My Dinner with Andre

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but not captivating.
Review: The concept is good, but the dialog is lacking at times. It does not contain any of the wit or philosophic dialog that "Mindwalk" contained.

Honestly, you are more likely to overhear a more interesting conversation at your local coffee house. Also, if you want a better dialog driven movie, watch "Harold and Maude".

Rating:
Summary: Great companion to a great movie!
Review: If you've seen and loved the movie -- you'll want this book. Great dialogue, wonderful images from Andre Gregory's adventures. You can hear Wallace Shawn's squeaky voice as he asks Andre "so, *then* what happened?" If you haven't see the film, rent it! Then you'll want the book.

Rating:
Summary: Tres Bon!
Review: "My Dinner with Andre" is my all-time favorite film. I watch this movie often, each time of which I notice another layer of meaning. In addition to the superior dialogue and direction in this film (which other reviewers here have aptly described), the movie is rich, visually. This movie is not visually boring, despite the fact the cameras are on Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory for nearly two hours. Andre Gregory, especially, is such an engaging conversationalist that he evokes compelling mental images in the audience as to what these far away places might look like (i.e., the Sahara and the Polish forest to name a few). After all, Gregory said "I consider myself a bit of a Surrealist," meaning that the world of dream images in the mind's eye are the locus of true imagination. It's a superb use of the verbal to evoke the visual. Yes, the film is overtly naturalistic (i.e., the restaurant setting, a 2-hour meal with "real" characters), but the sheer dialogue transports one beyond mere verisimilitude.

Having the audience imagine, in their own ways, what these venues might look like is so contrary to what we get so often in American movies today. We typically get in your-face visuals and glitzy special effects (e.g., "Lord of the Rings) that allows no room for viewer imagination: its all artificially provided for you. Such films leave me, to use Gregory's words, "passive and impotent."

"My Dinner with Andre" respects its audience by reminding us what it is to be truly human. Having conversations as portrayed in this film is my ideal evening out with a good friend(s).

I can't recommend this movie enough.

Rating:
Summary: This is a tough one
Review: I liked this movie the first time I watched it. As I reflect on that time, my initial impression was probably due to this movie's complete departure from the usual Hollywood crap I see. I am not even as remotely articulate as Barry Chow who reviewed before me, but his complaints are founded and fair. The subject of the movie, the experiences Andre shares, really can't (or shouldn't) be experienced in any form other that living them. It's clear though that this movie is powerful based on the very positive and very negative reviews it has gotten.

Rating:
Summary: Too Clever by Half
Review: This is a film of serious ambition and sincere intent that takes leaps of faith and bold chances. It assumes that its audience is intelligent, patient, open-minded and capable of sustained concentration. This is the very opposite of the assumptions made in any Hollywood blockbuster and predisposes intelligent people to fancying it.

But it also takes a silly and self-indulgent delight in its own contrivances. For example, it uses the classical unities of time, place and action to relate a conversation with content that spans years, continents and disparate events. It also uses the ancient form of a Socratic dialogue to promote a post-modern existentialist thesis. The principals in this film are playing with us: using classical devices to present ideas that reject classicism. I suppose it is legitimate to find pleasure in such contrivances, but I just found them irksome. Maybe it's just me, but I don't like obvious cleverness. Make it subtle, present it with finesse, and I can admire it; shove it in my face and such enjoyment as I might otherwise feel is destroyed by the spectacle of filmmakers too obviously in love with their own cunning.

This film has a number of levels. At its highest level it is about Socrates's seven edicts to maximizing self-potential: Know thyself, Grow with friends, Ask great questions, Strengthen your soul, Verify everything, Speak frankly, and Free your mind. This is the point and purpose of the film: Shaun and Andre are engaged in a dialogue to better themselves and we are invited to journey with them. We are not supposed to focus on Andre's ruminations as much as on the process, and the idea behind this film is that the inner quest is a worthy endeavour in its own right.

But it is not possible to ignore the content, and the film's good intentions are undermined by its failings. I don't want to be uncharitable, but Andre's ruminations are both feckless and facile. Consider: here is a man talking about asking large questions, life affirmation, and self-discovery while comfortably nestled in the very bourgeois trappings that he is presumably rebelling against. The conversation takes place in what looks like a four star restaurant. Is this another device? Is Shaun and Andre and Louis Malle winking at us? I doubt it. Just another case of "self-discovery on the Beaujolais Express", I'm afraid.

