Rating: 
Summary: Ron Howard's greatest acheivement!
Review: I was totally and utterly moved by this film! The performances were great, and the direction was perfect! Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly deserve the Oscars that they were nominated for. Great movie about a man's struggle with schizophrenia, and how he dealt with it. It's hard to believe that this actually happened. I was shocked. Twists and turns galore! You'll love this film! Ron Howard also deserves an Oscar!
Rating:
Summary: And the music is good too.
Review: Matt Drudge and others like fox news have undertaken it upon themselves to smear "A beautiful mind," echoed previously by reviewer sarah. ... This is better than simply dittoing someone else with his or her own agenda. Murdoch, owner of fox news has his own picture up for an Oscar, "Moulin Rouge," so it does not surprise me the tactics that were used to discredit "A Beautiful Mind." I liked "A Beautiful Mind." I liked Russell Crowe's performance. Ron Howard should win this one. finally. What do you bet Fox news Titles his win: "opie strikes big?" I didn't want to see this movie, was dragged to it, not quite kicking and screaming, but very glad to have gone. I will buy the dvd when it comes out. James Horner once again amazes me with the gift that comes from his beautiful mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Crowe's beautiful performance saves the movie
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" tells the story of legendary mathematician John Nash, widely credited with inventing "game theory" and cursed with paranoid schizophrenia. Arriving in Princeton university in the late 1940's (the film makes the point of that these were pivotal days for mathematics - with theoretical mathematicians taking credit for winning WWII by breaking enemy codes, cracking the secrets of nuclear fission and inventing the economic theories that put the world back together again.) Socially awkward, Nash struggles to craft an original mathematical idea - suffering a sort of mathematician's block while his peers churn out successful, if derivative work. Nash seems consumed by the idea that a hidden mathematical order can explain seemingly random or chaotic events - the feeding patterns of pigeons, the mating habits of drunken Princeton students or how badly a person's taste in clothing is. With the help of a free-wheeling roommate, Nash appears to overcome some inner demons and publishes a thesis which brazenly offers a statistical and theoretical model for explaining these seemingly spontaneous events. The theory, which Nash hits on trying to explain how one of five guys will manage to get a beautiful blonde's attention in a local bar, has larger applications - everything from macroeconomics to the strategies of nuclear war - and flies in the face of traditional economics. The film cuts to Nash a few years later - now more suave and successful crunching numbers at MIT and occasionally for the Government. The script makes the point that not all is right with Nash, but counterbalances with hints that Nash is merely a forceful personality (teaching calculus in an undershirt because it's too hot not to) with a broad imagination (picking out shapes formed by stars, or recurring patterns among large number groups in Russian transmissions). Despite his quirks, Nash manages to maintain respect among peers who shunned him in Princeton (where he never attended class) and the love of Alicia Nassar (Jennifer Connelly), his future wife and biographer. He also finds himself under the attentions of Parcher (Ed Harris), a shadowy cold warrior who runs a secret decryption program in an abandoned warehouse on MIT grounds - one that everybody thought empty. Parcher chills Nash with a tale of a Nazi A-bomb stolen and smuggled somewhere into America by a soldiers of a radical faction of the Soviet Army. Ordered to scan seemingly meaningless newspaper and magazine articles for clues (the media is apparently part of the conspiracy) Nash papers his office with hundreds of pages linked by his red pen and arcana. In a film about schizophrenia (a decreased capacity to distinguish what is real from what is not), it's no surprise that Parcher's story (one that others would easily tout as "frighteningly plausible") is merely the latest and most elaborate delusion Nash suffers. Diagnosed a schizophrenic, subjected to insulin shock-therapy and a seemingly endless stream of other drugs, Nash takes a long fall from his exalted position as master-mathematician. Trying to avoid both drugs (because they inhibit both his intellect and his passions), Nash is tortured by his delusions which reduce him to a seeming cripple (students at Princeton lampoon his distinctive limp). This was a heartbreaking film that makes a very simple point - that love can't be theorized. Numbers create logical but entirely delusional constructs while Nash's love for his wife offers him some link with reality. That said, the film - brilliantly lead by Russel Crowe - makes some missteps. (I'll let others deal with the supposed factual oversights like Nash's sexual ambiguity or his abandonment of an illegitimate child) Crowe's love keeps him from sliding deeper into madness, but it's a chance meeting with a promising student in Princeton's library that truly unlocks Nash's sanity, and reveals that teaching may set his mind free. Also, the script glances over those most important years - those in which Nash had dealt with his problem without resprting to debilitating medication. Was he truly able to manage? Was he productive? We just don't know. The script, much like Nash himself, also has a decreased capacity to tell the true from the imagined - real characters like Nash's colleagues and his son, and the forceful Dr. Rosen (Christopher Plummer) have little substance when compared to those the film quickly identifies as inventions of Nash's wounded psyche. Plummer's character stays long enough to warn Nash of his problem and convince his wife that those people her husband had mentioned never existed, then he disappears like a phantom. While we may suspect Ed Harriss's character, others have more urgency and plausibility than the real characters. Nash's delusions themselves remain confined to several characters whom he understands to be delusions yet continues to be plagued by. Also, there's little irony to those delusions - an imaginary friend, an imaginary young girl - or any inner explanation for why or how he his mind has constructed them. The film doesn't even explore the cautionary moral of the end of WWII, when outrageous advances in technology and the cold war combined to alter reality as never before and engender a sort of paranoid detachment among everybody. Still a triumph for Russell Crowe.
