A little while into the movie we find out that the wife has been having an affair for four years, along with a few short string of guys.

Why the husband stayed, the only reason maybe until the children got older and to keep the family together doesn't seem enough in this movie. It seems a miserable household to be in, and while it doesn't mention if he was having an affair, it seems very plausible this must have occurred.

The youngest child, while not uncommon, swears far too much even in front of his parents who don't do much to stop him. In fact they both swear at their parents which, again quite commnon, still doesn't help keep a family together.

Watch it to see how this movie shows how the children cope, find out who to blame, and bear through a tough time in their young lives that is happening more and more often. Set in the 1980s not much has changed in parents splitting up, except that it happens more often.


The Squid and the Whale is a film by Noah Baumbach about his childhood in New York in the 1980s. It details the circumstances of his parents divorce, and although names have been altered, Noah is represented by the elder son Walt and his father, the brilliant academic Jonathan Baumbach, is played by Jeff Daniels as 'Bernard'.

It is a complex film and not every viewer will understand it at first. At a superficial level it has been (simplistically) interpreted as a light-hearted and affectionate comedy about a husband and wife whose marital difficulties are having a negative impact upon their children. However, if we read between the lines there is a more stimulating story at work. Allow me to elucidate.

SOME SPOILERS TO FOLLOW (IMDB requires that I draw attention to these spoilers to provide readers with a choice but I should point out that I consider them imperative to a proper understanding of the film, although they may be read equally well after one's first viewing)

At the commencement of the film Bernard is a successful academic and writer but one whose work has been overlooked in recent years. We discover that his agent is not up to the task and that he is looking for a new one to ensure that his work receives its dues in the literary community. Incidentally, this is quite typical of the publishing industry, who tend to neglect denser, more intelligent writers in favour of those who sell well, like Dan Brown. Later in the film we learn that his wife (played by Laura Linney) has been published in the New Yorker and subsequently shall have her first novel published. This is significant because we learn that Bernard has taught her to write and there is even a scene early in the film in which he corrects a poor ending that she has attempted.

Furthermore, we learn as the film progresses that the reason for the breakup of the marriage is that Bernard's wife has been sleeping around with a lot of other men. It is never explicitly stated but we can probably assume that she slept with a publisher and perhaps somebody at the New Yorker and this accounts for her literary success. This is setting is crucial for a proper understanding of the film.

In essence we can say that the film deals with the existential crisis that Bernard is experiencing. He tries, in the best faith, to pass his polymathic intellect onto his two sons but is undermined in this endeavour by his wife. Later in the film his younger son Frank is persuaded by his mother's emotional blackmail to stay with her when he should be with Bernard.

Meanwhile Bernard's eldest son Walt (read Noah) is distracted in his pursuit of wisdom by a girl at his school who we quickly discover to be frivolous. This girlfriend, in conjunction with Frank's tennis coach who later becomes Bernard's wife's lover, symbolize the frivolities of the trivial people who get in the way of Bernard's attempts at existential resolution. The tennis coach's constant deployment of the suffix 'my brother' at the end of each of his sentences indicates his lack of linguistic sophistication and thus, we can infer, sophistication of thought.

There is a further intrigue involving one of Bernard's students, a talented young writer named Lili. The relationship between Bernard and Lili can be understood as an archetype of the Platonic form of love. Thus, when the sexual relationship between Bernard and Lili is revealed and used by Bernard's wife to justify her own infidelities, the astute viewer is able to discern the important distinction between the two. In Bernard's case the sexual element is merely an inevitable elaboration upon the essentially philosophical nature of the bond with his student.(cf. Plato's Symposium). In the case of his wife, her promiscuity and loose morals can be seen as an indicator of her inherent superficiality. It is clear that she has rejected Bernard's corrective influence and given herself up to an essentially usurious existence.

There are parallels to Bernard's predicament across the canon of western literature. Examples can be found in Kafka (who is mentioned in the film), Goethe, Marquez, Gaddis, Dostoevsky, Cervantes and Nietzsche among many others, of the classic heroic type Bernard represents. A man shunned and misunderstood by an indifferent world which is concerned chiefly with the superficial, the corporeal manifestations of existence. In this context the film can be correctly understood as the emancipation of Bernard, redemption finally occurring in his declaration of freedom from the confines of his married life. Bernard's wife is thus understood as the principal antagonist, whilst the aforementioned frivolous characters, the tennis coach and the son's girlfriend, represent the uncaring and self-deluded universe in which Bernard is fated to exist. Meanwhile his two sons are the innocents, in whom certain of Bernard's traits are already visible but both of whom are in danger of corruption. In the denouement, we are unclear as to the precise exposition of this element but such ambiguity is an essential part of the postmodernist paradigm within which the film occurs.

It is this that leads me to award the film 9/10. It would be churlish to award anything higher to a narrative that addresses its subject in such an oblique manner. It denies the fundamental aim of all art which is to educate the masses. However, it is paradoxically precisely this element which affords the film merit. It is designed with great precision to be apprehended only by the intellectual elite with whom the film deals. It cannot properly be labelled elitist as it also provides the lesser audience with the requisite comedy and dramatic tension. However the discerning viewer will be rewarded appropriately; commensurate with the perspicacity one brings to the film theatre.


Although I do not doubt for a second that elements of The Squid And The Whale are entirely fictional, the lesson to be learned here is that one need not create elaborate scenarios or effects in order to create compelling viewing. The Squid And The Whale will shock, offend, maybe even revolt at times, but its steady pace and realism will create quite a memorable experience for those who are burned on hundred million dollar blockbusters that attempt to make the unreal seem everyday, and usually fail. This is old-school film-making, along the lines of Taxi Driver or The Verdict. Quite honestly, there ought to be more of it. Okay, it is not perfect, but it is quite an interesting story. The film may based on real experiences of writer/director Noah Baumbach, but it could be about any family alienated by a society that is at once trying to lead them in a direction while neglecting them on the process of coping with the journey. Put simply, anyone who has experienced anything like it will relate.

Oddly enough, I keep reading comments about how this film is a story about how growing up in a "liberal" family can mess one's mind up. Sadly, there is no such thing in America, and no real statement is made about a family environment other than how fighting parents can rub off on the children. No, this is a story about more than just who brings up their offspring the right way or whose approach works. Social problems as demonstrated by the Berkman brothers are universal. Don't believe me? I grew up in a household where the combined gross income was in the six figure range, and the incidents described in this film pale in comparison to some of those I will likely never write into my memoirs. Such is the price of growing up in the 1980s with a distinct difference from all around you hard-wired into your brain. Having said that, do not confuse my disapproval of my own family for approval of this one. I laughed, I cried, I even swore, and all of these reactions were inspired by the same feeling: utter disbelief.

Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney play parents divided by pressure and growing contempt in a manner that is, quite seriously, Oscar-worthy. Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline prove they have a future in the business as they act out the sons caught in the middle. Owen Kline is especially compelling as the younger, and the reactions he is called upon to portray at times are as well-acted as they are repulsive. But as so often happens in a film she is part of, Anna Paquin steals the entire show as Lili, a student part of one of Daniels' classes who eventually moves in with him, adding to the confusing situation the boys find themselves in. I have said this elsewhere, but it goes to show how bent the Hollywood system is that Paquin can win an Oscar for her part in a piece of pseudo-dramatic-feminist fluff like The Piano, but she acts rings around most of her costars in a genuinely good drama like The Squid And The Whale without getting noticed. Anyone who thinks her Oscar win was just an early fluke clearly has not seen this piece.

As I said, The Squid And The Whale is slowly paced. Those expecting action or comedy will be disappointed, and its short running length is one of its graces. Like Ebert once said, editing can be both the soul and salvation of cinema. I would estimate that at least half a year's events are told in The Squid And The Whale's eighty minutes, taking time-compression to quite a dramatic level. This is also the first time I would place an American film on the same rung as one of the Dutch-language pieces that has elevated Paul Verhoeven to godhood in my viewpoint. Made for less than two million dollars according to estimates, The Squid And The Whale, while certainly not the best film I have invested my time in, is exactly the kind of production the American studio system needs to invest more in, not less. With budgets for the blockbusters rocketing to ridiculous levels, it is refreshing to see someone turn off the money hose and rely upon their storytelling skills. However, there are some complaints to be made, for certain.

Perhaps an actual resident of Brooklyn in 1986 can be more specific about this, but I thought the period and culture were well-represented in this film. At no point did my disbelief scream "this film was shot in 2004", which means I missed the visible poster of a wrestling star who did not make his debut in 2001. Such was the quality of the photography, planning, and performances. Also amusing is that just nine years ago, Anna Paquin was playing Jeff Daniels' daughter. You know time has caught up with you when you start noticing little facts like that about an actor you'd happily watch reading the phone book. Unfortunately, while keeping the length of the film to a minimum and editing out all but the most important details keeps the film from being excruciating, it is still terribly slow. The film relies a lot on the absurdity of the situation to create humour that keeps the viewer tuned in, but the film never goes quite far enough to keep this consistent. As a result, a fraction of the running time is spent wondering if this film is going to go anywhere.

That is why I gave The Squid And The Whale a seven out of ten despite its more impressive elements. Fans of the principal cast or European-style film will be enthralled. Others should tread carefully.


I had four main impressions of this film on leaving the theater:

1) Jeff Daniels deserves an Oscar nomination, if not the trophy, for his performance as the manipulative and depressed divorcée. 2) The Director is well grounded in the Wes Anderson school of film-making. The New York in this film, while a little older, feels similar to that of The Royal Tenenmbaums. His characters, however, are more real than Anderson's. 3) This movie made me grateful that my parents stayed together, despite tough times. 4) The film ended too soon.

