Search - I Love Your Work on DVD

Some things are best left unexamined!

White Guy | 05/28/2006

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This movie is to film and celebrity what watching a colonoscopy is to medicine. We all want good medicine, but some things are best left unwatched. Somewhat quirky and interesting at first, this movie turns into a redundant and confused two-by-four in the back of the head, an unflinching look at one sad hollywood story of a twitchy drunk with a serious inferiority complex complicated by delusions of non-grandeur in full melt-down. Giovani Ribisi is not at his "Boiler Room" best as this annoying self-loather who can get into all the best bars but can't get in with his wife or over his old girlfriend, who he hated for being between him and fame anyway, which now makes him so touchy. By the end I was so glad to see it end, at least I felt better about my life. For a better look at the celebrity/movie industry madness thing try "Swimming with Sharks" and "The Player". At least they did not forget to entertain the viewer by trying to be conceptual art first. This movie is a disturbed over-reaching conceptual masturbatory bummer. If you use the word "film" a lot instead of "movie", maybe you'll like it."

I don't love your work

E. A Solinas | MD USA | 03/31/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Oh joy. Another movie about how tough it is to be famous, rich and liked.

Actor/director Adam Goldberg's "I Love Your Work" attempts to tackle that subject, but the "poor little rich actor" storyline merely ends up feeling self-indulgent and whiny. Several of the actors are talented, but most of them -- except for star Giovanni Ribisi -- are misused.

Gray Evans (Giovanni Ribisi) is famous, rich and miserable. He married Mia (Franka Potente) after seeing her in a French film, but their marriage is crumbling because he thinks she's cheating with Elvis Costello, who is friendly with Mia. Distraught, Gray ends up in a video store, where he becomes fascinated with a young video store clerk (Joshua Jackson) and his loving girlfriend (Marisa Coughlan).

As his sanity begins to crumble, Gray stalks the couple, and starts to have visions of an ex-girlfriend (Christina Ricci) who reminds him of a happier time. He begins to reimagine his past, pre-fame life through the clerk and girlfriend, and soon the world of sanity is beginning to fade away.

Perhaps this movie would be more palatable if it hadn't been done by an actor. In the hands of someone like Wes Anderson, this movie would have been brilliant, dark and understatedly satirical. From Goldberg, it just seems self-indulgent. It has nothing new to say, and it doesn't add any sparkle to the old stuff.

And while Goldberg tries hard to make this a dark satire, he takes his Big Message too seriously. It starts off well, with Gray teetering on the edge of insanity, and imagining that everybody is watching, touching and pursuing him. For a short time, it has the elements of a lightweight Fellini movie.

But after the first half hour, Goldberg goes wild with the camera tricks and the plot. He's trying so hard to be arty and insightful, that he ends up almost making the film a parody of itself. And not a good parody either. It aspires to be a bizarre, surrealist experience like "Mulholland Drive." But it's too unfocused and self-conscious to even come close.

It doesn't help that Gray is not somebody we're going to care about. He's egotistical, self-absorbed, suspicious and whiny. And for all his complaints about his terrible life, it never seems to cross his mind to do the obvious thing. Quit acting. Retreat from the limelight. Maybe he secretly likes complaining.

Ribisi is definitely the center of the film, and his turn as a crazed movie star is wonderfully unsettling. Yes, it really is that weird, even though Gray is such an annoying character. Potente isn't required to do much more than sit there and look glamorous, but Ricci is brilliant in her small role as Gray's nebulous ex.

If you want to see navel-gazing, then "I Love Your Work" might be the ticket. But for anyone looking for clever, ingenious, entertaining filmmaking, look for someone else's work to love."

It had potential; I'll give it that

Eddie Lancekick | Pacific Northwest | 11/05/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The last time I saw the names "Adam Goldberg" and "Giovanni Ribisi" together, they were two American Soldiers who perished while trying to save a certain Private Ryan.

Goldberg co-wrote and directed this contemporary psychological drama that has all the ingredients for a great finale but gets left in the oven too long. At times towards the end I was thinking it could have been something perhaps similar to "Memento" or something of that nature. What this film gives you is a plethora of cross analyzing ideas meshed with real time parallels, that ultimately bogs down in a mosh of messy execution. Some of the biggest points and profound themes that it spends so much time getting to in a bizarre and confusingly intricate way are so simplistic they leave you yawning. Despite a stellar cast that besides Rabisi also features Jason Lee, Christina Ricci, Vince Vaughn, Haylie Duff and Elvis Costello, it gets to far out of the main points of what it is trying to convey.

Rabisi stars as Gray Evans, a movie star actor who is having marital trouble. Gray starts thinking amid his days of working on the set, going through fan email, and getting bugged by people, that a fan is stalking him. Relentless in his obsession of this belief, he starts obsessing about others around him. Great ideas here but then the film basically spends too much time zigzagging around to all the different characters and locales. We understand that Gray seems to have a connection with a film grad who is also a fan and is suspected by him at one time, of being the stalker, but by the time 100 minutes roles by it gets to the point of not caring. The ideas are there, I just feel it was a bit over ambitious in the portrayal of it all. The sections that are supposed to be psychological really come off more like psycho confusing, and the parts that are to be rewarding in tying up loose ends towards the films finish end up falling flat.

If you like Independent films, or want to try something different, by all means give it a try. I don't see it as being something I would watch again, or have in my collection for killing time on a Sunday afternoon with."

Ennui would be a kind descriptor

Grady Harp | Los Angeles, CA United States | 11/07/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Clocking in at just under two hours, I LOVE YOUR WORK leaves the viewer feeling as though from the opening sequence that stones have been tied to your feet and your body thrown into the very deep and dank water to slowly settle into the mud at the bottom. Sound dreary? Then avoid this little mess of a film.

It is hard to believe that Adrian Butchart who is giving us the radiant GOAL! THE DREAM BEGINS trilogy could help write this script: one wonders if writer/director Adam Goldberg didn't just bring him in for help. The story is tired (small time guy gives up love for a career as a movie star with all the accessories of money, fame, celeb status, gorgeous wife, etc. only to find life in its simpler fashion was preferable) and the choices of casting this very dark and dreary tale are inappropriate. Giovanni Ribisi, superb an actor though he most assuredly is, simply is not credible as a movie star sex symbol whose stardom is accompanied by alcoholism, self hate, paranoia, fragmented thinking, and bad decisions. The only time we see anything vaguely suggestive of his ability to create a role is in the many flashback scenes (with girlfriend Christina Ricci): his on screen chemistry with his famous wife Mia (the enormously talented Franka Potente who here is wasted in a mannequin's role) is nil, and his interplay with such actors as Vince Vaughn, Marisa Coughlan, Judy Greer, Shalom Harlow, Joshua Jackson, Jason Lee, and Elvis Costello is unilateral.

Goldberg films this boring redundant tale using all manner of artsy camera tricks that only serve to make the tedium increase. With a cast like this the product had promise. Goldberg needs some time to think about this phase of his career. Grady Harp, November 06
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