All About Schmidt

“All About Schmidt” was a really interesting movie. I liked the beginning and loved the ending, but I think that the movie is about half an hour too long. I kept waiting for something else to happen. It was very hard to watch, partly because of the hot tub scene, but mostly because Warren’s life was so pathetic. I felt so awful for him, and watching his life slowly get worse was painful. I guess the ending of the movie wouldn’t have been so cathartic if Schmidt hadn’t spent most of the movie being miserable, but after a certain amount of time, I was ready to move on to the next step in the plot.

I thought it was interesting how the movie treated marriage. I don’t think that Randall and Jeanie will actually be happy together. Maybe their marriage will resemble Warren’s marriage to Helen. If it does, Randall will be the one “waiting on” Jeanie, but I think they’re both too good-hearted to descend to that. I loved their wedding scene though, especially Randall’s vow at 1:44:29.

I really disliked Jeanie’s character for most of the movie, and I still don’t really like her. When Warren asked her who was going to take care of him and she didn’t volunteer (at 0:35:40), I knew I was never going to like her. When she told him he couldn’t come stay with her early (at 0:53:20) I really couldn’t stand her, and when it became clear that she was lying about hr wedding plans being under control, that was the last straw. Even though, according to Jeanie, Warren was never there for her, it should have been obvious to her that he cared about her. She should have treated him with more respect. He even paid her bills!

I did really like how, when Jeanie told Warren he couldn’t come early to Denver, he lied to Ndugu and told him that Jeanie had begged him to come early but he had more important things to do. That did make me more sympathetic to Jeanie, because it showed how Warren was used to twisting the truth. Warren’s letters to Ndugu were my favorite part of the movie. I loved when Warren told Ndugu (at 0:59:10) to be sure and pledge to a fraternity when he went to college.

I think that this movie was so hard to watch because everyone’s afraid of ending up like Warren. I think that, deep down, everyone’s scared of marrying someone and staying with them for the wrong reasons, sticking with a job that eventually leaves them dissatisfied with your life’s work, seeing their child marry someone they don’t approve of, being widowed and lonely, and in general, living a pathetic life. Almost everyone has one or more of those secret fears. This movie makes the people who watch it get up close and personal with failure. It makes them acknowledge the possibility of living and dying without ever being truly satisfied with the lives they’ve lived.

I think that the movie makes an interesting point about the connections between people. It’s nice that such a depressing movie ended on such a wonderful note. I cried when I saw Ndugu’s painting. Strangely, I didn’t feel like the movie was an advertisement for charity work. Instead, I thought it emphasized the importance of any sort of connection between humans. Warren and Ndugu will never meet one another, and even if they did, they don’t speak the same language. They’re so far from really knowing one another, and yet, the connection between them was palpable. Warren can die peacefully, knowing that he made a difference in Ndugu’s life. I think that’s amazing.

The 25th Hour

This was an interesting movie. I liked it a lot, although I thought that the plot had some random parts. I still don't know if Naturelle sold out Monty. I also don't know how the movie ended. I like how it has a purposefully open ending; that made me think. I'd like to think that Monty and his dad did drive west, and that Monty eventually established a family there, but somehow I don't think so.

This film definitely had showed some clashing moral values. I would have expected myself to automatically dislike the drug-dealing character the most, but I really sympashizd with Monty. I thought it was interesting that other characters kept referring to how his money was earned through other people's suffering. The beginning of the film (where Monty is sitting with Doyle, around 0:08:00) was effective in that it showed how Monty really had profited from others' pain. It was strange to see Monty sitting with Doyle, a dog he went out if his way to rescue, ignore the desperate pleas of someone he used to deal drugs to. I even wondered once or twice if that guy was the one who turned Monty in, but I think it was Costa.

I didn't understand why, at 0:30:00, Naturelle never got busted for the drugs. The apartment was Monty's and hers, so I would have thought that she'd be punished too.

I have to say, I really hated the subplot with the teacher and the student. I thought it was completely unnecessary, overdone, and irrelevant to the film as a whole. At least the similar scenes in American Beauty are justified by the fact that they're important to the movie's plot. It also confused me to have all of that Ground Zero footage of the World Trade Center reconstruction--I didn't see what that was trying to prove.

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. My favorite part was around 0:37:00 when Monty is cursing the city of New York. Even though the movie occasionally goes on irrelevant tangents, it's a great movie overall.