Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Fantastic!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

I've enjoyed watching this movie ever since I discovered it in about 2007, years later than its release. The actors and music have much charm, and somehow it works despite a confusion as to whose story is being told. For a long time now, I've wanted to re-write the ending, to make it more consistent with the characters as they are presented... More recently, I realized I'd like to go back to the drawing board and write it as it should have been written, given the star billing of River Phoenix, his charisma and the power of his music. It ought to be his story from start to finish, the boy who listened to cheating songs in his father's truck... It can't be re-made with those actors, and it remains a poignant record of what River Phoenix could do, and what he might have done. The other main actors, Samantha Mathis, Dermot Mulroney, and Sandra Bullock are always interesting to watch, as are all the supporting cast, and in particular, K.T. Oslin as Lucy. I recommend this movie as a wonderful trip down memory lane and a tug-at-the-heart glimpse of the most promising young talent.

If the critics are to be believed, Peter Bogdanovich is one of those unfortunate directors who ran out of steam all too soon after a positively brilliant start. True the early "The Last Picture Show" is a glorious recreation of young people coming of age in an American hick town nowhere in the '50's that he has never quite equalled since, although "Paper Moon" runs it pretty close. Perhaps his big mistake was to try to catch up with "The Last Picture Show" folk in the best forgotten "Texasville". Great films are better left on their own without sequels. But, this apart, it would be wrong to brand everything Bogdanovich has made in more recent years as inconsequential and therefore of little value. Take "The Thing Called Love" for instance, a film that like "The Last Picture Show" concerns itself with a group of young people that are certainly more aspirational than those in the earlier film. A desire to express their feelings through their music has brought them to Nashville, Tennessee, the home of Country and Western. They meet up in the Bluebell Cafe auditioning for a Saturday evening music spot organised by K.T.Oslin, famous for having first spotted several of the great names from the past. The two most interesting characters are Miranda (Samantha Mathis),who has come all the way from New York on a Greyhound bus and James played by the talented River Phoenix in what was sadly to be his last film role. I am fairly certain why I enjoyed this rather slight film to the extent that I watched it on two consecutive evenings, even though I had "La Regle du Jeu" and others queueing up to be seen. It just felt nice to be in the company of a group of comparatively uncomplicated youngsters getting by, doing something really meaningful for them. There is very little in the way of action apart from Miranda and James's drive to Graceland and their killing time before it opens by getting married. I guess Bogdanovich made the film because he loved its characters, otherwise he could not have conveyed them with such affection. He hasn't made a great film this time, but it is certainly nice to get out of the art-house on occasions to savour such a sweet little number.

One of River Phoenix's last film roles was as part of a quartet of performer/songwriters looking to get a break in country music in Nashville. The rest of the quartet in The Thing Called Love is Samantha Mathis, Sandra Bullock, and Dermpt Mulroney. The whole thing kind of reminds me a little bit of Stage Door in the hopes and dreams and the camaraderie shared among the hopefuls.In the two hour running time of the film there are almost 20 musical numbers, so many the plot almost gets in the way. When the quartet isn't singing, they're acting out the usual angst romantic and professional that are common to the young. And several country stars do some musical bits here, chiefly Tricia Yearwood who sings her hit, She's In Love With The Boy.Tricia also figures into the plot when Mulroney and Mathis break into Yearwood's car in order to leave a cassette tape of Mulroney's latest song. It sounds like something out of I Love Lucy and it all works out in the Lucy manner with Yearwood being a good sport about it. In real life, those two would have been in court with Yearwood taking a restraining order out.The plot is pedestrian, but the music is nice, especially if you are a country and western fan.

They were several reasons why I wanted to see this movie: 1. it's about Nasvhille & country music of which I'm a fan 2. it stars River Phoenix, an actor of great skills 3. This one of River's last movies, if not the last before his tragic death and he does indeed look sick in this movie, skinny and all. And it's a disappointing ending for his career as this movie is really too shallow on its subject.Samantha Mathis comes to Nashville seeking stardom as a country music singer. She wants to start with the Bluebird Café, a renowned place where aspiring singers go apply for castings, and if they're good enough, they get to come back in the evening for a gig. There she meets with River Phoenix, Sandra Bullock and Dermot Mulroney, all with the same ambition, becoming the next country star. River is the most successful of them (it has to be noted they all sang their parts).If this movie's intention was to show how it goes in the music business, it missed. If it wanted to show a love story, it missed too because it only scraps the surface of the subjects.If you want country music and a depiction on how Nashville works, check out Altman's "Nashville".