Rating: 
Summary: Good Movie
Review: I saw this movie five years ago when I was in Jamaica. The movie "Inventing the Abbotts" focuses on the typical 1950s family that rose to the American dream of making it big living in the suburbs. The Abbots, a wealthy manufacturing family, maintained the image of family values. Beneath the surface, the older sister had to marry because she was two months pregnant. And the younger sister was a [promiscuous girl] who was sent to a convent. Pam, the middle, is stuck in the middle. She lives between her family's expectations and her love for Doug Holt. Jacey, the older brother, sleeps with the older and younger Abbott sisters to get back at the father for tarnishing the mother's reputation. Doug's love for Pam is unconditional. Pam runs away because she is afraid of what others are thinking.
The movie was a good drama because it gave an in-depth look of America post-WW2. The dream that was supposedly a nightmare for both the elite and the working class. Each is struggling with the self, the community, and society.
Rating:
Summary: If the Abbotts Didn't Exist Jacey Would Have Invented Them
Review: Movie Summary: In a small 1950's Illinois town the Abbotts are the family everyone talks about. They are rich and have three beautiful daughters. Their parties are the things of legend in the town. On the other side of the tracks live the Holts. Mrs. Holt has had to raise her two sons, Jacey and Doug, by herself since her husband passed away. The Holts and Abbotts have a long history, some real, some invented. It is this history, the real and the invented, that the Holt brothers have to come to terms with before it destroys them and the Abbotts. My Opinion: This was a very engaging movie with a great cast. Kathy Baker and Joaquin Phoenix were very enjoyable. Michael Keaton's narration adds a touch that makes the movie seem better than it is. I loved the 1950's small town setting as well as the semi-complicated plot. The viewer discovers the secrets of the past at the same time as the brothers do. We see how differently each of them deals with it and get to make our own decision as well. The bothers struggle with the revelations of the past and each find a way to deal with it. It is the different interpretations and actions that each of the brothers takes that is at the core of this story. After watching the movie, I find that I liked it more while I was watching it than I do now. The plot seems to lack that big punch that would make it stay with me and taunt me to watch it again. That aside, it is still worth seeing. DVD Quality: Widescreen Anamorphic 1.85:1 DD5.1 Picture and sound were great with no noticeable defects. Extra features consist of the trailer and a featurette. The main menu is interesting. What You Should Do: Rent it if you are into historical pieces. It's a decent movie but you'll only need to see it once. This DVD release is nothing special. Related Movies To Check Out: Waking the Dead, Almost Famous, To Kill a Mockingbird, Outside Providence
Rating: 
Summary: steve
Review: Only reason I saw this film was for Michael Sutton. He plays the character named Steve.
Very good movie!
Rating:
Summary: Only next to "Stealing Home"
Review: Strange as it may sound, I only realized how much I loved this movie when I watched it for the second time. Probably because the first time I was too much focused on how pretty those girls were and which one of them was the sexiest -- I mean, Liv Tyler, Jennifer Connelly and Joanna Going, not Pamela, Eleonor and Alice, respectively. Watching it the second time gave me a chance to really appreciate a very good screenplay (based on a great novel by Sue Miller and enhanced by a perfect narration by Michael Keaton) as well as the finest performance of pretty much the whole cast, especially Baker and Connelly. As for Liv Tyler, I personally prefer her acting in this movie than in the overrated "Stealing Beauty" which was filmed one year earlier. There's a bunch of memorable scenes and lines, but I think the best ones must be Jennifer Connelly's "hi Doug" and Kathy Baker's "'no matter what' kind of love".... All in all, "Inventing the Abbotts" deserves a high place in the library of coming-of-age movies. I would however recommend a somehow related (and maybe better) one -- "Stealing Home", with Mark Harmon and Jodie Foster.
