I Heart Huckabees
by David O. Russell
List Price:
Our Price: $3.89
You Save: $11.09 (74%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.23 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dustin Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Jude Law, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi WattsDirector: David O. Russell
Brand: Fox
Producer: David O. Russell
Writer: David O. Russell
Producer: Dara Weintraub
Producer: Gregory Goodman
Producer: Michael Kuhn
Producer: Scott Rudin
Writer: Jeff Baena
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
Published: 2005-02-01
DVD Release Date: 2005-02-22
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Product features:
- Condition: New
- Format: DVD
- Closed-captioned; Color; Dolby; DVD; Subtitled; Widescreen; Full Screen; NTSC
Movie Reviews of I Heart Huckabees
Movie Review: Home Sweet Home
Summary: 5 Stars
To me this film is a homecoming. It is a Wake Up! call. To leave this film at "satire" or "farce" or even "existential comedy" leaves it with far less practical and actual meaning than it, in fact, has. I don't think it's a modern or post-modern or pre-modern yarn (only), but a deeply relevant romp through the absurdly real and absurdity of the Real.
If you have been asking Questions of your universe -- yes, the capital 'Q' kind -- if you have been Inventing yourself, co-Inventing, Dreaming, Questing; if you are interested in the Process ... if you are Passionate and/or Earnest...if you are Lost but take solace (and delight!) in poetry and conundrum and dialectic...if you are Open... then you will be well-served to pull your ride over to the side and have a gander at this gem.
I went into this film knowing nothing except that I would thoroughly enjoy it, and I did. I didn't know who the director would be, the actors/actresses, the story, etc. I'm not the spoiler type so please pardon that the above gives away anything ;) I want to say a few things about the performers but give you warning first that I'm going to give away who's in it!!!
Schwartzman: the only actor that I vaguely caught wind might be involved with this and, Rushmore having sealed him in my heart and respect forever, was sufficient to make this an extraordinarily important movie for me vis him (nice sentence). He is superb. His ability to portray the Quest with earnestness and delight, with committment (sp) and compassion... astounding. Yes, I was truly already biased...I think Schwartman is one of the finest actors and lord am I grateful they found a film that matched his unique abilities. And lord am I grateful I will get to watch him continue to grow as a performer. Well done!
Wahlberg: I feel a strange gratitude that Mark Wahlberg takes on the projects that he does... I first found him to be brilliant in Boogie Nights... and I was ecstatic to watch his appearance in the film and the development/role of his character. I felt grateful that it was his voice voicing the role that he was in...the position he played. Absolutely fantastic. I can't explain my joy at seeing these two actors in a film together.
Man, this was just Hoffman's role...somehow, when I think of Dustin Hoffman, I think that I will always think of him like this...I don't even want to get into the specifics of the brilliance of his character, the kindness, respect, inventiveness...a young mediator of the heart-mind... and the chemistry between him and Tomlin, delightful, perfect. These roles were tailor-made... Hoffman seems like he would be the ideal Keeper of the Curious.
Ms. Tomlin brought me back to the days of All Of Me with Steve Martin and, for some reason, Sesame Sreet or Electric Company, I forget which. Surely, her energy is electric. I don't know if being 30 suggests I know little or a lot about age but I just don't see staying young as a goal. Tomlin has ALWAYS manifested a spry youth that defies numbers... like it shouldn't be surprising that she manages to stay youthful because I doubt it's 'management' ... more like embodiment -- I mean, while she may or may not work very hard to convey that persona, if she were to tell me it was effortless, I would believe her in a heartbeat ...like Hoffman (and Martin for that matter), her ability to be so physical with her humour while at turns wry of face, casual, determined, a persona that hides-out-in-the-open, earnest...wow.
This movie was just so EARNEST! Earnestness...even (and especially) Jude Law's character, who you might be inclined to write off as a 'certain kind of person' was constantly leaking Reality, an insuppressible earnestness...something that he would reckon with throughout the film, not just suddenly and without warning. Everything is in each of these characters throughout their journey in this film. A friend of mine and I delighted particularly in the range of his facial expressions...I found myself exclaiming during interactions/tensions between him and Schwartzman's character "that's it! that's how that really is! that's how it really goes!" Wonderful.
