Spivak

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Lindsey B Such an undiscovered gem. Weird jokes, empathetic characters, great score. Anyone have any recommendations for other movies like this? Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 08/18/23 Full Review bill p Pretty standard rom com with a couple of twists. Sad sack guy meets airhead and chuckles ensue, sort of. Not a great version but certainly watchable. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member A very charming out of the box comedy hidden in the reeds on Netflix. Wonderful performances by an ensemble of actors who all seemed to be in on the joke. Humorous and with an acute sense of melancholy. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Audience Member Spivak is a poor idea of a lead character. Not lovable or likable. The timing in the dialogue felt stiff. I script was very weak. For a comedy, I didn't laugh once. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member Searching thru Netflix can sometimes be a fool's errand but after seeing the trailer for this film, I decided to give it a try. It ended up being a real winner. More of a fable than a realistic portrayal of modern day life, Spivak follows a down on his luck writer whose life is turned upside down when he takes a trip to Vegas (against his will). Meeting a couple soon to be married from the westside of Los Angeles, Wally Spivak becomes an antidote to all their problems, but also brilliantly in the process, the couple is also able to expand Wally's worldview and lift him out of the hole he has dug for himself. All the performances hit the tone perfectly, especially Michael Bacall in the lead role. He emanates the self loathing of many creative types I know. He sees the couple from the westside as beneath him until he is able to open his mind and find the humanity which we all share. What's more, this is all done with sly and subtle wit. See, I guess the old adage is true that if you look hard enough on Netflix, you will find. A high recommendation. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/09/23 Full Review susan j I couldn't stand Wally--the main character. I couldn't stand Wally's friends. I couldn't stand even one other person in the film. The premise was not only just silly--but stupid stupid stupid. Supposed to be whimsical but nauseatingly lame. My guess is SPIVAK was written by someone who is considered (and I don't usually say things like this) by most people to be a loser, but who somehow believes that he is not actually a depressed laconic grubby-looking sallow jaunticed unattractive misshapen awkward unappealing miserable troll-like boiled frog but rather is simply branded a loser by others--who are clearly unintelligent superficial people--and who believes it is just a matter of time before Laker Girls and absolutely magnificently gorgeous women will discover they are captivated by him. Otherwise, how could anyone have slugged out such an at once preposterous and also dull tale about lugubrious milquetoast Wally Spivak? Part of the screenwriters/directors delusion further carries on that athletic confident gorgeous country club golf pros would find their hideous character Wally extraordinary company---start-struck-impressed that this grotesque withdrawn bummer of a nebbish is a (gasp!) writer. If this were all supposed to be a fantasy of Wally's I could understand it--but SPIVAK is passed off as supposedly plausible. Movies like this are grossly insulting--e.g., we viewers are supposed to swallow that 4 spectacular Laker Girls would spend their night off sitting on a filthy sofa in a rank, dirty, chaotic poor-people apartment twiddling their thumbs with Wally's homely unendearing misfit friends. And instead of his hooking up with the Laker Girl "assigned" to him by the Ken & Barbie couple, the chronically downcast self-pitying Wally chooses to slump in a Skid Row bar with head on his arms, with people passed out all over the fetid floor, before he ends up puking and puking in his toilet. However, lest we forget, he is so appealing not only to the Laker Girl who insists on sleeping with him even when he was so wasted and vomity he was blacked out but ALSO to a distinguished gay man who thought he was a hooker and picked him up in a park. Wally sulks, mopes, goes off by himself when the attractive fun people (who for some reason repeatedly put out Herculian effort to cheer him up and be his friend) take him on an adventure for the day and he absolutely RUINS the entire day--but all these beautiful loving people ADORE him and aren't even annoyed--and in fact not only does the Laker Girl continuously lust after him but the staggeringly beautiful blonde can't keep her hands off him because she thinks he is the most unique and amazing human being she's ever known, despite her being engaged to the golf pro. Wally rants. Wally raves. Wally screws his ugly face into contortions. Breaks his own furniture. Throws his computer out the window. And his friends just love him all the more. I have a high tolerance for quirky indy films but this is not that. It is a pile of narcissistic steaming poo. Wally bitches and moans and feels shamefully sorry for himself for being a horrible unpublished author who no one cares about. And WHY in a film made in 2018 do people have phones from 2008, and email clients on tiny laptops that announce "You've Got Mail"? There's no doubt the character Wally's work didn't get published because his writing sucked. But that doesn't explain.....how on god's green earth did this film ever get funded? (Someone must have wealthy parents.) Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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