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Overrated

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

If you're expecting an A-List Hollywood movie, don't bother. If you're looking to watch a unique and quirky movie with humorously distorted characters- this is it! I was laughing the whole way through at the antics employed by the primary characters. Unfolds a bit more like an on-stage story rather than a screenplay. Some of us can appreciate that! ;)Mike O'Connell delivers the slightly abrasive character true to form and Michael Cera's character Mills is lovable.While it's intended as a comedy, the core issues the lead struggles with are real (albeit distorted) and engage the viewers empathy if not their sympathy!As far as Indie films go, this is one of my new favorites!

There are good movies and there are bad movies. There are movies that are so much worse than bad movies that they're entertaining to watch than something that's just plain bad. Then, there's "The Living Wake", which is so much worse than movies that are so bad that they're entertaining that it reaches an undiscovered depth of awfulness so unspeakably deplorable that I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I didn't even want to give this movie one star. I wanted to give it negative stars to offset any stars it did receive, because I can only imagine people who ranked this highly assumed that the stars they gave to this movie were the number of ninja stars they wanted to throw at their screens while viewing this movie.The movie centers around the flawed notion held by everyone involved in the creation and making of The Living Wake that weirdness and quirkiness are inseparably bound to genius. K. Roth Binew, diagnosed with some punctual terminal illness, uses his last day to search for, I don't know, meaning or whatever, while Jesse Eisenberg pedals him around in a rickshaw. There was nothing funny about this movie. I have never scowled so hard while watching a movie or doing anything. The urge to stop watching this movie was overwhelming as I spent the longest 90 minutes of my life wishing that dude would just die already. Then, after those 90 minutes of needlessly endless quirk, he did die, and it brought me no joy.If you're thinking of watching this movie, I implore you to stare at a wall or a blank screen for 90 minutes. It'll be a much better use of your time. Whoever put money into this disaster should never be allowed to have money again. When I think of how many starving children could've been fed for the money that went into this movie, it would make me sad, but due to the complete artlessness of this movie and my iron-minded ability to watch it in its entirety, I'm wholly convinced that I have no feelings and that I know no such thing as empathy anymore. My balls are huge. A lesser, smarter man would've stopped watching this movie.I could pick apart the acting or the writing or the "pee"-poor emulation of certain elements of Wes Anderson films, but why bother? Why bother doing anything? The movie was dedicated "in loving memory" to someone with the same last name of the director. I can only imagine this was a revenge plot. Maybe the director's brother slept with the director's wife or something. I don't know. It's like when a horrible tragedy happens and you look somewhere, anywhere, for answers, but there aren't any.Please do not see this movie. It was worse than the Holocaust.

If I had to describe this movie to someone in the fewest words possible, it would be a Shakespearean Farce directed by Salvidor Dali.Quirky and very strange, yet I loved this film. I've seen it twice so far, and I'm sure I will watch again. Jesse Eisenberg is stunning as the character Mills. At the appropriate times, the anguish weighs heavily on Jesse's/Mill's face.And Michael O'Connell is deliciously over the top as H. Roth Binew.If you want more of the same then go to the local cinema, but if you want a unique and funny experience in the surreal and absurd, and if you love independent film, then you are very likely to enjoy this movie.Highly recommended, but only to those who don't subsist on Hollywood Blockbusters.

I saw The Living Wake when it screened at the Austin Film Festival in October of 2007. It was a rather amusing story of a man preparing for what he believes to be his final day of life. He wants everyone he's ever come to know throughout his life to be there to witness his wake where he will perform and then die on the spot. To say this film is offbeat would be a pretty fair way to judge it. The humor had a lot of people howling in the audience (my friend, a fellow aspiring screenwriter, was one of the many howling). I thought it reminded me in a sense of some of the work of Wes Anderson, but my friend (who is not a fan of Anderson) disagreed. After all was said and done, the film was quite enjoyable even though there were moments that were a little awkward to say the least. I hope it finds a distributor (whether it be on DVD or in the theater). It deserves it.