Huppert and Watts I will have to leave for the next review other than to say that both characters continue to raise the stakes and bolster the ante. Everybody in this film is Learning even while they each Know so much. Truly an ensemble work in which each character is dynamic although harmonious, still operating within their rhythm of self...that's the thing...these two women, whose characters are at incredibly key poles in this tale, show that there is range and growth to all positions.
I didn't realize the full directorial signficance of David O.Russell until I just checked out the IMDB. Mon dieu, this man has been single-handedly responsible for blowing me away at the box office (or dvd player, as it were)...jeez loueez. Somehow I can say "I can see how this film came out of you" and "Brother, you've outdone yourself this time" simultaneously. Mon dieu! I mean, the man is really taking it TO THE NEXT LEVEL.
Okay, enough enough.
If this film Wakes you,
Good Morning!
Summary of I Heart Huckabees
Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin lead an all-star cast including Jude Law, Naomi Watts and Mark Walhberg in this outrageous comedy from director/co-writer David O. Russell (Three Kings). Kindhearted but confused activist Andrew Markovski hires a pair of screwball "existential detectives" (Hoffman and Tomlin) to help him find the meaning of life. All the while, a sexy, French author (Isabelle Huppert) is trying to throw a wrench in their plan by seducing andrew's mind and body.Billed as "an existential comedy," I Heart Huckabees is a flawed yet endearingly audacious screwball romp that dares to ponder life's biggest questions. Much of director David O. Russell's philosophical humor is dense, talky, and impenetrable, leading critic Roger Ebert to observe that "it leaves the viewer out of the loop," and suggesting that Russell's screenplay (written with his assistant, Jeff Baena) is admirably bold yet frustratingly undisciplined. Russell's ideas are big but his expression of them is frenetic, centering on the unlikely pairing of an environmentalist (Jason Schwartzman) and a firefighter (Mark Wahlberg) as they depend on existential detectives (Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman) and a French nihilist (Isabelle Huppert) to make sense of their existential crises, brought on (respectively) by a two-faced chain-store executive (Jude Law) and his spokesmodel girlfriend (Naomi Watts), and the aftermath of 9/11's terrorism. No brief description can do justice to Russell's comedic conceit; you'll either be annoyed and mystified or elated and delighted by this wacky primer for coping with 21st century lunacy. Deserving of its mixed reviews, I Heart Huckabees is an audacious mess, like life itself, and accepting that is the key to enjoying both. --Jeff Shannon
Similar DVD Movies
Being John MalkovichUNI DIST CORP. (MCA); Release date: 2002-11-05; DVD
Best price: $6.14
Price in other shops:
MagnoliaNEW Line Home Video; Release date: 2007-05-08; DVD
Best price: $3.74
Price in other shops:
The Squid and the Whale (Special Edition)Sony; Release date: 2006-03-21; Published: 2006-03-01; DVD
Best price: $0.29
Price in other shops:
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (Widescreen Edition)Universal Studios; Release date: 2004-09-28; DVD
Best price: $5.82
Price in other shops:
Lost in TranslationUNI DIST CORP. (MCA); Release date: 2004-02-03; Published: 2004-02-01; DVD
Best price: $1.90
Price in other shops:
Bottle RocketWILSON/CAAN; Release date: 1998-12-22; Published: 1998-12-01; DVD
Best price: $4.75
Price in other shops:
RushmoreBuena Vista Home Video; Release date: 1999-06-29; DVD
Best price: $3.72
Price in other shops:
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (The Criterion Collection)Miramax Home Entertainment; Release date: 2005-05-10; DVD
Best price: $3.49
Price in other shops:
The Royal Tenenbaums (The Criterion Collection)Buena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2002-07-09; DVD
Best price: $9.76
Price in other shops:
The Darjeeling LimitedTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2008-02-26; DVD
Best price: $4.87
Price in other shops: