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Losing Control

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Losing Control (2012)

March. 23,2012
|
4.2
|
R
| Comedy Romance
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A smart and original, quirky comedy about a female scientist who wants proof that her boyfriend is "the one."

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Incannerax
2012/03/23

What a waste of my time!!!

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Breakinger
2012/03/24

A Brilliant Conflict

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StyleSk8r
2012/03/25

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

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PiraBit
2012/03/26

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

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anonreview2
2012/03/27

This is supposed to be a romantic comedy about a female scientist who wants proof that her boyfriend is "the one".Alas, this movie is full of every stereotype there is... and the portraits of scientific culture are implausible too.To start with the heroine: she's shown as having a complete "life plan" written out on an oversized piece of paper, from age 6 up to her 30s. Her boyfriend seems quite nice, her purported reasons for dumping him to "play the field" make little sense.As to her academic life, it's about as plausible as a Wiley E. Coyote cartoon: the description of her research project is very silly, she treats an important academic presentation like a school bake sale, her presentation to (supposedly) other scientific colleagues is at the elementary-school level, and her adviser seems to think that if a biotech experiment doesn't work, "scaling it up" is the magic ingredient for improvement.Oh, and the dialog is really boring, too.My husband and I gave up on this after about 15 minutes. For once, we agree completely on the rating: 1/10.

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mflynch49
2012/03/28

Knew nothing about this movie but was enticed into the theater by the offer of a Q&A with the writer/director after the movie. Wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Strong, smart female lead (when was the last time you saw a female scientist doing real science not dressed in a wet T-shirt or other inappropriate garb?) with a strong, sensitive, supportive male who is not a wimp, jerk or axe-murderer. This managed to be romantic and funny, in a real-life way, not slap-stick. There is the usual dynamic tension in relationships, with an undercurrent of something sinister going on too. The reveal is satisfying and doesn't overpower the story. I love little surprise movies like this-no hype, no big studio promoting their $250 million dud, no big star hawking it on late-night talk shows. This is a heart-felt, true-to-life-experience story that is fun to watch and talk about long after the lights come back on. Reid Scott is a young George Clooney-he has the looks and can act. If this comes to a theater near you, run to see it.

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The_Film_Cricket
2012/03/29

'Losing Control' is one of those worn-out, cutesy-poo romantic comedies that comes off the assembly line of television sitcoms. It doesn't generate realistic characters, natural dialogue nor believable subject matter. It becomes so desperate for laughs that it provides its heroine with the task of going into a singles bar to find a man for the night while wearing a stupid-looking hat. The hat, I'll get to in a moment.The heroine is a neurotic research scientist named Samantha (Miranda Kent) who is about to graduate from college but only needs to finish her work on a formula called "Y-Kill" which will kill the Y chromosomes in sperm. The theory is that doing this will prevent the transfer of diseases like muscular dystrophy in parents that contain that gene. Not long ago, she got the formula right but can't seem to duplicate it. The movie never really gets to the holes in her formula which is that killing the Y chromosome would produce only little girls. What about parents wanting a little boy? Tough luck, I suppose The movie alas, never gets to the theoretical nuts and bolts of her experiments. Instead it a lot of time on Samantha's lame-brained experiments to see if she can find her perfect romantic match. The hole in THAT logic is that she already has the perfect guy, a good-looking chap named Ben who has been faithfully by her side for the past five years. It is only at the moment the has is proposing marriage that Samantha gets the idea that she needs to conduct her experiment to find the perfect guy. This involves seeing other men as controls, to prove to herself that her seemingly perfect boyfriend is the one. The obvious question is: Why hasn't she figured this out in the five years that they have been together? This is a movie that operates on theory but never works its way down to logic.Samantha spends a great deal of time talking to very odd men as part of her experiment, then records the results on a mating qualifications scorecard the resembles the one you use to get at the mini-golf course. The men don't seem like anything out of real life, but out of some bizarre netherworld of funny accents and curious lifestyles. One guy seems nice but turns out to be a married polygamist. Another guy is a tantric sex instructor who's theory of ejaculation leads to a sight gag that I could have done without. And yet another guy is of a foreign origin that I couldn't place who has theories about relationships that wouldn't pass muster in a bad porn flick.The supporting characters in Losing Control are all out of central casting. There's Samantha's slutty best friend Leslie; her panicky Jewish parents; her cold-blooded professor; none of which generate even the slightest bit of credibility or interest. They are set-ups for pratfalls, most of which fall of Samantha especially in a nauseating moment when she is leaning over the vat of her formula, drops her notebook into it and then falls in after it.The dialogue in the movie never feels like anything out of real life. It is one of those movies where you feel as if the actors have been provided a joke book of cute little one-liners.Now for the funny hat. It is provided by Samantha's mother Dolores (Linn Shay), a panicky Jewish stereotype who insists that her daughter wear it for no real reason that I can recall other than the fact that she spent time making it. It is a white knit cap embossed with a very large Star of David made out of bright flashing lights. Samantha hates it. Why would her mother make something like that? Why make the Star of David flash? Why would Samantha wear it to a night club? Why would it not raise questions from the men she is trying to take home for the night? Perhaps it could have been part of Samantha's experiment to see if she could pick up a man who would be willing to look past it. Perhaps she could have dumped it in the garbage can before going into the club. Perhaps the movie could have ditched the hat, the experiments, and the clichés and just dealt with well-written characters getting to know each other.

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carvedmetal
2012/03/30

I almost never, actually just plain never, choose to watch romantic comedies. But I was invited to a special viewing and damn! This was a well-written witty film with good science humor and the doctor from Star Trek Enterprise, so that was a good start for me. The production quality is amazing, with excellent colors making it very pleasing to the eye. To accompany the visual appeal I enjoyed the light-hearted feel displayed through upbeat but not loud music, never too slow pace, and skillfully not over-woven subplots. Another element probably not noticed by most viewers is the accurate portrayal of post-doc lab environments and the frustrations of our PhD scientist people. Thus the plot becomes very plausible.So while I never choose to watch romantic comedies, I have in fact seen many, and this one kicks the crap out of all of those!

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