Love Is All You Need (2013)

Chick Flick Alert! "Den skaldede frisør" (English captions) is a Danish film about a hairdresser who has been fighting breast cancer. After a partial mastectomy and chemo, she gets the all-clear, but comes home only to discover her husband having a fling with a co-worker. Problem is, next week they are flying from Denmark to Italy for their daughter's wedding. Of course Dean Martin's "That's Amore" underscores the opening credits.

Writer Suzanne Bier ("After the Wedding" terrific by the way!) directed this award-winning romance that features:

* Trine Dyrholm ("The Royal Affair") is Ida, the bald hairdresser (nice wig though) who has to confront one serious upset after another. She's the mother of the bride.

* Pierce Brosnan ("The Ghost Writer") is Philip, a highly successful international trader of fresh fruits and vegetables. It's his Italian villa where the wedding party convenes. He's the widowed father of the groom.

* Sebastian Jessen ("Almost Perfect") is Patrick, the groom...but he's starting to wonder....

* Molly Blixt Egelind ("Rebounce") is Astrid, the bride. The groom's wondering is making her start to wonder...

* Paprika Steen ("Keep the Lights On") is Benedikte, the worst sister-in-law EVER!

Things get off to a bad start when the mother of the bride backs her car into the father of the groom's car at the airport in Copenhagen. Then they are on the same flight but HER luggage gets lost. Finally, her wandering husband brings along his new sweetheart to Italy because she missed her flight back to Denmark. (She introduces herself as his "fiancée.")

I'll bet you have it all figured out, don't you? Well, you don't. I love it when things become unpredictable, and they do! Expect no sweaty bodies, gunshots, vehicular mayhem or blowie uppie stuff. In fact the biggest villain is that philandering husband.

BTW, Brosnan just gets more appealing as the years go by. He's far better now than when he was 'Bond'ing with the world. Yum! Amazon will notify me when the DVD is available.

and it's a 3/12 star charmer. Won't repeat details, thanks to the Jay B Lane review. Just want to add that the scenery (Sorrento, Italy) is gorgeous! Saw it on a cold, gloomy day in June, and it was a day brightener. The mix of Danish and English languages seemed very natural to me. The actors stirred the pot of emotions nicely, and oh, that sister-in-law! The movie had lots of little "moments," and the kinds of relationship messes that humans tend to create for themselves. Glad I went to Sorrento with Pierce and the gang.

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I saw this movie at a screening and was able to speak with Pierce and Trine. It is a delightful story with one of the bravest performances I have ever witnessed from Trine Dyrholm. Yes, it's quiet and simple but it's ever so honest and beautiful. I have deep affection for both Denmark and Italy so this was a love letter for me, personally.

FYI: Trine shaved her head for this so the scenes of her hair regrowth would be real. There is an even braver choice she made in this film. Trine is truly wonderful and I will be looking for any work that she does in the future. The rest of the cast was spot on and that adds up to brilliant direction by Susanne Bier.

I am so thrilled to have found the DVD for sale.

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How odd that this film is only available with Italian subtitles this summer-- even in Denmark (Susanne Bier's film)?? We have seen it at festivals with English subtitles and it was released months ago in Canada and Europe--why will it not be available until fall except with Italian subtitles????

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This Italian-issued DVD is useless for English-speaking viewers. Much of the film is in Danish and Italian, and there are no English subtitles for these sequences. The only subtitles there are in Italian, and they are forced (unremovable), so the entire film is visually marred. A very unpleasant, disappointing experience--why don't sellers inform us up front about these shortcomings?

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Firefox / Heartbreak Ridge (Two-Movie Collection) (2011)

Please describe the audio and video quality of any Blu-Ray you review. Thanks to those who do this.

Both movies have DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtracks, which are very good.

Video quality varied throughout the movies. Firefox started out very good, and had a lot of very good parts, but some parts were grainy. The flying scenes at the end were, unfortunately, grainy. Heartbreak Ridge also had some very good parts, and some grainy parts. Video quality in these two movies wasn't great, but mostly good.

Overall, these are pretty good movies, and I'm not terribly disappointed with the video quality. I'm satisfied with this purchase.

I have always been a huge fan of Firefox, lumping it in with Hunt for Red October for my "superior Russian tech we must steal" flicks. I was surprised at out crisp the blu-ray transfer is and really enjoyed watching it for the first time in a few years.

The sound design/mix is of particular interest to me the soundscape they engineered for this film is exceptional. At no time during the plane visual effects sequences do you feel like you are listening to a post-produced "mix" it registers as very real for me, which is great because the model effects don't always hold up as I would like them to.

Great price point and two movies to boot (still have to check out Heartbreak Ridge). Enjoy!

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I'm happy to report that the somewhat misleading use of the term "2 movie set", while true, is less informative than '2 Disc Set'. Yes indeed this is a 2 disc set, not '1' as widely speculated prior to release (also shown as '1 disc' on Amazon's product page).

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As for the Firefox movie it's a great movie and so is Heartbreak Ridge. It's better quality over the old copy I have and as for the sound well let's just say it's not really 5.1DDS. It's better than the original 2chnl dvd with better picture quality. So yes it is better..! If your that much of a stickler for sound and picture quality then don't buy this. But if you want better than vhs or old dvd then buy it and I bet you'll like it over the old original old stuff.

I love these movies and Firefox was a great movie and still is..

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The movie "Firefox" alone is worth the price. It has whatever you like; thrills, action, suspense, intrigue the whole enchilada. It qualifies as one of my "best." Having the second film is icing on the cake. "Heartbreak Ridge" is not as good but it holds up and is worth watching. If you are an Eastwood fan, this is whoopee time.

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Friends with Kids (2012)

I never write reviews. But I felt the need to defend this one because it's REALLY REALLY GOOD. Jennifer Westfeldt is wonderful. Adam Scott too. The supporting cast manages to pull off rich, 3-dimensional characters with little screen time because all characters are well-drawn and well-cast.

Think "When Harry Met Sally." There is no fake orgasm scene, but you do drop in and out of these people's lives as they inch closer toward each other and further away. Toward the end, I half expected Billy Crystal to show up and say "I came here tonight because when you realize that you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

It might not be what people are used to in terms of a "romantic comedy" (or what passes for one today). Instead, it's engaging and true-to-life. I smiled more than I laughed, but I smiled a lot.

I really tried to like this movie. It seemed to have the potential to win me over and I thought that in the last 5 minutes it was going to successfully warm my heart. As it turned out, the last 1 minute put such a rotten taste in my mouth that I wish that I could have those entire 108 minutes of my life back.

First off, I must disclaim that I am not a prude. I am a progressive man who understands that we live in modern times and I find validity in all sorts of relationship variants, family structure types, and believe that they all carry currency and have the potential to provide a meaningful, satisfactory life. With all that said, I must admit: this movie really disappointed me.

The entire premise of the film is superficial and the male main character, Jason (Adam Scott), is particularly irritatingly hollow. His world is viewed only through the lens of his sexual conquests. I found it totally uninteresting and certainly not worth the time spent on screen exploring this one-dimensional worldview. Next, the movie does everything in its power to create an awkward tension between Jason and Julie throughout the ENTIRE film, and then we are left to imagine it all working out in the last few moments that this tension magically resolves and they live happily ever after? Great care was taken to paint a realistic picture of parenthood (albeit, quite stereotypical, to be fair), a realistic view of the complexity of long term friendships between couples, and then, in the final moments of the film, we're delivered a COMPLETELY fake and forced resolution. Just when it seems Jason is going to finally "get it" -that meaningful relationships are not merely about sex and that initial passions eventually morph into long term mutual respect and partnership -he offers, as a symbol of his commitment to Julie, to "F" the "S" out of her (insert crude language here). In that situation, would anyone actually ever say that? I don't think so.

There are plenty of great films who succeed at being both 'comedy' and 'drama'. However, in my opinion, this film is simply not one of them.

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I don't want to put a spoiler here so I won't say anything about the ending. Sends a bad message.

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I was really excited about this movie because of the cast and was extremely disappointed. The language is terrible throughout the movie. (I am not a prude, but F every other word jars me a bit.)

It was also a bit depressing if you are looking for a comedy. Just be warned.

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I would really love to know why a movie that is in fact a drama would advertise itself as a comedy? The moviegoer, in this case, me, settles in to expect to laugh, especially with the cast of Friends with Kids but instead waits......and waits......and waits for the funny. The funny never comes. So the viewer gets disappointed and ends up thinking it's going to end up on her "most hated movies" list when really if they would have advertised it as a drama she would have approached it as such and could have made her determination based on the movie being serious....but, nooooooooo, she just gets to watch a really unfunny comedy.

