Rating: 
Summary: Very good - very sweet
Review: Not great, but very good. Considering that blockbuster movies like Shrek 2 suck donkey, this is a very refreshing, quirky little film that ought to leave you smiling. And Holmes is hot, btw.
Rating:
Summary: Thanksgiving in the Dysfunctional Family
Review: April is the Burns family outcast, their "bad" eldest daughter-"I'm the first pancake," she tells a neighbor-the one that gets thrown away. April lives in a rundown apartment in New York and invites her family over for Thanksgiving dinner to meet her new boyfriend, Bobby. Also, April's mom, ironically named Joy, is dying of breast cancer. This could be April's last chance to connect with her. April's invitation is taken by her family as one more example of her selfishness. Her sanctimonious sister Beth asks, "Should Mom even be traveling?" Joy wears a silly bouffant wig, she's nauseated from her chemotherapy and is tired of her family's constant solicitousness. The old ways aren't working for Joy anymore. Her illness has isolated and marginalized her the same way she has isolated and marginalized her daughter April. Her son Tim has bought her some marijuana and on the way to the city, she and her son secretly smoke it in the restrooms that she stops to throw up in. In the meantime, April discovers the turkey she bought is too big for the apartment's stove. She knocks on all her neighbors' doors to see if she can use their oven. April's neighbors treat her with the kindness and recognition that she's never received from her own family. Maybe April's not so "bad" after all. This is a beautiful, small film. Its plot is not only about April learning to see herself outside of her family's definition of her, but about Joy's coming to terms with the loneliness that that her illness brings. Only stubborn self-assertion can keep Joy alive and make her remaining months worth living. And who can understand that better than April, bravely setting the Thanksgiving table with her thrift-store dishes? It's the story of her life.
Rating:
Summary: Best rental of the last 12 months
Review: Peter Hedges' "Pieces of April" is a profoundly moving movie and a testament to how a spirited and committed cast can weave magic on a shoestring budget. My wife and I have been trying to tell everyone we know about this film. The only *caveat* we give people is that it may be a little too close to home - the dysfunctional family combined with the angst of a Thanksgiving get-together. The tensions revealed here could resonate with anyone.Patricia Clarkson's standout performance has been justifiably well-documented elsewhere. I want to add that I've never been a particularly big Oliver Platt fan, but he's really great here. I can identify with the guy just wanting things to be alright for everyone and trying so, so hard to keep it all together. The ending of the film is perhaps one of the best I've ever seen. It'll just open the floodgates on your emotions. A real triumph for Peter Hedges.
Rating: 
Summary: Painfully Fresh
Review: Oblique, graphic, funny, sad, real and immediate are the words that first pop into my head when I think of "Pieces of April." It captures a mood that is unflinching in its depiction of the searing, profound stubborn yet pain people in families cause one another. It also shows that humor can co-exist with pain and sadness in families. April is the estranged daughter who invites her family, including her mother, dying of cancer, to Thanksgiving dinner. The movie revolves around April's effort to cook the meal in a rundown Manhattan apartment and her family's journey from their middle class suburb to her home. In the space of a few hours in the lives of a few people, issues of race, community, love, aging and family are explored in new and insightful ways. There is a casual richness to "Pieces of April" that makes it more than the typical teen coming of age flick. Katie Holmes plays April without much effort to convince us that she is a troubled teen estranged from her family. She allows the story to reveal her character so that she affects us as a person and not a condition. The same can be said of Patricia Clarkson who gives another one of her terrific supporting roles in quirky movies. There is a fierceness to her portrayal of April's difficult mother and a willingness to be unappealing that ends up making us like her all the more. Derek Luke give April's boyfriend a palpable sense of kindness and compassion which is impressive because his character is probably the one weak spot in the film. The sequence where he goes out to do his "thing" plays too conventionally for this kind of film. It also felt a little too politically correct to be believable. That said, I finished the film in touch with my own sadness about what's lacking in my family relationships yet hopeful about the possibility of change.
Rating:
Summary: "She's the one in every family."
Review: Joy, (Katie Holmes), the black sheep daughter of a dysfunctional family invites her cancer-diagnosed mother (Patricia Clarkson), father (Oliver Platt), siblings and grandma over to her apartment for a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal with her new boyfriend (Derek Luke). The family does not go willingly because of past conflicts with Joy. This film follows two parallel narratives, one following the family's emotional journey on the way to Joy's, complete with numerous painful recollections of Joy's troubled childhood and the second is Joy's Odyssey getting the food for dinner cooked. A basic premise, yes, but it is remarkable what writer and director Peter Hedges (About a Boy, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?) does with it. "Pieces of April" delicately deals with the serious issues of cancer and broken families by adding subdued humor in a tasteful manner. I appreciated how Hedges managed to make the movie humorous without cheapening the subject matter. All in all, I was very touched by this film and it would definitely make a perfect holiday film for the family with the message of appreciating your loved ones. Katie Holmes was very impressive; this is, by far, her best performance to date. Who knew the doe-eyed little teen queen from "Dawson's Creek" could pull of a darker, more emotionally-layered character so well? The always-wonderful Patricia Clarkson is very passionate and powerful in her portrayal of a cancer patient and a pained mother. She does not overplay her role, which easily could have come off quite cheesy in the hands of a lesser actress. The film's short running time of 75 minutes left me wanting more; a rare and wonderful occurrence considering most films nowadays tend to drag towards the end.
Rating:
Summary: Gritty, real comedy
Review: This film had all the wonderful marks of a great indie film: gritty filming style, realism to the core, and that intelligible wit that makes you laugh and cry at the same time. The plot was fresh, the cast was amazing, and the screenwriting was brilliant. Not much more I can say without reciting the plot, but this is a winner. Absolutely one of the best films of the year, if not THE best.
