Great Film overall

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This is a pretty good movie if there was an app to write movies using a vast template of clichés, stereotypes and characters and scenes you've seen a few thousand times before. It's not awful and its very well put together. Almost flawless. Technically it's like the robot version of a movie. And without irony, snarky, self criticism either. And to be fair it has some pretty funny small moments. And in a way it's refreshing to see a technically soulless perfect execution of an idea in an era of awful indie anarchist hipster junk still doing bad sound, shaky cam, weak lighting and an incoherent story.But if you're looking for either something very good or new or interesting or even high drama, sitcom level high drama then no. You'll be disappointed. The machine isn't that sophisticated or adventurous for that. And that's a good thing because it will be entirely predictable, like comfort food.

I was able to view this on Netflix streaming.Justin Long wrote the script and stars as Sam. Set in Brooklyn, he is a writer, he contracts to write the book after a movie has come out. Basically he tells what happened in the movie. He has little creative control.He takes a notice one day of pretty and interesting, but chronically late for work, Evan Rachel Wood as the coffee barista Birdie. We find that she also hangs out in a park and draws pencil on paper caricatures for money. She is very good at it.The story gets a very modern twist when his apartment mate suggests that he just look her up on Facebook and send her a message. He goes a big step further, Sam decides he will Facebook stalk her to find out what she is really looking for in a man and become that man. That eventually leads to such things as guitar lessons, Judo lessons, and reading certain authors. But Sam isn't being himself, he starts to get depressed by that.There are a couple of characters I feel are unnecessarily written obscenely, played by Dinklage and Rockwell, but one character I found very appropriate is Vince Vaughn as publisher Alan. His character strikes a good balance between patronizing and funny, always keeping Sam wondering what he really meant.This is a nice story and towards the end it has some nice twists that make it enjoyable. Much of the theme is finding out who you really are and being that person, not trying to be someone else.SPOILERS: As Sam's and Birdie's relationship develops he starts to write his own novel and basing it on what he is doing and how it is coming along. He sends early chapters to Alan who gets very excited by it. Things get tense when Birdie tells Sam she is falling in love with him, but Sam is guilty because she doesn't really know him. As it all turns out she knew very early what he was doing, with the Facebook stalking, and instead of getting angry thought it was endearing. She actually threw in things on her FB profile just to see if Sam would take the bait. She was having fun with it. In the end Sam decides to be who he really is and his chances with Birdie seem good.

Chose to watch this one night when I couldn't decide what to watch and needed something quite easy. Well.. I was pleasantly surprised. This film which pitches itself as a romantic comedy actually had a bit of hidden depth in the shape of its protagonist and his issues around relationships, no doubt related to his relationship with his mum. It sounds quite serious but is quite funny really. The starry cameos, including Peter Dinklage as a camp Barista, and Sam Rockwell as a hippie guitar teacher all add to a general quirky humour. Its not amazing by any standard but if you fancy a romance which is entertaining, amusing but makes you think a little I'd recommend you give it a whirl!

First - watch this flick for Peter Dinklage as Gerard - he is a perfect bitchy hoot! His character adds so much sparkle to this run of the mill story!It's easy to follow - boy tries to mold himself into something he is not only to get the attention of the girl he so wants to date! The story incorporates modern social media and brings to the surface that everything someone writes about themselves is not necessarily interpreted correctly by the reader. And in doing that Sam makes a fool of himself!You can't go wrong with this movie - lots of chuckles and a few laughs - with a feel good ending!