Rating: 
Summary: Okay.
Review: Perhaps I just got a bad tape, but the color quality of the film seemed to be lacking, sort of like a washed out old home movie. There are some funny parts, but there are some slow parts, which is probably why I didn't bother seeing the rest of the film. It is nowhere near as funny or as slick as Brooks' Lost in America, which has to reign as the funniest movie ever made.
Rating: 
Summary: FIRST OF ITS KIND
Review: The concept alone of this film is hilarious, and I think it's really the first of its kind - a pre-cursor to films like EdTV and The Truman Show. There's another film in the same genre called NOTHING that's also quite funny. That filmmaker has often been compared to Albert Brooks.
Rating: 
Summary: WARNING
Review: THE VHS TRANSFER OF THIS FILM LOOKS LIKE A COPY OF A COPY OF A TELEVISION BROADCAST. PERHAPS THE DVD IS BETTER (WAIT A MINUTE--- IT HAS TO BE BETTER, SINCE IT COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE WORSE!) BUT AS YET I HAVE NOT SEEN THE DVD. HEY PARAMOUNT-- HOWZABOUT HONORING MR. BROOKS WITH A REDO ON THIS VHS EDITION?Update: The cinematography of Albert Brook's film is of a piece with the overall elegance of its construction, both on technical and thematic levels; don't let the fact that he's a comedian fool you: he works on a highly refined aesthetic level. Not for nothing did Stanley Kubrick go out of his way to look Brooks up to tell him how much he loved "Modern Romance". Do yourself a favor: do seek out the DVD edition of this film- the improvement in picture quality is well worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: A Brilliant satire of a genre that didn't exist yet.
Review: This film was a satire on a (mostly forgotten) documentary about the Loud family, in which they followed the family through every facet of their lives. Brooks takes that idea and runs with it to the extreme degree. To a degree that it goes past ridiculous, never losing site of funny, mind you, and ends up in prophetic. Everything he says in this film rings true for todays reality TV craze. If you were told this was made this year, you'd believe it. This is very likely Albert (Einstein; no really, look it up) Brooks' best film, as a writer, actor, or anything. It is wholly his vision and style of comedy. The film is played dead straight, from the talk about the laborious selection process, to the technical details about the special cameras worn over the cameraman's head, giving them an eerie Big-Brother look. ("Only five were made, only three worked...we have two of those.") He tracks this family for a year, slowly but surely making their lives an emotional hell, just by being there to watch it. The act of observing an experiment changes the parameters of the experiment, or so the scientific tenet goes. This whole film is an analysis of that theory, as seen through google-eyed glasses. The Truman Show and EdTV beat Television to the punch by about six months, making a film that was just a hair more ridiculous than what TV was doing. The recently released film Series 7-The Contenders tries to parody the genre as it exists now, and does it well. Brooks did this film TWENTY TWO YEARS AGO. Just let that bounce around your head. Then realize that you have very likely never seen the best satire of today's television ever. Vinnie, wearing a clown suit and holding a gas can.
Rating:
Summary: A Brilliant satire of a genre that didn't exist yet.
Review: This film was a satire on a (mostly forgotten) documentary about the Loud family, in which they followed the family through every facet of their lives. Brooks takes that idea and runs with it to the extreme degree. To a degree that it goes past ridiculous, never losing site of funny, mind you, and ends up in prophetic. Everything he says in this film rings true for todays reality TV craze. If you were told this was made this year, you'd believe it. This is very likely Albert (Einstein; no really, look it up) Brooks' best film, as a writer, actor, or anything. It is wholly his vision and style of comedy. The film is played dead straight, from the talk about the laborious selection process, to the technical details about the special cameras worn over the cameraman's head, giving them an eerie Big-Brother look. ("Only five were made, only three worked...we have two of those.") He tracks this family for a year, slowly but surely making their lives an emotional hell, just by being there to watch it. The act of observing an experiment changes the parameters of the experiment, or so the scientific tenet goes. This whole film is an analysis of that theory, as seen through google-eyed glasses. The Truman Show and EdTV beat Television to the punch by about six months, making a film that was just a hair more ridiculous than what TV was doing. The recently released film Series 7-The Contenders tries to parody the genre as it exists now, and does it well. Brooks did this film TWENTY TWO YEARS AGO. Just let that bounce around your head. Then realize that you have very likely never seen the best satire of today's television ever. Vinnie, wearing a clown suit and holding a gas can.
