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Sweet Home Alabama

Sweet Home Alabama

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not a bad movie .....
Review: An interesting plot about a young southern girl (Witherspoon) who falls for a guy (Patrick Dempsey) in the city. But in order to marry him, she has to finalize the divorce with her stubborn ex-husband (Josh Lucas) from her hometown in Alabama while keeping her marriage secret from anyone in the city.
You've probably guessed form the title that after settling in back home, and really making everyone mad, she realizes how much she actually has screwed up and spends the latter half of the film trying to correct it.
Candice Bergen and Dempsey portray their respective roles quite well as the "big city types" and I found myself actually wanting things to work out for Witherspoon, despite how many times she makes the wrong decisions.
Overall, its not a bad movie that I'd probably watch again.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The beauty of southern living reborn in a young lady's heart
Review: Sweet Home Alabama is a stunning movie exemplifying the fine virtues of the south, including the hospitality, the warmth, the love, the carefree, relaxed attitide, with steady motivation, and a deep loving passion, just to name a few. This movie tells a beautiful love story that all those fortunate to have a southern bell of their own could easily relate to, as well as any hopeless romantic. A beautiful romance tied in with appropriate comical relief make this movie both funny, and touching. The dramatic characters of the south are also outlined and further allow the viewer to become fixated. The movie plays with your emotions and has the viewer dying to see this young confused lady find herself and realize that growing up in the south is a world away from growing up in the north. You almost cheer her on as she gets closer and closer to making that perfect match that you somehow know is there from the get go, but she almost loses heself. She almost seems to get caught up in changing her life, that she seems to think she needs to change her roots as well. She almost does, but suddenly remembers what perhaps, subconsciously she knew the whole time. The movie touches the heart, and touches the soul, but if your from the south you probably already knew it would.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Oh, how sweet it is!
Review: In Sweet Home Alabama, Reese Witherspoon stars as Melanie Carmichael, a famous New York City fashion designer and the girlfriend of the mayor's (Candice Bergen) son, Andrew (Patrick Dempsey). When Andrew proposes to Melanie, by closing Tiffany's and telling her to pick out a ring, she heads to her backwoods hometown in Alabama to get a divorce from her childhood friend, Jake (Josh Lucas), who she secretly married in high school and refuses to sign the divorce papers. After spending some time with Jake, her parents and some old friends, Melanie begins to have second-thoughts about her impending marriage to Andrew.

Sweet Home Alabama is predictable, but what romantic comedy isn't? I thought this was a fantastic and hilarious movie with a great storyline. Reese Witherspoon is always wonderful in any movie she's in and it clearly shows in this film. Patrick Dempsey and Josh Lucas are especially good in their roles as Melanie's love interests. This is a must see!

The special features on the DVD include eight deleted scenes, an alternate ending (the one used in the movie is much better), director's commentary and SHeDAISY's lovely music video for "Mine All Mine."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best Movie in America!!!Reese is Awsome
Review: This was the best Reese Witherspoon movie ever. She is the best in this movie inwhich she plays Melanie, a fashion designer from New York who gets engaged to a swinging bachelor, played by Patrick Dempsey, whose mom happens to be the mayor of New York City. She then goes back to Alabama where she learns more about her southern roots. This is a must-see for anyone! It is much better than Red Dragon and the Banger Sisters. I saw this movie 8 times this weekend because you just cannot get enough of Reese- she is America's Sweetheart(Sorry Julia!)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Sweet Home Alabama great movie!!!
Review: so many people have written reviews saying that Reese Witherspoone has never played a worse charactor, quite opposite I thought it was great! Sweet home alabama starts out with melanie carmichael becoming engaged, but she's still married to her high school sweetheart and he won't sign the divorce papers! This movie will have you screeming at the charactor until the movie is over! A great movie! Not for kids under thirteen because of some unappropriate coversation, but otherwise a great movie with a very satisfying ending.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Who Does Melanie Really Love ?
Review: This is a wonderful, heartwarming romantic comedy with truly funny one liners interspersed with tender moments. It is well acted by a first rate cast.

