Good concept, poorly executed.

Absolutely brilliant

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Everything is such a generic cliché - a never-do well embarrassing father, a jerk of an older brother, a brat of a little one, a girl who is ashamed of her growing breasts, a junkie of a cousin, blah blah, everyone is so stupid and does such stupid things it hurts, a generic cliché story, distilled by bad and an occasional good joke. Jaw-breakingly while yawning boring.

This semi-autobiographical story follows a lower-middle-class teenager (Natasha Lyonne) and her neurotic family in 1976 Tinseltown.I love that this had Alan Arkin, a small role for Mena Suvari and a key starring role for Marisa Tomei. They nailed the 1970s, at least what I picture the 1970s to be. Not sure this is a lost classic. Some are calling it a cult classic, but I was not quite impressed enough to recommend it to others.Roger Ebert wrote, "Lyonne has the film's most important role, and is the key to the comedy. She does a good job of looking incredulous, and there's a lot in her life to be incredulous about. She also has a nice pragmatic approach to sexuality, as in a scene where she consults a plastic surgeon about on-the-spot breast reduction." Ebert was more impressed than I was, granting the film three stars.

Well, I didn't have a clue what this movie was about. Someone said I would like it, so I gave it a try. The opening scene is the Natasha Lyonne character getting fitted for a bra. I thought, huh. What on earth? A whole movie about getting breasts? And in some ways, it is. But, it's so much more than that.(And for the fellas, you do get to see both Marissa Tomei and Natasha Lyonne topless.) It's a story about a family where the mother is the one who left and the kids are actually staying with the father. In the case, the father doesn't necessarily seem all that equipped to handle them. They are an adult and three kids living in one room apartments and moving overnight before they can get kicked out. But, if you stick with the story, you'll start to see that maybe he's not such an inappropriate father, as he is just a human. Marissa Tomei is fantastic as the black sheep of the family.

i'm not quite sure exactly why i like this film but as the credits rolled i was smiling nonetheless. the orange/brown/pea-soup green 70's setting of it was one of the things i found authentic and quirky about it. the whole texture of the movies seems saturated by that awful color scheme, as though the whole world is being invaded and lorded over by kitsch. another more base reason is the infinitely watchable natasha lyonne as the blossomed teenager coping with an increasingly unstable world. first her family life and now even her body seem to follow wild and unpredictable spurts. she is obviously quite attractive and i would say the best actor/actress to come out of the American pie bunch and thus not surprisingly the most overlooked. the characters all seem believable to the point that one has to understand that some biographical elements are playing heavily into the story. that said brings to mind the old adage that truth is often stranger than fiction, and in this case it also is more entertaining.7 out of 10