Reviews

This is a fascinating if flawed movie that goes by in a flash. Plus it gets better the more you think about it. I am so glad I decided to watch it. That first kiss scene is a treasure.

"I hear your older sister's at Vassar now, right?"

"Yeah... y'know,.. Political Science Major. Can you believe it? I mean, Amy never heard the news Lincoln was shot."

"Chan Tyrel, this is insane... you were a little girl, and now... you're actually a young woman..."

"Uh, you're not going to start singing Gigi are you?"

Caught this on TCM a few days ago, and I was completely struck by the dope honesty of this experience. Sure it's not real life, but it's something so like it distilled into a romp of exploration. You are in on the mystery and detective work of historical research as both you and Cheryl Dunye (the character) find out together the elusive truth of The Watermelon Woman. A bravura accomplishment of pro filmmaking that succeeds without the varnish or tarnish thereof.

Yes, this film is gripping from beginning to end, and that began to wear on me. Its one note, unrelenting, gets to be tedious. I looked at my watch three times hoping it would end sooner. I saw no point in the story continuing despite the flawless execution and great acting. Watching someone make horrific mistakes, moment after moment, seems pointless. I tired of it before it could finish.

This is a movie about being performative. Sure, actors do that all the time. But in this case the main characters are performing artists who can't recognize it in themselves. Are they saying what they really feel, or are they giving a performance? The divorce lawyers certainly do. And once they get involved one performance begets another until it spools out of control. A movie that demands introspection from the audience and will give as good as it gets.

It is all too easy and maybe even part of human nature to look upon people different from you as symbols. But this film has us dig deep and look at the individuals. An astonishing, intimate portrait. They are not just a guy and a girl, they are those particular people that shouldn't be be mistaken for others.

This film gets the audience to open up. A rare accomplishment.

This is a beautilfully-acted and compelling drama that is filled with so many great touches of drama and beauty. Don't expect to laugh or even smile at this, but some of the choices the characters confront will intrigue and even amuse you. The movie especially turns on a key moment near the end that is amazing. Watch it for yourself and be very much entertained.

I loved watching these people and the power dynamics created by a group of immature dude friends who bring a new 'date' every Saturday night to the same diner to eat cold fries, drink bad coffee, and talk smack. The girls are temporary fixtures in their world of male aggression and slacker love. How they go along with the jokes, abuse, hugs, and bonding makes for an ever changing landscape of desire and disgust. The group is always right, until one of them tries to assert their independence and momentarily offers a different opinion, and then they in turn become isolated from the others. The alliances shift throughout the film, though the one constant is being alone in a crowd.

Although the film is mostly eight kids sitting around a large booth talking, a few detours have the group interact with a lone diner they taunt who just wants to be ignored, a self-loathing waitress who puts on an act as a people-pleaser, a couple of drug fiends who bully their way into handouts, and a sexed up producer lady who makes movies and makes out.

The audience makes out pretty well too.

You'll read some IMDb reviews on this movie that will criticize it for its length. Or its originality. Or both. They say it could have been cut down. Or that there were unnecessary scenes.

First, I think the movie is unique. The protagonist is profoundly emotionally crippled. So much so that he can barely react to people in a normal way. This is evident from the start of the movie. Right there, I think this movie is unique, and I can't think of another in which the main character is at a dead end from the beginning of the movie.

More importantly, the movie has to leave you all sorts of clues as to the nature of his plight. I suppose you could reduce any novel to just a few sentences, or a symphony to just one movement, but the part of the movie that is not summarily discarded is part of getting to the point, instead of just giving you the point which would seem shallow, forced, and ultimately hollow.

There is a journey that takes place during the movie, despite the harsh conditions. But it comes about subtly. Take your time with it, and I think you will be amply rewarded, just as the industry, the critics, and many in the public have been rewarded by this creation.

Two of my favorite scenes in movie history in the same movie:

Arlington Hill, where the Rev. Franklin's son talks about experiencing Europe through the eyes of films (Bergman's Persona, Fellini's La Dolce Vita, Godard's Band of Outsiders), and then his rather frank discussion of slaves, cowards, and black people passing for black. Slaves have options - escape, revolt, death. Cowards have... consequences.

