the weather man

movies that make you say "hmmmm"

if you go to yahoo and read user reviews, you'll notice for the most part people loved it or hated it. there are a lot of As and Bs, and a lot of Ds and Fs, and the handful of Cs are mostly people who walked out early.

"the weather man" is rated R. you go to an R rated movie knowing it was given that rating for a reason, be it language, or some of the content, or whatever. if you plan to not hear the F word from time to time, you don't go to an R movie. (this was one of the most common complaints in the reviews i saw).

"the weather man" was originally slated for april 1st release, but when all the previews out before then made it look like a comedy, they pushed it back to october 28 (yesterday) so that they could hopefully advertise some more and get the word out that it's not a rolling on the floor comedy, it's a "dark comedy", or a "drama" depending on how you look at it. again, if you do your homework, you don't go into something labelled a "dark comedy", and expect to be laughing your head off all the time. (this was another common complaint on the reviews i've seen... even on the way out of the theater and older man commented "that wasn't funny... that was kind of depressing")

once i've taken care of those two major objections (yes, the movie has a fair amount of language and one scene in particular that make it R rated,... true it's not a rolling on the floor with laughter kind of movie,... but i knew both of those things going in), i thought it was a really good movie.

although still i enjoy silly "chick flicks" and comedies that portray non-realistic situations but leave you with a "happy about the state of the universe" feeling or leave you having gotten quite a few good laughs, i really appreciate darker movies too (provided there's not much gun violence, and in the weather man there's zero of that, so no problem). i admire a movie that actually portrays real people with real problems and leaves you knowing that some people in hollywood know that there's not always a perfect fairytale ending to every story.

"the weather man" is such a movie. cage's character has all the issues you can think of and more when you add up his problems and the major problems of the people he's close too, but as the movie progresses he finally snaps out of just hazily pushing his way through it all and gets some focus. it's a story about a real person with real problems and learns how to cope.

not a movie that i left feeling overjoyed about or really saddened about. more a movie that i left thinking "hmmm", and after giving it a couple hours to settle, that i could feel like in some strange way i could relate to... not on the surface of having the same life issues as cage's character, but on the finding a way to work through the troubles and figure out what's most important to focus on to make it through.

definitely not a movie for everyone. if you're offended by the F word, if you plan to leave a movie with a smile on your face, you're definitely not up for this one. but if you really do appreciate raw movies about real life, then this one IS worth checking out.

the end.