This is my first thread, so be gentle if I do something wrong.
Has anyone seen this movie? It has a cast that would probably turn most people off initially (James Vanderbeek (sp?) who is fabulous as a drug dealer, Jessica Biel in a role that will make you think again about her being the eternal Mary Camden, also Shannyn Sossamon and other people you will recognize, such as Greg from CSI in a small role).
I gave it a try, and I have to say I was impressed. It’s from the makers of Pulp Fiction and if you don’t like that style of movie, don’t bother.
Any opinions? I’m especially looking for your opinions on the ending. (Not sure how to do spoilers, yet, so I’m not even going to try).
I liked the directing (the scene where the two frames converge when the characters meet is amazing), and the music choice was good, but I don’t know… in terms of Bret Easton Ellis adaptations (let’s not mention Less than Zero, a brilliant book which… gah) but it didn’t have the same hedonistically psychotic feel as American Psycho’s adaptation. All in all, pretty decent though. I went with about 7 other people, and 3 of us loved it, the rest hated it. Those who had seen American Psycho & understood Ellis’ themes thought it was fun, but the others only saw the stylistics w/o understanding the rationale.
i liked it, despite hating every character (which i think you were supposed to). I thought the directing and all the visual tricks were cool and fit well with the story.
I’ll agree. It was a good film but all the characters were complete pricks (which I hope was intentional on the part of the director). Even the brunette girl (with the short hair, forgot her name) was irritating. Still it was saved by a snappy script and some good direction.
I thought that it was a very interesting and artistic film. I enjoyed it very much. I found that while the characters, while being morally ambiguous, were able to bring about feelings within the viewer. And, in fact, their moral ambiguity made them seem more real and genuine, and I thought that the problems that they faced were those faced by real people.
I also thought that the cinematography was very creative and interesting. For example, the first several scenes followed various characters from the same party in the diffent directions that they went in. For example, Shannon Sossomyn’s character went into a bedroom to have sex with a guy, some guys burst in with a keg, and then time seemingly goes backwards from the vantage point of the keg, while a minor-key version of “Carol of the Bells” plays.
By the way, to the OP (completely off topic), what part of Michigan are you from? I go to CMU.
Speaking of the scene you mention BellaVoce that scene disturbed me! I mean to post that on the thread that was up here on disturbing scenes in movies, and for some reason, that scene made me quite uncomfortable.
Glad i’m not the only one who liked this movie, though. I mention it and get the weirdest looks!
As for the location question… I think I’m a few hours from your location (I don’t know location all the well, I’m horrible with directions). Email me and I’ll tell you, as I like to keep specifics private for various reasons! (cough work cough)
I finally watched this last night and this is the most recent of the RoA threads so this is the one I’ll ressurect because I just have to say how much I loathed, loathed, loathed this movie. The dialog was crap, the directing/editing tricks were irritating beyond all reckoning (if there’d been one more film running backwards scene I was going to scream) and the performances were uniformly terrible. It barely even works as eye candy, since most of the scenes with hottie guys in them seem to involve them making faces not normally found in nature. James Vanderbeek should be slapped. A completely soul-deadening experience, and not in a good way.
I thought Dawson didn’t give too bad a performance, but it wasn’t a real good film. Shame, that, cause it looked like it had potential (I haven’t read the book).
Interesting ideas, but it seemed too aware of its debauchery, and hence the drug taking and sex scenes seemed to be there to make teens think “this movie is cool.” Shame that, because this film needed to be loaded with sex and drugs, it just didn’t need to do it in such a self-consciously “naughty” way.
The script was awful as well. Emotional moments were ruined by idiotic dialogue.
I thought it was a pretty good movie. Visually interesting, emotionally involving at times, and interesting (if quite hateful) characters. All in all, a bleak but interesting look at (a subset of) humanity.
Plus, any movie that has the line (paraphrasing from memory): “Then I went the Guinness brewery and had a pint so good my dick got hard” can’t be all bad.
I saw it the other day and thought it was surprisingly good. I particularly enjoyed Victor’s recap of his trip to Europe and back. Most of the time if I don’t like any of the characters I find it hard to enjoy a movie but this is an exception to that, I think.
Meh. Didn’t love it, didn’t hate it. I can only take so many scenes played in reverse. And I felt like it was either heavily edited, or the script sucked in the first place. I mean
the girl who killed herself? I couldn’t have cared less. I didn’t know anything about her, and playing “Without You” in the background won’t change that
I wish “Dick” had gotten more screen time, too. That whole dance to George Michael’s “Faith” was the high point of the movie.
