zkonedog Likely because this country (USA) was founded by religious Puritans, there has always remained a taboo about the topic of sexual relations...often to the point of complete ignorance. This is a movie about a man who tries to combat this often touchy subject the only way he knows how: through strict, hard science & biology."Kinsey", then, tells the story of Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson), a researcher who in the 1940s conducts the largest study of human sexuality up until that point. While initially amazed by the ignorance and misinformation about the topic of sex, Kinsey makes it his sort of quest to give people the information they want/need but "are too embarrassed to ask". But does Kinsey go too far in his pursuit of sexual knowledge and transparency? Battles with wife Clara (Laura Linney) and partners Wardell Pomeroy (Chris O'Donnell) & Clyde Martin (Peter Sarsgaard) certainly portray a man who's quest may have turned into a unhealthy obsession.In terms of themes, "Kinsey" is a fascinating film about a very interesting subject. While perhaps some sexual taboos have been broken since the 1940s, there are still wide swaths of people who view all matters of sexuality as either "private" or "pornography". As such, Kinsey's foibles trying to get his study published in the 1940s probably aren't too off the mark from how a similar study would be received today. Kinsey certainly didn't seem to start out wanting to "pervert the nation", but instead just wanted people to have basic sexual facts/information.Why the relatively paltry six-star rating for such an interesting topic? In all honesty, for a film that was produced in 2004, "Kinsey" has such an "old" look/feel to it. The acting is great, for the most part, but the production value and overall "feel" of the picture just doesn't lend any excitement or forward momentum. I often felt like I was watching a movie from perhaps the 1980s in terms of look/feel. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but I just expected more from a post-2000s film.Thus, I think the bottom line for me was that while the themes of "Kinsey" intrigued me, the presentation came up lacking quite a bit (I also felt that the plots dragged at times and could have been a bit snappier). If you don't mind doing much of the mental work yourself, this will be an entertaining/informational experience for you. "Kinsey" is not, however, a movie where you can just relax and let it do all the work.

juneebuggy This was good- interesting. I thought Liam Neeson was excellent, as was the entire cast (Peter Sarsgaard, Chris O'Donnell, John Lithgow, Oliver Platt, Timothy Hutton) which also includes an Oscar nomination for Laura Linney as Kinsey's freethinking wife.The movie is provocative and intelligent, scientific not sexy and will make you laugh but also squirm at times and wonder how Alfred Kinsey ever managed to get his book "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" published at a time (1948) when sex was generally misunderstood and very taboo. Everyone seemed to be asking "am I normal?".Using the technique of his own famous sex interviews, the movie uncovers the secrets of a nation while recounting the scientist's extraordinary journey from oppressed obscurity to pioneer in the area of human research, to global fame. Kinsey was responsible for the start of the sexual revolution, changed American culture and created a media sensation with his book -before they turned on him. 11/23/14

Prismark10 Kinsey examines the work and methodology of human sexuality by Professor Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson) whose publication took 1940s America by storm and also aroused controversy.The film tries to take a scientific approach to human sexuality and hence tries to take a detached, clinical approach to the story in order to make the subject of sex impersonal. However in doing this they rather made the characters in the film impersonal as well which was probably not the writer/director Bill Condon's intention.The film has an interesting opening but when you see Kinsey as an adult its clear that Neeson is too old to play Kinsey in his 20s and it seems they have given him some helium to make his voice lighter for that part of the film.As a biopic its breezy enough but I felt it was shallow. There is very little we know about the man or his wife after the film ends. One moment we see his kids as teenagers and then they disappear, we see some resolve with his horrible father who unloads a childhood trauma when interviewed by his son and that is it. Its almost film as a fast food serving. One moment Kinsey is the toast of the town, his book is a bestseller and then he is a pariah, losing funding and J Edgar Hoover after him.The film is competently acted although Neeson does well as the older Kinsey rather than the younger version. John Lithgow impresses in the early scenes of the film.

