Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Palaest recommended

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

jadavix This is an interesting film about a teenage girl whose "nomadic family" is constantly moving around to different motels so that the kids can attend better schools. Watching it for the first time, I got the impression the kids didn't go to school at all; that they were on the run or something. The lack of budget shows in this way: there are no scenes set in a school, just motels and restaurants. The kids may not in fact be stuck in these locations all the time, but the movie makes it seem that they are.The performances, however, are fantastic, and make you wonder why Natasha Lyonne didn't have a bigger career. She is lovable and fantastic and makes you realise Lyonne deserved more than being known as the other girl from American Pie. Tomei is also great, as always, as the free spirited older cousin.I could've done without the embarrassing schlub older brother and the bratty younger one. Broad archetypes only there to show how embarrassing Lyonne's family is.I also did not understand a certain decision she made in regard to another male toward the end of the movie (Kevin Corrigan, as the love interest, is a refreshingly three dimensional character when love interests are usually just clichés in movies like this). Lyonne chooses to accept her nomadic family. Good for her I... guess?

Robert J. Maxwell Rich old Carl Reiner asks his poor widowed brother, old Alan Arkin, and his son and daughter to move into a house in Beverley Hills. The daughter, whose biography this more or less is, is the blond and somewhat goofy looking Natasha Lyonne. The deal is that rich Reiner will pay the bills, but poor Arkin's family will have the responsibility of seeing to it that rich Reiner's daughter, Marisa Tomei, who is fresh out of rehab begins nursing school.That's the set up. Poor but happy Arkin and family must care for screwed up Tomei, at Reiner's expense, in a Beverley Hills apartment in the mid-1970s.It's colorful, amusing, racy, sometimes touching, and constitutes a series of sketches with only a fragile framework to hold them together.But mostly it succeeds in what it's trying to do -- provide the audience with a diverting and unchallenging hour and a half. It's like watching one long Jewish joke about family rivalries and the pretensions of the rich.The performances help immeasurably because they're all so fine. I mean everyone, with the possible exception of two or three young boys who don't have much to do except act dumb. Natasha Lyonne is the central figure, not quite cute but nubile, and her expression is generally one of resigned disbelief. Nobody has ever been a better, more bourgeois straight man than Alan Arkin as her Dad. Jessica Walters as a wealthy widow who might consider marrying Arkin as a "companion" -- that is, chauffeur and major domo, is excellent in a supporting role. Even Rita Moreno, as rich Reiner's girl friend, has that toothy, disdainful Patrician smile down pat.Marisa Tomei does nearly perfectly by the role of the rambunctious, pregnant, ex doper. And she has a splendid figure and brandishes it with brio. (Whew.) But not to worry. Despite the jokes about tampons and menstruation and vibrators and "getting your cherry popped", there is only brief nudity, and body doubles are used -- lamentably.I figured it was the usual teen-aged nonsense about how hard it is to grow up -- the pain, the agony, the ontological Angst, nobody understands me -- but it's rather better than that. It has the charm of an old fairy tale.

noralee The cast and vignettes in "Slums of Beverly Hills" are better than the totality. Natasha Lyonne is particularly good, switching from dead pan comedy to poignant and she is warm chemistry with Alan Arkin as her dad.The ending trailed off. As a person behind me pointed out, if they're staying in Beverly Hills for the school district, how come they're never in school?If you're collecting coming of age movies (or Kevin Corrigan movies) it's worth seeing, like "Manny and Lo," another, better indie movie about virtually parentless teens and how they cope.(originally written 9/12/1998)

noizyme Natasha Lyonne stars as a teenage girl growing up in various slums in Beverley Hills, but her family cannot necessarily afford to live in them. After moving around for most of her life, her family's finally found a place to call home with help from her uncle's money. The catch is that they have to watch after their troubled daughter (Marisa Tomei) and make sure that she makes a transition from drugs to a career worthy of their name.That's not spoiling so much, I don't think, because the movie has much more depth than that. This very original drama/comedy features a great, universal struggle of living without proper means and making life work. It's a coming-of-age film for Lyonne's character who sees the beginnings of her womanhood, struggles of relationships, and maintaining her family's name and reputation through whatever means possible.It's really touching how the Abromowitzes handle themselves and make each others' experiences memorable. The aging father (Alan Arkin) is truly memorable in this film for his struggles in finding out an end to poverty and loneliness without his wife. A great film altogether, not very long (only about 1 hr. 30 min), and easy to watch all the way through. Definitely a buy on DVD (even if the special features aren't all that special). I gave it an 8/10.