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Moriarty's Been To ELIZABETHTOWN... Twice!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
There’s no small irony in the idea that ELIZABETHTOWN is a film about snatching personal victory from the jaws of failure, since I suspect the film’s going to play much better with general audiences than it did with the critical establishment.
By now, anyone who spends any time reading about movies knows about what happened in Toronto. Cameron Crowe took the film and screened it as part of the festival, and the response from the critical press was, to say the least, hostile. Crowe’s been a critic’s darling for so long that I’m sure Paramount was surprised, and very quickly, the word went out that there would be further editing, and what was shown was “unfinished.”
The thing is, when Harry was here in LA, it was about two weeks before the Toronto Film Festival, and we saw that cut of the film, which looked pretty darn finished to me. It was the day after the final color timed print came out of the lab, and when we saw it, there was no talk to us about further editing or works in progress. It makes me wonder now when that idea took root. Now that I’ve seen both versions, the cuts that were made feel arbitrary to me, and in at least one case, counterproductive. I’ve got a feeling that anyone who was going to hate this film before isn’t going to like the short cut more, while people who do like the film may end up with some unanswered questions that the longer version handled better.
And let’s go ahead and get something else out of the way before we really get into it. Since the first synopsis of the film came out, there have been inevitable comparisons to GARDEN STATE. More irony, since Zach Braff so obviously used Crowe’s earlier films as one of his stylistic templates when making his movie. There are certain similarities that are hard to deny. In both films, the death of a parent compels the main character to make a trip, and they end up falling in love with a free-spirited girl while dealing with their reactions to the death. But aside from those broad strokes and the great soundtracks, they’re far more different than they are alike.
GARDEN STATE, for example, has a distinctly skanky world view, what with all the drug use and the grave robbing and the spying on hookers in hotel rooms. The family in GARDEN STATE is hopelessly broken, and has been for a long time, more along the lines of an AMERICAN BEAUTY/DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES smiling on the outside/dying on the inside sort of a thing.
ELIZABETHTOWN’s got a whole different vibe, much warmer from the very start. Even with the idea of suicide playing an important role in the first reel. It’s a film about learning to look forward in your life instead of looking back, and it’s about a family bound by love that has to redefine itself when an important piece is suddenly missing. It’s not a film about overcoming dysfunction; instead, it’s about remembering what’s really important and embracing it.
One of the biggest questions about the film for me going in had to do with Orlando Bloom. Anytime someone wins the genetic lottery, their talent can be taken for granted, and it’s been easy for him to blend into large ensembles for LORD OF THE RINGS or TROY or PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN without ever having to carry the full weight of a movie. In this film, Orlando’s got no place to hide. His voice-over runs through the entire movie, and he’s in pretty much every scene.
So... how is he? Count me among the convinced. There’s an open approachability to his performance that won me over right away. As the film opens, Drew Baylor (Bloom) is on his way to see Phil (Alec Baldwin), the owner of the Nike-like running shoe company that Drew works for. Drew’s a designer whose first major product, the Spasmotica, has just been recalled. As he walks through the corporate headquarters, everyone gives him that same look... amazed he would even show up, embarrassed about what’s happened. All Drew can say as he walks past everyone is, “I’m fine,” like a drowning man holding onto a life preserver. So much of what happens in that opening sequence is non-verbal, especially once he ends up face-to-face with Phil. This is one of Alec Baldwin’s trademark killer cameos, a ten-minute role that mixes menace and mirth quite effectively. He tries to impress upon Drew the magnitude of the loss the company is facing.
I’ve read several reviews that started to rip into the film’s reality during this sequence, and I guess if you’re already checking out by this point, the film’s just not going to work for you. I think it’s all pretty funny stuff. I particularly like when he shows Drew all the programs that are going to have to be cut because of all the lost money. “This is my basketball team.” Then there’s that looooooooooooong Baldwin pause. “They don’t even know yet.” Even better is his Global Environmental Watchdog group, in a giant mission control-style room with screens showing images of pandas and eagles. “We could have saved the planet.” This is what real failure feels like, whether this is “real” or not. Crowe captures the feeling with surgical precision and wrings some real laughs and discomfort out of it.
