cmcole

I thought the movie was pretty good, but it could (and should) have been better. For one thing, it should have been a PG or PG-13 movie, without the occasional sex jokes and the totally distracting succession of F-bombs from about every character on screen. And I don't want to give it away, but the ending was pretty disappointing; it sort of seemed like it was written in a hurry. Other than that, I liked it. Chris Cooper's character was definitely the most interesting, but they all worked pretty well. On a low note, I was rather surprised to hear the characters say some of the idiotic things they said. It's amazing that the man who wrote the Back to the Future series has resorted to flatulence for humor. Not bad at all, but not great either.

I think "depressing" is definitely the best word for this movie. After seeing it once, I was not only saddened, but downright angry that anyone would make a movie that made me feel this way.

After masochistically making myself see it again, I grew to appreciate it somewhat more. The fact is, the movie does what it does very well; unfortunately, what it does is show us the story of a man whose life just outright sucks. He's a terrible comedian who can't say anything funny, he's a slightly alcoholic husband who can't support his family, and he's a lousy worker in a lousy job who can't make ends meet. The only person Jimmy sticks by is his grandmother, who ironically is the source of many of the disasters in his life.

In summary, I have to say it's a well made movie, but if you watch it, be prepared to be uncomfortable with life for a while.

I'm writing this more than anything as a response to the comments about Tom Hulce's accent, the use of English, etc.

1. As was already mentioned by another post, the English is used every time the characters "should" be speaking German, and so it was done in the songs as well.

2. As for the accent, I don't see why this is such an issue. The American accent is a dialect of English spoken in North America, granted. But who cares? That doesn't make Mozart sound any less European. With an English accent, I argue that he'd sound no more Austrian. It's well-known that the characters in this movie, although all speaking German, should represent a huge variety of dialects and accents, not least of which would be Salieri's, who, lest we forget, was an Italian.

Other than that, I think the film is outstanding. Yes, I realize there are plenty of historical inaccuracies, but why is that a problem? It isn't a history presentation, it's a movie.