Steve Pulaski Bill Condon's Kinsey - on the basis of its lead performance and simply biographical premise - is a good film, but what makes it better and more memorable is the way it details the generation gap on sex that I presume has been forgotten what with how quickly sex has become so mainstream. Thirty years ago, the primetime lineup on TV was kept rather squeaky clean until nine o'clock, when racier things came on (when I say "racier," I mean maybe you saw a woman in shorter shorts, a man in his boxers, or heard the word "damn"). Just today, I needed another hand to count the use of dirty-talk and mentions of sex, hookers, and drugs on Two and a Half Men on CBS, which comes on at six o'clock, mind you.It is no doubt that the acceptability of a discussion about sex has no longer been the godforsaken taboo it was years ago. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Alfred Kinsey certainly thought it a good thing. An enthusiast of biology and always fascinated by the human body and mind when it came to sexual organs and forms of pleasure, Kinsey devoted his life to researching the concept of sex and informing a public that didn't want to openly talk about it.Liam Neeson embodies the role of such a prodigy and Laura Linney plays Clara (nicknamed "Mac" by her husband) as a couple that was on the quest for answers and embracing sharp criticism. Kinsey's heyday was in the thirties and forties, when most of the general public confined talk of sex to the bedrooms and shivered at the thought that a penis could enter the vagina anywhere but their bedrooms. When Kinsey is giving a lecture to a group of married people in their twenties, thirties, and forties, I am reminded of when my class and I had to attend Robert Crown sessions in early grade school. It was a center where upon arrival the boys and the girls were segregated into different rooms with large projectors and comfortable seats. What would commence is a presentation talking about sexuality and the makeup of the sex in question. Boys got to learn about puberty, erections, sperm, ejaculation, etc all at the tender age of eight and nine. Girls, I'm sure, learned about the menstrual cycle, hormones, puberty with their own gender bias, the makeup of their vagina, etc. I can vision a kid about my age when I attended these sessions, circa 1935, looking down at his penis and thinking, seventy-year-old man staring at modern cell-phone style, "what is this infernal contraption?" Moreover, Kinsey is a special film in the way it details the generation gap of sex at the time. Arguably the best scenes in the film are when Tim Curry's Thurman Rice, a health professor, breeds his students with fear and paranoia by watching a syphilis propaganda video and then providing them with ridiculous sex facts (IE: blacks have a more rabid urge of desire). The film, then, cuts to the Kinsey lecture to the married couples I mentioned earlier and has him talking directly, confidently, and elaborately about the sex organs, their use, and the act of sex itself. The public's shock at uses of words such as "stimulation," "arousal," and "nervous relief" show how closeted their knowledge on sex really is. At one point in the film, a man is afraid to perform oral sex on his wife because of the looming thought it may result in a pregnancy.Kinsey's philosophy is one of the most admirable ones I've seen in the psychological field. The closest person like him today, to my knowledge, is probably Neil DeGrasse Tyson, because both men believe that the lack of knowledge on their specific subjects (Kinsey's sex, Tyson's physics and science itself) will lead to nothing but an ignorant population. There is incredible truth to that. Sheltering children and abruptly promoting abstinence is a questionable way to go about things. However, talking points on such an argument ricochet when the question of "will an informed public lead to a more riskier, shameless one?" If children know more about sex young, will they have it young too? What about teen pregnancies? There's a million questions raised from both sides and it's a debate I don't want to get into at this time. However, I was in a serious contemplation about sex in the media and in the public eye while watching Kinsey. This is the kind of film where the product may be a bit elevated considering the thought that goes into its debate when the credits role. I can say that the film features fine acting from Neeson, who embodies Kinsey on an emotional and sentimental level (especially in the scenes in the third act), along with Linney, who plays the role of a conflicted wife beautifully in the film.Kinsey works as a generational examination and a sociological study of sex simultaneously. One thing it does not work as is a generational critique, which is a very good thing. Writer/director Bill Condon takes a rather unbiased viewpoint to Kinsey's life and legacy, and doesn't make his critics, opposites, or detractors out to be anything but. As a whole, this is a strong piece of work - mature, well acted, and extremely entertaining for a biographical film on the birth of sexological studies. This could be one of the few films that talks about sex in grave detail and is perhaps a bit more entertaining than watching real sex scenes unfold.Starring: Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Peter Sarsgaard, Chris O'Donnell, Timothy Hutton, John Lithgow, Tim Curry, Luke Macfarlane, and Oliver Platt. Directed by: Bill Condon.