| About Schmidt [Region 2] |  | Director: Alexander Payne
Actors: Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates, June Squibb
Category: DVD
Buy New: $7.76
as of 2/10/2010 01:51 EST details
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Seller: moviemars
Rating:  358 reviews
Sales Rank: 120550
Format: PAL
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 2
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Running Time: 125 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5017239191541
ASIN: B00007KGC8
Theatrical Release Date: December 20, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
While confirming Jack Nicholson's status as an American national treasure, About Schmidt is sure to provoke polarized reactions. Stoked by the success of Election, director Alexander Payne and cowriter Jim Taylor have altered Louis Begley's novel to suit their comedic agenda, turning Nicholson's titular character into a 66-year-old, newly retired Omaha insurance actuary, weary from decades of drudgery and passionless marriage. When his wife suddenly dies, he attempts to reclaim his life in a king-sized Winnebago, desperate to convince his daughter (Hope Davis) not to marry the Denver dimwit (Dermot Mulroney) whose mother (Kathy Bates) has her own baggage of peculiar peccadilloes. Nicholson perfectly (and often hilariously) nails the seething anger beneath his character's façade of resignation, but Payne and Taylor convey cold-hearted contempt for these Midwestern malcontents. Think of this as Ikiru with bleaker humanity, until Schmidt finds meaning--and some small reward--in a quiet gesture of goodwill. Love it or hate it, About Schmidt is a movie you won't soon forget. --Jeff Shannon
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 358
 About life... January 15, 2010
Andrew Ellington (Mulholland Drive)
Going forward with `Jack Nicholson Friday', I'm going to review a film that brought me my FAVORITE Jack Nicholson performance. `About Schmidt' is one of those tender, genuine and sincere comedies that is so soft and subtle one may not really understand or feel the depth of its riches upon a singular viewing. I urge you to see this again and again if you must. This film is the definition of beautiful for me; a stellar example of tenderness and honesty that moves me every time I see it.
The film revolves around Warren Schmidt, a man who seems almost all too real. We are first introduced at the man's retirement party, and while so many seem to feel as though Warren as `lived his life to the full' you can tell that he doesn't agree. He is at a loss, for his life has been a failure in his own eyes. He wants to make a difference, and better late than never, so he reaches out to sponsor a Tanzanian child named Ndugu. Using this as an opportunity to vent his frustrations, Warren takes the time to write a letter detailing his concerns with his life and those who dwell within it. When Warren makes his way home from mailing this letter though, his life is turned on its head. His wife (the very one he was complaining about) has died.
At that moment (which brought with it some scarring revelations) Warren decided to really connect with himself, and on his journey to make his daughter's wedding, Warren does just that. He finds who he really is, who he's always wanted to be and who he's destined to become.
For me, this film is carried magnificently on Jack Nicholson's shoulders. I often tell my friends that this is the best Jack Nicholson performance where Jack isn't playing Jack (`The Shining' is most definitely the `Jack playing Jack' performance that trumps all others). There is no part of Warren that calls to mind anything we've ever seen Nicholson do before. He effortlessly sheds his own skin, his own persona, and becomes Warren. There is such softness and downtrodden misery in his eyes; a desperateness that is too tired to manifest itself. I love that about Nicholson here, for he really appears defeated; a quality that never really enveloped his prior performances. There is such depth to his development, truly layering Warren with identifiable and honest emotions.
Oh, and can I just add that this is probably the best use of voiceover narration in any film I've seen!
As wonderful as Nicholson was, I have to really commend the film as a whole. This is a beautiful `coming of age story' that proves that you are never too old to `come of age'. As you watch Warren start to identify himself, to really see himself for the first time (through others eyes as well as his own) you can feel the warmth that comes from understanding who you are what you need to do to become who you want to be. The script is so fluent and so sincere (and the side-plots never feel like a distraction, which is appreciated). This is all part of Warren's journey, and we are so blessed to be a part of it.
As most of you know (if you read my reviews regularly), I am an emotional guy. I do tend to cry a lot when watching movies (my wife is always ragging on me about that). This was no exception. During the final frames, when Warren is staring at the painting from Ndugu, I lost it. You can feel the swelling emotions etched on Nicholson's face and you feel everything he feels.
I love Adrian Brody's performance in `The Pianist', but there is no doubt in my mind that the Oscar should have gone to Nicholson that night!
