Alchemy

Just caught this in its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. At the Q&A after, someone in the audience described this movie perfectly -- it's the kind of comedy Hollywood used to make so well, before the movies started drowning in their own stupidity. "Alchemy" is laugh- out-loud funny, immensely charming, a whole lot of fun, and -- amazingly enough -- doesn't insult your intelligence! Not much else to say about it, other than that (like my favorite documentary, "Spellbound") it's a movie that absolutely everyone should and will enjoy. Will be very curious to see how many millions this movie makes when the general public gets to see it.

Oh, and one other thing -- Tom Cavanagh (from "Ed") as "Jerry", the gay French computer program (you'll know what I mean when you see it)....Hilarious!!

Attended the world premier at Tribeca Film Festival, what a great event for Downtown NYC. Sarah Chalke is fantastic as female lead in this movie, perfect casting. The story is sweet, the dialog is fast and witty without going over the top into NY sarcasm. Tom Cavanaugh does a wonderful job as the lead. The the supporting cast is excellent. Ileana Douglas, Celeste Holm, James Barbour are all great. Nadia Dajani's performance will be talked about by everyone as the quick comeback, cynical, heart of gold editor.

The audience was treated to several belly laughs, not easy to do with a NYC audience. The various locations around NYC gave the movie a terrific backdrop for a story that can't be told without great acting and well written script. There are so many good lines in this movie that anybody who sees it will be repeating for years.

Overall, an excellent and very well done movie with terrific music to boot. A little surprised that it was an independent film.

Just returned from the Annapolis Film Festival and I came here to comment on ALCHEMY, the opening night film that seemed to go over really well at the Festival. As I got to IMDb, I was surprised to see so many bad reviews, however, I think most people judge things much too harshly these days. After all, this is a romantic comedy, not exactly a genre meant to break new ground in film. But rather, one that is purely meant to entertain.

And, IMHO, this film does just that. It entertains. It's a cute, funny movie, and worth seeing. Heck, it's worth seeing if only for the performance of Sarah Chalke, who brought a realism and believability to the romance. See the film, and you WILL know what I mean.

So often, in lower budget films the acting can be a major weakness, but here, it's a major strength. And in my opinion, none was better than Chalke, who I couldn't quite place where I recognized her from. There was a Q&A afterward, and the director reminded me that Miss Chalke is on SCRUBS. Overall, I really enjoyed this romantic comedy, so much so, that I will be looking for it again on ABC Family Channel.

After all, it does what it's supposed to do: entertain the viewer!

5 August 2006. For those who really enjoyed this movie, do I have a much better one to suggest - Electric Dreams (1984). Even those it's 20 years old, this older movie has the soundtrack as well as a nice romantic comedy script that really touches the heart and goes to the essence of the artificial intelligence controversy. Alchemy, unfortunately seems forced, even though more likely scientifically more plausible than Electric Dreams or A.I., the need to introduce and change the rules of the game in favor the computer program makes for a rather dissonant and artificial flavor ironically. The comedy seems forced. The overall plot and the essence of the movie is decent, it just doesn't have the fun and magic that Electric Dreams had. Five out of Ten Stars.

This is one of the worse movies I have ever seen. It reminded me of a bad pilot that never got picked up and instead got crammed into a poor excuse of a film. The story was stupid, the characters were shallow and not likable, and the jokes would not land. If you took Tom Cavanah out of this movie, it would have a below zero rating, but I have to admit he did an OK job considering how horrible the script was. This was the worse thing in the Tribeca Film festival (I saw home videos that turned out better than this). Do not see this movie unless you are a teenage girl who likes sappy, unsophisticated, not believable, and shallow material.