This last point was a sticky one for me. Not that all tensions need to be resolved, but there were still a few open plot points at the end. You'd have thought that after leaving the 12 year old home for the weekend, by accident, and having him give himself alcohol poisoning, that they would have made some reference to it later.

Great performances from everyone involved. Shout-out to Billy Baldwin for getting cast in this top-notch film.


Since every divorce or separation is unique and comes with guaranteed conflict, it is a natural theme for drama. Also, given the fact that over half the marriages in the United States end in divorce, it is a topic that almost everyone has had some experience with.

While "The Squid and the Whale" is not up to the quality of "Scenes from a Marriage" or "Kramer vs. Kramer" it is solidly crafted and exposes enough raw nerves that I was not left wanting more details. It will probably bring up a lot of bad memories for a lot of people.

In this movie we have a family of four with the parents, Bernard and Joan (Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney), being writers with Joan's career on the ascent and Bernard's on the decline. There are two boys, aged about sixteen and twelve. Being literary types, Bernard and Joan are well equipped to fight and manipulate with words. Initially the boys take sides, but things get complicated as time goes by. Under stress people frequently reveal unknown or unexpected personality traits and in the course of "The Squid and the Whale" all the family members learn a lot new about each other.

The thing I liked most about "The Squid and the Whale" is that we get to witness the family dynamics play out from the perspective of each of the four participants.

The final scene is near perfect as the older son comes to a new understanding of what is happening to his family through the metaphor of the squid and the whale exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.


Very well acted story about a family in divorce. It's not just about the husband and the wife; their sons get deeply involved.

On the surface, the father is the bad person here. A great admirer of himself; an admiration which is shared by his oldest son, who becomes a cheater, both in school and in life, because of this upbringing. The younger son is more vulnerable, as confused as his brother, but with no real tools to deal with the situation. He can't really cheat properly.

But as the movie goes on, you find both parents being the same egoists. This is a really dark drama, but it takes place in every-day-life. That only makes it more frightening.


It seems that I've hit an awkward patch, in that my last several choices for a family movie (The 40 Year Old Virgin, The Weather Man and, most recently, The Squid and the Whale), while great films all, were not exactly family appropriate. In hindsight, for each case, a better choice could have been made for overall family enjoyment. As personal choices, however (exempting The 40 year Old Virgin), they were were excellent.

I chose this film primarily for all of the critical praise it has gotten, especially from what I saw at the Independent Spirit Awards. This is an extremely touching movie about a family struggling to function in the throws of a divorce. We, as an audience, are brought to sympathize with Walt Berkman (Jesse Eisenberg), the eldest son of the divorcing couple. And, as a result, we sympathize most with the parent that he sympathizes with. For the majority of the film, this is the father. However, through an ingenious perspective shift near the end of the movie, we realize that the father is not nearly so free of blame as it first appeared. It becomes more obvious, especially near the end, that the mother cares all about the children, and little for their father, while the father cares all about the marriage, and little for the children.

When I say that he cares little for the children, it's a strong trait of his. He's an extremely self-indulgent intellectual, who values intelligence and culture. He attatches himself to the older son because he tries to emulate his father, and thus reads what books he's told are good, and passes those he's told are not; watches what movies his father likes while avoiding those his father doesn't; thinks and speaks how his father would, when it's obvious he knows almost nothing about what he's talking about. This last point is brought to attention throughout the movie; from plagiarizing the song, to talking to his girl-friend about Kaufkas "Metamorphasis" (both times), to when his teacher says he doesn't think that Walt's read The great Gatsbey (despite his excellent paper on the subject). It's almost painful, at times, to watch Walt slavishly take his father's advice when it is clearly the wrong advice for him, as an individual, to be taking, and how he always blindly takes his father's side over his mother's.

The brother, Frank Berkman (Owen Kline), is the opposite, and takes his mother's side over his father's. He then sinks into a life of drinking and perversion (such as masturbating all over the school, and wiping his semen over library books, lockers and bathrooms). The way he clings to his mother and rejects his father is typically Freudian. It actually reminds me of an excerpt from "The Interperitations of Dreams", which reads, "His destiny might have been ours because the oracle laid the same curse upon us. It is the fate of all of us to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred against our father. King Oedipus, who slew his father and married his mother shows us the fulfillment of our own childhood wishes." It seems, as the movie unfolds, that he might have an Oedipus complex; especially in the scene where he's left alone for the weekend, lays his mother's underwear out on the bed and masturbates.

The acting was incredible; some of the best I've seen for the last year. The casting was perfect, the writing impeccable and the directing exquisite. In fact, the only part of the movie that I had a problem with was that they would make Walt see a therapist because he plagiarized a song, but for Frank (Who's what, 12 years old?) who has a growing drinking problem and who's masturbating around the school (and spreading the semen wherever he pleases), they simply have a conference and tell the parents to talk to him. Personally, I would think that the actions would be switched. Otherwise, there was no actual flaw to be found in the film. The parallel between the fighting parents and the squid and the whale (for which the title derives) was an interesting and very thought-compelling one, to the point where I started to wonder who exactly was the squid, and who the whale (I've come to the conclusion that the father is the squid and the mother is the whale, although this might certainly be open to interpretation).

This is easily one of the best films of 2005 in almost every regard. I would recommend this to any fan of good movies, especially dramas, but more specifically to people who have divorced or divorcing parents. As a study of cinema, this is definitely a must-see.


Noah Baumbach is known for his assistance in the writing of great films such as The Life Aquatic and the Royal Tennenbaums along with Wes Anderson. This film holds place in the hall of fame of black comedy films with what seems to be a highly strange plot which in fact is quite common: the story of a couple living in Brooklyn with two sons going through the beginning of their separation. From the very start of the film you begin to see how Walt teams up with his father, played by Jeff Daniels, whilst young Frank (Pickle) shares his opinions of the separation with his mother. Bill Murrey was the original choice for the role of Bernard Berkman, yet Jeff Daniels still manages to play the role perfectly with highly comedic one liners. In the film both Walt and Frank grow through new and difficult stages in their lives, Walt is discovering his sexuality by not only showing interest in his new girlfriend but also his father's college student; and Frank, a new teenager also suffers from hormonal and sexual issues, not to mention his seamen distribution throughout his school, his new interest in beer, hilarious vulgar outbursts, and his non-artistic role-model Ivan the tennis coach. The title reveals itself at the end when Walt runs to the museum to see the large representation of a Squid and a Whale with Lou Reed's monotonous voice in the background giving the film a polished ending. I highly recommend this film to those of you who share the same passion for dark humor and great cinematography.


I love this film. I remember seeing it years ago on a NYC PBS station on a rainy night and I was immediately drawn into it. A southern documentary filmmaker starts to make his film about Civil War General Sherman but he breaks up with his girlfriend and goes back home down south and starts filming everyone in his life (his parents, his siblings, his friends) and they are all giving him advice on his struggling film career and his love life and they all try and fix him up with all these "southern belles" and he just films it all. It is fascinating and funny and real. Well, as real as life can be when you know someone has a film camera on their shoulder and they are filming you. I also highly recommend the two follow-ups to this "Time Indefinite" and "The Six O'Clock News". Ross McElwee is an incredibly talented filmmaker and a sweet, neurotic human being who has no trouble baring his soul on film. Check this film out.


Ill admit it.......I liked the three hours of woman chasing and obsession. Ross begins his documentary intent on the journeys of W. Sherman. Sherman was a southerner turned "yankee" during the civil war. Sherman's march through most of Georgia and the Carolina's left a painful scar of our country in troubled times. Ross parallels this scar to that of his present day life. Present day 1986 that is. And quite easily, this documentary changes tone as Ross becomes obsessed with the women he encounters on the way. At times he does jump back to "Sherman's March", but the lure of lust and love prove to be too much for Ross.

After seeing this movie, I ask myself, What did I just see? It took a while to think about this documentary, and it opens up thoughts of life and love. I really want to know if this was calculated to document a mans love of women, or a mans love of war. Sit down, watch, and be amazed by the documentation of life in this era, by following the path of a civil war leader.


The "alternative" title Ross McElwee initially came up with captures the mood of the film very well as it was called:

"Sherman's March: A Meditation to the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South during an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation".

Originally McElwee set out to make a documentary following the route General Sherman took during the Civil War and investigate the impact he had on the lives of people past and present who live there, but somehow he ended up marking the lives of past girlfriends and practically every other woman he meets on his journey, interwoven with occasional bits of history.

The film is quite funny in it's own way as well. Charleen, a former schoolteacher of him (if I remember correctly) contributes to some of the funniest moments. She continuously introduces Ross to girls from her seemingly inexhaustible stable of eligible women. One of them even is - without Charleen knowing it - a Mormon! And there's a hilarious subplot involving Burt Reynolds, who increasingly becomes McElwee's nemesis.

Wisely, he trimmed the original title a bit, which he perhaps could have done with the movie itself, which is a bit long, 155 minutes, but it doesn't matter much, especially when watching it at home. At times it can get slow but you just have to settle with his own pace, rhythm and his unique cinematographic style and you will be rewarded. The conversations, the nuclear threat, the clothes and hairdos, it also makes a wonderful time capsule of the 80's. Combined with the occasional touch of history and the wonderful voice-over narration of Ross McElwee, this is a truly inspiring journey of almost epic proportions. Highly recommended.