Keys, when Marianna sings about giving him the keys to her Amsterdam apartment and opening up her world to him. We're your new family, man.

I think I could watch these scenes everyday of my life and not get tired of them.

In one early scene, Nice Guy Johnny says "I'm not really the sleep-on-the-beach kind of guy." His new found friend responds, "You could be." And in those three little words, worlds turn.

It's a beautiful moment in a gorgeous, emotional film. These three words stand for a pretty big idea: Just because you decided at one very early point the 'kind of person' you are, you really don't have to stick with that the rest of your life.

Not only does Kerry Bishé say those words so beautifully, but everything she and Matt Bush have put into their characters leads you on a touching story of hopes repressed, revealed, and let free.

Great writing by Edward Burns brought to glorious life by hard-working actors. Too bad this kind of magic doesn't happen all that often in the movies.

"This is something you do for a billion years or not at all."

This, to me, is a stunning line that is delivered with full force and cuts through the movie like a knife.

How can you expect a resolution to a story that will not be approached in a millennium, much less in a couple of hours?

The movie is fascinating up to a point. Freddy does not have PTSD, and I'm not sure he's an alcoholic: his brain is damaged from paint thinner. This changes the narrative of the film. Not much can be accomplished after that, so the movie drifts from being fascinating through the first 100 minutes to a kind of stupor in the final stages.

Emblematic of life, to be sure, within a kind of arid emotional desert.

There is a well-known dream that so many people all over the world have experienced. It goes like this: you arrive to school to take a test that you never studied for.... or you never even showed up for class! Or you come to school naked. Yup, you show up at school one day, you are about to enter the school, but then you realize (to your horror) that you are naked. Or you don't have your pants on.

There are variations on the dream. One is "The Actor's Nightmare." You are about to go on stage in front of an audience, and you have never read the play. You forgot to show up for rehearsals.

Of course the dream is completely unreal. Nobody could have just realized they were completely naked as they enter the school. No director would allow you to go on stage if you never showed up for rehearsal.

But in the dream, that is what happens. Really. You really did show up naked or not knowing your lines.

Now, we are all familiar with Fables. Like the Tortoise and the Hare. The tortoise and the hare race against each other. Is it a true story? I doubt it. But is that what really happens in the fable? Oh yes, in the fable they really do race against each other.

There is a reason that so many people all over the world share the same dream. It is an unreal situation, but there are emotional and intellectual truths revealed by the dream. In the case of the Actor's Nightmare, it is about feelings of unpreparedness. Or inadequacy.

In the fable, we learn how slow and steady can win the race.

Black Swan is a phantasmagorical fable. Phantasmagorical = a swift series of dream images. I won't go into any detail of what happens in the movie. Suffice it to say that some really weird things happen.

It is very likely for people to think of Black Swan as a movie about an insane girl, or hallucinations, or schizophrenia. Certainly, I thought of that at the beginning. It's hard not to.

However, as the story unfolds I realized that the entire story is a fable.

It is not a film about madness or that it takes insanity to create art. Or even some kind of Fight Club doppelganger. Everything in this story is unreal, yet it happens. Just like in a dream. Or in a fable.

And just as in those dreams and fables, there are emotional and intellectual truths to discover in Black Swan.

The movie is about a young woman who leads a child-like existence. No matter how technically skilled a ballerina she is, she will never become the artist she wants to be and remain the simpering child.

This is a coming of age story.

Yes, there are many themes. it gets very complicated. And every scene of the movie is nightmarish. There is a lot to think about in this movie, and a lot to laugh about. Yeah, I not only liked the movie, but I also found it bombastic, ridiculous, and preposterous. However, as events came to their conclusion, I was amazed by the way the director coalesced all his thoughts into a rather powerful, stunning package.

So I found it to be a work of bravura. Gutsy, 'I don't care what the critics think' bravura. He made a camp movie about a subject that is not camp at all. Bravo.