Drew plans to kill himself, and again... I’ve read reviews where people mumble and grumble about the device that Drew rigs up to do the job. Remember... he’s an engineer... a guy who makes things... and his first creation just died on the table. This is a grand gesture. And even funnier, take note of the moment the knife drops out of the tape. Drew can’t even get this machine right. It’s funny stuff. The film takes its first sharp right turn when Drew is interrupted by the news that his father is dead. He was away from home, visiting the family back in Kentucky. Drew’s mother (Susan Sarandon) and sister (Judy Greer) ask Drew to fly to Elizabethtown to make arrangements for the body. Putting his own oblivion on hold for a few days, he goes. On the red-eye flight, he falls into a reluctant conversation with Claire (Kirsten Dunst), an overly-friendly flight attendant. What I like about the conception of her character in particular is how, even in that first scene, it’s obvious that all of her quirk and her perk is a cover for the essential transitory loneliness of what she does for a living. When Drew finally reaches Elizabethtown, he runs right into the middle of his entire extended family, and much of the film deals with the way the larger family has always viewed Drew and his immediate family, the “California Baylors... from California.” Right away, cousin Jessie (Paul Schneider) takes Drew under his wing. If you’ve ever seen David Gordon Green’s GEORGE WASHINGTON or (especially) ALL THE REAL GIRLS, you’re already familiar with Schneider’s work, and he’s great here as a guy who is dealing with his own esteem issues, making him a great emotional anchor for Drew.
From the moment Drew steps out of his rental car, one thing that Crowe gets absolutely right is the South. I grew up in Tennessee and Florida, and I had family in Alabama and Arkansas. Even the sound of the South is exactly right... something that you never forget once you’ve lived there, and when you hear it on the soundtrack, it’s almost a chemical thing. I could suddenly remember the exact humidity, the smell of the summer. Drew feels battered from all sides at first, caught between what his mother and sister want and what all of his father’s other relatives want, and in his desperation to find one friendly ear, he reaches out to Claire, calling her on her cell phone. This phone call, which takes up something like fifteen minutes of screen time, is one of the key moments in the film, one of those universally true things that Crowe’s so good at, and many people will identify with it, with that long night on the phone where you totally feel someone else out, getting to know them, talking about everything and anything. Again... a lot of what happens over the course of the sequence is non-verbal, and Bloom and Dunst make me believe and invest in the budding connection between them.
More than any other film he’s made... even SINGLES or ALMOST FAMOUS... this film leans on its soundtrack to help paint in some key emotional connections, and it walks that fine line between inspiration and self-parody. What makes it work for me is simply the wit and imagination of many of the choices. “My Father’s Gun” is one of those songs that seem to have been written for the movie, the fit is so perfect. Lindsey Buckingham’s “Big Love” is propulsive at just the right moment. I love Drew’s cell phone and the Temptations riff that eventually comes back during the closing credits. And as much as I like the song selections, the real glue of the film is Nancy Wilson’s score. I loved it. Simple, melodic, emotional without being overbearing. One of the moments that seems to cause the biggest outrage comes when Drew visits the motel in Memphis where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. Sure enough, Crowe fires up “Pride (In The Name Of Love)” by U2, and I’ve had many people tell me that the moment makes them cringe. Now, more than ever, though, with iPods and other MP3 players out there, music’s more portable than ever. I’m willing to bet that song’s been played at that spot thousands of times.
Is it obvious? Sure. But that song is married to our thoughts about MLK just like the “I Have A Dream” speech is, just like that motel. This is what our pop culture does to us. It makes these connections, hardwires them. Maybe it’s not the most adventurous moment in the film, but it strikes me as almost embarrassingly honest in terms of how we really behave.
In fact, that’s a pretty good word to keep in mind for a lot of ELIZABETHTOWN. Embarrassing. And not in a bad way. It’s not something that many filmmakers are willing to address in their work, because so much of modern filmmaking seems to be obsessed with being “cool.” It’s appropriate here, though, because dealing with your family can certainly be embarrassing at times, no matter how much you love them. Dealing with your own emotional responses to extreme situations can be embarrassing. Falling in love and letting your guard down... ripe with the possibility of abject embarrassment. The memorial for Drew’s father brings all of these ideas together in one big scene and embraces it fully, and once you get past that initial discomfort, what remains is abandon... pure celebration.
I love John Toll’s work in this film. He made his rep on films like THE THIN RED LINE and LEGENDS OF THE FALL and BRAVEHEART... epics. His work with Crowe on his last three films has allowed Toll to do something very different, though, and this is a film that’s all about emotion and the spaces between people, a warm movie, a quintessentially American movie, especially once it hits the road. It’s not flashy work, but it’s great. I also have to give praise to My Morning Jacket, the band that appears in the film as Ruckus, which was cousin Jessie’s band at one point. They reunite for an orgiastic cover of “Freebird” during Mitch’s memorial that marks the second great use of that song in a film this year.
