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A Beautiful Mind (Full Screen Awards Edition)

A Beautiful Mind (Full Screen Awards Edition)

List Price: $12.98
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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Sorry, not buying it
Review: ...Crowe being a nerdy science professor, that is.
This film is good. Acting is mostly solid, and the story (albeit far from the real Nash's adventures) is very nicely filtered for the silver screen.
However, I've yet to see an anti-social, Nobel-prize winning scientist with arms the size of Chevy tires. I also didn't think Crowe's "nerdiness" was very convincing. His moments of scientific reflection, whether social or self, seemed... well... ingenuine. Though for the most part Crowe did an excellent job, I don't think he was the ideal candidate for this film (Dustin Hoffman, among others, would've fit the role much better, IMO).
I liked ABM while it was in theatres, and would readily see or buy it on DVD. It's an excellent film that has solid acting throughout. However, if there's one thing that I'd like to change about it is its choice of leading actor - not for his acting abilities so much as his representative character.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Strong, deep, impressive movie
Review: Perhaps one of the best movies so far this year. I'm still under deep impression from it. Definetily worth a spot in your DVD home collection.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Nude day
Review: It is a predictable irony that John Nash is portrayed as intent on finding an entirely original idea in mathematics in order to achieve recognition and self-validation, while Ron Howard does everything in his power to avoid any semblance of an original cinematic idea, nevetheless achieving recognition from the academy, the box-office, and (most probably) from himself.
*
The subject matter deluded me into hoping that here might lie a serious film. It certainly deserves to be rendered seriously. Instead the tired Hollywood formulas and manipulations are wheeled out for yet another airing. Love, a strangely homogenous and artificial emotion in Hollywood's understanding, is set to conquer all. Psychiatric treatment, this time in the guise of insulin induced seizures rather than the more time-honoured shock therapy, is villainised. The Ivy League universities and their associated priviledged 'feeding' schools are seen as a kind of safe haven from all the evils (i.e. realities) of American life. Music swells appropriately. There is even a car chase.
*
If you like Ron Howard's other films, and you consider 'Gladiator' great entertainment, then, yes, 'A Beautiful Mind' has the chance of satisfying. But if 'Mulholland Drive' or 'Requieum for a Dream' is your idea of good American film, then don't bother.
*
In the grand tradition of Oscar winners, this film is also needlessly long, the very length apparently conveying its intended gravity. Russell Crowe is needlessly bulked up, and Jennifer Connelly is needlessly beautiful. Oh, if you've seen 'The League of Gentlemen' you might get a giggle from the pen ritual at Princeton (Pauline's pens...), and if you're a Freudian you might get more than a giggle; and just imagine if they'd cast Edward and Tubbs as Nash and wife - and the Beast of Royston Vasey was let loose in New Jersey, or (better yet) Hollywood. One can always dream.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Over-rated
Review: I was disappointed in this movie because the book is so much better. Russell Crowe is great....It's too bad that Ron Howard is afraid to take chances and always has to play it safe. If everyone thought like him, there would've been no "American Beauty" or "Pulp Fiction"...I recommend watching one of those movies instead of this one. If Ron Howard made Pulp Fiction or American Beauty, can you imagine how boring they would've been? The dark aspects of the characters is what made those movies interesting...This is clearly what is missing in "A Beautiful Mind." The movie is watered-down to cater to the masses...The director sold out and made a McMovie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Beautiful Direction: Harrowing and Moving - Crowe was Robbed
Review: One of the most harrowing films I've seen depicting mental illness, A BEAUTIFUL MIND will forever change the way you look at that person talking to himself in the street. Russell Crowe's portrayal of John Nash is a 180-degree turn from his Oscar-winning GLADIATOR role; a man of imposing physicality, he somehow actually manages to make himself appear fragile. The rawness of his terror and sadness - especially in the horrifying insulin-treatment scene - will stay with you forever. He was robbed of a second consecutive Oscar. The awards should be about merit but are no more than a self-congratulatory popularity contest; watch Crowe's performance in this film, and you will see the performance of the Best Actor of the Year, and of his generation.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great movie
Review: A Beautiful Mind was a great movie. Russell Crowe is amazing in it! Jennifer Connelly and Ed Harris are also great. It is a story about the power of love. You should buy it. RUSSELL CROWE IS HOT! BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR!!!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Saved by Russell Crowe
Review: Let's face it, this is basically a made-for-TV movie with Ron Howard directing with his typical paint-by-numbers approach. What saves it is the outstanding acting of Russell Crowe. I'm amazed how a man with such a powerful build could appear so fragile. Without him, this would only be a two star movie. I can only imagine what this film could have been under the direction of David Lynch or Robert Altman.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good acting and performances, unfaithful to real story
Review: Russell Crowe gives a great performance, one that easily deserved the Best Actor Oscar, and the story is moving and powerful. However, it is not even remotely close to John Nash's actual life. The script writers took a lot of liberties, and as a result, the movie doesn't even come close to capturing the true horror and destruction schizophrenia causes its victims, or how it affected John Nash in real life. I normally forgive movies for their factual errors, but in this case, the movie gives a somewhat romanticised and wrongly warm-hearted view of a neurological illness that is devastating almost beyond imagination.