Camera Obscura --- 9/10


McElwee has done many other similar works, some more deeply moving -- the one about his father the doctor, for instance. But this gives a great introduction to his "style" -- the guy who takes the camera everywhere and films his life, and not just in trivial ways -- ala web cams today. A tribute to women -- and women rate it much higher than men, as the imDb voting demographics show. This pre-dated the well-known and wildly successful "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" -- some would call it an outright steal or rip-off of "Sherman's March." As far as I know, McElwee had nothing to do with and is not credited in "Sex, Lies, and Videotape. "Sherman's March" clearly influenced "SL & V," to put things more mildly. SL&V has marketing written all over it, from the title to the stars (admittedly not as famous during the time of the shoot as now), and in its focus on sex and masturbation, particularly. "Sherman's March" has indie-film written all over it; it's not about stars, only indirectly about sex, and everyone plays themselves: it's a documentary. I liked all of that and it was a fresh approach when it first came out. Most such films are not done skillfully, thoughtfully, or edited well enough to make for excellent viewing. You may or may not like McElwee personally; he's a bit of an odd-ball, but a kindly one. His women friends are the focus here, however, and he wisely gets out of the way most of the time. Well worth your time.


I intended to watch only the first ten or fifteen minutes of this film, on a recommendation by a professor. I ended up watching the whole 2 hours 40 minutes, engrossed at every turn. I don't know why this film is so good; by all rationale, it probably ought to have turned out to be dull and pretentious. Instead, Sherman's March is an incredibly patient and passionate examination of oneself, the pain and frustration that come with mid-life depression, and the quasi-comic mystery surrounding Southern culture. I don't often find myself so enveloped in documentaries, particularly those that stop pursuing their apparent narrative ten minutes in and take on a totally new and divergent direction. But this film works. In filming his relationships with a number of different women over the course of a year, McElwee reveals himself to be a deeply frustrated individual, whose penchant for chasing life with a camera proves both constructive of an insightful film, as well as destructive to his own sense of balance and structure in his own life. The result is often funny, occasionally discomforting, and periodically profound. One sequence ends with McElwee's filmed conversation with a woman with whom he has tried to forge a romantic involvement out of an ancient friendship; the sharpness with which they speak to each other is jolting. McElwee manages to evoke an entire persona for himself - whether authentic or not - with scenes like these, at the same time drawing an insightful - if slightly overblown, though satirically so - comparison of himself to William Tecumseh Sherman and his devastating Civil War march through the South. This is a remarkable film for its willingness to examine the subtext of its maker's life.


I say pseudo under the definition of pseudo-event--I think that is Boreman? Anyway, hilariously real account of a romantically experienced and entangled male going back into the past. A lot of future film makers-documentary folks have claimed this in their verbal bibliographies. Check it out!


Sherman's March is three hours of footage from a broken man's life. Ross McElwee takes us on a journey to make a documentary on Sherman's March, but ends up showing us a sequence of extensive real life footage from his subsequent crisis in love. The picture feels like a home movie. Experiencing so much of the director's personal life is an unusual experience and takes the motion picture somewhere it doesn't often go. However, the movie is long and I feel it should have been further edited for the public. it is a bit egocentric to expect people to spend so much time watching some random guy's life.


I saw that film when i studied films in england, i liked the director's techniques with his subjects.First of all he provokes them in order to get more informations from them, second he manages to become intimate to the viewer with his monologues that take the form of a confession.Many commented that his life is pathetic, maybe so, but it takes courage to expose to the public some very 'personal' moments.Many people might comment about the ethics of documentary, because sometimes he seems to abuse some of his subjects, or even mock them,i have a specific scene in my mind:When he interviews one of the so called patriots,inside a snack bar he pans his camera and while we listen to the 'patriotic credo' we watch another man dressed like a clown.I think this is a film that deserves to be seen because it is a prerequisite for people who enjoy BIG BROTHER and other similar assortments, that victimize their subjects sometimes to the extreme.Compared to those SHERMAN'S MARCH is very innocent much more entertaining though.8/10


Unique--insightful and humane, never succumbing to the temptation to satirize the failings and fallacies evinced by the almost-too-real people the filmmaker documentarizes. And the viewer learns a surprising amount about William Tecumseh Sherman as well, a Sherman clearly admired by the filmmaker (a Southerner), who identifies with him in some characteristics. See it if you can--nothing like it.


"Sherman's March" has some outstanding moments that capture the difficulties of relationships, but the lengthiness and lack of focus make it difficult to praise. The overall structure of the film is a clever look at the unpredictability of an artist's focus, in that filmmaker Ross McElwee set out to make a documentary about the Savannah Campaign and ended up making a film about his failed relationships. But McElwee's free-form approach to storytelling is the sole cause of the films only major flaw; at a whopping 157 minutes, it's padded with excessively long shots and pointless detours, including several attempts to find Burt Reynolds. It's impossible to become fully absorbed in the story when the subject repeatedly shifts from history lesson to love triangle to stalking celebrities. Ultimately, this film is worth viewing for its glimpses into the human condition and the interesting characters that enrich McElwee's travels (I especially like Charleen). However, much like the filmmaker, you may need to distract yourself periodically to make it to the end of this exhausting reflexive journey.


If Ross McElwee was aiming for a movie about a very sad, very pathetic man, then he hit the target. Unfortunately for him he made a mockery of himself instead of actually getting to a point with this uninspired, unintentionally funny documentary.

Let's start at the beginning. Mr. McElwee sets out to make a documentary on a man named Sherman, a famous General who destroyed a lot of things in the South during the civil war. Well, we get to learn a small amount about General Sherman throughout the film, facts that have no real context in the rest of the movie.

Now, let's get to the real point of the movie. Ross takes his camera on a mission to find out why his 'ex-flames' never really liked him. Well, I can tell you why they didn't like him just from watching this video: HE'S INSANE. The women he dated were insane. There was no sense of reality in any of the conversations he had with any of the females; the only one that seemed slightly sane he made CRY.

I think my favorite part in this movie is when he, Ross, takes the camera to a woman he sort of saw in High school. This happens to be the only sane person in the movie, mainly because she didn't continue seeing him afterwards. He takes her to a park and proceeds to badger her to get the reasons why she didn't 'love' him. He goes as far as to say, "WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME?" to her. After she's literally about to break down, she tells him to cut the camera off. Does he? No. He proceeds to be a jerk.

I was told that this movie was good. It was not. I was told that this move was funny. Only because it was very sad.

This is a horrible movie. Watch it only if you wish to feel better about your own life, and/or to laugh at a very sad, very pathetic hairy little man.


Wow, did I dislike this documentary. That's really sad, as documentaries are among my favorite films. However, this one was so pathetically pointless and sad, I felt through much of it that someone was reading some very dull person's blog--every excruciating detail including their thoughts, interests and even random people they meet. With an interesting person, this might be worth seeing--but here it just seems pointless and slow. Referring to it as a blog isn't originally my idea, though, as roberttroll previously reviewed this film and his observation seemed right on the mark.

The film ostensibly stars out as a documentary about Sherman's March. Well, as a history teacher, I wish it really had done that! Instead, the film focuses on the love life of the film maker (Ross McElwee). Now it isn't just that he came off as rather dull, but the women he was set up with also really didn't spark any interest as well. In particular, Pat seemed rather flaky though pretty and Ross came off with a personality that was akin to balsa wood. From this "relationship" (which never seemed to even begin), he went on to more slow, slow meetings with other ladies. This part of the film felt like I was watching someone's home movies. So a dull blog and home movies--how could anyone find this particularly engaging? Anyone can record their dull lives--does this make a real film?!

If I want to watch a lot of dull folks from the Carolinas talking about the weather and chit-chatting, instead of watching this film I'll just go visit my wife's family!


The first 1/2 hour poses an interesting premise. However, by the time I passed the second hour, I had had enough. It slows to a halt, and never gets moving again. I decided to give Sherman's March a second try, and made it all the way through.

This was a mistake. If you want to see a good premise badly executed, this is the paradigm. If you want a good movie, march away and choose something else.


Honestly I gave this film a chance, watching all 2h 40m of it. Maybe when this movie was released it had some significance, but it is not worth the rental unless you want to see how bad film-making can be.

If anything this movie is about how a guy with a camera can get a woman's attention, and sleep with them. They are first pulled in under the guise that he is making a documentary about "Sherman". Then once they are on camera, they do stupid things and tell their life stories which are not even interesting. All the while the author, who himself has the personality of a stone and wallows in his own self pity, tries to sleep with them.

He also seems to go out of his way to reinforce the typical "Southern" stereotypes. I will not go into unnecessary detail here.

Overall the movie has a quality that two kids with a VHS camcorder could duplicate, and zero plot. This is nothing more than a movie about a self obsessed person driving around looking for woman to try to sleep with.

It is pretty clear to me after watching the movie that Ross had never intended on making a movie about Sherman, but rather was the inventor of the modern day self absorbed BLOG.

TERRIBLE - POINTLESS - BAD FILM


perhaps it's a function of age and geography, but if this is what the younger generation of Americans is like, i am glad i lived at a better time.

mcelwee attempts to emulate errol morris but has a long way to go. mcelwee, with his narcissistic focus on himself, something morris always avoids, manages to record (as opposed to filming, because the recording mostly concerns his puerile musings on his own love-life) a lot of drivel. and at 2 1/2 hours you can imagine the size of the pile!!!

there was definitely some salvageable material in the film if viewed as a portrait of the south,but i don't know how the movie could have been organized or edited to save it.


It seems as though pride and responsibility have left director Ross McElwee long before his journey to find Sherman. If he would have stuck to the assignment and not been so self deprecating he may have had some successes in his documentary and maybe even some in his life and we viewers might have actually learned something. Instead he only succeeds in being a creepy stalker schooling himself in unhealthy, regressive isolationism and cowardly fear of nuclear holocaust. These qualities are equally reflective in his failed personal relationships that leave him to snuggle-up with ticks and mosquitoes in a tree house. The most we get from the movie is the satisfaction that we are not Ross and that we have a bed indoors.


