I LOVED this movie. I almost want to give it 5 stars out of pure sentimentality, but I try not to give anything I’ve only seen once 5 stars. I love the Beatles. I loved the adaptations. I loved Jude. I don’t like Evan Rachel Wood, but she did have a lovely singing voice. I even loved the cutesy little twists they did on the songs, like in “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” To be honest, the plot was pretty much nonexistent, and if I judged it on that I’d give it no more than a 3 at best. The songs and the incorporation of the songs was what made the movie so much fun for me. And I always like cheeky references like: “Where did she come from?” “I dunno, she came in through the bathroom window.” Or trying to make sense of the lyrics of “I am the Walrus.”

Fairly typical Disney/Pixar fare. It wasn’t as surprisingly marvelous as Finding Nemo or The Incredibles, but it didn’t disappoint. And I try to rate movies based on what it’s trying to accomplish and not some grand, overarching scale.
I have to admit the scenes with all those rats kind of grossed me out a lot. Lot of big, furry rat bodies scurrying all over the place. GROSSSSS. But Remy was endearing (and I’m sure the production/design team made sure he was just “cute” enough) and as a total foodie I really enjoyed imagining eating all that food, kind of like Top Chef.

I first watched this when it first came out on a trans-continental flight. I was tired and young and fidgety and so I didn’t pay attention to most of it. What I did watch I think I did like, or was at least intrigued by. I was just more used to watching movies like Pearl Harbor and Ocean’s Eleven.
Over the years though, it became one of those movies that based on a composite of everything I’d heard about it and what I’d seen of it I KNEW I would actually really like it if I sat down and watched the whole thing. (Despite not really liking The Life Aquatic which was the only other Wes Anderson film I’ve seen) Well, I finally did and I’m really glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie as well as the soundtrack.

A glorified slasher/torture/revenge movie. Honestly, it wasn’t nearly as “psychologically disturbing” as I thought it would be. I think any general summary of it would clue you in to just how psychologically disturbing it is. Or maybe it was just all the reviews I read going on and on about how this is not for the faint of heart. That’s not to say it’s all about lollipops and unicorns because, obviously, it’s not. But really it was a lot of a little girl talking a whole lot about how she was going to cut his balls off and then not actually doing it. (Patrick Wilson’s acting in that scene is actually frightening. Otherwise the whole thing could have come off as ridiculous.) Or maybe it was because I could actually really relate to Hayley and I was a super angsty 14/15/16 year old who was convinced she would cut someone’s balls off if he tried to rape her and tended to play a lot of revenge scenarios in her head. Maybe not everyone is as twisted and dark as I am. Maybe everyone else was a totally well-adjusted, happy, innocent adolescent and this truly is shocking. Somehow I doubt that, but who knows.
Also, the ending seemed really improbable. At the very least, he would have attacked her and let her shoot him. No matter how guilty he was, self-preservation is everyone’s first instinct. And he could have always fled to France.

I never read the book. What’s funny is my brother was just assigned Into the Wild for school and I was planning on borrowing his book when he was finished but I went to see the movie before I ever did.
Overall, it pretty much met expectations. Emile Hirsch was fantastic. He actually really reminded me a lot of Leonardo DiCaprio in physical resemblance, in speech, and in acting ability. But some of the supporting characters, particularly the “big name” ones felt miscast or irrelevant. I really don’t like Jena Malone (the sister). I haven’t since she was in Donnie Darko. And my loathing for her increased with Life as a House and Saved!. I don’t know why and I can’t really explain it, but something about her just pisses me off. It’s a personal bias so I can’t really fault the film for it, but every time she had a voiceover segment I wanted to scream a little bit. Worse though is Vince Vaughan. He totally ruined that segment of the movie. In fact, his character could have been completely cut out and the movie would have been even better for it. He was just plain awful with all of his funny guy tics trying to play farmer guy.
Little qualms aside, the story is sad and sweet and romantic. I wanted to reject upper middle class suburban comfort and join the hippies in Arizona and, at the same time, yell at him for his sheer naivete and smack him upside the head for being stupid enough to die 20 miles away from a highway. And the movie was open minded enough about Chris McCandless that you could feel both hero worship and contempt for him.

