Blucher One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Claire Dunne One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Davis P Love the Coopers (2015) is a fun, delightful holiday film about a family coming together for Christmas dinner. I loved the ensemble cast. I'm a big fan of most of the actors. Marisa Tomei, Diane Keaton, Olivia Wilde, John Goodman, and others all star as members of the Cooper family. They all give very good performances, I especially loved Olivia Wilde's performance. I loved her storyline with her and her man she met on the way to meet her family. The chemistry between the two is electric, I liked the dialogue between the two, it was both funny at times and sweet and touching. And I also liked following the other family members stories and the script allows for the audience to get invested in the characters and see deep into why they are the way they are. I thought that Marisa Tomei and her storyline with the police officer was very interesting and it really gave a look into her character. Keaton and goodman are great together and I loved their story and seeing them go through what they were going through. Overall love the coopers isn't out of this world, but it is a sweet fun way to spend a couple hours, especially over Christmastime. 7/10 for love the coopers.

Matt_Layden I went and saw the film, The Family Stone, in theatres when it first came out. It received mixed reviews, but for the most part, I really liked it. It dealt with a dysfunctional family getting together for the holidays. What made it work, in my mind at least, was that the characters felt honest, the chemistry between the cast felt real and despite the many dramatic moments, it had some heart. Love The Coopers is a poor imitation of these things. I bring up The Family Stone as a apt comparison, not only because Diane Keaton is the matriarch, but because both films try to convey the same message. The Family Stone's shortcomings happens in the final act with the girlfriend "switcheroo" whereas Love The Coopers shortcomings is the entire film.The film follows one family and their stories on Christmas Day. Keaton and her husband, John Goodman, are having one more family get together before they ultimately decide to leave each other after 40 years of marriage...depressing. Ed Helms is the son, separated from his wife, unemployed and feeling less of a man and even lesser of a father...depressing. Then we have Alan Arkin, the grandfather, who eats at the same diner everyday just to have a conversation with the pretty waitress, Amanda Seyfried, and to convince her she has value in this world....depressing. The beautiful Olivia Wilde plays the daughter. She is on her way home and is wasting time at the airport so she can spend less time with her family. She meets a good looking young soldier and convinces him to come home with her so she doesn't have to be a disappointment to her mother...depressing. On top of that...yes, there is more...we have Diane Keaton's sister, who has a strained relationship and shoplifts some jewelry for a present, only to get caught and have a thoughtful one on one conversation with a police officer...you guessed it....depressing. Did I forget to mention that the sister is played by Marissa Tomei? Yes, Marissa Tomei, so there lies a big problem for me. The casting of this film is all over the place. It seems they wanted to cast the recognizable face and name and not the role. In this film, we have constant 'flashes of memories' of the characters when they were younger. So we flash to the sisters when they were kids. They are maybe, 3 to 5 years apart. Then we come to the present and discover that the sister is Diane Keaton and Marissa Tomei. They have a 20 year age difference between each other. On top of that Alan Arkin plays their father....he is 12 years older than Keaton. I was so confused as to how Arkin and Tomei fit into the picture for 75% of the film. I thought he was Goodman's brother and Tomei was Keaton's daughter. While the cast does a decent job in the roles, none of the material is strong enough to hold any weight. None of the stories are engaging and it tries so hard to be emotional. I didn't really care about Goodman and Keaton's failing marriage because it never feels like the characters are really trying, or love each other, or anything at all really. The strained relationship between Keaton and almost everyone feels fake. None of these stories really work for me with the weakest one being Helms. He literally has nothing to do in this film, it's a little sad actually. Even for a 'depressing' Christmas film, Coopers fails. For it to be depressing, I feel like we need to have some sort of attachment to the characters, I had none. Steve Martin narrates the film to give it a "Christmas story" feel, it also falls a little flat. I just couldn't find myself caring about anything here.

