Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

Director: Warren Beatty
Writers: Warren Beatty(screenplay)
Cast: Warren Beatty, Lily Collins, Alden Ehrenreich, Matthew Broderick
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Forty Years ago, actor Warren Beatty had a chance encounter with the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes in the lobby of a Las Vegas hotel. Beatty became fascinated with the strange story of the enigmatic Howard Hughes and decided to make a movie about him, which he finally did four decades later in 2016.

Rules Don't Apply, tells a love story of a young would-be actress who really can't act and has come to Hollywood to be a star. Once in L.A. she is put under contract to the reclusive Howard Hughes. Hughes has a bevy of young starlets, who he sequesters away in bungalows on the hills overlooking L.A. Hughes micro manages their lives and each girl has a driver who's been hired by Hughes with the strict orders not to hit on the girls. In other words Hughes keeps the starlets all to himself, but why?


That premise was the most interesting thing about the movie. What follows is neither clever or worthy of that premise. Rules Don't Apply, is like that - full of promising twist that never go anywhere. Warren Beatty conceived the story premise and wrote the script too... and much like his on screen personality, the script comes across dazed and confused.

Yes, there are some really interesting premises, like the very religious actress and her equally religious mother, who are assigned a religious driver...All of that would seem to be heading towards some juxtaposition between faith in an afterlife and faith in becoming a movie star...but nope nothing really becomes of these false starts.


Even worse, is the near catatonic performance by the chauffeur (Alden Ehrenreich), who drives the starlet around and falls in love with her, thereby breaking the rules aka Rules Don't Apply.

The young starlet Lily Collins was quite good, but she looked to young for the part. Sure the actress is an adult but in the movie she looked 15 and her love scene with the aging Howard Hughes played by a 79 year old Warren Beatty, about made me puke.

Warren Beatty playing Howard Hughes the mentally ill, reclusive billionaire was actually pretty good. I mean lets face it, Warren Beatty often comes across as a space-cadet and that's a perfect fit for Hughes. To bad the script was so boring or this might have worked.

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Haven't seen that Orson film but he looks way too intimidating to be holding a child

Ha, I know....but actually his scenes with little Natalie Wood were very touching. I was impressed with his acting and he often chews the scenery as they say.

I think the least intimidating i've ever seen Welles (in a film i mean not in interviews) is in F For Fake. Would be interesting seeing him playing a more kind character.

Actually scratch that it's probably the ferris wheel scene in The Third Man. Even though that's the most evil character i've seen him portray he's still utterly charming and someone you'd want to hang out with if he wasn't ya know basically Hitler haha.

Dude, watch The Godfather this weekend. I will buy you a Blu-ray if you don't love it.

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....It's on my short watch list, all three of the Godfathers actually. Hopefully in the next month or two. Though next up is another long overdue film, Wall-E.

WALL-E is so good, hope you like it. Got a feeling you'll like the first half and not like the second that much.

Definitely watch The Godfather Trilogy soon, i'm one of the few who loves the 3rd despite how much of a mess it is.

Please don't tell me you are watching Wall-E over The Godfather. Imagine someone saying to you, "Yeah yeah Citizen Kane. First I need to catch up on my Looney Tunes". Come on Citizen, I am begging you over here.

Just got to quote this because i was actually about to say please don't go in with sky-high expectations. Sean like me loves it so it's hard not to just assume everyone will find it as excellent as us, going in expecting a masterpiece and it not absolutely delivering for you can affect how much you actually did enjoy it IMO. The Godfather has got to be #1 in those sorts of cases since it has such a high crossover between critics and audiences. A few people i've shown it to have came out saying it was terrible then rewatched it later and said it's not a favourite but they did enjoy it quite a bit. Think if you expect to be blown away and you aren't it can really mess with how you perceive the film, i know i've been guilty of this.

Also several Looney Tunes cartoons are better than Citizen Kane

I expect to like Wall-E pretty much. It was on the shelf on the library so I grabbed it. I know it's in GBGs Top 10.

You guys will probably remember me saying this, but...I did see The Godfather in 1972 as a little kid. But I remember nothing, so officially I haven't seen it. I don't expect to be amazed by it, but because it's a 1972 film I think the pacing-editing will be to my liking.

You guys can thank Mrs Rules for getting me to watch The Godfather I asked her which movies she wants to watch next...cause I'm like always picking these old film noirs...and she said the Godfather and Harry Potter series So yup I'll be watching both of them.

I actually reviewed the full Harry Potter Series recently in these three posts:

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Don't read them now coz there's spoilers but just in case you're interested when you do. Curious how much your opinions match up with mine as everyone seems to think different. Also curious how you see it without any exposure to the books, i only read the first four when i was a kid but i definitely think that affected my opinions.

I get Camo's point but The Godfather will make you believe in the subjectivity of film. If film was an objective art form it would be in every cinephiles top 5, no doubt about it.

I may have talked myself into watching it this weekend.

I have tried to watch Wall-E three times and have never gotten beyond 15 minutes...I saw The Godfather for the first time about a decade ago...it was very good, but I don't get what all the fuss was about ....Pacino was brilliant, but beyond that, I didn't find the film had a lot of re-watch appeal.

What was so off-putting about the first 15 minutes of Wall-E?

Between the ages of 12-18 i watched The Godfather and The Godfather Part II at least once a month, so for me it had immense rewatch appeal. And unlike alot of films i watched that much i never got sick of it, i've never had a bad viewing of The Godfather and i doubt i ever will. It's not for everyone though of course.

I bought this movie sight unseen at a video store about a year after it was released because Mel Gibson was in it, figured it had to be worth watching...HATED IT!!!!!

I can never just watch the first, always the second as well and sometimes the third but not always.

I've read Mario Puzo's awful novel three times coz i love the film that much

Warren Beatty doesn't have a lot of misses as a filmmaker...will be adding this one to my watchlist.

Can't think of anything specific, just didn't hold my attention...does there have to be an absolute specific exact reason a movie doesn't hold one's attention?

You spent a lot of this review talking about what other people thought of the film and of things that happened during production. There was only one little paragraph where you talked about what YOU actually thought of the movie.