
	Where results make sense

Topic: Happiness (film)

Related Topics

film director

National Film Registry

silent film

horror film

documentary film

Musical film

Cannes Film Festival

list of years in film

Best Film Editing

film noir

comedy film

cult film

In the News (Tue 17 Nov 09)

Northern Trust

Marvin Harrison

Peter Chernin

Gary Locke

Match Play

Penelope Cruz

Mickey Rourke

AR Rahman

Danny Boyle

Hugh Jackman

	Happiness (1998) - Todd Solondz
		The film was highly controversial upon its released and was given an NC-17 rating by the MPAA.
		Happiness is a 1998 American motion picture, written and directed by Todd Solondz that show the lives of three sisters and their families.
		Happiness is an intelligent, sad film, revelatory and exact at moments.
	www.jahsonic.com /Happiness.html (721 words)

	Arts Film Review - 1/4/1999: Happiness
		One of the things that you remark upon, having watched Todd Solondz second feature Happiness, and in light of the recent "to do" regarding the remake of Lolita, is how did this one sneak by those morally upright politicians tub thumping on their clean living bandwagon.
		Happiness gives us a cinematic place, a film world where heterosexuality is collapsing, where the norm, the ideal is a festering joke.
		Happiness is all that fl comedy should be; it handles the most delicate of subjects with the greatest objectivity and humour, treading steadfastly along the balance beam between judgementalism and sentimentality, suffering from neither.
	www.abc.net.au /arts/review/s26122.htm (720 words)

	HAPPINESS - DVD
		Both films failed to find an audience theatrically, though in the case of the latter the blame can be assigned squarely on Buena Vista, who bungled the marketing campaign and print distribution.
		The film's Altman-esque narrative acquaints us with three New Jersey sisters: Joy Jordan (Adams), a single woman whose passive-aggressive behavior provokes hostility in others; Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle), a famous poet with a private desire to be dominated; and Trish (Stevenson), mother of three and wife of reputable psychiatrist Bill Maplewood (Baker).
		Solondz's film, from the charged opening scene (featuring a cameo by a raging Jon Lovitz!) to the melancholy (yet controversial) finish, is a breathtakingly naturalistic creation.
	filmfreakcentral.net /dvdreviews/happinessdvd.htm (933 words)

	Begrudging Happiness by Rob Spillman - Nerve.com
		The film had a sharp misanthropic edge, but there was real humanity on the screen, and even a glimmer of hope -- you could imagine the snotty little heroine surviving the torment of being different in McNeighborhoodland and maybe even someday coming back to satirize her hometown on film.
		Happiness, however, is unremittingly misanthropic, and only occasionally sick-funny, with each and every character doomed to a horrible, unfulfilled, alienated, empty life.
		As a result Happiness is a flat movie where the emotional trajectory goes from failure to failure and disappointment to disappointment.
	www.nerve.com /opinions/Spillman/happiness (1034 words)

	TheMovieBoy Review: Happiness (1998)
		Solondz's latest film, "Happiness," which is now available on video and DVD after a controversial but much-heralded run in theaters (its original distributor, Universal, dropped the film after being scared off with the dark subject matter, only for the indie company, Good Machine Productions, to graciously snap it up).
		Because of the fine line the film is constantly walking on between realism and ludicrousness, it was vital that the screenplay, by Solondz, and the many performances not be merely adequate, and they aren't.
		If Solondz had failed with this film, it would have been damaging to his career because of the many chances that are taken, but he grandly succeeds in almost everything he has set out to do.
	www.themovieboy.com /reviews/h/98_happiness.htm (1082 words)

	Happiness... Is This What Some People Really Want? - Happiness - Epinions.com
		The result is a film that deals with the idea of kind of morals are brought to the table and are the people around them are just sick or to be sympathized with.
		The film begins in the first five minutes as a young 30-year old woman named Joy Jordan (Jane Adams) breaks up with her fat but nice boyfriend Andy (Jon Lovitz) as he breaks down and wanted to give her this lovely ashtray during a dinner at a restaurant.
		What make the film even more uncomforting are its grotesque matters of pedophilia and the subjects of masturbation, even when it’s a kid talking to his father that just feels very disturbing.
	www.epinions.com /content_115016306308 (1445 words)