For example, in real life, John Nash NEVER regained his life as a brilliant mathematician. He recovered a modicum of normal day-to-day functioning, but his Noble prize was awarded for work he did prior to his illness. The movie implies that Nash makes a complete recovery from the illness and regains his genius, but that isn't the case. The true life story of John Nash is one of incredible loss and sorrow, with his Noble prize merely reflecting what was lost and what could have been. The movie makes Nash's life look like a tale of triumph, which it simply wasn't.

In real life, John and Alicia Nash divorced (and John was a lousy, emotionally-detacted husband even before he became sick). Alicia still looked after her ex-husband's well-being - an act of supreme self-sacrifice - but again, the true story is one of loss and sorrow, not triumph. Love "didn't conquer all" in real life.

Finally, the movie only vaguely alludes to the fact that John Nash was NOT a decent human being, but was the kind of amoral, psychologically-dysfunctional "genius" that we associate with people like Nietszche (the anti-morality philosopher driven insane by syphillis) and Richard Dawkins (a psychologically warped English geneticist whose personal mission is to convince the world that life has no dignity or purpose). The book describes him as "brash, arrogant, atheist" and goes into detail about how Nash alienated and denigrated virtually everyone around him. In fact, Nash apparently suffered from a variety of characterological personality disorders before being diagnosed as schizophrenic at the highly unusual age of 30 (with few exceptions, the disease appears in the late teens or early 20s) and some have suggested that Nash really suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder rather than schizophrenia.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Russell Crowe was robbed
Review: I thought this movie was amazing.The direction by Ron Howard was first rate and the cinematography was amazing. The acting was also top-notch. Russell Crowe was robbed of an oscar, because the Academy decided to make a statement involving African-Americans being the big winners of the night. Jennifer Connely was flawless as John Nash's wife, Alicia and her Oscar was richly deserved.Also, I have to praise Paul Bettany's performance as Charles.I have seen him in several films and always enjoy his work. I have heard complaints directed at the glossing over of less admirable qualities in John Nash's character, but this was a movie. Would your average movie goer want to see a film about an unkind and unfriendly math genius who loses his mind and becomes more unfriendly? If you want this story, read the book, which portrays the darker aspects of Nash's character and does so quite well. If you want an uplifting, sweet movie about a man overcoming great feats, see this movie. If you want the whole story, read the book by Sylvia Nasaar.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: So Cliché !!!
Review: This movie is so predictable. It's like the director worked backward: instead of directing the movie and then see what people think about it, he kept thinking about what people would like to see, and then made the movie (that explains why it won so many awards). He could at least have done this a little more subtle, but the whole movie is gross. Here's an example: Ron Howard needed a genius, right? So what did he do? Did he tried to narrow Nash's personality? No! He gave us the typical genius guy everybody would think of, you know, the guy who can't talk to girls, can't wear a tie... And there are so many other gross details in this movie, the worst being this "love-can-solve-any-problems" thing.This is soooooooo easy, so predictable, in a word, so CLICHE.


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