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Visitors Review

moviebookchats 2012-05-22 10:06:32

Rib-tickling brain-food

Cold Souls - Sydney Film Festival, June 2009 The first drawcard of this film for me was character actor PaulGiamatti playing himself. His neurotic self-caricature testifies to theego-free professionalism of a true thespian. Let's call his scriptedself 'Screen-Giamatti' OR (S-G for short) to avoid confusion.The other draw was the high-concept premise: commercializedsoul-transfers as a shortcut over emotional hurdles. I was hoping for areturn to the territory of The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:light-fingered deployment of a fantastical idea for ambitious dramaticand intellectual game-playing. I was not disappointed. The film'srunning gag exploiting the absurdity of capital-S Souls being reducedto concrete commodities is comparable to Charlie Kauffman's deadpanweirdness for rib-tickling value. There are however some tellingdivergences in approach.Where Sunshine's Michel Gondry deployed inventive visual metaphors toshow inner-self goings-on, writer-director Sophie Barthes's filmremains agnostic about the profundities involved, portraying thesoul-transfers' effects rather. For example Screen-Giamatti'sscientifically-induced 'soullessness' surfaces in his vulgarizedchoices in tasteless clothes and insensitive conversation.Have you heard of the misdirecting convention of storytelling named theMcGuffin by Hitchcock? It means a supposedly fabled mystery or treasureis used drives the characters into action,but it is often swept underthe carpet once whatever drama the screenwriter really wants to presenthas upstaged it. The perennially disappointing McGuffin actually gets apay-off of sorts in Cold Souls.In Pulp Fiction the bloodily-defended briefcase was coyly hinted by theglowing aura of its unseen contents to hold a disembodied soul. In ColdSouls the quest is quite prosaically driven by Screen-Giamatti's questto retrieve his sold-on soul from a Russian starlet (who thinks sheacquired Al Pacino's). This plot offered abundant possibilities forspeculating on what a soul would carry with it to its new home, butthese sort of questions were left disappointingly unexplored.What did get taken to its conclusion was S-G's conflicted avoidance ofthe ample opportunities provided to him to gaze into his own internallandscape, fearing what horrors or banalities he may find. His finalshaky surrender to his own fathomless inner life was quite poignant, anunsentimental and ineffable portrayal of self-acceptance.This film's indirect presentation of the en-souled and the soul-less,kept me wondering what the creators were trying to say about suchdifferences. These are foregrounded whenever Screen-Giamatti's stagerehearsals of Chekhov are on display.Why does the self-pitying passivity of Uncle Vanya make for soulfulart, while a bit of gratifying slap-and-tickle does not? What is reallybeing lost, from individuals and their culture, under Russiangangster-capitalist's soul-stealing exploitation of their workforce? IsGiamatti's turn as a de-souled fashion-disaster a take on the UglyAmerican stereotype? Are a sense of humour and a reflectiveself-awareness really mutually exclusive? I look forward to a widerrelease of this film and the chance to discuss such questions withother interested posters.

2012-05-21 19:43:41

You need to consider the tax rate when storing your soul

This review is from: Cold Souls (DVD) Paul Giamatti has a bit of a problem. Yeah, that Paul Giamatti, you see While working on a play, he's struggling to get by. He can't quite figure out what's not right, but his agent thinks he has the answer - store your soul for awhile. Much like the memory erasing process in Eternal Sunshine, you're not really erasing who you are. Not totally. Just getting rid of some extra baggage. There may be some side effects as every soul is different who knows what those will be?This is NOT a movie for everyone. It's not really a comedy, not a drama, not an action flick. It just sort of is. The cover of of the DVD does paint it as the kind of comedy that will pretty much have you on the floor rolling. That's not what this is. Luckily I had an idea of what it was before I bought it and knew it was my kind of movie. Instead of what the cover depicts it as, it's actually one of those movies that has you questioning the impossible. Would you store your soul if the option did exist? It has you wondering will Paul get his soul back? At one point you start to wonder, should he even try to get it back? Etc. I don't want to go too far beyond that for fear I'd give away too much. I'm giving it 5 stars because it's totally my kind of movie. But be warned you'd really have to like movies like Eternal Sunshine, Being John Malkovich, I heart Huckabees, etc to like this one. If you want a movie that will have you laughing non stop or that will wrap things up with a nice little Hollywood bow at the end with no questions left unanswered, this isn't the movie for you.

