Dan in Real Life

[keen on kean]

Dan in Real Life#1

Posted: 10/26/07 at 5:23pm

I went to see this expecting something comedic. It's not. It is very sensitive, and very slow, and I love Steve Carell and Diane Wiest, but it is not the movie I expected from the trailer. This is happening to me more and more often. Trailers - be truthy!

[Cruel_Sandwich]

re: Dan in Real Life#2

Posted: 10/26/07 at 5:34pm

You're probably a man. That's why you can't understand or enjoy it.

[xxnewgirlxx]

re: Dan in Real Life#2

Posted: 10/26/07 at 6:07pm

I'm looking forward to seeing it this weekend. This is the first negative review I've seen. I will see Steve Carell in anything and I'm excited to see Norbert Leo Butz as well.

[~FloweryFriend~]

re: Dan in Real Life#3

Posted: 10/26/07 at 6:13pm

This wasn't a negative review. It wasn't what K.O.K expected, but there's no mention of it being bad.

I starred in a short film called Magnetic Personality. Check it out!

[mauriposa]

re: Dan in Real Life#4

Posted: 10/26/07 at 6:33pm

I'm planning on going to see it this weekend. More or less just to point at the screen and shout "Norb!" in my head.

[Chloe]

re: Dan in Real Life#5

Posted: 10/26/07 at 6:48pm

Norbert has a nice improvisational moment singing and playing the piano. There are a lot of theater people in this (it was cast by Bernie Telsey), including Alison Pill as one of Carell's daughters, Amy Ryan, Jessica Hecht, and Matthew Morrison in a small part as a cop.

[DG]

re: Dan in Real Life#6

Posted: 10/26/07 at 7:28pm

"You're probably a man. That's why you can't understand or enjoy it."

What do you mean by this, Cruel?

[shira467]

re: Dan in Real Life#7

Posted: 10/26/07 at 7:29pm

I am definitely planning on seeing this movie.

Deet: Shira, I Love You!

[keen on kean]

re: Dan in Real Life#8

Posted: 10/26/07 at 8:18pm

Cruel - wrong as usual. My review wasn't negative - just disappointed.
Updated On: 10/26/07 at 08:18 PM

[fflagg]

re: Dan in Real Life#9

Posted: 10/26/07 at 11:28pm

For once, a comedy that does not overstay its welcome.

At 95 minutes this is a sweet and not too sticky comedy-drama in the same tone as Steve Martin's Parenthood from almost 20 years ago.

Fine cast, except for the bland Dane Cook and his bad complexion, and stolen by the sublime Emily Blunt in a push-up bra.

Do you know what happens when you let Veal Prince Orloff sit in an oven too long?

[DG]

re: Dan in Real Life#10

Posted: 10/26/07 at 11:38pm

"Steve Martin's Parenthood from almost 20 years ago."

That's a pretty good reference. I'm intrigued now.

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

re: Dan in Real Life#11

Posted: 10/26/07 at 11:43pm

Alison Pill is amazingly brilliant.

"Picture "The View," with the wisecracking, sympathetic sweethearts of that ABC television show replaced by a panel of embittered, suffering or enraged Arab women" -the Times review of Black Eyed

[Chloe]

re: Dan in Real Life#12

Posted: 10/26/07 at 11:48pm

I agree, she's extremely talented. The first couple of paragraphs of the Times review describes it very well:

Early in Peter Hedges’s “Dan in Real Life,” the title character, at a bookstore, meets the woman he will fall in love with. Mistaking him for an employee, she breathlessly tries to describe the kind of book she’s looking for. (He responds by gathering up a random assortment of volumes that includes the poems of Emily Dickinson, “Anna Karenina” and “Everybody Poops.”) “I want something funny,” she says. “But not laugh-out-loud funny. And definitely not making-fun-of-people funny. I want something human funny.”

It does not take long to recognize this as a declaration of the film’s own intentions. Its moral is “expect to be surprised,” and the surprise is how frequently it succeeds. “Dan in Real Life” is neither wildly farcical nor mockingly cruel, but rather, for the most part, winningly gentle and observant.

[mauriposa]

re: Dan in Real Life#13

Posted: 10/27/07 at 1:13am

Just got back from the theater. I'm definitely glad I made the trip to see this one. I thought it was funny, sweet, and wholly relatable. It also is one of the first movies I've seen in a long time that felt like it was of appropriate length. It's definitely worth seeing.
Updated On: 10/27/07 at 01:13 AM

[Lisatwin-2]

re: Dan in Real Life#14

Posted: 10/27/07 at 11:17am

I saw it last night too...and LOVED it..hubby "liked it" and sis loved it too.
I was a tad disappointed they didnt use Norbert more for the singing spots, but I guess I should just be happy he was even in the film and did sing a tad, I adore him!

THUMBS UP!

[CapnHook]

re: Dan in Real Life#15

Posted: 10/27/07 at 11:39am

I LOVED it. That is all.

"The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet."
--Aristotle

[Borstalboy]

re: Dan in Real Life#16

Posted: 10/27/07 at 12:21pm

Peter Hedges is in my good books for making the wonderful PIECES OF APRIL....but this one has the odious Dane Cook. Which makes me want to wait for DVD.

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” ~ Muhammad Ali

[mauriposa]

re: Dan in Real Life#17

Posted: 10/27/07 at 12:26pm

Yeah, I'm not a big Dane Cook fan either, but he didn't bother me in this one. I think there are enough good people to outweigh one weak player.

[CMoore]

re: Dan in Real Life#18

Posted: 10/28/07 at 12:52am

Loved it.