Rating: 
Summary: The Ugly Duckaling
Review: This is not the most beautiful movie. Sadly, though, it may be the most of the whole year. When I went to see this film I hadn't
know much on John Nash. I still do not! After sitting through (*shudder*) Russel Crowe, who you cannot escape anywhere, for 2 and a half hours, I had to find out the whole thing was a down-spankin'-right evasive flick with tomfoolery! Ron Howard is one of those... directors who loves to play around with real life and switch it' into an innocent, benevolent and tender motion picture. I urge you to take a look into his recent films: The Grinch. (His heart grew from 10 sizes to small to 10 sizes too tall--or something dippy like that.) Cocoon. Why, even Apollo 13 HAD TO HAVE Tom Hanks, and well, we all know the outcome of that. This movie is not about who you think it is about. It is about the little man inside Ron Howard's head telling him who and what to exploit and how. I doubt John Nash--the real man would have come close to saying Russ's speech here. There were so many distortions. John Nash had a child from formerly. Not utterly essential, but did it seem like the man in the here would have? John Nash engaged umpteen affairs and was arrested for incontinence with men. John Nash and his wife were divorced once--only to get back together. (Sound like the recent episode of "As the World Turns"?) He never made the cockeyed speech he did at the end, instead he pronounced, "The money could have been better". I'm sure already people have addressed this on here, but so, now I shall be. Okay, this movie was to be a piece of fiction with the fundemential basis of Nash's life. Well, paint the toad houses green, 'cuz it didn't work! This movie proved to be drawen out in many ways--so many times. One sleeper scene after another full of gush. Personally, I think this movie would have been much more interesting, if not appealing if it documented his real life. So people don't want see that they think? Well wake up to life! And what about the innumerable number of other films discommoding? This movie had no subplots. The only probelm seemed to be his schizphrenia. Big, it may be, but as we can see--it wasn't the only thing in his life. I found the characters to be 2-D. Where was Nash's past? Alicia's past? Any other fears, anxieties? Maybe it was about love's strength and depth. Maybe it was about his man's obstacle. Still, couldn't they have kept this with a little more dimensionality? Tricks, other than falsifying the truth were played on us to make us feel responsive to the illness. It was a repeat of ideas and twists long played out in Hollywood. By the time we found out the authenticity of the whole thing, Charles, the most compelling character of all wasn't even real. It took me more time that it should have to believe this man was conjuring up these people in his mind, for the fact I can't believe someone could envision anyone as horrendous as Ed Harris. Russel Crowe is vastly overrated, and he is everywhere, consuming chicken or reciting crippled poetic verses. Jennifer Connelly is as well, for I saw nothing distinct in her acting. I am telling you this movie did have some potential. It made it through at last. It may win the Oscars. In my opinion, though, it would take a bit more advancement. It completed well, we saw Nash's acheievements, but they did not even elaborte his work sufficiently! As for the title, there are many mental irregular people I know, and most of them can do things the universial joe can't--perhaps a lot more, such as we see here. These people can be beautiful and are--so kudos to that. I am done.
