No thread, yet?
I must say that I was surprised by this movie.
It was like some weird fusion of Catch Me If You Can and Brokeback Mountain, except with William Burroughs’ rough, unromantic aesthetic concerning sex.
Are you living abroad? Because aside from the festival circuit, the film is not set to be released in the US until the fall.
Wow, I was just going to start a thread on this!
I saw the film over the weekend and I was pleasantly surprised! I knew almost nothing about the plot and expected it to be a silly gay romantic comedy, so the whole con artist aspect was a nice surprise! Actually what was most shocking was reading about Steven Russell afterwards and finding out that it really *was *a true story! Everything in the film actually happened, even
escaping by dying his prison uniform green and impersonating a doctor, pretending to be a judge and getting own bail lowered, and faking his own death from AIDS!
I really liked how often times the film would go in the opposite direction of what you would expect. I hope this film finally gets released in the US. I think it was supposed to come out last year or earlier this year but got delayed because of legal issues, even though it’s been already been released in other countries.
I’m wondering about the title. Is it a plot point that the title character has the same name as a major tobacco company?
Edit to add, Larry’s in Canada. I don’t even see Canada on that release list.
He could have seen it at a festival:
Germany 7 February 2009 (European Film Market)
France 19 May 2009 (Cannes Film Festival)
Brazil 23 October 2009 (São Paulo International Film Festival)
France 22 November 2009 (Paris Gay and Lesbian Film Festival)
Sweden January 2010 (Göteborg International Film Festival)
USA January 2010 (Palm Springs International Film Festival)
Various theatrical openings:
Belgium 10 February 2010
France 10 February 2010
Russia 11 February 2010
Taiwan 12 February 2010
Finland 26 February 2010
Sweden 26 February 2010
Estonia 5 March 2010
Lithuania 5 March 2010
Kazakhstan 11 March 2010
Japan 13 March 2010
UK 17 March 2010
Philippines 24 March 2010
Czech Republic 25 March 2010
Iceland 31 March 2010
Italy 2 April 2010
Denmark 15 April 2010
Netherlands 22 April 2010
Portugal 22 April 2010
Germany 29 April 2010
Hong Kong 20 May 2010
Poland 21 May 2010
Brazil 4 June 2010
And in a couple of weeks:
Greece 8 July 2010
And us?
USA October 2010
Looks like they might be positioning it for Awards consideration. That’s the only reason I can think of to delay so long. They should have delayed Winter’s Bone too.
Or maybe he’s in Argentina and saw it on television:
Argentina 3 February 2010 (TV premiere)
I really REALLY want to see it, so I need to get out of this thread for a few months because I don’t want to be spoiled. Glad to hear you liked it though Larry.
It’s second run in London. :smack: I am somewhat less mystified by the lack of comment now.
Dewey, as near as I can recollect, there is no mention made of Phlliip’s namesake.
I’ve already seen the DVD for this movie. I was going to buy it last week, but decided not to.
According to Entertainment Weekly, there are holdups in the U.S. release because of an ongoing legal dispute between the film’s financers and the distribution company that bought the U.S. rights.
Nope. That doesn’t come up at all.
Yeah, that’s what I meant when I said I hope it gets released in the US. According to that article, it’s even being shown on airplanes already.
Equipoise, knowing your love of film, I think you would really enjoy this movie.
Wow, I’d forgotten all about this thread. It came up when I was searching for something completely unrelated (the word “European”).
YES!!! I loved this movie so much, love it love it LOVE IT! I’ve seen it 3 times in the theater. It’s so funny, and so delightfully bizarre, and sweet as hell in a mind-bogglingly wonderful dark twisted way. Right up my alley. I had considered starting a thread on it when I first saw it in December, but had no idea how to describe it to give it justice. The fact that it really really is a true story makes it even better. If a smidgen of justice existed in the world, Jim Carrey would have been nominated for Best Actor and would have been at least considered as a threat, though not a frontrunner. Ewan McGregor in Supporting too. Carrey proved he was a good actor back with The Truman Show, re-enforced it with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and set it in cement with this movie. Anyone who rags on Jim Carrey’s acting in the future will get a (probably silent, because they’re not worth the effort) “Fuck you, you haven’t seen I Love You, Phillip Morris, you ignorant slut.”
It was directed by the same guys who wrote Bad Santa, and oh what a great job they did.
Hmm…I don’t recall seeing this anywhere in any theater in Las Vegas - was this in limited release?
I have had it on my radar for quite sometime, so I doubt that it could have come and gone from local theaters without me noticing, but who knows.
Netflix just sent it. Equipoise is right that it’s difficult to describe. And the fact that it’s a true story makes does make it more interesting. Steven Russell is an intriguing man. Behind the con artist is, (imho), a confused person with little, genuine substance, other than his love for Phillip Morris. Though I came away from the movie wondering if even his love for Morris might have been more of an obsession that Russell conned himself into believing was true love. I don’t REALLY doubt it was real love; Russell even said that was one thing he knew to be real… I just can’t be 100% sure considering the man.
I can’t imagine anyone else but Jim Carrey for this role.
I’ve been waiting to see this for ages…so glad to read it’s as good as I’ve hoped.
Just watched this movie last night, I had the same impression as the OP in that it reminded me of “Catch me if you can”
Anyways, I was going to start a thread about a question I had.
I’ll spoiler this, just in case…
How was Steven diagnosed with AIDS?
Also, did everyone catch the cameo with the real Phillip Morris? During the final court room scene, when the judge walks in and everyone stands up, Jim Carrey is ‘representing’ Phillip Morris, but if you pay attention, it’s not Ewen, it’s the real Phillip.
I watched this on On Demand last week, awesome film!
Bumping this thread because I saw the movie last night on DVD.
I really liked it - unpredictable, funny, raunchy, but with an underlying sweetness. Carrey has never been better, and McGregor was very good, too. My favorite bit: Cleavon, the fat prisoner whose “word is my bond, mothafucka,” keeps playing the romantic song for the couple even as he’s threatened and then tasered by prison guards).
These might be of interest (Joey P, they explain how Russell faked getting AIDS and “dying”:
I’m so glad you liked it and thanks for bumping the thread. I hope it prompts some to seek it out. The only bad thing is finding out the fate of the real guy, but that’s a whole other thread.
I’m so happy this movie was made. Now I want to do a triple feature of this, Catch Me If You Can and Bernie.
I truly, honestly don’t remember the movie that well. I do remember liking it and I should probably watch it again, but from the links above this answers my question if anyone else ever has the same question I did.
Huge spoiler:
Over a 10-month period in 1998, Russell began to feign the symptoms of Aids. He ate almost nothing and took laxatives in order to look as emaciated as possible. He wrote up fraudulent health records on the prison library typewriter and sent them to the relevant department in the internal mail system for inclusion in his medical file. Astonishingly, Russell was so persuasive that the Texas authorities never ran their own tests and he was transferred to a nursing home. From there, he posed as his own doctor over the telephone and received permission from parole officers to take part in a non-existent treatment programme. A few weeks later, the bogus doctor called the prison to let them know that, sadly, Russell had died.
Like I said, I don’t remember the movie, so if this IRL and not in the movie, that’s my fault.