Josh Charles is wonderful as a young man obsessed with...traffic? He longs to be a traffic reporter in the sky, but first finds on-again/off-again love with a perplexing Anne Heche (she's so flaky he can't get a grip on her, and neither can we). John Goodman has a funny supporting role, and the production values are first-rate, but this is short-film material stretched out far too long. Terrific cast includes Dey Young, Christine Lahti, and Brent Spiner, but each has very little to do, and the film is flattened out by an overall lack of imagination and by its length. More cleverness was obviously needed; there's not enough substance here for the picture to stay the course. ** from ****
... View MoreNow, that may sound harsh. But hear me out. This is the story of a guy, Josh Charles, who is in love with 2 things: Traffic and Anne Heche. He isn't just in love with traffic, he is obsessed with the "greatest traffic reporter of all time" played by John Goodman. As stupid, and insipid as that sounds...It gets worse. Heche is some type of experimental dancer who captures the main character's heart. How does she do it, you ask? By being an idiot and dancing on top on a bridge railing, then falling into his arms.I saw this "movie" on HBO when HBO stood for "Hey Beastmaster's On." I regret every minute that I waited for this to better. It didn't. What's worse, they showed it constantly for a month. I mean why not, they're practically giving away the cable rights. True story: I was at a famous NYC Video/DVD chain. I came across an entire section of discounted DVD's and Videos. They had over 200 VHS copies of "Pie in the Sky", each with the label "2 for 99 cents." The DVD's were buy 1, get 1 free. No other DVD/VHS was selling for this cheap. I can only hope the idiot that ordered all the copies got fired. Or worse, he was forced to watch them all, one after the other.If you put 10'000 brain broken monkeys in a room with 10'000 broken type writers, they could write a movie that kicks the crap out of this piece of crap. And that's a lot of crap! I mean, no wonder Anne Heche went nuts shortly after this movie. I almost went on a killing spree 15 minutes into this pile of human garbage.The "acting" and "directing" also seem like they could have been better had the responsibility been delegated to one of the smarter mammals on the planet. Maybe a dolphin. Or a really smart seal that could also perform tricks. Now that's entertainment! This movie is like a fraternity prank gone horribly wrong. AVOID THIS FILM LIKE THE PLAGUE!
... View MoreSome have described this as a sort of "When Harry Met Sally" for the West Coast, mainly because the two lovers meet repeatedly over the course of years. In this respect the two are similar but not in any other way.The director's first feature is a reasonable romantic comedy about two "kooks" that fall in love whilst trying to find their respective dreams in live. Josh Charles dreams of being a traffic reporter like his idol John Goodman. Anne Heche dreams of a career in dance. The film follows their love affair from childhood to adulthood in LA.The film tries to make the characters interesting by giving them quirks. Charles' interest in traffic is quite well explained but still seems strangely unlikely. The other characters don't fit their actions at all and aren't developed well - from Heche to Goodman they all seem to be written as "quirky" to be interesting, while their actions are written to move the story along.The story tries to draw the traffic element into some sort of metaphor for life & love but again it doesn't really fit. Even the soundtrack, despite containing good songs, is the usual fare for this type of romantic film.Overall a poorly developed film that never really convinces - from the quirks, the performances and the ending. Only the scenery and the idea of traffic as a metaphor for love is there to hold the interest.
... View MoreI liked this film- I saw it to catch a bit player Larry Holden - but Charles and Heche make this a passable romantic movie. It was just offbeat enough- romance between a sky jockey and a modern dancer to be appealing... and the side bar- the lusty landlady added to the humor... a nice variant to boy loves girl, boy loses girl and then gets her back....
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