The Weather Man (Widescreen Edition) dvd movie.|
The Weather Man (Widescreen Edition) buy bestselling dvd movies, videos find reviews, ratings, prices |
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List Price: $14.99 Our Price: $13.99 You Save: $1 Features • Closed-captioned • Color • DVD-Video • Widescreen • NTSC In Theaters : 28 October, 2005 DVD Release : 21 February, 2006 |
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The Weather Man (Widescreen Edition) description Nobody does comic existential angst like Nicolas Cage, who gets a good workout in The Weather Man, an underrated slice of quiet desperation. Cage plays David Spritz, a Chicago TV meteorologist who knows only too well the constant uncertainty of predicting the weather. Despite a possible offer from a network morning show, David's life is a mess: he's estranged from his kids and irritated wife (Hope Davis), he's perpetually at odds with his remote father (Michael Caine), and lately people on the street have had the disconcerting habit of throwing food at him. Director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) has perhaps too heavy a touch for this kind of comic melancholy, but screenwriter Steven Conrad has an interesting, almost Mamet-like ear for "written" dialogue--Cage has a few voiceover monologues, including an uproarious sequence involving tartar sauce and a walk to the store, that are hugely funny. It's possible that we've seen Cage in this kind of character one too many times, but he's still good at it, and his doleful face and pasted-on smile fit the mood of the picture. Unlike the heroes of most Hollywood movies, David Spritz doesn't always--or often--do the right thing, but Cage makes you want to see the poor sap make it. --Robert Horton |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | Now The Weather: Fair Today, Unfair Tomorrow |
| The Weather Man is a very unusual movie - it's a big buck Hollywood vehicle with the vibe and sensibility of an angst-besotted love song to existentialism - the sort of thing one usually encounters only in art houses. Critics and audiences will most likely have difficulty pigeonholing it, which is one of its greatest strengths - though certainly a box-office liability. Director Gore Verbinski took a leave of absence from his "Pirates of the Caribbean" blockbustering, and Nicholas Cage apparently regained his sense of why he became an actor. Armed with a superb script by Steve Conrad, and equally impressive score, Verbinski demonstrates what confident direction looks like. He has complete faith in his actors - Michael Cane is amazing - his script - and the cinematography. Everything comes together so neatly you never notice - the timing and pacing in this film are flawless.
Conrad wrote the screenplay for Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, an overlooked gem that, despite being somewhat sentimental, really delivers. Surprisingly he was also behind Happyness - which leads me to believe that directorial ineptitude and Will Smith weight-throwing were responsible for turning thought provoking drama into twaddle so saccharine it would cause Disney to blush. The chirpiness of Happyness is almost antithetical to the weary, gray, dread of The Weather Man. Those who do comment on this film will probably call it a black comedy, although it is more properly a tragedy with some scattered comic moments. The "random showers" of Big Gulps and Milkshakes are funny in their way, but tragic also, as when weather man David Spritz, Cage, is splattered en route to the "living funeral" of his father. These bombings remind us that rain falls on the just and unjust equally, usually when it's least convenient. This film deliberately avoids high drama and focuses instead on the excruciating pain of small dramas. The life of David Spritz is hardly remarkable. His marriage is on the rocks, he has no real connection with his children, his job offers him no personal satisfaction or sense of meaning and value, and his father looks on him with exhausted and gentle disappointment. Though financially successful, he seems to instinctively get everything wrong - as when, in an attempt to be playful, he throws a snowball at his estranged wife and accidentally hits her in the face, thus breaking her glasses. Spritz is not bad, he's just empty - a prototypical 21-st Century man. There is no ending to give away, there is barely a plot - but director Verbinski masterfully lures us into Dave's world, and we do feel for him. This is really an exceptional movie. As an aside, Bryant Gumbel appears at several points in the film, convincingly playing himself. I found it gratifying to see Mr. Gumbel. For many years the sartorial talking head has provided a positive role model for white people across America, whether in the inner city or on the golf courses of suburbia. |
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