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Such a frustrating disappointment

Great Film overall

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Alright so I did not fall asleep. But only because I watched this movie in the morning and that was virtually impossible after a great night in bed. "The Tao of Zzzzz" is a movie supposedly based on true events. The story of a man whose attitude leads him to live the life of a Casanova even though his looks should deter any woman from his proximity. While the idea of seeing the extent of the pickup artist mastery is great, in the movie there's really nothing to get a grip on and you end up navigating into a dullness universe where looking at your strawberry jam jar on the table is equally entertaining. If the reason to watch the movie is to see if you can integrate some tips into your pick up routines, then I recommend you read "The Game" or some other pick up artist book.If the reason to watch this movie is solely for its cinema value: good luck!

Prior to writing and filming 'The Tao of Steve', director Jenniphr Goodman returned to her childhood home in Santa Fe with her husband after graduating from NYU Film School. There she also lived with one Duncan North, a kindergarten teacher the film is based on. Goodman could not believe how North was able to seduce so many women, given the fact that he was overweight and did not fit the mold of a typical Lothario. She decided to create 'The Tao of Steve' based on North's life, including how he utilized Taoist philosophy and combined it with American pop culture's embrace of a trinity of 'machismo' TV characters including Steve Austin (The Six Million Dollar Man), Steve McGarrett (Hawaii Five-O) and, above all, the ultimate 'bad boy' actor, Steve McQueen.Duncan North is dubbed 'Dex' in the film and is played by Donal Logue, an Irish actor who gained significant weight for the role. Logue is perfectly cast as the unlikely seducer of women and the philosophy his character imparts, is a textbook method for being successful with women. The best part of the film involves how he attempts to coach one of his slacker buddies, Dave, who is completely inept when it comes to finding a girlfriend. Dave believes that if he's simply a 'nice guy', women will be immediately drawn to him. Dex makes it clear that 'nice guys finish last' when it comes to seducing women. He introduces this three part plan of action with women (which Dave initially rejects): 1) suppress your desire to get her into bed; 2) be 'excellent' in her presence and 3) Just when things appear to be going good—retreat!What's great about 'Dex' is that he first has developed a skill that many men would like to have (the art of seduction) but are unable to follow through on. Dex is so good at what he does, that he eventually seduces a married woman who becomes infatuated with him. Unfortunately for Dex, the woman is married to his best friend, who ends up slugging him in the face when he finds out about his wife's infidelity.Dex finally meets his match in Syd, a set designer who was one of Dex's conquests back in their college days. The fact that Dex can't even remember that he bedded Syd way back then, becomes a sore point in their relationship. Nonetheless, love conquers all after Dex realizes that a deeper relationship with a woman beats simply seducing them, ad infinitum.'The Tao of Steve' is a rare example of an 'indie' film that works! The dialogue is on a high intellectual level (replete with literary references) and the plot is not only entertaining, but educational for clueless males. Greer Goodman, Jenniphr's sister, who plays Syd, is an excellent foil to the cad, Dex. Special mention must go to James 'Kimo' Wills, who plays the 'in the dark' Dave. Tao's ending is a bit sentimental and I wonder if Duncan North actually ended up with a 'love of his life', but you'll nonetheless be impressed with what first time feature director Jenniphr Goodman has done, fashioning a narrative that is both fanciful and decidedly true to life.

