The Best and the Brightest

This is the worst movie of 2011 so far and unlikely to be challenged. The first ten minutes are excellent, setting the stage for a lovely dramedy about a middle-class couple braving the horrors of NYC private kindergarten, with an attractive Neil Patrick Harris and Bonnie Somerville filling the bill nicely. And there's Amy Sedaris--such a winning comedian. But noooooo. Before you know it, this charming human comedy devolves into one of the unfunniest, loudest, crudest, lewdest movies imaginable. The actors are lost--Sedaris becomes monotonous, Harris a snooze, and all the rest of them unbearable. The very idea that pornographic IMs could be mistaken for poetry by sentient New Yorkers is so unbelievable that the whole premise falls apart, and it just gets worse and worse by the nanosecond. This is one of the most inept films in memory.

Sometimes it is enough to be clever rather than actually be talented in something. Sometimes you just do anything to get what you want. And that is what this couple is all about. The actors make this more fun than it actually has a right to be. Too many clichés, choices to interrupt conversations that do not make any sense (other than "being funny" and interruptive) and other stuff like that.

The characters are simple and the setting is too. You'll see where this is going from very early on. Some nice jokes aside this might bore some people, if they are not convinced by the actors as well. Decent try, but needed work on script level.

I went to this preview because I thought the premise had a lot of promise; my good friends living in New York are living testimonials to the absurdity of getting into preschool. A couple from Delaware move to Manhattan, with the assumption that they will actually get their five year old into a school. Not so fast. To make this happen, a charade is constructed, and soon it takes off on a mind of its own. This movie did a great job,and was hysterical. It had a great pace, and great characters. Many of the concepts (like sexting as high art poetry) were brilliant. I hope this film takes off, because it is an original , and thoroughly enjoyable story.

I shut it off after 31 minutes. I decided to register and logon at minute 13. It is unbearable. The characters are straight out of sitcoms. There is no more loathsome character than whoever Amy Sedaris is trying to be. Every headmistress of the schools is the dimmest cow each one dimmer and more awful than the last. I really can't tell you more than that because it is so awful. We get it, really we do. Getting your snowflake into a private Manhattan kindergarten is harder than winning every Nobel prize a Pulitzer an Oscar and a MacArthur genius grant on the same say while giving birth to the Messiah and successfully operating the world's biggest hedge fund.

I saw The Best and the Brightest last night.

The movie is very funny, almost non stop laughs through the whole thing. The cast did a great job, and the writing is wonderful. I will have to see it again, because I missed much of the dialog because I was laughing so loud.

This is the type of movie one would go to because it takes you away from reality. I am sure some where it is someones reality, but I believe not many of us have gone through what Sam and Jeff had to go through.

Unfortunately, I had to leave at the beginning of the Q&A in Los Angeles, so I was not able to let the Kate Mulgrew, Bonnie Sommerville, Josh Shelov,Michael Jaeger, and the others, what a fun , and funny film they have made.

I do hope it is released soon, because it is a must see for my friends.