How long is the movie diner

Give me a break. Nothing's more boring than watching a movie about people who want to avoid all of the responsibilities you accepted a long time ago. Maybe when I'm years older and further away from my own passage into adulthood, I will find this movie nostalgic and charming. As it is, I find it unbearable. Grade: D. However, of such nothingness, comes magic. It is hard to point to this or that and say that is why this film works so well but essentially it is that Barry Levinson had written a script, partially based upon real incidents from his own life and got together a bunch of young actors who were happy to help make something happen that felt 'real' to them.

The result is a slight tale of a bunch or kids, hanging out, discussing girls, sex and possible marriage and finding some clash between staying friends and 'growing up'. Funny, profound, beautifully grounded in the directors home town of Baltimore and simply a sheer delight to watch, with a persistent grin on your face.

Simply perfect. I loved 'Diner', right from the start to the end. The narrative moves at a tremendous pace and the human-conflict among its primary characters, is infectious.

Also, the energy of Baltimore has been depicted most efficiently. Levinson's Direction is excellent. He deserves distinction marks for his wonderful work here. Cinematography by Peter Sova is fabulous. Editing by Stu Linder is very well-done. Performance-Wise: Mickey Rourke delivers a sensational, stunning performance. He enacts his part with remarkable conviction.

Steve Guttenberg is unflinchingly good. Daniel Stern is natural to the core. Kevin Bacon is terrific, yet again! What a phenomenal actor! Tim Daly is first-rate. On the whole, 'Diner' has everything going for it. Don't miss it! JamesHitchcock 7 December Recent films set in the s, such as 'Pleasantville', 'Far from Heaven' and 'Mona Lisa Smile' have tended to portray the decade as being a repressed, overly conservative period.

A generation ago, however, the tendency was to take a more sympathetic, nostalgic look at the fifties in films such as 'Grease' or television programmes such as 'Happy Days'. The post-Vietnam generation seemed to look back at the period immediately before that war as a lost age of innocence. Some of them are still living and working in the town, others are now at college, but are using the Christmas vacation as a chance to get back together with old friends.

The title is taken from the diner that is their favourite meeting-place. There is no real coherent plot; the film is very episodic in structure and concentrates on character rather than on action. As is perhaps inevitable with young men of this age, many of their preoccupations are with girls and relationships.

One of them, Shrevie, is married, but seems to be discontented with married life. Another, Eddie, is engaged. A third, Billy, discovers during the course of the film that he has got his girlfriend pregnant, but when he offers to do the decent thing by her, he is disconcerted to realize that she would much rather he did the indecent one.

A fourth, Boogie, seems to lead a carefree life, flitting from one romance to another. The characters are not, however, preoccupied with love and sex to the exclusion of all else.

We also learn about their other private obsessions with such matters as music, sport and the cinema. Shrevie quarrels with his wife because she does not share his passion for popular music and fails to understand his complex system for cataloguing his extensive record collection. I wonder if this scene was the origin of a similarly obsessive character in 'High Fidelity'. A minor character knows off by heart the entire dialogue from the film 'Sweet Smell of Success'. Many of the young actors who starred in the film have gone on to become famous names in the movie world.

From my point of view the best was probably Kevin Bacon as Timothy, the rebel without a cause who has dropped out of his wealthy family and lives an aimless life. The first time we see him he is smashing windows just for the hell of it.

I have never been to Baltimore, but it was clear from watching the film that the director was trying to capture the spirit of a particular place and time. It therefore came as no surprise to discover that Barry Levinson, who both wrote and directed the film, is himself a Baltimore native, although slightly younger than the characters depicted in the film.

He would have been seventeen in Despite this concentration on the particular, however, 'Diner' has a universal appeal. The film with which it has most in common is 'American Graffiti'. Although that film was actually set in the early sixties rather than the fifties, it nevertheless deals quite openly with the idea of the pre-Vietnam era as a golden age.

It is significantly set in the final week of a decade, and in the wedding scene we see a large banner saying 'Eddie and Elyse- in the sixties and forever', a reminder that change is on the way, both for these young men and for America as a whole. The most important change that the characters in 'Diner' have to come to terms with is neither social nor political, but rather the challenge of growing up.