tedg 2012-05-21 05:03:03

Hummus

This is depressing, because it is not merely bad, it stomps on somevery precious ideas.The fault is in trying to be Woody Allen; even he fails most of thetime. There is a deep concept here, but it is obscured by the attemptto wrap it in humor.The thing worth noticing:This is a film about performance. Actors have a cursed life in thatthey have to fill themselves by emptying themselves. The full life isthe life committed to potential waste. We are all actors. Theseconcepts first appeared in drama in the famous Vanya of Chekhov. "Vanyaon 42nd Street" changed that into a layered folding, making theconnection to life outside of the theater explicit.Here, Giamatti plays the role of Wallace Shawnin "Vanya on 42nd." David Strathairn plays the same role he did in the similar "Limbo,"while Dina Korzun adapts the Audrey Tautou role from "Dirty PrettyThings."Even the secondary characters are pulled from cold storage with LaurenAmbrose asked to stand in for the Alicia Witt role in "Liebestraum."All of those referenced films repackage Vanya's notions which are deepand disturbing, as suicidally disturbing as they were for the uncle. There is a way to handle this with humor, I am sure, but Barthes doesnot find it. She empties and does not fill.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Chad Shiira 2012-05-20 17:08:29

You say chickpea, I say garbanzo bean

After the surgery, Paul Giamatti resumes rehearsals for a stageproduction of Anton Chekov's "Uncle Vanya", in which this method actorperforms the part of the title character without his soul. No longerequipped emotionally to handle the burden of the merge between actorand role, Mr. Giamati had it removed, a hasty move he then regrets, inwhich the star of Alexander Payne's "Sideways" seems at a lost over hiscraft, as he alarms the cast and crew with this new, idiosyncraticinterpretation. Using a more classical approach to acting(classicalacting emphasizes external devices), Paul labors to get the right vocalintonations and facial gestures, and knows that his career is over.It's this very trade-off, sacrificing professional happiness forpersonal happiness, which had appealed to the miserabilist, early on in"Cold Souls", when he reads about soul storage in the pages of "The NewYorker". Prior to the fateful procedure, Paul seems like a potentialsuicide candidate, a man who prefers to eat alone and sleep alone, duein part to the consuming nature of the method process. Although "ColdSouls" never makes this point, it could be argued that Paul's decisionto go soulless was made under the presumption that he'd transition intoa different school of acting, without any problems.Unfortunately, this is not the case: his Russian is no good. Althoughthe sight of Mr. Giamatti playing Vanya in a purple hoody makes forgreat entertainment, this post-surgery scene doesn't quite makenarrative sense. After all, Paul had removed the essence of his talentvoluntarily because he could no longer deal with "the agony ofexistence". Since this rash action of soul removal amounts to careersuicide, it would be reasonable to deduce that the actor wasn't merelyforesaking the method process, but the acting profession itself. Thisis the direction that "Cold Souls" needed to take. Paul looks sotortured in the opening scenes, his discovery of "The New Yorker"article serves as a blessing, because this new science gives himanother option; he can kill his talent instead of killing himself. Hadthe, otherwise, smart film included a few scenes which showed Paul witha sunnier disposition, this potentially clearer delineation between theactor's former self and his altered state would have made his choice tobe soulful again, a more intriguing one. While the film contends thatPaul undergoes a soul transplant in order to restore his prodigiousacting prowess, the real reason(in my own mind), as suggested by theoriginal surgery, should have been that he missed acting. In themeantime, how about this for an idea: Paul could have been arepresentative for the company, counseling other unhappy method actorsinto having the procedure. For instance, soul storage might havebenefited the late Heath Ledger, who reportedly was haunted by his roleas The Joker in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight".Don't get me wrong: what transpires in "Cold Souls" is actually quiteinspired. Knocking it for being Charlie Kaufman seems unfair, since thefilmmaker takes great pains to acknowledge the influence of SpikeJonze's "Being John Malkovich", explicitly in a scene where Paul saysthat he doesn't want his soul to end up in New Jersey. The somber toneof the film helps normalize all the absurdities(soul-trafficking, theRussian soap opera actress, the chickpea) into plausibilities. My onlyobjection is that an actor of Paul Giamatti's caliber, wouldn't messaround with his acting ability, unless self-preservation was contingenton the removal of his soul.

