Rating: 
Summary: Excruciating.
Review: Watch paint dry. It's more entertaining than this movie. Trust me.
Rating: 
Summary: Not For Everyone...
Review: If your sense of humor is not in the least bit on the dark side, don't even bother seeing this movie - you will hate it, and you will spend the next couple of days telling everyone how MUCH you hate it. Now, for the people who do have a dark sense of humor: this is a must-see. I went to see it in the theaters a couple of weeks after it came out, and I immediately wanted to see it again! I found the whole movie to be so royally entertaining that I just couldn't see why anyone would dislike it. It has a great ensemble cast that includes Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bill Murray, Gene Hackman, Danny Glover, Anjelica Huston, and BOTH of the Wilson brothers - and everyone is at their best. There was not one bad performance throughout the whole movie. It is true: this is a VERY quirky film, and some of the characters' actions sometimes seem to make no sense (the scene near the end with Owen Wilson and his painted face...well, I still don't understand that one - and Bill Murray's young sidekick--who was he, and why was he always around?), but it is as charming and tragic as it is quirky. The standout in the whole movie, in my opinion, would have to be Gwyneth Paltrow, as the family's "adopted daughter" Margot. With her dark eyelined eyes and almost constant frown she plays the part perfectly, and it really makes you like her as an actress. So anyway, if you have an appreciation for a kind of humor other than slap-stick, then you definitely should check this one out. Some say it's boring, but I say it's a fine film with a fine cast. The DVD is great, too - it's a double disc, which means there are tons of extra features - it's a treatment which films like this deserve.
Rating:
Summary: Oh, spare me your facile ironies... this movie [stinks]!
Review: Ye gods. What a wretchedly bad, bad, bad, bad, tedious, tedious, tedious movie. Why did people like it? (Or... did they??) This flick is such a shamblesome, interminable, wanky waste of time and talent... Whoever ordained director Wes Anderson as an auteur probably regrets it now: the most remarkable thing about him is his immense hubris in baldly recycling all the strained humor of the "wacky" counterculture comedies of the last four decades, and condensing it into one, horribly dull, overlong film. I mean, look, I really do "get" that the whole point of this style of humor lies in its excessiveness; but that doesn't mean that everything the director does is instantly going to be "good"... and this trainwreck of a film is definitely NOT GOOD. Anderson's directorial philosophy seems to be make it funny -- no, wait: even funnier -- by constantly upping the ante... Every single detail of the film has to be odd, quirky, off-center, out there and bizarre. The technique is so mannered and predictable that it's incredibly boring. Couldn't he have worked on the plot, or the premise, or the acting, instead of his own insatiable uber-cleverness? Besides, wasn't this film a disaster before, when they made it as "Hotel New Hampshire?" Perhaps I wouldn't have been so turned off had it not been for all the...packaging on the DVD copy I rented -- I mean, really... a 2-CD set deluxe set complete with an entire extra disc of "bonus" material? And those oh-so-self-congratulatory liner notes? Puh-leeeze! As if anyone could really believe that this lightweight trainwreck of a film is all that important!
Rating: 
Summary: Gene Hackman + Anjelica Houston + Danny Glover + Bill Murray
Review: You cannot lose with this combination! And that is just the veterans... Gwyneth, Luke & Owen Wilson, and Ben Stiller make this a MUST watch for a "feel good" really funny movie.Normally, once I watch a movie, I am done with it. This one is always funny and always entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: Mildly entertaining
Review: Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson clearly have watched Nashville if not the entire body of work of Robert Altman. Altman's films have a hit or miss quality. They are either marvelous, inventive and groundbreaking or hopeless messes full of arty pretense. Clearly the later group was an influence on Anderson and Wilson. It's pretentious and precious all at the same time and, the worst part is, the makers of the film knowingly wink at his as if somehow we'll benefit by participating in this inside joke. Whatever merits Rushmore had (and it did have quite a few despite a stodgy structure and predictable, uninvolving central character)doesn't translate to this film. The cast are all very good and it's clear why they took the roles--the characters are eccentric and rooted in their own corner of reality. That's the type of character that attracts Oscars and Academy attention come awards time. That's also the same problem with the film. It's a meandering mess full of predictable plot twists and outcomes. The cinematography is one of the few stand outs in this boring mess. The selection of music also works to offset some of the tedium. This isn't a horrible film just a self important one. What's most disturbing is the way a lot of critics and audience members (usually those that feel they have to "get" the film otherwise they're not cool)were sucked into this large, empty canvas. These are the same type of folks that would have gone to see Deep Throat in the 70's and pointed out its virtues. It's a pity as there are far more deserving films coming from indepedents that are virtually ignored. I'd recommend Rabbit Proof Fence instead of this meandering waste of time. By the way in calling it a waste of time, I mean that as a compliment.
Rating:
Summary: I just don't understand
Review: This was one [different] movie. I just don't understand how something so awful can get good reviews. This movie was just another example of why you just can't trust what the "professional movie reviewers" say about any movie. The litmus test for any movie should be whether it is entertaining or not. This movie is difinitely not entertaining. I only watched the whole thing because I was hoping it would get better. IT DIDN'T!
Rating:
Summary: Buy the original DVD minus the second disc
Review: This was a great movie, but don't watch the bonus material on the second disc. After I futzed around on the second disc, it made the movie feel a little more boring than it actually was. Great movie, trash bonus material, beautifully aranged soundtrack. I'd buy it just for Luke Wilson's big scene with Elliot Smith's Needle in the Hay.
Rating:
Summary: The Royal Suckenbaums
Review: I'm going to spare the wrath on this one cause it's not worth my time, or yours. This thing just landed in my top 10 worst of all time list and is closer to the top than Billy the Kid Meets Dracula. I'm still looking for the humor in this pig, subtle as it may be. My girlfriend was relieved to find a family as dysfunctional as her's so she thought it was funny. My son was humored by the painted face mescalined-out Austin Healey crashing thing. I was mostly irritated by it all. If the popularity of this movie is not proof positive that Armageddon is near then Jackass surely is! And Gene, why the hell would you care that you might lose Anjelica Houston? Seems cause for celebration to me. 1 Prozac
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful movie, funny, touching, see it
Review: This movie will pull on your heart strings at time, but then will tickle your funnybone right after. It is so irreverant, ridiculous, and hilarious that it will have you laughing hysterically at times. Wes Anderson is at his best in this movie. If you liked Bottle Rockets, and Rushmore, see this. If you didn't like those, see this anyway, it's worth it just to hear Gene Hackman say to Danny Glover that he'll talk some "jive" like he's never heard before.
Rating:
Summary: I didn't get it.
Review: This is an attempted comedy about a quirky dysfunctional family. The main form of humor is for the narrator to state a fact in passing, and for the flashbacks to reveal the ironic circumstances of it later in the story. It might have worked, but it didn't. Remember The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Just when we were getting acclimated to the strangeness, the scene would cut for a moment to a visual of the narrator (bor-ing), and when it cut back to the castle, we could see with new eyes the bizarreness of it all. It worked. It kept our attention focused on the ironies so we could appreciate the spoof. The Royal Tenenbaums is missing its crucial cleanse-the-palate device, and without that, the humor falls flat. There is at least one would-be comedic moment: a brief synchronized shaving scene between a father and his two young sons. I know it's in there, because the VHS box showed it. Guess what? In pan-and-scan, it's only the father shaving. The gag is completely lost. By the end, I had begun to care for the tennis player, for the mother's boyfriend, and to a lesser extent, for the mother as well. It may be that the film improves on second viewing, but I don't expect to find out. My husband and I finished watching the first time only for the sense of closure.
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