The Weather Man's Recent Activity

list The Weather Man's Recent Activity - Spout http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around The Weather Man on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg The Weather Man's Recent Activity - Spout http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 Film:The Weather Man http://www.spout.com/films/The_Weather_Man/243717/default.aspx

Title: The Weather Man
Year: 2005
Director: Gore Verbinski
Plot: A man struggles to get a grip on a life that's spinning out of control in this emotional comedy drama. Dave Spritz (Nicolas Cage) is a television weatherman on a high-profile Chicago news program. Professionally, Dave is doing just fine -- he makes great money for a job that demands little effort, and he has a shot at an assignment with a network morning news and chat show. But Dave's personal life leaves a lot to be desired -- his father, respected author Robert Spritzel (Michael Caine), is in failing health, he's divorced from his wife, Noreen (Hope Davis), and his relationship with his children is tenuous at best, especially his overweight daughter, Shelly (Gemmenne de la Pena). If Dave is to land his new job, he'll have to move to New York City, and with his time in Chicago running short, he dedicates himself to trying to salvage his ties with his family before it's too late, though he discovers this is even harder than he imagines. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 22
Number of Lists: 25
Number of blog posts: 3
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Fri, 19 Dec 2008 09:23:29 GMTThe Weather Man2005Gore VerbinskiA man struggles to get a grip on a life that's spinning out of control in this emotional comedy drama. Dave Spritz (<a href="/players/P____10155/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Nicolas Cage</a>) is a television weatherman on a high-profile Chicago news program. Professionally, Dave is doing just fine -- he makes great money for a job that demands little effort, and he has a shot at an assignment with a network morning news and chat show. But Dave's personal life leaves a lot to be desired -- his father, respected author Robert Spritzel (<a href="/players/P____10198/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Michael Caine</a>), is in failing health, he's divorced from his wife, Noreen (<a href="/players/P____17353/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Hope Davis</a>), and his relationship with his children is tenuous at best, especially his overweight daughter, Shelly (Gemmenne de la Pena). If Dave is to land his new job, he'll have to move to New York City, and with his time in Chicago running short, he dedicates himself to trying to salvage his ties with his family before it's too late, though he discovers this is even harder than he imagines. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide22Tag Target (>10)2533http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t73126aol0u.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/The_Weather_Man/243717/default.aspxFilm Spout Post: SXSW 2008: The Promotion http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/3/13/26188.aspx

Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 3/13/2008 5:02:42 PM
Body: The Promotion is such an insightfully hilarious and beautifully bittersweet movie about the American and human spirits that I wish Steven Conrad had always been directing his scripts. Conrad previously wrote The Weather Man and The Pursuit of Happyness, both of which can be felt here as less evolved ancestors; structurally they’re quite the same, while The Promotion shares some of the offbeat tone of Weather Man and a lot of the heart of Happyness. But there’s a story in The Promotion that is far more universal, relatable and familiar, which makes this one much, much funnier and much, much more sympathetic. And certainly Conrad’s ability to balance the sweet and the salty, as a director, is responsible for most of the film’s success. One scene in particular exemplifies the movie best: John C. Reilly, as the new-to-Chicago “Richard”, sits opposite four supermarket executives, interviewing for a promotion to be a full-on store manager, and he’s just had to defend how his Canadian-ness caused him to miss an employee prank. Conrad keeps a close-up shot on Reilly as the actor fluctuates expressions that communicate, non-verbally, a plea of innocence, then ignorance, then stupidity, then insanity, then doubt, then back to innocence again. The combination of comedy and pathos that comes out of this lengthy close-up and perfectly tuned performance, which is broken up by a couple reversals to the executives and which is permitted more time and attention than most films nowadays allow any single moment, is the most brilliantly thoughtful thing I’ve seen done in this kind of movie in a very long time. (more…) Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:02:42 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com3/13/2008 5:02:42 PM The Promotion is such an insightfully hilarious and beautifully bittersweet movie about the American and human spirits that I wish Steven Conrad had always been directing his scripts. Conrad previously wrote The Weather Man and The Pursuit of Happyness, both of which can be felt here as less evolved ancestors; structurally they’re quite the same, while The Promotion shares some of the offbeat tone of Weather Man and a lot of the heart of Happyness. But there’s a story in The Promotion that is far more universal, relatable and familiar, which makes this one much, much funnier and much, much more sympathetic. And certainly Conrad’s ability to balance the sweet and the salty, as a director, is responsible for most of the film’s success. One scene in particular exemplifies the movie best: John C. Reilly, as the new-to-Chicago “Richard”, sits opposite four supermarket executives, interviewing for a promotion to be a full-on store manager, and he’s just had to defend how his Canadian-ness caused him to miss an employee prank. Conrad keeps a close-up shot on Reilly as the actor fluctuates expressions that communicate, non-verbally, a plea of innocence, then ignorance, then stupidity, then insanity, then doubt, then back to innocence again. The combination of comedy and pathos that comes out of this lengthy close-up and perfectly tuned performance, which is broken up by a couple reversals to the executives and which is permitted more time and attention than most films nowadays allow any single moment, is the most brilliantly thoughtful thing I’ve seen done in this kind of movie in a very long time. (more…) Originally posted on:SpoutBlog Spout Post: The Weather Man - Nine Lives http://www.spout.com/blogs/moviebabe/archive/2007/7/18/15212.aspx

