King of the Corner (2004)
Leo Spivak is drifting through life without a compass. His father is aging fast, his teenage daughter is rebelling, his protégé is after his job and his wife is losing her patience. A twist of fate and some bizarre wisdom from a "freelance rabbi" help Leo navigate the murky waters of his life and turn his crisis into a second-chance.
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Awesome Movie
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
It wasn't perfect but it was enjoyable, and contained many situations that we could identify with. It's a shame that Peter is having such a hard time getting this film widely distributed when there's so much garbage out there. Eli Wallach was wonderful. On a negative side, I thought casting Bogosian as a Rabbi was a horror although it was meant to be satiric and Harris Yulin was perfect as his boss. My wife and I thought that the idea of having Leo ( or Peter Riegert) admit to Betsy's husband that they had just had sex was kind of ridiculous --- no one in his right mind does that and Leo was not nuts, he was just a little mixed up. You can see how bright he was when he was in his focus groups, and the security phone with Gregory Peck's voice was a riot.
How often do you get to see an excellent film and then participate in a question and answer session with the director afterwards? King of the Corner offers this rare opportunity as director and star Peter Riegert is travelling around the US with this movie. His tour schedule is at the film's website www.kingofthecornerfilm.com. The movie itself is a wonderful ensemble film centering on the life of Leo Spivak (Riegert), a middle aged Jewish man with a lot of problems. His job at a market research firm doing focus groups is mundane, his father (wonderfully played by 90 year old Eli Wallach) is angry, his teenage daughter is out of control and his marriage (to the wonderful Isabella Rossellini) is in a rocky period. The movie focuses on all aspects of Spivak's life without solving his issues. The acting is great, the movie is entertaining, and Riegert does a marvelous job in his role as co-writer, director and star. There are funny and sad parts and it will make you think. I recommend it highly.
the film is excellent. based on a great book of short stories "bad jews and other stories" which i read and enjoyed in 2003. the film combines elements from two of those short stories into a compelling drama which is both really really funny, and poignant. if you have a father, or a daughter, or a wife, or a job, it will resonate with you. if you have none of the above, it will still resonate with you. great characters and performances by a top notch cast. and a hilarious Gregory Peck bit. bogosian is maybe the best rabbi on film since the frisco kid. the only reason i don't give it a 10 is because that rating is reserved for Xanadu and Xanadu alone.
This movie exercised the full range of the viewer's emotions, yet managed to avoid resolving several major conflicts in typical Hollywood-type fashion. In short, it was an excellent movie for allowing viewers to incorporate their own experiences and ideas into interpretation of the story of a man at mid-life dealing with job, family, marriage and an aging parent. The story balances serious life issues with humor at just the right moments, leaving the audience fulfilled as well as entertained.The actors were first-class and the story provided a vehicle for them to ply their skills artfully. Blockbuster mentality wouldn't distribute films of this depth, but I believe audiences are hungry for them.