roger-134

I was shocked by how well made this movie was!

I had tried watching several sci-fi movies on "good movies you can stream" lists and most were by-the-numbers genre junk that I bailed on after 10 minutes. But "The Vast of Night" plops you right in the middle of small-town 1950's life and in long extended take scenes you follow a character (soon to be two characters) around as they chit chat and, basically, give you a chance to know them as people. It must be a very difficult way to make a film, which is why most directors are lazy and rely entirely on cut/cut/cut and facial closeups of single characters, never allowing the rhythm of real live to be felt.

None of this would have worked if the acting wasn't superb, or if the camerawork felt gimmicky. But the effect is to allow you to feel as if you're really there, in their town, right alongside them in their lives.

Once the sci-fi angle comes in, the suspense is skillfully built, and the film doesn't overplay its hand.

If you're looking for a standard sci-fi thriller, you may be disappointed ... there aren't huge explosions and an overbearing cinematic score to cue you for how you should react ... but if you're in the mood for something surprisingly different and well done, try "The Vast of Night". I'll definitely be on the lookout for anything this first-time director (Andrew Patterson) releases.

My wife and two kids, boys aged 9 and 12, settled down together to watch this and at the halfway point we all agreed to bail on it.

Part of the problem is that much of the explication is given in song, so unless you're on top of interpreting screechy singing voices you will be a bit lost.

And I didn't really care about any of the characters ... there was a girl who was important somehow but I had no idea of what her motivation was. Her creator was a pretty good evil guy, though.

My kids thought it was creepy, so I guess the film had some power, but just not the kind of power that would make us want to watch it.

I was tense for the entire time ... if that's what you want from a thriller (that's the point isn't it?) then check it out.

I loved how the movie defied Hollywood convention by not having a smoothed out phony plot, with various crises and resolutions doled out to keep the popcorn munchers happy. Instead it just felt as if you had really been left behind in the ocean, with all the unpredictability and horror that implies. The actors do a great job being normal people, not heroes or gender stereotypes. Blanchard Ryan is especially good.

It's especially compelling if you've done scuba diving. I may not sleep well tonight, but it was worth it.

Unwatchably bad. Not even bad in an amusing way, unfortunately. The two leads are shallow and unconvincing, the story is nonsense, the comedy is dated, the music annoying.

There are loads of good Better Davis movies - watch one of them instead! 2/10

I was hoping for a good Woody Allen movie and it was far better than I had hoped for. Plenty of clever dialogue and funny situations and lots of energy. The energy level reminded me of "Husbands and Wives" while parts of the fantasy world reminded me of "Stardust Memories." And the main character (not to mention the presence of Richard Benjamin) made me think of Philip Roth.

Silly and pointless melodrama, good only for laughs. The fault is partly with the script, which calls for the characters to vacillate in their romantic yearnings without visible cause or motive. But mostly the movie fails because of the wooden and passionless "acting" of the male lead. His style is so non-expressive that the movie has to rely on voice-overs to reveal the passions he is supposed to be feeling. The actresses portraying the sisters do a good job with the absurd roles they are given.

Along the way some clumsy symbolism is thrown in for good measure, such as the scene where, right after the concept of "physical love" is discussed, one of the sisters pulls an apple out of nowhere to hand to Claude.

Unintentional comedic highlight of the movie is the letter from one of the sisters where she reveals that she is not as pure as she might seem.

I've seen this movie about five times (well spaced out . . .) and each time I'm shocked anew at how bad it is; each time I laugh out loud at scene after scene.

The closest comparison is Spinal Tap . . . except, incredibly, this wasn't meant to be a comedy!

The plot is high on melodrama, the music is high on schmaltz, and Larry Olivier must have been high on something. High points: New wave version of "Love on the Rocks", and Neil shouting "What happened to the groove?" as he storms out of the studio.

Seriously, though, if you want to know how the music industry really works, this is an excellent, gritty tutorial.

For a movie with a plot like this I would normally smell "tearjerker" in the first ten minutes and turn it off, but this was very well made, with emotional subtleties, great acting, and some genuinely funny moments. It was also interesting to see a different culture - a vanishing one at that. My wife and I both dug it!

I agree with some of the other comments that the film shows very little of the technical and business details of the web site. Yes, these details would have been interesting (the one scene showing them testing the dreadful search engine is hilarious), but the makers of the film obviously decided to focus on the personal relationship between the two leaders of the company.

For me (as well as my wife) the approach worked. The personal dramas were compelling enough or humorous enough to keep it interesting.

There were certainly a lot of dots left unconnected, but many of them (like what happens with Kaleil's ex-lovers) are probably better left unconnected.

If you like this sort of cinema verité, I would highly recommend "A Perfect Candidate", which is a much fuller and more interesting movie. Still, I'll give "startup.com" 7.5 out of 10.

The characters are cliched and predictable, with everyone being either snow-white pure or wholly evil. The acting is too stilted for it to be bad in an amusing, over-the-top way. It's doubly disappointing if you're a Bette Davis fan, because her character is not a typically fun Bette-Davis-type character; she just gets to frown pensively a lot.

On the whole, neither my wife nor I found the movie to be interesting, moving or enjoyable at all.

A good movie if you want something safe and easy with no violence or anything else to remind you that it's a nasty world out there!

The plot is silly, and manages to insult both sexes, although of the two it is the females, or rather "girls", who come off looking the more pathetic.

Nonetheless, there were many moments when my wife and I guffawed with laughter, although most of the laughs were at the silly 50's cliches and not necessarily at the plot twists, although there were some good one-liners.