mannyrsox24 2012-05-19 19:06:04

Impressive Giamatti Performance in Futuristic Dark Comedy

This dreamlike dark comedy starring Paul Giamatti is strangelyhilarious at times and at other times it is moving. Paul Giamatti whoplays himself in the film, is an actor in misery that is strugglingwith acting a soulful character in a Chekov play. He reads an articlein The New Yorker about a company that can extract souls and preservethem, so one can live without a soul. Giamatti being curious decides tocheck it out. David Strathairn plays the soul doctor and is hilarious.Giamatti's first visit is full of humorous dry jokes as he is convincedto have his soul extracted. After feeling hollow and empty without asoul, Giamatti decides to borrow the soul of a Russian poet.Unsatisfied, all he wants is his own soul back, however it has beenborrowed by the soap opera actress wife of a Russian mafioso. The waythe film is portrayed is very surreal and the director did an excellentjob capturing this feel. Giamatti steals the screen as he is humorousand yet can believably portray such complex emotion.

Murphy 2012-05-19 06:41:49

Uncle Olof

enjoy this movie, suspension of disbelief is required but were it factual it would play out as the movie depicts. Anybody else see William Schatner in P.G.'s "fresh" take on Uncle Olof?

erica-tam061 2012-05-18 17:46:00

Refreshing sci-fi

Cold Souls is an off-beat intelligent, imaginative story that combineselements of sci-fi, drama and mystery. It's hard to describe - Surrealcomedy? It doesn't really fit in any specific category. It's funny andsad at the same time. Paul Giamatti delivers an incredible performance, mastering a broadrange of emotions and making his character delightfully amusing andsometimes heartbreaking. The tone reminded me of Kafka, Julio Cortazarand at times Woody Allen and Kaufman. I found myself thinking about itfor a long time after I saw it. "Moon" and "Cold Souls" are refreshing the sci-fi genre this summer.There was something in both films I haven't came across in many othermovies recently, a soul maybe... something different for sure.

2012-05-18 02:32:37

Disappointing.

I'm a huge fan of Paul Giamatti, so I couldn't resist when I saw a DVD promising a roll-on-the-floor comedic performance. Sadly, this movie didn't live up to its billing. Admittedly there were a few parts of the story (mostly toward the beginning) that had us laughing out loud, but they were too few and far between to justify the claims on the label. The longer the story went on, the less funny it became, and most of the second half barely got a chuckle out of us.While the premise of the story was novel and certainly held out some promise for a solid comedy, most of the movie was just plain dark, depressing and surreal. Much of it is set in Russia, which is depressing enough by itself. The themes are dark. The suicide of a marginal character is dark. The use of lighting is, well, dark. Yes, there are some places where it works and evokes some laughs, but the rest of the movie just doesn't work -- unless you have an extremely dry, somewhat twisted sense of humor. To his credit, Giamatti's usual stellar performance was the one bright spot. Not recommended for most viewers.

2012-05-14 22:58:00

Boring, Dumb, Unfunny, Waste of Time

This is supposed to be a comedy? This movie is not funny or creative. If your idea of entertainment is watching boring, balding, whining, Paul Giamatti have a mid life crisis about acting and losing his soul, then this is your kind of movie. This movie is stupid and the dialog is flat and forced at times. I would not waste my time on such garbage. The whole Russian soul stealing thing is just dumb. And the ending of the movie, what ending??? It just stops. I wish I would have hit the stop button 20 min into it.

druid333-2 2012-05-14 06:09:50

"Better Git It In Your Soul!"

...To quote the late,great, Charles Mingus. Now,onto the movie. PaulGiamatti plays...well...um, Paul Giamatti,an actor who seems to behaving the worst time trying to psyche himself into mustering up a goodperformance in a revival of 'Uncle Vanya'. After figuring that he justdoesn't have the soul power that is conducive for taking on such a plumrole,he settles into a depressed funk. He reads an article about soultransplants,and decides to take a whirl at it. Paul chooses the soul ofa Russian poet,and has the procedure done. Problem is, the procedurehas some serious repercussions. When Paul tries to get his soul back,hefinds that it has been borrowed by a Russian actress,who acts in adaily soap opera. This is a dead on,tongue in cheek,deadpancomedy/drama for the thinking person. Besides Paul Giamatti,the film'scast is rounded out by Emily Watson as his wife,Nina,David Straitharnas Doctor Flintstein,the soul specialist,and a largely unknown cast ofRussian actors who turn in a fine job. Lauren Ambrose ('Six FeetUnder','Swimming') has some brief, but solid time on screen asStephanie,Dr. Flintstein's assistant & secretary. This is the CharlieKaufman screenplay that Charlie Kaufman didn't write (so expect anoccasional sojourn into surrealism). Spoken mainly in English,but withsome Russian with English subtitles. Rated PG-13 by the MPAA for somebrief flashes of nudity & some naughty language.