Rating:
Summary: The Antidote
Review: I first saw this movie at the theater the same day, a few hours after, I saw the third "Matrix" movie. If there could be antidote to the obscure, big production, super-special effects extravaganza of "Matrix Revolutions" it is the simple and unpretentious "Pieces of April". A very funny movie -- laugh out loud funny -- it presents a tangible space and real-to-life characters (particularly Katie Holme's April), all within just eighty-one minutes (actually less than seventy five minutes, if you don't count the end credits). Usually independent films done as sparsely as this one have rambling and knotty plots, leaving a great deal to audience interpretation to understand what has happened and, usually, how we're suppose to understand the ending and what the movie was all about. In contrast "Pieces of April" tells a simple linear story, with a beginning and an end, of a girl living in the city, estranged from her suburban family (particularly her mother, who has terminal cancer), fixing a Thanksgiving meal for them, yet finding herself in need of a working oven because at the last minute she discovers her own oven does not work, at which point she goes door to door in her apartment building searching for an oven not being used on Thanksgiving. There's more to it than that, more characters and situations, but nothing that deviates in any serious way from the basic plot. It's not a film that requires a mythic journey interpretation to appreciate it. But that's not to say that it doesn't improve with successive viewings, that there isn't a depth that waiting to be explored. "Pieces of April" is about togetherness: "Once there was this one day where everyone seemed to know they needed each other; this one day where they knew for certain they couldn't do it alone." This theme is underscored by the use of a home video format, where the audience is often stuck in intimate and small cramped spaces with the characters, many times the spatial relation bordering on the claustrophobic. I really don't know if I've ever seen a more "pro-family" film (or I don't know what the term means, which is most likely the case). The couple of good experiences April has in finding an oven to use are with families (one African-American and one Asian). In contrast, the single people in her building are not willing to make the sacrifice because it might compromise one "Vegan's" belief system or, as is the case with "Wayne with the new stove", there might not be anything that he will gain in return. For April family is salvation. And family (or even community, for that matter) involves both sacrifice and compromise -- persons connected to their family have to put up with more and are used to being put out more for the sake of others. It's often seems preferable and easier just to say "I'm through, you're on you own", as the mother says to the little girl in the restaurant bathroom towards the end of the film, the place where April's mother has her epiphany. The eventual, inevitable reunion of April and her mother is not presented as a time of apologies or expressions of regret -- no words are expressed, mostly still pictures to music -- but we understand it as a recognition of the love that was always there but not acknowledged, and as an honoring of the stubborn strength in each personality that was always the major source of the conflict between them. Please do not be distraught by my "pro-family" explanation. This film is not even close to a platform for preaching right-wing conservative views about "family values". You'll find plenty of good cynical humor in "Pieces of April", and many lovable cynical characters, but the film itself is far from cynical. "Pieces of April" is a downright cute film, but cute in a good way. Cute like "About A Boy" and "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" -- films with screenplays by Peter Hedges, the director and writer of "Pieces of April". Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a lot of action movies. I enjoyed "Matrix Revolutions". But we need simple human stories -- we need more films like "Pieces of April" -- lest we forget what's really important.
Rating:
Summary: A GREAT FILM
Review: JUST SAW THIS FILM WITH MY MOTHER AND SIS, I HAD BEEN WANTING TO SEE IT MAINLY BECAUSE I SAW THE SAG AWARDS GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS AND THE OSCARS AND PATRACIA CLARKSON WAS NOMINATED FOR ALL THOSE AWARDS FOR SUP. ACTRESS BUT ANYWAYS THIS FILM IS SIMPLE AND FUNNY I JUST WISH IT WASNT SO SHORT. UMM PERFECT CASTING GREAT ACTING I PROMISE YOU'LL LOVE THIS FILM IF YOU LIKE THESE KINDA FILMS SO DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND CHECK IT OUT BABY! (IF YOU WANT)
Rating: 
Summary: A turkey
Review: I found this movie to be extremely boring. I'm sorry, but I did. I had read lots of positive reviews, read about the buzz this little indie film got and while I never had high expectations for it, I still was underwhelmed by it when I finally got to see it. On the positive side, yes, Patricia Clarkson's performance was indeed worthy of an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She is the sole shining light in this project. The rest of the cast, including Miss Holmes, give so-so performances at best. It's not all their blame either. The characters they get to play are quite uninteresting and what I thought was a cool premise was completely wasted by the fact that there's no connection to be made between viewer and characters. That cool premise I was telling you about? April (Holmes) the black sheep of the Burns family has invited them to spend Thanksgiving with her and her boyfriend Bobby (Luke). Her mom (Clarkson) is dying from cancer and none of her relatives know that Bobby is black, particularly her father (Platt). There are two storylines in the film, the first shows April suffering thru many ordeals (and a few weird neighbors) while trying to prepare the Thanksgiving dinner. The other one follows her family as they travel to April's place. They also go thru some stuff that's suppossed to be either funny or touching, yet I thought none of them were. This movie was filmed with digital cameras, so it might look a little off. This is normal. Digital films don't look like celluloid ones (at least, not yet).
Rating: 
Summary: two and a half if it weren't for the finale
Review: I feel like I've seen this movie before & done better in 'The Day Trippers'- totally different plot- similar camera style-overall indie car trip feel. While it's fun to watch April struggle with her vagabond turkey & to watch her oh so obnoxious sister be, well, obnoxious, the first 3/4's of the movie are just kinda boriing. The last few minutes are magnificient- the still shots, combined with the live action camera work, blend into a seamlessly beautiful piece of art & moving finale. I can't say I recommend it, but I don't NoT recommend it either. I'm on the curb on this one.
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