Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: City Island (2009)

This is topic City Island (2009) in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 06-12-2010, 07:09 PM:

CINEMA: 13th Avenue Warren
AUDITORIUM: 19
PRESENTATION: Dolby Digital Cinema/THX
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: None [Cool]

RATING: Two and one half stars (out of four)

Had anybody else heard of this movie? Me neither. Apparently it's been trolling around the states for the past few months but was originally released in festivals and international markets in mid-2009.

THE PLOT: A family has secrets. Wackiness ensues.

Okay, let's see here...Dad has a secret passion, Mom is suspicious of said passion, sister has a secret job, son has a secret fetish, and who's that guy in the shed? Get ready for hilarity to collide!

No, really. But it's a great cast with Andy Garcia playing the dad and Julianna Margulies as the mom. Throw in Emily Mortimer and Alan Arkin for good measure.

The laughs are sort of sparing and it's one of those deals where part of the audience will find something funny while a different part of the audience will laugh at something else.

The family dinner table scenes reminded me of the ones in "Saturday Night Fever".

Posted by Mike Croaro (Member # 3123) on 06-12-2010, 11:13 PM:

Folks:

I saw this 3-4 weeks ago in San Francisco at the Stonestown Twin.

The film is distributed by Anchor Bay Entertainment - formerly a cheap video tape manufacturer that sold their "Video Treasures" tapes out of K-Marts and other mass merchandisers in the 80's and 90's.

It was hands down the weakest independent film I've seen in a decade. The story was ridiculously absurd and played out like a cheap made for cable movie.

The only good thing I can say is that I'm glad Sam Graham enjoyed the film enought to give it 2.5 stars.

Mike