ladyhenry1 This movie was depressing. I don't write reviews but this movie was awful. I thought it might be the kind of movie my mom would have liked and I am in my 60's. Nope. Some people thought this was thought provoking. Based on this movie get rid of everything you own before you die as no one wants it. What mean something to you is junk to them. I am still trying to figure out the scenes were somebody would be staring at something and the camera just stayed on them for 30 seconds. Fortunately I got to see this for free. I still paid to much.

zkonedog If one thinks hard enough, there are some interesting topics thrown around in "Nostalgia". The trouble is, it takes slogging through and hour and 45 minutes of the most somber, melancholic film you've ever seen in order to actually get to those themes. It isn't worth the wait, at that.For a basic plot summary, "Nostalgia" is told over a series of vignettes that loosely work together to create a theme. In one, an old woman (Ellen Burstyn) loses her home (and nearly everything in it) to a fire, and must come to terms with the importance of objects vs. memories. In another timeline, siblings Will (Jon Hamm) & Donna (Catherine Keener) must clean out their old childhood home, and then face their own personal tragedy.Like I said, there are some interesting themes to chew on here, especially involving the concept of memories vs. physical items from loved ones. As we all grow older, it is interesting to consider what we will leave behind and what of that will be considered "important" to future generations.A few good themes do not a good film make, however, and in pretty much all capacities "Nostalgia" is a complete mess. This is a film that really needed a stable environment all the way through, but instead it takes the opposite approach and skips from scene to scene and time to time with very little (if any) connective tissue to bind it all together. By the time the movie had ended, I was left wondering exactly what the first half had to do with the back half (besides a few concurring themes), and that's not good.The acting is pretty good here (notably Hamm, who seems to be doing great work everywhere these days), but too often it only involves characters staring off into the distance or "reflecting", which doesn't come off all that well on the big screen.Overall, I was mostly disappointed with "Nostalgia" for its inability to create any sort of substantial narrative (disjointed or otherwise) and being so somber all the way through. Whether intentional or not, this comes off as one of the most depressing movies you'll likely have watched in awhile.

Turfseer Nostalgia is director Mark Pellington and screenwriter Alex Ross Perry's collaborative effort that could have been aptly subtitled, "The Objects in Your Life." The big question that's raised here is whether (for example) all that bric-a-brac you've accumulated up in the attic over the years is worth saving (and perhaps venerating) or is simply a collection of junk that needs to be thrown out. Nostalgia focuses on these objects and one in particular (an old baseball signed by Ted Williams) that becomes a MacGuffin of sorts, connecting two disparate stories which constitute the bulk of the proceedings in a narrative that can be best classified as an ensemble piece.Perry's tale begins deceptively, focusing on Daniel (John Ortiz) an insurance assessor/adjuster, who appears to revel in listening to claimant's confessions regarding the aforementioned objects. Daniel's first visit is with a curmudgeon, Ronald (Bruce Dern), who balks at going through his accumulated "stuff" looking for valuables to the chagrin of his granddaughter, Bethany, who obviously feels that parting with some of the bric-a-brac, is a practical and worthwhile idea (owing to the potential financial remuneration involved). Daniel's meditation on the existential value of these nostalgic remnants sets the stage for his second visit with Helen (Ellen Burstyn), who has just lost her home in a fire. As Chuck Bowen writes in Slant, all the characters are "suffering saints" and "every scene concerns people's attachments to things that trigger past moments." Perry hands Bustyn a very long-winded monologue who meditates on the importance of her late husband's baseball, so intricately tied up with their life together. At first she appears overly attached to the baseball and just like Bethany, her son and daughter-in-law feel such an attachment unhealthy.But eventually Helen comes around and decides on a trek to Las Vegas where she agrees to sell the ball to a collector, Will (Jon Hamm). Before we move on to the third story, the ball inspires another long monologue about the scourge of old age where Helen mournfully acknowledges she'll pass on and will be forgotten.Once the baton is passed, Will is now the focus of a narrative that emphasizes his lack of fulfillment, due a heartbreaking divorce with his ex-wife. He visits his sister at the family home where they need to clean out the attic. The objects there (including the swimming pool) evoke childhood memories for Will but all the meditation brings the narrative to a virtual standstill.Suddenly, out of the blue, Perry injects a family tragedy to spice up the drama in the form of the death of the sister's daughter, killed in a freak car accident. Catherine Keener, as the sister, gives the strongest performance in the film, as she breaks down over the death of her child. Nonetheless Perry's handling of his theme about the objects in your life goes awry when he has the father of the girl (James Le Gros) bemoaning how all her photos have been lost once her cell and iPad are destroyed in the car accident. Ray Green writing in The Wrap correctly notes Perry's faux pas: "Apparently Hamm and LeGros have never heard of social media, where the average teen's every meal, night out and camping trip is chronicled across friends' profiles in greater detail than Boswell gave to his "Life of Samuel Johnson." It's a straw-man argument, and a fusty old-guy one at that."Ultimately Nostalgia doesn't have much to say and is dependent on its classical sounding score, which intrudes into almost every scene, and attempts to create more feeling than what is actually written on each page of this well-meaning but shallow screenplay.

rockman182 Didn't know a whole lot about this, and I assume it really wasn't in many people's radar this month. I haven't really seen much of Mark Pellington's work outside of The Mothman Prophecies (which I liked quite a bit). Main reason for wanting to check this film out was the fact that the film employs a really talented cast. I'm always a fan of Jon Hamm getting more roles in film as he is a great actor. This film was tedious, slow, and a failed attempt at an interesting idea.This film links a few stories and characters together through a common thread of loss, love, and memories from objects. We start off by seeing an insurance agent and eventually his story links with another character who in turn links with a different one for segments of different stories. I like the idea quite a bit and I've seen this type of storytelling work in the past, but this film can't utilize this method with success. Its a dull affair.The cast is great as expected, especially Catherine Keener in a nice standout role. The characters don't carry any weight and its easy to lose track of one's story as its just boring and bland. You sit there thinking that nothing even goes on. This is okay if there's some sort of style or intriguing dialogue that adds to the story, but none of that happens here. Near the end I was just hoping for it to end.There may be few who will find this film to be a moving experience but for me its a film that tries to hard to be spiritual and emotional while never leaving first gear. I see what is being attempted but the film has no weight to its characters or their turmoils. Not in any rush to see anything else from Mark Pellington unfortunately.6/10