The traditional 'Coming of Age' film has tended to concentrate on adolescence and the teenage years. For many young men, however, their early twenties, when they are completing or have already completed their education, are setting out on their careers and are starting to think about more serious relationships with women, can be a time of even greater changes than their days in secondary school.

All the major characters- except perhaps the serious-minded Billy who is keen to accept new responsibilities- want to hang on to elements of their boyhood even while moving into adulthood. For Boogie, and, to an even greater degree, Timothy, this means keeping the freedom to be irresponsible. For Shrevie and Eddie, this means trying to keep hold of their youthful passions even after marriage.

The discord between Shrevie and his wife slightly older than him and considerably more mature in outlook is caused as much by his fear that marriage will mean having to give up his association with his old friends as by her inability to differentiate between jazz and rock-and-roll. Barry Levinson's claim that Elyse's football test was based on a true incident may seem improbable, but there is some psychological truth in this part of the film. It has, after all, been said that every man's ideal woman is himself incarnated in the body of a beautiful girl, and Elyse's willingness to take this test shows that she is prepared to make sacrifices and enter into Eddie's male-oriented world.

On my first viewing I found it dull, an inferior copy of 'American Graffiti'. The second time round, I started to appreciate it as a fine film in its own right. Barry Levinson has gone on to make a number of other good films 'The Natural', 'Good Morning Vietnam', 'Rain Man' and 'Sleepers' , but 'Diner', his first film, is perhaps his most personal and heartfelt.

MovieAddict 25 April Note: This review has been severely chopped to comply with IMDb's word limit. Full review can be found at wiredonmovies. What do we do? We drive around. Maybe he's going to get married, maybe not. It's really more about the fact that it's a very honest portrayal of a group In a similar scene to that in Tarantino's masterpiece, four friends -- played by Steve Guttenberg, Mickey Rourke, Daniel Stern, and Paul Reiser -- argue over which singer produces better make-out music: Mathis or Sinatra?

And that's that. The movie has plentiful rich dialogue, some of it seemingly pointless, most of it subtly touching and meaningful. The film has a lot to say about the difference between friendship and true love. Fixated on an object behind him, her eyes cold and a grim reflection of deep contemplation, she replies, "You're confusing a friendship with a woman, and love. It's not the same.

The film is masterful in its ability to present us with a group of people we sincerely care for, and who all seem very real -- more so than the characters you'll find in most movies. The dialogue was primarily improvised, especially by Paul Reiser, whose debates with fellow pals are the highlights of the film.

Even after the truly poignant ending there is a discussion about evolution that plays over the credits. He starts to mock the theories which would later become widely considered as truth by scientists, despite lack of actual evidence supporting the theory.

Amusing, how the movie has so much to say about so many different things. Eddie Guttenberg is afraid of getting married; Schrezie Stern is married and wishes he wasn't; Boogie Rourke would like to finally find a girl he could respect; Bill Timothy Daly wants to get married to the girl he loves but she doesn't want to. The whole movie appears to be focused on girls, and indeed most of it is, yet there's a lot of other stuff that's even deeper. Fenwick Bacon is what Bacon himself described as a "permanently drunk," sick kid who doesn't know what he wants out of life, thrown out of his family and wandering the streets looking for a meaning to his life.

He's the character who is so lost he doesn't even seem to care very much about girls. Prior to "Diner," Levinson was a nobody -- and perhaps that is why his first project is that most in tune with its characters and their natures.

The movie was very risky when the studio released it in -- there was talk of shelving the finished product for fear of losing money. Reluctant, MGM finally released the movie into theaters, but with poor advertising -- it tanked. Yet it received some of the greatest reviews of the year. In an effort to convince MGM, Levinson showed a screening of the movie to critic Pauline Kael, who gave it an exceptional review, as did the majority of critics at that time.

On the surface, "Diner" seems rather boring -- it's just a movie about nothing, really, except growing up. Yet it captured the hearts of many, becoming a cult sleeper that still entices new fans to this very day. It's a film of many integrating mixed genres, each one carefully balanced and perfectly maintained throughout. This is not Levinson's best but it's one of his most deeply touching projects.

