The Architect

If you're an architect -and I am - this film trots out every negative stereotype you've ever battled in your life and pumps it up to full volume. The architect is the comic villain in this piece: a vain, imperious, pseudo-intellectual, budget-busting, turtleneck wearing wife stealer in the classic Frank Lloyd Wright mode. Of course old FLW also had world-class talent but in my humble opinion he has a lot to answer for with the reputation he saddled generations of future architects with. But I digress. I may have found this film more amusing than most because of the many sly digs at my chosen profession, but it's still a decent comedy.

This had got yo be one of the worst movies of the year. James Frain wasn't funny. He actually turned my stomach he was so bad. Granted, the role he was given was a ridiculously written character but he did absolutely nothing to try to bring the character to life in any way. There was do much more that could have been done with this film. As it stands it was a poor 21st century remake of "The Money Pit" but with no stars with any talent and little future based on this ridiculous farce. Bleck.

An absolutely ironic film, the architect makes you burst into laughter with exquisitely caricatured characters that act a contemporary and very light version of Madame Bovary. This film will not win an Oscar nor will it be in the selection of best films of the decade, but it is always good to spend an afternoon laughing at corny scenes and stereotyped discourses. The architect ironizes the imposture of the current petty bourgeoisie with its appetite for high culture. The musical reference to A homme et une femme de Lelouch is just one of the winks that this gentle comedy gives to French cinema.

Absolutely bugs the @#$% outta me when any movie has obvious problems in this area. This movie is the worst I've ever seen with this issue!

Watch as the robe is removed, and then change of cameras shows her with robe on.

Watch as salads are removed in a huff from dinner and last leaf is attempted to be picked up by fork, but doesn't work so fingers are used...but camera change shows leaf entering mouth via fork!

Sure, most don't care but this is a small thing to fix to make your movies so much better!

Other than that, pretty cool and offbeat movie.

'The Architect' never reaches the level of either drama or comedy as its sit-com story unfolds with the zest of a soggy blueprint. The plot relates how a pair of prosperous married suburbanites try to paper over their differences by commissioning a pretentious avant-garde architect to design their dream house. In the real world, a village idiot would require only a brief minute with this insufferable narcissist before dismissing him as a fraud. Worse yet, the credulous couple are never fleshed out to anything more substantial than cardboard cut-outs, and their dilemmas become increasingly far-fetched as the film proceeds.

It's tough to watch Parker Posey trudging through this humorless sludge when she's created so many idiosyncratic characters from unconventional material. At this point in her career, she seems better suited for the role of a scheming seductress, than that of an artsy airhead housewife in a lame comedy. The biggest mystery of 'The Architect' is how this sputtering slapstick-sophisticated hybrid vehicle ever got green-lighted.