Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Jay Harris Manolo de Olveira who is 92 years young & still active in film,is to be commended for making this movie.This is really an art house film for those who know all about a film before they see it. The movie is 86 minutes long,It would have been a much clearer, more concise 60 minute Television exercise.The camera stands still with nothing happening for about a minute in many scenes.The last scenes with John Malkovich are in English, with no captioning, he speaks so low you cannot understand one word that he says.The audience is supposed to know before hand that the opening scenes are from an Obscure play by Ionesco & the scenes with Malkovich, the film being made is Ulysses. If you do not know from Ionesco you will not appreciate the beginning at all. I never understood Ulysses period. This is James Joyce's not Homer's.Michel Picoli a noted actor does a good job as the lead.Catherine Deneuve has a small role, since there were hardly any close ups I did not recognize who she was.I do like art-house type film but want to be able to understand them.I think I have more than 10 lines,Ratings: ** )out of 4) 52 points (out of 100) IMDb 4 (out of 10)

MARIO GAUCI This is another low-key yet compelling latter-day offering from the indefatigable Portuguese film-maker; given that it deals with a famous but ageing actor (Michel Piccoli once again) who decides to give up his boots, it was probably meant as such by Oliveira himself – though he's still going strong seven years later, having not only made some half-a-dozen other films in the interim but, at nearly 100, has two more productions already lined up for 2009! The plot starts off with Piccoli and his theater troupe (including a nice cameo by Catherine Deneuve) performing a Eugene Ionesco play about a mad king (with Piccoli being very funny at playing a doddering and dreamy fool), while later on they also put on Shakespeare's "The Tempest". Soon after the initial performance, however, Piccoli learns that his wife, daughter and son-in-law have all been killed in a traffic accident; this is a wonderfully directed sequence as the people who have come to inform Piccoli of the tragic events are forced to wait for the play to finish before intervening and, consequently, are seen pacing nervously backstage as the actors' voices boom in the distance spouting droll lines concerning the impending death of Piccoli's own character. As a result of the accident, the elderly actor is left with a young grandson solely in his care; though the two can't afford to spend a lot of time together – due to the nature of Piccoli's work and the boy's own schooling – they display genuine affection for each other.The repetition of certain scenes – Piccoli watching the child leaving for school or going to a café (this, then, becomes a nice running gag involving another habitual client who likes to sit at the very same table as the protagonist) – may be a nod to Luis Bunuel's THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962), meant as a reflection on the way one's life tends to become a series of routine chores. Having mentioned the Spanish surrealist master, as in Oliveira's later direct homage to him – BELLE TOUJOURS (2006), which I've just watched – the film has several bits showing Piccoli just walking around town; these don't merely serve to give us scenic views of the city, but also to crystallize Piccoli's bemused character: however, we're not spared the ugliness either, illustrated by the incident where one night he's held-up by a junkie and deprived of his beloved newly-purchased yellow shoes (which, in the preceding sequence, ostensibly depicting a conversation between Piccoli and his over-eager agent, had themselves amusingly been the 'protagonists')! The second half of the picture involves the flow of TV and movie work which Piccoli's agent tries to set up for him: they immediately clash over an action-packed TV series (where the actor's asked to play a dupe for a much younger woman!), but does accept the proposal of a renowned American film director (John Malkovich, another past alumnus of Oliveria's) to take a small role in a new rendition of James Joyce's "Ulysses" – for the record, I own Joseph Strick's 1967 film adaptation myself but have yet to check it out. Still, their collaboration (Malkovich had initially felt privileged in obtaining the services of such a distinguished actor) isn't a felicitous one: Piccoli has difficulty in both remembering and fluently delivering the heavy-going English prose, while Malkovich proves an exacting director – insisting on a rigorous fidelity to Joyce's text. Tired of the whole set-up, Piccoli quits with the soft-spoken yet unequivocal interjection of "Je rentre a' la maison" (I'm going home), and staggers out onto the streets of Paris still 'in character' and period costume (baffling passers-by and the patrons at a pub no end); when Piccoli arrives at the house, he even ignores the grandson's presence in the yard and goes straight up to his room. Had this been Oliveira's last film, it would have been a wonderful tribute to the actor's profession and an insightful reflection on old age and approaching death but, as I said before, the ceaseless Portuguese director still had (indeed has) other aces up his sleeve

B24 If I were to attempt a comparison, I'd think of Mexico's interesting film "Japón." But comparisons are tricky, since they can never capture more than bits and pieces -- and that includes remakes as well.The languor of this film is consistent with its subject and its theme. Likewise the cinematic device of reflection, full of suggestion without actually insulting the viewer's intelligence by having to show every scene or expression straight on. Perhaps only an old person can appreciate it fully, sensing how solitude gradually creeping into one's life as one ages tends to alter perceptions even of the most common sort. Everything slows down with age. Self-image lingers longest, and to attempt rejuvenation proves futile in the end. At last there is resignation, and maybe a kind of peace.Given all this, I find no fault with anything except possibly the lack of effective close-ups or more incisive dialogue in the film. Even John Malkovich deserves a chance to prove he is uncharacteristically not just part of a dramatic frieze.

Marnielover This film by 92-year-old Portuguese film director Manoel De Oliveira is an 86-minute close observation of an elderly actor who seems to be mainly a stage actor. The film opens with a 15-minute scene from Ionesco's "Le roi meurt," in which the actor (Michel Piccoli) goes through the never-say-die speech of the 280-year-old king. After the performance, he is greeted backstage with the news that his wife, daughter, and son-in-law have been killed in a car accident. The rest of the film follows him in his everyday routines, into another performance (this time in Shakespeare's "The Tempest"), and then on to a film of James Joyce's "Ulysses." In between we watch him buy shoes, quarrel with his agent, play with his orphaned grandson, and drink espresso at his favorite cafe.De Oliveira has a habit of filming performances at odd levels. For example, in "Le roi meurt," Piccoli has his back to the camera the entire time. During a quarrel with his agent, only Piccoli's feet in his new shoes are shown. He bashes the heels against the pavement when he's mad, rocks them back and forth when he's pleased--it's all there. When he is playing Buck Mulligan in "Ulysses" we only hear his performance, and gauge it by the reactions on the face of the film director (John Malkovich). The lengths De Oliveira goes to to confound his actors' egos and the audience's expectations are inventive and a bit peculiar.I sensed that this film was more about De Oliveira than about the characters in the story. There isn't much dialog and not much character development. The theme of the king who will not die, who is egomaniacal beyond reason, perhaps is De Oliveira talking to himself. He makes movies into his 90s because it is his habit. He should be dead by now, but he's not, and because of that he has watched everyone he loves die before him. The possibility of trying to start a new life with a young starlet that is offered to Piccoli must also have happened to De Oliveira. He won't make himself ridiculous that way. "I'm not Casals," the actor says when told of the musician's marriage at the age of 82 to a teenager. I can hear our director saying that, too.What he wants to do is stop working, rest, and mourn his losses. This is, I feel, a personal film and all the more moving for it.