Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Joanna Mccarty Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

SnoopyStyle Suzette (Goldie Hawn) gets fired from Whisky A Go-Go in Los Angeles. She decides to go to Phoenix to reconnect with Lavinia Kingsley (Susan Sarandon) who used to be her best friend as "The Banger Sisters". On the way, she picks up peculiar writer Harry Plummer (Geoffrey Rush) who claims to be going to Phoenix to kill his father. Lavinia is now a conservative mother to valedictorian Hannah (Erika Christensen) and driving-impaired Ginger (Eva Amurri Martino) and wife to lawyer Raymond (Robin Thomas). Suzette is staying with Harry at a hotel when she encounters Hannah freaking out after dropping acid during prom. None of her family knows Vinnie's former wild life.Hawn and Sarandon are good together. Rush and Hawn are even better together as opposites. The girls discovering their mother is compelling. It would be better to have them have more heart-to-heart scenes with Vinnie. A girls' sit-down could be a powerful emotional talk. This movie is much better than expected although my expectations were extremely low.

tropico_sunsplash As an aspiring screenwriter, I've received coverage in the past. I thought it would be interesting to critique this film in that format. ie, what a reader would probably say if this was a spec script.THE BANGER SISTERS102 PagesREADER: #16Genre: Comedy Budget: Medium Location(s): Los Angeles/Phoenix Format: Screenplay Circa: Present dayLOGLINE: An ex-groupie travels across the country to re-unite with a woman who once shared her wild lifestyle but has now become a model citizen.Content summary: There are some nice moments here that touch upon conflicts brought about by generation gaps, but ultimately there are too many unanswered questions. There also isn't a solid antagonist, which in turn doesn't create much of an arc for the lead character.Recommendation: PassComments: There isn't much rhyme or reason to SUZETTE's character. In the opening scene, she goes from being a jaded defiant bartender who could care less about her job to a pleading employee who wants to stay on when her boss terminates her. If she hates her job so much, why would she beg to have it back? Why does her loss of a job make her want to drop everything and connect with someone that she hasn't seen since the '60's? This is never fully explained. The LAVINIA character, her former best friend and groupie, also needs much more development. What events in her life caused her to reject her past and become the exact opposite of what she was? This is never fully explained either.There is some good interaction between Suzette and HARRY, an obsessive compulsive writer/control freak who buys her gas in exchange for a ride to Phoenix. The scene where Suzette accidentally runs into Lavinia's daughter HANNAH at the same hotel on the same floor is too convenient, and having the girl drop acid and vomit seems unnecessary. However, it does bring out the gentle, caring side of Suzette's personality, which makes her a more likable character.The first meeting between Suzette and Lavinia starts to have some depth. Lavinia isn't thrilled to see her long lost friend. When Lavinia tries to reconcile, Harry (and the audience) learn more about their attitudes, and Harry begins to let his guard down around Suzette. He has feelings for her, even though he wouldn't dare admit it.There needs to be more visual action in the story. As written, most of the scenes are dialogue. The writer uses a car as a visual medium when GINGER (Lavinia's second daughter) is on her way to her driving test. But then we cut to a long scene of talk between Lavinia and Suzette. This is a pattern that holds true for most of the scenes in the script. The dialogue needs to be trimmed and we need to see more events happening.Lavinia's sudden rebelliousness towards her life comes totally out of the blue. One minute she's sitting at a table acting like her usual uptight self, then in the next she gets dazed and speaks mystical talk about Jim Morrison. Again, there isn't a clear catalyst that causes this shift. It just happens. The remainder of the story plays like a girls night out, and Lavinia starts to have more of an arc than Suzette, who basically stays the same from beginning to end. As the protagonist, her lack of inner and outer growth weakens the structure and makes the story feel less satisfying.There also isn't a definable antagonist in the script. Lavinia's current lifestyle seems to be an opposing force to Suzette, but this is vague, and its power lessens when Lavinia gives into her impulses and becomes a party girl. Now there doesn't seem to be any antagonist left to defeat.There is a sense of growth near the end when Hannah gives a moving graduation speech, but there isn't a strong dramatic climax where both the protagonist and antagonist have everything to lose. The ending is a bit of a letdown when Suzette simply walks away from what she traveled so far to find: her friend. It would have been better if they bonded and stayed together instead of separating.Conclusion: The Suzette character needs to have much more of an arc and there needs to be a stronger, more definable antagonist for this to have a better chance in the marketplace.

Rubens Junior I don't know if I blame the director for making such a trash or if I blame the actors for accepting such a mess! Really, the trailer was something absolutely funny but the movie is an all-the-time-feeling that something is missing.The writing qualities does not respect both Susan Sarandon and Goldie Hawn. In a world where 50 y.o. is the limit to survive in Hollywood they should provide those best actresses we ever had with their BEST script, their best movie, their best directors, their best writers.When I saw the trailer for the first time I was amazed but when I saw the movie I just turned off the video before its end. That was so shocking for me that until today I cannot understand why... oh, god, WHY they made this sh*t.

bob the moo When fifty-something rock chick Suzette loses her bar job she heads out to Phoenix to beg some money off friend and fellow former groupie Vinnie, despite not having seen her for about 20 years. On her way there, Suzette runs out of cash and offers neurotic coach passenger Harry a lift if he pays for petrol. Once she gets to Phoenix she finds that "Lavinia" is now a respectable member of her community, married to a lawyer and a mother of two teenage girls and the unannounced arrival of Suzette is not something she appreciates. Despite Lavinia's attempts to politely reject Suzette, the latter settles back into the former's life.Even as much as an hour into this film I still hadn't really worked out what it was trying to do or what it was trying to achieve. The narrative was a strange mix of comedy and character drama that didn't really come together that well for the most part and I found this pretty off-putting for the first half. I think the problem was that I was actually interesting in the different paths that the two friends' lives had taken and I liked the contrast and was hoping it would produce a good drama. However after a brief flirtation with something interesting the plot falls easily into the obvious direction of the free-spirited Suzette helping Harry, Suzette and Suzette's family to "lighten up" and be better for it. In doing this it is never better than reasonably amusing and produced a few laughs and a pretty solid atmosphere of returning friendship but unfortunately it doesn't do anything that interesting. I would have liked if it had done something more interesting with the characters and questioned Suzette's life as harshly as it does Vinnie's.Hawn does the best she can with the character and produces a nice simple block but isn't able to search within herself due to the limitations of the script. Sarandon undergoes an obvious transformation but works well with Hawn in the later scenes. It is a shame that such a talented actress isn't allowed more to work with but if you only want the film to be a chick flick comedy then she is good enough. Likewise with Rush, he is better than the bookend of a character that he is given and I'm not sure why he even bothered. Christensen is pretty natural but Amurri is annoying while Thomas is just plain stiff.Overall then this is a so-so film that is amusing but doesn't do anything of interest with it. The very obvious "be true to yourself" plot is rather sullied by the suggestion that Suzette is "right" – a problem that could have been avoided if the script had been braver and placed her equally with Vinnie, instead of having her as the catalyst for everything good happening to the other characters. Amusing fare for some but it is difficult to overlook just how uninspiring and unadventurous it is.