Uncle Nick & the Magic Forest, Vol. 4 - Christmas in the Magic Forest

Starring:Uncle Nick & Magic Forest
Studio: Intermedia Video
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Just too miserable to be enjoyable
"You Can't Always Get What You Want"
Loved it, Almost Office Space Like
Good Indie Film
"I thought I was f**cked up... what about you?"

Lonesome Jim
Starring: Casey Affleck , Liv Tyler , Mary Kay Place , Seymour Cassel , and Kevin Corrigan
Director: Steve Buscemi
Manufacturer: Ifc
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Brick
Thank You for Smoking (Widescreen Edition)
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Half Nelson

ASIN: B000FZEU3S
Release Date: 2006-08-29

Description

Nearing the age of 30 with no real accomplishments to show for his years, Jim (Casey Affleck) humbly returns to his small town and moves back in with his eccentric parents (Mary Kay Place and Seymour Cassell) and brother (Kevin Corrigan). As he tries to guide his family through the little dramas of everyday life, Jim stumbles into a romance with a kind, optimistic nurse (Liv Tyler). Directed by Steve Buscemi, Lonesome Jim is a wise, smart comedy about the courage it takes to accept the past, and to embrace the future.

Customer Reviews:

Just too miserable to be enjoyable.......2007-03-26

I know this is supposed to be a dark comedy, but it's too heavy on the darkness and too light on the comedy. I think it's well acted...but the characters are not likeable and they just don't manage to redeem themselves....even at the end.

"You Can't Always Get What You Want".......2006-12-04

'Lonesome Jim' may present some problems. Faced with loneliness and depression, we all have our moments of anguish and forlorness. Casey Affleck plays the role with life's alienation written all over his face. He has lost the paper chase out in the world and must--like many young adults nowadays--come home and live with the family until his luck changes. The mother is supportive, but the father intimidates him from just feeding off their bounty, so he works at the family business and takes the menial jobs at the factory. He tries to go to all the familiar watering holes, an exercise that only seems to make his inner hole bigger, until he meets a cheerful and generous nurse. He also volunteers for a young girls basketball team, which he seems to go through the motions. He is an aspiring writer, and he wears the despair of his greatest heroes on his sleeve, including Hemingway, whom he notes shot himself. On one cheerful encounter with his mother (played wonderfully by Mary Kay Place) she asks Jim what they've done to raise two miserable boys: "Be honest...You're a smart and sensitive man, you should have some idea." He replies, "Some people shouldn't have kids," a response that injures even her seemingly unflappable resource of cheerfulness. His cousin Stacie works at the factory and brings his monetary resources to Jim who naively gets blackmailed by him from snitching when he uses the factory to mail drugs, and Jim's mother gets busted.

Sometimes loneliness and depression are a disease. The reason I recommend watching 'Lonesome Jim' is because it goes through it and glides on top of it at the same time. His loneliness is as tangible as watching the futile anguish of Johnny Depp in 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape?' The film is entertaining and cathartic, but it may have the best feature of confronting a part of all of us that is screaming to make life a better domain.

Loved it, Almost Office Space Like.......2006-10-01

I loved this film. I dont even get enough energy to write reviews even though I have seen billions of movies but did for this one.

I think it is kind of like "Station Agent" or I even said (maybe slightly) a bit like Office Space. It is deadpan and the lines kind of come out of nowhere. "Get your A## up, it 4 o'clock already!!", scenes like that.

Even if you read the reviews below, they aren't really saying the movie is bad. I dont know why the low ratings.

Anyway, a good watch for those who like this style of comedy/drama.

Good Indie Film.......2006-09-23

This is a good, indie film directed by a veteran of the industry, Steve Buscemi. It's the kind of movie he's been acting in his whole career.

There's nothing spectacular or original story. It's been told a hundred times in indie films, classic literature, and every novel by Larry McMurtry or JD Salinger.

Casey Affleck plays Jim, a man in his late twenties who hasn't made much of his life because he was afraid of failure. He's lost his way and broke so he comes home to a small town to live his parents and his older brother, who might be even more pathetic. While he's there his brother gets in an accident and Jim is forced to take over his duties. Along the way he meets Liv Tyler's character, a pretty, small town girl with a ten year old son. It's through Jim's actions with her, his family, and a children's basketball team that he eventually finds the will to take some risks in life.

The story is light on plot, but it's the mood that makes it interesting. Any one who's ever enjoyed "Catcher in the Rye" or similar stories or movies will probably enjoy this film, which has a lot of charm and several laugh out loud moments.

"I thought I was f**cked up... what about you?".......2006-09-12

As bland and flat as the landscape in which it is set, this is indeed a strange directing vehicle for Steve Buscemi who has made a career out of acting in hard-edged gritty films. Lonesome Jim is a cheaply made, boring and lackluster film about a twenty-seven year old would be mopey writer who returns to his Indiana family after bottoming out in Manhattan.

The whole film is dispiriting, pointless and morose as we watch Jim (Casey Affleck) advise his divorced older brother (Kevin Corrigan) to kill himself, be dismissive and occasionally cruel to both his mother (Mary Kay Place) - and even steal from her purse - and flirt with the beautiful nurse (Liv Tyler) he supposedly wants to date.

