Somewhere (2010)
The only joke I have for this film, is that I wish I was “Somewhere” else while watching this film. Somewhere has to be one of the most boring film I have seen in ages. I don’t understand the film style, where the majority of the film are excruciatingly long shots of a mundane action; showering, smoking, driving, etc. The list of completely worthless things to show the audience (and for an extended period of time) far outreaches what my sanity can contain. The intro starts right off into the constant “WTF” I was experiencing with how little happens in this movie. There is a good 3 minute scene of the main character driving in a circle. Now, film hipsters, don’t try and say I didn’t get the point of the film. I fully realize (and did appreciate this small bit) that the film is about the behind the scenes people of the Hollywood being droids, but it didn’t even focus on that outside of the “everyone loves me, yet i’m a complete shit show” attitude the whole film occasional decides to note. I had such a hard time sitting through lengthy periods of smoking a cigarette (at times, it would be believable to think this movie was just a 90 minute smoking ad) or drinking a beer, where nothing happens. There were parts of the film that showed Johnny driving from LA to Las Vegas, and I literally thought they were going to show the entire car trip. The other half of the film felt like 12 different music videos (because scenes were so long), and tons of “we had to pay royalties to show this in our movie”. The movie may have been successful, because I felt as depressed as the main character having to complete watching this monotonous “film”. I get it, actors get tired, get over it. Believe me a 4.0 is generous.
Trailer
I haven’t seen this one yet. I saw LIT and really love that movie – it’s one of my faves – but from your review and others I’ve read of this one, sounds like this doesn’t hold up to that one. I laughed at one reviewer’s subject line: “Better than you think!” Is that ever possible? : D I mean, you might change your mind about a movie and like it better the second time around, but whatever you currently THINK about something is how you’re going to feel about it at the time. It wouldn’t enhance your watching enjoyment in retrospect. As to this one, do you think the problem lies mostly with the over-long scenes or can the audience just not sympathize with this overprivileged main character?
Well, the filmmaking style became unbearable by the end of the film. Sitting and watching these scenes for 2 minutes while he just sits on a couch, I kept thinking “we get it, he’s depressed”. It was hard to really relate to the characters, because they were rather 2 dimensional. The relationship with his daughter was the only minute saving grace of this film, and even then he makes stupid decisions, the movie ends oddly – half of it just doesn’t make any sense. I literally said, “If the car blows up (there was so much driving in this movie), this will be the only redeeming quality” because at least then it would actually give some substance to the film. The only thing I think they did a good job with was that when you are introduced to the character, you don’t know he’s over-privileged, and then you find out he is an actor, and you sort of see some of the humanity / problems of people in Hollywood that you sometimes separate, but it doesn’t feel like this was the intention of the film and was a side-affect.
That seems to be the general consensus. Perhaps Sophia needs to do what M Night Shayamalan is doing, and get Will Smith and his kids to star in her next move. : ) In the meantime, here’s an amusing spoof of the humanity/problems of people in Hollywood: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c8ad4aa802/wax-on-f-ck-off-with-ralph-macchio