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Something's Gotta Give

Something's Gotta Give

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Vey long
Review: This wasn't the comedy I expected. Well, the first half was. The second half was OK, just not my type of movie, I guess. It seemed to drag on until I wondered if it would end. I'm only 23 so maybe I just don't appreciate the whole point of the movie. It got way too mushy for me. I guess stories about people who mess up their lives like this don't grab my sympathy.
The humor was hilarious, and the plot was meaningful and all that, and the actors were great, which is why it gets 3 stars from me.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Jack doing his best Jack
Review: SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE brings to recollection the short novel by Jeanne Ray of a couple of years back, JULIE AND ROMEO, which reminded us that women (and men) of "that certain age", and not just the insufferably young and impossibly beautiful, enjoy and cherish sex.

Jack Nicholson, in perhaps his best role in awhile playing ... well, playing essentially Jack ... is Harry Sanborn, a 63-year old record company executive that dates and beds only women under 30. Harry's Lust of the Moment is for Marin Barry (Amanda Peet), who invites her Lothario out to her mother's (presumably unoccupied) beach house in the Hamptons for some hanky-panky. In the midst of the foreplay, however, Mom (Diane Keaton as Erica Barry) shows up with her sister Zoe (Frances McDormand). After an initial period of tension, which includes a threatened call to the police and the brandishing of a butcher knife, all decide, being adults after all, to spend the weekend under the same roof. Sanborn subsequently has a heart attack. On release from the hospital, Marin goes back to New York and Harry is left to recuperate alone at Erica's home with its 56-year old owner, a noted playwright who's trying desperately to concentrate on writing her next script. A love-hate relationship develops, and the fun begins.

Some of the biggest laughs hinge on nudity. A couple of times, the audience sees Harry's bare butt through the back of a hospital gown, and it's not a pretty sight. On the other hand, Erica has a full-frontal nude shot so brief that, if you blink at the wrong instant, you may miss it. However, if you rent the film when it comes out on DVD and pause it at the right instant, I suggest you'll see that Diane Keaton is still Lookin' Mighty Good. I was impressed. Harry is stunned, but not like you'd think.

SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE is an enormously engaging romantic comedy as two veteran pros go through their paces. It's biggest flaw is that, at over two hours run time, it's too long by 30-40 minutes and one cardiac episode. (There should be a law prohibiting examples of the genre more than 90 minutes in length.) Moreover, there's an amusing but completely superfluous sidebar involving Harry's 36-year old physician (Keanu Reeves), who falls for an older woman. Guess who? On the other hand, Frances McDormand hasn't enough screen time. (To be perfectly honest, I wish she'd been cast in Keaton's part. Frances is, I think, a much better actress and could have given Erica depth beyond Diane's ability.)

SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE is effervescent entertainment for the 2003 holiday season. It's not likely to be nominated for any Oscars, but it's great fun and likely to boost Viagra sales. Go see it with Granny and Grandpa.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Too Young for This?
Review: Perhaps at 34 I am too young to 'get' this movie. I was hoping for a great romantic comedy, but found this one fell flat. Not even in the same universe as As Good as It Gets. After Jack Nicholson's character is stranded at Diane Keaton's house, I just lost interest. I didn't think he was anyone's dream man, and their love scene was frankly more than a little embarrassing. And the ending! Let's just say I find it very hard to believe a 60-something leopard would change his spots.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not all that great
Review: I was pretty disappointed with this movie. It was entertaining, but very contradictory. You have Diane Keeton who plays Ericka a play write, who is pretty bitter about older men who seem to go for younger women. Yet her own daughter who is in her early 30's is dating a man (Jack) who happens to be 63 years old!! Harry is older, and is pretty commitment phobic, so he believes in dating and having fun. Harry is also prone to lots of hospital visits due to his heart problems. So Ericka's daughter decides to end her relationship with Harry because she spotted the chemistry between her mom and Harry. Now knowing that Harry is such a commit phobe, you would think that Ericka would ignore Harry and enjoy the attention she is getting from Julian (Keanu's character) who is totally smitten with her. No, she sleeps with Harry, it means a lot more to her, then it meant to him, and when he admits he only wants to be friends she spends a good deal of the movie crying. Now the crying was okay the first few minutes, it was funny at first. Then it got on my nerves !!! Her heartbreak helps her complete her play she is writing, and Harry is the subject of her new play that becomes a hit. Ericka's daughter is all upset her father is going to marry a woman who is only a few years older then her. Do you see the irony? Ericka goes to Paris, and Harry finally realizing he is in love with her goes to surprise her. However, the surprise is on him when he realizes that Julian is with her. The chemistry once again is evident, and Ericka goes after Harry. I'm sorry, but Julian is so much cuter!!!!