If there’s one thing about the film that I don’t think works, it’s the Susan Sarandon storyline. The cutaways to her tap dancing lessons or wrestling with the car don’t strike me as true, and they’re not funny enough to work as sitcom. It’s only once Sarandon shows up at the memorial that her performance finally comes into focus, and I think it would have been stronger if this was the only time we really got to see her, if she’d only been mentioned and discussed up until that point.
After all, she’s the woman who stole Mitch away from his family. She’s the one who got him to move all the way out to California. She knows that when she shows up, she’s going to be judged. She overcompensates her ass off once she hits that stage, trying to show the family what it was that made Mitch love her for all those years, and that idea is a great one. The scene works better in theory than in practice, though, because so much of the rest of her performance seems too arch, too forced. I also think that Jessica Biehl could have been trimmed completely and never missed, since her character feels like a toothless rehash of Kelly Preston’s role in JERRY MAGUIRE.
There’s a subplot running through most of the film about a couple, Chuck and Cindy, who have booked most of the hotel for their wedding. Drew and Claire’s interactions with Chuck and Cindy are funny and they’re played broad, but there’s something real about them which really sells it. Crowe pays attention to all of his supporting cast, making sure he provides moments of grace for such great character actors as Bruce McGill, Loudon Wainwright, Gailard Sartain, and Paula Deen. He’s got to make sure his whole cast works to fully sell the notion of the extended family. He doesn’t try to offer every single person an epiphany, although I did really love the scene where Drew helps cousin Jessie calm down his son, Sampson, and a whole room full of unruly kids. The videotape they watch is one of the greatest things I’ve seen in a theater this year, and if it’s from a real series of videos, I’m buying them for my own kid. Now.
In the end, this all comes back to Drew and two key relationships. He has to resolve his feelings about his father’s death before he can move forward with Claire. As Chuck says at one point, “Death and life... side-by-side... separated by a thin thread.” It’s big stuff for Crowe to write about, and the fact that it’s not all neatly connected and wrapped up feels right to me. ELIZABETHTOWN is joyous and sloppy and frustrating at times but ultimately very satisfying, all of it jumbled up together. It’s the kind of film that may make you reflect on your own connections to your family. For me, it drove home one point loud and clear: I’m not ready for my own father to die. I’ll never be ready for that. All I can do with the time we’ve still got together is try to spend more of it with him and appreciate every minute of it.
I’ll be back later today with my reviews of GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK (expanding wider today from its limited release last weekend) and DOMINO, which hits screens everywhere this weekend. I’ll say this much... I don’t think Harry and I are going to see eye-to-eye on one of them. Until then...
"Moriarty" out.
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Love his music. Put out a new CD before I die please.
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I've been WAITING to get to ELIZABETHTOWN but my FLIGHTPLAN has had me lost in THE FOG....And thus, I made a funny! - - - George, The 7th Chicken!!!!
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But that's beside the point. Nice review Moriarty. Restored my faith in the movie quite a bit.
i'm excited again to see it this weekend. -
Oct 14, 2005 5:33:44 AM CDT
Nice review, Mori...but a 30% Tomatometer is tough to ignore.
by smarkjobber
I paid to see "Vanilla Sky" based on Crowe's previous track record and didn't feel too cheated. This time however, I'm just waiting for DVD. None of the trailers did anything for me, and while Bloom is a hell of a lot more tolerable than Kutcher, I just can't get excited about the two leads.
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I liked Almost Famous and Vanilla Sky--hope this is good.
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But in the words of Master Splinter, "Go... Play." Peace.
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The song "Glosoli" was perfectly married to your review Mori. I still want to see this film as it combines my two biggest passions, Music and Film. "Pride" is my all time favourite U2 song ever. To me song helps me relate to different situations. There was a problem in my family a few months ago that would have torn them apart. It ended with a heated conversation after a dinner we all had in an atmosphere I don't want to experience ever again. After the dinner and during the conversation I turned to my record collection and listened to a whole host of songs by my favourite artists including Radiohead, The Flaming Lips, Jeff Buckley, Bright Eyes and a host of others. I'm just thankful that in dark times, music and film, like any art form, will always be there.
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Watching that just on DVD was torture, in a theater it would have been a nightmare. I liked Almost Famous but preferred Jerry Maguire (though I was still a teenager when that came out). I'd really like to enjoy Crowe's latest movie, but I think I'll have a better time with it on DVD. I spend $80 a week on gas already, my theater is 20 miles away and has so few showings that it's ALWAYS crowded and you have to get there an hour in advance for a decent overpriced seat. And then there's the obnoxious audience. Seriously, theaters don't do enough (or anything) to make that a worthwhile alternative, and when I'm not even sure about the movie...well, it's just smarter to wait. Cheaper too.
