Nonureva Really Surprised!

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

RobertR Kirschten If there is an academy award category for the most tedious movie ever written, "Tenure" should win in a landslide. The story centers on a boring, nontenured professor at a small college, coming up for promotion, who can't get his articles published. I understand why. This man has no discernible talent of any kind--no wit, no intellectual skills, no insight into much of anything. Why we should find him interesting is beyond me. The movie "says" he is a good teacher, but after more than a quarter of a century of teaching, I can't find anything he does in class that illuminates either students or subject matter. A few moments in the movie are droll: the goofy Bigfoot stuff, the crazy woman professor's complaint about the toilet seat, and the professor's father in the retirement home. The love story--is there one?-- between the prof and the new hire is undeveloped and shallow. The main character is passive, depressing, and utterly without passion. Even the secondary characters are dull. Does the professor get tenure in the end? Who cares? Acting is fine. Script = D+.

elivbg1 I was actually pleasantly surprised. For some reason, I find many comedies produced lately virtually painful to watch. I was wondering if this movie would be the same... I found it to be completely refreshing; great cast, quirky characters. May be not so over-the-top impressive characters but the main characters were very likable. Luke Wilson seems like a decent actor, in this movie I felt that I was seeing a person, so I felt more connected to his role than some of his other roles. I loved the "Bigfoot" characters. And I liked the ending, too-- good but not too good to be true. I also like to comment on the theme, getting tenure. I am a university assistant professor and the process is all that and more. It is a nerve-racking process. I will stop here because there is too much detail that goes into this, which would be of no interest to the general reader. The movie did do a decent job of showing some aspects of the system yet with a great sense of humor.

richard-1787 I picked this movie up at Blockbusters strictly for the title. Having been a professor myself for the last 33 years, I'm always curious to see how movies portray the life of a college professor. Even otherwise good movies usually show no knowledge of what goes on in the professional life of an academic. This movie, which is one of the weakest I have seen in years, is totally clueless in that regard.It deals with the tenure problems of an untenured assistant professor in some New England private college. The other professors are all portrayed as idiots, of course, but then the protagonist isn't presented as a bright light either. We are led to believe that his students think he is a great teacher, but that is just stated; we never see any good teaching on his part. In fact, what little we do see of him in the classroom looks pretty lame.Tenure hinges on publication here. The protagonist needs a few articles. So he keeps sending one off, and it keeps getting rejected - in a matter of a few days every time. Where, I would love to know, is an academic journal with turn-around time like that? I could go on about the other aspects of the movie, but it's really not worth it, nor is it worth renting. This movie demonstrates no knowledge of what a college professor's academic and professional life is like. I will let others speak to its qualities as entertainment.

Seemp deHond Maybe it's the Wilson factor or maybe it's the music that made me think of Wes Anderson right away. It wants to be Rushmore but it's not as quirky, bitterly funny and brilliant. The characters are trying to be odd but they are more cliché than anything else: a bigfoot hunting professor on xtc is almost childish and would fit in a highschool flick. I am fairly surprised this movie made it to any film festival at all. There was hardly anything entertaining about it and in the end i found it hard to stay engaged. Too bad, the storyline has potential for a whoppin' comedy. I wonder what Anderson would have made out of this one.