The downfall of a "Modern" or Learning how to laugh January 13, 2010
NobleSavagery
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Modern" here is IMO a more appropriate signifier for the signification of what "Bourgeoisie" once yielded to and may still do so in concentration. The pejorative "Bourgeoisie" is just so tainted with Marxism whose evaporation is testified to by the very unnerving fact about life [a fact which is only a fact in its relativity to us] which this movie unravels accessibly and yet devastatingly.
"Modern" is a term for anyone now living in the vicissitudes of Modernity/"Modern civilization" that received its marching orders from the European "Enlightenment" which manifested itself in the 18th century; down with the cults, bitterness, religion, hierarchical formalities, hierarchies, intolerance, rank of order and say hello to "free will", "equal rights", equal opportunity and universal happiness or universal piece--both go hand in hand! For example, the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed in his "state of nature" that humans were fundamentally "good" and the reason that they became "bad" was due to things like institutions, religion or in regards to something which has relevancy for us--the 4-7 o'clock p.m. traffic makes us "bad". Yes--very foolish, but historically necessary I suppose, no matter how painful that is to admit, might I add, in a very "Schmidtmanian" way.
Anyway, in the character of Warren Schmidt we see the end-product of this tongue-in-cheek "philosophy". For all you high school students out there or people in general, when you hear historians or academics vaguely touch on the "great positivism" that was shattered in the First World War they are briefly referring to the encompassing sense of secular teleology that was born out of the Death of God [yes referring to Nietzsche] at the height of "the Enlightenment". The word "Teleology" basically means "progression"; that which progresses toward some final goal/destination which is meant to be achieved by that which is progressing. The Enlightenment said that mankind/humanity itself was progressing towards a destination "rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness [Thomas Jefferson] or property [John Locke--who was Jefferson's mentor] and in their wake Marx and Engles felt the need to refurnish Locke, Kant and Rosseau amongst others; they only seen the destination for the Bourgeoisie not for the "real conditions of experience". However this "Teleology" is not a new idea; Christianity always stated that humanity had a goal as well--salvation by the way of repentance for original sin, denial of "sin" i.e. one's impulses and the state which this led to was "heaven" where pain and suffering are nonexistent--only happiness. I referred to Jefferson because he basically stole that line [In the Declaration] from John Locke while substituting happiness for property which only fulfills Locke because Locke basically states that happiness IS property. I remember last Christmas hearing about sporadic cases of people being literally trampled in mob-scenes at Wal-Mart outlets for sales on televisions; there is your "happiness" but that is only consequential--America is the socio-political child of the European Enlightenment, evidenced by the little background I showed you on Jefferson; he wanted people to have "equal opportunity" for those types of happiness and hypothetically thousands of other potential examples all of which are metaphysically the same.
Now to get to the character; Schmidt is an American though you don't have to live in America to be an American; nearly the entire world has been Americanized. Now I am not trying to criticize neo-conservatives or anything about America extended the physicality of its dominion in things like the Iraq War because I'm not--though I disagree with it--and am anything but a liberal. I mean in a sense like the fact that people in Belfast, Moscow, or Scandinavia all ended up mourning the death of Michael Jackson, a caricature of "American culture". Like the fact that on the other side of the world McDonalds sells cheeseburgers which taste exactly the same as they do here. That Japan's own auto-industry is modeled off the demands of another country. That Chinese television talk shows are modeled off of Oprah. That I speak to authentic Indians when getting my xbox serviced [not to mention what "Xbox" represents] and they consider that a premium job. Things of that nature. I'd say its better than working in the insurance industry like Warren Schmidt which basically exists for screwing people. Even though its essence has permeated the Earth, Schmidt is the recipient of the sustenance [property] that America generates, that is, the happiness it [and its mood/philosophy] generates, one that has covered the Earth; extend Lockean Democracy and "freedom" to every corner; thats the sermon the Palins and Obamas of the world spew. One just has to look at the demeanor of his wife, the typical civilian, when she purchases the biiiiig motor home for the "new chapter" of their life i.e. the very fittingly worded "retirement". They are sitting in its brand new-chemically smelling-interior where he has to endure her exclamations of excitement with the terse line "it gives a rough idea".