Obviously Jim is terribly depressed - he even keeps pictures of suicidal writers on his bedroom wall - but apart from the fact that he ran out of money in New York, the film offers few clues to the source of Jim's malaise, or that of his entire sad-sack family. Consequently, the story is directionless and rudderless and so indebted to deadpan, droopy, mopey blandness that the subject and the form become one, and end up leaving the viewer numb and indifferent.

The main problem with Lonesome Jim is that the characters are just not that interesting. The film also tries for a kind of pokerfaced humor, which doesn't really work as it attempts to make light of Jim's situation. He's got no wit, no energy, no creative drive, and no spark of life. He's a big, self-indulgent idiot and the film is so closely allied to his dulled sensibilities that it's agonizing, even at its brief running time.

In all fairness, Lonesome Jim does paint a realistic portrait of working-class, mid-western suburbia and the film does have some interesting things to say about following your dreams, with only hard work and a life plan ensuring success. Most of these people are stuck in some kind of rudderless life - choices are limited and their worldview is often narrow.

Affleck, a sly comic and easily the best actor in his family, is suitably solitary and lifeless, maybe a bit too lifeless and Tyler is miscast as a small-town beauty. Fortunately Mary Kay Place rises above it all and provides is with a great portrait of a doting and somewhat neurotic mid-western mom.

Lonesome Jim is indeed a lonely road of a film, it too often dawdles and never accelerates and apart from a thread where one character gets arrested for drug smuggling, the film doesn't seem to have much drama. Mr. Affleck and Buscemi have been weighed down with the difficult task of making grumpiness and petulance seem interesting. But neither of them really succeeds; consequently this film is almost dead on arrival. Mike Leonard September 06.

Average customer rating:

Die by the fist while you're at it!

Live by the Fist
Starring: Jerry Trimble , George Takei , Ted Markland , Laura Albert , and Vic Diaz
Director: Cirio H. Santiago
Manufacturer: New Concorde
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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One Man Army

ASIN: B000087F2B
Release Date: 2003-04-08

Customer Reviews:

Die by the fist while you're at it!.......2006-08-19

I was born long after that "Bridge on the River Kwai" generation, so maybe this wasn't speaking to me for a reason. Still, objectively, it seemed god-awful. The speaking seemed plastic, as if it were purposely meant to look like the English was dubbed. Many of the characters seemed like imitations from "Johnny Quest" villains. You could barely hear any word that came out of George Takei's mouth. (I just used the phrase "came out" unintentionally, y'all.) This film was fight scene-dominant, as opposed to having any plot or decent dialogue. But Jackie Chan has spoiled me: the fights paled in comparison to his work. They seemed like all kicks and not much more. I do love that the actor took jabs, unlike many protagonists in action films. This film is typical of vehicles for athletes and wrestlers to get into film, and you know that ain't a compliment. This film is supposed to take place in or near the Philippines, yet the warden has a huge Portuguese flag in his office. The Asian woman who gets unrobed and killed at the beginning of the film doesn't even appear in the credits. She showed the intended hetero male audience her upper good stuff and can't even get her name printed!? This film had no English captions or foreign language subtitles. Luckily, it's much shorter than your average film. To its credit, it does try to promote yellow-white unity for a second. It also gives the message that "If we oppressed groups stopped fighting each other, maybe we could unite against that powers-that-be that are keeping us all down."

Uncle Nick & the Magic Forest, Vol. 1: Poco and Friends

Average customer rating:

Uncle Nick & the Magic Forest, Vol. 1: Poco and Friends
Starring: Cory Lloyd , Nick Felix , Brittany Hartwig , Chris Lloyd , and Jenni Martin
Director: Nick Felix
Manufacturer: Intermedia Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000059HBL
Release Date: 2000-12-12

Uncle Nick & the Magic Forest, Vol. 3: Lost in the Magic Forest

Average customer rating:

Uncle Nick & the Magic Forest, Vol. 3: Lost in the Magic Forest
Starring: Nick Felix , Natasha Alikhani , Beth Felix , Jay Michael Ferguson , and Patsy Hutchens
Director: Nick Felix
Manufacturer: Intermedia Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000059HBN
Release Date: 2000-12-12

Uncle Nick & the Magic Forest, Vol. 2: Happy Day Parade

Average customer rating:

Painful

Uncle Nick & the Magic Forest, Vol. 2: Happy Day Parade
Starring: Natasha Alikhani , Fiamma Felitch , Beth Felix , Jay Michael Ferguson , and Chris Lloyd
Director: Nick Felix
Manufacturer: Intermedia Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000059HBM
Release Date: 2000-12-12

Customer Reviews:

Painful.......2007-06-16

Kids tolerated it, but for me it was painful

Uncle Nick & the Magic Forest, Vol. 4 - Christmas in the Magic Forest

Average customer rating:

Uncle Nick & the Magic Forest, Vol. 4 - Christmas in the Magic Forest
Starring: Uncle Nick & Magic Forest
Manufacturer: Intermedia Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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