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Crappy film

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Congratulations to everyone who worked on this film! It is an immensely powerful movie that left me speechless. I had the opportunity to see this film at the Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival on Wednesday, October 8. Most of the audience was reduced to tears, as the story played out. Parker Posey and Olympia Dukakis gave stunning performances, and it is a crime that they will be not recognized by any award committees. Thank you to the filmmakers for creating such a cinematic triumph and for treating the subject with sensitivity and understanding. I recommend this movie to anyone who has ever seen a loved one suffer with an illness.

A excellent film. The Event put a human face on what for many is only a social tragedy and statistics they encounter through the media. The director, Thom Fitzgerald, is due substantial credit for, while not opting for dramatic gimmicks and attempting to create a believable story, putting something togehter that neither collapsed into portraiture nor drolled on into docudrama. The cast performed well also in these regards with a luminous Olympia Dukakis bringing the import of the story front and center. A deeply touching film. Secondarily this film serves as a grave warning in particular to 17-24 year old men, a segment where the HIV infection rate has climbed dramatically during the past couple of years. Many such young men consider AIDS to be a managable disease and not a death sentence and forget that the side effects of many cocktails can all too easily include severe headaches, memory loss and dementia leaving infected individuals with a quality of life that is, in director Fitzgerald's words (who spoke after the film showing at the Quad Cinema in the West Village after the early evening showing on Oct 3) `just not there.' So, find out where this film is being played and go see it!

The hardest thing about doing dramas about subject matters that have already been "Hollywood-ized" is making the audience connect in some special way with the characters - or something new to say. This is usually done through great dialogue and masterful acting. This movie had neither. As an avid movie goer, I hold certain performances as guidelines for judging another. And by far Tom Hank's performance in Philadelphia gripped me and forced emotion from me at all the right places. This film was dead (other than a good job by Olivia as his mother). Parker Posey was devoid of all emotion and the rest of the cast just read their lines like it was a first reading. The plot is also a little on the "yeah right" side - a cop trying to arrest friends of suicide victims. This film teetered on the edge of being a great AIDS story or a cop drama and ultimately failed. Definitely a movie of the week and not worth hard earned cash.

Oh wow. The normal words used to describe movies just don't apply here. In most regards, this defies all conventional logic used in the movies and is by no means, a typical movie. I caught this one at its premier at the Sundance Film Festival and was not very well prepared for what I was about to see.The Event refers to the assisted suicide of a young man Matt (Don McKellar). Matt has AIDS and has just about run the course of conventional treatments. There are about to be no cocktails left and nothing to look forward to but a long and painful death. Matt has been living with AIDS for seven years now and doesn't want to go out that way. If he's got to go out, he's going out on his own terms: his way and at his time. So he enlists the help of several friends, rounding up as many potent prescription drugs as they can get their hands on. Then a party is thrown to celebrate his departure from earth, and to have one last fling before dying. And then it's time to get it over with and Matt is assisted with his suicide.Now all of that is all that Nick (Parker Posey) has to work with. She works as a lawyer for the state of New York and has received notice that Matt did not die of natural causes. It's up to her to find out who helped Matt kill himself, and the more she learns about the event, the more it impacts her (as well as the viewer).And what we are left with is a movie with a cause. This is all about the AIDS epidemic and how it affects everyone, one person at a time. Now I personally haven't known anyone with AIDS, or anyone who was helped in committing suicide, but I found myself emotionally worn out when the credits started rolling. I however, was the exception to the rule, and continually heard one sniffling sound after another (from the rest of the audience) and knew that this was a movie with some emotional kick to it. This is not a feel good movie; this is not a comedy that you can simply walk away from. This one is going to linger in the back (and probably even the front) of your mind for quite some time. It has some exceptionally powerful themes and images, and is a credit to the art of movie directing. Thom Fitzgerald is one of the undiscovered directors of his day, and he proves that you don't need unlimited budget or special effects to make a really powerful movie. He simply shows us life in all its painful glory and doesn't try to sugar coat it for anybody. He takes a growing social problem and makes sure we don't forget just how much it is affecting the world, and he makes it look easy.Part of the reason he was so successful was because of the talented acting core he had to work with. Don McKellar doesn't usually come to mind when you think of outstanding actors, but he sure delivered a fine performance here. Olympia Dukakis plays Lila, Matt's mother, and if she isn't wonderful to watch, then nobody ever has been. She plays the mother that isn't concerned about the negative aspects of her son or his life, she just loves her kid. She shows the true beauty of motherhood and unconditional love in a way that few women have ever done on film. And finally there is the lovely and erotic Sarah Polley. I don't care what she's in, I just have a hard time taking my eyes off her. She seems to command my attention wherever she is on screen, and she always rewards the attention when it is given.I had a chance to speak with her after the show was over, and I was really impressed with her. She doesn't seem to be stuck on herself and is a rather humble little thing. As good as she can be, she could have already made a household name for herself, and she hasn't let that get in her way. She sticks to the independent movies because she can make the movies with a purpose. She can do what she enjoys and feel good about it at the end of the day, because she's not in it solely for the money. As an actress, she has the ability to impact the lives of millions and she seems to take that responsibility seriously. She doesn't do the fluff that makes you rich, she only does what she believes in. And speaking of which, just about everyone involved in the movie said the only reason they took it was because they had someone close to them go through the same thing. Olympia Dukakis said that she had been to two such events and was forever changed by them. And that my friends, is the power of independent movies. They aren't made for the money, but to share the ideas contained in them. And this one has some pretty potent ideas. The other thing that really impressed me was how the director handled the situation with 9/11. The movie was filmed shortly thereafter and he included a nice little scene showing how it affected the characters in the movie. It was just a quick little scene, but I was surprised at how much it meant to me and how much I was thinking about it after the movie had already ended.