Post By: MovieBabe
Post To: MovieBabe Blog
Post Date: 7/18/2007 4:36:00 PM
Body: By Tricia Olszewski In The Weather Man, director Gore Verbinski has achieved the impossible. It’s not getting another terrific sad-sack performance from star Nicolas Cage, who has already wrenched guts in Leaving Las Vegas and personified writerly angst in Adaptation. And it’s not taking Steve Conrad’s doggedly miserable script and presenting it as a credible portrayal of midlife crisis instead of a piled-on heap of melodrama. Rather, the accomplishment is this: making Bob Seger’s Chevy-pushing “Like a Rock” poignant again (or, perhaps more accurately, for the first time). Yes, its initial mention—the opening line of a speech that hapless David (Cage) gives at a gathering to celebrate his sick father, Robert (Michael Caine)—seems a bit ludicrous. But when the highbrow Robert, a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, plays the song while sitting with David in his car and asks him to explain how exactly the lyrics relate to him—well, it’s just about the saddest thing in a movie overrun with sadness. And if Seger’s wistfulness doesn’t make you start blubbering, it’ll at least move you to call your folks when you get home. Cage’s Chicago weather anchor is a functioning depressive, capable of appearing cheery when delivering forecasts he knows are only guesses, yet barely able to handle even small setbacks outside of the station. Polite recognition from fans results in David’s begging them to leave him alone. Not having enough cash to buy his dad a paper or a cup of coffee upon request seems a sonly failure tantamount to, say, landing in jail or getting kicked out of Harvard. But those are David’s lesser worries: There are also Dad’s illness and his barely concealed disappointment in David’s choices; an ex-wife, Noreen (Hope Davis), who’s so bitter that nearly every encounter the former couple has ends up in an argument; and two early-teens children (Gemmenne de la Peña and About a Boy’s Nicholas Hoult) with problems David feels too distanced to solve. Plus, people occasionally throw food at him. David’s not completely portrayed as a victim, however—constant screw-ups and knee-jerk reactions show that he carries a big part of the blame for his damaged relationships. Smartly, though, the filmmakers support David’s day-to-day travails with a running inner monologue—often good intentions punctuated by “fuck”s—that keeps the character human rather than irredeemably unsympathetic. And though Cage’s hangdog gloominess permeates the movie, Conrad’s script is frequently funny, especially in such moments as David’s reactions to Noreen’s boyfriend (petulantly calling him a “dildo”) and his constant analysis of his lot in life (“I bet no one threw a pie at, like, Harriet Tubman”). Conrad, whose last major project was 1993’s similarly bleak Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, does inject some hopefulness here, in the form of an invitation to David to apply for a position at a national morning show. Of course, given that it would mean a move to New York, plus further entrenchment in an unfulfilling career (“I receive a large reward for zero effort and little contribution,” David admits), it’s a dubious carrot. Yet David keeps trying, however dejectedly, to make his world brighter. “Easy doesn’t enter into grownup life,” his father cynically tells him. But by the time David begins to make peace with this, you’ll wish that, for him, just once it would. In Nine Lives, misery runs even deeper, but the result may leave you cold. Writer-director Rodrigo García presents loosely connected slice-of-life vignettes about—yep—nine women, with a character from one story sometimes showing up in another. It’s a device García—son of Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez—is obviously fond of, having previously created 2000’s Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her and 2001’s Ten Tiny Love Stories. The circumstances in each tale vary widely, but themes of connectedness and the preciousness of life are heavily hammered throughout. Each story lasts 10 to 12 minutes and is kicked off with a placard naming the damsel who’s about to be shown in peak distress. The gambit seems to suggest that there’s honesty here, frank Weather Man–esque glimpses into the drama of everyday life. But many of them feel contrived for maximum squirminess—and the result is a big So what? One offender is a blatant Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? rip-off, with a couple visiting the new home of their well-to-do friends. For no apparent reason, Sonia (Holly Hunter) begins spilling bitter, embarrassing details about her marriage almost immediately after taking a seat on her hosts’ couch, with only the abrupt finale shutting her up. Another portrait shows a distraught, strait-jacket-worthy woman (Lisa Gay Hamilton) returning to her childhood home to confront her estranged father with, it’s suggested, his earlier abuse. And the most far-fetched story involves the reunion of a deaf man named Andrew (William Fichtner) and his former wife, Lorna (Amy Brenneman), at Andrew’s subsequent wife’s wake. The woman committed suicide, and most everyone blames Lorna—except Andrew, who instead of turning a cold shoulder chases Lorna into a room at the funeral home and signs that he masturbates while thinking about her. There are a couple of more realistic, and therefore more moving, pieces here, including the anxious and terse conversation between a middle-aged woman (Kathy Baker) and her husband (Joe Mantegna) before she undergoes a mastectomy, and an annual mother-and-daughter (Glenn Close and Dakota Fanning) picnic in a cemetery, though whose grave they’re visiting is never made clear. The most gut-wrenching of these stories, however, is the chance supermarket meeting of Diana, a married, pregnant woman (Robin Wright Penn), and Damian (Jason Isaacs), her old, also-married flame. Penn expresses an entire relationship’s worth of emotions during her time at the store, from giddiness to desperation to heartbreak, as sparks once again fly and the unspoken suggestion of an affair lingers between them. García films each of these vignettes with a single Steadicam shot, which at times brings a sense of immediacy but mostly just feels like a distracting trick. More impressive are his suddenly artful frames, such as a mirror behind Sonia and her husband that catches the reflection of their friends during Sonia’s diatribe. Ultimately, though, there’s not much of a bigger picture uniting Nine Lives’ 115 minutes together—nothing like, say, the meditation on race relations offered by the multiple plotlines of the recently released Crash. It’s just a collection of short stories, no more insightful or remarkable than the melodramas you can already catch on TV.
