Terms of Endearment
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Movie Reviews of Terms of Endearment
Movie Review: DVD Special features lacking
Summary: 3 Stars
I loved this movie from my first viewing in its original release. So when it became available on DVD I immediately ordered it with the hope of obtaining insight. However, director Brooks and his cohorts running commentary leave much to be desired. One gets the impression from their babbling that they haven't seen the flick in fifteen years plus. Compared to the excellence of director Chris Columbus commentary on Mrs. Doubfire, Terms is sorely lacking. I am disappointed.Movie Review: A predictable tear jerker
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie grated on my nerves at times, but for the most part, I liked it and found it moving. If you like a good cry, watch this film.Movie Review: One of the top five "chick-flicks" of all time.
Summary: 2 Stars
Sometimes popular culture idolizes something, whether it be a book, a movie, or a record; where I just don't "get it." I have to ask myself: Is it just me? What do people see in this? For the life of me I cannot understand why a melodramatic piece of twaddle like "Bridges of Madison County" was a hit. I don't see what the big thrill about Madonna is either. She absolutely can't act. Her records are put together for her by producers. They crowd the stage with dancers and special effects in her concerts, in hopes you don't notice how little talent she really has.
She doesn't write her own songs. She doesn't play any instruments. She doesn't have a strong voice. Compared to someone like Sheryl Crow, who writes all her own material, plays most of the instruments, and has a very strong voice, Madonna is a poseur. I really have to wonder about anyone who would view her as anything other than a egomaniacal twit.
And please, don't even get me started on Bruce Springsteen.
Which brings me to "Terms of Endearment." What is so hard to understand about the fact that your average American male doesn't care about "Women, and their relationships with their mothers"? I don't know of any man under the age of 40 who would sit through something like this movie, unless he thought it would help put his wife or girlfriend "In the Mood", and that he would reap the benefit later that evening. The characters aren't all that sympathetic. Debra Winger is supposed to elicit sympathy as the dying cancer sufferer, but she's such a whiny bitch it's hard to feel it. Shirley MacLaine is so obnoxious you just want to punch her right in the face. Jeff Daniels is a clueless career student who becomes a college teacher so he doesn't have to go out in the real world to make a living. The one bright spot for me was Jack Nicholson, but even his bright moments are too few and far between. Terms of Endearment isn't a awful movie, but I don't think it deserved anywhere near the accolades it got. No one can tell me that Shirley Mac deserved the best actress oscar over Meryl Streep in "Silkwood". Absolutely one of the most overrated films ever.
Movie Review: Soap opera . . .
Summary: 2 Stars
and not a very lucid one, at that. *Terms of Endearment*'s biggest problem, I think, is that it somehow misses the point: rather than delving into an intensive character-study of a mother-daughter relationship -- which is, presumably, what the movie's supposed to be about -- we're given a chronicle of the mother's and daughter's OTHER relationships, particularly with the men in their lives. It's not altogether clear if we're supposed to compare and contrast MacLaine's and Winger's separate stories (and that indeed is what this movie is: mother and daughter share surprisingly little screen-time), especially since those stories seem to have little to do with each other. In any event, it all comes across just a tad soap-opera-ish for my taste.I do agree with the reviewer below who observed that MacLaine's and Nicholson's romance seems to be played strictly for laughs. It's the equivalent of the old pie-in-the-face routine, and it starts to wear after the first hour.
Finally, the look of the movie is extraordinarily ugly. It's as if director James L. Brooks and his cinematographer couldn't afford new film stock, or something. It reminds me of those ghastly-looking Altman pictures, particularly *McCabe & Mrs. Miller*. *Terms of Endearment*, made in 1983, looks much older than that, and the digital clean-up on the DVD didn't improve its appearance.
I know people love this movie, and my opinion is just that: opinion. Well, here's another one: if you want to see a great film from this director, look no further than *Broadcast News*, a much more sophisticated film than this first -- and soapiest -- effort.
Movie Review: I seem to prefer Brooks' TV work better...
Summary: 2 Stars
I really had a problem with this movie when it was released in 1983, and I still do. While I like James L. Brooks' TV work ("Mary Tyler Moore Show", "The Simpsons") I don't seem to love all his movies.
When "Terms" first came out, it was praised as being SO moving and SO funny and SO real, you'll just die as fast as Debra Winger (and her subsequent career)... Well, that was just typical early-80s hyperbole, but this movie is about as real and as poignant as an episode of "Little House on the Prairie"--- and about as funny.
I suppose it's harmless enough, but there is nothing-- NOTHING-- superlative about it. (I will be in the minority here, I realize).