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Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

Safety Not Guaranteed is a quirky love story that sucks you in the second it starts.

The story is about a team of 3 journalists (Aubrey Plaza, Jake M. Johnson, and Karan Soni) who decide to write a story about a man who is seeking someone to travel with him back in time. He doesn't say where he's going or why, but the ad he writes is interesting enough for the story. Besides a wonderful subplot, thats basically the story. Its funny, cute, and above all else brutally honest. Our three journalists are all in someways emotionally damaged or emotionally distant, and watching these characters grow is a wonderful and move beyond their troubles is pure joy. Mark Duplass as Kenneth, the one who wrote the ad, is fantastic. He does such a good job with the character that about halfway through the movie, you begin to question if he really does know how to travel back in time or not. Aubrey Plaza as the one who gets close to him also does a great job, a character worth rooting for and one that by the end may have you holding back a few tears. Karan Soni plays the lovable geek while Jake Johnson has a subplot involving a past lover that is as heart wrenching as it is funny.

This movie is so beautifully simple that I can't recommend it enough. The performances are great, the music is wonderful, and the story is all being told in front of a beautiful backdrop (mostly filmed in or around Seattle).

5 stars.

This is a great gem of a movie that has all the tell tale markings of a sleeper hit. I have to say this film made me realize how jaded I've grown toward independent films. Having seen the trailer, I expected to be entertained and enjoy the film, but I was sure that I was beyond its warm and fuzzy sentiments I never expected to fall so hard for this movie.

It was absolutely lovely to watch a film that both my teenage son and I could enjoy that has great characters, plot, dialogue and direction. Not to mention heart, warmth, and a refreshing lack of violence and nudity. The film walks a fine line, yet never falls into the realm of the sappy, cliché, or bland family film. This is the kind of film that shows you how delightful it is to be surprised and charmed by everyday reality.

Highly Recommended!

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Safety may not be guaranteed when you travel through time, but I can safely guarantee that this is an excellent movie. I ,on a whim, just decided to buy Safety Not Guaranteed through Amazon Instant Video. The performances are just great in this movie especially Mark Duplass (The League) as Kenneth and Aubrey Plaza (Parks & Recreation) as Darius. Mark Duplass really shows what he can do as an actor in this movie as he plays a completely different character than Pete from the League. Kenneth is introverted and highly intelligent, but also is a bit crazy in an endearing way. There is also some good side story stuff featuring Jake Johnson (New Girl) and Karan Soni (Worst.Prom.Ever.) where Karan's character Arnau convinces Johnson's Jeff to give a girl a chance even if she looks different than she did twenty years ago. This movie is just so well acted, directed (Colin Trevorrow), and written (Derek Connolly) . There is a lot of deeper thoughts and feelings especially regarding the reasons for going back in time and the relationship that forms between Darius and Kenneth. There are also some great heartfelt moments and just as many fun moments. The ending is also not what you'd expect, and it was awesome. I absolutely loved this movie, and it's the best indie movie I've seen a while. GO BUY THIS NOW!

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An ad appears in the paper:

"Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. Safety not guaranteed."

Jeff (Jake Johnson from "New Girl"), an assistant editor for a magazine convinces his editor to let him and his two interns Arnau and Darius (Aubrey Plaza from "Parks and Recreation") try and find the person who placed the ad as there might be something there about which an article can be written. She agrees.

It turns out he has an ulterior motive, his old girl friend lives there and he wants to see if you can go home again. One of many subplots, this adds depth but is not the main focus of the film. They find the author of the ad, but he spots the assistant editor as a ringer right away. They then send in the incredibly withdrawn intern Darius and in an unconventional way, they bond.

Although the question of whether or not he can build a time machine is answered, I'm not going to reveal that here. That's OK; you see, It Doesn't Matter. This is not a movie about time travel. It's about what happens to all these people in the process of finding out.

I can't say enough good about this film. Well acted, well directed, good story, the whole thing. I can say that almost everyone will be thoroughly delighted. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes bittersweet, sometimes joyful, sometimes philosophical, always charmingly offbeat, this movie is a unique treasure.

