About Schmidt

Rating:
Summary: I want my money back
Review: A grim film with a weak ending- just when you thought it might get good. Anyone wanna buy a cheap DVD? It's your's for the p&p.

Rating:
Summary: Saved By Jack and Kathy
Review: Anything that stars Jack Nicholson and features a bravura comic turn by Kathy Bates can't be all bad, and such is the case with "About Schmidt," which otherwise deals with a tired and hackneyed plot line.

Nicholson plays Warren Schmidt, who, as the film opens, is forced into retirement at age 66 at the insurance company for which he has been an executive for lo these many years. Particularly galling to Warren is his replacement, a smarmily confident young man whse only asset, it seems, is his youth.

Schmidt goes into the predictable post-retirement slump (put "All My Sons" out of your mind!), which is greatly exacerbated by the upcoming wedding of his beloved only daughter (and only child) to an idiot water-bed salesman. As Warren's depresssion deepens, his wife of 42 years dies suddenly and unexpectedly, and now we get to explore widow(er)hood as well as retirement.

What saves the movie, as mentioned above, is Jack Nicholson's truly sensitive portrayal of the anguished and depressed Schmidt. He plays it with a large dollop of humor mixed in with the pathos, thus saving the movie from parody. As his character motors in an impossibly large Winnebago from Kansas to Denver, where his daughter's wedding is scheduled to take place, his has a number of improbable adventures that add to his despair.

Once in Denver, he meets the groom's mother (Kathy Bates), who does a star turn as an over-the-top Colorado hippie who is still very much 16 in her mind. Bates deserves kudos for daring to bare it all (however briefly) in a hot-tub scene that, while it has the viewer roaring with laughter, is still sensitive and sad.

The best part of the DVD, in my opinion, is the look at the deleted scenes. The director's comments are done in writing, almost in textbook form, before each scene, and for this viewer, it was almost like a course in film editing. I like to agree or disagree with the cuts from my armchair, and in this case, I agreed.

Watch it for Jack and Kathy, both at their acting peaks. It's worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Not Nicholson's usual thing
Review: Jack Nicholson plays a grumpy, hopeless, lost old dude, newly retired and very newly widowed. Finding himself suddenly freed from a passionless marriage and also from just about everything that's rooted him to Omaha, he takes off in a humongous Winnebago to try to convince his daughter not to marry some Denver loser.
Nicholson does tantrums and seething rages better than anyone in the business, and About Schmidt gives him several opportunities to demonstrate both. The surprise is Kathy Bates role as the titular head of a bizarre, mottled, highly peculiar 'family' which includes her ex-husband. A scene of small and quiet redemption concludes the movie, a little ray of hope as the Winnebago heads out of Denver toward home.
Love it or hate it, you've gotta watch it.

Rating:
Summary: Book Was Better
Review: I read the book About Schmidt after I heard that the movie was going to come into theaters but when I went to see it in theaters I must admit that the acting was superb but using the same score from American Beauty it just did not captivate me as much as it could. The story is that this guy's (Jack Nicholson) wife dies so he goes on a road trip in their RV in order to get to where his daughter is (Hope Davis) in order to stop her from getting married to these people of whom he does not like at all. I would only recommend this movie to people who are a older than 18 because frankly I did not get most of the humor in it and maybe that is because of my age. I hope that this review has helped you in making a decision about the film About Schmidt.

Rating:
Summary: Schmidt Happens!
Review: Thatis the tagline to "About Schmidt," a film that got critical praise, but did not seem to do to well with the audiences that watched it. I loved this movie, and thought that it did a perfect way of drifting from comedy to drama throughout the entire film. Jack Nicholson was perfect in this movie, and it felt like his put in alot of work to master the facial expressions and the feelings of the main character Warren Schmidt. Kathy Bates was a comic genius and her timing was perfect as Roberta, and Dermet Mulronely had a perfect transformation from what he usually looks like, to what he looked like in this movie.

