I saw the movie "The Puffy Chair" (2005) this evening. What follows is an attempt at a movie review without giving up too much away, while still trying to analyze the piece.
In an effort to stick with a binary opinion system such as the one originally outlined by Siskel and Ebert (I don't buy into this whole 'an apprehensive thumbs down, but if you want to see this movie you'd probably like it' crap), I'd have to say it was worth watching. Thats it, a movie can only be worth watching, or not worth watching. That's my binary system for rating movies. It should also be on the record that a movie not worth watching is also a movie not worth writing about. You won't see too many negative reviews from me.
Fundamentally, this movie examines a relationhip already on the rocks, sent into the pressure cooker that is the cross country road trip. Superficially, the movie could be described as 'a dude buys a chair with certain centimental value on ebay for his father and delivers it while bringing his girlfriend and eventually his brother.'
I don't feel like doing this anymore, so I'll stop trying to think of how a movie should be reviewed and just finish up without any unnecessary big words. See it if you have netflix. You might hate it, but at least it was genuine. The writer/director set out to make a movie that describes a relationship that many of us probably have been in or will probably be in at one time. It was shot entirely on a hand held camera for two reasons (it was all they could afford, and the unsteadyness added a little extra reality to the story), so if you are easily perturbed, take your dramamine about a half hour before watching. The Puffy Chair was unsettling at times, but get through it. There'll be plenty of post film convo.