]]>Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:36:00 GMTMovieBabeMovieBabe Blog7/18/2007 4:36:00 PM By Tricia Olszewski In The Weather Man, director Gore Verbinski has achieved the impossible. It’s not getting another terrific sad-sack performance from star Nicolas Cage, who has already wrenched guts in Leaving Las Vegas and personified writerly angst in Adaptation. And it’s not taking Steve Conrad’s doggedly miserable script and presenting it as a credible portrayal of midlife crisis instead of a piled-on heap of melodrama. Rather, the accomplishment is this: making Bob Seger’s Chevy-pushing “Like a Rock” poignant again (or, perhaps more accurately, for the first time). Yes, its initial mention—the opening line of a speech that hapless David (Cage) gives at a gathering to celebrate his sick father, Robert (Michael Caine)—seems a bit ludicrous. But when the highbrow Robert, a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, plays the song while sitting with David in his car and asks him to explain how exactly the lyrics relate to him—well, it’s just about the saddest thing in a movie overrun with sadness. And if Seger’s wistfulness doesn’t make you start blubbering, it’ll at least move you to call your folks when you get home. Cage’s Chicago weather anchor is a functioning depressive, capable of appearing cheery when delivering forecasts he knows are only guesses, yet barely able to handle even small setbacks outside of the station. Polite recognition from fans results in David’s begging them to leave him alone. Not having enough cash to buy his dad a paper or a cup of coffee upon request seems a sonly failure tantamount to, say, landing in jail or getting kicked out of Harvard. But those are David’s lesser worries: There are also Dad’s illness and his barely concealed disappointment in David’s choices; an ex-wife, Noreen (Hope Davis), who’s so bitter that nearly every encounter the former couple has ends up in an argument; and two early-teens children (Gemmenne de la Peña and About a Boy’s Nicholas Hoult) with problems David feels too distanced to solve. Plus, people occasionally throw food at him. David’s not completely portrayed as a victim, however—constant screw-ups and knee-jerk reactions show that he carries a big part of the blame for his damaged relationships. Smartly, though, the filmmakers support David’s day-to-day travails with a running inner monologue—often good intentions punctuated by “fuck”s—that keeps the character human rather than irredeemably unsympathetic. And though Cage’s hangdog gloominess permeates the movie, Conrad’s script is frequently funny, especially in such moments as David’s reactions to Noreen’s boyfriend (petulantly calling him a “dildo”) and his constant analysis of his lot in life (“I bet no one threw a pie at, like, Harriet Tubman”). Conrad, whose last major project was 1993’s similarly bleak Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, does inject some hopefulness here, in the form of an invitation to David to apply for a position at a national morning show. Of course, given that it would mean a move to New York, plus further entrenchment in an unfulfilling career (“I receive a large reward for zero effort and little contribution,” David admits), it’s a dubious carrot. Yet David keeps trying, however dejectedly, to make his world brighter. “Easy doesn’t enter into grownup life,” his father cynically tells him. But by the time David begins to make peace with this, you’ll wish that, for him, just once it would. In Nine Lives, misery runs even deeper, but the result may leave you cold. Writer-director Rodrigo García presents loosely connected slice-of-life vignettes about—yep—nine women, with a character from one story sometimes showing up in another. It’s a device García—son of Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez—is obviously fond of, having previously created 2000’s Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her and 2001’s Ten Tiny Love Stories. The circumstances in each tale vary widely, but themes of connectedness and the preciousness of life are heavily hammered throughout. Each story lasts 10 to 12 minutes and is kicked off with a placard naming the damsel who’s about to be shown in peak distress. The gambit seems to suggest that there’s honesty here, frank Weather Man–esque glimpses into the drama of everyday life. But many of them feel contrived for maximum squirminess—and the result is a big So what? One offender is a blatant Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? rip-off, with a couple visiting the new home of their well-to-do friends. For no apparent reason, Sonia (Holly Hunter) begins spilling bitter, embarrassing details about her marriage almost immediately after taking a seat on her hosts’ couch, with only the abrupt finale shutting her up. Another portrait shows a distraught, strait-jacket-worthy woman (Lisa Gay Hamilton) returning to her childhood home to confront her estranged father with, it’s suggested, his earlier abuse. And the most far-fetched story involves the reunion of a deaf man named Andrew (William Fichtner) and his former wife, Lorna (Amy Brenneman), at Andrew’s subsequent wife’s wake. The woman committed suicide, and most everyone blames Lorna—except Andrew, who instead of turning a cold shoulder chases Lorna into a room at the funeral home and signs that he masturbates while thinking about her. There are a couple of more realistic, and therefore more moving, pieces here, including the anxious and terse conversation between a middle-aged woman (Kathy Baker) and her husband (Joe Mantegna) before she undergoes a mastectomy, and an annual mother-and-daughter (Glenn Close and Dakota Fanning) picnic in a cemetery, though whose grave they’re visiting is never made clear. The most gut-wrenching of these stories, however, is the chance supermarket meeting of Diana, a married, pregnant woman (Robin Wright Penn), and Damian (Jason Isaacs), her old, also-married flame. Penn expresses an entire relationship’s worth of emotions during her time at the store, from giddiness to desperation to heartbreak, as sparks once again fly and the unspoken suggestion of an affair lingers between them. García films each of these vignettes with a single Steadicam shot, which at times brings a sense of immediacy but mostly just feels like a distracting trick. More impressive are his suddenly artful frames, such as a mirror behind Sonia and her husband that catches the reflection of their friends during Sonia’s diatribe. Ultimately, though, there’s not much of a bigger picture uniting Nine Lives’ 115 minutes together—nothing like, say, the meditation on race relations offered by the multiple plotlines of the recently released Crash. It’s just a collection of short stories, no more insightful or remarkable than the melodramas you can already catch on TV. Spout Post: stirs up plenty of after-thoughts http://www.spout.com/blogs/ktincu/archive/2006/4/17/889.aspx