Some have complained that this film doesn't say anything serious about Taoism; others have complained about its dialogue being watered-down from what could have been a super-verbose "Dinner w/ Andre." Sorry - this from a film student who abhors "my dinner w/ andre" - thank God this film ended up as eminently watchable as it was. I avoided seeing it for a long time because I feared exactly the opposite. Firstly, the central observation this film makes about human nature is so spot-on -- namely, that every relationship is comprised of someone chasing and someone being chased -- that almost no direction it could have taken from there would have undermined the essential honesty of it. But framing, as it did, a story of boy meets girl, forgets he slept with her in college, strikes out, becomes desperate, finally gets her back by going against every rule in the book, the story becomes a smart, no-nonsense telling of a quintessential human drama that resonates realistically on so many levels. People have said it's a chick movie; it's not. It's a movie for guys who fear intimacy, its essential message being that a relationship of real value can never be condensed from the vaporous nuance of gamesmanship, slyness, intellect or skill. But at the same time, it demonstrates very realistically how all the above can combine to get the average guy laid far more than he deserves. So not only is it valuable on both these levels, it leaves you nodding your head so many times, mumbling, "that's so f*ing true," that by the end you're pretty much ready to write your own Tao of Steve -- a better one -- and isn't that kind of inspiration the loftiest goal of any good and truthful work of art?

THE TAO OF STEVE (2000) ***1/2 Donal Logue, Greer Goodman, Kimo Wills, Ayelet Kanelson, David Aaron Baker, Nina Jaroslaw, John Hines, Selby Craig, Craig D. Lafayette. (Dir: Jennipher Goodman) Donal Logue. The name may not ring any bells but you've seen him before in countless tv shows (including `The X-Files' as an arrogant fellow agent of Scully's and Mulder's) and films (one of Tom Cruise's fellow agents in `Jerry Maguire' and in this summer's blockbuster `The Patriot' as a racist who sees the error of his ways on the battlefield), but his biggest claim to fame seems to be as the greasy, bespectacled chatterbox philosophizing taxi hack, Jimmy The Cabdriver, in a series of promos for MTV in the '90s. Well all that's about to change in this> starmaking role in a devilishly funny and accurate look at the relationship war between men and women. Logue, who pulls a De Niro by gaining nearly a hundred pounds, stars as Dex, a self-deprecating part-time kindergarten teacher who attends his ten year college reunion in the dusty oasis of Santa Fe, New Mexico where he is told by stunned classmates at his jarringly gone-to-pot visage that he was like Elvis. `Yeah, well now I'm Fat Elvis,' he says with a hip shake and a smirk. It is here the journey begins into Dex's eventual chipping away at the wall of sardonic intelligence he's built since attending the university. Dex has a certain acquired charm that he attributes to his own quasi-philosophy, the film's title, referring to the ultimate in guy coolness as being a Steve (as in McGarrett - the Jack Lord character of `Hawaii Five-O', Austin, `The Six Million Dollar Man' and McQueen, the coolest actor of all time, or any suave icon down the pike: James Bond, James Dean, et al.) - and the opposite being Stu - and the certain guidelines in wooing the opposite sex wrapping up with his ultimate kwon, `We persue that which retreats from us.'At the reunion he bumps into Syd (Goodman, the stunningly attractive sister of the filmmaker), a fellow alumni who turns out to be one of Dex's apparent number of sexual conquests in which he later learns he cannot recall her at all. She is equally self-effacing, smart and opinionated and naturally proves to be the ultimate love of the loveless (`I love my dog') Dex. Here the plot sets into motion the inevitable formula of two people so right for each other yet both guarded, Syd for her share of heartbreaks and Dex for his chronic lying and seductive charisma like some sort of catnip for women including the wife of one of his pals, who he's engaged in a hot affair.Logue makes Dex sympathetic, funny, pathetic, infuriating, likable and ultimately an original character the likes haven't been seen since John Cusack's hey dey in the Eighties and the characters of the 90's indie comedy, `Kicking and Screaming' about arrested development and lifelong search for the perfect love. Dex is an enigma and the joke is that Dex realizes how unsavory he has become which also is the underlying angst he knows all to well: someone with so much potential only wasted by his own hand. Goodman and her sister both excel in portraying women who are smarter than men think and provide the true anchor in a freely funny comedy that also examines one's own frailites and insecurites on a truly appealing level. Co-written by the sisters and Duncan North, the real-life model of Dex, the dialogue rings true in a brilliant string of set ups for Dex to pontificate before he deflates himself in recourse.One of the best films (and comedies) of this year (or any). And remember that name: Donal Logue.