Rating: 
Summary: Awful, awful, awful
Review: Every director has one movie that they want to make, but shouldn't. For Miguel Arteta, that movie was the extremely unfortunate Chuck & Buck. Never mind that the transfer from the harsh original digital video presentation is of usual substandard Artisan quality- the reason for Chuck's character's psychoses is never examined....the characters are therefore left as standard stereotypes that are as deep as a mud puddle. Plotwise, it meanders and never comes to any kind of rational conclusion. The acting is tedious & drab, which is exceptionally depressing given Mike White's talent.The most appalling aspect of this movie? The overall lesson learned is that if you stalk a person long and hard enough, regardless of how often they tell you to leave them alone, you will finally win them over. Oh, well done.
Rating: 
Summary: sit through the painfully slow start, it'll be worth it.
Review: After bucks mother dies he sets out on a mission to reintegrate his childhood buddy chuck back into his life. while chuck has a very adult life buck has remained eerily stagnant and hasn't changed too much since the pair last met at age eleven. there are a few aspects of this former friendship that chuck wants to keep covered, esp. from his fiance but it is exactly these secrets that buck wants to rekindle. buck wears blinders for most of the film. he sees chuck as the only road to happiness while chuck is simply refuses to acknowledge the past for fear of its consequences in his chic LA lifestyle. he is perhaps most afraid of buck because he remembers the events and feelings that transpired in the magical and isolated childhood dome just as clearly as buck. both must make a choice about how to deal with fear and life, whether to keep going or hide in the past or the present. arteta does a great job creating the tension and the conflict while the viewer can somehow find empathy for weitz' strange character buck. great direction, great acting, an indie classic.
Rating: 
Summary: Chuck n Buck Know How to Muck and Ruck
Review: Great movie. Very different. It explores a side of childhood many have been through, but many do not talk about as adults. Chuck and Buck do! Very brave, funny, cutting edge, and real. If you are homophobic, skip it.
Rating: 
Summary: fair movie, terrible transfer
Review: Well, this movie isn't quite what I expected, especialy since it was categorized a comedy. I read the reviews when the movie came out, and they were terrific, so i decided to pick it up. First of all, let me get my technical concerns out of the way. This film was shot on DV, and it looks a lot worse than I would expect. I know DV can look a lot better, even little hand held prosumer DV cameras like Lars von Trier used in the 100 camera musical sequences of "Dancer in the Dark." Even well shot Hi-8 should look better than this. Anyway, given that it was shot in DV I would also have expected the transfer to have been much better than it was, Given that the extra step of digitizing the film has been removed. Instead we see a lot of artefacting which suggests a real lack of attention while compressing & encoding the video to fit on a DVD. One huge problem is that skin tones frequently block up into large patches of yellow, making the characters faces look jaundiced. Another problem is that much of this film was shot in real life situations, with real life lighting, and frequently the contrast level between ambient sunlight/lamplight and shadows is too great to hold detail, and so we have highlights being blown out and shadows blocking up. Hey, I know it's an indie, but it seems a little silly to use a 60 watt desk lamp as your primary light source. It can't be too difficult to set up a simple studio light, location or not. This sort of problem should have been immediately identified and rectified while shooting the film, since you can see the finished product immediately after you shoot instead of waiting for the dailies or anything like that. It just seems plain sloppy (or ultra-low budget, which this film isn't), to me. On a final note, one reviewer said that this DVD isn't letterboxed, but it is letterboxed (and anamorphic, too). As for the movie itself, I certainly wouldn't call it a comedy. Sure, there are sections that are funny, but the issues are serious and the tone is much more dramatic. The characters seem fairly true to me, and I don't think that any of them act in truly unexpected or unbelieveable ways. A number people have said they found Chuck's reactions to be strange, but they seem quite realistic to me. It is understandable that he doesn't go to the police or tell his wife about Buck... the simple fact of the matter is that he doesn't want anyone to know about his nascent homosexual experiences with Buck, so he's not likely to go around provoking Buck or telling his wife about it (especially since he still seems to have homosexual tendencies, if his later aquiescence to Buck's propositioning is any indication). Some have derided the misogynistic attitude adopted (by Buck)towards Chuck's wife, but she really comes accross as quite sympathetic in my mind. Buck isn't intended to be a symapthetic character, as some people seem to think. He is intended to be a real character, good and bad, just like Chuck. I don't think we neccessarily love either of them, but we don't hate them either because we can understand what they are feeling (or at least we are allowed to understand them, though it sems that not everyone who watches the movie does) and why they behave the way they do. Their lives aren't simple, they face dilemmas and make difficult decisions just as we do, and they are as flawed as any of us. Well, it seems as though the movie itself is pretty good, but I only give it 3 stars because for me film is an intensely visual medium, and this film is very lacking from a visual standpoint. The cinematography is uninteresting, the transfer is terrible, I don't think the acting was all that great (though the scripting made the characters believeable), and I'm not sure that the storyline is all that appealing to me (though, as I say, the story was well executed for what it was).