Post By: ktincu
Post To: ktincu Blog
Post Date: 4/17/2006 11:49:00 AM
Body: I think the bulk of what I call "good films" tend to fall into one of two categories: either they're engaging and compelling in the moment but then quickly fade from my awareness, or they're just fine while I'm watching them, but then grow in my consciousness as time passes. (I guess what I consider "great films" manage to accomplish both—they're equally compelling during and long after the viewing.) The Weather Man falls into the second "good film" category for me. It was a perfectly fine way to spend a couple of hours this past Friday night, but I wasn't utterly taken by the film as I watched it. In the couple of days since I've watched it, though, the film and its characters have taken on a much larger life in my imagination and thoughts. The characters are so real, both in their brokenness and in their small, hopeful desires and efforts to pull themselves above their failings. They simultaneously love and despise each other in such real, believable ways, and they struggle to make the best of less-than-ideal realities, accepting that sometimes there are no truly good solutions. As I think about the characters now, I realize I have compassion and empathy for each and every one of them. And maybe that's what I'm carrying with me from this film: a deeper ability to see different sides and perspectives of a situation, and to generate more than enough empathy to go around.
]]>Mon, 17 Apr 2006 15:49:00 GMTktincuktincu Blog4/17/2006 11:49:00 AMI think the bulk of what I call "good films" tend to fall into one of two categories: either they're engaging and compelling in the moment but then quickly fade from my awareness, or they're just fine while I'm watching them, but then grow in my consciousness as time passes. (I guess what I consider "great films" manage to accomplish both—they're equally compelling during and long after the viewing.) The Weather Man falls into the second "good film" category for me. It was a perfectly fine way to spend a couple of hours this past Friday night, but I wasn't utterly taken by the film as I watched it. In the couple of days since I've watched it, though, the film and its characters have taken on a much larger life in my imagination and thoughts. The characters are so real, both in their brokenness and in their small, hopeful desires and efforts to pull themselves above their failings. They simultaneously love and despise each other in such real, believable ways, and they struggle to make the best of less-than-ideal realities, accepting that sometimes there are no truly good solutions. As I think about the characters now, I realize I have compassion and empathy for each and every one of them. And maybe that's what I'm carrying with me from this film: a deeper ability to see different sides and perspectives of a situation, and to generate more than enough empathy to go around. Spout Tag:funny http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/funny/MemberTagFilms.aspxfunny
Number of films tagged: 607