2012-05-10 05:31:46

No comedy but quite insightful

It lost a star because in places it moved more slowly than seemed warranted. Not recommended for those with ADD or ADHD.

dschmeding 2012-05-09 14:39:01

Boring and uneven

Cold Souls is a movie that tries hard to be different and edgy...several movies like Being John Malkovich, Stranger than Fiction etc.come to mind. The movie is categorized as a comedy but in thatdepartment it falls flat with me. The movie basically revolves aroundActor Paul Giamatti playing himself as a depressed man in a crisis. Atfirst his character is really interesting but like the core idea itwears off really quick and at some point in the movie I got annoyed ofwatching his expressionless face. The concept of getting rid of yoursoul or buying others souls for different experience is interesting butdidn't grip me. At first there is some humorous element when Giamattiis introduced to the concept of soul-extraction. But jokes like thesoul looking like a chickpea or a Jellybean and Giamatti dropping itand searching for it like for a dropped contact lens left me with thefeeling that this is supposed to be comedic but doesn't work at all. Iwas especially put off by the odd pacing of the movie introducingcharacters that I barely cared of, especially all those scenes inRussian without subtitles were annoying. There are some interestingvisual shots in this movie but it all feels jammed in for artsyinterest, so up until the sudden ending (although the movie feltendless) even those parts didn't work for me. All in all a bigdisappointment, although I liked Paul Giamattis work and will check outsome of his other movies for sure.

2012-05-06 21:41:29

Giamatti attempts to make fun of himself in this one-note fantasy-satire misfire

*** This review may contain spoilers ***'Cold Souls' is another film that defies easy classification. I think it's best to think of it as more of a combination of fantasy and satire than science fiction, since it doesn't take itself at all very seriously. It seems to be set in present day New York, but it could be a few years in the future. Paul Giamatti plays a depressed version of himself who feels he's lost his creative abilities as an actor. While rehearsing the part of Uncle Vanya in the famed Chekov play, he finds he simply cannot bring the character to life.While flipping through The New Yorker magazine, he sees an ad for an outfit that specializes in 'Soul Storage' located (in of all places), Roosevelt Island! He makes an appointment and goes to the see the director of the company, Dr. Flintstein (David Strathaim). Flintstein explains that what his company does is extract souls from peoples' bodies and stores them for a fee. The actual extraction does not affect the consciousness of the person and they retain all their memories. Flinstein further explains to Giamatti that 5% of the soul usually survives the extraction procedure but without the other 95%, supposedly the personality will become 'lighter' and less unencumbered since most of the soul is no longer there to weigh the person down.Giamatti agrees to the procedure and enters a contraption that looks like a modern day 'iron lung'. The actual soul resembles a chickpea and is stored in a container which is then placed in locked drawers inside a room that resembles a bank vault. The company also specializes in renting out other peoples' souls which are smuggled in by black market mules from Russia. When Giamatti's soul is first extracted, he feels the initial procedure doesn't help him with his acting skills so he rents the soul of an anonymous Russian poet which he hopes will make him more proficient in playing Uncle Vanya.While Giamatti's wife perceives him to be a different person, there is no outwardly discernible change in his personality. Even though Giamatti's body is inhabited by the soul of a poet, we the audience cannot perceive the change. Thus the potential for any kind of interesting plot twists or satire is lost.The plot takes a turn when the head of the black market soul extraction operation in Russia orders one of the mules, Nina (Nina Korzun), to steal the soul of a famous American actor for his wife, who wants to improve her acting skills in soap operas. The joke is that the only 'famous actor' they have on file is Giamatti, so Nina steals his soul and it's placed in the actress's body. Giamatti discovers that his soul is missing from the vault and eventually learns from Nina that it's the Russians who have pilfered it. The climax takes place mainly in Russia where Giamatti aided by Nina kidnap the actress and manage to retrieve the missing soul. Along the way, Giamatti discovers the identity of the Russian poet inside his body and it turns out she's committed suicide. The final scene has Giamatti meeting a woman at a beach--is it Nina or the dead poet? Whatever the case, the shot fades to a blur and the two figures seem to merge into one.The problem with Giamatti's attempt to make fun of himself is that it goes on ad infinitum. We GET the idea from the very beginning that he's supposed to be mediocre and narcissistic and half way through the movie, the mugging becomes tiresome. The same goes for the Russians--again the point is played out over and over again that they're a bunch of seedy, amoral characters who are just out to make a buck. The only really enjoyable character is the personable Dr. Flintstein-- David Strathaim does a fine job in conveying the humor of a man who treats the extraction and storage of souls as if he were selling life insurance.'Cold Souls' is often slow-paced, due to the repetitious scenes that feature the various characters undergoing the extraction process. Toward the film's climax, Giamatti puts on special goggle glasses and "peers into his soul"--there are a few tame flashbacks of his childhood, but nothing very memorable.In the end, 'Cold Souls' has no real targets of value to satirize. The whole idea of 'soul extraction' is also too ludicrous for fantasy which requires some grounding in reality (an actual 'twister' carried Dorothy to the fantasy land of Oz; here, they're extracting souls that look like chickpeas). Some may still find 'Cold Souls' charming in an odd way but if you really look at it, this is a film based on a one-note, one-joke idea.