I am absolutely amazed to read reviews praising this program! Are they for real, or is it some kind of cruel joke? Yes, I'll admit that I love this show, but only because it's so terrible that it's hilarious. The acting is embarrassing, the lighting is poor, and the lines in the script are beyond cheesy. It's ridiculous. I feel like I'm watching a really bad student film. I'm aware that the program is made for those who are learning to speak English, but I'm surprised to see so many great reviews about it. Come on, people. Genius? I hardly think anything about this show could be described as 'genius...'

Having said all that, I have still been sucked into this show! And so I have given it four stars - not because it's good though, because it's entertaining.


I think this has got to be one of the funniest British films ever made. The sheer silliness of the plot and the completely mismatched trio of friends make this a film to sit back with a beverage of your choice and laugh at.

In my opinion, all the cast play their parts well, with an outstanding performance from the veteran Leslie Phillips as an piano teacher who likes a "small" sherry. The sequence involving a pre-war socket and a modern tape recorder has me in fits of laughter.

The finale, involving the three main characters singing in a talent show [ dressed as pig-tailed schoolgirls ] has tears rolling down my face and my face aching from laughter. Again, the farcical nature of the lyrics about how each of them " lost IT " in various locations around the school and "IT" turning out to be not what you were expecting, just gives the whole film an appeal to all ages from the older kids up to grandparents.

If you haven't seen this film, give it a go - you'll be surprised.


Wouldn't suit all tastes, but if you like it you'll love it. A very gentle, very English humour with many wonderful throwaway lines. Strongly recommend. Sara Crowe is outstanding in the part of a girl totally hung-up on a theatrical agent, and Annette Badland and Nadia Sawalha are equally good supporting her as the long-suffering friends. Leslie Phillips plays an excellent music teacher/musician and there are some excellent scenes where he is trying to help the girls write their song. However, the piece de resistance for me was the song at the end - the acting, as well as the song, together with the reactions of the audience, make excellent viewing.


Originally made for the cinema, this film was deemed so awful by the distributors that it resulted in a straight-to-video release. It's easy to see why. 'Caught in the Act' desperately wants to be another 'Four Weddings and a Funeral', but it's stupid, pointless and completely unbelievable.

The trio of female leads turn in terribly childish performances (especially the annoyingly-voiced Sara Crowe) and the supporting actors are even worse! With a juvenile script and stereotyped characters, the movie seems to be stuck in a 1950's timewarp.

Only the acting of comedy veteran Leslie Phillips raises the level above utter farce.

'Caught in the Act' is embarressing and ultimately very forgettable.


I first saw 'Lamerica' at its British premiere at the Edinburgh film festival. After the screening, director Gianni Ameilo, a wonderful man in love with his own film, gave an effusive talk about how it had been made: how he had wanted for years to make a film about his father's emigration from post-war Italy to America, but chose, at the time of the Albanian refugee crisis in Italy in the 1990s, to tell the tale allegorically instead; how he cast amateurs in almost all the roles; how he plucked the amazing Carmelo de Mazzarelli from a Scicilian street to play the role of Michele because he to liked his face; and how he directed him, never showing him the full script but merely telling him what was required from each individual scene. This may be an unconventional style of film-making, but the result is triumphant.

'Lamerica' is both epic and comic, some elements bring to mind David Lean and others Mike Leigh (a feat otherwise only managed, in my opinion, by the films of Emil Kusturica). The acting is superb, the comedy dry, laced with sad irony (even the occasional Albanian mis-translation of Italian is inspired). At the centre of this film is a conventional road-movie, a story of an odd couple who bond; but it's put into a wider context by the extraordinary scenes, set in Tirana, that top and tail the movie: this film is political as well as personal, addressing not just the contemporary Albanian reality but also wider questions, such as racism and the relationship of the affluent west to the poorer world. But what stands out most of all is the remarkable visuals, both of the stunning Albanian landscape and also of the people: few directors make as much use of the widescreen format as Amelio, and the way he creates landscapes from faces so expressive they are almost fluourescent is in a class of its own. In some ways, he is almost too effective in doing so: the film feels manipulative because of the power of the images in making its point (and one wonders, can life in Albania really have been this bad?). This is a film that might almost be silent, the pictures tell the story. When, for example, Enrico la Verso's character drinks the milk, the significance of this simple act hits home with the force of a sledgehammer.

Now released on DVD, 'Lamerica', one of the least typical but best films of the 90s, is well worth seeking out. And even if (like me) you have to wait 9 years for a second viewing, I promise that its imagery will linger in your mind.


I just finished watching this film and it brought back to me memories of my life in Albania. the film is very precise in it's description of life in our poor land after the riots and the exoduses that occurred in the early '90s. I was lucky myself not to have gone through what most people go through during this film but I can identify with some of it. even though the film focuses more on the italian businessman, the struggle for survival that most Albanians had to go and still have to is quite clear. this film should be watched by all interested in understanding why people have to abandon their homelands. this is a perfect example and should open eyes to many.


In his 1994 Lamerica Gianni Amelio raises traditional linear Italian film-making to new heights using the methods of neorealism to carry his audience along on a dreamlike, ironic mythologizing journey whose mood and methods are all his own. This very powerful film, which is as fantastic as it is vividly concrete and sad (imagine Kafka with a Sicilian accent), tells the story of two Italians, Fiore (Michele Placido, director of the recent Romanzo criminale) and his assistant Gino (Enrico Lo Verso) who come to the impoverished, wrecked post-communist Albania with the scam of setting up a shell shoe factory as what they -- or Fiore, at least, because he alone is the mastermind and evil genius of the scam -- thinks will be a profitable tax shelter. They corrupt an Albanian official named tellingly Kruja which they turn into Croce (cross) to grease the bureaucratic wheels and get the plan government approval. Unsatisfied with others who have cooperating families who could make claims, they find Spiro (Carmelo Di Mazzarelli) a doddering, half senseless old man they are reassured to be told is an orphan and who has been imprisoned by the communists for fifty years, and sign him up as the Albanian figurehead "president" of the company. Fiore goes back to Italy in a hurry and leaves Gino in charge of watching over the derelict factory they've taken control of and making sure old Spiro stays out of trouble.

As soon as Fiore is gone, things go wrong, and as the story progresses, they go more and more wrong, until Gino has lost everything, even his identity as an Italian. The journey we go on is compulsive watching and echoes tragic wanderings like those of the father and son in De Sica's Bicycle Thief; or the couple in Fellini's La Strada, the emigrants from Turkey and Armenia in Kazan's epic America America, or the children in Clément's Forbidden Games. Amelio achieves a sense of understanding and a sorrow and pity that one can have only when everything has been stripped away and nothing but one's essential humanity remains. Imagine the worst that could happen to you on a journey, and then take that ten steps further, and you have an idea of the trajectory and transformative emotional power of Lamerica.

When Gino finally gets through to Fiore on the phone, he learns that the scam has failed, they are in deep trouble, and he and Spiro are both out of a job. Of course Spiro says he knew it all along.

Old Spiro is the pivot point of the film. At first he appears a doddering derelict, worse than a bum, covered with dirt, inarticulate and almost blind, clearly crazy. When asked his age he holds up his fingers twice, and you realize he thinks he's twenty -- the age he was when he was first imprisoned. But strangely somehow inside him there is a young man who seems slowly to be coming out. Gradually he emerges as a figure of great humanity and energy and hope, more stalwart than tragic or confused.

The first disaster is that Spiro disappears from the nuns' institution where they have left him. After being a prisoner for fifty years, he wants only to escape. Gino finally finds him, and takes him on a journey to the coast in a jeep, but once they're out in the boonies, Gino is lost. He runs around looking for Spiro, and when he gets back to the car, it's been stripped of its tires. He calls for the police, but he speaks only Italian. Does anyone understand? They only stare at him. The staring faces are brushes Amelio paints with, and at the end, on a boat heading for Italy at last -- though Spiro thinks they're heading for America -- the director gives us an awesome series of faces that are worthy of Paul Strand or the best of the FSA photographers of the Dust Bowl of the Thirties: faces that speak volumes.

Struggling to get to this point, Gino and Spiro begin to communicate. It turns out Spiro is really a Sicilian named Michele Talarico and he came to Albania as a soldier during the war. He thinks he is a young man, with a young wife and a child born four years ago..

Gradually Spiro comes to life. He is strong, perhaps more resilient than the young Gino. But as Gino grows more haggard -- Lo Verso's dark, southern Italian face is deeply expressive -- he grows more Italian and closer to Spiro and to the most human and beautiful and real people of the world -- the poor, those who have nothing but hope and the will to go on.

Like the great Italian neorealist filmmakers of the Forties and Fifties from whom he has learned so much, Amelio uses real places and real people with almost miraculous skill. What's all this mean? First of all, it's an affirmation of the sheer power of poverty. And chaos. They're forces of nature more powerful than Fiore's pathetic, mean-spirited scam. But the fact that Spiro's insanity comes to seem beautiful and hopeful shows that the film isn't to be taken too literally. It's more a powerful myth than a message that it has to convey, and it's better to dwell on its gut-wrenching sadness than to analyze too much what it has to say about Albania, about colonialism, about rich and poor nations and economic exploitation. Lamerica is an amazing film, and clearly sets Amelio apart as the most powerful and humanistic Italian filmmaker working today. (The riveting and soulful Lo Verso is equally central to Amelio's saga about Italy in the post-war period, The Way We Laughed/Così ridevano, 1998, and his 1992 Stolen Children/Ladri di bambini). We don't know what will happen to Gino. He may not go to Sicily to pick olives as Spiro suggests. But he won't ever rejoin Fiore and his scams.


