Grade:  B

Director:  Alexander Payne		Released:  December 2002
Writer:  Alexander Payne from Louis Begley's novel		MPAA Rating:  R
Players:  Jack Nicholson, Kathy Bates, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney		Running time:  125 minutes

Ratings System

I expected more.  About Schmidt is funny and sad, but it's not brilliantly funny and sad like Payne's Election was.  Well, some parts, like the letters to Ndugu, are pretty great.  Maybe that's not a fair comparison, you can't knock every pitch out of the park.  But when you only hit a double, don't expect me to jump up and down and talk about Academy Awards.  I enjoyed the picture, but I will likely never watch it again.  Nicholson does a good job in the role, it's a good film, check it out and then forget it.

What was the hubbub about Kathy Bates' nude scene?  Big deal, she gets nude for a couple seconds on film.  When Bates does it, she's "brave", right?  But when Sharon Stone does it, it's a scandal.  When Stone does it, women everywhere are being degraded, the movie needs to be banned, blah, blah, blah.  People get naked in movies, deal with it.  We don't need to make a big ruckus every time some actress drops her robe.

- crocoPuffs