This DVD item from Miramax was reviewed on 19-Oct-2008.
Smart People Reference DVD. Classifications : General Comedy Genres DVD Video Church, Thomas Haden ( C ) Actors & Actresses Custom Stores Specialty Stores DVD Video Parker, Sarah Jessica ( P ) Actors & Actresses Custom Stores Specialty Stores DVD . Click the following link to view the cover of Smart People. Related topics: 2008. General. Comedy. Genres. DVD. Video. ( C ). Actors & Actresses. Custom Stores. Specialty Stores. DVD. requestid: c70a8c2d-1e16-4b60-92d7-87f318c35ec6
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1) DVD DVD Smart People by Miramax. Smart People was a wonderful surprise. Great acting and great writing. Thomas Haden Church is amazing as Chuck, and his relationship with Ellen Page´s character Vanessa is both hilarious and touching--not to mention utterly original. A great change of pace for Dennis Quaid, too. First time I´ve seen a grouchy English professor portrayed so realistically. I liked how this film was both intimate and specific but also universal in its themes. Well done.
A gander at some of the major reviews (New Times, LA Times, and Wall Street Journal) revealed that critics loved it. Where have I been? Why hadn´t I heard much about this? Ellen Page and Thomas Haden Church deserve Oscar noms for this one.¤ 2) DVD DVD Smart People by Miramax. THe movie is pretty good.
Fast delivery and that was the best price I could find.
Definitely worth it!¤ 3) DVD DVD Smart People by Miramax. Version: U.S.A / Region-A
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
MPEG-4 AVC BD-50 / High Profile 4.1
Running time: 1:34:51
Movie size: 24,03 GB
Disc size: 27,92 GB
Average video bit rate: 24.05 Mbps
Number of chapters: 16
LPCM Audio English 6912 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 24-bit / 6912kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48kHz / 192kbps
Subtitles; English SDH / French / Spanish
#Audio commentary
#9 deleted scenes
#Bonus trailers
#Featurette
-The Smartest People
-Not So Smart outtakes¤ 4) DVD DVD Smart People by Miramax. Dennis Quaid plays an English professor so pompous and self-contained that the unpleasant odor of mothballs must emanate off that tweed jacket he wears. Stuck. Stuck in a past when his wife died and he became a widower. Stuck in a career where he allows no growth for himself. Smart people.
His daughter, a pompous and bombastic smart person, is a brainiac headed to Stanford. Her uncle pretty much defines her as a robotic android. The uncle and adopted brother comes into the story early on. A n´e´r-do-well who enjoys muddling through life, he, too, is one of the "smart people." He uses his intelligence to become the an unintentional nudge for change for the daughter.
Then there´s the son, now a student at the same college where his dad doggedly teaches. Dr. Wetherhold most likely uses the same notes prepared the first time he delivered the lecture. Words just billow from him like smoke and not living things to be savored with others--his students. He holds their essays in as much disdain. During the course of the story he positions himself to be named the head of the English department.
The pivotal point of the story is the doctor who treats Lawrence in the emergency room and grounds him from driving for six months (actually in retaliation for a C he assigned one of her essays written ten years earlier when she was his student and originally an English major.)
They go out to eat. After he delivers a 45-minute soliloquy about Victorian literature, she interrupts to tell him what a stuffed windbag he is and leaves.
All these people live in a grim reality of unrequited happiness, acceptance of the status quo, and inertia to change anything. Little by little, life intercedes. There´s a miracle that changes everything.
"Smart People" is about smart people, but not as a positive attribute. To take pride in being smart and not extending beyond oneself is the height of selfishness. Some thinkers would say this is good, but the characters in this story don´t even know they are lost in a maze of the thick muck of conceit and the supercilious. However, when two smart people collide and a tiny spark flickers, anything can happen.
¤ 5) DVD DVD Smart People by Miramax. A lot of talent and dennis quaid made a movie. And, its okay. Its not bad. Its not great. Its good, no serious holes or terrible plot, just a movie.¤ 6) DVD DVD Smart People by Miramax. Driven by a clever script and fine performances, SMART PEOPLE is set in the land of academia, a place where both Lawrence and Vanessa have taken refuge and plunged themselves into as escape from the external world. In spite of their high IQs, both father and daughter are equally clueless when it comes to navigating relationships. This becomes obvious as Vanessa develops a line-blurring relationship with her uncle, and Lawrence stumbles in romancing his doctor. If Vanessa wants a shot at happiness and Lawrence wants to make things work in his love life, both will have to adopt new attitudes or risk further alienation. Starring Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ellen Page, and Thomas Hayden Church.¤ 7) DVD DVD Smart People by Miramax. Much in the manner of Curtis Hanson’s Wonder Boys, the very funny and bracingly intelligent Smart People concerns a college instructor meandering through life until unexpected developments force a cascade of personal changes. Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid), a recently widowed literature professor, is a numb and chilly intellectual who rebuffs his students, ignores his all-but-emancipated teen kids (Ashton Holmes and Juno’s Ellen Page), and spurns cries for financial assistance from his ne´er-do-well but rather soulful adopted brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church). After an accident lands Lawrence in the hospital and deprives him of the right to drive, someone else falls into his bleak sphere: Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker), a physician and former student of Lawrence who remembers her disappointment in him as a teacher and role model. Against all logic, Janet and Lawrence become a romantic item, a choice for which neither of them is entirely prepared. Meanwhile, Chuck and Vanessa (Page) enter an awkward phase in their relationship as niece and uncle, just another sign that the Wetherhold clan has become too insular and self-referential. Screenwriter Mark Poirier´s inspired and literate story sets up lots of chaos, attitude, and cross-conflict, then hangs back and lets the characters verbally spar, much to our great amusement. What´s happening, however, are deep changes in relationships and destinies that Lawrence and the others naturally resist, until they can´t. Director Noam Murro knows one of his most important contributions to the film is to stay out of the characters´ way and provide Poirier´s barbed humor a supportive setting. Quaid is outstanding as the pivotal figure in this tale, a man who looks creaky and washed up beyond his years, but who is not entirely past redemption. --Tom Keogh¤ Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 16-Nov-2008, 786936755916, LAB-TQB-PKB-5KB-90B-ZOB-JIB-K2B-HAB-Q4B-NYB-Z4B-IIB-1YB-8 
Smart People, DVD, Image © Miramax
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