"Lamerica" takes the audience through the devastation of post-communist Albania as it follows the odyssey of a young Italian man who has come to make some easy money but finds himself caught up in the same curious mix of hopeful despair etched into the faces of people he's come to swindle. The film has little plot, the feel of a documentary, and most of the scenes are perfunctory. Nonetheless, "Lamerica" will beg a strange fascination from those who find grizzled realism interesting.


I thought this was an incredible film with a story that was in many ways simple, yet complex in dealing with redemption. An Italian swindler goes to Albania to make a few quick lire, only to get swallowed up by the depth of the Albanian situation.


Rather abruptly - and permanently - veering from its storyline at first confused this viewer. The suggested plot seemed so pregnant with intrigue, fun, potential, etc. Then the plot shifts and the impact such has on the two main characters is, I have concluded, what makes LAMERICA a good movie. LAMERICA is about a person's comprehension of values as well as the impact of age and wisdom upon such. I concede that the film uses rather ordinary plot devises of violent setting, young vs. old, etc., to contrast the characters' predicaments. But LAMERICA's lessons are taught without moralizing or melodrama or preachy dialog. For example, a death during the film comes about in mundane fashion; i.e., entirely without tragedy, violence or emotion. It takes reflection on the entire film to recognize its importance, place, etc. The same can be said about bits of dialog and brief encounters throughout the film: Much as in real life, their importance, the lesson they impart, is only understood when stepping back to look at the big picture.


This movie started slowly for me but got better and better as it progressed. It's the story of a couple sleazy Italian con men who were looking to strike it rich in post-Communist Albania. They were creating a fake company and needed a stooge to be their Albanian CEO. For this, they want someone who is completely forgotten, so they go to a hell-hole that had been a prison for political prisoners and pick out an addle-brained man who'd been incarcerated there for almost 50 years. The way this poor soul is treated is pretty pathetic, however the irony occurs when the younger crook is stranded in Albania and his car is vandalized. He THINKS everything will be fine since he is a foreigner. But, he too becomes a refugee like so many Albanians. At this point, the "crazy old man" shows he isn't quite as crazy as you'd thought and despite his incarceration, he has not lost his humanity--all this being revealed as the Italian jerk slowly loses everything he has. It's an amazing juxtaposition and this makes this strange movie so worth seeing.


I didn't expect to like this movie - it seemed like the topic was too easily made into a simplistic 'hurt-emotion' and 'stand-up for yourself' type movie. After all, it was on the Lifetime channel and that is an often-used theme. However, the movie was much better than that and this surprised me.

Basically, the story is about an attractive, popular high-school girl that undertakes a project to document what it's like to be fat. Of course, it's easy to predict the basics of the story, but there's more to the movie than just the basic plot element.

The real value of this movie is that it doesn't try to be too preachy and shame everybody about having a reaction to 'fatness'. Instead, it explores many different angles and leaves you thinking about the many complex issues involved.

The lead character is intelligent and grounded, so it's easy to become interested in her character and follow her as she is confronted with many different situations involving weight. These situations don't just involve her and various high-school cliques, but also her weight-recovering mother and chubby brother.

The movie even acknowledges issues that relate to her judgments being affected by the fact that she can step out of the 'fat-suit' life at the end of the day. Because it's able to visit many such angles, the movie keeps a brisk pace and something is happening all the time.

While the movie does have its flaws, it remains interesting. Sometimes there are no easy answers, but there's lots to think about. If you want to watch a movie that will leave you with a few interesting, self-reflecting ideas to ponder, this movie is a good choice.


This movie reminded me quite a lot about a book I own and read occasionally. The book was about a homecoming and pageant queen who was pretty, popular, and seemed to live the perfect life. That is until she got fat. In contrast, Kaley Cuoco portrays a pretty thin girl who documents life as a fat person by altering her appearance by wearing a fat suit, and not changing her true self. Life as an overweight individual opened up the true souls of her so called friends. They shunned her, harassed her, and treated her like low life scum. No one paid any attention to her personality, and the fat people at her school thought she was a walking joke. Yet, I really think that the film really makes us realize that who shouldn't judge one by looks, but the sad fact about that is true. We seem to make rude comments about to those who are physically different just because people have low self esteem and zero confidence that they take it on those who appear weaker then they. I'm more on the slender side with blond hair and bluish green eyes. However, I'm physically different that I will not post, but I had my share of experiences with the cruel comments, jokes, and harassment. However, I paid no attention to that because I lived my own life, and true people accepted for who I was, and not my appearance. We cannot help what we look like, unless you want to live a healthy lifestyle, you can make a few changes with diet and exercise. Physical deformities we can't really change, unless you go under dangerous surgeries. I think that 99% of women have image issues and they're unhappy with themselves because they think they can't do better. They fall into depression which can lead to dangerous eating disorders and cosmetic surgeries simply because of what society portrays. I believe that everyone has a "best" about them, whether it's talent, looks, or personality, and the key is to be yourself, and not what others want you to be. You'll be a total lie to yourself.


Let's start off with the technical stuff.

The acting is great with very believable characters (especially Ramona). Very developed storyline with well-developed characters also. Great conflict with smaller conflicts in between.

Now for the juicy, meaty, chunky part.

The issue of obesity is a very real problem. However, the problems are not just health-wise, but also a sociological and psychosocial problem. I don't want to spoil anymore for anyone, so I shall just say this: the movie addresses the latter two problems effectively. I myself am overweight, but not to the same extent as one of the characters is. Personality-wise, I'm a likable person, but just like the heavyset characters of the movie, I, too, underwent similar persecution in high school, which was not too long ago.

All in all, whether you are fat, skinny, or in between the two, I suggest watching this movie. I'm quite sure that you, at the least, know someone or of someone who falls into the same category as Ramona.


We've all heard the slurs, the slang, and the taunts coming from "anti-fat" people, or even little kids. Words like "porker", "fat ass", "tubby" and "lard ass" sting to the bone. Then there are the little noises that emerge from people when we fat people are around, the "boom, boom, boom" when you walk by them, or even the stares and giggles. No matter how much we don't want it to effect us, it always will. Fat is one of the last "acceptable" forms of discrimination. We have seen adults on talk shows delve into the situation, such as Tyra Banks. We have also seen articles, by Leslie Lampert, but this movie, To Be Fat Like Me, looked into a teenager's perspective.

To Be Fat Like Me stars Kaley Cuoco and Caroline Rhea (who has been known to struggle with weight herself). Kaley's character, Ali (based on an actual person), is a pretty, popular, "jock", who needs a scholarship to be able to go to college, due to her mother getting ill six years earlier. Her mother, played by Caroline Rhea, was fat, and when diagnosed with diabetes, did nothing to improve her eating, and ended up in the hospital. Her medical bills wiped out the college fund, so Ali has a huge resentment that she must work double shifts and rely on a softball scholarship to be able to go to "State".

During the game in which a college scout comes to see her, Ali's leg is injured, while sliding to a base. Her scholarship is blown, or so it seems. An opportunity to make a documentary to win a scholarship is presented to her, and while watching her brother get bullied because of his weight, she decides that she will go undercover as a fat girl to prove that weight has nothing to do with popularity. Her neighbor is a makeup artist and agrees to help her with her fat suit, which she hides from her family.

Ali goes to summer school, at a different school as not to be recognized, and is quickly greeted by "moos" and "booms" as she walks to her seat. She befriends another fat girl, and her friend a "geek", and a friendship blossoms, all the while, she hides that she is doing the documentary and that she is really a thin, popular, pretty girl.

Ali learns that being fat is not easy, and has everything to do with popularity in high school. She also learns that lying to her friends and family is not acceptable, and that the people she could truly rely on won't stand by her if she lies to them.

Although many people saw this as an "anti-fat" movie, I think it showed a good perspective as to what it's like to be fat in high school. I could feel all of the negative feelings I felt in high school coming back as I watched. This movie really touched on what us fat people feel when we look in the mirror, what our diminished self esteem can be like when people continually taunt us, and what its like to shop in a store where we don't get the service we deserve because of our weight.


Right...well Ali (based on a "true" Story) is a bit of a Fat Phobic (just like almost in one in America who's never felt the pain of being fat)..thinking it all about your attitude..and when she loses her sports scholarship..she decides to enter a student film competition for the prize money for school.....and her idea is to prove being unhappy and fat is all out the fat person's negative attitude....if only people like her little brother(overweight) had a positive attitude their lives would be better..thats why she's popular (not because she's a pretty blonde jock)..the commercials leading up to this promised a true look/insight into one area of life where bigotry and prejudice are allowed to reign supreme... i "thought" finally people see something about the cost of our obsession with weight...how thou bashing of gay and others may be illegal...but fat bashing is More than OK....But the promise of the commercials was NEVER delivered...even although Ali don's the "Fat suit" for at least a month...at the end of it..she's still very hateful over her mom's past weight (its treated like a very dirty little secret)..never asking why people over eat...or even some the different causes people gain weight, her partner on the film has a hard attitude towards the world in general and never stops calling the one "fat" girl and meets and befriends.."her Fat friend"...after a month spent on this Ali changes only a little..after lying to everyone very little is said after ward...you keep waiting/hoping for her "a Ha! Moment" when finally the light turns on...but we all stay in the dark...along w/her...even at the end when her "boyfriend" admit being a jock if she were to quote "get fat"...he would dump her..because well he's a jock basically...she just shrugs smiles...but then again Jenny Craig was the sponsor...guess that should have told me something....at the end she more or less right and don't let the world decide who you are....or I'm not Shallow...just selectively deep;(


In the film To Be Fat like Me, directed by Douglas Barr, high school student Alyson Schimdt (Kaley Cuoco) is injured while competing for a college scholarship in a girls' softball game. She is injured so badly she cannot play for the rest of the season. Instead, she enters into a film contest with her classmate Jamie. In this exposé she tries to find out what it is like to be "fat." She goes to summer school at a different school, wears a fat suit, and does not change her personality or behavior. She also goes into certain social settings like a party, the coffee shop, and a ladies clothing store. Each social outing shows a different side of what it is like to be "fat." After almost all is said and done, she must create an ending for the exposé so she may finally reveal it to everyone and enter it into the competition.

