I alternately laughed till I cried and cried till I cried a couple of times in this one. The acting and direction were extremely solid all around, and it is so refreshing to see a film with a major character who's a little kid that doesn't make you cringe every time they deliver a line. The whole theater erupted with laughter at a constant clip and there were many times where you could hear just a couple of people cracking up at specific moments. Wasn't really a "smirk to yourself" movie, pretty much all or nothing. Alarn Arkin is so criminally underrated and good at everything he does that sometimes I find myself weeping openly about it. Not really. But dammit the man is great.

At first I shook my head at the tremendous leaps of logic the film forces you to make, the contrivances and the "nobody would ever do that" scenes, kinda feeling a little distracted by them. The film overcame that for the most part, however, by delivering on those premises and subtly wringing varying emotions from them. The only one that truly sticks out and took me out of my enjoyment was Frank telling the kid what being color blind would ultimately mean. First of all, the set-up was contrived via the Hubble, and secondly...well..."NOBODY WOULD EVER DO THAT". You would think the world's most respected Proust scholar would have brains enough to hold back on that info until a more convenient time. Especially since he's so recently had HIS OWN dream shattered.

Favorite part...the cop really getting creepy nasty going over the porn and being suggestive, and Greg Kinnear, who is alternately completely disgusted by what's going on as well as being nervously amazed he's not going to prison, tries to play along, "...oh that's the sweet sweetness right there...".

I caught the Stan Grossman name, missed the Pumpkins reference, and thought Mary-Lynn Rakjshjsjnjfb was probably in it because the directors had worked on the 4th season of Mr. Show. True, Mary-Lynn was gone by then but I figure they're probably buddypals anyway.