leplatypus 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.

jlongstreth-1 I loved the novel Mysteries of Pittsburgh. It took place in familiar surroundings, places I hung out, in a town I loved. It questioned mysteries that I'd questioned myself.It's not certain if the passage of time or the changes wrought in adaptation brought about my dislike for this movie. After all, I first read the book some 25 years ago. But the film lacks so much in comparison with the book. It has none of the humor, none of the introspection, none of the sense of resolution or at least readiness at the end.The acting does not help the situation, especially Sienna Miller, who as Jane, is basically a flat line. Art is nearly a flat line, strangely enough; as the lead he is not supposed to be. Sarsgaard's Cleveland attempts to compensate for the affectless performance of his screen-mates by wildly over-emoting. It's a valiant effort that almost works. And Mena Suvari is just pitiful as a sad stereotype that no woman with a shred of self-respect should ever have to play on screen or stage.I'm sure it doesn't help my assessment that Chabon is one of my favorite writers and Pittsburgh is my beloved home city. But if I were you, I'd give this one a miss. The four stars are for cinematography Nick Nolte, and music, which were decent.

revsolly ...they bothered making this movie? Anyone? I didn't think so.If you are looking for a coming-of-age movie, go rent Summer of '42. This is no Summer of '42.When your big stars are Nolte & Sarsgaard, & Sarsgaard gets more screen time, that is your first warning sign And, of course, for such an "artsy" movie, there is plenty of cursing & skin flung around, just to make it look "artsy".Sarsgaard did his usual uninteresting, cardboard character, punctuated by moments that were supposed to be intense. The intensity is that of someone with bi-polar disorder.Miller is most famous for her looks & what she had to say about the city of Pittsburgh after this movie. Pittsburgh SHOULD hold a grudge against her. She misrepresented an actual Pittsburgh native.Foster gave Sarsgaard a run for his money in the cardboard acting style. Wow! Was this his first role after high school graduation?So, we have this weird triangle. Foster has a crush on Miller, but is with his boss/girlfriend. He can't take Miller to bed, & won't take his boss to bed. So, he hangs with Sarsgaard & Miller, & watches them get it on.Then, after one of Sarsgaard's pseudo-intense moments, Foster & Miller get it on, a scene that we are "treated" to in every sloppy, moaning detail. Finally, just to round it all out, Foster & Sarsgaard get it on, with Foster in the Miller role. Now I know how 2 guys get it on (as if that was ever anything I needed to know).After all that, all that's left is the tragic ending for one character & the retrospective views of the remaining 2. It gets me right in the pit of my stomach. Oh, wait! That was the pepperoni pizza I just had.I'd like back the time this movie took out of my life, please.

sampotter25 I am quite a fan of novelist/screenwriter Michael Chabon. His novel "Wonder Boys" became a fantastic movie by Curtis Hanson. His masterful novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" won the Pulitzer Prize a few years back, and he had a hand in the script of "Spider Man 2", arguably the greatest comic book movie of all time.Director Rawson Marshall Thurber has also directed wonderful comedic pieces, such as the gut-busting "Dodgeball" and the genius short film series "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker". And with a cast including Peter Saarsgard, Sienna Miller, Nick Nolte and Mena Suvari, this seems like a no-brainer.It is. Literally.Jon Foster stars as Art Bechstein, the son of a mobster (Nolte) who recently graduated with a degree in Economics. Jon is in a state of arrested development: he works a minimum wage job at Book Barn, has a vapid relationship with his girlfriend/boss, Phlox (Suvari), which amounts to little more than copious amounts of sex, with no plans other than to chip away at a career for which he has zero passion.One night at a party, an ex-roommate introduces Jon to Jane (Miller), a beautiful, smart violinist. Later that night they go out for pie, and she asks Jon a question that begins to shake him from his catatonic state of existence, "I want you to tell me something that you have never told a single soul. If you do, it will make this night indelible." Jon then tells her a reoccurring dream of his in which he wanders about town looking at the faces of strangers passing him by, yet none of them look him in the eye. "I imagine it must be what death feels like," he says.The next day Jane's wild boyfriend Cleveland (Saarsgard) kidnaps Jon from work and takes him out to a hulking abandoned steel mill, and soon Jon, Cleveland and Jane are spending every waking moment together going to punk rock concerts, doing drugs and drinking lots of alcohol. This doesn't sit well with Phlox, who pushes Jon for a more personal relationship, namely letting her meet his new friends and his father. The film then attempts to take us on Jon's journey as he shakes off the shackles imposed on him by his father, Phlox and his dead-end job as he finds freedom and expression through his relationships with Cleveland and Jane.There is a problem having us follow Jon throughout the film: he's completely uninteresting. He has no ambitions, passions or goals. He walks through life like the invisible wraith he described to Jane the night they met. At the outset this isn't a problem. But he never gets any more interesting. He's a completely passive character. He simply follows along the bohemian Cleveland and Jane, but he never once gives us any inkling as to what he cares about or wants to to do with himself.Consequently, the film and its supporting characters have nowhere to go and little to do other than party, have sex and get in arguments. In other words, much ado about nothing. What we have here is the shallow skin of a good movie without anything on the inside. Sweeping cinematography, ponderous voice-over with characters staring off into the distance, lots of sex scenes both straight and gay, big arguments, more angry sex, a chase scene and a tragic death... but it doesn't seem to matter. Ironically, at one point Jane, confused at a number of Jon's aimless actions, asks him, "What's going on, Jon? What is this all about?" Yes, Jon, do tell. We in the audience are dying to know, too.The title "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" must refer to the characters themselves, because that's what they are. They are all facades, one-dimensional stand-ins for actual people. The film never lets us in. We never know what makes any of them tick. We see them do lots of things, but we don't know why. And the absence of "why" is one of the worst things a movie can have.