There are many messages in the film. Have you ever heard "don't judge a book by its cover"? Well that message is the main theme in this film. It says just because people look different from you that does not give you the right to judge them by what is on the outside. Another message in this film is stereotypes. Alyson (Kaley Cuoco) is a pretty, skinny, and athletic girl; but she is also a very good person. This movie shows that stereotypes are not always right in many cases. This movie also shows that stereotypes can be right. Some of the popular people make fun of her almost to the point of ridiculous. They could have been polite to her. Instead, they decided to live up to the stereotype. They "moo'ed" and called her names instead.

The one thing that caught my eye about this film was the fact that she could be skinny one second and "fat" the next. I liked that the exposé was looked at from both views without varying opinion. I was pretty much interested the whole time. The responses she got from people were ridiculous; but very authentic. It's true that people are treated different just by the way they look. That should never be the case. I only disliked one thing about this film: the ending could have been a little better. I won't ruin it though. She just should have revealed herself to a certain group of people in a different way. All in all this was a pretty satisfying movie. I would definitely watch it again.


I married a fat woman (over 300 pounds), being only 145 pounds myself at the time, adopted her three children, and had three more by her; all of them very good looking but some struggling somewhat with weight. She was a wonderful woman, who died from complications to stomach stapling surgery, after we'd been married almost 24 years. She had many physical problems in her last years: fibromyalgia, diabetes, etc. and had the surgery only as a last resort because she'd gotten to the point where we took her places in a wheelchair and she slept in an electric recliner. I never noticed her enduring any particular slurs in public on account of her weight (I am kind of a space case anyway) but she did get anonymous notes from time to time from people who were trying to tell her how she ought to take care of herself.

Anyway, I found the movie very interesting and honest. Even the fact that the Aly character could be mean to her mother while trying to be sensitive to Ramona seemed real to me because kids and parents do lock horns at times in ways that are truly baffling.


Okay, so the film is based on a true life documentary right? What's the point in that? You'd probably get much more entertainment from that rather than this film. The insults were just cringe worthy and let's face it, it isn't just a fat person who would get insulted in an American high school. You could be whether you were a size 0 or a size 20. People get bullied ruined for all kinds of reasons. And to make it even more insulting, they use a fat suit! It's just ridiculous. I don't think using a thin blonde girl to 'reveal' the typical ordeals an over weight teenager would have to face would be the way to do it. Seriously just watch "My teenage of daughter is obese" on an episode of Jerry springer or something, you'd be bound to get more laughs!


What I expected: a pretty jock who judges her mother harshly for being overweight, walks in a fat girls shoes, realizes the internal and external pain of being fat. What I got: a movie that goes in too many directions and ends up no where.

On the one hand she is angry with her mom because she had a heart attack (due to being overweight) and the hospital bills took all of her parents savings and left no money for her to go to college. I honestly don't think she would have cared about her mom being fat if there was still money for her to get an education. So her anger had more to do with what she couldn't get, than concern for her mother. On the other hand she has a fat younger brother whom she adores and protects, but doesn't understand why he lets himself get bullied, he tells her what choice does he have being so big, she says it's all in the attitude and how you let people treat you. To win money for school she enters a documentary contest and the subject is that she pretends to be fat, using it as a sociology experiment to see if she would be treated any differently. Well no big surprise that despite being nice to people she gets treated like crap and then befriends a fat girl and a self proclaimed "loser". In the end she still doesn't understand WHY people overeat, or the emotional pain of actually being fat and overeating and she still continues to judge fat people harshly for eating bad foods. So what did she learn about being fat? IMO nothing. A few other side lines, her loser friends, a guy she likes who jokes about a girls mom passing the fat test, i.e. if the mom is fat, dump the girl because she will look just like her mother soon. A father who was passive and it seemed like he wanted to say something important but never does, her not being smart, but being in the fat suit she starts to study and does better in summer school than ever before, the emphasis jocks place on looks and being in good physical condition, but the poor guy gets a headache when she tries to explain what she's going through, that it's better to exist on chemical shakes and veggies, than a balanced diet, etc, etc. I was waiting and hoping for her and her mom to have a real heart to heart and for her to really "get it" but they just sum up their bad relationship in a two minute chat that barely scratches the surface. This could have been SO much more!


Some people ask me, "Why do you give such horrible ratings?" I have 6 accounts on this thing so people can never track me, but this is my most accurate account by far. Back to the movie....The reason I give bad ratings is because of movies like this one. Lifetime original (more like unoriginal) movies are as enjoyable as me stapling my balls to a tree. This particular movie stinks worse than a New York dumpster due to its horrible taste in storyline. Teenage girl who is freakin' hot basically decides to do a documentary on what it would be like to be fat. Yippie! Tyra Banks called and said to stop copying her gimmicks and for that matter, Shallow Hal wouldn't even promote this terrible copycat. Do people really think that if they dress up like a "different" type of person for a day, hell, even a week that they can truly know what the hell it's like to be like that. Wake up fools! Real life overweight people deal with this all day, everyday and it's not something to toy with. Movies like this make me sick to my stomach how in the end...zzzzzzz.....sorry.....how she "magically" feels sorry about what she has done and wants to befriend the people she hurt in the beginning. The story should have been to where she really gained weight, then it would have been more believable. But still, this movie has been done before. Why do directors insists on taking on these ridiculous remakes of crappy stories. Man, thank God for great stories like Drumline. Just kidding, that movie also sucked. I just wanted to re-state that comment because everyone knows how much I hate that one too. But in closing, I will say that I'm from GA and there are plenty of bigger women that get plenty of love from dudes so don't feel sorry for them you A-holes.


Only amusing thing about a made for TV-drama is how you can be given a list of 5000 titles and easily sort it out. If you want to see that actress from "8 Simple Rules" show that really she wasn't acting at all, that's what she actually looks and sounds like, this might just work out fine for you. So this girl (who looks pretty anorexic, but that seems okay in this movie) wants to make a documentary about fat people from roughly seventy points of view. She (poorly) dresses herself up as someone fat and gets humiliated with the weakest fat jokes ever written. They're not even mean really, they're just painfully lame. Menopause is seriously uninspiring. I guess it's still better than the endless stream of my husband is a monster because he only takes me out once a week and even had two beers last Christmas-flicks but man is it close. We even are insulted with some pointers about how not to get fat, like not eating pizza and stuff. Take notes.

Edit: I do love how the genre section somehow includes "horror" though


Tonight I watched the premiere of "To Be Fat Like Me" in hopes that someone had finally gotten it right. With the idea that someone had at last made a film to empower the larger women of the world, I happily set my night aside in preparation of being touched by a film that would show the world how I feel. How disappointed I was when I learned what the movie was really about. This wasn't a movie for fat women at all, contrary to the commercials that were run for weeks before the premiere of this pathetic lesson in moral fiber for skinny women the world over. I had such hopes that someone had come to the slow conclusion that we aren't fat because we can't stop eating. At least, I'm not. I'm fat for many reasons. The first being, I don't believe that skinny is pretty. The second, and most important, is that I would rather live my life as happy and wonderful and comfortable with myself as I am and die at 50 than live until 108 always fighting to be someone I'm not. Never before in this world has there been such an obsession with fat. Never have our body standards been so small that I at 230lbs (and 5'6") could not go into any store and find clothes. Five years ago, I could walk into any store I passed by and buy jeans. Now I walk into every store I pass by simply to ask them what the biggest size of jeans they carry is. And the ever ecstatic response? "Oh, don't you worry ma'am! We have very big sizes here. We go all the way up to a 14! We definitely have clothes for you!" And I say in response, "Perhaps you haven't noticed, but I'm an 18." The idea that we are so morally inculpable that we allow the magazines and television shows and retail stores to govern our size is absolutely beyond me. I am my own woman. I am big, and I am beautiful. I am not unhealthy. There is a very big difference between big and unhealthy. I have known so many skinny women in my life that were absolutely revolting in a bikini for one simple fact. They may be a size two, but they have cellulite. We think that skinny equals pretty. But, let me tell you. It's your soul, your smile, and your eyes that make you beautiful. And this movie will never ever be a good movie to me. The moral of this film is that you skinny people should understand our fat plight and not make fun of us, but try your best to sympathize and gently push us to our thin potential. Well, that's a crock. I promise you that, no matter how sweet and gentle, the first person that befriends me to attempt to save me from my food will have a very rude awakening.


The show is set in a locally owned grocery store. The founder's son has inherited the store after the death of his father. The characters primarily consist of the owner/son and the quirky employees. A very formulaic premise. I don't normally think of TBS for original comedy. Thus, I was not expecting much. Boy, was I surprised. It was very funny.

The generally unknown cast is appreciated as it is a nice contrast to the recycled comedy actors on the Big 4 networks. The first episode did a nice job of introducing the characters with humor and even had a little dramatic tension. If subsequent episodes are this smart, I am definitely hooked. 9 out of 10.


