Reviews

This film is like a great term paper: it flows like fire-water from a heated pitcher. I bought it on a caprice, only to rivet myself to the screen unexpectedly. Tilda Swinton is absolutely flawless (not to mention Visnjic) in a very strange tale about a mother's endless desire to protect. Not that I consider it a true flaw, but I would have liked for Margaret to tell Beau exactly why things had been so screwy and deadly for the past two days. The opportunity arises at the very end but she decides not. For me, I certainly would have explained to a seventeen-year-old boy that if he screws around with derelicts in seedy closets, people die. It's sort of an important part of growing up. However, directors McGehee and Siegel decide to omit that part. While the film is a must for thrill-seekers, I really felt that the boy should have been let in on the sticky, lethal web his juvenile lust did spin. BUT TILDA ROCKS! Just like this movie.

I'm telling you, everybody's just falling in love with all the wrong people in this flick, but it's extremely captivating and the characters are perfectly engaging. I'm a bit shocked at some of your reviews here because I don't think many of you know much about the period. I do. To boot, I'm gay. Julianne Moore is excellent and deserving of the acclaim she's received for this role, as well as Quaid in the supporting role. The thing I think most people missed (or haven't made much comment on) is that both Kathleen and Frank are victims of heart-felt emotions at a time when expressing them is unthinkable. They are equally challenged by simple and earnest desires to "fill the void" in their lives: Kathleen with her giant colorblind heart in a cold society of bigots and Frank in his corporate supremacy and his "It's a different kind of love, Charlie Brown" headache. One reviewer said Frank was abusive, closeted (sure, obviously, duh) and an alcoholic. I guess if you'd ever been through that type of situation you might be a bit more forgiving because it is hell and I came from the 50s so trust. Each of these obviously well-developed characters is simply doing the best they can in a world where their ground-breaking feelings are out of place. I loved it. I own it. And I, clearly, do not advise that slim minds or socially challenged people attempt it. However, if you can watch a movie and not be a judge, if you can accept things not from your time and not about you but about very, very grand new ideas, it's an extremely well-made, well-acted and accurate film. I personally forgot we had so much orange and green furniture. And Moore is to be also commended on how well she wore those giant skirts :)

First of all, I've now begun to plan a trip to Castelldefels and Cataluna. The scenery is spectacular! This story about denuded emotions between two teens is funny, heart-breaking and very, very European. Dani's displacement behavior is a bit alarming, but still accurate in context. Nico's love for and confusion about his best friend are equally satisfying as cinematic contemplation. As a particular lover of European films, this one is clever, twisted and completely captivating.

Avary's whole point of this movie is simple: the society is numb. And he does it so perfectly that movie-goers looking for intense action or tears or giggles feel just as numb as the players. The director has done an excellent job here. The characters are without feeling. A rape, a suicide, homosexuality and philandering are all homogenous because this particular society (thank God my college years were not like that)is rapt with the self. That's the whole point. Nobody notices anything because the director wants you to feel the apathy. You may feel bored, but so are all the characters. However, they're bored enough to do really, really unbelievable things without a flinch or the bat of a lash. Like it or not, the duty of a director is to make you feel what he wants you to feel. Avary is fleet, decisive and deadly with his arrow (a Cupid for me). I don't see movies because I have nothing else to do. I want to experience a vision that is not mine. A new one. This movie is fast, it's hot and, like Pulp Fiction in its time, a totally new way to tell a story. I saw it four times and each time, I released the $8.00 freely. Transparently, it's not everybody's movie. But, people should see a movie because it's a movie and not because it's something comfortable or familiar or a blockbuster Hollywood coup. Life's a tough lot, often unforgiving and unfair. There are jerks out there, thank God, who make stuff interesting. I applaud the director always who can put that in my face. Avary simply explains how fortuitous most of us are. It'll be on my DVD shelf, trust.

The Affleck/Damon team usually impresses me. With them behind this movie, it couldn't be bad and, guess what? It is excellent! Mainly, the performances of the two lead kids are unbelievable. At a time when we're all probably caught up in world affairs, differences and threats, this movie takes a step back and remembers to look at life in the small circles....brilliantly. As an adult, it takes me back to when I could be fascinated for hours by a feather whirling about in a puddle. And when these characters, especially the two little guys, undertake their personal quests, it's so easy to forget what might be on your mind because what they're doing is a boundless flight to new understandings, refreshed vantage points and bigger, fuller hearts.

In the first fifteen minutes, the director asks me to believe (and care about) the absolutely most impossibly ridiculous plane crash/survival sequence in history. If you want me to like a film, don't insult me technically, ever. And if you attempt that, give me a reason why. A giant plane nose-dives into the Pacific. It breaks in half. Tom Hanks swims free, unharmed. But there's a jet turbine still menacing on the surface? What? The brain of the plane is dead and sunk. What's spinning this thing? From there, the movie escalates in sheer stupidity. The man risks his life for a basketball. For God's sake.

I cannot stab at how many films I own. However, I can easily assess how many have kept me from getting up for a beer or pausing the tape to excuse myself. Trust that even my most sincere favorites compel me to both. But, not this one. I did not move. I did not pause. I did not pee. I did not drink. I held fast, hypnotized and paralyzed, until the brief runtime expired. How movies like this one, rare as they are, escape the accolades of The Academy will always befuddle me. Albeit, there are a thin few like this. I can scarcely explain how gripped I was from the beginning to the end of this, a TRUE cinematic jewel cached. I am a proud owner, advocate and promoter of Twin Falls Idaho.