	Affliction and Happiness - a review of two movies
		Every aspect of this beautifully wrought film engages our struggle against brutality -- in one scene, in which Wade talks on the phone to his brother Rolphe (Dafoe), a professor of history, the camera and audience find Wade through a pitchy landscape, his skinny ranch house's window glowing fiercely against the chill night.
		The script and performances of Happiness are indeed powerful, but the film as a whole merely records pathetic and brutal aspects of human nature without reflecting on them.
		In those two films, the brutality of sexual relationships is explored, and in each, a lack of tenderness between sexual partners leads to brutality in all relationships: friends, neighbors, business partners, etc. Like Affliction, these films discover how coldness spreads.
	www.culturekiosque.com /nouveau/Cinema/rheafflict.html (642 words)

	The Truth About Happiness: Q&A with Michael Beckwith - Gaiam Life
		Filmmakers Michael Lasky and Larry Kurnarsky project their version of the answers in the film “Living Luminaries (On the Serious Business of Happiness).” The film follows a young seeker as he explores how happiness can be found by living in the now and consciously practicing gratitude, forgiveness and kindness.
		Happiness and joy are qualities that are intrinsic to us as unique expressions of the Universe and of God.
		Happiness is something we bring to the world as we become conscious of ourselves.
	life.gaiam.com /gaiam/p/The-Truth-About-Happiness-QA-with-Michael-Beckwith.html (1229 words)

	Film - Review
		Unsurprisingly, too, Happiness is as controversial as it is sardonic: no other film this year will polarise opinion in quite the same manner — either you will love the film for its sheer audacity or else resent it for the profligate issues it tackles.
		As the film progresses, you watch as these otherwise fairly ordinary people struggle to reconcile their unsavory inclinations with their day-to-day lives and, when all is said and done, it is a less than happy picture that Solondz has painted.
		In the final analysis, Happiness may not be the most subtle or poignant of films to consider the awkward themes of rape and child abuse, but Solondz, nevertheless, should be congratulated for delivering such a bold, unflinching and extremely provocative take on the habits and moral dilemmas of a few members of ‘normal’ middle America.
	www.tokyoyy.com /current/film (623 words)

	Review: Happiness
		The film's hallmark is that it does not romanticize the lead character - she is as unpleasant as her tormentors.
		In addition, the movie's initial distributor, Universal Pictures (through October Films, their independent outlet), dropped all rights when CEO Ron Meyer made the statement that he didn't want to understand the mind of a pedophile and wasn't interested in having his company involved in the release of a film that attempts to present that perspective.
		Where Happiness shines, however, is in the series of extraordinary performances given by the members of the diverse ensemble cast.
	www.reelviews.net /movies/h/happiness.html (1498 words)

	The Happiness of the Katakuris-Latest Classic Movie Reviews-Spout
		One of an amazing seven features directed in 2001 by Japan's prolific shock auteur Takashi Miike, The Happiness of the Katakuris is a gleefully morbid musical comedy about a family of oddballs who open an inn in the mountains.
		The Happiness of the Katakuris doesn't dispense entirely with the kind of grotesquerie and perversion that have given Takashi Miike's more notorious films, such as Audition and Visitor Q, their reputations.
		It does, however, begin with a woman discovering a demonic creature in her soup that immediately yanks out her uvula and flies off into a claymation netherworld where a succession of more and more fantastic beasts devour one another with gleeful aplomb, none of which has anything to do with the plot to follow.
	www.spout.com /films/207164/default.aspx (646 words)

	ARTS alive - film review
		For the characters in Todd Solondz's latest film, "Happiness", this most elusive of emotions is little more than a brittle, glossy surface beneath which bubbles a disturbing mix of bizarre and deviant behaviour.
		There are almost a dozen characters in "Happiness" and with them Solondz creates an extended family of people struggling to connect with each other.
		Whilst it won't be to everyone's taste, I found that the film's characters and images stayed with me long after the closing credits, and kept me thinking about this savage critique of middle-class suburbia - smooth and shiny on the surface, dark and turbulent underneath.
	home.vicnet.net.au /~artsaliv/film_review/happiness.htm (342 words)

	Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness
		Blending found with new footage and spoofing the educational film genre, the film highlights the critical threat to choice to a new generation and galvanizes those who have benefited from nearly 30 years of freedom.
		For this film she has partnered with her long time Webby collaborator, co-writer Maya Draisin and co-writer and Emmy Award Winning producer Xandra Castleton.
		Part 8th grade educational film, part nature show, this film humorously interweaves the fictional stories of a conservative politician and his family, two young lovers, the decline in amphibian populations, a fundamentalist activist, and the insidiously creeping disintegration of reproductive rights in the United States.
	www.lifeliberty.net (352 words)

	Marion Institute - Programs - Serendipity Projects - Gross National Happiness
		Happiness as a measuring stick for a nation's development cannot be described quantitatively.
		The purpose of this project is to draw attention of decision makers worldwide to the idea of "Gross National Happiness" that Bhutan is experimenting on a nation-wide range under real-time conditions.
		This government strategy will be "captured" by a documentary film that describes it without preconceived ideas: A "trans-cultural" crew of Bhutanese and Swiss nationals will do its very best to ensure that this production will represent a factual description of GNH and will not dwell in an interpretative mode of expression.
	www.marioninstitute.org /matriarch/MultiPiecePage.asp_Q_PageID_E_56_A_PageName_E_ProgramsSPGNH (493 words)

	Happiness (1998)
		Happiness acknowledges this fact, in the character of family man/psychiatrist Bill Maplewood.
		Loneliness, rage, sexual repression/obsession, disintegrating marriages, sadly sophisticated children, relationships built upon artifice, this film has it all.
		After viewing Happiness for the second time, I realized that the entire soundtrack intentionally consisted of melodramatic, and/or ultra perky canned music: a perfectly ironical compliment and contrast in style with the strong, harsh, quirky film scenes.
	www.imdb.com /title/tt0147612 (553 words)

	\|\| ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS \|\|
		Enemies of happiness, the winner of the international premiere award is a powerful, remarkable and inspiring film.
		This film is about personal courage – courage to change the world and the courage to stand in the forefront of this battle.
		This film follows her parliamentary campaign to her election as a delegate in Wolesi Jirga, or National Assembly.
	www.enemiesofhappiness.com (794 words)

	Summary of the Movie Happiness (1998) - Film Essay
		The existence of the wound culture is demonstrated in Happiness, though the characters affected by it are not always willing participants.
		Though the characters in happiness become a part of the wound culture, Solondz attempts to avoid engaging in it through the flattening of affect.
		Helen is the one character in the film who desires to enter into the wound culture.
	www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com /summary-movie-happiness-1998-film (1556 words)

	european-films.net - review: Een ander zijn geluk (Someone Else's Happiness)
		Village life continues; groceries need to be bought, there is work to be done and even a parade to be organised, but the inhabitants start to look at each other with a suspicious glance in their eyes.
		The work of the cinematographer is the most interesting aspect of the film and combined with the film’s ominous score (courtesy of Peter Van Laerhoven), they are able to create a continuous sense of dread despite a hackneyed script and choppy editing.
		Films such as De zaak Alzheimer (The Alzheimer Case/Memory of a Killer) and De indringer (The Intruder) offered plots whose general stories were universal but whose details were very specific for Belgium.
	european-films.net /content/view/277/5 (480 words)

	Happiness
		The surface of Todd Solondz's new film, Happiness, couldn't be shinier.
		His first film, Welcome to the Dollhouse, was equally bleak, but its rape and murder fantasies were filtered through the perspectives of alienated 12-year-olds, in particular Dawn Weiner (Heather Matarazzo), tormented by her ballerina sister, oblivious parents and plastic schoolmates.
		Late in the film, Billy asks his dad about the accusations that he's a "serial rapist and pervert" (the graffiti scrawled across the neat brick front of their house once the truth comes out), wondering if his dad would ever want to fuck him.
	www.citypaper.net /movies/h/happiness.shtml?print=1 (992 words)

	Searching For Happiness - Classic Film
		He saw her as a diamond in the rough, ready to be made into a movie star.
		Though Rita tried to remain civil with her ex-husband, the early signs Alzheimer’s Disease were appearing, and she began to drink.
		She met Dick Haymes on the set of a film he was shooting, “Cruisin’ Down the River.” They seemed to find comfort in each other’s darkness, and they were married.
	www.bellaonline.com /articles/art47094.asp (616 words)