I also can't say enough about what a pleasant surprise this movie is. It grossed less than $4 million so far, it's not the "Dark Knight" after all, so there is a whole world out there that hasn't yet experienced this gem. Become one of them. This is HIGHLY recommended.

A recommendation: Get the DVD vs. the Blu-Ray. This is a small indie film, and neither the video nor the audio are going to benefit that much from Blu-Ray. So, as long as they do a decent DVD transfer (and if they don't it's unlikely they'd be able to afford to do so on the Blu-Ray), I wouldn't endorse the 25% surcharge for Blu, especially given how well players upscale DVDs.

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The last we heard of the Duplass Brothers (Jay and Mark), they brought us "Jeff, WHo Lives at Home". Now comes this, which is co-produced by the Duplass brothers and others, and which stars Mark Duplass.

"Safety Not Guaranteed" (86 min.) is based on a real ad which appeared in a magazine, looking for a time travel mate, "please bring your own weapons, safety not guaranteed". From that writer Derek Connolly made up this story. In its very essence, a journalist and 2 interns from Seattle Magazine go out to Ocean View, WA, to find out who placed the ad (which turns out to be Kenneth, played by Mark Duplass), and why. One of the interns, Darius (played by Aubrey Plaza) poses as the time traveler-wanna be. Apart from this main story line, there are several parallel lines, one involving the magazine reporter looking up a HS girlfriend, now 20 years later. Duplass plays Kenneth straight up and you cannot tell whether the guy really believes that he can time travel, or whether he's just putting us on. That is one of the movie's biggest strenghts as it keeps the interest in the plot. That said, I was a bit let down by the ending, which came with a number of things unexplained, or worse, simply not believable.

This is a quirky little movie that is mostly entertaining. The acting performances are great, in particular from Mark Duplass and Aubrey Plaza. Kudos also for the excellent soundtrack from Ryan Miller. Make sure to stick around to the very end, as "Big Machine", a song that Duplass briefly plays solo in the movie, plays in full band mode as the end credits roll, and it's a fantastic tune (performed by/credited to Ryan Miller and Mark Duplass). This movie is MILES away from your standard Hollywood fare, but if you are in the mood for a good indie movie, I'd readily recommend "Safety Not Guaranteed".

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Out of Sight (1998)

George Clooney stars with Jennifer Lopez in this excellent and entertaining romantic heist movie, unfortunately much overlooked and poorly promoted on its theatrical release. Based on the novel by Elmore Leonard and superbly and subtly directed by Steven Soderbergh. George Clooney (as bank robber Jack Foley) and Jennifer Lopez (as Federal Marshall Karen Sisco) light up the screen with previously unparalleled sexual chemistry in the movie that finally launched their big screen careers to the A list, after previous false starts (such as The Peacemaker and The Money Train respectively). Also boasting a very impressive supporting cast that includes Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Steve Zahn, Albert Brooks, Dennis Farina (as Jennifer Lopez father) and great cameos from Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson, movies really don't get much better than this.

Principally this is the story of serial bank robber Jack Foley and Federal Marshall Karen Sisco, on opposite sides of the law but inescapably attracted to each other. When Jack escapes from prison aided by his friend Buddy (Rhames) he ends up in the trunk of a car with the kidnapped Karen Sisco (Lopez) after she nearly foils the prison break. However, thanks to their inept friend Glenn Michaels (Zahn), Karen escapes and Jack and Buddy have to go on the run. Meanwhile, Karen Sisco is hot on Jack's trail in more ways than one in this brilliantly played, beautifully written, excellently directed movie. This has everything I love about movies, a great story, great cast and great style. Truly unmissable and well worthy of five stars.

When I finally got my DVD player this was the first one I bought. Why? Because not only is the film spectacular but this DVD has a host of fabulous extras that very few DVD's can match. The story and characters are all well thought out and I never felt that this film made a misstep. I never write reviews for these kinds of things but I read that one person felt that this film was unoriginal and I just had to say my piece. If anything this film is completely original. I am a film major and have been in school studying film for almost four years, trust me when I say this film is deserving of its praise and it has a lot of it.

