Waste of time

Thanks for the memories!

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Jeff Nichols is fast turning out to be quite the find and Take shelter is yet another notch up his credit. Great independent film featuring a great premise and fantastic acting.

This movie fails. Utterly and completely. Even those reviews that praise the movie concede it is "slow" and "challenging." They are right. This movie is so slow, but you keep watching it because you keep waiting for an answer to the key question, "Is the main character crazy or prophetic?" In the end, you will feel cheated.120 minutes of the movie lead you down the path of believing the main character is crazy. These are the key events of the first two hours of this movie: the main character's life unravels piece-by-piece until he is broke, he has no job, his child's needed surgery cannot occur, his best friend hates him, and his wife is contemplating leaving him. Meanwhile, his family and friends try in vain to help. If this kind of human misery and suffering is something you enjoy watching, have at it, but also know it's been done a lot better a lot of times.The ultimate betrayal in this movie is that the only thing that keeps you watching is finding the answer to the question of whether the main character's dreams are insane delusions or a premonition. If he was crazy, the movie could have ended with the main character repairing his life and getting the help he needs, but then within the last 30 seconds of the film, the script reveals he was actually right all along, but then just ends. Wha-wha-what? If the story takes the premonition route, it has some obligation to explain what exactly this premonition is of? Why he is the only one seeing it? Does he and his family survive? Why premonitions of the storm include such silly things as furniture floating? A decent script would have paid the viewers some amount of respect and attempted to tell the viewers SOMETHING. No. The moment we learn that he actually did predict a storm, the screen goes black. No questions are answered. No story is told. And if I see one more review telling me how beautiful this movie has been shot, I may just have to pour lemon juice into my eyes. Yes, the movie looked good, but how does that make up for a missing plot? Or glacial pacing? It doesn't.I did not plan on writing this review. I wanted to go to bed after this 121-minute waste of time ended, but the final scene (i.e., revealing snippet of long-awaited answer and then goes black) made me so viscerally angry that I had to say something.

This is my personal interpretation. I know I am flying high, but this what I felt at the end of the movie.There is a father being afraid of a coming storm (economy recession?) and not being able to protect his own family. A big storm where rain is like oil: well oil is the disaster of the American economy since 60 years (oil wars/terrorism).In the past year there has a growing number of American people who get more and more conscious of the coming recession of the American economy and the consequent insecurity of the American style of life. The first ones to be "under attack" era the working class. Check how many things this family is going through: losing job, losing welfare... I don't really focus on what is real and what is fake in a movie: a movie is a story telling.

I just finished watching "Take Shelter".....and I agree it was a sleeper hit of 2011. I rented it from our local library......and actually I almost didn't. I'm very glad I did. The movie deals with a hard working husband/father....who starts being effected by mental problems. For me.....this was a direct connection....cause I suffer with depression and anxiety....so when he was going through certain episodes......I was shaking my head.....yep....been there. Michael Shannon plays Curtis....and hits the nail squarely on the head...thinking he's dreaming of signs of a bad storm coming. He sets out to building a heavy duty storm shelter....which causes stress with his wife (played by Jessica Chastain) and special needs daughter whose deaf (played by Tova Stewart). I would have definitely nominated Michael Shannon for an Academy Award for his portrayal of this hurting stressed out character. I would have bet on him winning also. I won't tell anymore about this film......but it's a must see. Find it.....rent it......and watch it. Stick with it cause it's truly an AWESOME film!!!!!!!