Please don't spend money on this.

Excellent but underrated film

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Well, i should try for a spot of Hollywood screenwriter, as this movie is just full of absurdities that it's hard to believe that people believe in it. To put it simply, a clean and young graduate is anxious with his future. So far, it's OK as classic did it before ("the graduate" for example). To bite the life, he hangs up with a free couple during his summer break. Still nothing to blame as this age is indeed for this kind of experience. But, then, crash: the father is Pittsburg's Maffia Don: Why ?? Is it again the problem to be respectable? In all cases, Nolte is a poor godfather and all the clichés are abused. Worst, this triangular friendship evolves not into a threesome but in another homosexuality struck! Even if he "does" Sienna, he finally discovers that he prefers his boyfriend and ready to live as a couple of thugs!!! Well, all this homo silly stories by straight people is like having a debate about feminism with only men: it's just unbelievable. However, Sarsgaard is always good for this misfit character and Sienna is sympathetic with her gentle, soft, smiling spirit. And it was good to come back to Pittsburg and unlike "Flashdance", this time we have a taste of its rural beauty.

I am a big Peter Sarsgaard fan. Ever since The Dying Gaul I have been looking and watching for every film he's in. Kinsey was another tour de force - proving as I suspected that Sarsgaard is the next big male star on the horizon. He's not handsome in the matinée idol way but there's a quality about him that is true star - he lights up the screen when he's on and you just cannot take your eyes off him - and contrary to the beautiful people he has a depth that grabs you and makes you wonder what he's going to do next - he's totally unpredictable - in Mysteries of Pittsburg he shines brightly especially in scenes with Jon Foster who at the moment is starring with Jenna Elfman in the CBS sit-com Accidentally on Purpose which is based on a book by a local journalist here in Northern California. Jon Foster is another fast rising young actor whose future seems bright and the sparks really fly between him and Sarsgaard. Their scenes shake the earth in terms of eroticism, unlike anything I've ever seen on the screen. They're so totally into women - both of them - that when they're into each other - it's not only a shock because it's so unexpected but it really does make one rethink things as I had to do since I've never understood how men can do the nasty - but here it seems perfectly natural, so natural in fact that I really had to think I was ignorant on the subject. The film moves at break-neck speed but the ending is a solid thud - a major disappointment in fact it's so trite and predictable.

For those who find it difficult to appreciate the adaptation format of film making from a famous novel, THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH as now released on DVD should help explain the naysayers' opinions. In a very valuable session of conversations among Michael Chabon and Rawson Marshall Thurber (screenwriter and director) and the producer and cast, the transition of this complex novel into a very altered story is comfortably explained and the person most happy with the result seems to be the originator - Michael Chabon! That being said this film stands well on its own terms. June and July in hot Pittsburgh generate mysteries among a variety of people, especially the young college graduate Art Bechstein (Jon Foster) who while working in a bookstore wastes time with a fling with the supervisor Phlox (Mena Suvari) with disinterested post grad classes dealing with becoming a broker and having monthly dinners with his mobster father Joe Bechstein (Nick Nolte), until he encounters an odd couple: bisexual biker and thief Cleveland (Peter Sarsgaard) and his female consort, the violinist Jane Bellwether (Sienna Miller). The bizarre interactions among these characters drive Art to make many decisions and discoveries - including his falling in love with both Cleveland and Jane. The summer winds down with Art finally discovering his own identity despite the clouds of mystery that have surrounded his life. It is a piece of life as lived by disparate characters whose direction in life seems at odds with the natural flow of finding happiness and success. But then the question is asked - what is happiness and what is success if not survival? For this viewer the explanation by the makers of this film was interesting enough to encourage a repeat watching of the movie. A good movie not a great movie, but it still tastes strongly of Michael Chabon's genius. It deserves more attention than the critics have given it.....Grady Harp

According to the above synopsis, this "indie" pic derived from one of the most vivid and persuasive first novels of the last 25 years or so has changed the main characters essential dilemma, which was not choosing between two girls while the romantically self-destructive Cleveland hovered on the edges before bringing things to a head, but figuring out if his close friendship with Cleveland's gay friend Arthur (Art/Arthur, get it?) was sexual attraction or merely bromance. "Jane Bellwether"! Why not call her "Schwing Bothways" or "Girlgirl Akshun"-- they're much more evocative names. What were Peter Sarsgaard and Mena Suvari thinking?