Reese Witherspoon is Melanie Carmichael, a New York fashion designer who appears to be on top of the world when she receives rave reviews for her new clothing line and the becomes engaged to Andrew (Patrick Dempsey), HUD secretary and son of the Mayor of NYC (Candice Bergen). Only one small problem looms on the horizon - her past - including a teenage marriage to Jake (Josh Lucas), from whom she has never been divorced due to his refusal to sign the final decree. Thus, a trip back home to Alabama ensues in an effort to clear things up before Andrew and Murphy Brown, I mean Candice Bergen acting to comic perfection as she did in that role, dredge up the truth and she loses her chance at happiness in the big city.

Needless to say, things don't quite go according to plan. Jake isn't ready to let go of his childhood sweetheart, and she starts to renew some old high school friendships after her seven year absence. This is not just a fluffy vehicle for Reese Witherspoon's talents; as the story of the past unfolds the movie even touches on such issues as high school pregnancies, the outing of a gay friend, the role that the history of the Confederacy still plays in the Deep South and parents fulfilling their dreams through the achievements of their children.

In addition to the previously mentioned actors and actresses, Fred Ward and Mary Kay Place as Melanie's parents and Jean Smart as Jake's mom add both depth and humor to the movie. And perhaps best of all the country music soundtrack complements the action and Bryan the bloodhound almost steals the show for us dog lovers who only wish that the crucial role he plays was a little more extensive.

In the end, this movie keeps you both laughing and guessing while affirmatively answering Jake's question to Melanie about whether we can have both roots and wings.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Being Southern is a state of mind
Review: Another reviewer mentioned she didn't laugh much at Sweet Home Alabama. I'll admit some would be funny moments only brought a smile to my face, but if you're from the south at all this film is full of vivid, real, and funny reminders of home. The way Andy Tennant and the screenwriter capture immutable characteristics of the south is sometimes overdone, like one or two hokey overplayed accents, but it is far from un-funny. I mean the slapstick moments alone had me laughing out loud. I have recommended it to all of my friends-I just tell them to crank up Lynard Skynard in the car on the way to get into the proper state of mind.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best Movie
Review: This movie definetly lives up to Resse's Legally Blonde and it really u can not stop laughing and i really look 4ward to seeing this movie a 1,000,000,000 times plus i can't wait to see Legally Blonde 2

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: "Sweet?" I Don't Think So...
Review: Had this movie been made forty years ago, it would've starred Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward; it's that kind of story-- a romantic and lusty foray into the human condition that takes truth, honesty and love into consideration while examining the relationships of those involved. As for the Newman/Woodward fantasy, as an audience we could only be so lucky. Because "Sweet Home Alabama," directed by Andy Tennant, coasts with a "Fast Food Generation" sense of romance, and from frame One any "lusty" aspects of the film would be more aptly defined as "dusty," "musty" or "rusty." If this is a reflection of the sense and sensibility of romance in the new millennium, then just stop the world now and let me off.

Melanie Carmichael (Reese Witherspoon), seven years removed from her roots in Alabama has achieved success in the Big Apple. She is "The" new designer of the fashion world, and the man of her dreams, Andrew Hennings (Patrick Dempsey) has just proposed. Life is good; but there are a couple of things standing between her and the American dream. One is Katherine Hennings (Candice Bergen), Andrew's mother. But the biggest obstacle is back home in Alabama, and before she can realize her dream she's going to have to resolve a few things from her past. Which means a trip back home to the place-- and the life-- she's worked so hard to get away from. But there's no getting around it; to move ahead with her new life she's going to have to open some closet doors and rattle some skeletons. So for Melanie, it's off to her old sweet home, Alabama, to visit the past she'd rather forget.

As a director, Andy Tennant has his roots in television, and for better or worse-- it is, perhaps, a subjective call-- he has time and again attempted to adapt his small screen sensibilities to the big screen, which worked well enough in "Ever After," in 1998, but achieved dismal results the next year in "Anna and the King." This offering falls somewhere in-between. To be fair, though, the problems began before Tennant ever came on board, and it falls directly on writers Douglas J. Eboch (story) and C. Jay Cox (screenplay), who cranked out a story/screenplay that is decidedly uninspired and lacks any semblance of originality whatsoever. As a rule, I personally rail against those who deem the outcome of just about any film "predictable," because it's usually in reference to plot developments that are, more accurately, "inevitable." This one, however, is going to make everyone in the audience thinking they have The Sight.

