Scoats This movie seems to do a great job capturing what was like to live in NOLA pre-K. The John Travolta NOLA movie was similarly as effective. This movie runs along crisply enough but comes to series of dead ends. It presents itself as a mystery but eventually gives up on that. The Internet Chatroom technology is quite unbelievable (too flawlessly fluid for a realistic avatar) but was easily overlooked since the movie was holding my interest otherwise. The various stories are all at least a little interesting and do all intersect in the ending "climax". The ending I guess made sense to the director and/or editor, but left me very unsatisfied. This is a movie that could have used some more work with the script before filming.

Randall Phillip This is a mystery with a charming dose of very low-budget sci-fi added to it about a girl's missing sister, duality, imitation, and the internet. Those looking for an Arnold Shwarzenegger shoot-'em-up will hate this movie because you actually have to pay attention to it and have half a brain. If you do pay attention and do have half a brain, you will be rewarded with a moving experience and be able to enjoy the sites along the way. There are lots of great characters, wonderful scenery, and plenty of wiggle room for going out on a limb. The acting is super. The directing is top-notch. And the story is mighty cool! Thank you Michael Almereyda! Please keep making lots of movies!

talltale-1 HAPPY HERE AND NOW is one strange film. I wish it were on DVD because I very much want to see it again. Encountering it a couple of years back at a festival of the Film Society of Lincoln Center "picks," I was thoroughly mystified even as, moment-by-moment, I enjoyed the movie. The ensemble cast is a really interesting grab-bag of performers (from Karl Geary to Ally Sheedy, Shalom Harlow, David Arquette, even Larry Fessenden), and the writing and direction is by Michael Almereyda, a moviemaker who keeps growing as he matures. What really knocked my socks off, however, is the ending: a phenomenal feat of film editing by Kristina Boden (and, one presumes, Almereyda) that, in a single continuous succession of splices, brings together the entire movie--theme, ideas, feelings, visuals--so beautifully and fully that I found myself in tears. It's the first and only time that film editing has ever had THIS effect on me! Please, someone, bring "Happy Here and Now" to DVD.

Suzie True There is great potential in the premise and some of the characters, but no commitment to an engrossing story. The main character is as flacid as one comes, and it's mostly not the actress's fault. There is no delivery of any coherent message in each of the subplots that is taped together with scotch tape (no offense to 3M), And any direction each story goes in ends up in not only a dead end but a colorless, bland cosmos.Not recommended for even those who go to movies to hallucinate. Unless you need some extra sleep. - A sleeper, in the literal sense.