Rating: 
Summary: Pefect!
Review: This movie was brilliant, and the acting was incredible. It's a shame that Russel Crowe didn't win the oscar this year for his role as John Nash in this great film. Well, atleast Jennifer Connelly got one. The film is about real-life genius John Nash, who came up with brilliant theories and eventually won the nobel prize. However, as smart as he may have been, he had a severe case of schizophrenia. I suggest that anyone who has not yet seen "A Beautiful Mind", go see it right now.
Rating:
Summary: if you watch it you will know.........
Review: Ok, I just could not get into this movie at the beginning because it was just so boring, but later on I was hooked right away. This movie is really hard to explain what it is about without giving you the ending, so I'll tell you this, this movie is about a really smart and brilliant man that has a lot of troubles. Thats all I can tell you. He is confronted by government officials and his wife that helps him through the hard times. You are basically in his mind throughout the entire movie so your seeing things through his prospective which gives it its psychological meaning "A Beautiful Mind". The dvd is a 2 disc set that has all the basic features a dvd usually has. The second disc is what you might say...boring. Although it was great to see what Nash really looks like, the dvd was not really made for watching by younger people. Besides that, the dvd is worth buying if you like these type of movies. So enjoy the movie and try to enjoy disc 2.
Rating:
Summary: A Must-See
Review: This movie is one of the best i've seen all year! It was heartwarming and heartaching. It had twist and turns and there were several times during this movie in which I felt as I was living the life of John and Alicia Nash. I loved the fact that you saw the story from both point of views. In my opinion, that was a key element in the movies success. John Nash, a brilliant mathmatition who founded the basis for all economics in a college paper, becomes a scitziphrenic. Without giving the ending away, all I can say is this movie has touched many hearts and mine was one of them. I think this movie deserves more that 5 stars and deserved more academy awards!
Rating: 
Summary: Schizophrenia is *not* this pretty
Review: It's extremely difficult to get into the mind (and therefore the world) of the patient with schizophrenia or a similar thought disorder. Necessarily simplified from the biography of mathematician John Nash, this film achieves dramatic pace and structure that has no analogue in the life of even some of the most extraordinary individuals suffering from such a condition. Setting aside the fact that Ron Howard's work is not true to the nominal subject of the movie, however, this film comes laudably close to a good clinical depiction of the desperate vividness of the auditory and visual hallucinations suffered by patients with schizophrenia, including the sort of elaborate structures of delusion which the more intelligent individual has been known to develop. I would wish that Howard and his associates had managed to portray something more of the adverse effects of the drugs available to treat schizophrenia in the '50s and '60s. Indeed, I would've liked to have seen Russell Crowe add to his superb performance some intimation of these harrowing elements so that the audience could better understand the pharmacotherapeutic factors that drove Nash to discontinue his neuroleptic medications and undertake what is essentially self-directed cognitive therapy in order to address his thought disorder. Even the more recently-developed "atypical" antipsychotic medicines have pretty nasty side effects, and we are far from perfection in the medical management of schizophrenia today. This is in no way a perfect movie, certainly. It is, however, good art, and we owe the makers of this film our thanks for helping increase the general public awareness of thought disorders. Schizophrenia is a great deal easier to treat (both with and without neuroleptic agents) when it is brought to appropriate medical attention at the earlier phases of development, and Russell Crowe has succeeding in putting a human face on the disorder -- much as Tom Hanks did for HIV/AIDS in *Philadelphia* -- with great power and (I hope) telling effect.
Rating:
Summary: Cool, Cool, and Cool. Did I Mention Cool?
Review: Full screen! Better than two black lines on top and bottom like widescreen. John Nash is my hero. This is funny and cool. It's the best pick on all time.