Rogue-32 2012-05-06 10:08:27

Transcendent and soulful

If you're familiar with my movie reviews, you know I'm a tremendousadmirer of Paul Giamatti - the man can do no wrong in my estimation; Ithink he's one of the finest actors of our generation and certainly oneof the most versatile - so when I heard about Cold Souls, a film inwhich he plays an actor named Paul Giamatti who, suffering under theunbearable weight of his tormented soul, decides to have it removed andplaced in storage (but not in New Jersey, anywhere but New Jersey), Iwas expecting to hugely enjoy it, based on his performance alone.What I hadn't expected was to discover a thrillingly gifted newfilmmaker, Sophie Barthes, who manages to pull off the near-impossiblewith this, her first feature, by taking an absurd 'what if' plot andturning it into a stunningly thoughtful, deeply intelligent andmagnificently subtle meditation on what it means to have a soul, to nothave a soul and even to have someone else's. In the hands of a less talented writer, Cold Souls could have been adisaster - a disaster with a magnificent, transcendent centralperformance from Giamatti (whom I'm convinced at this point is one ofthe greatest actors of all time) - but a disaster nonetheless. Theconcept is beyond tricky; it's the sort of plot I call a tightrope act,where the overall tone is everything, and once established, this tonehas to be consistent throughout or the believability is shot. Barthes succeeds brilliantly in this by never allowing the surrealisticgoings-on to become a cheap joke; instead the situation, with itsvarying and creative ramifications, is played in dead earnestness, withunwavering commitment on the part of Giamatti and the rest of the cast(particularly Emily Watson as his wife, who senses something'sdifferent about Paul early on, in the scenes when he's operatingsoulless - there's a great exchange in bed where she touches his skinand says he feels 'scaly'. "Scaly?" he repeats incredulously, "Like alizard?!?"). And it's because of this dead seriousness that the film inspots is hilariously funny - the humor comes naturally, out of thesituations themselves, not through any contrivances; Barthes is alreadyfar too confident an artist for that – she clearly trusts her materialand her actors, and it shows.The result is a stunning experience that will resonate with you longafter you leave the theater, if you're lucky enough to be able to seeit in a theater, that is – the movie was slated to go from the filmfestivals direct to DVD, but right now it is playing in a few placesand is supposed to open wider shortly, I've heard. Otherwise, get it onDVD the second it becomes available. Your soul will thank you.

rooprect 2012-05-02 08:41:33

Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich ...but very enjoyable nonetheless

I've heard if you want to see an impression of an angry ferret, justtell director/writer Sophie Barthes that this movie reminds you of"Being John Malkovich". But rather than being annoyed at thecomparison, she should accept it as high praise. Whether she intendedit or not, there is no denying that the plot, theme, tone, city andeven the cinematography is much like the aforementioned Kaufmanmasterpiece, and, like comparing "I Dream of Jeannie" to "Bewitched",there's no avoiding the thought. But, as with "I Dream of Jeannie", youshould enjoy it on its own, especially in a world where suchimaginative fantasies only cone along once in a blue moon.OK, enough of that. Let's talk about "Cold Souls". I won't bothertelling you the plot, and I'd even advise against reading synopses. Thebeauty of surrealist cinema is the way it catches you unawares,challenges your notion of reality and surprises you with itsabsurdness. So the less you know, the better.I'll just tell you about the tone & presentation. This is very much atongue-in-cheek comedy. Don't expect any big zingers or even anyWoody-Allenish rambles (despite the director's statement that she wasmost inspired by Woody), because the comedy comes mostly from bizarresituations rather than dialogue or neurotic narration. In that respect,the film has a very European vibe, maybe like Godard's "Alphaville" orthe Russian scifi comedy classic "Kin-Dza-Dza". By most Hollywoodstandards, this may seem like a slow movie. But even that, the directoracknowledges in a funny scene where one character criticizes the hero'splay for being "too Russian". This film is not afraid to make fun ofitself, as all good surrealistic works should be able to do.I may be out of touch, but I had never heard of Paul Giamatti beforethis. He really delivered a great performance, intermittently playingthe part of a great actor, a lousy actor, a great actor who's actinglousy, and a great actor who's acting lousy but temporarily infusedwith greatness. Yeah, it sounds confusing but it all makes sense in thefilm.I recommend this film, and if you like it I also recommend the obscurelow-budget gem "Game 6" (about a murderously depressed playwright inNYC), "Angels in America" (a strange surrealistic comedy/drama about,of all things, AIDS), and of course "Being John Malk--" oh jeez herecomes an angry ferret.