I've watched all 4 episodes of "10 Items or Less" about 4 times each now. This is one of those rare shows that remains funny when watching it again and again. I had mentioned earlier that I was waiting for the show to come into it's own. Guess what? It's finding it's niche. It's sparking feedback and dialog from it's fans and when the show comes out on DVD (as it will undoubtedly will) I'm going to be at the local grocery store to buy it. :)

Okay, from the very first time I saw the previews, I knew it was a rip off of THE OFFICE and that Leslie was a poor substitute for Michael Scott. "10 Items or Less" is a poor shadow of THE OFFICE, but I have to admit that I was laughing from the first scene, but it was the awkwardness of Leslie in his new situation as an owner/manager of Greens & Grain. The thing that impressed me was that outside of Robert Clendim, the cast are virtually unknown, including creator/actor John Lehr. But the quirkiness of the characters works well and in my opinion, fun to watch.

Don't get me wrong, this show has to do A LOT to come close to being THE OFFICE, but it will be a fun show to watch as it comes into it's own.

There have been only two episodes shown on TBS, and my DVR is set to record all of the future episodes.


Rather than waste your time and mine pointing out which similarities this show has with everything else that came before it, I'm going to tell you to watch it.

I'm also gonna say, if you like The Office (british or American), you may or may not like this show. To draw your opinions from whether or not a show is similar to another, and to formulate your entire critique based on that rationale, is lazy and paltry.

Yes, the main character has likenesses to the boss Steve Carell plays on The Office, being that they're both trying to be funny, likable bosses and they're both men.

Yes, there are other characters on the show too, just like in The Office. On both shows, it's a mix of men and women... a few different races, as well.

Rest assured, this show is exactly like The Office because they both take place in a grocery store. Wait, no they don't.

Okay, if you're gonna split hairs every time you sit down to watch TV, you might as well hide the remote for good. This show is nothing like the Office, other than they both have silly bosses who are trying to be liked by their employees.

Something everyone can relate to... so i'm sure we can deal with more than one show depicting someone in that role.

This show is something you need to Tivo to watch multiple times, as there are things that get funnier the second time around. The characters blend well together and the central driving story of 'screw-up son inherits dead father's grocery store and is being outdone by huge conglomerate' often leads to riotous outcomes.

I'm sure if this show were on one of the more major networks, it'd be taken more seriously.

God forbid we like something on TBS, right?


Let's say you're going to work one morning and, from space, a meteor hits you in the mouth and breaks your jaw. After you recover and return to work, you might tell this story to your co-workers and, given the sheer inanity of the situation, you might relate the story in a humorous fashion. Despite not having any experience as a comedian, you would still be infinitesimally more humorous than "10 Items or Less", TBS's new attempt at killing laughter throughout the known world. This is the type of show you can watch all the way through without laughing, smiling or possibly ever feeling happiness again.

The premise is woefully unoriginal in so many ways- A group of ineffective people working at a supermarket. Let's take a look at that sentence You can replace the word "supermarket" with any other place of business and you will still have the exact same show. In this case, you could even replace the word "people" with "hulking piles of scrap iron" and it would have no effect on the shows quality.

The show is supposedly a loosely scripted, predominantly improvisational work. However, none of the cast proves quick-thinking enough to deliver jokes, but rather try to pass off odd and quirky behavior as humorous, and for the most part they fail at that, too. The cast isn't simply bad at being supermarket employees, they're actually bad at playing human beings- In several scenes it's is actually possible to see an actor's soul leave their body to make their performance more awkward and less human.

One can't help but wonder how it is that TBS, who has proved to be pretty smart about which shows to run in syndication, can keep giving the green light to bad shows like this. There have been Challenger space shuttle disasters funnier than this show, which I might add, wasn't as fanatically over-advertised as "10 Items of Less" was. I suspect that this show is just one unfunny step of many in TBS's plan to make their network so unwatchable that they can use their airtime to transmit messages to the New World Order out in the open And sadly, for fear of accidentally seeing more awful programming like this, no one will be the wiser.


Good show. really good humor. To all of the people who are saying knock off of the office.. same show blah blah blah.. well.. i would just like to say how many more mystery/law/shows set in a hospital are they going to make? Seriously you never hear anyone talking about how annoying all those Law and Orders/ CSI.. they are all the same show but you never hear anyone downing those.There are obviously going to be similarities when watching TV shows so why not watch it for what it is instead of picking out the things that its not? Good stuff in this show. I think Leslie is so funny. He basically carries the show in himself. Even though this show probably wont come back i enjoyed it while it lasted and think that it had a lot of potential.


This show has so many things we have all been waiting so long for, but most of all, it has gut busting comedy. I found myself constantly cracking up each time i watch this. Its like I have already connected with the characters, which are all funny.

The episodes so far have been hilarious, smart, and well acted. After watching 10 minutes of this you will find yourself wanting to work at a supermarket. You cant like this show, you love it. I pretty much have no idea what the characters names are but I know their personalities. Probably more than I should. do yourself a favor and glue yourself to your TV and tivo watching 10 items or less.


I think many people that see this don't realize is that much of the dialog is not scripted. The actors are given information about what there character is like and they themselves create the scene. I place this on the same level of comic genius as "Who's Line Is It Anyway?".

This type of comedy is not for everyone and that is why some people feels this comes off as quirky. I have to be honest and say I have never seen "The Office" so I cannot comment on any of the comparisons.

I am happy that this series has been picked up for another season (3). I do have to admit that I could not see this running on one of the major networks, but TBS is a great place for it. I would like to see about five or six seasons then have a made for TV movie type conclusion.


For a TBS original series, I'd say its brilliant. Otherwise, I'd say its pretty damn good. The stories are well-thought out and executed, and already, having seen just a handful of episodes, I see some strong continuity.

I caught the first episode in its first run and have seen subsequent episodes "on demand", which is a powerful tool for a late-night TBS series. One complaint I have is that I always wanna slap or yell at Leslie (John Lehr), but at the same time it adds to the draw of the show. As for the characters, I find them interesting and funny in their own ways. All in all, well-worth seeing.


I was watching TBS a few weeks ago and saw them compare '10 Items or Less' to 'The Office' in one of their advertisements. So I checked the schedule, found out when it was going to be on, set my TV to remind me that it was going to come on and got my snack and my drink all ready to watch what I thought was going to be a great show......

Unbelievable disappointment. I sat there thinking "I could have had more fun doing nothing at all....." So I thought maybe it was just one bad episode and gave it a second chance. Boy was I wrong.

It's an outright tragedy that they can compare this trash to 'The Office' and get away with it. I was honestly appalled.

The worst part of this show is that it really isn't funny. Not in the least bit. Some people might like this kind of humor, but I don't.

So let me help you all out here. If you enjoy watching a bunch of people acting like idiots on camera, '10 Items or Less' is the show for you. But if you like something clever, a show that doesn't use the typical clichés of just about every other TV show known to man, don't even bother. You'll end up wasting your time, just as I did.


In viewing TBS's newest attempt at infusing their comedic stature into an original series, "10 Items or Less" shows that perhaps Mr. Turner should stick with acquiring sitcoms and cartoons as the foundation for the network's motto of being 'Very Funny'. That is if the sting of "Daisy Does America" hasn't worn off....

"10 Items or Less" establishes all the same clichés of being a grocery clerk that any common customer could see while wrangling this menagerie of failed auditions for Mad TV under the frayed control of manager Leslie, who assumes ownership of the family store after his father dies in a supposedly comedic fashion (a heart attack that knocks over a display stand, with the nearby employee fixing the stand first before helping the fallen owner). While actually showing this act of apathetic drudgery might've seemed more funny, instead the story is relayed by Leslie himself with less than dramatic results.

This is just one of the many examples of failed attempts at achieving a punchline, and instead resorting to a fast quip... just not fast enough. What remains is an almost painful experience for every actor present, shown in their faces in almost every scene yet simultaneously used as "the pain" of working in a grocery store to give them character. Irony.

As with any new show, 5 episodes have already been printed. Hopefully "10 Items or Less" will remain 10 episodes or less....


This show premiered last night on tbs and at first i thought it was just gonna be a new show with no point. Boy was i wrong.

10 Items or Less is a funny and smart show with lots of potential.

The acting is also great and funny.

The actors they picked are great at there job.

I have only seen one episode so i don't no all that much about the show but from what I've seen, it will be great! I hope this show's not cancelled cause from what I've seen, ill probably be watching this show a lot.

For everybody out there that likes this show, you ROCK!


It's always sunny meets the office set in a grocery store.

I can just imagine the pitch meeting for this. Ugh.

Weak concept, weak dialog, weak acting.

I don't know where to begin.

I know where I can end-by not watching it ever again.

Fortunately I just stumbled on to this.

Moreso than not recommending it, this show reminded me that I should find more to do in the evenings.

Ugh. Did I mention that already? I mean, I just don't know how to describe it. Also, I am flummoxed that it is the same name as a quality movie starring Morgan Freeman. The two titles are not related.

Ugh. Sorry for repeating myself. The actor who plays Leslie Best acts a bit caveman-ish. Tongue firmly in cheek.


Well, let's see. It felt like a rip off of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Only, its on tbs, so its less vulgar. I heard ads for the premiere all day today on the radio, so I figured I'd give it a chance. All the ads said "its so offensive, it has to be a late night show" or something like that. Maybe the future episodes will be different but the first one was TVPG. If it was a good rip off of It's Always Sunny, then I would have been cracking up the entire time, but alas, it was just a cheap knock off. The meat guy was pretty funny though. I could see this show catching on if it weren't on tbs, but either way, it's not my style.


