The Only Living Boy in New York (2017)

If Amazon's picture selectors picked this they need to go back to film school 101 and learn what makes a good picture.

The only saving grace was that the actors gave strong performances even though the story was totally unbelievable. I think I felt their shame more than once when they delivered every know cliche' known to movie going audiences. I'll bet Jeff Bridges was red all the way through the bar scene.

Jeff Bezos may be the richest man in the world but he better get some people in his film group with a more discerning eye, or his competitors will force its closing pretty soon. Maybe this one is why he recently fired one of the top guys in the division.

Fmovies: Named after the song of the same title by Paul Simon, here is a film that is under the radar and limited in release. With my MoviePass I've been making attempts to see things I normally don't see. I saw that Kate Beckinsale was in it and that of course peaked my interest (as it should for any one really). After watching it I can't say I found it to be great. There are moments but they just fade away into a very average film that struggles to leave an impression.

The film is a bout a young boy in New York who finds out that his father is actually carrying out an affair with a mistress. Once he pursues the mistress he realizes that he himself is attracted to her and they carry out a relationship. Things come to a head, as their relationship starts to effect the lives of the people around him and he must decide what to do. There's much more to it going on but its actually irrelevant because none of it really adds much to the excitement the film should bring.

I can understand why you would need a younger actor like Callum Turner for this role but his awkward gawkiness doesn't really help to cater the relationship between Turner and Beckinsale's character. Jeff Bridges was quite good, as he usually is. The stuff with his character did feel shoehorned in to try to develop a eureka moment and it wasn't really a surprise. The film gets lost in itself trying to sound very profound when in fact there is really little going on here.

Marc Webb and Allan Loab still have a ways to go to really impressive me as creative filmmakers and writers. Its a film where you really struggle to think about anything that made it special. Even for a film with an older mistress who is in multiple affairs, the film had near zero eroticism. Basically, the film fails to establish itself on any fronts and thus is forgettable. No harm done, I didn't have many expectations anyways.

5.5/10

This is a movie that hits many of the same notes and soul-chords as "Like Sunday, Like Rain"--character, plot and dialogue driven low budget Indies, both well cast (Yes even Pierce Brosnan), but with no obligatory high octane action scenes, both inexplicably rated R, with low ratings (besides a few like mine),and all leading to a low box office. I especially like Jeff Bridges on screen character and voice over narration. Of all the outstanding scenes, the initial confrontation between Kate Beckinsale and Callum Turner's characters is exquisite. This is the second of Marc Webb's movies I've rated 10/10 (besides "500 Days of Summer") and is only the 18th film (out of 8000+ I've seen) that I've rated at that pinnacle. He also released "Gifted" this year, which I thought was an 8. But in between then and now, he did two high budget, low class superhero movies which I'll leave unmentioned. (You can look them up yourself if you really need to know. Think 8-legged arthropod.) Disclaimer: for those who may be thinking I'm anti-action, one of my two most favorite 10s is "The Accountant", with which you can list these other 10s, "The Counselor, Gladiator, Inception, Undisputed and Zero Dark Thirty". Maybe not your particular cup-o-action, but u c what'm sayin'.

The Only Living Boy in New York fmovies. Greetings again from the darkness. When a movie borrows its title from a great Simon and Garfunkel song, and then utilizes the song to emphasize a point during the story, we can't help but have high expectations. This is often true even if it appears we are likely to be subjected to yet another movie featuring the all too familiar ground of New York intellectuals brewing and stewing their own problems. Director Marc Webb (500 DAYS OF SUMMER, GIFTED) delivers the type of film that critics tend to rip, and audiences like to watch.

Much of the story seems familiar, but the excellent cast prevents the clichés from being overly distracting. Callum Turner stars as Thomas, an aimless writer-wannabe and recent college graduate with daddy issues. Thomas spends his time dreaming about what he might be and pining for the beautiful, intelligent girl with whom he hangs out. It's understandable why Mimi (Kiersey Clemons) has friend-zoned him, since she has ambitions and goals, while he mostly just talks and drifts through each day. One evening while enjoying their conversation over drinks, Thomas spots his dad getting beyond "friendly" with a beautiful young woman in a corner booth. This is upsetting because Thomas' parents are still married, and his mother is at home working through clinical depression.

Ethan (Pierce Brosnan) is a well-known publisher and Judith (Cynthia Nixon) is an artist in a fragile state. As with most self-centered twenty-somethings, Thomas has just assumed the marriage was fine and their family fell into the "normal" range of dysfunction. It's about this time when the movie assumes the tone of a Woody Allen movie. Thomas turns detective and begins following the mysterious beauty from the booth, and their first encounter is a bit awkward. He finds himself mesmerized by Johanna (Kate Beckinsale). She's the stuff that dreams (and fantasies) are made of Â… for both fathers and sons.

