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Best movie of this year hands down!

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Chop Suey. A lot of chopped up, mixed up diverse morsels just adding up to a mess. The male lead is supposed to be a college basketball player. He is neither particularly tall nor very muscular. He looks about as athletic as a Kleenex tissue. Joey Lauren Adams has a GREAT voice-for playing a stripper or some such type, not a college professor-of philosophy of all things! Further, she is an item with male lead. I guess she is enchanted with his crooked behavior or his getting stoned out of his head with LSD. Maybe she thinks he looks like Kant. Then there is a gangster, henchmen, FBI agents, all running around for no particular purpose. There is cutting back and forth in time so there is no linear time line. This adds confusion to a film which is already terminally confusing. Sarah Michelle Geller is the one consistent character in the film. She plays it well because she has a part to play. She is a stereotype with no interesting lines, but her part is the closest this film comes to a real character. This was shot around Harvard in Cambridge Mass. I didn't see any scenes inside Harvard itself. Even Harvard could not have been stupid enough to cooperate with the making of this stinker.

I'm not going to get into all the bad critiques I've read on this film. Personally I knew very little about it before I bought it today and watched it, and I was pleasantly surprised. The trailer, like a lot of trailers, it seems, tells you very little about the movie and if anything is completely misleading. The film starts out introducing us to the 3 major players of this film, Allen(Grenier), a Harvard basketball player and philosophy major who is looking for the ultimate form of consciousness through drug experimentation, his sort-of girlfriend Cindy(gellar), the calculating and very smart but-maybe-in-just-a-little-over-her-head daughter of a mob boss, and his philosophy professor and lover Chesney(JLA). Allen's life changes when his parents home in Kansas, is hit by a tornado and, in what has to be the very definition of the phrase "Deus ex machina", they do not have tornado insurance. In Kansas. For real. However weak this pitiful plot device is, and believe me I almost shut this movie off right then and there, it does get the real plot going, which turns out to be fantastic. Allen, seeking to ease his parents' financial woes, take the advice of his philosophy professor to ask his girlfriend's father for money. Initially he is turned down, but Cindy informs him that all he needs to do is shave a few points off of an upcoming game and the money is his. After staying up all night debating the issue with himself, Allen receives a morning visit from a chemistry major friend who brings with her the original formula for LSD stuffed into sugar cubes, the way they were done in the 60's experiments. These events shape the rest of the film, taking us through a wild and extremely vivid acid trip that sees Cindy and Allen both being pursued by 2 federal agents who are apparently a couple working undercover on Cindy's dad, and who, coincidentally, are sexually involved with Chesney. All of these relationships work in rather manipulative ways, except for seemingly the relationship between student and professor, which seems genuine. The ending, while it may anger some, leaves a bit up to interpretation, unless of course you do about 3 minutes of research on LSD and Thorazine. Each cast member plays their part very well, especially the 2 female leads, the directing is not without its flaws but overall is very unique and very well done. This movie might have made a few more dollars and gotten some better reviews had they spent more time utilizing focus groups and marketing executives, but thankfully for those who are lucky enough to see this film and intelligent enough to enjoy it, they did not.

This is one of my favorite films of all time. It has everything--an amazing cast, great screenplay, good camera work, comedy, action, suspense, drugs, and most importantly to me, intellectual value. Despite the plot having to do with LSD, FBI, and the Mafia, and despite Ray Allen being in the movie (though I did actually like his performance), this movie is basically about philosophy. If you have a background in philosophy, or if you just generally like thinking about existence, check it out. You won't be disappointed.It should be noted, though, that if you're looking for a typical drama, or teen comedy, or anything like that, you'll probably want to steer clear from this one. In order to enjoy it fully, you've gotta be ready for an adventure of the soul.

I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I put this movie in my DVD player. From the very beginning I was drawn in, as much as one can be when someone is fornicating with Sarah Michelle Gellar while playing music from multiple boom boxes and smoking a blunt. I found the character development intriguing & the casting was superb. I like the choice of protagonist, a lesser-known actor surrounded by more recognizable peers, similar to Donnie Darko. The cinematography was interesting, and the portrayal of the effects of LSD were as accurate as I've ever seen on film, sans Fear & Loathing. The subject matter encompasses vices of many flavors. Never before have I seen promiscuity, gambling, deceit, drug use, and gun play so eloquently infused with the likes of philosophical banter. This movie greatly appealed to my sense of intellect as I often found myself caught in sheer amazement that a film like this had been produced and slipped under my radar for so long. It deals with real life scenarios and subject matter often too taboo to be portrayed ever so causally, a refreshing look at a facet rarely seen. It's abstract intellectualism combined with sex and drug use surely won't appeal to conservative film watchers. This is definitely a film for a niche audience and I applaud James Toback for this peek into real life.