Rating: 
Summary: Fuzzy Numbers
Review: A Beautiful Mind plays like a roller-coaster ride: it starts out shaky, and by the time it's over you're begging to get off before you vomit all over yourself. It's exactly the kind of film I dislike. At first I tried to see around its weak moments, until they strengthened and grew into a weak film. Direcor Ron Howard (who, somehow, managed to beat out Peter Jackson, Robert Altman, AND David Lynch at the Oscars) tries to go for a sweeping, uplifting-saga approach and winds up delivering a mess of episodes that feel either pretentious, anticlimactic, or artificially sweetened. He looks for sweep and scope in his sets instead of his screenplays. The film doesn't even have the energy or the bravura to be good camp--it's listless and maddeningly safe. It's a sure sign of desperation when the characters get progressively older through the use of (bad) makeup effects, the final scene involves an awards ceremony accompanied by the usual teary acceptance speech, and the end titles are proceeded little bits telling us where the real people are today and what they're up to (I groaned to lean that "John Nash still walks to work every day.") This wisp of fluff is second only to an earlier moment when, as Nash battles his schizophrenia, Alicia sits him down and says something to the effect of "This is real [indicates his head] but this is what matters [indicated his heart]." Forgive me for paraphrasing. This is the film that won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay over GHOST WORLD? It's a pity that the film is so dreadful, because Nash is worthy of a film that takes him seriously and doesn't turn him into a cardboard cutout--a film that addresses his bisexuality, the child he had out of wedlock and refused to support, and his anti-Semitism. Nash deserves a biopic that's as complicated as he is, a cubist painting instead of a Hallmark card. The film also seems to suggest that the patience and affection of a loved one coupled with self-determination is an effective cure for mental illness--that because Nash is so brilliant, that he will be able to conquer his disease by sheer brain power (oh, and let's not forget love). This film is like a child's toy with differently shaped holes for differently shaped blocks--put the appropriate block into the according hole, and, to quote REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, you've got a winner. Those willing to buy into A BEAUTIFUL MIND will be sure to gobble it up as greedily as a hamhock.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but not earth-shattering either
Review: This is a very well-acted film purportedly about John Nash the brilliant, highly eccentric and mentally ill mathematician. It is all rather predictable, and disappointingly is really about schizophrenia rather than academia and mathematics. I had rather hoped this book would be more about science and mathematics - as that would be really so much more interesting and much more novel. Instead we do get a rather typical Hollywood tale of genius (why are all geniuses portrayed as "weird" in the movies?) and madness (see "Shine" for a more powerful account). Nash's schizophrenia is interestingly (and a little surprisingly) dramatized. Jennifer Connolly was endearingly supportive for reasons that are not all that clear - I guess Russell Crowe-as-Nash is just so hunky? Who knows? It is not really explored. Perhaps she, as a mathematician herself, was and is able to appreciate his genius? Anyway - pick any Hollywood movie about mental illness and you have essentially seen this film. It is well filmed, well-acted and I think rather a slightly tired retread of a familiar theme. The make up job was remarkable as Crowe ages superbly during the film - Jennifer Connolly not so well. If you have not seen a film like this then you will enjoy it, but for those of us who have it is all rather safe and predictable. One day I would like to see a film about a more typical scientist or mathematician - but maybe it would be too dull to show?
Rating: 
Summary: remarkably un-original...
Review: The Performances were exceptional, but that was about it. The pace of the film was really unbalanced, lingering in the wrong places, rushing through others. It didn't even cover Nash's life very well, leaving out a lot of key points, but focusing intensely on some of the less interesting aspects. A lot of things were never explained. It just felt way too long, but at the same time incomplete. Thus, it was very, very boring. Ron Howard has kept up his tradition of following strict Hollywood formulas, steering clear of any originality the script even had potential to offer. This movie wasn't terrible, but it's nowhere near worthy of the praise it's recieved let alone the Best Picture award.
Rating:
Summary: Very unimpressive
Review: The primary reason I did not like this movie was the extremely cavalier way in which the writter and the director approached the portrayal of schizophrenia. They made this illness look almost romantic to the point that I have had several friends, and even a family member, tell me that they can really empathize with what Nash went through because now they think they might also be schizophrenic. My wife is a nurse and has put in quite a bit of time in several mental wards, and currently works in an emergency room where they see many mental illness patients, so she can tell you, from personal experience, that schizophrenia is one of the most awful, debilitating mental illnesses there is. Unfortunately, the writer and director decided to put forward a completely incorrect dipiction of this disease for the sake of making the main character more likeable and able to form an emotional connection with the audience. My other problem with this film was it's billing as a "true story." It really bothers me when a movie is claimed to be a true story, or even based on a true story, when a more proper description of the film would, at best, be "inspired by a true story." I really wish the film makers had billed "A Beautiful Mind" as inspired by a true story, and then changed all the names of the characters, because this movie really plays fast and loose with the actual life of Nash.
Rating:
Summary: Three things about this movie are great
Review: 1. Russell Crowe's performance. He's turned out to be a remarkably versatile actor.
2. Jennifer Connelly's performance. I had no idea she had such depth. A breakthrough for her.
3. The music. Rarely is there such a perfect match between what's onscreen and the sounds propelling it. The music creates a feeling that supports the script perfectly. Forgetting the debate about whether this was truly best picture--of course it wasn't--I can only say, this movie is well worth seeing because it is unlike anything else. It tells a great story (which may, in fact, be a total distortion), and takes you into a world you don't usually see depicted in such depth or detail. It is compelling and moving.
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