Rating: 
Summary: not just a chick flick!
Review: I rented this film not knowing what to expect except for Winona Ryder. I loved the film and I'm a guy and I didn't find it sexist at all. I bought the DVD and I watch it all the time. It gives a very honest look at the way some men can treat women, a very honest look. I liked it because the quilt and the laundry room moral had such symbolism, and that's good to see. If anyone reading this has the DVD and has found the theatrical trailer, email me and tell me. I'm sure it's on there, I just haven't found it yet and I really want to see it.
Rating: 
Summary: real good
Review: I saw the movie on TV and it is just really refreshing from most of the movies nowadays. It's one of the movies that posts a bunch of questions up in the air and tells the answers at the end. I think it's about this girl college student play by Ryder who isn't sure about what she's going to do about her love. And she is writing this paper on her aunts, parents, basically the people in the quilt group. And I guess she finds the answer after she heard all the experiences from her quilting friends. It's something about commiting to love, gradual learning of life. I like the theme. I read the book too and it's pretty good too but the good thing of the movie is that it organzied the novel into a story, and what a girl learned from it. THe book is all scattered and seperated into short stories of each of the ladies in the quilt club, but it lets the readers analysis and think about it all on your own. They are both good.
Rating:
Summary: This is the sweetest movie
Review: Normally I love comedies, but How To Make an American Quilt was so beautiful. I especially loved the flashbacks, where you see the old women young, and learn their stories. Maybe the movie butchered the book, but I haven't read it and so for me the movie was enough on its own. This movie was really sweet.
Rating:
Summary: --Delightful film--
Review: Starting with the title, which is terrific, I also liked the great cast of actors who were chosen for the film. The story begins when Finn (Winona Ryder) comes to spend the summer with her grandmother (Ellen Burstyn) and her aunt (Anne Bancroft) at a grand old house in California. Finn is a graduate student who wants to spend the summer working on her thesis. She also needs a break from her boyfriend who wants to marry her. She's very indecisive about everything in her life, and I honestly found her part to be a little boring. The best parts of the story are about the friends that her grandmother and aunt share and their involvement in a quilting circle. The quilting ladies are all quite different and through flashbacks we're given a glimpse of them as young women and the love or lack of love in their lives. Jean Simmons plays one of the women, and I was delighted to see her acting again. I loved the scenes where the quilters, are working around a table in the lovely old house. The set designs were beautiful and perfect for the story.At a certain point in the film, we come to find out that the theme of the quilt is "where love resides." Every quilter is making a block from her own experience in life. Finn also learns that the quilt is her wedding gift. HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUILT is an enjoyable movie. I think that the individual stories could have been a little more informative, but all things considered it's a wonderful movie and worth seeing.
Rating:
Summary: Women as Darwinian animals
Review: Syrupy orgy of social and sexual need with a strong message and some redeeming artistic value, beautifully photographed. It's sad to see Jean Simmons, who was once a fine actress as well as an intriguing, voluptuous beauty, reduced to this. Ditto for the other Grand Dames here who fret about and wallow in their past loves while spying lustily on the loves of others. I saw this to study Winona Ryder's face. She plays Finn Dodd, a Berkeley grad student writing her thesis on the lives of the quilt makers while debating a marriage proposal. Sometimes she seems to be posing, and at other times I find her as subtle and as natural as a great actress. As beautiful as she is, I found myself wondering if her interpretation of a selfish and duplicitous young woman was more a projection of her own true heart than a demonstration of any acting skill. She certainly doesn't give the slightest hint that she cares about the loves and heartaches of the quilt makers: she seems totally absorbed in present titillations and in the working out of the pre-matrimonial angst. But it may be that that is the reality of who her character is, and if so Ryder plays her to a perfect fit. Totally captivating is the scene in the orange grove where the 26-year-old Finn gets laid by mesomorphic Leon who provokes her to a swooning imitation of a Victorian maiden being touched for the first time. (Winona's face is VERY sexy.) In a sense the Darwinian nature of the human animals depicted here is correct, and on that level director Jocelyn Moorehouse is having a good laugh on all of us. Her assertion is that what humans really practice is "serial monogamy," an insight from evolutionary psychology increasingly accepted these days. Her answer to the vexing question, "Can men and women be friends?" is clearly no. From a woman's point of view-and this film is clearly from a woman's POV-I suspect she is correct. The quilt symbolizes the human institutions and the social and political bonding that enable women to collar their animal nature and live in harmony with others. Memorable are the oaks and the orange groves and the rolling hills of the California countryside; a black crow that hops; a wind devil that tumbles a white plastic chair and blows the pages of Finn's thesis out the door; and an old Ann Bancroft stoned on marijuana and cognac.
