Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

benjaminburt A film for adults that's by children, you see: A romp and a rile that'll fill you with glee! A film of a dream running wild on the loose, All from the mind of the great Dr. Seuss.A tale of a boy and his frights and his fears, And they may be many, despite his few years: Concerns for his mother, he wishes no ill of her, He trembles and quakes at his Dr. Terwilliker.The good Dr. T plays piano, you see, And teaches young boys to play "just like me," He detest violins and honking trombones, Bassoons, tambourines, and loud saxophones.To his pupil, Bart Collins, he seems quite a villain, He has cast a spell on Bart's mom, Mrs. Collins. He worries she loves him, but turning now sees Emerge from the kitchen Mr. Zabladowski.The handsome young plumber! A gentleman, he! And Bart wouldn't mind being a Zabladowski. And now with this thought, Bart began to doze off, And drifted to dreamland, with this in his thoughts.He was whisked away to a far-away place - A magic, musical, Seuss-ical space. He fell to a place of ill repute, Trapped in Terwilliker's dread Institute.Dr. T had constructed a massive piano, Made to be played by his 500 pupils. 10 fingers per pupil, and so you can see, The 5,000 fingers of Dr. T.Mr. Zabladowski works as a plumber, Installing 500 sinks is quite a bummer. Young Bart persuades him to check on Ms. Collins, Stating that she's been hypnotized by the villain.The plumber's distracted by a Dr. T song, And told to go back and finish his job. Afterwards Dr. T orders his killing, And Bart had been there and heard the whole thing.The two of them both try and fail to flee; They're thrown in the dungeon of old Dr. T. They make a bizarre noise-sucking machine, And to play the piano, Bart is retrieved.When 500 pupils sit down to play, Bart's machine sucks all the music away. Dismayed, old Terwilliker has quite a fit, But soon sees the problem, and seeks to correct it.Bart and the doctor meet face-to-face, And Bart puts Terwilliker right in his place. He threatens the Dr. with his contraption, (Because it's atomic), Bart now has traction.Dr. Terwilliker pleads for life, And agrees to give up his institute and wife. The kids all cheer and mash the piano, But suddenly, the noise-sucker starts to explode!Bart Collins wakes up, home once again, But things as they were seem to have changed. Bart suggests Mother and Zabladowski go out, They leave together and Bart jumps about.All in all, can't you see that this film is not made For those little children to be entertained? This movie's for grown-ups, to make them all see How tough the life of a young kid can be.From the one who understood, that old Dr. Seuss, He spun a tall tale of a kid on the loose, And taken as-is, the film is real good. Why not go and watch it when you're in the Seuss mood?

flapdoodle64 Here in the 21st Century, I'm not sure who this film's proper audience is, besides cinephiles. The protagonist is a kid, a fact which will turn off many adult viewers. At the same time, there are some amazingly elaborate and artistically choreographed dance and acrobatic sequences, prefiguring Cirque du Soleil...the complexity and wonder of which might be lost on kids. (I also wonder if kids' attention might wander during these sequences...)I am, of course, a cinephile now, but was I at age 10, when my brothers and I watched this back in the 1970's, broadcast by a UHF TV station out of Youngstown, Ohio? Because we liked this film then. Would today's kids, fed a steady diet of video games, MTV and R-rated movies like this film? I doubt it, but you never know.My 21st Century cinephile self recently re-watched this film, after 40 years, finding it to be beautiful and frightening. It is a clever mix of Suessian imagery and the anxieties of childhood (which adults remember better than we admit) contained within the forms and conventions of the 1950's Hollywood musical. The cast is excellent, particularly the dancers, but credit should be distributed all around. Mary Healy is very sexy as Bart's mother, and her real-life husband, Peter Lind Hayes, portrays the kind of adult every kid wishes he knew. Hans Conried, at what turned out to the pinnacle of his career, is perfect. Even Bart, played by Tommy Rettig is good (child actors are often very hard to stomach). Almost the entire film is an extended dream sequence, showing life for a young boy inside a surreal fortress of mandatory piano lessons, and where strict, autocratic order is enforced by a legion of uniformed, thuggish soldiers. Very obvious to my adult self, it is a commentary on authoritarianism and totalitarianism, in the world of an American child. It is interesting to consider that the year of this film's release, 1953, was the peak of the Senator Joe McCarthy witch-hunts. The following year, theocratic authoritarians successfully pressured the US Congress into mandating the phrase 'one nation under God' into the Pledge of Allegiance, which was itself an oath forced upon millions of schoolchildren 5 days a week. Among many memorable moments is a solo titled 'Because We're Kids,' containing this verse: 'Now just because your throat has got a deeper voice, And lots of wind to blow it out, At little kids who dare not shout, You have no right, you have no right, To boss and beat us little kids about...'So, as I said before, this film will not be 'accessible' to everyone. But to those of us for whom it is, there are rewards.

SnoopyStyle Bart Collins is haunted by Dr. Terwilliker's piano lessons. Even in his dreams, he's haunted by Terwilliker who has built a fanciful piano that will have 500 children or 5000 fingers playing it. He must save his widowed mother Heloise Collins from under Terwilliker's spell. The only person who might be able to help is the Collins' plumber August Zabladowski.Written by Dr Seuss, this has all his original visual styles. It is imaginative, creative, and hypnotic. The style is definitely 50s even with songs of sounds of the era. The acting has that childlike broad feel that is so fitting for a movie that takes place almost entirely in a child's imagination. The best is Hans Conried as the evil Dr. Terwilliker. His unique voice adds depth to his performance.

LeonLouisRicci Impeccably inverted Masterpiece that could be the most unseen, unadulterated, unsung, great Movies ever. It was an Atomic Bomb at the box office and with critics and as such was swept away by indifference, fear, and misunderstanding in the cookie-cutter 1950's.The expressionistic sets and the Dr. Seuss dialog and songs are fluffy and frightening, bizarre and beautiful. There is a whimsical way about it and yet it is a scathing psychological and sociological indictment on conformity, highbrow Arts (look what all the supposed high minded purveyors of culture tried to do to Comic Books and Rock and Roll), the educational system, and totalitarianism.Quite a lot of deep stuff for Kids, but the best of it (The Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka) are just that. Layers of concern and empathy for the plight and suppressed nature of us all from the lack of individualism manifested by a xenophobic, ultra-conservative culture.This is a surreal, colorful, playful, experience and all of that subtext can be ignored and overlooked as this Movie is wonderful on the surface as an offbeat Musical/Comedy/Fantasy that has been unjustly ignored and forgotten. This is one of the best Films of the 1950's and can also, arguably, be mentioned as one of the best Films of all time.