Customer Reviews

Starbuck / Starbuck (Bilingual)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It came sooner than i expected. This is a Canadian film that i saw at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2012 and as soon as the film ended, i was determined to buy it and i was happy to find it here on amazon. A bit pricey, but i really liked the film and wanted to promote the director, Ken Scott. I loved the film and was happy with Amazon's service.

Starbuck is a prolific sperm donor who discovers that he is responsible for over 500 births and that just over a hundred of these offspring are taking a class action to find out who he is. Finding out the names of all the litigants he follows some of them around trying to be their guardian angel.
I am involved in the world of donor conception and found this to be a funny, heartwarming film that dealt with a serious subject in a light way without trivialising the impact on offspring or donor of creating people with sperm (or eggs) from outside of the intending parent couple (or individual).

Highly recommended.

Starbuck is in French with English subtitles - I don't speak french - but it works - it really works! Storyline is great - Starbuck should win an Oscar - One of my new all-time favourite movies now!

Une très belle comédie en demi-teintes. Cela part dans un éclat de rire un peu grivois (et limite) et finit par déboucher sur une belle réflexion sur la vie et le sens que l'on peut y mettre. L'histoire d'une belle rédemption se cache derrière une apparente comédie légère. Interprètes, mise en scène, scénario... tout est très bon. Le cinéma québecois est aujourd'hui un des plus intéressants et des plus originaux. C'est d'autant plus incompréhensible que l'on ne voit pas ces très belles réussites en France!

This is a French Canadian film from director Ken Scott who also wrote this avec Martin Petit. It is about David Wozniak, who is one of life’s well meaning people who always seem to make things go wrong. He works in the family butchers business where he is the delivery driver, but also forgets to do that sometimes too. He also plays part time ‘soccer’ – badly and then gets told by his long suffering girlfriend, Valerie (Julie LeBreton) that she is pregnant. He decides to clean up his act, pay off his considerable debts (which he is keeping quiet and trying to pay off by growing pot, all of the plants don’t seem to want to live though).

Then he gets approached by a lawyer who says he is representing a group action of 142 young adults who are all the result of artificial insemination from a particular clinic, where he made a vast number of ‘deposits’, it turns out he had the best ‘material’ and has fathered 533. He is shocked at first but then curiosity gets the better of him and he decides to see what his ‘kids’ are really like and if he should reveal his identity.

This is a funny, sweet, warm and sometimes moving piece of cinema; I was reaching for the hankies on a couple of occasions. He had made the ‘deposits’ under the fake name of Starbuck, hence the title and is played by Patrick Huard who also made ‘Funky Town’ which is another little gem. All of the cast are excellent and so much is crammed in here that you really are getting great value in a great feel good film. It is nigh on all in French, lots of English in the soundtrack which includes ‘Tuung’ and the brilliant ‘The National’. The sub titles are all good too, the framing of the shots is adequate nothing award winning but still it has a wonderful feel to the whole thing and I really loved it, Ken Scott’s next one is ‘Delivery Man’ if it is half as good as this it will be worth the wait.

This is a great comedy!

It offers a good opportunity to sit back and enjoy good cinema while at the same time being challenged by an ethical dilemma, which this film deals remarkably well with.

L'histoire, les acteurs et la mise en scène sont tous de quallité supérieure. Les différentes étapes du fils sont amenées de façon efficaces sans perdre de leur profondeur. Vaut amplement la peine d'êtrte acheté!

Believe it or not, I saw this film on a KLM flight to Amsterdam - had never heard of it in Canada. This is one of the funniest and most enjoyable films I have seen for years. I took it to our monthly movie night and didn't provide any details so that all would be surprized, and all 6 new viewers were blown away, wanting to know how I'd found this film and why they hadn't heard about it. For English viewers, the subtitles do nothing to detract from the viewing experience. Do yourself a favor and watch this movie!

This movie is fantastic!!! Absolutely loved it. There is quite a bunch of profanity in it, but the storyline is quite funny and gripping.

A nice change from the usual violence and/or silliness. Great actors. I hope the English version tries to match the cultural idiocyncracies of French Canada.