As I said above, Jack Nicholson played Warren Schmidt, a sixty six year old recently retired man, who works at Woodmen of the World, or the insurence game as he calls it. Now he is at home everyday with his wife Helen, and he eventually begins to sponser a six year old boy named Ndugu Umbo. He writes to Ndugu in letters. But tradgy strikes Warren when he comes home to find Helen dead on the kitchen floor. After the funeral, he decides that he has to make the best of the rest of his time in this world. But when he finds out that Helen was having an affair years ago with his best friend Ray, Warren decides to go to Denver to see his daughter in the RV that he and Helen bought months earlier. His daughter Jeanie is getting married to that of Randell Hertz, a waterbed salesmen, who Warren feels is not right for his daughter. Warren and Jeanie planned that he would come up two or three days before the wedding, but Warren decides to come much earlier. Janie tells him to go home, so Warren decides to go on a trip to remember his past. When he finally makes it to Denver he meets Randell's mother Roberta, and her ex-husband and his wife Larry and Sandra. Warren is not happy with his new family and makes it his mission to convince Jeanie that she is getting ready to marry the wrong man, a point that adds more problems to their already tenuous relationship.

I'll first discuss the letters that Warren writes to Ndugu. When Warren is writing the letters to him you'll hear him say Dear, Ndugu. When I saw this in the theatre, everybody started to laugh at that line. They laughed because you knew that whenever he was writing to Ndugu he was going to pour out all of his feeling. His letters to Ndugu allow him to express his feelings to somebody that he knows is not going to judge him or even respond with a clever remark. It is a six year old boy who does not speak English. Warren could tell him anything, and you could relate to his problems because everybody has gone through some of the problems that Warren goes through during this film.

The actress who played Jeanie, Hope Davis, was doing her job just fine. She was supposed to be a character that you don't like, and the only thing that I thought about during the movie was that I didn't like her. That is the sign of a great actress. I want to see her preformance in "American Splendor" to compare. Nothing really happens in "About Schmidt." I'm guessing that that is the reason that alot of peopel found it boring. It had useless infomation, but it was was nice to hear everything. "About Schmidt" was a very interesting character study. But alot of people who watch movies have to have instant storylines. This was a slow movie, I agree. But it worked all the way untill the ending.

ENJOY!

Rated R for some language and brief nudity.

Rating:
Summary: For Jack lovers only
Review: Seen better Nicholson movies, but his performance here is surperb. Kathy Bate is also excellent. The depressing story however was more boring than anything.

Rating:
Summary: Nicholson at his best!
Review: If you like excellent character acting, and are a Jack Nicholson fan, you'll love this movie. Nicholson BECOMES this character named Schmidt, a retired insurance type who thinks his life has made no difference to anyone else and finds out just how wrong that feeling is at the end. The movie is alternately hilarious, then sad, then both. The depiction of the Denver natives, into whose family Schmidt's daughter is marrying, is right on! I've lived in metro Denver for 18 years and I can attest that there are thousands of people who act, and look!, just like them. Too long mustaches, long hair, pseudo-mystical, never been anywhere outside of Colorado and are generally clueless when confronted with anyone from out of state. Nicholson's character handles all of this with a classy, unpretentious grace, and Jack's expressions convey exactly what he REALLY thinks. Excellent, well-directed film with superb acting by everyone throughout. I'm buying this one for it is a movie that will never bore me.

Rating:
Summary: A POIGNANT PAINFUL LOOK AT LIFE
Review: An arrogant, overbearing, crusty, aging man comes to terms with life. He retires, his wife dies, his daughter is getting married, and no- they don't need him to come back as a consultant at the office to help the new "hotshot" in charge. Jack Nicholson is superb and we alternately laugh and groan as he comes to grips with all the changes in his existence, and struggles to find his place, his purpose. Kathy Bates is hilarious, and brings new meaning to the concept of "mischief and the spice of life". The wedding captures all the emotional lows and highs of the occasion. Most endearing are "Schmidt's" letters to his foster child, Ndugo, a continent away. This child, with one little crayon drawing, achieves what no-one else could. Poignant, painful, yet funny. Outstanding cast.

Rating:
Summary: Wow this sucked
Review: Don't buy this unless you enjoy seeing old actors act like rude and dumb old people. Actually, if you enjoy that...I still wouldn't recommend this movie.

Rating:
Summary: Not as Good as it Gets!
Review: I never read the book but I saw this movie. Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates two of the best actors ever to grace the big screen gave great performances, But even so I just didn't like this movie, some of the supporting characters were very annoying and I have to agree that the trailers made this seem like it was similar to As Good as it Gets but it's not anywhere near as good as that movie and is kind of a real downer and I'm in the process of buying As Good as it Gets on DVD but I'm going to pass on this one!