StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Tockinit not horrible nor great

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Michael_Elliott Fired! (2007)** (out of 4)After being fired from a play by Woody Allen, actress Annabelle Gurwitch turned the experience into a stage play as well as this documentary that takes a look at what it's like to be fired. Gurwitch tells her story and we get appearances from other famous people who share their stories of being let go from their jobs. Some of these people include Tim Allen, Andy Dick (shock), Illeana Douglas, Sarah Silverman, Fred Willard, Andy Borowitz, Fisher Stevens, Jeffrey Ross and Richard kind. I think there might have been a good idea somewhere in the story but sadly FIRED! isn't nearly as funny or charming as it thinks it is. I think there are several problems with the biggest one being that the film bounces back and forth between silly, over-the-top comedy and then it tries to take some sort of serious look at being fired. At just 72-minutes the film seems to go on even longer because we get some pretty boring and silly scenes like when Gurwitch is talking to her Rabbi about being fired by Woody Allen and we get another bit where she talks to a grief councilor. Towards the end of the film we start to get more dramatic tellings including the issues in Detroit where thousands of people have lost their jobs to save companies money yet the companies give their CEOs raises. The entire film just feels very uneven and the mix and comedy and drama doesn't work. Plus, it doesn't help that the majority of the time the comedy doesn't work. We basically get celebrities talking about what they did to get fired and while watching most of them I kept asking myself why I should care. Even the main story, Gurwitch getting fired, seems to be a forced issue because if it wasn't Woody Allen who fired her then she really wouldn't have a story or a message. It's because she got fired by a famous person that allowed her to make this. It's too bad she couldn't have interviewed Allen.

groggo Annabelle Gurwitch has a certain amount of sadsack charm, but that's not enough to carry an entire film that is mostly about comedians and other performers who regale us with their ever-so-funny experiences about getting fired.This is a one-trick pony of a film that somehow pretends to have much deeper import -- i.e. 'downsizing in America,' which is a truly devastating problem affecting many millions of people in the U.S. and other Western countries. It's isn't light-hearted hilarity to be driven to the sidelines of society, perhaps never to return.I think Gurwitch means well, but I kept wondering how many of the stories in this film were actual or imagined. Call me cynical (which I am, of course), but performers are trained (and paid) to be 'on,' to pretend they're someone else.There's too much 'padding' in this film. The segments with the truly irritating Andy Dick, as just one example, should have been excised or at least shortened. Somebody, somewhere, once told Dick that he was funny and, alas, he took it seriously. And I've never seen Fred Willard, Jeff Garlin and Harry Shearer so UNfunny. How is that possible?Nice try anyway.

Roland E. Zwick They say that when life hands you a lemon, you make lemonade. Well, that's pretty much what actress/comedienne Annabelle Gurwitch did when she was summarily fired from a Woody Allen play. She turned her experience first into a successful stage show, and then into a feature-length documentary, appropriately entitled "Fired!" Gurwitch uses this film not merely as therapy for herself but as a means of comforting other people who have experienced the same situation. In wildly funny terms, the filmmaker reenacts the euphoric moment when she first heard that she had been hired by the great director, then the personally devastating scene when she was dismissed from the production, and finally the initial dark days of depression immediately following the canning. She then chronicles the proactive steps she took to convert her sour experience into a sweet-tasting personal triumph. After seeking solace and advice from an assortment of friends, therapists and clergy (also reenacted here), she decided to delve into other people's stories about being fired and to use them as material for a stand-up comedy stage show of which she herself was the host. When that turned out to be a hit, Gurwitch decided to make a documentary film about the experience.In the movie, she interviews well-known comic celebrities such as Fred Willard, Anne Meara, Tim Allen, Andy Dick, Illeana Douglas and others on their experiences of losing a job and provides snippets of her stage show as well. She also sets up a booth at a local job fair to hear the firing stories of some of the people there. Towards the end of the movie, Gurwitch launches her own Michael Moore-style investigation into some of the dismissal practices of massive corporations like GM, and interviews people whose job it is to "soften the blow" of firing.With this small but entertaining film, Gurwitch and her comic buddies gently apply the healing balm of laughter to one of the most painful aspects of human life.

netwallah Annabelle Gurwitch's take on getting fired from a play by Woody Allen. It's sort of a satirical documentary, opening with shots of New York in a spirited Allen parody, and then a scene with Gurwitch and an Allen impersonator acting out the firing. To this is added some bits by various comedians about work, getting fired, depression, and surviving getting fired. There are lots of people more or less in the business either performing in a show Gurwitch devised doing riffs on getting fired. Some celebrities are interviewed, or something, and some of them are really quite funny. Gurwitch consults some scary specialists and interviews people she's encountered at open-houses for the recently fired. Toward the end there are some serious points made by economists about the collapse of companies taking thousands of jobs while executives leave with ten million. Disgusting, the man says. The last ten minutes offer a lot to think about, and so Gurwitch manages to sneak social commentary into her movie. And then back to funniness.