Johanna is really the second spell that Thomas has fallen under. His neighbor W.F. has been providing sage advice on love and writing. It's yet another terrific performance from Jeff Bridges, who plays the alcoholic mentor with secrets of his own. See, every character here carries the weight and burden of their own secrets and plays games in every relationship. In fact, much of the movie plays like group therapy – two characters at a time.

No superheroes exist in this world. There are no car chases or guns, and the only knife is used to slice strawberries in the kitchen. The movie could be described as a coming-of-age story; however, it's not just Thomas that has growing up to do. A deeper message is on display for those who take notice. Every person and every family has secrets, and many people find an inability to be honest and open to be a much simpler way to go through life. We know that people aren't always good – even when we really want them to be.

Of course, we do get the obligatory dinner party with a table full of New York intellectuals (including Wallace Shawn) reminiscing about what a great city it used to be. Actually, nostalgia is an underlying theme throughout. The dinner party does provide Thomas the opportunity to drop the best 'Philadelphia' line since W.C. Fields. The script provides some other quality lines, and though it's certainly not at the level of Whit Stillman or Noah Baumbach, it marks a step up for writer Allan Loeb, who is renowned for such lackluster efforts as COLLATERAL BEAUTY, THE SPACE BETWEEN US and JUS

My girlfriend dragged me to the cinema to see this flick, and when she fell asleep after 15 minutes, and despite not being a drinker, I wish I had smuggled in more than one beer. Like most films and series it is set in a fantasy world most of us don't have access to. A boy who's biggest problem seems to be getting away from his loaded dad and depressed 'don't know what to do with my free time' mother, and which woman to pursue. The stunningly beautiful one, or the stunningly beautiful one. Granted, I'm simplifying, and the story does build, but I just cannot fake any interest in these type of ivory tower characters anymore.

I have often said that we spend our twenties trying to figure it all out, and then when we hit our thirties we realize that all we have to do is just live our lives. However, getting through that third decade of living to get there tends to be simply a roller-coaster of emotion. Between trying to break the mold of being seen as a child and trying to have the respect of a living, working, independent adult that may not be completely there yet is such fertile ground for storytelling that Hollywood sits in that pocket of life quite a bit. Marc Webb, famous music video director and the man who brought us "(500) Days of Summer" and both "The Amazing Spider-Man" films (both of which I enjoyed, so judge me if you will) takes his crack at a slice of this life with his latest film, "The Only Living Boy in New York".

With a title taken from a Simon & Garfunkel song, Callum Turner is the central character here playing Thomas, a twenty-two-year-old living on his own on the Lower East Side as he is working toward being a writer. He also is dealing with a woman that he is mad for in Mimi (Kiersey Clemons), who may or may not feel the same way, a publisher father (Pierce Brosnan) who just wants him to have direction, and a mother (Cynthia Nixon) who is teetering on the edge of a breakdown. When he stumbles on the fact that his father is having an affair with one his co-workers, Johanna (Kate Beckinsale), it throws everything he knows into a tailspin with the only real anchor in his life being a mysterious old man who moves in across the hall from him (Jeff Bridges).

Looking at screenwriter Allan Loeb's body of work, this film could be kind of everything he has worked on put in the proverbial blender, and what comes out of it is nothing short of satisfying. This is a very rich story told on multiple levels while keeping the main story moving in a way that all of the parts make the whole even better. Callum truly embraces the millennial part of him here, with that sense of entitlement as well as young adult angst that us old codgers would shake our fists at, but at the same time realizing that some of these traits may be a bit more universal than we choose to admit thus making the audience look at this time in their lives through a bit of different lenses. Beckinsale is as irresistible as ever in the role of the "other woman" who wants everyone to believe that she is simply footloose and fancy free but in her quiet moments is so much more, and there is also a great performance by Clemons, whose Mimi is a character that too many of us can identify having an association with in our lifetimes. Brosnan and Nixon, while having limited screen time, also do a serviceable job here to keep Thomas' path moving.

And then, there's Jeff Bridges. Seriously, The Dude is THE DUDE here with all of his wisdom and just crushes it. I feel like everyone should have someone in their lives like his character of W.F. Gerald, and if that person just happens to be Jeff Bridges, that is just all the more awesome. This man is a master at owning his scenes while at the same time knowing that give-and-take that makes his costars shine in a way that is natural and absolutely a wonder to watch.

Visually, I was very impressed with the style employed by Webb, which reminded me a lot of a '60s French film with a modern American sensibility. There is a tinge of Hitchcock-ian suspense involved as Thomas seeks to know more about the woman that has distracted his father's affections that rea