Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Python Hyena Smart People (2008): Dir: Noam Murro / Cast: Dennis Quaid, Thomas Hayden Church, Ellen Page, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ashton Holmes: Comic drama about choices. It stars Dennis Quaid as a professor who is widowed and has two children. When his car is impounded he is left to trust his unreliable adopted brother who just arrived in town due to financial difficulties. Director Noam Murro does a fantastic job at detailing these relationships. Quaid is seen as withdrawn and remembering none of his students. Finally he finds romance and opportunity with a nurse as well as a new beginning. Thomas Haden Church plays his adopted brother who lacks ambition yet establishes a relationship with his niece that opens a new view on life. Sarah Jessica Parker plays a nurse whom was a former student of Quaid's. She is not there as a romantic prop but rather she opens his eyes to his flaws. Ellen Page plays his daughter deep in her studies yet her annoyance at Hayden Church branches into an evening of substance abuse placing him in a position of responsibility. Ashton Holmes plays Quaid's son who ends up bonding of sorts with Church when he Church needs a place to crash. Great cast and a screenplay that is well written and realistic in a way that is more natural than predictable. The film demonstrates our imperfections with the hopes of new beginnings. Score: 10 / 10

pixelator2003 I am a university professor at a large, well-known, university in Los Angeles. I watched this movie because I got my degree at Carnegie Mellon, and because it portrays a professor.. I found this movie unrealistic, portraying intellectuals in a rather unflattering way. Sure, my alma mater (CMU) got some advertisement. And the movie is entertaining and several scenes made me laugh.. but that does not change the fact that the premise of this movie is misleading.This professor is grumpy and arrogant as heck. He walks around campus like he has a constant hangover. What is this guy's problem? Why the bitterness? The "students just want As" and "my wife died 15 years ago" are really lame explanations. Maybe the bottom 5% of all professors behave like that, but by no means this is the typical case. Actually, at my university, I do not know a single colleague who would fit the bill.Professors as shown in this movie are very rare. Climbing 20-foot fences to get to their impounded car? Carelessly parking in two parking spots at a time? Rigging the clock to avoid student office hours? Self-nominating for a department chair position while serving on the committee to fill this same position? In real life, there is something called conflict of interest, and very much enforced by the university handbook mind you.. (and the movie's premise of "democratic process" somehow overruling it is just ridiculous). Not remembering a single students name? Such arrogant people, professors or not, are never popular, and they should not be. Students rarely (if ever) have crushes on them. In real life, it really would be over after 1 date with that doctor..The movie pretends to give a window into a professor's social life at home, as if it was in some way representative of professors, or smart people at large. It reinforces the stereotype of a maladjusted smart person. Even his daughter is maladjusted. The only socially-sane person is the unemployed renegade brother. So again we have the stereotype of: smart people=socially awkward, average people=socially adjusted. We have already been fed these stereotypes in many films. It is time for a film that shows the true, realistic, life of smart people. Let's see some realistic challenges facing smart people today. Any director out there willing to study this topic and make a realistic portrayal?

arnreisman This should have been a great movie. With stars such as Ellen Page and Thomas Haden Church, I was expecting work of the same high quality as Juno and Sideways. Unfortunately, their talents are wasted in this shallow attempt to portray loneliness and self-absorption. There is virtually no character development; each character's shortcomings are sledge hammered at the audience, but, just as we see them not able to care about each other, there is no reason for the audience to care about them either. We have the lazy stereotypes of the curmudgeon, the conservative offspring (think Alex in Family Ties) and the visiting misfit sibling, but they are all cardboard cutouts with absolutely no way for us to empathize with them because we don't really know them. None of the characters is tragic enough or funny enough to merit our concern. It's rare for a movie to fall so short at making these essential connections with the audience. This is a shame, because there are four smart actors involved here and the idea itself has merit, but the director and writer aren't smart enough to know what to do with them; in essence, to know how to make a movie.

Rodrigo Amaro People are complicated. Sometimes there's people who are funny, people who are boring, people who are popular and people who don't. And there's smart people and there's dumb people (whatever that means). And then there's a movie called "Smart People", a movie about complicated persons trying to make things easy (or not). A simple conversation can be too difficult even to a Literature teacher (played by Dennis Quaid) whose arrogance, egocentricity and lack of attention make him forget the name of his students, ignore the fact that his son (Ashton Holmes) buys expensive books and that his daughter (Ellen Page) is trying to enter into a college. And worst: he's a widower man that after an accident falls in love for her medical doctor (Sarah Jessica Parker). And even more worst: while recovering from this accident his adopted brother (Thomas Haden Church) starts to live in his house. If you are only reading the names of the actors here you might want to see this film right now but I tell you: If you think you're going to like it or it's a good movie think again. To call "Smart People" of a boring movie is to diminish its potential. I say that this movie hasn't anything new to show besides of being a compilation of several different movies together that didn't make a good one. All the characters are egoistic, intelligent but with no regards about other people's interest. To them everything is motive of laugh. Too much sarcasm and too much black humor didn't worked at all. Ellen Page is becoming type-casted as sarcastic characters who delivers awkward punchlines after other just like in "Juno" (excellent film by the way). It was annoying. Dennis Quaid's character was too overacted in his manners and in his intelligence. After all it's all boring persons making other people's life more boring but I'll say more. In life, intelligent (or smart if you prefer) are always put aside from other people. Many times they don't have enough skills to talk, skills to be popular, skills to say simple things rightly, and they're too shy to say something or when they say it sounds incomprehensible to some people. Okay, we've seen "The Revenge of the Nerds" and we know that's exactly how it works. But "Smart People" reduced its public by stating that smart people are ignorant and they must be ignored and they don't know how to have a good time, always putting themselves behind books and something similar, not to mention use sarcasm as a weapon. Wrong. There are cases and there are cases. What about people who has Asperger's Syndrome? What about people with social phobia? What about shy people? All these examples are ruthless, cold hearted and sarcastic? It was a too critical movie with no funny moments at all (perhaps one or two scenes). It also has a speech about change what you are. The uncle in the film always try to involve his niece into something new like smoke pot or go to a bar, because he thinks she's always studying to go to college and doesn't have too much time for fun. Or Dennis's character being repelled by Sarah Jessica in their first date because he only talks about himself and his career. Wait a minute. If you love someone you want to change this person? Can't you respect that person for what she or he is? Once again it judged some people too much and you might get depressed or annoyed with that. Screenplay: Bad. It didn't create any interesting situation whatsoever. Acting: Nothing spectacular or inspiring to see. Direction: Misguided and lost at some times. Movie: 4 stars because I've seen worst movies and this is just pointless and has some level of knowledge.