According to Spencer

Jesse Bradford has no idea of what to do with his life. So he moves to Los Angeles, where he quickly scores an apartment, a job at an advertising agency, and a reconnection with Mia Kirshner, whom he has loved since he was about ten. Then he drifts and things start to go away. Fortunately there's the ghost of his grandmother, Florence Stanley, to tell him what to do when things fall apart.

The movie is eked out with what are supposed to be quirky characters, like his room mates, who are making a porno convinced it is an art picture, and the executive at the agency who is dating Miss Kirshner, and so forth. I find them all occupying the border space between sad, delusional and disgusting. While Miss Kirshner and Miss Stanley are charming and speak the lines to advance the plot with conviction, the other characters are tiresome. With Giovanni Ribisi and Adam Goldberg.

I saw this movie on cable on rainy day when there was nothing else on TV, not knowing what to expect but my curiosity was peaked by the talent (Mia Kirshner, Giovanni Ribisi, Jesse Bradeford...script by Melissa Ribisi).

I was surprisingly thoroughly entertained and laughed myself silly. It was funny! It's one of those films that if you live of have lived in Los Angeles, you can appreciate the humor. Kind of like Swingers (I saw Swingers when I lived in NY, and I didn't get the hype, then I saw it a few years later after moving to LA and I couldn't stop laughing).

Not a masterpiece but if you're ever home on a rainy day and should happen to stumble across this one on cable, it's the worth the time.

What a disappointment. That this movie is billed as a comedy is bizarre. I don't recall myself laughing even once. The setting and scripting is juvenile and primitive, and the characterisations hollow and unbelievable. There is almost no development during the movie, nor anything to really pique the interest of the audience.

The jacket description on the DVD was very misleading and thus annoying. While there was great potential in this film, it was never even begun to be realised.

I watched this movie after a four-hour counselling session with a couple who had recently lost their 17-year-old son in a car accident, and was after a pick-me-up - but this movie never even began to offer, even though almost anything could have.

There are elements of this film that surpass the "typical chick-flick" genre.

What shines in this picture are the smaller roles and the writing. Marissa Ribisi and Precious Chong give amazing performances in the "film-within-a-film," and Florence Stanley is, as usual, brilliant.

Yes, it is a treat for the "I could watch Jesse brush his teeth" set, but nothing beats David Krumholtz in his underwear. Even when he's not singing.

The stale premise - an innocent youth comes to the big city and against all odds wins the career and girl of his dreams - is not made fresher by such devices as a deceased grandma who keeps showing up to offer sage advice. (The only point of marginal interest is the script's limp switcheroo on "The Apartment": Here, it's the junior executive (Kirshner) who's involved with the boss, while the torch-carrying schnook is working class.) In "King of the Hill" Jesse Bradford had enough charisma to carry a film, a quality that appears to have receded as puberty set in. Or maybe he just gets poor career advice. Certainly he is ill served by drek like "SwimFan," "Speedway Junky," and this one. . .

In a subplot tied with the thinnest of threads to the main story, Spencer's roommates (David Krumholtz and Adam Goldberg) are holed up in a mansion they evidently and unaccountably own, attempting to make an amateur porn film. Watching their mirthless antics I was reminded of the efforts of supporting players Abbott and Costello to shine as a team in "One Night in the Tropics," except neither Krumholtz nor Goldberg would qualify as "the funny one." Even the title is off - Spencer is a clueless naif who never expresses any view of life that would qualify as "according to." The picture seems intended as a lighthearted romp among friends, but the results are just heavy, predictable, and dull.