Rating:
Summary: Don't miss the Trailer
Review: This has got to be Albert Brooks near his best. A real funny movie. Make sure to get the DVD version of this with the extra interview with brooks (circa 2001)
and don't forget to watch the trailer for this movie also on the DVD. It is hysterically funny and as good as any scene of the movie.
Rating:
Summary: I'm not the Indian rubber man..........................
Review: This may be the funniest movie I've ever seen. I have watched it countless times and I never get tired of it. You have to watch this more than once to catch everything. Albert is SO obnoxious and SO egotistical to the point of utter madness. One of the funniest scenes is when Dr. Cleary abandons the project. You've got to see it to believe it. There are so many unforgettable funny lines in this film, too. "I'm not a scientist, I'm a comedian, I can afford the luxury of honesty." SEE THIS MOVIE------STUDY IT------WORSHIP IT
Rating:
Summary: I'm not the Indian rubber man..........................
Review: This may be the funniest movie I've ever seen. I have watched it countless times and I never get tired of it. You have to watch this more than once to catch everything. Albert is SO obnoxious and SO egotistical to the point of utter madness. One of the funniest scenes is when Dr. Cleary abandons the project. You've got to see it to believe it. There are so many unforgettable funny lines in this film, too. "I'm not a scientist, I'm a comedian, I can afford the luxury of honesty." SEE THIS MOVIE------STUDY IT------WORSHIP IT
Rating:
Summary: great if you love the non-hollywood kind of movie
Review: This movie isn't for everyone, but it is for everyone who loves good intelligent but irreverant humor. Brooks' character (himself) is so vein you have to love him. And Charles Grodin, one of Hollywood's most underrated actors, is funnier than I have ever seen him.
Rating:
Summary: ...
Review: Writer-director-comic actor Albert Brooks has done consistently solid work since this film but it remains his very best. It is a parody, astonishingly enough, of TODAY'S work on tv yet he made this film in 1979! Tv today is parlaying extensive money out of real life situations, whether based on survival or marrying millionaires or some other new trend of the day. These are big reasons why I don't watch tv anymore. If you are unfamiliar with Brooks, who also plays the "auteur" director in the film, you must understand two things about him. One, he always plays obnoxious characters and this is perhaps his most obnoxious ever. Two, he is absolutely merciless on portraying himself as obnoxious. His delivery is straight on and deadpan and totally works. Brooks's character does not have an iota of real self awareness and this too is typical of the roles he creates for himself in all of his films. This is Brooks's satiric look at a documentary purportedly capturing a year in the life of a typical American family. Charles Grodin, low key as usual, is fantastic as Warren Yeager, the Phoenix, Arizona, veterinarian who is largely passive and ineffectual. He, his wife and two children are easily overwhelmed by the callous Brooks as auteur. There are so many delights to this film that it is hard to name them all so here are just a few. Brooks showing you his choice of camera, a piece of headgear that looks like a robot suit and is all but extinct; Brooks kicking off his film in AZ before an audience of townspeople by breaking into song; Brooks capturing the wife's OB-GYN md on camera and unmasking him as a "60 Minutes" subject; Brooks capturing Yeager (Grodin) malpracticing on a horse patient on camera and Yeager's trying to remove that segment from the film; the production meetings Brooks conducts with his producer sitting in by speaker phone, telling him what's wrong with his movie and why showing real life will not "play" in America and that what he really needs is James Caan (who was hot in 1979). I saw this movie when it first opened at a film festival and have seen it many times in succeeding years. It is always absolutely hilarious and unfortunately prophetic about the "thrills" audiences of the future would want from the media.
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