Mitch Albom's For One More Day (2007)

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

For the Mitch Albom's fans it is perfect gift. The pieces of novel are present in the correct order. The feeling is same-delicate, nostalgic and warm.Michael Imperioli is the good choice. Eleen Burstyn is the perfect provocation. And the movie is the skin of last reading. Only problem, same in that cases, is the expectation. Is it only a adaptation? Is it another soup for soul? It is a madlene for deep fillings and start for different relation with parents? Is it a beautiful story about a son and his mother and picture of usually motivational literature? Is it occasion to discover another Imperioli, behind the crumbs of Soprano? Is it only a movie for rainy afternoon? No, I suppose. It is invitation to define the relation with past. Personal past. And a lesson about the delicate form to create air of a story. For people of spectacular and fake appearances.

I must say that I feel as if I got taken. I mean, this movie has to rank as one of the most disappointing films I've ever endured. I did rate the movie with 2 points for Imperioli and Burstyn, but that's all I could muster, all it deserved at best. It just goes to show how far Oprah's name goes. I associate Winfrey with quality. That is why I must ask this; Did Oprah actually see this thing. I think not for if she had, it would not have been released. Certainly not have had her name put right out front with "top billing." Hard even to describe, when I feel cheated out of at least two hours waiting for something to develop. Oh well, I blame myself for not turning it off sooner.

Contrived, poorly written, clichéd, Too-important-for-itself. Kept watching in case there was something redeeming, but there wasn't. Ellen B's acting was superb, as always, and she is aging so gracefully. Really have nothing better to say. Unfortunate. I'm usually a sucker for these things and was really looking forward to it. I wasn't a fan of "5 People...," also felt it seemed too important for itself -- trying too hard to deliver a message, while lacking a story to do so. This however, I had higher hopes for. The previews intrigued me, the actors intrigued me, and as I said, I usually like this kinda stuff. Very disappointing.

Broken sports dreams have provided some of American movies' most poignant moments, from Field of Dreams to Resurrecting the Champ. This year's best sport flick, and one of 2007's Top Ten thus far (among the 295 films I've been able to see in theaters) is director Seth Gordon's documentary King of Kong, featuring real-life hero Steve Wiebe, a laid-off Boeing Aircraft engineer whose moment in the limelight for his high school nine's state championship try was ruined by an injury to his pitching arm, leaving his psyche nearly too fragile to take on the classic gaming establishment decades later in his successful quest to post the first legitimate million-plus Donkey Kong score in world history.Even though USA Today's TV critic panned One More Day (the official title "Oprah Winfrey presents Mitch Albom's One More Day" was automatically shortened to "Oprah Winfrey presents Mit" on my spreadsheet program; I thought she'd endorsed Obama?), I decided to make it my first made-for-TV film of 2007 because 1)I'd given 10 stars to Albom's previous TV project, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and 2)the premise echoed Steve Wiebe's story of recovering from a shattered baseball dream decades later.Unfortunately, as much as I like Mitch and baseball, I can only rate this effort 6 out of 10. Unlike Five People, you can see the twists and the supposedly Big Reveal at the end coming from nearly a mile a way here (from the center field warning track, in other words). Though Ellen Burstyn provides a little classier maternal advice to protagonist Chick (Michael Imperioli) than the 1926 Porter in the late sit-com My Mother the Car, seeing her prattling away to a former Soprano while moon-lighting as an ectoplasmic hairdresser to several of her expiring lady friends produces a kitchen klatch claustrophobia which may well have been relieved by more flashbacks to the nine years between the death of cup-of-coffee major leaguer Chick's mom and his exclusion from his only child's big day. Emily Wickersham, as Chick's grown daughter Maria, should have been given more to do; her character's typescript for her draft of "One More Day" got more air time than she did.Detroit Tigers fans will note that long-time Detroit Free Press sportswriter Albom snuck in the names of at least two long-gone bengals (Deivi Cruz and Ramon Santiago) in the background. My son still has the dollar bill Ramon signed for him at Tiger Fest years ago, but I doubt this flick will add much value to his currency.