The Weatherman

[Dreadstar]

OK, so I was a bit bored, waiting to pick up my kid, so I decided to see The Weatherman, with Nicholas Cage and Michael Caine.

It was basically "What if Charlie Brown grew up?"

I half expected a tree to eat his kite or for his ex-wife to pull a football away from him as he was kicking it.

Just painful to watch.

[Davideaux]

By calling him Charlie Brown are you saying he's a sympathetic loser? Or were you repulsed by him?

I'm curious about this movie. David Edelstein seemed to have enjoyed it a lot but many other critics were fairly lukewarm.

[Patman]

It's true, this film is unfocused and hazy. Nicolas Cage at times has fits of man-child disease, both in speech and actions/reactions, and then he has other periods as he has avoided the responsibilities of adulthood/parenthood. There are some funny bits, but they just don't provide any footing into this meandering life of an up-and-coming weatherman with an ex-wife and 2 kids that he barely "knows". Toss in the weatherman's father (an under-utilized Michael Caine) subplot, the film just never really gels enough to make a compelling case for its underlying theme, which is to turn the weather into a metaphor for the trappings of adulthood. Like the weather, you never know how it's going to go, most of the weather forecasting being a guess on the wayward currents of the winds, but if you think it's going to rain, then it's best to bring an umbrella, otherwise being unprepared can lead to a wet and soaking mess to deal with when it could have all been avoided. Adulthood, like the weather, can't all be controlled, but there are things that can be done to minimize the unpredictability. The sooner you learn that lesson, the easier it becomes to cope with life's rainstorms.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.

[PunkMC]

Is it true this is the Second Cut of the film? I heard I think on the radio that they showed this at like Sundance, and it got so bad reviews that they went and recut it. Knowing that and seeing the reviews...man it must have been reeeaallly bad before.

[Dreadstar]

By calling him Charlie Brown are you saying he's a sympathetic loser? Or were you repulsed by him?

Mostly sympathetic. Even in certain of the situations, you can see that something happens to him and the people around him perceive what happened to him differently than how it actually happened and casting him in a bad light by the perception. The ex-wife, in fact, goes out of her way to misunderstand, misinterpret and even passive agressively accuse for no reason.

There are a few other times, however, when the character is actively repulsive.

But mostly Charlie Brown, yeah.

[GabrielleWP]

I kinda figured from the commercials which had me going WTF? and " He's a weatherman...any other point to the film"?

I kinda figured it would be bad.


GWP