Alfetta159 2012-05-01 13:55:29

A slow moving satire.

The bio-medical industry's hubris is brilliantly satirized in thisstory that starts as a comedy illustrating the great length an actorwill go to succeed in his career. Unfortunately, it slowly evolves overwhat seems like an ice age into a bleak tragedy showing us how avariceand corruption can ruin lives in pursuit of a quick buck or just asmall part in a TV show.Cold Souls brings us a version of an MRI machine that in little lessthat an afternoon and with less pain than a dentist's visit caninstantly manage Paul Giamatti's soul thereby freeing him from thedaily despairs that are simply facts of life but are often overwhelmingobstacles keeping us from happiness. Souls are removed, replaced,stored, lost, found, stolen, and recovered as if they are nothing butanother internal organ like a gallbladder or second kidney that manypeople live without. It's a great parody on the pharmaceuticalindustry's relentless barrage of various new drugs for the same oldailments that offer instant gratification but without the commercialsthat spend more time on side-effects than the benefit of the product.However Cold Souls turns into an odyssey that goes on and on with sceneafter scene none of which really seem to get Paul and his detachablesoul reunited and in some cases leaves more questions unanswered. Inspite of its faults, it's rare to find a movie that doesn't show itselfas an allegory too obviously.

in1984 2012-04-29 23:44:12

Twisted, Cool Satire

If you like Charlie Kaufman films, this is the best I've seen thatisn't written or directed by Kaufman. It's less sci-fi than Moon, whichit shares certain qualities with, but it has an alternate universe andtech quality to it that makes it more so than the funnier but less realfeeling The Invention of Lying.If you can imagine Moon as a prequel to Blade Runner, this is a prequelto Moon, before the robots and clones.Contrary to comments about this being another Being John Malkovich orEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mine, this film, very fortunately, hasits own unique soul. If you're lucky, some of the residue willaccumulate on your own.

2012-04-29 10:29:05

Internal Avatar

This review is from: Cold Souls (Amazon Instant Video) Very good. Although I think labeling this as a comedy is a little misleading. That's not to say it doesn't have funny parts. It's just more than that. It's sorta kinda in the realm of a Charlie Kaufman/Spike Jonez kinda feel without being derivative.Great acting. Interesting and original story. It also has a beautiful/melancholy look to it. Same goes for the music.As odd as it may sound, some parallels between this and Avatar occurred to me after I finished watching this film.

2012-04-26 20:17:59

Quirky humor, abrupt ending

Quirky humor, reminiscent of Being John Malkovich in particular (if you liked that, you will almost certainly like this). Pacing also reminded me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Nice camera work, intriguing concept, many thought-provoking questions (e.g., if I have one person's soul and I get another one, where did the first one go?). I'd rate this film highly indeed if it didn't leave way too many things hanging, including the central plot element (Giamatti's quest to improve his acting by taking a vacation from his soul) and the overall narrative. Still, a lot of sly and absurdist laughs. Three stars seems about right. Definitely worth watching despite the gaping flaws.

2012-04-26 12:45:45

This was not a COMEDY

I rented this movie because I enjoy the acting of Paul Giamatti. I read the reviews and the phrases "Flat out funny" and "You'll laugh till it hurts" caught my eye. I couldn't make it past 48 minutes of this god awful and boring movie. In those first 48 minutes I think might have mildly chuckled for a split second. Peter Travers must have smoked some bad crack before he watched this. The plot is slow moving and convoluted. I didn't make it to the end so I cannot comment on that. Trust me on this....THIS MOVIE WILL NOT MAKE YOU LAUGH! You've been warned!