City Island

A meandering film, that offers a few small pleasures but never gels, and is a tad bit confusing, if you aren't familiar with it's distinct lifestyle. The musical choices throughout are pretty rough, and often overpowering.

Acting-wise, the whole cast is really good, but Steven Strait, Emily Mortimer and Andy Garcia are the best. Alan Arkin has a pleasant, but brief role as Andy's acting teacher, and his one real big scene, which is a rant about pausing mid-sentence, is good.

There are only a handful of memorable scenes, like Mortimer's and Garcia's talk at a little coffee shop. It was intimate, fun, and not too busy doing anything else. This movie, by the way, has about a million subplots, and they're all ridiculous- the daughter is a stripper, because she got kicked out of college for some weed. Strait is Garcia's son from before he was married. The son is addicted to fat chick porn, which actually becomes more interesting than anything else in the movie by the end.

The whole movie is based around no one telling anyone a damned thing, and while the ending is pretty good, with Strait just telling everyone off, the movie is too unfocused to make it worthwhile.