by First Independent
| Average Rating: |
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| Sales Rank: | 38924 (lower is better) |
| Price Used: | $0.05 |
| Shipping: | Free Shipping on most orders over $25* |
| Availability: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| Director: | Danny Leiner |
| Release Date: | 2006-09-12 |
| Label: | First Independent |
| UPC: | 855280001670 |
| Binding: | DVD |
| Published By: | First Independent |
| ASIN: | B000GNOHG4 |
| Category: | DVD |
Actors and Actresses
Editorial Reviews and Product Descriptions
Description
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Edie Falco, Tony Shaloub, Stephen Colbert and Olympia Dukakis star in this lighthearted comedy about life in New York City one year following 9/11. It’s a comedy about starting over.
Amazon.com
A rich portrait of life in New York in the wake of disaster, The Great New Wonderful offers a kind of compassion rare in film. Five storylines intertwine--including competitive pastry chefs (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Secretary, and Edie Falco, The Sopranos), an elderly woman (Olympia Dukakis, Moonstruck) realizing she can't stand her lumpish husband, and a middle-class parents (Judy Greer, Arrested Development, and Tom McCarthy, Syriana) coping with their increasingly sociopathic child--all of them thick with brilliantly observed social tension. As a therapist (Tony Shalhoub, Big Night) questions a patient (Jim Gaffigan), it's ambiguous whether he's diagnosing the patient's anger or actually causing it. The Great New Wonderful makes compelling drama out of the subtle discords of commonplace life, the kind of frustration and hostility that rises up constantly but has to be tamped back down in order to get through the day--but in the aftermath of a catastrophe like 9/11, the smallest things become unbearable. The Great New Wonderful doesn't rise to the scope of Robert Altman's best work (like Nashville), but it successfully avoids the forced pretensions of other ensemble pieces like Magnolia. Subtlety is too often invoked to excuse a lack of substance, but this movie genuinely makes small nuances tangible and compelling. --Bret Fetzer
Customer Reviews
The Dull, Tired and Never Wonderful. - Reviewed on 2007-07-23
1 customer found this review helpful, 1 did not.
The above, is a much better title for this so-called movie. The reason they let you watch each of the five, 20 minute stories separately (if you choose to), is because they're all really just shorts. Nothing funny about this film, except for the Dvd cover, which only gets the actor's names correct. Every other word on it is a complete lie. It's not even good, never mind brilliant. Comedy? Nope! It's a movie about angst, fear, depression and who knows what else.
I always love Maggie G., but here, her part is just too small for me to really care about her. Stephen Colbert's bit part as the school Principal was smoothly acted (again it's too short to care much), and yes, it was nice to see Rosemarie Dewitt (co-star of the recently cancelled Fox show, "Standoff") have a brief 1 minute or so scene in this film, but it was a bland scene, just like this entire movie. Except for maybe the two brief shots of Judy Greer's absolutely perfect rear end (too bad she always had something covering it). I think her derriere is actually "The Great New Wonderful". So, maybe it's not false advertising after all.
Finally, none of the stories have any really good endings. They just end, like each of our own days do. How profound...and boring. I give this 1 and a half stars (the half star is for Judy Greer's best feature; although, I enjoyed her role in the film the most, even without her backside's "Oscar"-worthy performance...for Best Supporting Asstress).
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Book Subjects
- Adult Humor
- Adult Situations
- Bittersweet
- Color
- Comedies
- Comedy
- Comedy Drama
- Comedy Video
- Digital Video
- Doctors and Patients
- Drama
- Elegiac
- English
- Ensemble Film
- Feature
- Feature Film-comedy
- Haunted By the Past
- Immigrant Life
- Intersecting Lives
- Ladder to the Top