I really wanted to like this. It’s something “different.” It’s two leads are female. I love Cate Blanchett. But for me it fell somewhat short. It was well directed and fairly well scripted. Judi Dench was great. Cate Blanchett was actually a bit disappointing, but that could have just been being overshadowed by Dame Judi Dench. I just thought she didn’t really do much with her character, nothing like Katharine Hepburn or even her segment of Coffee & Cigarettes.
I think my biggest problem with the movie, though, was the characters themselves. I couldn’t really understand why Sheba would have an affair with a student. (Although he was gorgeous, in that 15 year old boy kind of way.) Something was mentioned about how when she met her husband she was his 20 year old student. But that doesn’t really seem like a reasonable explanation. I guess that wasn’t really the focus of the story but it was still sketchy. The focus of the story was, in fact, the relationship between the two women, and primarily Barbara’s own predatory impulses. It all seemed weirdly misogynistic to me. Here’s this movie about women that’s actually, for once, a serious movie and the women are all pathological. And the “moral” seemed a little off to me. What exactly was the movie trying to say? That being a statutory rapist is really nothing compared to being a controlling, clingy, overly needy lesbian? Barbara was seriously creepy and her character totally played into this combination of the evil, old spinster-witch stereotype and the homosexual who’s out to “convert” the unsuspecting, vulnerable hetero.

I don’t care if and to what degree this is historically inaccurate. It was cute. I went through a time period when I was madly in love with Mozart’s music and then spurned it for being overly dramatic, but the movie definitely made me love him and his music again. It spins a wonderful story out of his life and his music, especially the requiem, which is lovely because the music is so familiar to everyone. And as the daughter of a mother who majored in piano and forced me to start playing since before I can remember, I can definitely relate at least a little bit to the decidedly insane Salieri. It’s just not fair that some people are capable of composing entire symphonies for the king at the age of 8 or some crap like that when I could barely play scales at 8.

I’d actually give it more like a 3.5. I really didn’t want to watch it at first precisely because of comments like my title, but in the spirit of open-mindedness I finally caved. I can’t say it was really worth my while. It didn’t exactly contribute anything worthwhile to my life or anything. But it wasn’t horrible either, if what you feel like watching at any given moment is sex, blood, and zombies. It’s wonderfully unrealistic. And the blood and gore even made this somewhat jaded moviewatcher squirm.
I was a little divided on the whole 70s exploitation theme because it was so contrived. Especially the “missing reel” antic during a dvd viewing. The irony seems to be a little forced down my throat. But I have to say it was actually a nifty plot device as well. At the very least I smirked at all the random new characters that were introduced without being introduced.
I actually really liked El Wray. I thought he was charming (AND he was played by Carla’s brother who pretended to not be able to speak English to mess with Turk!) And I have to admit. A machine gun for a leg? That’s pretty freaking awesome.

Despite any arguments to the contrary, the novel felt really unfinished. I mean, the narrator tells the reader in the last chapter that we’re going to see what else happens to our hero and then doesn’t follow through. Besides the ending that isn’t really an ending, it was actually an engaging narrative. I could have done with less of the making vast generalizations about the nature of the Russian people but wonderfully drawn individual characters make up for that. It’s flaws were easily excusable and it definitely made me laugh in some parts. And it’s great how, despite the foreignness of it all, so much of 21st century upper middle-class America is so readily recognizable in a 19th century Russian satire.

This might have made a pretty decent short movie. The dialogue dragged on and on and on. And I love dialogue. I love whole movies where nothing happens but people talk. But there was just too much talking in this movie. Maybe the problem wasn’t too much dialogue, just the whole self-satisfied nature of it. Too much of it felt like it was trying to be another “royal with cheese.” Trying, and failing miserably. Also annoying—way too many homages…to his own films. Not even subtle ones at that. How much of an ego maniac do you have to be to reference your own movies?

It did come together nicely at the end though. Which, sadly, seems to be a rare thing lately. The car chases were fun and I really liked “Zoe the cat” and the fact that she’s actually a stuntwoman who does her own stunts makes it all the better.