The Weather Man

The Weather Man_720p(480P)

source: The Weather Man

If this is what's needed to draw people into the theaters then it's time to quit making movies. If this is what's going on behind the doors of a typical family then it's time to quit making movies and for people to concentrate on their kids. This film is filled with vulgarity and suggestions of extreme parental failures. I would never, ever think of speaking the language that these kids used so easily in this film. I rarely regret going to see a movie and then wished I had the nerve to get my money back but Weather Man is one of those films.

Hey, we're making a heart-warming drama about a loser weather man who just wants everyone to get along, but can't break out of his bad habits and bad luck. OK, but just in case things get too sentimental, how about throwing in Michael Caine wittering inanely about "f*cking and sucking and blowing" and, in case that's still not offensive enough, let's toss in some jokes about the hero's pre-pubescent daughter's genitalia. What could possibly go wrong? Now, there is a time and a place for off-colour humour. There is a time and a place for whimsical sentimentality. Rarely are those times and places the same. Jokes about a little girl's genitalia need to be handled (!) very carefully indeed. The makers of this film have no idea what they are doing, why they are doing it, or who in their right mind would pay money to see this drivel. The under-written script veers from grotesque gags to "heart-warming" comedy, stopping along the way at child-abuse, blandly vulgar dialogue and surreal whimsy. Everything the film-makers can possibly think of is thrown at the screen in the desperate hope that some of it will stick. It doesn't. Likewise, the soundtrack is packed with that kind of annoying plinky music that's supposed to indicate a certain world-weary sardonicism with a hint of uplift just around the corner. It is as pleasant as the sound of a dentist's drill. The characterisation is depressingly lazy. Michael Caine is a Pulitzer-prize winning novelist? You could have fooled me. He comes across as inarticulate and confused. Cage is supposed to be - what? Likable? Horrible? Some combination of the two? Or perhaps he's supposed to be whatever the script demands of him at certain points. Having a row? He's horrible. Bonding with his kids? Likable. Insulting his daughter's appearance while on the phone to his wife? Horrible again. The only laughs come from watching people throw junk food at Cage. Now THAT'S funny.

Yeah yeah, I get it, film snobs. This is high art. It's an homage to melancholic French film noir, with lots of drab snow and blue filtered lenses. "You just don't understand tragic comedy," some of you may suggest. Oh, I understand it all right. Only "The Weather Man" makes a dog's dinner of that particular genre, if that's indeed what they were going for. I'm not sure. If awards are given for such things, Nick Cage might get an award for maintaining the same long monotonous hang-dog facial expression in nearly every scene for two hours of screen time. Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton perfected this bit. The sad, luckless clown, wondering through life getting beat down, but winning our hearts because they persevere. Cage can't bring it on like Keaton. About half way through this mess, I was hoping he'd get hit with a brick, not a sandwich. But I have to hand it to Paramount Pictures for the most shameless product placement I've ever seen in a film: They literally throw their products, logos and all, right at Cage, making the image stick in your mind while it sticks to Cage's suits and overcoats. Splat! McDonalds. Splat! Big Gulp, 7-Eleven. Splat! Splat! Taco Bell. And it case you were too dense to pick up on that, you could see the McDonalds golden arches reflected in window glass and slightly out of focus in the background of a half dozen shots. I mean, come on! If this was supposed to be Haute Ciné, it must be some kind of cynical inside joke to have the lead character covered in advertising like a NASCAR hot rod. I won't spoil it for those of you who like to wallow in excruciating maudlin muck. I know some people are uplifted watching other people morbidly depressed. But for the rest of us who may be less enlightened to the entertainment or artistic value of watching some unloved schmendrick stumbling along in misery, this film will make you want to have a drink, or several. Or worse, jump off a tall building or stick your head in a gas oven. In short, this film doesn't deliver any truth you didn't have already. It's just a depressing mess. It was only when Michael Cane's character delivered the line: "In this sh*t life, you have to chuck some things" pretty far into the picture when I suddenly realized I should have chucked this thing after the first twenty minutes. Take his advice, and mine, and leave this one on the video rental shelf.

I am very disappointed that I wasted $10 and 2 hours of my life watching this movie. Has our society really reached the point where we can constantly accept mediocre garbage as a substitute for thought-provoking entertainment? Everything in this movie seemed flawed...from the writing to the casting. Can someone please explain to me how an American husband and wife raise two children...but one has a British accent? Oh and while I am complaining about the logistics of the movie: why was a plot point of Nicholas Cage's daughter being a smoker introduced? She buys cigarettes, the father sees them in her bag and the point is never touched on again. No resolution? Not even confrontation? Ohhhh I know what you avant-garde cinema heads are thinking...maybe that is the point, right? Maybe it isn't all about the resolution? Well I think it is pointless and boring. Back to logistics, how exactly do these people throwing things at the weatherman have such great accuracy? Not only can these villains recognize Dave Spritz by the back of his head and nail him with food (in a shameless effort to divert eyes away from looking at our watches), these villains are superhuman enough to see Spritz sitting in his car with the window down and accurately throw a big gulp through the window and hit him. Oh and here's something else that ticked me off...how can you cast someone as brilliant as Michael Caine into the role of a genius father figure and give him such horrible dialogue. This world-renowned author and genius father of David Spritz sits in the weatherman's car, picks up a cup and gives the line, "What's this?" ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! It is a cup that is most likely filled with residue from soda and it has the words BIG GULP printed so large on the side that Stevie Wonder could read it! The dialogue in this movie is just like the plot. It is weak, thin, very dry, and most of the time it DOES NOT MAKE SENSE! Gore Verbinski I hope you read this because the cut to a 12 year old girl's "cameltoe" and then the superimposed real life camel toe was absolutely ridiculous. It was just sooooo stupid! And Nick if you ever read this...just because Adaptation was a good movie doesn't mean you have to keep using voice-over in every movie you take! When a movie is driven by the main character being hit with food and a 12 year old girl's cameltoe you should definitely save your time and money and STEER CLEAR OF THIS MOVIE.