It has a lot to say about many things and it actually gets around to addressing them -- which is rare to find in any movie. This is a true gem. UniqueParticle 6 July Easily one of the greatest movies ever made, especially for it's time!

The perfect genuine buddy hangout film about relationships, random bets, spitballing, and horsing around. Also the scene about the records is one of my favorite things ever, I love the line "This is important to me! I saw this once before today and still loved it! I have quoted Diner many times since. Such a great cast directed by Barry Levinson who did another masterpiece - Rain Man in the nineties!

I first saw "Diner" in the theater. I also watched many times on cable. For some reason, I never bought it so when it faded from cable I lost track of it. Today was the first time I'd seen "Diner" in years. It's great stuff. It strikes the right note pretty much the whole way through. It's filled with one great performance after another with standout work from Steve Guttenberg and Jessica James.

There are a lot of laughs in this movie. It also has a warmth that few movies have. It does have a skip here and there but, for the most part, it's terrific. I won't allow myself to go so long between viewings again. Barry Levinson's pictures always succeed in painting a nostalgic feelgood picture of a certain era. Really lovely to watch, but the downside of director Barry Levinson's pictures is the fact that they are always a bit safe.

Early twenty-something Baltimoreans Eddie, Shrevie, Boogie, Billy, Fenwick and Modell have been friends since they were kids, and the center of their lives has been and still is the Fells Point Diner. In the last week of , Baltimore Colts fanatic Eddie is scheduled to marry Elyse on New Year's Eve, but might call it off if she doesn't pass his Colts quiz on the 29th. Inexperienced Eddie turns to the only other married one of their bunch, electronics salesman and music aficionado Shrevie, for advice, but Shrevie might not be the best marriage advisor since he doesn't yet realize he probably married his wife Beth for the wrong reasons.

Beth has lost her sense of identity, is unhappy in her marriage, and contemplates having an affair with someone who provides what she believes is a sympathetic shoulder.

Hairdresser and law school student Boogie is the player of the bunch and has major financial problems because of his quest for the fast buck. Generally strait-laced Billy, Eddie's best man who has been away getting his MBA, has come back to Baltimore a few days early to clarify his relationship with his girlfriend Barbara. Smart-aleck Fen is a college dropout who lives off his trust fund and doesn't much like his family--just what their money can buy him. And insecure Modell is afraid to ask for anything directly.

As approaches, they collectively deal with how to truly be adults. It's open all day Did you know Edit. Trivia All the scenes in the diner were filmed last, after the cast got to know each other. The dialogue in those scenes is a combination of scripted and improvisational. Goofs When discussing marriage outside the diner, Eddie tells Shrevie that he and Elyse will be vacationing in Cuba, which had already been taken over by Castro on 1 January By New Years Day , a honeymoon in Cuba would have been considered out of the question.

Quotes Timothy Fenwick, Jr. Crazy credits The end credits run as another diner conversation between the guys is heard. Alternate versions ABC edited 16 minutes from this film for its network television premiere. User reviews Review. Top review. What do we do? We drive around Diner, Barry Levinson's writing and directing debut belongs to so-called "small" or "minor" movies and it indeed does not have spectacular locations, breathtaking action sequences or even dramatic story.

During the course of the film, we will get to know the young men, their fears of growing up, facing responsibilities, and making decisions, their fascination and insecurities with the girls. From his Oscar-nominated script, BL makes the study of young men who hesitate to grow up but rather hang out in their beloved Diner. Daniel Stern's 'Shrevie' is an owner of LP collection that he seems to value more than his young and pretty wife Ellen Barkin in her film debut. Mickey Rourke, played his best role at least, IMO as Boogy, the cynical womanizer with the most charming smile.

For all that I recognized and sympathized with these young men and their martyred wives, girlfriends, and sex symbols, I never quite believed that they were three-dimensional. It is, of course, a disturbing possibility that, to the degree these young men denied full personhood to women, they didn't have three-dimensional personalities.

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from until his death in In , he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Reviews Diner. Roger Ebert January 01, Now streaming on:. Powered by JustWatch. Now playing. Halloween Kills Brian Tallerico. The Addams Family 2 Nell Minow.