Rating:
Summary: An Indie Film That Tests Your Patience
Review: This is one strange film and if you are an "indie" fan, you may like it. My point is that films should make you feel something and this one does more than that. Homosexuality is not the issue here. Child-like stalking and innocence beyond belief are the mainstay concerns. I did feel uncomfortable, empathic, uneasy, sorrowful, giddy and weird all over. This is a real-life movie and that's why people are so squirmish about it. The end will satisy anyone - creepy or normal to the hilt. It is a rare slice of life and sometimes we don't like being reminded that we have a mentally disabled relative.
Rating:
Summary: Some People Just Don't Get It (But Keep Trying)
Review: I had seen this movie through a recommendation of a friend 1-2 years ago. I loved it. I am not going to go in depth about my take on the movie since many people have done a superb job (and my memory is terrible). My response is only to the people who I saw rating this movie poorly (probably US viewers, as someone pointed out). It is probably very challenging to the US consciousness. I noticed that a lot of these reviewers seem to be looking for "direction," substance, a "root" cause, or point of the movie. This audience is probably more use to watching the typical Hollywood-- conservative, repetitive, and mind numbing (instant gratification, 1+1 = 2) movie. I hope, however, that people will remain open to films such as "Chuck & Buck" to see how the formula that Hollywood follows is not the framework that all movies function by. One does not, for instance, need to identify and invest in the characters they are "watching."
Rating:
Summary: The most painful experience of my life
Review: Watching Chuck and Buck was, without a doubt, the most painful experience of my life. Walking on a broken leg in the forrests of southeast Asia for two weeks was certainly more enjoyable than this movie! Everyone involved in the making of this movie, from the writers, to the directors, and even actors, should feel a great sense of shame for unleashing this monsterous creation onto an unsuspecting public. I am surprised no one has notified the Hague in order to put the creators of this movie on trial for human rights violations. Whatever you do, do not see this movie, if you see it at the rental store, walk out immediately! If a friend invites you over to watch it, crawl into bed, assume the fetal position, and wait for further developments. This movie is more than bad, it is painful, it is psychologically scarring. it is two hours of you life you can never get back, and you will wish you could.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm still waiting to start laughing
Review: I'm glad I didn't have to pay money to rent this movie! I don't see how this movie was "entertaining" in the sense. I pitied Chuck's fiancee and how she was portrayed as "evil" by Buck because she was getting married to Chuck. The whole "women are evil, don't marry/date them because they'll break us apart" thing is beginning to get quite old and played out. I don't find the humor in making fun of sheltered people with psychological problems. Mental illness is nothing to make fun of. I also don't see the humor in making fun of suppressed homosexual feelings.
Rating:
Summary: I Loved this movie. It drew me in! :-)
Review: I loved this movie. It really made me think of my childhood and my best friend. It is hard to believe that as you get older, you realize how simple things are when you are a kid. I recommend this movie, highly, to everyone. Have fun:-)
The song in the movie, that runs throughout, is so weird, but catchy. Oodley, Odley, Oo!
Rating:
Summary: Many Things, but NOT a Comedy
Review: I don't know how or why this movie keeps being classified as a comedy. Other than a few humorous lines, I don't find it particularly funny. I don't find it particularly enjoyable either. The plot centers around Chuck (Chris Weitz), a man in his late 20s who has never really grown up. He responds to the world like a 12 year old. I don't think he's intended to be mentally challenged. It's played more as a case of arrested development. When his mother dies, he reaches out to the one other person in the world to whom he can relate, his best friend Buck (scriptwriter Mike White). Chuck and Buck were inseparable as kids, but since high school, Buck has moved on. He now works for a recording agency in L.A. Chuck (who seems to have money, but I'm not sure where or how. He doesn't appear to have a job. His mother was sick for years, so she wasn't working. So where the money came from, I don't know) moves to L.A. to be closer to Buck and to resume their friendship. He pretty much becomes a stalker. It's not funny. Okay, so when they were kids, Chuck and Buck had a sexual relationship at Buck's instigation. The movie is not clear as to whether or not this is the root of Chuck's arrested development. Chuck has never gotten over that relationship. Buck is engaged to be married to a woman, the relationship with Chuck having been nothing more than kids' stuff in his mind. There is terrific material for a moving and powerful movie here, but Mike White as a writer doesn't rise to the occasion. He seems to go out of his way to avoid dealing with the issue of Buck's possible responsibility for the man Chuck has become (or never become). And that is the root of my problem with this movie. There is no authorial or directorial point of view on these characters. I have no idea what the creators want us to think or feel about them. Personally, I find myself not liking any of them. It's not necessary to like any or all of the characters in a movie in order to enjoy it (think "Citizen Kane"), but there has to be some connection made between the characters and the audience. I found myself curious about the ramifications of Buck and Chuck's childhood relationship, but as the creators never deal with it, there was nothing to hold the movie together in my mind. Stuff happens and then it ends--there's no real story in the traditional sense. The movie was shot with digital cameras and looks it. The lighting changes from shot to shot and because of the use of real locations, there are many sequences that look incredibly claustrophobic because there was little room on the location for the actors, camera, and crew. The DVD is not letterboxed. The commentary from Mike White and director Miguel Artega does not offer any insight into what they were trying to say or accomplish with the characters. There are plenty of other extras on the DVD, but I have not explored them as the movie (after three viewings) has failed to inspire me enough to dig any deeper. This is a DVD that I have every intention of culling from my collection. A movie of similar interest (and impact): "Ghost World"
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