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Out Of Sight is yet another movie based on an Elmore Leonard book. Mr. Leonard's books are always full of colorful characters and sharp dialogue and unfortunately that many times doesn't transfer to the screen. This movie is another story. Steven Soderbergh has taken the true spirit of the book and captured it in this movie. The movie is interspersed with flashbacks and this allows us to see how characters got to certain points in the film. The film revolves around bank robber Jack Foley (George Clooney) and FBI agent Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez). Foley breaks out of a Florida prison and comes into contact with Karen as his accomplices hijack her and her car. She and Foley are put in the truck and the conversation between the two of them is scintillating. They let her go unharmed and she is on the case tracking him, but she finds that she has feelings for him. There are some great plot twists that I won't give away and the movie ends in surprising fashion. This movie showed that George Clooney had big screen star potential as his understated, cool persona is perfect for this role. Jennifer Lopez burns up the screen with sexy charm. The supporting players include the always solid Ving Rhames, a sinister Don Cheadle and a hysterical Steven Zahn. Out Of Sight is a fast-paced, well-crafted and completely entertaining movie.

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Out of Sight, wow. What a movie, it literally blew me away. Steven Soderbergh is such a great director, if I were Elmore Leonard I wouldn't have trusted anyone else to handle it. And Scott Frank, what can I say? His writing speaks for itself, quite literally. George Clooney was as cool as the steel edge of a magnum .357. He could have put both Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin to shame with one quick glance. And by his side? The slinky, ever-sexy Jennifer Lopez. She melts the screen and everyone that stands or sits around her. Her character was Mickey Spillane's wet dream. Steve McQueen and Faye Dunnaway once turned a chess game into a steamy, erotic rendevous in the Thomas Crown Affair. Clooney and Lopez do a little bit of history repeating, this time in her trunk. One a bank robber who has just escaped from Glades Prison in Florida and is greased in mud and sweat. The other a U.S. Marshall packing a shotgun and a .38 snuggly planted on her thigh. The combination of the two is explosive. This film is a must see. What more is there to say, it's the next best thing to perfection. Watch it and love it! Just don't get burned by the fireworks!

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I walked out of "Out of Sight" dumbfounded. What a great movie! And yet it bombed at the box office. What a world . . . I enjoyed every moment of "Out of Sight"from the music, to the acting, to the story, to the direction. Based on a novel by the same title by Elmore Leonard, "Out of Sight" is part heist film, part love story.

George Clooney has been mocked for leaving "ER", probably unfairly. Okay, so his choice of roles has been pretty much awful ("From Dusk 'Til Dawn", "Batman & Robin", "The Peacemaker"), but here he finally gets good material to work from and turns in a magnificent performance. Dare I say it? It's an Oscar-caliber performance. As Jack Foley he underplays the role to perfection. Clooney is cool, calm and totally in control. Great job.

I didn't much care for Jennifer Lopez's Karen Sisco, but Ving Rhames fans will be delighted to see him in a wonderful supporting role as Clooney's friend and confidant Buddy. Rhames is a great actor who doesn't get his due often enough.

Another big surprise is Don Cheadle's performance as Snoopy. He's a terrific villain: angry, threatening, unpredictable. Along with Rhames, Cheadle is a great actor who does not get enough attention.

I throughly enjoyed the direction on the part of Stephen Soderbergh, who brings a different perspective to this movie than to most I've seen. The movie has the courage to jump around from place-to-place, making the assumption the audience will keep up. I like that in a movie.

A great film. Highly recommend.

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This Must Be the Place (2011)

If you're impatient or impervious to the charms of Sean Penn, most likey you'll be unamused. On the other hand, a film whose resume also boasts Frances McDormand, Harry Dean Stanton, Judd Hirsch and a trifecta of performances (live music, a soundtrack and acting) from David Byrne deserves at least an interview.

Even so, it comes very close to blowing the interview, taking an age to answer straightforward questions, seeming distracted, needlessly self-involved and with little interest, at first, in impressing the beholder.

But it does warm up a bit.

To give some sense of both the film's glacial slowness and its self-indulgence, at its mid-point it halts for a five minute intermezzo in which David Byrne and his group perform the title song, in its entirety, live in concert. Apropos nothing, slap-bang in the middle of the film. Now it's a good song, well performed and imaginatively staged (extraordinarily staged, really), but still it is out of all context and has the effect of staunching what gentle narrative current had begun to flow.