Actually, I find it hard to criticize this film. It at least tries for philosophical import that would drive most Hollywood films to drink. But it commits the unpardonable sin of telling instead of showing. It affects a dialogue between an urbane traveller and a solid groundling, but the urbanity is both shallow and pretentious, and the groundling mostly just a marker. If we had seen Andre's experiences, watched them through our eyes, gone along on his journey, then we could at least draw our own conclusions and derive a sense of attestation to the life changes he is expounding. But hearing an obviously well-to-do baby boomer fantasize about turning into some kind of noble savage is just a tad ripe. I suspect that Andre is hardly about to give up his four star dinners, fine wines and cashmere cardigans. This is not self-awareness, but narcissism. It's like those undergraduate philosophy round-tables where everyone earnestly tries to project an air of detached profundity. The emphasis is on posture, not content.

The late Andy Kaufman produced a parody of this film called "My Breakfast with Blassie". While the parody itself was second-rate, the need for parody was spot on. As a general rule, bombast and pretence should be punctured whenever we encounter them--even when they are as earnest and well intentioned as those on offer in "My Dinner with Andre".

Rating:
Summary: The Worst Film Ever Made, Bar None
Review: This tedious gabbling by two self-absorbed New York intellectuals -- directed, of course, by a Frenchman -- is the worst film I have ever seen, bar none. As opposed to puret trashh that knows it is trash, this film is the product who think their sententious ramblings have any interest at all.

At least they PAY their shrinks to hear this tripe.

Chinese water torture. Sod the critics. Sod the Frogs. Sod the New York "intellectuals."

Rating:
Summary: A remarkable gem!
Review: Dinner with Andre is a clever device employed by this smart director to exposse his multiple and deep concerns about the actual world . A dinner will be just the background in which we will watch the exchange of ideas and points of view about a lot of issues .
Extremely interesting ; this is a slow paced film just thinking about your good taste and intelectual refinement .
A triumph of the good taste .

Rating:
Summary: I want to have a conversation like this
Review: I have not seen this DVD so my review pertains only to the movie itself.

This is one of my favorite films of all time. I can watch it over and over again and it remains enjoyable.

The entire movie consists of two old friends having a conversation over dinner. Wallace Shawn plays Wallace Shawn, a struggling playwrite who acts to pay his bills. He is a realist, but he has an unshakable faith in the power and importance of art. Andre Gregory plays Andre Gregory, a once successful director who had worked with Shawn in the past, but who has since had an apparent breakdown. Shawn has heard rumors about his old friend's erratic behavior.

Shawn is wary of the dinner. How crazy is Andre? Why does he want to meet after all of these years. He gently prods Andre with some general questions, but once he gets Andre started, there is no stopping him. He had had a breakdown - or a crisis, or an epiphany depending on how one looks at it. Andre had realized that he was not really living, but, rather, sort of existing in a semi-consious state. He looked around and saw that everyone was doing the same thing. He also lost his faith in the ability of art to communicate anything. This crisis is the result of his reaction to post-modernity in general. He proceeds to tell Wallace the extremes to which he went to try to feel like he was really experiencing life again. He traveled all over the world, experimented with all sorts of mysticism and unconventional thought, and developed a conscious, almost child-like view of the world.

I will not paraphrase the entire conversation. Wallace Shawn does get his rebuttal, and it steers the conversation in a cryptic direction. The conclusion, or lack thereof, of the argument is challenging, if not down-right depressing. This aspect of the film is rarely mentioned. Although Shawn leaves exhilarated by the conversation he has had, that conversation has left the audience in a quandry. The movie should instigate some interesting conversations of your own.

The script is just wonderfull. The two men taped many of their conversations and then edited them up and made a script out of it. Great idea that I am surprised is not used more often. The result is complete naturalism. Malle is reserved and delicate in his direction. A must for anyone who likes intelligent cinema - or simply craves a good conversation. Have that conversation vicariously through this splendid film.

Rating:
Summary: DP!=DVD
Review: Give it a try: you'll either giveup in 15 minutes; or would get hooked to it. Like a evening breeze of a warm day, let the movie conversation flow easily. Play..Pause...think...rewind...think...rewatch....reflect.
Its not going to change your life, but would defintely effect your view about it.