ThiefHott Too much of everything

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

SnoopyStyle It's 1973 Cleveland, Ohio. Wannabe intelligentsia Messerman parents (William Hurt, Rita Wilson) throw out the TV. Their son Clive (David Call) is a math genius. He excels in competition but seems to be growing distant. He speaks in a secret language with his friends. His girlfriend Sandra (Michelle Trachtenberg) is secretly living in the basement. His younger brother William (Brett Davern) discovers the secret and starts falling for her.There is a great reveal ending. The movie simply needs more intensity and tension for the rest of the movie. It needs more drama. Most of this movie is too flat. The acting is fine but they don't get enough to do. The direction is functional. There are possibilities here for great drama but it doesn't really do anything with them. Even the math competition is without drama.

ronsmolin I was captivated by all the fine actors in this film that I never knew existed until a 2011 presentation on Showtime. Finally there arrived an intelligent screenplay with a wide assortment of unusual characters assembled into a unique family arrangement along with two friends of the math genius Clive--Sandra and Elliot The most astounding performance was by Brett Davern who shines as the prototypical normal kid facing challenges from his demanding parents and the aloofness shown to him by his older brother, Clive. As William, Brett enraptures the audience with his innocence and his driving desires to make love to Clive's girlfriend Sandra, played by Michelle Trachtenberg, who always plays her roles in a brilliant fashion. William finally achieves a most perfect sexual union with Sandra and we all can appreciate his joy. Brett Davern has a sparkle in his eye throughout the film, and lights up every scene he's in.Clive represents a mysterious youth. speaking to his friend Elliot in a foreign language unknown to any of the characters. Clive, Elliot and Sandra hang out and smoke dope and play guitars.Eventually, William gains acceptance and the four of them produce a very unusual team.William Hurt and Rita Wilson are the boys' parents and add a quirkiness to the film that's much appreciated by this viewer. They perform wonderfully.Now this film takes place in the 1970s, in the era of AIDS, and out of the blue the genius Clive and his friend Elliot are discovered caressing each other naked in the basement. His so-called liberal father slaps him hard, as the audience is really shocked by this last-minute development. Of course, we now understand that the secret language between the boys (a love poem in Hungarian)reflects the secrecy of being gay in that time period. Whether Clive is bi-sexual or merely uses Sandra as a beard is not known.If the film has any fault, it is the fact that the viewers would like to have seen another 20 or 30 minutes of plot development. Instead, we are presented with a penultimate scene many years in the future in which Clive is dying of AIDS with his family at his bedside.It is quite a touching scene, but without any plot to cover the missing years, we are left a bit empty.Finally, Clive is married with two children and discovers quite by chance his brother's secret language.I'm sorry so few people have seen the film. It's about intelligent people filmed for an intelligent audience, which unfortunately is quite rare these days.

annevejb It took more than one viewing for me to really like this. First viewing, first ten minutes, it felt too weak to have reached DVD distribution. Then it picked up but it took special circumstances for me to watch it a second time. The second time, to me that was okay, as were the third and fourth viewings. The start of the film felt way too high brow. Repeated viewing say no, that is just the family in a trap, one of a whole load of symptoms. Pseudo high brow? This is one of many stories that allows one to compare how things used to be understood, traps that people used to fall into, occasional glances at UK newspapers say that they still do. As such I find that it holds its own and that it is an interesting puzzle. * Around the same time I was also watching 17 Again, a big-ish budget Zac Efron that is widely respected, and I actually prefer Beautiful Ohio. I find 17 Again to have a lot of amazing details and sequences, way above this story for that. Just this one seems to flow better. No little chunks of boredom among all of the detail. They can both be understood as considering traps that people used to fall into, still do, and both feel to be worthwhile and very different to each other, just I can now like Beautiful Ohio all the way through. 17 Again is mostly high quality in a range of different ways, this is quality in rather different ways.

bintensern This was a wonderful Movie. I saw the preview the preview in a special fund raiser in Cleveland for the Arts. I Can't wait till it is in wide distribution so that I can see it again. Chad Lowe the director and producer has brought humor, meaning, emotion, and depth to flaming. The actors are superb. William Hurt and Rita Wilson are excellent and make this movie time well spent. Julianne Marguilies is surprisingly charming in this role. The new actors are very good and I know they will have an excellent future. It was an emotional and compelling movie that kept me enthralled from the moment it started to the surprising end.