Cheyenne (Penn) is an elderly piece of gothic jetsam, washed up from the new-wave scene of the early Eighties. He hasn't played since, yet still mopes around his Dublin castle bedecked in black and with all the boyish accoutrements a wiser man might have put away years before: Black fright wig, white face paint, red lipstick and knee high platform boots.

In other words, he resembles Robert Smith, only older. The cruel would see a flash of Bono in there too. When Cheyenne puts on his half-moon reading spectacles and distractedly blows at a Gothic lock, he even looks like Shirley Williams might, were she the lead singer of the Damned.

Cheyenne rattles around his castle with his firefighter wife Jane (McDormand) and a dog with a funnel on its head. They have an open house, in and out of which flow irregulars: a T'ai-Chi expert, a young singer toting a demo CD he wants Cheyenne to produce and Mary, an under-explained goth teenager who operates like the daughter Cheyenne and Jane never had. Mary isn't half as under-explained as her mother, though, who sits smoking in her room in a bedsit in the shadow of Aviva Stadium (which waggish locals, I gather, call the "Palindrome"!) and staring wordlessly down the street every day. She seems to have some relation to Cheyenne, but despite having read the production notes I couldn't tell you what it is, and I defy anyone watching without them not to be totally flummoxed.

All of this passes Cheyenne by in a hazy, laconic stupor. He slurps juice through a straw and doesn't smoke, so you suppose the drugs have long since done their work. He glumly wheels his trolley to the mall, passively copping mockery and abuse as if he were carrying a cross. Which, of course, he is.

Just as we're settling into this rather surreal Irish kitchen-sink drama, we find out more about that cross. It's a cross of iron. Cheyenne's estranged father, back home in New York, is dying. He embarks, slowly (by ocean liner, of course), to see him. He arrives too late. It turns out Cheyenne is the black sheep of an observant Jewish family. His dad was an Auschwitz survivor.

At this news, you may be thinking: "oh-oh". I certainly was. In any case, this unexpected new plot beat graunches the gears, but is neatly lubricated by David Byrne's bravura performance.

So begins Act II: in his father's death, Cheyenne finds the purpose that has been eluding him over half his life: to cast off his cross. He decides to track down the Auschwitz guard who tormented his father.

As a plot development, given all we know about Cheyenne, this isn't just improbable: it's preposterous. But the outcome isn't half as bad (cinematically) as it could be. Cheyenne borrows a pickup and sets off into America's great interior. He has traded his shopping trolley for a wheelie suitcase but kept the gothic garb, so be under no illusions: Cheyenne still has Baggage.

The undercurrent of Lynchian weirdness in the first half of the film thereby becomes explicit Cheyenne's meandering progress and the oddballs he meets would not be out of place in The Straight Story (in which Alvin Straight journeys across the Midwest on a lawnmower). While this film isn't half as accomplished, there are some beautiful touches and a couple of moments of excellent slapstick (one involving a speed rollerblader in Central Park is worth the price of admission alone). The photography capturing the wide-open beauty of Utah, often through a super-wide angle lens at ankle level, is often arresting.

The Nazi theme is never over-egged: it is a Macguffin of sorts, not a driving theme of the film. The final confrontation with the ancient (and, as they go, relatively innocuous) camp guard is deftly handled. There is a startling denouement which has as much to say about the instinct for revenge as it does about the Nazi atrocities.

Penn is very good throughout as Cheyenne: a tough character to play without comic exaggeration, and it must have been challenging to Penn to hold such loosely-knit film together with such an unenergetic role. He succeeds surprisingly well.

This Must Be The Place won't blow the box office, and it is hard to see it finding unqualified critical support, but it has many bright moments and some surprisingly tender ones.

Olly Buxton

Flickfeast

Never heard of this movie and stumbled across it. If you like unusual movies this is one for you! It is a story about a rock star who never grew up. Or anyone who never grew up!! Really great story! Sean Penn was great! Not a mainstream movie! Which is why we LOVED it!! Must watch!

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This is a really, really good film. Sean Penn carries it all the way, but the supporting actors are perfect too. If I had had to say what the movie is about (without giving away the plot), it's about kindness. What makes it work so well is the authenticity and innocence of Penn's character. "Do you like tattoos?" asks a tattooed man drinking next to him in a bar. "I'm not sure" replies 'Penn', "I was just asking myself the same question a moment ago when I was looking at you." And so it goes. It's a great and happy film. See it!

