Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Mr-Fusion Albert Brooks' REAL LIFE maintains an eerie prescience, but the man simply took a PBS experiment from the '70s and smashed it into Hollywood artifice to profound comedic effect. His character's film experiment (you guessed it, to document real life as movie) seems novel, but the family's miserable and it only goes downhill from there. It's a well-chosen cast, full of funny personalities - Grodin is a highlight here and can't stop making contact with the camera - and then there's Brooks' used car salesman filmmaker, virtually devolving matters into absurdity by his own hand. And he's on fire here, playing a fictionalized dickish version of himself (and pulling no punches doing it).The man's a genius, if for no other reason than for introducing one of the funniest props in movie history: the Ettinauer 226XL! Very good stuff.8/10

Michael Neumann Albert Brooks, earlier in his career, may not have been the most appealing person in show business, but his screen persona was then certainly one of the funniest: insecure, obsessive, vain, and obnoxious enough to make his low-key, self-deprecating satires a definite acquired taste. In this mock cinema verité parody of a then topical PBS reality series he attempts to document on camera one year in the life of the second-most typical family in America (the runner-up was preferred in order to avoid a winter in Green Bay, Wisconsin). But the scientific enquiry meets with several unforeseen obstacles, not the least of which is a complete breakdown of the actuality Brooks wants so desperately to capture. Charles Grodin's typically deadpan performance sets the proper comic mood, and the scenario includes plenty of cinema in-jokes sure to raise a chuckle from any film student (it might have been titled 'Reel Life'). One highlight is the slow-motion family frolic meant to show highbrow French critics what the word 'montage' is all about.

krumski There's no question that Albert Brooks is not for everybody - his particular blend of neuroticism and egomania can be way too much for most people. But if you can get on his wavelength, and when he's at his best - oh man! There's absolutely no one better. Real Life is Brooks' best movie, and deserves to be more widely known than it is. His portrayal of a controlling producer, who is willing to violate not only broadcast ethics but the standards of decency and good sense as well in order to inject life into his failing "documentary" is frightening, off-putting and truly hilarious all at once.When I first saw this movie, I didn't realize it was based on an actual television experiment. I bring this up only because when I first saw the film, I felt its only flaw was that it didn't spend enough time showing the family and their disintegration in front of the cameras, choosing instead to focus almost exclusively on Brooks and his manic responses to the dilemma this posed. However, knowing that the real life experiment would have already been familiar to people, Brooks clearly wanted to use this movie to examine not the family but the bankrupt commercial mindset which would put such a project into play in the first place. As such, his satire is dead on and nobody could more perfectly embody the entertainment industry than Brooks himself. Just to see him smarmily singing and glad-handing at the beginning is worth the cost.

connerg-2 I think what most filmmakers say when they watch a great film is "I wish I made that movie". This is one of those movies. Not only is this a comedy classic, I would say that this movie is ground breaking. And way ahead of its time. Albert Brooks, proves that he is one of the funniest comedians ever, and in my opinion one of the best actors on the screen. And the ending is simply brilliant, and at the same time "Hilarious". I would like to tell you more, "But I don't have the time, or the cord!"