Oh look, another comedy that throws together bits and pieces of other TV comedy sucesses, only to end up with soulless crap. The talentless John Lehr tries far too hard and seems entirely unaware of himself. In fact, The supporting cast pull their characters off better than he does. It's physically painful watching Lehr butcher what is already a weak script. Not only is it a struggle to find what could even be considered laugh lines, but Lehr ensures there's nothing funny about his basic character (unlike a show like The Office, for example, where Steve Carrel could stand motionless and still be hilarious). Ignore the first couple comments which are brutally obvious plants. Don't waste your time with this show, it won't be around much longer anyway.


If I were to venture a guess, TBS spent most of its budget on My Boys and when the numbers came in lower than expected, they spent the surplus money on this cheap The Office knockoff. I don't know if the producers were drunk or deluded, but contrary to their belief, rewriting The Office in a grocery store and making it louder doesn't make it funny. The failure Leslie is a transparent rewrite of Michael Scott, a failure trying to succeed in a field he is totally unqualified for that grasps for the approval of those around him. The high school crush of his trying to buy out his store is an equally unoriginal Jan Levinson, the scion of "Corporate", coming down to give him a hard time. And is it any surprise that their relationship is a pathetic one-sided affair? The supporting cast is a trashy group of lower-class failures that love to stand around like idiots and live disgusting lives. Not one of them is close to grabbing sympathy from an audience. Every punchline is a blunt, obvious comment void of any comedic value, suggesting the writers had up to a whole hour to finish the episode. Obvious punchlines and despicable characters may work for Adult Swim's collection of poorly drawn and incoherent plot driven cartoons, but fails miserably for this TBS reject.


It's never very promising when advertising campaigns for upcoming television shows have to constantly remind us of how unoriginal the program is by endlessly comparing it to other popular shows. "10 Items or Less" was promoted, in fact, with the following slogan: "If you thought working in an office was funny, wait until you see what it's like to work in a CONVENIENCE STORE!!"

Oh, wow! Brilliant! Let's rip-off a television show which is already a remake of another international television show from Britain! Awesome! High fives TBS execs! You really nailed it on the head this time!

I mean, after a string of flop original TV shows I imagine they must have all been sitting in their meeting with a collective frown trying to figure out how to (finally) achieve success. "How about we make a fake documentary show...and put it in an office?"

- "Hasn't that already been done?" - "Oh, yeah, right." (Pause) - "I know! Let's put it in a CONVENIENCE store!" - "Yes! Brilliant idea!" - "High fives all around!"

Not only are the characters flat, uninteresting and virtually _all_ rip-offs of characters from The Office (including Leslie, who is a painfully unfunny Steve Carrell/Andy Gervais wannabe) - their second episode DIRECTLY STEALS from an episode of the TV show "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"! It's not just a casual similarity, either.

The episode of Sunny featured the owners of a bar trying to exploit a water stain on the wall of their establishment which resembles Jesus. The new episode of "10 Items" (which premieres in 15 minutes) features the EXACT same plot line!

I struggled through the first episode trying to understand just how on earth such a desperate show could ever be greenlit. This is the stuff of film parody. There are the stereotypes of dumb executives trying to constantly cash in on successful fads - but this is almost TOO outrageous to be real! It's a lame-brain copycat right down to its very directorial style and plot lines.

The debut was one of the worst TV show debuts I've ever seen. Premieres are never fantastic in most cases but this was agonizing to sit through.

This show will disappear very soon, and I hope everyone involved never has a chance to work again. Why? Well, because I'm a rather evil person who will no doubt find great delight in watching this pack of moronic actors have little-to-no success in the future.

Good luck, guys!


10 Items or Less is a wonderful and original, new improv comedy show. The cast all really plays off of each other very well, and the story lines are very creative. I think a series set in a grocery store will make for some very great comedic moments, especially with a cast as funny and talented as this one is. The star, John Lehr, is amazing as Leslie Pool. The writing and directing for this show is also very good. This show is definitely a winner, and one that everyone should see! I would highly recommend this show to anyone out there who loves a great comedy. You will be laughing until your sides hurt! I hope that TBS keeps this show around for a long, long, long time!


My friend is a reporter and she got a preview episode sent to her. This is one of the best new shows I've seen in a long time. How something was so off the wall and so real at the same time was baffling to me. The girls are way hot and the whole cast was great. I worked in a supermarket for a long time and this stuff really happens. Even though I thought some of it was kind of exaggerated (sp?) so much of it is true to life, and maybe I'm biased, but I thought it was pee in your pants funny. I hope network idiots don't cancel it, like so many good shows don't get a chance to be on for a long time, but whatever you do don't miss this gem.


If you see this movie coming on TV, don't panic. Take the controller and gently apply pressure to the power button. Slowly get up and walk away without turning your back to the TV, it can be crafty. When you are 10 feet or so away, run like there is no tomorrow!!!!!!!


This so called movie is the dumbest thing i've seen. Jeeze Barney the Dinosour is better then this and that is a shame! All the actors were so fake! Of course of how MTV is they had to put sex,and nudity in it. I don't think THAT even made it interesting, it just made the movie even dumber then it is! Plus the filming work was terrible because at times it looked like the way they film in the real world series' which doesn't have that movie affect but then at times it did. Well honestly all I can say is that on a scale from 1 to 100 on the bad scale I would give it 120 or more.


I think this "film" proves that Buffooning Myself Poorly is about as tragically un-self-aware as are all of its hamsters.

I briefly entertained the foolish thought that the plot may actually have been going somewhere when the tall skinny bitchy one started telling her fellow "cast members" that this was exactly what Roland wanted them to do--get all their issues out and create conflict and fulfill their stereotypes.

"Yes!" I thought. "Perhaps we are finally in for some self-critique".

But then it quickly degenerated into something like the bastard child of "The Blair Witch Project" and "Undressed".

Please indulge me, as there are few things I just have to get off my chest (May Contain Spoilers):

1. Why the hell did they run aimlessly through the woods instead of running down the road they obviously came in on?

2. How in the world could Jake be such a stupid freaking idiot?

3. What, oh what was the purpose of having the scenes with the actual RW folks (other than as filler)?

I think we see why Jon and Mary-Ellis failed as soap producers--they couldn't produce dialogue or plots believable enough to satisfy even the basement-dwelling standards of daytime television.

Rating: 1 - I'd give it a big fat goose egg if IMDB had such an option.


I have seen other movies by MTV films, and I would have to say that this is the first one where they really dropped the ball. The premise was horrible and while the idea of spoofing all the different personas (frat boy, virgin, introvert, sensitive guy, the artist) was initially an inspired one, that was blown by the awful actors portraying these people. Not to mention the timeline not matching up. For example, if this really was the "lost season" then why would one cast member make reference to the movie "Panic Room" and why would Aneesa from the most recent season of the Real World be one of the Real World alums that was supposed to challenge the Real Worlders. Just very rushed, and sloppy and don't really see any reason why this movie should have ever been made.


Complete waste of time. MTV really has gone too far to attempt to make money, this is a complete waste of time. I would suggest reading this for 2 hours, you may find it more amusing, than the actual movie. 1/10 stars. HORRIBLE..


I thought "The Blair Witch Project" was awful, but this movie is worse than that!! It was super cheesy and the most boring movie in the world! Why did they waste their time making it? They shouldn't have even wasted their time!! Did those "actors" get paid to do what they did? They would have been better off working at McDonald's for the day!! ABSOLUTELY AWFUL!!


I was born and raised in Vancouver so when I heard about The Real World: Vancouver I was pleasantly surprised. Then I heard that it was to be a movie and not the regular show. The movie sounded like an alright, slightly creepy premise and I thought, hey I'll give it a try.

Well the movie was just bland. There were no unexpected moments at all with the exception of a few twists at the end but even these seemed tacked-on to give the movie a clean ending.

The acting was bad. I spent most of the movie trying to get past the acting to concentrate on what little story there was.

After watching this movie I was left thinking that MTV had made a mistake in using Vancouver as the setting of this movie and that they would have been better off filming an actual Real World season there. It's a great city and it was completely and totally wasted by this movie.


As an avid watcher of the Real World... I was totally disappointed in the storyline and well, its characters... it was badly played out and possibly the only good part of the tv-movie... was Adam, the frat boy's face... otherwise the characters were very bland. Roland, what kind of name is that, who planned the Real World 'Challenge' was a terrible character. Bunim and Murray... that was a low blow to your Real World Wonder.


OK, so they try to make this like an actual real world show and then it goes Movie on us and sucks. Too bad it wasn't real, because I'd love to watch the Liz character be hot for a whole season. I really don't want to say more than this, but IMDB makes us write four lines. This show totally didn't deserve it.


Why would any1 want to make this movie? It is so god awful I can't even explain. I have never seen such a joke of a film before in my life. Even if you gave Steven Speilberg the directing job and Brian Grazer produce it would still be a sucker. It should be burned and forgotten forever.


The truly great made-for-TV movies, in my opinion, all have one thing in common: organic to the plot is a reason why the footage would be on a television screen (think Without Warning). This movie, of course, had an obvious reason why it had to be on television: it's based on a TV show. But what's amazing about the movie is how much that device tints the film itself.

All of the scenes in the kidnapped house utilize the creepily steady pan of the obtrusive cameras (the effect is quite Kubrick at times). Add to that some split screen shots that would make Mike Figgis proud, and you've got a dizzying few of reality.

Ultimately, The Lost Season indicts the viewer for intruding upon people's lives. Too fittingly, most of the viewers indicted were Real World fans.

The movie trails off at the end (as the most innovative movies often do), but the guilt of the viewer stays.