Too much of everything

Instant Favorite.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

This documentary is absolute garbage. Salinger wrote against a fake world but this documentary focus on all the fake garbage that he hated. I'm not saying Salinger was the greatest philosopher of all time but he deserves some respect for the ideas that he raises in Catcher. This documentary seems to focus more on a phony world and has little respect for Holdens attempt at combating a fake world. There is really nothing good to say about this garbage other than it shows the meaning of phony ie not seeking truth. Almost reminds me of a horrible Carlsen documentary I saw. It is obvious people who make garbage like that has no real search for truth, reality, existence or deep questions in life. Absolute garbage of a movie and an attack on the intellect of Salinger.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm a pretty huge fan of Salinger's work, and that I didn't go into this doc expecting very much. After all, what can you say about a man who famously kept his personal life as far away from the public eye as possible? As I found out, Shane Salerno's answer to that is "speculation, speculation, speculation."Not only was the technical quality of this film fairly sophomoric-- a heavy-handed score, the same "reenactments" repeated over and over, visual effects and transitions that looked like they came straight out of iMovie-- but a good portion of it was made up of (entirely white male) talking heads from Hollywood who had nothing to do with Salinger, relating tales of how The Catcher in the Rye changed their lives. That has no place in a documentary that is actually concerned with learning and teaching about a person, but it fits perfectly here, where it's clear that the filmmakers were most interested in duping Salinger fans with irrelevant anecdotes and padding out their scant "evidence" for Salinger's reclusiveness into a two-hour movie.And it's exactly his reclusiveness that the movie purports to be about, yet they seem to miss the most obvious conclusion: Salinger was a man like any other. There was no deeper meaning to the fact that he didn't want the media or rabid fans in his life, other than his rather private personality. Looking for one, claiming to have found it, and reeling an audience in for two hours of baseless accusations and factual errors, is frankly selfish and irritating. A person's life isn't ours to dissect and claim for ourselves, whether or not that person made something meaningful to us. Where these filmmakers could have created something touching and human, they created a morbid spectacle around a man who liked nothing less, and to me, that's pathetic and sad.

My Friday Video recommendation: Saw this recently and I was impressed. I'm not sure if it was the film or if it was the story of his life (which I did not know). I suppose, for either reason, my liking it was a nod to the filmmaker. What is most impressive about this film is its breadth. It takes you from his youth, through his service in WW II and after and it weaves his life and the writing together, all in the context of the history of the 20th century. It does a really good job of putting you into the mood of the moment as it moves you along, letting your thoughts and feelings evolve as you discover more and more as it happened. It also seemed to take you on a mental journey similar to what people must have thought of him over the years; from when he was fresh and just published--what a sensation--and how that must have changed over the years as we learn more about the man and who & what he is inside. The filmmakers talked with hundreds of people--people of stature and those from his personal life--and shot hours and hours of interviews and conversations to put it together. The film does not adore him and it does not vilify him; or perhaps it does both. I could have lived without some of the "dramatic reenactments," but I suppose they filled the visual scene while the narrative unspooled. If you have read "the book" and ever wanted to learn more, or if you have an interest in Salinger, I do recommend this.

This is a fantastic documentary. I read the new book, "Salinger" a week prior and still thoroughly enjoyed the documentary. While there is more information in the book, the documentary provided all the emotion that is hard to derive from a book. It was amazing to see footage of Salinger that had never been released. This is not a one sided portrayal of the author. The film makers successfully show his attributes and weaknesses. None of the interviews were superfluous. The music was gorgeous. I've read criticism about the reenactments of Salinger typing in his room. I thought they were very appropriate and not overused. Errol Morris had many more reenactments in "The Thin Blue Line," but that, too was an excellent documentary. I had HIGH hopes about his documentary when I heard it was going to be released and I was not disappointed in the least.