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Julie Is Awesome (2009-08-06)

I love this movie made me laugh and CRY...only because I could see the way Julie was hurting. Who to know it was to come true years later???? This is one of my favorite one of hers... A must see for everyone who loves Julie

Sometimes Critics Don't Know Squat! (2008-03-09)

LOVE this movie. Depicts male menopause to a T (no offense to the men-folk here, my dh loves it, too.) It's very well done, builds tension well, and has many interesting characters.

I Simply Loved It (2007-11-26)

Hello. I just wanted to share my oppinion about this dvd. I simply loved it. Julie Andrews is simply stunningly spectacular in this movie. Imagine a woman struggling with her own problems while she is trying to keep her, quite selfish, man happy and dealing with her adult children's lives. It is really quite hilarious. This movie is also serious, the themes is death, cancer and familyaffairs. If you like Julie Andrews I promise this movie will definetly be something for you.

I Laughed Out Loud!! (2007-11-26)

I think to totally enjoy this movie, you need to be 60 or close to it!! It has so much of life little problems that crop up when you suddenly realize you are turning 60!.... and it is good to laugh at life and yourself. My husband and I totally enjoyed it.... and .... That's Life!!

Grow Up Already (2007-11-26)

Jack Lemmon plays a character who is reaching his 6oth birthday and is convinced he's dying. He becomes sort of a raving spoiled maniac, totally neglecting his long-suffering wife (Julie Andrews) who really IS dying and knows it but keeps it to herself. (Kind of; the ending is a bit of a surprise.) Lemmon's antics seem to go on too long and become tiring, and Andrews's stoicism is a bit too strong to believe. But the movie is effective in spots and is not a total disaster.

Will the Real Julie Andrews Stand Up? (2007-11-26)

Being a Julie fan, I wanted to start collecting some of her movies. This one I didn't have. Upon watching it, I found myself Fast-Forwarding through most of it because of the language (her husband). The movie has a wonderful story behind it but it really bothered me when I heard Julie spoke some language herself in one part of the movie. Definitely not a family movie.

A Good Movie with Some Faults (2007-11-26)

Consider that you just found out that you may have terminal cancer. You won't know for sure for a couple of days so you keep it to yourself so as not to worry your loved ones. The problem is that your loved ones take up those two days with endless complaints about their own lives. That, in a nutshell, is what "That's Life" is all about. It's an interesting movie primarily because of the non-stop monologue of Jack Lemmon. He is almost maniacal at times with his compulsive self-examination and fear of aging. At times it gets overdone: We get the point. The adult children have come home to help Mr. Lemmon celebrate his 60th birthday. They all seem to have their own disfunctions and Dad, in his self-pity, was no help. Thus the mother, excellently played by Julie Andrews, has her hands full.

The problems with this movie center around its' excessiveness. As I mentioned above; we get the point. I realize that Blake Edwards has a good reputation for comedy and I think that there is good comedy in this movie. However, the drama seems to suffer for having too much comedy. The character of the priest, for example, is woefully made to look silly. Other characters seem to be too eccentric. If this is supposed to be a comedy then let me change my rating to two stars. The beauty of this movie is watching someone facing death while burdened by everyone's lesser concerns. The movie loses that focus periodically to its own detriment.

I checked for Oscar nominations for "That's Life" because I wondered if Andrews or Lemmon were nominated. They seemed good enough to be. However, the only nomination was for this awful song at the end. I can't believe that Tony Bennett agreed to sing it. Oh well, the team of Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini requires at least one nomination per collaberation. But boy did they pick the wrong category here!

Funny, Sad, Theraputic and Definitely Not a Stunt! (2007-11-26)

...Blake Edwards had been experimenting with ad-lib scenes for many years, ever since his early films with Peter Sellers. The famous watch synchonization scene in "A Shot In The Dark" for example - not in the script.

But this was booked as an improvised movie. Kind of. The scenes were discussed by all involved. Between Edwards, Andrews and Lemmon there were some 100 years of film experience brought to bear. The story is very believable, even if the characters are in another world from our own, we can still identify. Gil's patient, suffering, worrying about a real health problem while her husband takes the center stage ("That's the worse case I've ever seen"). The only neurosis here is in Lemmon's character, and contrasted with Gil's real life problem, is the nexus of the story.

So just watch it. If you liked any of Edwards's earlier films like "10" or "The Party", you really will not notice anything unusual. It has all of his hallmarks, very funny and sad at the same time. Sally Kellerman and Robert Loggia are very effective in ther supporting roles and Tony Bennett's vocal of "Life In A Looking Glass" (Mancini/Bricusse) is heart-breaking at the end.

Is That REALLY Life? (2007-11-26)

I gather Blake Edwards set out to make a "small movie" here. He enlisted his real-life wife, daughter and step-daughter, brought old buddy (and star of his classic "Days of Wine and Roses") Jack Lemmon aboard and provided parts for Lemmon's wife (Felicia Farr) and son. Farr, it may be said, lucks out if anyone does--she doesn't play one of the neurotic family members--although it appears that she has a several little problems of her own.

Does it work at all? Well, the first time I saw this movie, I HATED it. Since Lemmon's death last summer, I have been sort of running my own little "Jack Lemmon film festival" whenver I think of it, and upon re-view, it's not half bad. Seeing Lemmon's character wrestle with his mortality strikes me as poignant now after the actor's actual death. Equally eerie in its way, is seeing Julie Andrews character, a professional singer, struggling with potentially devestating vocal problems--and in her own stoic way, her own mortality.

The improvisational storyline is the real problem with this film, however. It's rather undeveloped. Lemmon typically needs a broader canvas than Edwards provides him here. He is intense here as in "Days..." but to lesser effect. He's all wound up with no place special to go. We've seen Lemmon do this kind of shtick before ("Tribute" comes to mind), and like Julie Andrews' Gillian in this movie, we feel like telling him to snap out of it--or we're leaving!

See the Movie Before You Review It !!!!! (2007-11-26)

The main character, Harvey Fairchild, is an ARCHITECT. This is critical to the story and to much of the dialog.

My wife and I love this film; it's witty, fun, sad, and relevant to our world today. It's really about a man's mid-life crisis and his revelation about what is REALLY important in life, like family, love, admitting to yourself that you're human.