Rating: 
Summary: Revolting and very funny as well
Review: Well here's a movie that can be sickening and funny at the same time. Is that good? Well I liked the movie a lot. Solondz goes too far with a few scenes (one in particular is absolutely dreadful) but so what? Imagine the Farrelly brother's as bitter deconstructionist academicians - this is the film they'd make.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Lord!
Review: This movie was incredible, one of my favorite movies of 1998. I had heard it was very engrossing, shocking, and disturbing, and it did not dissapoint. I don't know whose character I felt the most sorry for, they all had such utterly wretched lives. I think it was a toss-up between Camryn Manheim's Miss Lonelyhearts, who is so desperate for company and attention she wants to get together with the disgusting, sweaty obscene-phone caller who lives down the hall, and who ends up committing one of the most shocking acts in the film--I totally did not expect her character to end up the way she did. But I also felt sorry for the pedophile dad, who knows he is a monster but can't stop himself from committing his evil acts no matter how hard he tries. I spent much of the movie wondering which character was going to commit suicide or homicide first--but all my guesses were wrong. This movie is rightly unrated, probably for content. The sick dad has many discussions with his son about sex, and masturbation, trying to explain 'the birds and the bees' to him using impersonal, technical terms. Then the scene comes where the son asks the dad if he's actually done all the horrible things to his friends that he has been accused of doing, and the brutal honesty of what he admits to his son is genuinely shocking, especially contrasted with his earlier Wally Cleaver-ish talks with his son. All the acting was brilliant, and beleivable. The depressing situations the characters find themselves in are all too true-to-life. You probably know someone like at least one of the characters, be it Jon Lovitz' lonely loser or the young woman who has one 'relationship' more disasterous than the next in her search for a man she can share her life with. Dylan Baker's performance as the surburban sex predator is probably the most impressive and the most frightening (and the reason for the movie not even trying to get an "R" rating). Don't see it if you're easily upset or disgusted, or want a "feel good" movie. If you are up to it, though, I can't recommend it enough. Though it was hard to watch at times, I actually didn't want it to end--though as I'm sure you've heard, the last shot is a kicker that will...uh...well, you'll see. When the little boy goes out on the balcony at the end, if you are eating something while you are watching, put it down it that point, OK?
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing.
Review: This movie (by the Director of one of my favorite movies - Wellcome to The Dollhouse) was more of what I expected. In your face emotion, confusion, and awkward feelings. I actually took my girlfriend to see it on a first date, and after she not only liked it, but had a hoot with it, I knew we were to be together for quite some time. Why I bring that up is because Todd Solondz's movies are a definite acquired taste. But after acquired...boy is it a crazy ride.
Rating: 
Summary: Congratulations to all of you who "got it"
Review: This movie was beautifully cast, wonderfully acted, had impeccable production values...and was utterly revolting. I've been a movie fanatic for well over 20 years and this instantly leaped onto my 10 worst list. This is *the very first time* that I've wanted to call up critics that I'm usually in sync with (specifically, Roger Ebert and Janet Maslin) and ask for a personal tutorial on why this was a good movie.Yes, it successfully showed desperately miserable people having desperately miserable, hopeless lives. Wow, I enjoyed that...thanks for bringing it to the silver screen. Imagine watching a dog writhing in agony after being struck by a car...now imagine 140 minutes of watching people in the equivalent emotional agony, and that's what watching this movie was like. If you like watching that sort of thing (or if "Faces of Death" is your idea of a good documentary), I'm sure you'd enjoy this. Anyway, just wanted to say congratulations to all of you who "got it"...thanks for extending the sympathy to all of us benighted souls who would do almost anything to get that 140 minutes back.
Rating:
Summary: Chuck the Dollhouse...WELCOME TO HAPPINESS!!!
Review: Todd Solondz manages to surpass "Welcome to the Dollhouse." With a cast that keeps the film tight, it opens with a scene featuring John Lovitz, who leaves an unforgetable impression the way Drew Barrymore did in the first "Scream" movie. If you like "nice" movies, then this is not the film to watch. If you like films with substance, then RUN don't walk to the local video store and seek this film out in whatever format you can find!
Rating:
Summary: Society's human waste products on display.....
Review: This movie motivated me to quickly jump in the shower and scrub thoroughly. The director of this film has to be full of hatred for humanity and its insuffereable maladies. To call this a work of art is pathetically ignorant. David Lynchian this piece of trash is not. Excuse me while I go vomit again.
Rating:
Summary: Best Film of 1998
Review: This is an absolutely brilliant satiric masterpiece from Todd Solondz, whose directing talent is only challenged by Paul Thomas Anderson for two films (Hard Eight and Boogie Nights), while Solondz's are Welcome to the Dollhouse (one of my all time favorites) and Happiness. A lot of people "don't get it," and you shouldn't expect them to. This is an acquired taste of a motion picture, and what a true, honest taste it is!
Rating: 
Summary: If you hate people, this one's for you!
Review: Solondz is certainly talented, but his misanthropy knows no bounds. Pretentious and ugly but never boring or uninteresting, "Happiness" has its merits, as well as considerable faults. See for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: In the U.S., there is no Logos.
Review: What is normal? Is it the accepted suburban middle-class and its offspring? There is no definition for normal, not one physical and realistic. It is a boring ideal, an amalgam of plain characteristics. And yet so many consider normalcy an achievement when it is only contentment that they desire. The characters in Happiness may desire contentment, but it's not of a normal type. There is no attempt to make them appear normal; why should there be? They are animalistic, absurd, hilarious, but not exagerrated. They are sincere, and their sincerity is frightening. They are frightened; they are sad; they fear themselves, what they are and represent: loneliness, immorality (or perhaps amorality), discontentment, doubt, and a society approaching contentment. They fill no molds, even in their tragic flaws. Though they are self-destructive, they are original. Though they are original, they should not be completely foreign to us. Their flaws are not their fault; their flaws are internal. Because they lack some sense of self-realization, they lack some sense of reason. But is reason natural and innate? Is prudence innate? Plato said that reason came through knowledge or death, but knowledge is infinite, disciplined, and difficult. Without knowledge what is there? Desire. Confusion. Certainly not apathy. And not answers.
Rating:
Summary: A dark, bitter, comic masterpiece
Review: Happiness is clearly Solondz's best film. A sprawling, multilayered epic (call it the "Short Cuts" of severe dysfunction), Happiness forces the viewer to see the humanity and longings that exist within us all in the most loathsome characters. Philip Seymour Hoffman's work is expecially impressive. The film shows us what life is like when we close the door and think no one is looking. It shows human beings on their basest levels, longing for that vague, elusive concept happiness. Solondz's assured direction puts him in the league with Paul Thomas Anderson. A masterpiece.
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