To put what Tennant has done here into perspective, one must place him on the scale by which directors of romantic comedy are judged. On the strength of her "Return To Me," Bonnie Hunt shares the apex of the chart with the undisputed master of the RC, Nora Ephron, both of whom register at the 100th percentile. At the nadir of the chart is Adam Shankman ("The Wedding Planner"), with a "0" percentile. This film puts Tennant at about 20. Granted, he was handed a poor script (how did this get the green light in the first place? It's been DONE already!), but he exhibits a veritable lack of vision with a truly unimaginative rendering of the material. The story is trite and the characters are inherently uninteresting, but he could have at least livened things up a bit. He even blew the outdoor dance scene, which was custom made for some good old down home Alabama rockabilly and line dancing; instead, what you get is a glimpse and a cut-away to a shot of the good ol' boys sitting atop a water tower drinking beer. Make that the 19th percentile.

In "Election" and especially in "Legally Blonde," Reese Witherspoon is a charismatic, forceful presence on the screen. As Melanie, however, she comes across as too self-absorbed to be likable, and there's a scene in which she's had a bit too much to drink that, as they say, shows her (Melanie's) true colors. She has too much of an edge to evoke any empathy, and overall, her performance isn't that convincing. She gets the "hard" side of Melanie right, but when she goes for "soft" it translates to pretentious and lacks the realism that would make it believable. In retrospect, Melanie is rather unattractive and unappealing, which makes this film a hard sell.

Josh Lucas, meanwhile, though a step up from McConaughey's Steve/Eddie of "The Wedding Planner," still comes across as a kind of third-rate Paul Newman wannabe. Comparing Newman's Ben Quick to Lucas' Jake Perry, for example, isn't comparing apples and oranges, it's more like sizzle to fizzle. Lucas is a good actor (his Martin Hansen in "A Beautiful Mind"), but he lacks the magnetism to make Jake viable.

As Andrew, Patrick Dempsey gives something of an assembly line performance. In his defense, he was given little with which to work, but he failed to explore it for the nuance that would have at least given some "identity" to his character. Dempsey has the looks and talent, and perhaps a stronger director could've exacted more from him.

And what in the world is going on with Candice Bergen? Is she destined to play a sarcastic and jaded (Katherine in this one) or disturbed (Kathy Morningside, "Miss Congeniality") version of Murphy Brown for the rest of her career? Bergen is a beautiful, gifted actor who has much more to offer than what she's been given in recent years.

The supporting cast includes Fred Ward (Earl), Mary Kay Place (Pearl), Jean Smart (Stella), Ethan Embry (Bobby Ray) and Melanie Lynskey (Lurlynn). With a different cast, director and screenplay, "Sweet Home Alabama" may have had a chance; but this bunch checked any pizzazz and credibility at the door on the way in, and the result is a film that is flat and tedious. This one seemingly had promise, but the filmmakers simply failed to deliver.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Reese Gives Us Another Helping Of Her Charm
Review: With any other actress as the lead in this movie, I don't think it would be as nearly as enjoyable as it is. Reese gives us an irresistible charm that usually brightens up any movie that she's in and makes it better than it usually is. The same can be said for Sweet Home Alabama. A movie which is so predictable, you can almost utter each line yourself before the characters get them out of their honky tonk mouths. However, something can be said about predictability and in times like these, I think it's great to have a movie come out that you know you can fall in love with. Sweet Home Alabama is a perfect fit. Reese plays Melanie, a very succesful fashion designer who's left behind her hillbilly home. Living the glamorous life, she ends up falling for the mayor's son played by Patrick Dempsey, a handsome and rich man who happens to honestly adore her. Just when she thinks he couldn't get any more perfect, he proposes to her at Tiffany's. Just one problem ... she's keeping a big secret from him - she's already married. That's when our main character decides to go back to her hometown to get a divorce from her stubborn ex named Jake played by newcomer Josh Lucas. In typical romantic comedy fashion, Melanie and Jake get on eachother's nerves to the point that they wanna either strangle eachother or fall in love all over again. I don't wanna give to much away, but Melanie basically has to decide between her childhood sweetheart and the new prince in her life that wants to sweep her off her feet. It's predictable and very hokey, but you can't help but fall in love with this movie. One of my favorite scenes is when Melanie visits her old dog at a pet semetary and opens up about why she had to leave the animal behind. Its heartbreaking and very touching. Reese won't win any oscars for her portrayal as a confused small town girl, but she sure will win your heart.


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