Number of people who tagged: 316

Number of times used: 940

]]>Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:46:10 GMT607316940Tag Spout Tag:family http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/family/MemberTagFilms.aspxfamily
Number of films tagged: 6288

Number of people who tagged: 226

Number of times used: 1138

]]>Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:09:21 GMT62882261138Tag Spout Tag:Loved-It http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/Loved-It/MemberTagFilms.aspxLoved-It
Number of films tagged: 509

Number of people who tagged: 179

Number of times used: 921

]]>Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:56:35 GMT509179921Tag Spout Tag:christmas http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/christmas/MemberTagFilms.aspxchristmas
Number of films tagged: 995

Number of people who tagged: 82

Number of times used: 254

]]>Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:31:29 GMT99582254Tag Spout Tag:father http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/father/MemberTagFilms.aspxfather
Number of films tagged: 3580

Number of people who tagged: 51

Number of times used: 213

]]>Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:51:56 GMT358051213Tag Spout Tag:relationship http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/relationship/MemberTagFilms.aspxrelationship
Number of films tagged: 1090

Number of people who tagged: 50

Number of times used: 189

]]>Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:18:01 GMT109050189Tag Spout Tag:divorce http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/divorce/MemberTagFilms.aspxdivorce
Number of films tagged: 1042

Number of people who tagged: 45

Number of times used: 121

]]>Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:35:44 GMT104245121Tag Spout Tag:daughter http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/daughter/MemberTagFilms.aspxdaughter
Number of films tagged: 3658

Number of people who tagged: 40

Number of times used: 138

]]>Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:01:02 GMT365840138Tag Spout Tag:chicago http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/chicago/MemberTagFilms.aspxchicago
Number of films tagged: 32

Number of people who tagged: 30

Number of times used: 47

]]>Sat, 25 Jul 2009 12:04:36 GMT323047Tag Spout Tag:newyork http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/newyork/MemberTagFilms.aspxnewyork
Number of films tagged: 38

Number of people who tagged: 27

Number of times used: 46

]]>Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:41:54 GMT382746Tag Spout Tag:stuck-in-my-head http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/stuck-in-my-head/MemberTagFilms.aspxstuck-in-my-head
Number of films tagged: 31

Number of people who tagged: 18

Number of times used: 40

]]>Wed, 06 Jun 2007 05:46:37 GMT311840Tag Spout Tag:midlifecrisis http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/midlifecrisis/MemberTagFilms.aspxmidlifecrisis
Number of films tagged: 186

Number of people who tagged: 16

Number of times used: 25

]]>Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:55:17 GMT1861625Tag Spout Tag:endearing-characters http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/endearing-characters/MemberTagFilms.aspxendearing-characters
Number of films tagged: 16

Number of people who tagged: 13

Number of times used: 29

]]>Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:05:37 GMT161329Tag Spout Tag:pathetic http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/pathetic/MemberTagFilms.aspxpathetic
Number of films tagged: 13

Number of people who tagged: 10

Number of times used: 14

]]>Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:36:41 GMT131014Tag Spout Tag:archery http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/archery/MemberTagFilms.aspxarchery
Number of films tagged: 34

Number of people who tagged: 6

Number of times used: 10

]]>Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:12:01 GMT34610Tag