[Peter]

Anyone seen this? Rewatched it today and was pleasantly reminded how stellar Will Ferrel was in it.


Plot:

An IRS auditor suddenly finds himself the subject of narration only he can hear: narration that begins to affect his entire life, from his work, to his love-interest, to his death

I found Marc Foster to be a superb director. And the sound track of Stranger than Fiction was pure awesomeness ... Spoon.

[Peter]

oh and what timex watch did he have? quite cool.

[Dork.]

My wife got it from NetFlix a few weeks ago and I ended up watching the second half of it, and was pleasantly surprised. I don't normally like Will Ferrel's movies, but I enjoyed this one.

I did start watching halfway through it, though, and felt that it was easy to catch up to the plot, and I didn't miss anything. The first half must have been rather meh.

[slpdLoad]

Got it on netflix about a year ago and loved it. And yeah, great soundtrack.

[SpaceMonkey]

One of my favorites, too. Tony Hale ("Dave") is great in it as well.

[subego]

I'm curious about peoples' opinions: based on the information gleaned from the movie, was the novel Emma Thompson writes supposed to be any good?

[subego]

Originally Posted by Peter 

And the sound track of Stranger than Fiction was pure awesomeness

Which makes it a big pisser that the track used for the DVD menus (which is also in the movie) is unavailable.

Or at least it was when I checked after seeing the movie.

[Rev-O]

Excellent movie.

[OwlBoy]

Originally Posted by subego 

I'm curious about peoples' opinions: based on the information gleaned from the movie, was the novel Emma Thompson writes supposed to be any good?

Oh, its one of those Movie Novels, just like Movie Movies. Or Movie TV shows. They are always amazing! But you are just told so and expected to believe it .

[subego]

Originally Posted by OwlBoy 

Oh, its one of those Movie Novels, just like Movie Movies. Or Movie TV shows. They are always amazing! But you are just told so and expected to believe it .

I can go along with that, but they packed the movie with cues that the person telling you so is an idiot.

For example, Hoffman is reading something trashy when he's doing lifeguard duty.

Okay, that's funny, but it's being done at the expense of Hoffman's credibility as a good judge. There are scores of these "literary professors are buffoons" jokes in the movie.

Very sloppy.

[JoshuaZ]

Its a very smart and funny movie. I enjoy it. The people I know who don't like it went in expecting a slap stick Will Ferrel movie, and missed the well written comedy.

I'm planning on buying a copy when I go home this summer. Its one of those films that makes me feel good.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

I purchased it on blu-ray as I thought it would be entertaining but i found it really bland and not funny. Not bad just not worth watching again.

[turtle777]

I liked it. Good movie.

-t

[HenryMelton]

I stumbled across it on cable and was immediately hooked. From my perspective as a novelist, it had a number of layers that hit particularly hard: characters as live persons, the impact of what you've written, etc. As far as judging the quality of the movie novel from the few snips we heard, it's impossible to tell how good the book would have been. We get a feel for the author's style, but that's all. I could barely tell what the book was about. We only heard a couple of hundred words out of what would have been tens of thousands.

[subego]

Originally Posted by HenryMelton 

I stumbled across it on cable and was immediately hooked. From my perspective as a novelist, it had a number of layers that hit particularly hard: characters as live persons, the impact of what you've written, etc.

I was struck hard by all the implications you mention above, which made the implications of Hoffman's quality of judgment rather grim: i.e. whether you have the juju to bring someone to life is independent of your skill and talent.

Originally Posted by HenryMelton 

As far as judging the quality of the movie novel from the few snips we heard, it's impossible to tell how good the book would have been. We get a feel for the author's style, but that's all. I could barely tell what the book was about. We only heard a couple of hundred words out of what would have been tens of thousands.

Regardless of the words, I found both written endings hugely contrived, which certainly played into my observation that Hoffman is shown to have no taste.

[- - e r i k - -]

It's a great movie, saw it when it came out a couple of years ago.

Shame every Will Ferrell movie lately is the same dull physical comedy formula .