recommended

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Wow. Started watching this one time with no expectations. Was delightfully entertained. Written by Frank Capra with some of the Its a Wonderful Life cast. The surprise is that the villain from "Life" is the beloved inspirational character in this one. Positively zany throughout but with a message. Especially liked Donald Meek as Poppins who liked to "invent things". Makes a definitely statement against the "rat race".

Here's the thing about eccentrics: They're not the best people to look to for a coherent ideology.So it is with the Vanderhoffs and Sycamores, a clan of crazy, loving, and lovable people who have decided to exit the rat race and follow their wandering muses... and boy, do they wander! Grandpa spends his days playing his harmonica and attending the graduation ceremonies of people he doesn't know. His daughter, Penny, decided to become the next George Bernard Shaw after someone dropped a typewriter at the home by mistake. Granddaughter Essie dances very, very badly, and her sister Alice, rebelling against her family of rebels, decides to become a banker's secretary (she still finds time to slide down banisters, though). Grandpa, it should be known, hasn't paid his taxes, well, ever, and his defense of this fact to the rather dunderheaded IRS agent who comes a'calling has been lauded by Tea Party types and abhorred by modern- day liberals as a polemic in favor of bathtub-sized government. Yet it should be noted that another resident of the house is on government relief and Grandpa seems totally fine with that. He may have thought through his rejection of soulless corporate America, but that doesn't mean he's right or consistent about everything. SPOILER AHEADWhat's more, for all his praise of the virtues of friendship over money, he actually betrays his friends pretty epically when he agrees to sell the house to a company trying to take over his neighborhood. While he does this in order to move closer to Alice, it nearly gets all his neighbors evicted. Not very friendly, right?END SPOILERDoes all this mean that Grandpa is a bad person? No. Is he a questionable role model? Yes, and Frank Capra's attempt to make him a populist hero doesn't quite work. But you should watch and enjoy the hell out of You Can't Take It With You--it's touching, hilarious, and does contain genuine insights on how to live a good life. But don't go to it for a ready- to-serve political belief system. Go for the wish fulfillment: the chance to imagine doing exactly what you want with your life without fear of failure or poverty. I've got a good idea about what I'd do (drawing, acting, college classes on film appreciation, etc.), and I suspect you do too.

One of the most understated Best Picture winners, taking a modest Picture and Director pair, which was Frank Capra's third. It's generally considered that the award didn't mean much until the following year with Gone With The Wind, with It Happened One Night as an exception example. Capra was the president of the Academy and all. Nevertheless, You Can't Take It With You is a solid film, one that doesn't get great until the second half. It's bogged down by its stage obligations. The first forty minutes are incredibly unfocused, following plot threads that have no intention of going anywhere and its contrived eccentric family stick out like a sore thumb. Naturally, nothing about it is organic. But it owns its classical themes of greed and generational pressures like it doesn't exist in any other film. However, its best moment was later topped in the exact same way in It's A Wonderful Life's climax, which explains how it didn't have a shot at a Picture win. It's sentimental, with no sense of what makes for good visuals, but it's likable. That's Capra for you.7/10

A young banker falls for an attractive secretary, who lives in the kooky, eccentric family of Grandpa Sycamore. When the banker's parents meets this family, not only are they surprised of how crazy their personalities are, but of the way they want to live their lives. And that's what succeeds the most about You Can't Take it With You. It's a classic screwball comedy, but its heartwarming message sums up the overall film as a whole, that while we may have untold riches and wealth, without the love of friends and happiness, you're a complete and utter failure. Lionel Barrymore gives likely one of cinema's most profound characters to grace Hollywood cinema, as his speeches about laid-back happiness and eternal optimism are so true, even in today's faster-paced society. There's also great performances from Jean Arthur and Jimmy Stewart, and like the message, the comedy is flawless.