I had big expectations for the movie being a fan of all three of the main character actors. But for most of the movie it was just them repeating the same things they had already said. I found myself picking up the newspaper and reading a couple of articles waiting for the movie to go somewhere.. and it never really did. Vote = 1 (awful)
shareYou're a douchebag.
shareI agree.
shareWhy am i a douchebag just because I don't like a movie you like? Or do you just randomly tell that to people? I don't call people names if they don't like the same things as me, it is a bit ridiculous.
shareYou're obviously immature if you call someone a douchebag just because they don't like something you like. I turned it off after 5 minutes. I didn't realize it was just going to be about 3 people in a motel room. Boring.
sharego watch spider-man or something.
shareOK, OK, wait! Let this person to have his/her own opinions!
My experience was totally the opposite. I sort of bump into this movie in the video shop and I thought "Oh, let's rent it"... I ended up watching it three times in a row because I couldn't believe how much I liked the performing and mostly the script. I really admire that, having such a simple structure, the movie (For me) portrays very complex feelings and thoughts. For example, I never thought that a rape could be "discussed". You rape, or you don't. The other person wants to have sex, or doesn't. For me, it was that simple... But since I saw this movie, I always have a space for the doubt. And the end was just gorgeus, incredible.
You should probably stick to "Everybody Loves Raymond".
For the first hour, I couldn't decide whether I liked this movie. The acting was great, and it put me on edge because Hawke really did seem like a douchebag, but the pacing was fairly slow and everything built very slowly. But the last half hour or so really had my attention; I couldn't figure out if "Jon" had raped Uma and she had suppressed the memory, or if he hadn't, or if it was another girl, or if she just liked it really rough. My favorite line was, "but I really liked THOSE drugs!" Lol. I think the movie is more interesting BECAUSE all you have to go on is what the characters say, and human recollection is flawed and incomplete. So it makes the characters much more important than if the plot is simply shown to the audience.
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tape is a waste of tape
shareI thought it was very good
shareBecause it is good. I have no problem with someone having the opinion that they hated the movie, or someone thinking it's a waste of tape, and I wouldn't call someone a name because I didn't agree with him or her. But I deleted it off of TiVo after watching it a few minutes ago. Because it was in high definition, I was concerned about the space it was taking up. Then, I went through the threads here and decided the movie probably deserves a second look. I pushed the button too fast. Guess I'll just have to set it up again to record, so that I can see if I agree with what I have read. One thing I know, though, is that it is a tough kind of movie to make because it is virtually all dialogue. Lots of pages to remember! Anyway, because there are so many words, it definitely needs a little more review and interpretation and digestion by me.
shareI love when IMDB people ride their high horse into battle and blast a guy for not liking something they did. All of a sudden, this poor bloke is a moron and would better spend his time watching Charlie's Angels because this film is just too intellectually vast for him to comprehend. Get over yourselves.
Personally, I'm a huge Linklater fan. I love and own all his films with the exception of the Bad News Bears remake he had little to do with aside from simply being hired to direct a Hollywood movie.
I can certainly understand how this wouldn't be everyone's taste in movies, you have to be able to appreciate conversation films where the dialog, characters, acting, and minute directing details make the movie, but even then, you're certainly entitled to your opinion.
I wouldn't recommend any other Linklater films if you didn't like this one because many of them are simply conversation like Waking Life, Before Sunrise, and Before Sunset. A Scanner Darkly and Dazed & Confused are slightly more plot driven, but even then rely heavily on character interaction and conversation.
Different strokes for different folks I suppose.
I am just replying to jerseydevilwaw's comment of not recommending any other Linklater films if you didn't like this one.
I respectfully disagree. I adore Linklater; I think he is a genius. Though I have certainly not seen every film he has made, those I have seen, including all the ones jerseydevilwaw mentioned, I have watched several times over. I think what makes Linklater so great is that he makes movies that have all these ideas that are presented both intelligently and with humor, without pretentiously slamming his audience over the head with them.
I think Tape is a little different from his other movies. It's definitely well written and well-acted, but its subject matter and the psychological issues it examines do make it difficult to watch. It does not have the same humor that Linklater's other movies have (even A Scanner Darkly, which had me in tears at the end, has many scenes that are truly hilarious). Instead, Tape induces anxiety.
I am not saying this is a bad thing in itself about the movie; I think inducing anxiety is to some extent what Linklater intended. But I am sure someone could easily enjoy Dazed and Confused or School of Rock and probably even his other less mainstream movies as well without having liked Tape, and I would hate for them to write off Linklater just for having disliked this one movie of his.
In fact, I would say that I myself probably didn't enjoy it, in a fully literal sense, but I have yet to fully form an opinion - I have only seen it once. To clarify, I do think it was a good movie, and I am glad I have seen it. But I think I will only watch it once more before deleting it from my dvr. And it may be that I will watch it again only because I know that since it is a Linklater film, there are things that I inevitably missed upon first viewing that I will probably more fully appreciate on the second. Though I like all the actors (and I was curious to see Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke reunited in such completely different roles from the ones they had in Dead Poets Society, when they do play best friends in high school), the main reason I recorded Tape in the first place was because it was directed by Linklater. On the other hand, I own the dvds of Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, and Dazed and Confused, and I doubt I will ever get bored from watching them over and over and over again.
My point, in brief: even if you didn't like this movie, you should still give Linklater a chance. I think Dazed & Confused is a good movie to start out with. It's impossible not to like.
You're right, of course, I didn't mean Linklater's more mainstream films. He didn't write A Scanner Darkly or School of Rock. I was referring specifically to the films he wrote. I'm a huge fan of his and have seen all his films, wrote and/or directed, and what I meant by the films he wrote is that they tend to be mostly dialog with a progressing change in scenery, but like After Sunrise and After Sunset, the films are primarily comprised of a long, drawn-out conversation. A Waking Life is many short conversations. You could be like me and get completely absorbed by that, or, like this gentleman, may be bored by the lack of activity or plot.
I certainly didn't mean Linklater-directed films like A Scanner Darkly or School of Rock which have broader appeal. Thank you, and I stand at least partially corrected. I should have been more specific.
I ask the OP, do you enjoy philosophy?
OMFG HOW DARE YOU, YOU SHOULD STICK TO... UM... GIGLI!!! AAAAND... THAT JUSTIN BIEBER MOVIE! YOU KNOW, THAT ONE WHERE HE MAKES THE GUEST APPEARANCES AND COMMITS CRIMES! AND ALL OTHER TERRIBLE MOVIES!!!!
(Ok, now that I've got the inner IMDb user out of my system, I'll try to write something helpful or whatever)
They said a lot of the same things over and over, but I thought that made the dialogue more realistic. That was an essential part of John's character. He was so full of himself that it took him a long time to admit the truth - thus the repeated insistence that he "didn't do it" or "is incredibly sorry".
I actually have a very short attention span, but now that I think about it, I guess I typically go crazy over these minimalist, dialogue- and character-driven kinds of movies. So I'm probably kind of biased towards this one.
I also think that ALL movies are favorable towards a certain mood, but especially ones like Tape. They take patience and attention. I think that a lot of people's perceptions of movies come from whatever mood they're in when they watch it. Sometimes I just want to see things blow up. If I'd tried to watch this movie one of those times, I might have liked it a lot less. It's like when you see a movie you really really like, and then you watch it soon afterward, and it doesn't seem anywhere near as good... I don't know, maybe that only happens to me.
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