. Ddn’t realize it was a stage play first. Interesting.

Contrary to what ALL of the reviews I read said: I did NOT find this to be a horror film. I did find some of it GROSS. And some of it BRUTALLY VIOLENT. But NONE of it caused me any undue horror. I was fully prepared to be screaming, shaking, grabbing the arms of people next to me, having nightmares later and perhaps being unable to sleep. None of which ensued.
It was really good. Really compelling. A mix between the reality of the adult world fighting a war against fascism (led by sadists) and the child world of trying to find a place where you feel safe and loved. Reality mixed with faery (to use their sp) tale mixed with little girl’s (mis)perceptions. Intriguing.
The captain/stepdad is truly brutally sadistic and some of those scenes were hard to watch (I had my hands strategically over my eyes to block out all but the subtitles). And one of the faery sequences is soooooo gross. But still: not that scary and certainly not as scary as the reviews had led me to believe.
The little girl is just lovely and beautiful and expressive and I hope she grows up to be a rich and famous actress one day. I imagine this is what Audrey Tatou looked like as a little girl.

Freaky. Frightening.

Has the same feel as other post-apocalyptic London movies like “V for Vendetta” and “28 Days Later.”

Very scary, and with just enough toeholds in reality that you have to think that if things got really (even more) fucked up, something like this COULD happen…

Thought they copped out a little on the ending though.

Clive Owen is great. Julianne Moore looks oddly clean, compared to the rest of the movie. A beacon of porcelain whiteness. Weird.

Wow, I must have been really tired because this not-great chick flick totally made me cry!! Convoluted, messed up family relationships just get to ya sometimes I guess.
Really liked the sweet way the romance between Rose and Simon (played by one of those actors you’ve seen in a million things) evolved.
Cameron Diaz seemed to have a lot more going on up top than normal. Is it just me or was she considerably more boobalicious in this movie than in any of the, say, 5000 pictures of her in bikinis they’ve shown in US Weekly, People, etc.? Temporary implants? Creative use of masking tape?

Well, if you remember that I’m a sucker for this kind of movie, then you already know I quite enjoyed this. Although it’s probably fine that I saw it on a plane and didn’t pay $10 to see it in the theater.
A little frightened that this makes TWO Ashton Kutcher movies on my list, but I thought he was good in this, although the script certainly didn’t do him any favors.
Nice bit part by Sela Ward.