The Weather Man (2005)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Gore Verbinski

Writer (WGA):

Steve Conrad (written by)

Release Date:

28 October 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

In life, accuracy counts.

Plot:

A Chicago weather man, separated from his wife and children, debates whether professional and personal success are mutually exclusive.

Plot Keywords:

Weatherman | Funeral | Ephebophilia | Incest Overtones | Television

Cast

Nicolas Cage	...	David Spritz
Michael Caine	...	Robert Spritzel
Hope Davis	...	Noreen
Gemmenne de la Peña	...	Shelly (as Gemmenne De La Peña)
Nicholas Hoult	...	Mike
Michael Rispoli	...	Russ
Gil Bellows	...	Don
Judith McConnell	...	Lauren
Chris Marrs	...	DMV Guy
Dina Facklis	...	Andrea
DeAnna N.J. Brooks	...	Clerk (as Deanna NJ Brooks)
Sia A. Moody	...	Nurse (as Sia Moody)
Guy Van Swearingen	...	Nipper Guy
Alejandro Pina	...	Fast Food Employee
Jackson Bubala	...	Fast Food Child

MPAA:

Rated R for strong language and sexual content.

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

USA | Germany

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Canada:14A (British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario) | UK:15 | Netherlands:MG6 | Germany:6 | Australia:MA | Ireland:16 | Brazil:14 | Finland:K-15 | Sweden:7 | Singapore:M18 | Argentina:13 | Hungary:16 | Spain:18 | Canada:18A (Alberta) | Iceland:12 | Norway:11 | New Zealand:R16 | Malaysia:U (DVD) | South Korea:15 | Canada:13+ (Québec) | Denmark:15 | France:U | USA:R (certificate #41144)

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

Tom Skilling, WGN and Chicago Tribune Chief Meteorologist, is a technical advisor and makes a cameo appearance as the TV station floor director.

Goofs:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: If you freeze the scene immediately after Spritz deletes his book Breaking Point, you can see there is still a Word file on his desktop labeled Breaking Point, so he didn't actually completely delete it. However, when a file is deleted by one application, such as Word, other applications, such as Windows Explorer (what displays the desktop icons,) don't update instantly. Sometime it can take several seconds for the changes to be reflected in other programs. Also, the icon on the desktop could be a shortcut to the actual file in My Documents, in which case the icon will not disappear automatically. It would have to be deleted separately.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Dave Spritz: That was refreshing. I'm refreshed. I'm refreshing.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Pulp Fiction Art: Cheap Thrills & Painted Nightmares (2005)

Soundtrack:

Transitions

Excellent Social Commentary

This movie was a great piece of social commentary on the emptiness of our current American culture. Being the weatherman appears to be a great job. It pays almost $300 Grand a year, and you can afford a nice apartment and a mansion for your beautiful blonde ex-wife and your two estranged children.

A job as a weatherman, without a meteorological degree entails absolutely no challenges. You become lazy and bored, because you think you have everything. After all, isn't the entire purpose of life to make money, drive nice cars, and wear nice clothes, and eat out every night of the week? You are able to spoil your children, hence never teaching them the value of challenging themselves and depriving them of ever working toward a goal and feeling satisfied.

This is what we think living is today in this country! We have no depth! We have toxic vocabulary, eat useless toxic food, we watch useless toxic entertainment, and we have completely useless jobs that create nothing. We wonder why our children have no idea what to do with themselves? Wealthy Americans, which most of us are by the standards of the world, have no skills, no integrity, and no character. The only things our children grow up knowing for sure, are what a Frosty is, and a Big Gulp. The gap between this generation and their grandparents is vast. Our elders worked hard at jobs which created the foundation of wealth and substance that we erode every day with our irresponsible selfish consumerist conduct. Mr. Spritz has no idea what a Big Gulp is, but he's dying of the cancer that eats this country.

The Weatherman (Nicholas Cage) has a better time with himself, and everyone else as soon as he figures this out. Hilariously, he had to actually get hit in the head with a Big Gulp. We need to focus on the things that matter, take responsibility for our children, and ourselves. The one thing that I think was off in the movie was the line about how being an adult does not include the word easy. The big secret to life, is that when we do things the correct way, often the hard way, life actually gets easier, for everyone.

I went to the theater expecting the usual vacuous Hollywood bomb. I was blown away with the power of this movie. On the way out, we asked a young man that was working the theater what he thought. He said that he thought The Weatherman was incredibly dark and very far fetched. I agree, our culture is dark and far fetched. The movie, however, was dead on. Our current life is a bubble about to burst. This movie offered a solution - find some meaning in your life and get after it. Pretending this vacuum doesn't exist, and that Jessica and Ashley Simpson are talented individuals worth our time and interest, is incredibly bleak to me. On the other hand, I was pretty sure this young man had no idea the scale of these problems. How could he, when he has never experienced anything else.