Rating: 
Summary: nice, but not Oscar worthy
Review: I admit I was moved by the movie, but it's not the sort of film I go on discussing the day after. Not like Moulin Rouge, Lord of the Rings and Amelie. All these three contributed major stuff to movie history. A Beautiful Mind was , well, just a plainly beautiful movie. Was it my imagination or did they actually spell Nobel as Noble on the prop seal? I can't believe they'd make a mistake on such a major thing as this.
Rating:
Summary: Who Cares?
Review: Before I saw this movie I new a little about John Nash, that he was schizophrenic. I had also read somewhere that he and his wife had divorced. I've read others' reviews about how the movie left out this and left out that. It really doesn't matter. What I got out of this is a man, a genius, who is paranoid schizophrenic and how it affected his life. Why do we need to know about numerous affairs and bisexuality? As far as the movie being too long, well as much as they are charging for movies I certainly don't mind a movie that is over 2 hours. And last, WHO CARES about whether it is Oscar worthy? Russell Crowe does a great performance regardless of some critics that go on and on about a terrible accent. When have Oscars been about who's the best? Anyway, I thought it was a very good movie and a great performance by Russell Crowe, much better than his performance in Gladiator which won him an Oscar when he really should have won for The Insider.
Rating:
Summary: Movie with A Beautiful Heart
Review: A beautiful mind is a heartfelt rendering of what would otherwise have just been another biography. It allows the viewer to appreciate the complexities of schitzophrenia, but achieves this without cramming a medical textbook down the viewer's throat.This may all be largely due to Ron Howard's directing, and the great performances by Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connely, Ed Harris, and the whole gamut of supporting actors and actresses. However, praise should be given the entire cast and crew for making us appreciate that poeple struggling with schitzophrenia, or any disease for that matter, are not that entriely different from everybody else. They are ordinary people, just like us, struggling everyday to make the best out of what they have.
Rating:
Summary: The formula works
Review: This sentimental treatment of Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Nash's battle with schizophrenia glosses over the seamier aspects of his life to produce a rather formulaic story of triumph over adversity. I call it formulaic, but there is a very nice surprise in the script about halfway through (which, unfortunately, is given away in the Amazon review). In addition, every aspect of this production is top-notch. The performances (especially by Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly) are heart-felt, Ron Howard's direction is affecting, and the screenplay is literate. If you resent the blatant emotional manipulation of a Hollywood star vehicle, you should stay away from this one. If, like me, you are susceptible to skillful tugging of the heartstrings, you will probably enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Title's kinda meaningless, but so what?
Review: Yes, I wouldn't characterize this guy's mind as beautiful. It's true that he was evidentally not thinking like the run-of-the-mill individual, which enabled him to dream up theories that eventually garnered him worldwide recognition in his field. But beautiful? Nah. Unique would be more a propos.
Now, I must confess, I had my doubts going in to see the movie; I was dreading another "mental institution treatment" movie, which would be chuck full of shock treatments and sadistic nurses with pencils in their hair. Moments of dignity after years of degradation. You know the type of movie I mean. But--I was pleasantly surprised! Well, that is if you can be "pleasantly" surprised at a movie that does treat mental illness at all. It actually takes on the elements of a thriller/suspense movie, and then whammo! Surprise plot twist that really fools the whole audience. Russell Crowe is pretty good; so is Christopher Plummer as a supporting actor. The wife keeps winning awards. She is pretty and has a substantial role, but not really believable in that she doesn't seem to be living these experiences--if you see it, you'll understand what I mean. But no harm done. Mind what I say now: Thumbs Up for Beautiful Mind!
Rating:
Summary: "It's Entertainment Folks"
Review: Don't listen to those few critics who broadsided(small clue to Russell's next movie) this beautiful movie...complaining that some ruff stuff about Dr. Nash's life was left out. The film is stunning ... and it has the BEST PERFORMANCE by An Actor that this movie goer has ever seen and I've seen them all (since 1952) including all of this year's Oscar nominations. Crowe doesn't just play it, he disappears in it and you are privileged to meet the brilliant, intense, disturbed, compelling young, middle aged and elder beautiful mind that reflects the genius and torment of Dr. John Nash. Yes, it is entertainment folks...mesmerizing, edifying, intense and finally it bings your heart home. But, it also says something important about mental illness. Many of the homeless people you meet suffer from mental illness including schizophrenia. They have no one to take care of them, they forget to take their meds, they act crazy, they scare you? Next time try seeing them as a Nobel Laureate.
|
