Just perfect...

Best movie of this year hands down!

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

I have to confess I have a penchant for indie films. That said, this subtle and well written work gives the time and space for each character to develop, breathe and grow. Its choice of subjects, two male grounds workers in a small town in America, could easily have swung this delicate work into the pedantic or predictable. Too many times in the land of Indie the working class subject is fetishized or romanticized, or, worse yet, neglected and bypassed. Not here. By giving the characters real depth through well written dialogue, we see them grow, and in turn, grow with them as the seasons change. The everyday is transformed through excellent pacing, and we are given a chance to see what time can produce. Real human relations.

If Brad Pitt is a box of popcorn, then Ned Beatty and Liev Shreiber are full 4-course gourmet meals."Spring Forward" is a snapshot of a year in the life of two disparate men who form a bond as deep and as true as any have been portrayed before. I defy anyone to not be drawn into the bravura performances that dapple the film.Ned Beatty has been on my personal favorites list since the '70s, and time has only perfected his talents. His performance here is delicate, enwrapping and as sparkling as the best diamond.Liev Schreiber is a newer vintage of exemplary actor. I first saw him in "Kate & Leopold," and even in the short time he had in the movie, he stood out as the best of the pack. His further work hasn't disappointed, not even ONCE.I'm not going to tell you what happens in this film. It is for you to discover - this is your treat to be unwrapped and savored.I can say that every part was played exquisitely, from Peri Gilpin to Catherine Kellner to Bill Raymond to the children. Every scene evoked a feeling, a raison d'etre for its existence.What a relief from gratuitous violence and cursing and empty sex. No car chases, no super-loud soundtracks. You won't see any $20 million dollar *actors* in this film. Instead be prepared to fall in love with the script, the setting and the players. There is nothing to dislike in "Spring Forward" and instead of getting a sugar rush, you'll be filled and no longer hungry.P.S. Have a tissue at hand

Okay, fine. You're right. It's a little sappy. But only a little. Mostly this movie is sweet, and there's nothing wrong with sweet. Sweet works. Sweet has driven filmmakers from Frank Capra and George Stevens to Pedro Almodovar and Wes Anderson. Saccharine, now, saccharine is bad, as any Michael Bay or Richard Donner movie will prove. But saccharine, this movie rarely is.This is one of those movies that looks like it used to be a play: two guys sit in a pickup, and the old one lets the young one know everything's gonna be okay. A problem in American movies is that we like our mentors to learn something from their students. This is partly a result of the American obsession with youth. But this movie puts all its wisdom in Ned Beatty's mouth, which makes more sense, because who's gonna have the answers: a panicky 25-year-old ex-con or a middle-aged middle-class guy next door to retirement? One lameness this movie shares with another 1999 entry, "American Beauty," is the delighted goofiness of the uptight guy after smoking a joint. I do not deny that drugs can change one's mind. I merely suggest that writers may find a better and more socially responsible metaphor for mind expansion than marijuana.I watched this movie with two Christian girls, one of whom was clearly bored and a little put off by the sympathetic reference to a gay scoutmaster. (She was much happier watching the reprehensible "Hostage," in which a child was shot before the credits just to whet her appetite.) The other girl appreciated the inherently Christian values of "Spring Forward," including tolerance and mercy.Maybe best of all, this is the 135th acting job in a row in which Ned Beatty is not raped.

Spring Forward is the story of a friendship between two men who work together as lanscapers and maintenance men for a small city. Liev Schrieber is the well-read, ex-convict Paul who is trying to get back on his feet. Ned Beatty is Murph, a family man who's probably in his fifties. There's a generational gap, but the men seem to share quite an interesting friendship. The movie, however, is just so real that it becomes quite boring. The story takes us through the seasons and it is about 99% dialogue and 1% action if you consider landscaping work and the aftermath of a funeral action. The men engage in such deep conversation about all sorts of things like their different perspectives on religion, on morals, on sex, on fatherhood, and so forth. I don't think that it is totally uninteresting and I think it was material better suited to a novel than a film. Nothing really happens and the conversations, after awhile, seem endlessly strung together, as though the topics just change by chance, but the talking never stops. I really must say though, the cinemtagraphy was beautiful with such rich colors and all that. I'm surprised to see so many positive reviews, but then again, this might epitomized recent independent films as much as it can be, though (and I agree with one viewer who wrote this), the whole thing does seem rather pretentious. Sure, these guys have these deep thoughts on all of these abstract matters. But then what?That's not to say that Leiv Schreiber and Ned Beatty don't give good performances. The material and the story just become so boring after a while, by that final scene as they drive down the snowy roads, you think something just then might happen that somehow reflects upon the friendship. Only, nothing ever does. It was boring like I found 'Chelsea Hotel' to be boring, although this movie at least brings up some interesting philosophies that the characters mull over, whereas in 'Chelsea Hotel,' no one even gives us that much to consider and entertain us. I still think 'Spring Forward' would have been better material for a novel.