Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good movie but grossly overrated

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I cannot express how great of a performance Michael Sheen as art was in this film.I actually thought he was a genuine person with celebral palsy when I watched it and it wasn't until I went to IMDb that I realised that he was not and I uttered 'Holy crap! that's Michael Sheen!' I kid you not, he really was that believable.He is also the very best part about the movie, vulgar and hilarious but still charming.But the lead is of course Ron Livingston and not Michael Sheen, and whenever Art isn't around it simply is not at all as interesting or entertaining.What feels like a terribly forced romance subplot with Melissa George (whom I usually like) taking up too much of the running time with unnecessary conflicts and in the end just feels pointless and other stuff which I can't go into details without spoiling stuff.Yul Vasquez as Mike was also pretty good but a missed opportunity not to develop his character further.In the end it was still watchable but there was potential for so much more.

Are you familiar with the character "Geordi" on Star Trek the Next Generation? He's a blind character on the Starship Enterprise, Chief Engineer. The problem? He just happens to have a visor that enables him to see perfectly, so he's basically no different from a sighted person. Just a gimmick with a goofy visor.Similarly, in "Music Within", we get a supposedly deaf man, but after a 12-second montage of him learning to read lips, he is absolutely "normal". He understands people just fine (even when their backs are to him), and when they speak to him he looks them in the eye, not the lips (major oversight by actor Ron Livingston). And just like Geordi's visor, he has a mysterious device strapped to his telephone that makes him able to understand everything perfectly (even though we're repeatedly shown that $1000 hearing aids don't work for him).Why am I making such a big deal of this seemingly insignificant point? Because it undermines the supposed message of the whole story: that disabled people are exceptional *in their own right*. By making the lead character a deaf person who can hear, by making Geordi a blind man who can see, Hollywood glosses over the reality of having a disability thereby reducing it to trivial.And that's my gripe with this movie; it's has a very "ABC Afterschool Special" feel to it. The producers tackle a difficult subject but only superficially. Just enough to give us a rousing feeling of warmth.Is that warmth, or is that just my colostomy bag springing a leak again? Sheesh.Like several other reviewers, I give this movie a thumbs up for a great subject, but I give it a thumbs down for its clunky, superficial and slightly hypocritical presentation. The whole thing feels somewhat contrived.The scenes showing discrimination are cartoonishly brutal, and it makes you think everyone in the 70s was a tactless creep. I was alive in the 70s, and while I fully agree that disabled people were overlooked, I never noticed the outright hatred that is portrayed in this film. And we're supposed to believe that the American Disabilities Act suddenly made people tolerant & friendly? That's a little too black&white for me to swallow.On another note, I agree with what another reviewer said about casting Ron Livingston as Richard Pimmentel. The real Richard Pimmentel is a heavyset man. Why couldn't the producers cast someone who weighed 280 lbs like the real Pimmentel? Or did they themselves discriminate based on looks? Sheesh.One day Hollywood will make a movie about disabled people and cast REAL disabled people. Until then, I won't be impressed by any lofty message they're trying to impart. We can applaud Michael Sheen all day for his portrayal of a man with Cerebral Palsy, but somewhere out there is an actor with real CP who's out of work because directors figure he's too much trouble to work with.

I was so disappointed in this movie. I don't know much about the true story, so I was eager to see it play out on film and educate myself about a little slice of history. With such a powerful true story and great actors it seemed like a surefire combination. Well, somewhere the screenplay failed them. It was so scattered - is this movie about his childhood? his love life? his own disability? his speaking ability? his passion for the disabled? I'm sure there is a way to incorporate all of those things into a good story, but this movie wasn't it. I was left cold watching characters that were unlikable not because of their disabilities, but because of their personalities. Other small gripes: 1. The heavy-handed soundtrack. It's the seventies - WE GET IT ALREADY! 2. If he's such a phenomenal public speaker, why weren't we treated to more than a snippet here and there - and even then mostly in montages?

How can I get a copy of "Music Within" to show to my soldiers? LT Eddy Cavanagh [email protected] found the Premiere for the seven o'clock showing on the way home from duty. Ironically, I was still in uniform. I was able to meet Jon Livingston and Richard Pimentel and discuss my views with them.This would be an inspirational movie for the troops at Ft. Hood.Maybe it can be shown at Sergeant's Time training which is mandatory training every Friday?Can this movie be downloaded off a payment link or provided via the DVD medium?