I also have a feeling my age may have had something to do with why I did not enjoy this movie as much as I thought I would. I'm 36 and the thought of dating someone 63 does not appeal to me. If I were older, I would not be upset that men older prefer younger men. The other issue I had with the movie was this. During the scene when Ericka and Harry was about to have sex, they mention birth control, but when she mentioned "menopause" all the sudden everything was GREAT. Now I know this is a movie, but what about using a condom so you don't have to worry about the spread of STD's or HIV? Sure she does not have to worry about pregnancy, but with Harry being so commitment phobic, I would be worried about getting HIV!!!! So that part really disturbed me. I would just go out with a younger man if he were attracted to me. The movie was cute, the movie had some funny moments, but the movie was not all that great to me.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Predictable and Lame
Review: How you could put Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton together and come out with a film this empty and cliched is beyond me. Any filmgoer over the age of 15 should easily be able to predict every single incident in this plot five minutes before it happens. I mean every little moment, every expression, every line, every coy flutter of an eyelash. Certainly not every film demands a "plot twist" but to not present a single curve to make the audience sit up and take notice (and stay awake) is aggravating. Nicholson is a gigantic talent who is totally wasted here, and who I hope profoundly regrets taking the role. The bad boy skirtchasing thing is getting so, so tired. Diane Keaton proves that a woman of advancing years can still be quite stunning and sensual, but she's crippled by a deadly script. The scene everyone talks about (prompted by a studio campaign that centered on it) where Nicholson accidentally sees Keaton nude could, I'm not kidding you, qualify for Worst Acted Scene of the Decade, in which both actors present their characters as if they had their big toes caught in an electrical outlet. Frances McDormand is also on hand, but her work must surely be sitting on a cutting room floor someplace as she's totally irrelevant to the film and if you blink you miss her. Keanu Reeves again shows that he can't act his way out of a soaking wet paper bag... which is precisely what this script is. Just a dreadful, dreadful, dead film. An insult to the audience.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Intelligent comedy based on age-difference relationships
Review: Is Jack Nicholson good in this? Yes! Is he playing himself? You bet! Apart from the fact that 67 year-old Jack is a little healthier than the heart-attack prone 63 year old lead character in this movie, it could almost be written for him. Perhaps it's not so surprising that the more consistent Diane Keaton gives a good performance, although it's strange to see her playing an older character. That said, the person she plays is an intelligent, vivacious playwright who has (like Keaton herself, but more like writer and director Nancy Myers) aged gracefully into her fifties. The storyline attempts to address the Hollywood cliché of the older leading man with the younger starlet, something that is seen as much in the private lives of film stars as it is in the movies they appear in. Like many people, I am a little tired of the Conneries, Nicholsons, and even now the Bill Murrays ending up with girlfriends twenty or even thirty years their junior. It stretches credibility and is more than a little sexist. This film addresses this question with a woman who is not only prepared to challenge the status quo, but who almost in spite of herself ends up reversing it. With her younger lover played by a relaxed Keanu Reeves (no doubt relieved to be free of the technical demands of filming the Matrix series), Keaton is believable and sympathetic, even to the extent that we almost want her to end up with Reeves rather than Nicholson.

The dialogue is clever, seeming at times like a play, rather than a movie, and this gives the film an economic look which makes you concentrate on the characters. I should say a few words in favour of Amanda Peet, who plays Keaton's daughter. It's a good performance, and she's beautiful, but ultimately, she is just there for plot purposes and you are left feeling that she is a cipher rather than a person.

The DVD extras are OK, benefiting from two commentaries, both with Meyers, one also featuring Jack and the other Diane. The studio has put a little more imagination into the extras though, and it is particularly nice to see and hear Jack Nicholson sing. Overall, it's a thought provoking film, but ultimately entertaining, interesting, and quite funny. Highly recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Love It!
Review: Diane Keaton is Marvelous, Nicholson is Entertaining, The Movie is so Good, Rent it at least, but you have to watch it. It's a movie that will make you feel, no matter how young you are.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Keaton Needed a Different Leading Man for this one
Review: Nicholson is great but he's done this role already, with Shirley Maclaine in Terms of Endearment. That was better, newer. Anyway, Keaton could have used someone a little more interesting-- OR-- maybe a better script???

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Aphrodite `s triumph !
Review: The irony is a sadness that is incapable of laugh ; then , laughs.

Above all this is a post -Allen film . Diane Keaton is superb as the famous and reknown writer but emotionally a loser . Her intellectual height is her principal emotive barrier since she is incapable to get a man who navigates in her waters . She is an Athena woman , gifted with sparkling intelligence , dear prudence and necessary wisdom . But it seems to reach that vertex is not enough . It can not be . Because Aphrodite is absent .

As you can guess, you have the essential ingredients to develop a dramatic comedy . Keaton seems to emerge from a Woody Allen film .

In the other hand we have Jack Nicholson a successful executive the beloved seducer without any other duties and even complications in his private life . He represents the mirror male image of Aphrodite . He is a refined man and above all a powerful personality with charm and discretion he conquers all the possible women . The modern version of the Casanova : the yuppie version of Don Giovanni .

In the third corner we have to Amanda Pet an inhibited girl of these times . She is a successful woman and somehow she is the left arm , the aphrodisiac branch visibly missed in her mother .

In the fourth side of this square we have Keanu Reeves in a brilliant performance , he is a mature man despite his youth ,. He hasn't got a stable relationship in his social circle . so he watches in Keaton the blind side of Nicholson . He observes in Keaton the happy blending of the experience and the passion . He idealizes Keaton and in his mind Aphrodite is simply resting , not absent .

The smart device of the suggestive e-mails between these lovers reveal the lone aspect of their souls and works out as personal therapy which will allow them suggest what the real human presence sometimes avoids it by several reasons .

And the rest runs for you . A very smart script , pleasant dialogues and fine humour with a lovely homage to Casablanca : We will always have Paris .

Curiously Diane Keaton made the whole cycle . She stared in 1972 Play it again , Sam, a very clever stylised rhapsody about Casablanca with Woody Allen and directed by Herbert Ross . She plays the role assigned to Ingrid Bergman while woody Allen is chased by Bogart spectre along the film because he lacks the seducer magnetism of Humphrey and so he advises him.

Impressive acting for the entire cast and undoubtedly the finest American dramatic comedy in this Century .


Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hilariousss
Review: This movie made me laugh so hard, I was like crying. I have to admit though, Keanu Reeves disturbed me. He didn't look too great in this movie and he was too romantic to me, almost to a point that I would be disturbed. Anyways, Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton were hilarious! I love the french song too, everytime it comes on I start laughing now. Of course now, I also want a house just like Diane's-painted white and by a sandy beach. For a great laugh, watch this movie.


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