Rating:
Summary: Engaging Story, Good Performances
Review: The lives of two brothers living in a small town in Illinois are profoundly affected by an alleged incident which took place even before one of them was born, in "Inventing the Abbotts," directed by Pat O'Connor. The Abbotts are one of the wealthiest, most respected families in Haley, Illinois; Lloyd Abbott (Will Patton) is a successful businessman who, along with his wife, Joan (Barbara Williams), has raised three daughters, the oldest of whom, Alice (Joanna Going), is about to be married, while the youngest, Pamela (Liv Tyler), is about to graduate from high school. The Holts, on the other hand, are from the other side of the tracks, and Helen Holt (Kathy Baker) has had to raise her boys on her own. John (Billy Crudup), the oldest, was two-years-old when his father was killed in an accident, while Helen was pregnant with his brother, Doug (Joaquin Phoenix). There's no mystery about what happened in the accident; the bone of contention concerns what happened afterwards-- at least in the eyes of John, even all these years later as he is about to enter collage. John and Doug's father, it seems, had been business partners with Lloyd Abbott, but after his death, a patent that Mr. Holt owned somehow ended up in Lloyd Abbott's name, making him a wealthy man, while the Holt's ended up in their current state of affairs-- not exactly poor, but barely making ends meet. And since his youth, John has been fixated with the Abbotts, especially their daughters, and one in particular, Eleanor (Jennifer Connelly). But as with most things involving an obsession, it only put John on a lifelong emotional road to nowhere. Told from Doug's point of view, the story becomes a lesson in life; when to leave the baggage of things best forgotten behind and move on. Phoenix gives an affecting performance as Doug, who has an on-again-off-again relationship with Pamela, the one sister who is, "Just there," as she says (according to her, Alice is the "good" one, Eleanor the "bad"). He captures that sense of being at an age when uncertainty is the only absolute, and you feel his need to search and seek out that toe-hold on life that is often elusive to the young. There's an understated ring of truth in his portrayal that adds that depth which makes his character credible, and one to whom it is easy to relate. Crudup delivers, as well, with a performance wound in introspective tension so tightly that there are moments when it seems almost tangible. He carries a burden-- that from which his obsession was born-- and it shows. John has so much going for him (the love of his mother and brother; good looks; intelligence), that watching him suffer so emotionally-- even at arm's length-- is sad to see, especially in light of the fact that it is so unnecessary. Still, some of his actions (especially one late in the film) are intrinsically almost too brutal to forgive; only so much, after all, can be buried amid rationalization. In the end, you feel for him, but only so far; and then you are compelled to do what he could not-- you move on. As Pamela, Liv Tyler turns in a reserved performance that captures something of that same sense of confusion reflected in Doug's character. A bit more grounded, perhaps, but there is still that "searching" going on within her. Connelly, meanwhile, gets into her role as the"bad" sister with relish, exuding a self-assured sexual tension qualified with just enough restraint to make Eleanor a memorable and effective character. Going does a nice job, also, though by the nature of her character alone, she is bound to be somewhat overshadowed by Tyler and Connelly. The supporting cast includes Michael Sutton (Steve), Alessandro Nivola (Peter), Shawn Hatosy (Victor) and Michael Keaton as the narrator. An engaging and often poignant drama, "Inventing the Abbotts" puts love, loss and confusion (one might say the mainstays of life) into perspective, and illustrates that how we deal with it all is not necessarily a matter of individual choice. Some, in fact, just may have to invent whatever it is they need to hang onto. At one point in the film, Doug says of his brother, "If the Abbotts hadn't existed, John would've invented them." And maybe that's the way it is; taking life as it comes and dealing with it the best way you know how.
Rating: 
Summary: Only one good song
Review: The only song even worth buying this cd for is the first one...
Rating:
Summary: Nice Movie
Review: This is a very nice movie for it's gender.
If you are looking for Indipendence day kind of movie, don't rent this, but I think the cover is self explanatory.
Rating:
Summary: Romantic but hard
Review: This is another good movie of Liv Tyler just like her 'Stealing Beauty'. The two brothers and the three sisters performed a romantic but rough love story happened in 1960s. You can see the bitter of growth, regret of losing, sweet of love, value of brotherliness... As a whole, it is a movie of sensation.
Rating: 
Summary: Once Eleanor leaves...
Review: This movie has so much potential and to tell you the truth when it's on T.v or when I feel like watching something familiar it is still something I watch. The problem is that with so much potential the story fails. The story loses focus as to what the brothers wanted in the first place, especially JC played by Billy Crudup.
All of the actors are great, but Jennifer Connelly made the movies worth watching she draws the audience with her mishievous and tempetous Eleanor. If she was ever cast as a villain she would be the pitch perfect but so far in her career this is as close as she gets to playing bad and she does with such a subtle hint of seduction that as an audience member it is mindboggling when the writer director whoever decided to yank her character 30 minutes in. A shame a true shame.
What we are left with is a skeleton of a movie till the end when Joaquin Phoenix's character Doug returns to his primary motivation and the story gets back on track.
This movie isn't bad. IT is entertaining and watchable but is is so disappointing to think what could have been/\.
Rating:
Summary: Once Eleanor leaves...
Review: This movie has so much potential and to tell you the truth when it's on T.v or when I feel like watching something familiar it is still something I watch. The problem is that with so much potential the story fails. The story loses focus as to what the brothers wanted in the first place, especially JC played by Billy Crudup.
All of the actors are great, but Jennifer Connelly made the movies worth watching she draws the audience with her mishievous and tempetous Eleanor. If she was ever cast as a villain she would be the pitch perfect but so far in her career this is as close as she gets to playing bad and she does with such a subtle hint of seduction that as an audience member it is mindboggling when the writer director whoever decided to yank her character 30 minutes in. A shame a true shame.
What we are left with is a skeleton of a movie till the end when Joaquin Phoenix's character Doug returns to his primary motivation and the story gets back on track.
This movie isn't bad. IT is entertaining and watchable but is is so disappointing to think what could have been/\.
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