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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Unbelievable, August 13, 2006
This review is from: The Talent Given Us (DVD)
This film, perhaps best targeted to fans of "Waiting For Guffman" and other pseudo-documentary comedies of cringe-inducing revelation, is unbelievable in many senses of the word. Unbelievable in its frankness, unbelievable in the wackiness of many of the characters. Unbelievable as a documentary, since the director was also the cinematographer who filmed his parents having sex, his sister masturbating, his family searching for him cross country. And finally, unbelievable that such a contrived, hammy, zany bunch of people work as objects of filmed entertainment.
The mother's extreme fickleness is matched by one sister's LA-based psychobabble. The mother is painfully unaware of her whiplash changes in viewpoint and mood, while the daughter is paralyzingly self-probing in her artificial patois of new age spirituality and Freudian concepts. These two loonies propel the situation forward (and backward) while other family members respond with frustration, resigned consternation, protest, patronizing, and many other shades of exasperated love. Various other people are sucked into the whirlpool and spit safely out on the other side of the vortex.
The comment on NY encapsulation, Beverly Hills loopiness, family bonds, emotional incest, and contemporary identity struggles: the ironic observation of the filmmaker plays out surprisingly well despite the potential mess this film constantly threatens to become. It is funny in the way that Corky St Clair pleasure/pain is.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good...but scripted...., August 31, 2009
This review is from: The Talent Given Us (DVD)
When I saw this film, I was STARTLED at parts of it. I cringed, blushed, laughed and was very touched at the end. BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS A REAL DOCUMENTARY. After doing research--I discovered it was all scripted. The "estranged" son was the film maker! So it is nonsense when they see him at the end and are 'surprised', as he was ALWAYS around! That means the whole cross-country journey was also fiction (and completely unnecessary). Online, the son claims the "SCRIPT" was created well before this all came to fruition.
SO...it IS a good film, if you didn't know better--if you thought it was a real documentary. I was originally fascinated by it. But that was when I believed it to be real. Now that I know the truth...it has all the intrigue of that stupid 'Blair Witch Project'. Why would I want to see it a second time? Why would I want to own it? It is "fiction in disguise."
So I say forget this thing and get 'Grey Gardens.' It is real, it is dear, and you will never forget it. I knew 'Little Edie' and you can be sure the film is the real deal.
I give this film three stars because it DID convince me, before I found out the truth. And this means it must be pretty well done. The parents are non-professional actors, which one can also appreciate. Seeing it again, however, would cause me to roll my eyes and dismiss the more outrageous parts as contrived.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Only Watched It Once..so far, March 13, 2007
This review is from: The Talent Given Us (DVD)
I was a bit floored to see that 67 people are selling copies of this film and only one wrote a review.I see this as indicative of how alien these people are to most or maybe how unwilling most people are to go where this film goes.It is too unique to just watch once so I plan to watch it again, maybe several times before really commenting on it. My only recommendation then and the reason for only 4 stars is that I thnk this is a rare opportunity and should be viewed a few times to really have a chance to benefit from it.
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