Lola A This is one of the worst Christmas movies I have ever seen. It perplexes me why a great cast of a great calibre would accept to participate in a movie like that. The movie has no clear story line. It is predictable and it is quite cringy. Usually, I write the reviews immediately after I watch a movie but in this case some days have past so I am therefore unable to comment in detail and the things that I especially did not like. But, I know that I expected a great Christmas movie and was let down. The energies of characters do not fit with one another. It is a strange connection between characters so the connection feels weird and forced. I would not recommend this movie to anyone who expects an enjoyable Christmas movie.

woodruffw The "Holiday Family Dramedy" is sort of a genre unto itself. One could write a similar story, with similar jokes and disappointments set at any other time of year, but somehow setting the tale at Christmas makes it more meaningful. Whether it's nostalgia or hopefulness, something about the holidays adds an extra point of connection between us and the characters.Unfortunately, "Love the Coopers" features a bunch of characters with whom it's very difficult to connect. But for a couple of exceptions, they are all totally unlikable. Forget attempting to relate to them, if you met any of these people in real life you'd go out of your way to avoid being in the same room with them ever again. Given the wonderful cast, it's a real feat of failure that the writer and director turned them into such jerks.I suppose the creators were aiming for a revamped "Love Actually". But, rather than having a troupe of mostly unconnected characters falling in and out of love, what we have here is a bunch of dysfunctional family members all dealing with screwed up relationships. The parents are planning to separate after 40 years of marriage; the newly- unemployed son is struggling to provide for his family while dealing with his shrew of an ex-wife; the free- spirited daughter has had her heart-broken and falls in love in the airport but is too hurt to genuinely connect; the widowed grandfather has developed a kind of creepy paternal bond with a waitress who announces she's leaving town; the black sheep sister is a spinster who likes to shoplift and develops her most powerful connection with the cop who arrests her.No one gets a meaningful backstory. Instead, the writer opts for an expository shortcut by including a rather intrusive narrator, who turns out to be the family dog with Steve Martin's voice. The narration tells us what the characters are feeling and why. The audience is left to take him at his word, since we don't actually get to see any of the moments that brought the characters to this point. As a result of this narrative failure, it's impossible to understand any of the characters' motivations, and it doesn't seem like any of the immensely talented cast knows what they are, either. Is an indefinitely delayed vacation really the cause of the rift between John Goodman and Diane Keaton? Is a longstanding jealousy of her older sister really the root of Marisa Tomei's kleptomania? What is it about Amanda Seyfried that makes Alan Arkin go to a restaurant that he dislikes every single morning just to see her? None of these questions (and more) are ever answered. Instead, we get scene after scene of arguments and belittling, and we wonder why any of them bother. I know you can't choose your family, but if these were my relatives I'd just as soon spend Christmas alone.The best and (somehow) worst of these interlocking stories features Olivia Wilde and relative newcomer Jake Lacy. We are told (by the dog) that Wilde's heart has been broken too often, and now she has up a wall. She is a free-spirited, agnostic Liberal who, naturally, shares an airport bar with a conservative Christian soldier who is about to ship off. They instantly hit it off, despite the fact that she does nothing but demean his faith and politics, while he offers nothing but dumb defenses of his beliefs. Lacy actually does an admirable job of creating a charming, sincere character. But Wilde is so nasty to him that it makes no sense that he would fall for her (other than the fact that she's gorgeous). Their conversation is where the writer obviously felt like he could display his chops, but what he surely thought sounded profound comes off as ridiculous. For instance, Lacy asks what Wilde believes in if not God, and she responds "I believe in Nina Simone's voice". A loud "OH COME ON!" left my mouth before I was able to control it. What is that supposed to mean? Is that what passes for profound? For reasons that are not obvious, the considerate Christian soldier pursues the obnoxious hippy chick even after running into the married man with whom she's been sleeping. It's inexplicable.The title, "Love the Coopers", refers to the salutation the matriarch writes on the family's annual Christmas card. But, because the necessary comma is left off, it becomes a command. We are instructed to love these awful people despite having no legitimate reason to do so. I genuinely cannot think of a single reason you should watch this.