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Well the title fits the film. Chronically self absorbed wealthy New Yorkers. It's hard to really care about a young published author from a wealthy family when NYC is so full of unpublished poor authors. It's also hard to tell the difference between the cute young blondes in the movie. This movie is basically about "white peoples problems." I also suspect the tobacco industry paid a lot for product placements. There is a lot of gratuitous smoking in the film for no other apparent reason.

This isn't really a review. It's more of a question. But I realize I have to meet the minimum word count to get it published so I'll write a review. But first the question (and spoiler alert.) Near the end of the movie the Dean tells Marcus that Olivia is pregnant. Naive Marcus is dumbfounded and swears he can't be the father because he didn't have intercourse. All he got was a hand job from Olivia in his hospital room. So my question is: Is the viewer supposed to conclude that when Olivia went into the bathroom to wash up after servicing Marcus that she first slipped her sperm covered fingers up her vagina? Or am I imagining too much?

I would have liked the movie better if the script had been clearer about this. Also quite a few scenes from the book were not in the movie. Perhaps a low budget made cuts necessary. But there were no special effects, so why the need for cuts? Especially since the movie runs well under two hours. Also the ending makes no sense at all. We are supposed to believe that Marcus dies in the Korean War after getting expelled from college and drafted.

And yet this "death" scene is filmed indoors in some dark building; not any kind of Korean battlefield I ever saw. And even worse the enemy soldier who kills Marcus seems to be wearing a WWII Japanese uniform, complete with cap and tropic warfare sunshade. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the movie. The acting by all the characters was great. That's why I gave it an 8 our of 10.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, but then again I'm old enough to have seen Warren Beatty's other movies. Alden Ehrenreich is excellent. Lily Collins is perfect. But I get the impression that everyone in Hollywood over the age of 50 called up Mr. Beatty and asked for a role in his movie. And being an old guy himself, Beatty obliged them. His wife is in the movie. So is Alec Baldwin. So is Candice Bergen. With the exception of the two youngsters, the cast could hold their own AARP meeting. Albeit it a good one. If you like history, or if you're curious about Howard Hughes or morals before the birth control pill was invented, then you'll like this movie. But most movie goers are between 13-25. Are they going to choose a movie like this for date night? Who knows? Maybe it will break even with help from Netflix and foreign sales. In fact, the most remarkable thing about the movie is that Beatty was not only capable of making a movie at age 79, but he also pulls off playing a character 20 years younger than he is. He remains a remarkable man.

I recently discovered this mini-series and greatly enjoyed it. It's too bad the DVD collection doesn't appear to have any additional features such as interviews with the director or producer. The series must have cost a fortune to make. All the costumes, the wide lapels on the mens' suits, the sets, the crowds of people, the marching horses, the elephants, the palaces. It's certainly a big budget series. Of course you can pull this off when the British government is helping to foot the bill. And let's face it, this is the BBC at its best. Mountbatten comes across as a decent man. Everyone does in fact, except Jinnah. He's the villain in the piece, and in my opinion the historical record supports this view of him. Mountbatten was faced with the problem of how to get the British out of India while trying to salvage the image of the empire. A review of Wikipedia shows that Hindu-Moslem violence predated the Raj and still continues to this day, so it's somewhat unfair to blame the violence following partition as Mountbatten's fault. Mountbatten's problem in India was a lot like the U.S. in Vietnam. He hoped to create a decent interval between the British exit and whatever happened next. In this regard he failed by trying to move too fast. For example India and Pakistan both declared independence before anyone knew where the exact borders were. A slower approach might have resulted in fewer deaths, but not that many fewer. Both before and after this series was made in the mid 1980s Hindus and Moslems have continued to kill each other in the subcontinent. So a more careful approach to partition would have merely mitigated the violence, not prevented it. Like I said, the BBC helped fund this series in part to burnish Britain's image. Edwina Mountbatten's promiscuity is greatly toned down in the series. Her affair with Nehru is merely hinted at. (They make a lot of eyes at each other.) Given that Nehru spent six years in British jails prior to independence, nailing the Viceroy's wife must have been sweet revenge indeed. What's also fascinating about this series is how it still resonates. References to Abbottabad, where bin Laden was killed, or a scene showing a woman getting raped are right out of today's headlines. Unfortunately some things never change.

Yes it is a blatant ripoff of "Hardbodies". However, I suspect the producer of Boardheads correctly calculated the target audience for his movie was still in diapers when Hardbodies came out. Not to mention that no self respecting Gen Z-er is going to watch a movie made in 1984. They'll choose modern dreck over old dreck just as surely as the tasties/hardbodies in both movies reject the old guys hitting on them. OK, so I've got to get to ten lines or my review gets rejected. Well I guess I could point out that the girls in Hardbodies were better looking. Maybe that means starlets these days have more choice over what roles they have to take. But I don't think so. Maybe Hardbodies had a bigger budget and could attract better looking starlets. Or maybe since I'm a baby boomer I just like the look of girls from the 80s.

Hollywood seems to come out with a new movie about recent college grads about every 10-15 years. I think I've seen them all starting with "The Graduate". And "Reality Bites" has to be among the worst. I remember the early 90s. Young people did not listen to Peter Frampton. They didn't have Shaun Cassidy posters on their walls. One of the themes of the movie was the reluctance of the characters to sellout. And yet the producers sold out big time to the tobacco industry. There's smoking in almost every scene, product placements, and even a plug for Camel Straights. The movie really bites. I could write more about the boring characters, the meandering plot, etc., but who cares? But I add one more comment. When the yuppie Michael turns whats her name's documentary film into a pizza commercial, this movie within a movie is actually better than the film itself.

I liked this mini-series. As was previously mentioned, a mini-series is often a better format for a novel than a movie because mini-series aren't restricted to 120 minutes. I thought Jane Seymour was great in this movie. The rest of the cast was merely good. But despite the lack of experience of the young cast, at least their youth made you believe they were only a few years removed from the war. Well, the editors said I have to have 10 lines to get my comment posted. So I also liked Leonard Nemoy in this movie. I like the background music playing in the bars. And the scenery in the movie. Given Hemmingway's sparse prose, this is the sort of detail that doesn't come across in the book, but makes the movie well worth watching.