About Schmidt (BD) [Blu-ray]

Underrated and overlooked. Both Bates and Nicholson are excellent.

I like this movie more than anything because (A) Nicholson is in it and he is good and (B) because the makers of this film really got it about Nebraska. Oh...forgot (C) because this is about a character who earns his bread as an Omaha insurance actuary. How refreshing. A departure from the usual Hollywood heads of households roles who are lawyers.The film begins as Scmidt is counting down the last seconds of his last day at the office before entering the world of retirement.The scene changes to the ex actuary's retirement dinner. I like this film makers seeking after authenticity with the filming location at Johnny's..one of Omaha's finest steak houses. ( In my brief career as a life insurance agent who was sent to Omaha for a weeks training it brought back memories of cutting one of the finest steaks there and it looked liked Johnny's hadn't changed with it's 60' s family room paneling still intact).Schmidt has, all these years, been in his cut and dried, left brain driven, number crunching vocation which consists of determining how long a person is expected to live. Very important to the life insurance industry.He loved his work because with a spread sheet and calculators and mathmatic formulas and actuary tables he was in control.However when he goes home to his wife of many years he is in only sort of in control.She runs the house with an iron fist and has rules for his deportment in the bathroom. He wishes he could fit her into a calculator and handle her in a numerical way but he endures her even gritting his teeth when she insists on buying a motor home so they can travel in their sunset years. Schmidt doesn't share his wife's adventurous ways. He has few outside interests. He is a stay at home and watch TV kind of guy and may not even be a Cornhusker football fan.One day his wife dies of a heart attack.Now all he has left is the house, the motor home and his daughter who has always been the brightest spot in his life. His little girl who has always obeyed her father from kindergarten to womanhood.That is up until now when she, in all of her plain Jane, clock-has-nearly- stopped tickingness , announces her engagement to a waterbed salesman, who on Scmidt's scale of 1 to 10 approval rating of prospective son-in-laws registers a resounding zero.He then launches an all out effort to talk his daughter out of the marriage. Having failed in his phone conversations with his out of town daughter he accepts the invitation from the groom-to-be's divorced, free spirited mother (Cathy Bates) and her former spouse to be their guest as the wedding day soon approaches. Schmidt feels a last ditch face to face confrontation will do the trick with his daughter demanding she jettison her plans to marry.Well I could go on about what transpires but I feel I have been somewhat of a spoiler so far and refrain for going on.In summary About Schmidt is one of the most entertaining, engrossing, films I have seen.There are hilarious moments. There are sad and tragic moments. And the final portion of the flim completely blew away the smug predictions I had for it.As a person with Nebraska roots I particularly enjoyed this film and appreciated Nicholson who had to leave behind at retirement the answer to the "what do you do?" question and to the best of his abilities and to who he was take on the rest of what life threw at him.

Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) is a man who's always wanted to accomplish more in life, but now he finds himself retiring from a dead end job having made no difference in the world around him. One day, on a whim, Warren calls Childreach and "adopts" an African orphan named Ndugu, who Warren uses as a sounding board to let out his feelings concerning what he feels is his wasted life. Shortly after his retirement, Warren's wife, Helen (June Squibb), dies reminding Warren of just how much he needed her. On his way to his daughter, Jeannie's (Hope Davis) wedding Warren takes a soul searching road trip in his RV before trying to convince his daughter to not marry the waterbed salesman (Dermot Mulroney) she's currently engaged to.Before winning the adapted screenwriting Oscar for his wine country dramedy, Sideways, and after his nomination for the excellent Election, Alexandar Payne cowrote and directed this underrated dramedy with his oft-writing partner Jim Taylor. Overshadowed by a notorious nude scene by Kathy Bates in the late second act of the movie, it's often forgotten that Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates were both nominated for Oscars and Jack Nicholson won a Golden Globe for best performance by an actor in a drama (to which Nicholson said during his acceptance speech, "I'm a little surprised, I thought we had made a comedy"). First picking up this movie I can't really say that I knew what to expect going in, but that's also part of what made me pick up this movie in the first place.What I got, for all the fuss about Kathy Bates, was a poignant character study about a very ordinary man in his 60's. I'm sure a lot of people don't feel the same way, after all some of Warren's actions are deplorable, but he's a very human character. He's an ordinary man who wants to be extraordinary about him, and so inside he pines to make a difference in the world. The movie does a great job, as well as Nicholson playing the role to a tee, of showing a man that even at his happiest carries around the weight of never having accomplished anything in his life to be proud of as he also confronts his own mortality. In the end the movie reminds us that we don't have to do big great things to make a difference in the world, though, even small gestures can make the world around us a better place.While in the end the overall message of the movie can be considered slightly corny, I still have to say that I recommend this movie. At times it's quite funny, and the acting is phenomenal. Even with a corny message, which does not overbear the plot or tone of the movie, sometimes we do need to be reminded of these things at times. Give it a try, if you like Payne's other films like Sideways and Election you'll probably enjoy this, and it's also one of Nicholson's best later career performances.4/5

Great circus and ballet performances as well as a good look at life in Russia

"Hilarious ... A Comic Treasure" (5 Stars from Uncut) "A Masterpiece, Nichollson gives one of his finest comic performances" (5 Stars from The Guardian. I had heard good things about this film and after reading the foregoing blurb on the DVD box was looking forward to something pretty special. I was however ultimately to be disappointed. It is neither "Hilarious" nor "A Masterpiece". About the only good thing that I can commend about the film is Jack Nicholson's performance which is adequate in my view rather than being brilliant (as in "As Good As It Gets" for example). I can certainly identify with Schmidt's ennui, having spent most of my professional career as an actuary as well. Sorry, but this doesn't float my boat at all

This is a superb film with Jack Nicholson (an actor whom I already admired greatly) giving the performance of his career in unusually restrained mode as a newly-widowed and retired man dealing with his loneliness and unexpected grief. It was billed as a comedy, but the words "bitter-sweet" should have been added - it was indeed laugh-aloud funny but also extremely moving .A life-crisis film which doesn't hit one wrong note Alexander Payne ("Sideways"), one of the US's most interesting and accomplished young directors, seems to have made this genre his forte.

I've seen this movie so many times...and it never gets boring. It's a brilliantly cast film with a truly outstanding performance from Mr. Nicholson. Hope Davis is excellent also. It is one of the only films I have seen that I'm almost in tears at the end. Very moving really.

I'm a great fan of Jack Nicholson, so I basically like all his movies, mostly because of his unique acting style. Maybe this film is somewhat similar than The Bucket List, a slightly philosophical story about an aging, lonely man. Worth watching, but not even close to the great classics of JN. Without him in the main role, I wouldn't even bother buying this film.

Best performance of his life by Jack Nicholson. Superbly restrained and subtle. All the cast excellent and a very moving story. Some darkly comic moments. This was my second time watching the film and i appreciated it even more this time round.