Read Best Reviews of This Must Be the Place (2011) Here

Sean Penn embodies a retired rock star who is human in every way. The expressions, voice and mannerisms that Penn employ are are spot-on for this flawed, imperfect character and unlike any I've seen him use in previous films. This is a great film about love and relationships an soul searching.

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Sean Penn turns in an amazing performance as an aging, damaged 80s glam rock star who is stuck in that persona. But the scary persona belies the soft-spoken, warm-hearted creature he has become. The death of his father leads him on a quest of discovery. Like an onion, the layers of this film are pealed back to reveal what is below. This is a film I will watch multiple times.

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Life as We Know It (2010)

Hollie and Messer, set-up by best friends Allison and Peter, meet, share a disaster of a non-date and develop an intense hatred for each other. Then Allison and Peter get married and have a baby, forcing Hollie and Messer to be subjected to each other often. Glimpses of Hollie and Messer and their interaction flash on the screen as this relationship that ties them together unfolds. Finally, a laughing moment is shared at Baby Sophie's 1st birthday party where a picture is taken with "Godparents," Hollie and Messer, who don't understand exactly what that term means.

Fast forward several weeks and Hollie and Messer meet up at the police station to discover that Allison and Peter have died in a horrific accident and that Sophie needs them. They discover how much as the rest of the story unfolds.

I really liked this film. I watched it with four friends and we all agreed that it was worth the investment. The main characters are three-dimensional and well-cast. Though not laugh out-loud funny in most scenes, there is enough humor thrown in to make the subject matter less intense. Not pure comedy, or drama, also not pure chick flick. Enough deep issues and emotions play out that the movie grabbed my emotions and heart.

A few cheesy moments make their way into the movie...one in particular is a drug thread that ends up falling flat, though it likely supposed to play as a light-hearted moment. There are a group of neighbors that add annoyingly funny moments throughout the film. Language is minimal, the F-Bomb makes few appearances, the most memorable is a whispered fight. Messer is a new-girl-a-night kind of a guy so there are plenty of comments about his tom-catting ways, though the sex scenes are minimal and primarily off-screen. Hollie is an uptight business owner who's rigidity makes for a few annoying minutes throughout the film as well. But overall the relationship between them ends up being respectful of families and love and this one will end up in my DVD library.

From my wife Sarah: From the previews I expected a silly slapstick romance, but found that this was a drama, romance and comedy rolled up into one movie. It had surprising depth, character and story development. It was kind of a believable story. There were times I was touched enough to be tearful, and there was some decent chemistry between the leads. There were some laughs as well.

It was good, but was it fantastic? Not so much. Honestly, it wasn't strong enough for me as either a comedy, romance or drama to be terrific. Regardless, it was entertaining, moving and worth seeing.

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At first I watched it because of the casts. But as the movie flows, I really think it has some depths in it. Not just some other romantic/comedy, this one we can actually relate to (and finally for once no sexual context, well just a little maybe. Which I find it refreshing). How new parents are behaving and adapt with their first child, is sometimes funny to watch but also heartfelt. Overall, this movie has some laughs, tears, and of course love. Can't wait for the DVD to come out!

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This movie has received more than its fair share of bad press. I went and saw this movie when it was in my local theater last summer. I think the major reason people are giving it bad reviews is that they are expecting the whole movie to consist of a mismatched couples attempt to raise a child to yield roll on the floor laughing moments. However, to truely understand this film, you have to look deep for the hidden meaning. I found that when you discover that the movie truly revolves around a child who's parents are killed and is left to be raised by two different people who really didn't want to be together, much less raise a child together, then you get the true spirit of the film. Once you understand this point of view you will truly enjoy this film for what it is, a coming of age story.

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I've read the negative reviews here and I really don't understand them at all... to each his/her own I suppose. I really enjoyed this movie, yes it is similar to other romantic comedies of the same formula (girl and guy despise each other initially but love grows out of it), but sometimes having the same recipe isn't a bad thing. Its like enjoying a chocolate chip cookie recipe like your Mom used to make, you can have them over and over and you still love it. This movie still made me laugh and cry, and I will continue to like romantic comedies even if they use the same formula. If you want a sweet, endearing, funny and yet emotional movie, this is the one for you. The chemistry between Katherine and Josh is fantastic.

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