Rating: 
Summary: Adultery, Indecision and Needlepoint (3.5 stars)
Review: This adaptation by screenwriter Jane Anderson (novel by Whitney Otto) presents us with a character named Finn Dodd (Ryder), a 26-year old college student who has just gotten engaged to her long-time sweetheart Sam (Mulroney). She begins to realize the many changes that will come about because of her acceptance to his proposal and needs time to think and adjust. She decides to spend three months at her grandma Hy's house in Grasse, CA, which is the center of operations to a longtime quilting bee. During her tenure, she continues working on her master's thesis (a project of which she continuously changes her topic), all the while listening to the quilting bee's romantic horror stories as they craft Finn's wedding quilt. To sum it up, "How To Make An American Quilt" is the quintessential chick flick awash with many familiar faces including Maya Angelou. The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet stars as Anna, the queen of an eight-member sewing circle consisting of Glady Jo Cleary (Anne Bancroft), Hy Cleary (Ellen Burstyn), her daughter Marianna (Alfre Woodard), Em Reed (Jean Simmons), Constance Saunders (Kate Nelligan) and Sophia Darling (Lois Smith). Anna winds up in the Cleary household at 16 - pregnant, unmarried and helpless. She will dwell there until the birth of her child, meeting Hy and Glady Jo for the first time. Little does she know that these two young women will remain in her life for years afterward, their interest and skill in the art of quilting mounting over the years by Anna's guidance. There is also the story of Hy and Glady Jo themselves and their unspoken bitterness towards each other - we learn that Hy is the reason for Glady Jo's "self-expression" all over the walls of the laundry room. Then there is Sophia, an aspiring diver in her adolescence and later an abandoned mother of three; Em, wife to a histrionic artist, suffering his recurrent infidelity; Constance, a decent woman who endures the loss of her nearest and dearest, left with only her precious memories and Marianna, a lover of many but starved for the discovery of her soulmate. We find as the film goes on that many instances of infidelity exist in the characters' cluttered histories. Half the women in this movie commit adultery at some point and even Finn falls victim to temptation. Where as once I could not relate, I find myself agreeing with many of Finn's thoughts and opinions on marriage upon becoming engaged - this includes a question in the very beginning that Ryder's voiceover poses to the audience: "How do you merge into this thing called 'a couple', and still keep a little room for yourself? How do we even know we're only supposed to be with one person for the rest of our lives?" These kinds of questions number in the hundreds of intended couples as they come closer to walking the proverbial aisle. I know that I have had my own reservations about marriage ever since I got engaged and many of my questions will never have an answer - I must trust my heart...and my gut. Performances range in the areas of premium to mediocre. Who comes at the top of my list are screen veterans (and Academy Award winners, natch) Ellen Burstyn and Anne Bancroft. These two never cease to amaze me with how they can turn a character inside out and make it their own. Winona Ryder is so-so (as she is in most of her movies) as Finn but she does manage to touch a few nerves with her dark and luminous eyes - those pretty peepers are half of her dramatic capacity. Alfre Woodard is excellent, giving Marianna a carved edge but a soft core. Kate Nelligan is also wonderful but if you really wanna see her flex those acting chops, take a deep breath of Lila Wingo in "The Prince of Tides". Dermot Mulroney always seems to play a nice guy that gets taken for granted (The Thing Called Love, My Best Friend's Wedding, Point Of No Return, etc.) and he does it again here - actis repeatus, you might say. Jean Simmons is a little disappointing as Em, the once beautiful and poised actress now only a shadow of herself. Maya Angelou does fine as Anna and some of Gen X's more popular faces make brief appearances in supporting roles (Claire Danes, Samantha Mathis, Jared Leto and Jonathan Schaech). This film is a fairly even script-to-screen production and will please many that seek a decent character study. Of course, you can't outdo a detailed and poetic novel or the insightful author who writes it. As long as novelists continue to exist and evolve, filmic adaptations cannot compare (though there are a few exceptions here and there, e.g. Dolores Claiborne). This is not to say that "How To Make An American Quilt" isn't enjoyable - it's just not on par with what can be translated through literature. For those who have read Otto's novel, it will earn your rigid criticism.
Rating: 
Summary: average at best
Review: this film tries to tell to many stories all at once but doesn't do any of the Characters justice.Alfre Woodard does a good solid job.Maya Angelou deserved better than playing second string to Winona Ryder.whose role is rather bland here.
Rating:
Summary: For die-hard Winona fans only.
Review: This is a perfectly acceptable slice of chick-flick drama, which seems to believe it is weightier and more important than it actually is, but is a passable and entertaining two hours of entertainment. It's the kind of vaguely pro-feminist stuff that Ryder seemed to associate herself with at the time (Check the re-interpretation of "Little Women" also.) and it certainly isn't a movie you'd be embarrassed to show your daughters. Ryder plays a woman debating her impending marriage, and learning from a patch-work of different women (Some good character acting all round) what it is to be, um, a woman, I suppose. While there's nothing much wrong with any of the performances, for me the film didn't add up to very much and I think it's only for the die-hard Winona fans... if there are such people in the world.
Rating:
Summary: Great Chick Flick
Review: This is an awesome movie to watch on Girls night. Keep your eye out for the hunk in the pool seen. I highly reccommend it to any bride-to-be. It is a great lesson about life, love and making the right decisions.
Rating:
Summary: Cinematic artistry at it's best!
Review: This is by far one of my favorite movies! It touches the viewer on a very personal level. It is an emotional film about choices and reveals through it's characters the delicate balance between love and lust with the premise of living without regrets. We are all invited into their world and allowed to judge for ourselves how their choices steered the course for their journey through life. The soundtrack is beautiful and there was excellent character developement. This is a movie that deserves much more acclaim than what it received because it is cinematic artistry at it's best! An excellent film!
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