Voyeurs.com

Having lived in the Los Angeles all my long life, I have watched it change from a hard working, sharing, caring type attitude to a "skys the limit" fun filled me first ego type attitude. Here is a movie that does a great job at poking fun at our present way of life. It probably will get a R rating for sex and language, which is definitely LA today.

The cast did a really great job portraying their characters. It looked like they were having a lot of fun making this very funny, ridiculous, spoof of todays life style and the toys we "adults" play with. They take the usage of the credit cards, the computers, the video cams and our other "adult" toys to the nth degree.

If you can laugh at yourself, you will laugh at this. The audience that I was in liked it so much that they applauded at the end.

I wanted to like it, but just couldn't buy into it.

Couldn't believe Bridges, in the early scenes he's pure ham with a rancid edge. Comedy is not his genre.

Couldn't believe Bridges would be married to Arquette and having hot sex all over the house.

Couldn't believe the premise that the world would keep watching, even after it became clear that everyone knows they are being taped.

Could have worked, if the scale had been kept realistic: if the success of the show and commensurate payday were such that the family could have at least pretended NOT to be in on the joke. A little less would have been so much more...

Instead, it just insults the intelligence of every character, and the audience as well.

The divorced salesman Harvey Bellinger (Beau Bridges) sells toilets and lives with his teenage daughter Audrey Bellinger (Baelyn Neff). When he meets the former Playboy centerfold Lydia Ann Layton (Rosanna Arquette), who is addicted in Stock Market and lives with her teenage son Colby (Mathew Botuchis), they immediately get married and move in together. Out of the blue, Harvey is fired and Lydia loses all their savings in the Stock Market. They need to reduce drastically their expenses and they quit superfluous expenses including cable TV. Audrey has an argument with Colby and drops his laptop on the floor. His girlfriend Randi Sommers (Shiri Appleby) suggests they expose Audrey in Internet and Colby buys a camera to revenge. Soon they begin a reality show sort of "Big Brother" business, and Colby decides to install cameras in every room in the house. They site becomes popular and a TV network offers a profitable contact to Colby and Randi. When the family discovers that their lives have been exposed but in a profitable way, they decide to include two new participants, the Italian Ciro Menotti (Victor Alfieri) and the call-girl Jessica (Tiffany Baldwin). But they face many problems.

"I-See-You.Com" is a comedy with a good storyline that becomes a missed opportunity. The screenplay becomes a mess and the direction is lost between a comedy and a drama. The plot could have explored the human greed or the damage that the media and reality shows can cause to a family. But in the end, this film is neither funny nor dramatic. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Vejo Vocês.com" ("See You.com")

I saw this at the Waterfront Film Festival in Saugatuck, Michigan.

This was an okay movie, nothing really special. The first half of it was good, but then it sort of went the traditional route and didn't seem very original. It's about a family that's having some money troubles. Beau Bridges plays a single father who marries single mother Rosanna Arquette. The son comes up with a way to fix the money problems. To get back at his half sister, he puts a video camera in her room and puts the footage on the internet. It becomes a big success so he decides to put cameras in every room in the house. The result becomes one of the first reality shows ever, and he is the only one in the family that knows they are being watched.

There were just too many plot holes and some of the characters seemed pretty pointless (especially Jessica who arrives late in the film and does absolutely nothing). And the ending was pretty weak as well.

It's probably be best to pass on it if it comes to theaters, rent it if you're a fan of the stars, but other than that, this is a movie to watch at home when it's on TV.

I saw this movie as part of the "selling to distributors" process. The test audience was peppered with media PTBs and you could tell them apart from the "civilians" because they were seated in taped off areas.

Anyway, the movie...

Before the movie started I had doubts about the timeliness. Because of the "dot gone" bust and "reality TV" I was concerned I was about to see a movie that was a little anachronistic. Five minutes into the movie and I was no longer worried - I was laughing too hard. Beau Bridges and Mathew Botuchis' performances are OK, but the girls (Rosanna Arquette, Baelyn Neff and Shiri Appleby) steal the show. Rosanna plays the mom and she does a great job as the sex/day-trading addicted counter to Bridges "toilet bowl" salesman. Ms. Neff is great in the role of "daddy's little princess" providing the foil to Mathew's "Colby". But the best had to be Shiri Appleby as "Randi Sommers". Ms. Appleby, always understated and extremely watchable, takes what could have been a throwaway role and works it until the closing scene when everyone in the theater clapped.

All in all, I really liked the film. I don't recommend it for "date night" - it is definitely a "guy film" but us guys need one of those every now and then.