The Best and the Brightest

I went to this preview because I thought the premise had a lot of promise; my good friends living in New York are living testimonials to the absurdity of getting into preschool. A couple from Delaware move to Manhattan, with the assumption that they will actually get their five year old into a school. Not so fast. To make this happen, a charade is constructed, and soon it takes off on a mind of its own. This movie did a great job,and was hysterical. It had a great pace, and great characters. Many of the concepts (like sexting as high art poetry) were brilliant. I hope this film takes off, because it is an original , and thoroughly enjoyable story.

I shut it off after 31 minutes. I decided to register and logon at minute 13. It is unbearable. The characters are straight out of sitcoms. There is no more loathsome character than whoever Amy Sedaris is trying to be. Every headmistress of the schools is the dimmest cow each one dimmer and more awful than the last. I really can't tell you more than that because it is so awful. We get it, really we do. Getting your snowflake into a private Manhattan kindergarten is harder than winning every Nobel prize a Pulitzer an Oscar and a MacArthur genius grant on the same say while giving birth to the Messiah and successfully operating the world's biggest hedge fund.

I saw The Best and the Brightest last night.

The movie is very funny, almost non stop laughs through the whole thing. The cast did a great job, and the writing is wonderful. I will have to see it again, because I missed much of the dialog because I was laughing so loud.

This is the type of movie one would go to because it takes you away from reality. I am sure some where it is someones reality, but I believe not many of us have gone through what Sam and Jeff had to go through.

Unfortunately, I had to leave at the beginning of the Q&A in Los Angeles, so I was not able to let the Kate Mulgrew, Bonnie Sommerville, Josh Shelov,Michael Jaeger, and the others, what a fun , and funny film they have made.

I do hope it is released soon, because it is a must see for my friends.

Sometimes it is enough to be clever rather than actually be talented in something. Sometimes you just do anything to get what you want. And that is what this couple is all about. The actors make this more fun than it actually has a right to be. Too many clichés, choices to interrupt conversations that do not make any sense (other than "being funny" and interruptive) and other stuff like that.

The characters are simple and the setting is too. You'll see where this is going from very early on. Some nice jokes aside this might bore some people, if they are not convinced by the actors as well. Decent try, but needed work on script level.

I saw this movie at a sneak preview screening in New York in March and I have to say that it's one of the funniest, most original comedies I've seen in a long time. It's not just a stupid-humor movie like the Farrelly Brothers and it's not a fancy highbrow comedy that only certain people will get either.

It seems to be about a couple trying to get their daughter into kindergarten, but that's just the setup - their attempts to do so start spinning more and more out of control and it becomes this crazy, fun R-rated farce. The director was at a talkback after the screening and he said he was trying to make a movie in the style of "Tootsie" and "A Fish Called Wanda," and I think he succeeded.

Neil Patrick Harris is perfect as the straight man, and Bonnie Somerville is adorable as his wife, but it's the off-the-wall characters around them who really steal the show: Amy Sedaris as the consultant they hire, Jenna Stern as the school's headmistress, Christopher McDonald as a Bill Clinton-type, known only as "The Player," Kate Mulgrew as his wife, John Hodgman as a nerdy and hilarious school board member, and British comedian Peter Serafinowicz as NPH's character's oversexed best friend.

There are two particularly hysterical sequences in the movie that I won't spoil, but totally brought the house down at my screening - a book club scene, where all of the above characters have to read some R-rated "poetry" and discuss it like they're in class, and a fundraiser/party scene where NPH's character is put on the spot and has to try to deliver his "poetry" live.

Find a way to see this movie. You won't be sorry.