This film was a major disappointment. The previews made it appear as though it would have a dry witty sense of humor about it. However, what unfolds is a long depressing film with very little content. Even the brilliance of Michael Caine could not save this one. This is the sort of film that has you checking your watch after only 30 minutes. All of the humor in the preview is the sum of the humor in the movie - all the good lines are there. The one highlight in the film is the Spongebob Balloon drifting by the hotel window that cage is staying in. Not only is this film depressing, vulgar, and tasteless - it is also very long. There are at least two hours of my life that I will never get back.

David Spritz is a Chicago weatherman who is highly successful with his job but outside of his professional life he is a wreck, with his father that is diagnosed with cancer, his wife on the verge of being engaged with another man, and his kids growing up without him. The movie is excellent. The brilliant direction of Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) and the writing of Steve Conrad mix perfectly in this comedy/drama. The film is also extremely funny and on a couple scenes, I don't think I've ever laughed that hard in any movie, but this. Although it has a high amount of hilarious scenes, the movie is pretty serious and at a point, quite depressing. The acting is amazing and I think Nicolas Cage as David Spritz, should be nominated for an Oscar. This is one of his finest performances. Overall, an excellent comedy that has a great message to show and should be viewed by everyone. I highly recommend it. Hedeen's Outlook: 9.5/10 **** A

"Depression is melancholy minus its charms." Susan Sontag It's a sure bet a charmless film about a depressed weather man will make you depressed, regardless of its attempts at humor. Director Gore Verbinski in The Weather Man has miscalculated the comedic qualities of a life so bereft of joy, so ignorant of the value of anything valuable in life that he has mistaken Nicolas Cage's splendid turn as an alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas for an equally inspired reprisal as David Spritz, a dreary Chicago weather man lost in his negative thoughts about his audience and loss of his family. To mix depression with humor is an alchemy too difficult for anyone but, say, Shakespeare, whose Hamlet even has his light moments, but very few thankfully as we enjoy his decline to ersatz madness through language too beautiful to call human. David has a few parts of his life worth being depressed about but hardly humorous: a Pulitzer winning father (David's weather man is like a dentist envying a medical doctor—he's not a meteorologist and dad is a writer who creates and doesn't suffer his son gladly), a wife glad to be rid of him, an dull, overweight daughter, and a druggie son who may be gay. The film does highlight the superficiality most of us suspect of mainstream television. There are moments when David meets fans, most of whom pelt him with product placements like McDonald's desserts possibly because they figure he's responsible for bad weather or because they don't know that like most anchors, he's reading someone else's words. The counterpoint of a Pulitzer dad is therefore one of the film's nice ironies. The job offer from a New York station serves to prod the plot in its only forward motion. Beyond that, it simply is a poorly written screenplay (another irony) directed by a tone deaf director despite attempts like the archery motif to class up its figurative side. "If the weather is foul we stay at home and read the papers." T.S. Eliot Prediction: cloudy with heavy rain and poor box office. Stay at home.

Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean X3, The Ring, The Mexican) has an uncanny way of moving strange characters through bizarre plots while maintaining our interest and our empathy. THE WEATHER MAN was so poorly promoted when it hit the theaters that it seemed like it was going to be one of those asinine food throwing slapstick comedies instead of the very serious examination of contemporary life in the big cities, or even more about the struggle of a disillusioned man who cannot find a balance between business success and family/marital failure, it is. This viewer almost ignored it completely - until the DVD. David Spritz (Nicholas Cage) is a TV pawn the station uses as a weatherman: he is untrained as a meteorologist, skilled only be his TV persona success dependent on a created gag/tag line - the Nipper (the peak worst day in the forecast). His personal life is a mess, separated from a disconsolate wife Noreen (Hope Davis), distanced from his successful writer father Robert (Michael Caine) and on shaky territory with his two children - fat and sad Sully (Gemmenne de la Peña) and sweet but troubled pothead Mike (Nicholas Hoult). To make life worse his TV persona follows him into the streets of blustery Chicago where his viewers either seek autographs invading his privacy or throw food at him as the progenitor of the lousy cold weather. This polarized existence is invaded by an offer to become weatherman on Bryan Gumbel's Hello America show in New York (a career jump for which he longs for many reasons), serial confrontations with his father whom he emulates but always feels a failure, the finding that his father has lymphoma, the ridicule of fat Shelly at school, Mike's edgy involvement with his drug counselor Don (Gil Bellows), and Noreen's new live-in Russ (Michael Rispoli). How David meanders through this quagmire of dilemmas is the story and while it is not pretty, it is pungent. Cage inhabits the strange role of David finding a way to make this loser with a short temper someone about whom we care. It is a tough assignment but Cage meets it on every level. Michael Caine provides some of the more eloquent moments in the film: his words of wisdom and view of life are the only grounded elements of the story. Likewise Hope Davis is fine as are the cameo roles of the children as sensitively played by de la Peña and Hoult. The subject of the film is tough and the excessive use of potty mouth language is overbearing and at times one wishes Verbinski would have edited some of the gross food slinging scenes. But as an overall message movie there is much here to admire. It simply is not the mindless slapstick the posters and trailers would indicate. The PR folks on this one blew it. Worth your time and attention. Grady Harp