One of my all time favorites.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Who doesn't love cereal? I had no idea what this movie was about and being surrounded by the "culture", I thought it was yet another movie about pot-heads. I was wrong again! Pleasantly surprised, Flakes dove me into a world of cereal that I have never imagined. A cereal bar! How cool is that? I would love to go to one and have my favorite cereal and listen to gossip from the town's folk. I have to admit that I thought that the idea of a cereal bar was just crazy and could never exist however, upon researching it I've found that there ARE cereal bars! I have to go to one and it is because of this movie! The actors did a good job of portraying regular (and not so regular) people doing what they have to do in a world where everything is so flaky (yep, intended :p). We all experience people that are "fake" or "zoned out" or "uptight", etc. Movies are a reflection of the world and although many movies create improbable situations, the characters that are in them have their real-life counterparts in our everyday, real lives and all over the world. There were some messages in this movie that I got such as the corporate America killings of mom-and-pop shops, the need for people in a relationship to pay attention to one another, the must for more assistance to be given to other's in need, and that cereal is indeed a culture all it's own. I had no idea.Flakes portrays a character that sells old and discontinued cereals to the cereal bar. That seems like a bit too much however, I do know that uncoated cereals can last for years and years without losing too much of their shelf-life. I personally would not try to eat such old cereal however, there are people that would and this movie caters to that. Bravo! I do have to admit, the part where Neal made that all chocolate concoction for the cussing customer made my mouth water! I paused it, made Coco Puffs and unpaused it!

Checked out this movie OnDemand last night on a lark - my girlfriend and I read the description and decided to give it a shot. I wish I could get my six bucks back. It was the kind of movie that looked like it was written and directed by a 14-year-old trying really, really hard to be "indie." I was shocked that Zooey Deschanel and Christopher Lloyd allowed themselves to be associated with this awful excuse for a film.The dialog was cliché at best, the acting was miserable, and the entire premise of the movie was ridiculous. How can you eat vintage cereal? I know the stuff is loaded with preservatives, but I'm pretty sure you can't open a box of cereal from the 70s and eat it.After about 45 minutes of watching this trainwreck of a movie, we decided we couldn't take it anymore and turned it off. The only advantage of watching Flakes was that it made the Arrested Development episodes we watched immediately afterward look like the most genius pieces of entertainment ever crafted.

Michael Lehmann's new film, Flakes, could have been a quirky comedy, centered on a new type of concept "cereal" bar. Instead, it tries too hard to be a romantic comedy with a quirky setting, and unfortunately, doesn't really deliver anything romantic or comedic. I mean, the setting really is great. And the overlying plot--young entrepreneur threatens to Starbuck over a local establishment with a local following--might have worked, if the film had been completely different.But instead of focusing on the fact that these guys live, eat and breathe cereal, Lehmann decides to cliché it all up by introducing the same old, badly written girl-wants-slackerboy-to-quit working-his-dead-end-job-and-focus-on-his-aspiring-music-career theme. And because of this, we never really get to learn that much about cereal, or what great toys come out of cereal boxes, or really anything cool at all. We do get some slack-off acting and a shameful appearance by Christopher Lloyd. All-in-all, it's a waste of time and plays more like a badly written sitcom than an actual feature film.

Just saw this at the SXSW film festival and found it pretty damn fun. The dialog is kludgey in spots, and I'm not sure they sold the romantic relationship between the two leads well enough, but there are some funny, clever moments with the main story about the competing cereal bars, and the concept itself I thought was fun. Christopher Lloyd has a few nice moments here and there. Deschanel is a blast as always. A curious thing to note, but I liked the set design/art direction quite a bit. Gave the competing venues a real personality of their own. There's still no word on distribution, but I'm hopeful that a good reception at SXSW will give it some momentum in that direction.