smatysia A really bad movie. I never cracked a smile. I very rarely give a film a rating below 5, (gave this one a 3) not because there are no bad movies, it's just that I don't watch films that I think are going to be bad. I taped this one just because it had Justine Bateman in it, and I had liked some of her stuff on TV. She wasn't bad here, she just had nothing to work with. This one was painful to watch. I wasted 90 minutes, and the cast and crew wasted 6 days. Grade: F

gtown If this were a student film, I would understand, but it's not. The director takes a pseudonym because, well at least I believe, because it's an experiment gone very wrong. I'll make a list1. The lighting, blunt, bullying, washout. It's almost unnerving to watch as if a science fiction.2. No story served with a never ending plate of hit or miss bon mots. I call it self-indulgent. I won't lie to you and say there aren't flashes of wit and charm... there are, but I find that this film is very much like what it shows: a person who tries too hard and has you cornered at a party.3. The set... it's soooo dark. Why? Do you want me to have a nervous breakdown instead of laughing which is the intent I assume.4. Noah Bambaugh has made me laugh a lot in his other films. All the while, I felt that he had the potential to go off the rails into the realm of pretentiousness, banal, insufferable New York upper east/west side intellectual hipster dreck. In the previous films he created memorable, earnest characters and a plot. Not this time... without story you are left with nothing.

msoolala Among my favorite dry comedies I would include movies by Baumbach and Stillman, from which much of Highball's cast is culled. This would, in theory, be the one and only kind of marketing strategy for this movie, though not a very convincing one. I also LOVE Chris Eigeman who is utterly invisible in his role as Fletcher. It bothers me that movies like this are made just as much as it bothers me that movies like Die Hard and Armageddon are made, because you notice not what they are and what they offer, but what they aren't and what they might have been.The difference between a movie like Highball and a movie like Kicking & Screaming or Barcelona is the feeling of intimacy, genuinity and understanding. This group of actors is not de facto amusing or sexy or entertaining, only within a structure of good writing, (some kind of) cinematography, and a sense of integrity, all which are lost on this scrap of film that is also a waste of the $300 it took to make it.This movie is a case of "we can doesn't mean we should". It doesn't even exist to be noted on a filmography. No actor in a sober state would venture to have this experience referenced in the annals of his/her work. I am chagrined.

mangospider I can't believe how much I laughed out loud at this movie. The comic energy that they managed to capture is outstanding. I just saw it recently and keep laughing when I remember certain moments- like Justine Bateman's shifting while the girl is talking about how she "used to love a gay man." I almost peed myself.