	Cultural Policy Program
		The film went into production in the summer of 1997 and was finished in time for its international premiere at Cannes in 1998, where it received the International Critic's Prize for Best Film.
		October, in the meantime, was readying the film for a fall release when executives of October's parent company, Universal Studios (which is itself owned by the Montreal-based Seagram Company), asked to screen the film in Los Angeles.
		The film is still in theatrical distribution, topping the $3 million box-office mark, and video, pay TV and cable rights have all been sold for handsome prices.
	culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu /conf1999/schamus.html (1215 words)

	JoBlo's movie review of Happiness: Dylan Baker, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Lara Flynn Boyle
		Their parents are also part of the package, as the film serpentines its way through the troubles, perversions and sexual dichotomy of many of its happily-challenged subjects.
		It's pretentious and might actually by enjoyed by those who like figuring out the "true meaning" of a film or its characters' intentions, but for all the rest of us, who like to go to a movie theatre, order some nachos, and enjoy ourselves, this one is a lost cause.
		The film was very uneven in that sense, and had plenty of scenes featuring real-life dramatic situations, while others, clearly indicated its "tongue and cheekness".
	www.joblo.com /reviews.php?mode=joblo_movies&id=56 (598 words)

	SOMETHING LIKE HAPPINESS \| DVD \| Movie \| Film \| Foreign Films \| Independent Films \| Reviews \| Awards
		Vibrant and deeply affecting, Something Like Happiness is a funny, tender and very human drama of passions and lives half-understood and veering out of control, shadowed by tragedy, shot through with hope.
		This, the film says, is how families grow in the backwaters of the modern Czech Republic -- by sudden sideways accretions and unexpected kindnesses.
		In "Something Like Happiness," the Czech Republic's official Oscar submission and a boxoffice success on home soil, three friends who grew up together in a housing project situated in the shadow of an imposing industrial plant each find themselves addressing issues concerning the pulling up of roots and familial obligations.
	www.filmmovement.com /filmcatalog/index.asp?MerchandiseID=93 (1103 words)

	The Happiness of the Katakuris / Katakuri-ke no kôfuku
		The Happiness of the Katakuris, a remake of Korean movie The Quiet Family, is one such movie.
		The farmer turns out to be Jinpei, an old man whose family has moved in together to run a guesthouse, in the expectation that a major new road will be built nearby and bring in trade.
		Films in a similar style: The Quiet Family, obviously.
	www.mandiapple.com /snowblood/happinessofthekatakuris.htm (1273 words)

	kamera.co.uk - film review, Happiness
		While there is nothing titillating within the film, what Universal objected to was the compassion with which a paedophile is presented as just an average person.
		As such, the film is never gratuitously shocking, but it is disturbing and sometimes very funny, although the uneven use of easy gags often spoils the virtuoso scenes they punctuate.
		Solondz asks his audience to comprehend the way he does the things his characters do and why, and sometimes the why is hard to understand, but you can understand the emotions that lead them to some of their choices or actions.
	www.kamera.co.uk /reviews_extra/happines.php (811 words)

	The Happiness of the Katakuris (JAPAN 2001)
		Their daughter Shizue (Godzilla 2000's Naomi Nishida) is a love-starved divorced single mother who falls immediately in love with the film's best supporting character, con-artist Richard Sagawa of the "Royal Family." Sagawa is played delightfully by raspy voiced singer Kiyoshiro Iwamano, who executes screendom's single best interpretation of bowel distress.
		The Happiness of Katakuris waxes philosophical on some very interesting ideas involving mankind's place in the universe and how we persevere through life's adversities as a species.
		It's a multi-layered, cross-genre film that defies all categorization and jumps seamlessly from being hysterically funny to scary to dramatically heart-wrenching.
	www.lovehkfilm.com /panasia/happiness_of_the_katakuris.htm (436 words)

	happiness
		It is a film that features a pedophile rapist (Dylan), a murderer (Camyrn), an obscene caller (Hoffman), a masturbator (Read), a Russian immigrant thief (Jared), and an assortment of losers and lonely people wrapped up in their egotism.
		This film refuses to compromise on its plot or who should be cast (Solondz refused the studio's offer to cast the pedophile with a noted star such as William Hurt because he felt Dylan was just right for the role).
		"Happiness" is meant for an art house audience, one that is able, as difficult as it may be, to see something in themselves in the characters portrayed.
	www.sover.net /~ozus/happiness.htm (1120 words)

Try your search on: Qwika (all wikis)