Best movie of this year hands down!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I agree with most that this film is well made and sends a message about compassion and trust. Though I had a lot of problems with the sex scenes in the film. About 30 minutes into the film, the main character has sex with a woman as payment because she cannot afford the 1,500 lira payment for her daughter's screen test. He uses degrading words and commands. This scene made me feel extremely uncomfortable because it was made in such a demeaning fashion. Throughout the rest of the film I was hoping that that scene would be it however there was more. In another scene, he hits the woman that is falling in love with him and he then takes her virginity away. I feel that while the film is trying to set up a certain persona for this character, these scenes were not necesary and only contributes to the perpetuation that for men to feel in control they must treat women as animals.

This is such a wonderful film. I saw it originally about 2 years ago when I was living in England on cable, and back then I thought it was quite good, but this time round I enjoyed it even more. From the same director that bought us the Oscar winning Cinema Paradiso, The Star Maker is a story of a con man that travels around Sicily giving false hope to everyday folk telling them they could be the next big star of the movies for a small screen test fee. I won't bother saying any more on what it is about as I highly recommend you rent or buy this movie. Many critics say that Cinema Paradiso is the better film but I disagree. This is my favourite film by Tornatore out of the three of his movies I have seen so far. "Stanno Tutti Bene" is also worth a look as well as "Cinema Paradiso" but this is more superior to both.One of my favourite foreign films of all time...I don't know how it didn't win the Academy Award for Best Foreign film. Rating - 9/10.

Tornatore did to me with this movie what he failed to do with "Cinema Paradiso". I used to blame myself for being insensitive comparing to people's reactions after "Cinema Paradiso" but now after this movie I know that it's not me, but the "virgin" audience in good movies that overreacted.The Starmaker is simply Perfect. The Mute's scene deserved an Oscar by itself. As a mater of fact every scene in the movie was so cinematographic that could have been easily a short movie by itself. As for the New York Times comments on the movie...... what do you expect by critiques who hailed "Shakespeare In Love". People have to understand that the old critiques of NYT that actually knew more than we do about movies are not around anymore! 11out of 10

This movie, by the director of Cinema Paradiso, "disappointed" a lot of American movie reviewers because it lacks the sentimentality and pat structure of CP. But it's far more epic, poetic & imaginative (& much less PC) and absolutely gorgeous to watch. Ignore the puritans at the NY Times & SF Chronicle. Watch this movie. You won't be sorry.