...suddenly the Fresh Prince don't seem so fresh anymore..

..and here we are just at the begining of the Willenium!

Seven Pounds: the most boring K-horror movie ever made?

Making weird phone calls to blind 911 operators, spreading the donated body parts around, spreading terror/cheer at Xmastide.

It'd be such a heartwarming movie if Will's disembodied heart wasn't packed in ice in a styrofoam container, ready to go for a helicopter ride cross town.

Liver? Lung?

That was simply a kick-ass piece of writing. Seriously.

Seven pounds is the weight of the really big poop this film takes on each audience member's head.

The plot is eerily similar to a Law and Order (the original) episode in which a man donates whole or part of his organs he can live without to worthy people. When they stop being worthy, he kills them so the organs can go to more worthy people. Thank you for revealing the secret of the plot. I won't have to waste my time or money on this one.

Note the central plot element: Dean Witter gets two dozen people to work for them, for two months, AND DOES NOT PAY THEM. They are expected to have hundreds of thousands of sales in that time. At the end of this, *at most one* of the candidates gets a job - the rest get nothing at all. For two months' work.

The main character gets ahead by using his son to break the ice so he can pretend to be friendly with rich people so he can sell them his securities. Meanwhile, he's reduced to sleeping in a public toilet with the kid.

But at the end, it's all OK because he starts his own brokerage firm!

Vile. Despicable. Dean Witter must think this sort of thing is morally good because they allowed their name to be used in the film. It is not.

Thank you for spoiling that! I'm glad not to have to watch this, now. Good writing, too.

Thanks!

I read somewhere that in real life, Dean Whittier did and does pay its interns. That detail was changed to make the movie more dramatic.

Maybe I'm just more morbid than ordinary people, but nothing Stephanie said put me off this movie - from my perspective the premise is more odd than creepy.

You're absolutely right about the Law & Order plot (except it was Criminal Intent). Sounds like "Seven Pounds" is a soggy, sappy mess in comparison. Yeach, I'll be giving it a pass.

I hate to break it to you Stephanie, but nearly all of your reviews reveal nearly all of the plotlines. This movies hinges more on a reveal than most so you're more sensitive to it.

Though a movie is more than its plot, I still prefer to not know the details of every twist. Similarly, I do not wish to know the arc of each major character before viewing. It is a narrow road to walk between a column that evaluates a film and helps readers decide whether they will view it and serious critique of art meant to be shared with others who have their own critiques.

. . . I grudgingly boycott Smith, Beck, Travolta, and anything involving Jason Lee. Issac Hayes only had one great song to his credit, so that wasn't so hard. In short don't support Scientology by giving these entertainers money.

Skip this movie and instead read Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. If it doesn't affect you deeply, you're either not human or a Republican.

Which might not even qualify as a movie. It was that bad.

I never mind spoilers in reviews by critics I trust, and I have come to count Zacharek as one I do trust. If a movie is a real stinker, I want to know in time to save me the price of a ticket. And I want to know why the reviewer thinks the film is lousy, just in the spirit of curiosity. (And on a rainy afternoon when I've seen all the current movies on my go-see list, I might want to check out a stinker just to groan at it and feel superior.)

1) Body-rendering? The _hell_?!? Yeah, that's way grisly. :P

2) WS is going hard for that "Best Actor" Oscar. And as much as I like him, his recent role choices are getting annoyingly more messiah-nistic and more-self-sacrificing-than-thou...and that's a path that is a trap even for Oscar-winners (cf Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson.)

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have zero desire to see anything starring Will Smith. In reality, he might be just the nicest damn guy you'll ever meet. But, he doesn't exist in my universe, so I cannot base my opinion on him for who he really could be.

What I see, instead, is a guy who always has to be this awesome dude, running around and saving the planet. Without him, robots, zombies and even parents would be taking us over, from every angle.

I could be completely wrong here, but I think this constant role choice is quite the ego stroke, and frankly, I'm sick of it.

Only way I'll ever bring myself to be bored with Will Smith again is if he chooses to be the bad guy for once.

Something he said about society naturally wanting wanting to get rid of those who do not contribute or produce - it reminded me of "useless eaters."

I guess his head is all full of that Scientology crap now.

"Useless eaters" - now where have we heard that term before?

Don't watch Valkyrie unless you want to be a "useless eater" yourself someday.

I will never see a Will Smith or Tom Cruise movie again.

"I don't think Hitler was an evil person."

Would the public accept him as a bad guy? Is he a good enough actor to not play a variation of himself as the nice guy, even if that nice guy is cloaked in sadness?

It is an interesting theory, that he picks roles that stroke his ego. He certainly has enough money and clout in the industry to pick any role he wanted. He produced Lakeview Terrace, why not play the stalker cop next door himself?

Too bad an interviewer will never ask him if he'll ever try to find a film where he plays someone other than a hero through good deeds, hard work or supernatural/sci-fi forces.