Yet amidst the motor home, his wife's garden gnome figurines, their lush retirement funds and fine home, there is a stark sense of demystification for Warren, at 66, as he retires. Demystification in that as he faces death with this sagging skin about his neck, wrinkles and veins at his ankles, what is there to grab on to? Where is the--much hackneyed--closure? His "friend" feeds him the same ol' tract; the gifts don't mean a godamn thing--your job does and the fact that you had kids from a wife, regardless of who they are you know you "raised them". Yet there is the mutual presentation by the director that Warren wants to ask; what the hell is that? His wife was an idiot who could not even penetrate into the depths of his being and for the past two decades or so he has basically lost touch with his daughter. That is what he is to resort to in the face of oblivion? Absolutely nothing?
This is the condition for the "Modern"; that life becomes comfortable enough for us to understand that it is meaningless. Schmidt panics and goes on a grand journey in his motor home in an attempt to recapture gravity by tracing the fetters of what the "past" now constitutes in his memory. When viewing this reaction by him I shuddered in thinking of Odysseus, the Greek King of Ithaca who over two thousand years ago endeavored upon a journey to investigate the virtues and vices of man. In Schmidt we are forced to understand that nothing is to be found. With the help of his daughters' disastrous marriage, which she apparently doesn't even believe in, Schmidt finds this realization in the picture and letter from his "foster child". The kid wishes him happiness and gives him stick figures holding hands as a present. Schmidt receives only this after pouring his soul into letters to the child; there is his Lockean happiness. And what of the pursuit? That is, what about assaulting an occupational therapist out of genuine harmony because she told him that he was a sad man and he was? After understanding that in that moment he had more compatibility with a female other than in the entire preceding forty two years of his marriage? After learning that his daughter married out of sexual lust even though he treated it as if the matter was other wise--as if she genuinely loved him? After learning that his best friend laid his wife time and again? What does that say about marriage or the much emasculated "relationships"? That is the happiness of it after all isn't it; the freedom of it? This is where Schmidt enters what Heidegger calls "The-Nothing" where there is nothing but boundlessness and nothingness and the only thing that comes close to transcending is not "you" or the "I" but the sheer fact that you are always already verbially Being-there within it; falling in an abyss without gods, mythologies or values nor good or evil to stow it away. The important point is that Schmidt is able to transcend the fall itself. He has to admit [The-Nothing]--how couldn't he? He is able to move beyond nothingness into an obscure beyond. This doesn't mean he finds the meaning of life or any firmer values; he simply acknowledges the fact that he is in a void, which is to say he is a void, stands up and beings to walk with a variation on the same walk he has always been walking. This variation is Schmidt's laughter at the end of the movie. What he had to go through--sheer absurdity--is what Nietzsche called "Learning how to Laugh".
 It gets better after the first half hour November 28, 2009
simple sellers
It's about a depressed old guy who just retired as vice president of an insurance company. He has alot of material things, but every other aspect of his life is messed up.Especially his relationships with his friends, wife and daughter. Turns out the only thing he was good at was insurance.Feeling bad about this, he adopts one of those feed the children kids and vents to the kid in these really long letters about his life. This prompts him to visit his daughter in Denver and tries to stop her from marrying her man - child ,mullet - wearing, fiance.
This movie stars off so slow. Its almost painful to watch the first half hour,there was no reason the first half hour of the movie to drag like that. But once you get through it gets better. And Jack Nicholson was suprisingly good in a performance as the straight man. He can elicit emotion from just moving an eyebrow. And cathy bate's was great as the tacky hippie earth mother. The waterbed scene is hilarious.Hope Davis elicit's strong emotion as the angry daughter who always felt like her dad's job was more important than her.
Another side of Jack Nicholson September 30, 2009
Sal Spataro (pinole, ca USA)
Not your typical role for Jack nicholson, but one he nails. A wry, dark, funny slice of life from Midwestern Americana. Kudos to Kathy Bates for a superb supporting role and for personal bravery (nude scene) Hope Davis and Dermot Mulroney are good too. Not a fast paced film, but full of dry humor, ironies and stuff that makes you sigh and laugh. See it.
 Dreadfully Slow August 6, 2009
J. Stiene (PA)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is one of the most boring movies I've ever seen. It opens with Nicholson's character sitting and staring at the clock on the last day of his retirement, which would probably be about as exciting as watching this movie was. Horrific. Unrealistic characters, with Nicholson's in particular, drawn as if written by a high school student about what he imagine's his father's life is like.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 358
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