I have read Infinite Jest, and am a fan of David Foster Wallace's work. Rather than making the obvious Book>Movie comment, I would like to comment on where it worked and where it didn't. DFW, for me, brings to mind the haunting descriptions of melancholy missing from the movie(Though John Krasinski does a decent job in his monologue, surprisingly.) The editing, though true to the style in the book to a certain extent, could have been better on screen.DFW's linguistic talents and extensive vocabulary are retained throughout the movie, which makes it seem unreal(DFW does a great job of separating his voice from that of his characters, I feel). This leads to a strange sequence with the man speaking of his father which is strange to watch.The movie suffers from trying to be a bit too true to the book, but not really knowing how to. There are a few intense scenes reminiscent of DFW's style, but can't really hold the whole movie together.All in all, I wouldn't call the movie a waste of time, but I'd recommend DFW's books anyway.

I watched this on cable initially because of my admiration for David Foster Wallace's work. The movie just plain blew me away. If I'd seen it in a theater I'd probably have been crying at the end of it.This is a loosely connected series of monologues by men- young, mature, White, Black- who are bound only by the issues of being men in the confusing world we live in. A graduate student is videotaping these men, working on her thesis project about how men navigate the post-feminist world.The best realized segment is about a man whose father worked six days a week as a men's room attendant. Having a modern consciousness about being a Black man, subject # 42 can't understand how his father degraded himself that way; his father tells us that it is what he could do to keep food on the table and a roof over his family's heads. Worse yet, the man has not seen his father (presumably still alive and in the same job) since 1978.There's so much unresolved loneliness on view here. This is a fine movie that seems to have gotten just about no release, and that hurts.Watch this. Learn. Grow.

This film is so caught up in it's own revelatory ideas and themes that it comes off too strong and too pretentious. If a film wants to make a commentary on sexual dynamics and people's inner dialogues maybe it should let these stories tell themselves a bit more and let things develop a bit more naturally. I like monologues and cerebral conjecture just as much as the next guy but when it becomes exhausting and tiresome to listen to and the movie in effect starts to isolate me then it has failed in it's original objective. If your objective is to educate and be insightful you should probably make sure your audience still cares at the end of the film. I know it is just my opinion but this film turned me off completely even though I really wanted to see it.

I honestly can't figure out the low score on the site(as of writing this it has a 5.7). Brief Interviews with Hideous Men was one of the most powerful movies I've seen. Usually John Krasinski is a happy-go-lucky fun loving guy. But here you can really see a darker and much more serious side of him. His end monologue is one of the most intense stories I've ever heard.The story revolves around a researcher studying the different effects of feminism on men by interviewing them. She interviews many different men, and they all have problems. At first, it may trick you into thinking that this will show you a bunch of dumb stories, but it continuously gets darker and darker. You get to hear some truly powerful and gripping stories about different men's lives. They all really hit hard but never feel like they are specifically designed to shock you.The editing is probably the most potent ingredient in the mix. While it can be a bit disorienting at times, it almost always has a powerful effect on the viewer. Also, it doesn't throw everything out for you to see. You have to read between the lines for some of it before it tells you anything, really. The final few scenes pull the whole movie together so well that I really hope Krasinski writes more screenplays soon. This was an extremely intense movie to watch. It's not something you will pop in on a regular basis, or indeed watch more than once or twice, but that's not say that it was anything less than powerful and a great piece of storytelling.