I went to see this movie to check out Hayden Christensen because I'm a Star Wars fan and wanted to see the next Anakin. I discovered the best movie I've seen in a year and I see A LOT of movies. I walked out of Ocean's Eleven, A Beautiful Mind and Lord Of The Rings. In one way or another, I'd seen them all before. Life As A House had me reduced to a sniveling, awe-struck confidante of each character in one hour. I cried for the second hour and there is no lying about that. I can't really say anything brilliant about the direction, except that the director clearly commanded supreme performances from his cast. Otherwise, the direction was mute and I'm not saying that is a bad thing. He didn't scream, "I am the director!". He let his cast do it. Kevin Kline is amazingly metamorphic. Kristen Scott Thomas (and her character because you can see her in her character and that's not a bad thing)is perfectly cast and extremely endearing. Hayden Christensen is not only exactly terse and pained as Sam, he IS Sam. I look forward to his Anakin like I never imagined before. What a well-kept and timely Vancouver discovery! Jena Malone blew me away in Contact and Bastard Out Of Carolina and she has matured into a true starlet. I've always liked Mary Steenburgen, but never really cared about her characters until now. (And you could light a cigarette on Ian Somerhalder, but that's enough about me). I think the beauty of this film is metaphoric in the purest form: The building of a house, in the place where it was, creates a new house from the ashes/splinters of the first. A phoenix. The celebration of the birth of renewed relationships from the fragmented shards of the past. I just cannot say enough about how much this film slayed me and, after some really stinky films lately, I'm glad to have my ardent love for film finally reinforced by a surprisingly overlooked jewel like this tear-jerking, complex and totally engaging conglomerate of very gifted film makers, actors, writers, producers and angels. I eagerly await ownership of Life As A House.

Colin Hanks is spectacular. Catherine O'Hara has NEVER been funnier. Jack Black's character (or maybe just Jack Black) is sometimes a bit obvious, but completely believable. I saw four movies this week and Orange County is the ONLY one I sat entirely through. The auditorium was sparcely seated, only about four people, and when I passed the Concession Extortionist going out, she said, "Was that you howling in there?" Why, yes. It was. The last time I laughed like that was when the boys inhaled helium and sang John Denver in My Best Friend's Wedding. Orange County is a delightful film.

I only paid $1.99 for this movie, and I want it back. It's simply unbearable. Four lines are required to submit this? Okay. Let's see. I've never eaten as much ketchup as this director used for blood. I've never had wine that was so paint-like that it wouldn't wash out of a sink and I've never, ever (I swear), been so totally unamused and bored by such a transparently benign attempt at horror. Italian horror films, I've found, generally suck. This one is the ultimate Hoover Deluxe.

I own this movie. I'm reviewing it because I've just read some erroneously nasty things about it. Hey! It's a movie, dudes! It's not a documentary on vampire lore or a Discovery Channel exposé. If anybody wants to see a BAD vampire movie, see John Carpenter's. Okay? This one's clever, slick and introduces its own history with a vampire alphabet of sorts in the form of runes, kinda, which are tattoos marking the vampires by their owners. And they also name books in a vampire "bible". Wesley Snipes just plain rocks as Blade, a mutant created by the timing of his mother's bite. In a pretty rare "Hollywood" role, Stephen Dorff is a demonic, sexy-as-hell Deacon Frost, all ripe to undo the current hierarchy of the vampire scene on the eve of the coming of the Blood God. The director's eye doesn't miss a detail. The color and symbolism are impacting and concise. It's "stylish" like early Clive Barker (who has since lost his mind). Good looking sets, clothes, lighting and action. The showdown at the end with the skeleton-people-pteradactyl-things is brilliant. I still wonder and ask you: Does Blade's dead mother, in the guise of her return, look a whole lot like Toni Braxton? Or is that just me? An interesting comparison would be Modern Vampires with Casper Van Dien. I own that one, too.

If you can bend your rules about vampires, just a bit, and except some new twists, this movie is exciting, very well made, action-packed and sexy, like vampires are supposed to be (in my opinion, although the sight of real blood makes me pass out).

I got this movie from eBay mainly because I'm gay and I love Til Schweiger. However, it's one of those movies that, when you watch it a second time, you never say to yourself, "Hmm. I forgot about this boring part. I'll go make popcorn." It doesn't have that part. It's a very fluid and constantly interesting film. And, yes, Til Schweiger is worth it, if nothing else. But, it's a great movie even for straight guys.

I had a double impetus for buying this film. I'm gay and Casper is very, very cute. Plus, I love vampire movies. This one really surprised me and made me laugh. Unlike John Carpenter's Vampires, I easily accepted the new vampire rules because they were funny. It's not scary at all, or even eerie like Lost Boys. It's very fresh.

I just finished this film. Bought it at eBay. I collect obscure movies. This one is a jewel. A very dark jewel in its very own genre. I'm not one to reveal plots, but I can describe the movie. Director Garth Maxwell takes you on a bit of an unexpected trip. It smacks of classic horror, but, it's new horror and you never know where it's going. Maxwell's use of light and color is simply astounding and unforgettable. I'm sure I'll sleep with some of these images tonight. It's not for those of you who like typical movies. It's very different. I have but two technical problems and they're small: 1) Maxwell let's Dora say, "Marigolds." and they're not. 2) One line slips out while no lips move. Otherwise, the film is certainly going to chill some blood cells and keep your brain ticking. Sorry, but Alexis Arquette couldn't be more good-looking, either. It's not big Hollywood (and I like that), but it's very, very provocative film-making. I like that, too.