Unstrung Heroes

Unstrung Heroes
by Diane Keaton

List Price: $9.99
Our Price: $3.92
You Save: $6.07 (61%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.93 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details

DVD details

DVD Reviews of Unstrung Heroes

DVD Review: Forget the book...see the movie
Summary: 5 Stars

Diane Keaton's first feature length not-made-for-TV directorial debut is a poignant and often humorous story. Young Steven Lidz (Nathan Watt) is a normal boy growing up during the Cold War with his sister, mother, and his slightly quirky father. The father, Sid (John Turturro), is excitable about science and his visions of a techno-topian future, endlessly inventing household gadgets, but he's also a romantic and deeply loves his wife Selma (Andie MacDowell). Those future visions are blurred when Selma's health begins to wane. Unable to cope with the slow demise of his mother, Steven runs away to stay with an odd pair of uncles, who seem to be two extremes of his father. Uncle Danny (Michael Richards) is high-strung and sees anti-semitic conspiracies everywhere, while uncle Arthur (Maury Chaykin) is child-like and finds joy in the simplest of things (he collects lost balls in the park because he believes, if you listen closely as with seashells, you can hear the sound of the children who played with them). There's a hilarious scene where the landlord sees the three outside the building and begins to chase after them; they escape to the apartment as if their lives were being threatened by a raging grizzly bear.

The strange, inventive, and sometimes playful, behavior of Steven's uncles is distracting enough to keep him from brooding about his mother's last days. Instead of filling him with paranoia and neurosis, however, his uncles teach Steven about faith and family and the joys of life. Thomas Newman's ("American Beauty") music is perfectly suited to this bittersweet film. In fact, I bought the soundtrack CD after watching the film for the first time.

By the way...the reviews by "a viewer" from Evanston and "fred q. walrustitty" have absolutely nothing to do with the film, and it's likely the reviewers wrote them as a joke. Unfortunately, 11 out of 15 people believed them and found them helpful.

Description of Unstrung Heroes