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It's movies like Crowe's Elizabethtown that require you to ignore a 30 percent tomatometer -- cause even the reviews listed as 'rotten' are pretty mixed. Almost all of the negative reviews have at least a few really positive things to say about the flick.
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And wraps around you like a warm hug...
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I haven't watched the DVD of Garden State in awhile, but I can only remember one or two scene were Peter Sarsgaard's character does drugs. The party in the sports room and then the bong hits with his mother. -- I dont think that's extreme or on "Blow" levels. -- As for this movie I refuse to see it because the lead actors are unconvincing in everything they've been in and I can't shake the feeling that it's a more mainstream version of Garden State.
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Anyone who believes that is falling for a "santa claus is real" fairy tale. The movie was finished and locked going to Venice, and then everyone saw it was a piece of shit. So Crowe, needing to protect his fragile reputation, had to cut it down. And Jesus, Moriarty, get some fucking taste, for crying out loud.
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Oct 14, 2005 12:18:30 PM CDT
The Dunst is funky but I aint interested in this.Does she get ne
by the true priapic
I'd shag the living monkey crap outta her but I'd run at dawn
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Great call Kid AB. With how long some of these reviews are (a good thing BTW) it would be interesting to have a playlist to go with them.
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When is Cam gonna realize he's just not that important? At all? Look, the MLK/U2 thing couldn't possibly be in worse taste. Using the work of that self-righteous little prick Bono and attempting to marry a 20-year-old piece of schlock to the actual location of the event is beyond stupid and well into the realm of arrogance. Crowe can keep giving his wife Nancy soundtrack work--why not? But don't keep trying to convince me the songs he selects for mood music are handled any more capably than they are on, say, the average episode of "Smallville". He milks his actors for soppy, overwrought performances that reek of overindulgence. The plots are mushy crap that consistently fails to resonate. He's obviously convinced he's working with really big, really important stuff, but come on: his movies are what would happen if the programmers from Lifetime or the Hallmark Channel got to take over Spike TV for a week. I'd say I was gonna miss this one, but that'd be like saying I missed my kidney stones.
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there we go again, discussing crowe's soundtrack choices. just proves the man is a weak lazy director. you can take a temptations song and it would give you a positive vibe in a urine-stenched coal mine shaft, and crowe understands that more than you suckers will ever know. it is a shaft.
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Oct 14, 2005 1:40:34 PM CDT
"But that song is married to our thoughts about MLK just like th
by ban this user
Thanks, Mori. As Roger Ebert has written, a good review is not one that merely tells you whether the critic liked a film, but instead is one that gives the reader a snese of whether he would like it. And your review does that. If you like the choice of Pride (in the name of Love) because that song is "married" to your thoughts about MLK, then you and I see these things radically differently, and I will probably not like this movie. I love U2. They're one of my favorite bands. But I think it's pretty sad if you can't think of MLK without thinking of that song. There are many positive things "married" to my thoughts about MLK, but a f*cking pop song is not one of them. And for someone so good at using music to convey feeling, the choice of Pride in a scene about MLK is hopelessly cheesy, and frrankly lazy. Maybe for his next trick, Crowe can have a scene about the 60's and fire us some Buffalo Springfield. I've never heard that before.
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I totally get what you're saying. Last month, when I saw LORD OF WAR, it bugged the piss out of me, and in no small part because of the soundtrack. It's the sort of movie where they do cocaine onscreen, and they play "Cocaine" on the soundtrack. That choice didn't work for me, while "Pride" in E'TOWN did. It's hard to define the difference without watching them.
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Crowe co-opts popular music to create a mood that his filmmaking alone is incapable. He is a personal writer (read: self-absorbed navel-gazer) but at the same time a sentimental populist, one with a good ear for the mass appeal (read: he listened to Casey Kasem as a child and has an ear for what generates votes and ka-ching on American Idol), but as a serious artistic filmmaker, sorry, Crowe is flyweight average.
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a win Cameron Crowes I-Pod contest?
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If not, you'll probably find it as overwrought as I did. Seriously, this turd made Garden State look like the Graduate.
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...dude, that's totally deep. it's like... life is so fragile, you know? and, like, people die all the time, and you never see it coming. and, like, the devil was an angel once, you know, so it's, like, complicated. life is like, fragile and complicated.... this movie sounds super stupid.
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Oct 14, 2005 4:51:51 PM CDT
you people are critic b*tches if you rely solely on their opinio
by str8updancr
C'mon. Because the Tomatometer rates a movie "rotten," you're gonna pass? That's awfully weak. Most of the time, my favorite movies are the ones that critics hate. You think I care? Hell no! Critics have no persuasive power over me...and I think it's too bad that they do over so many others. Judge for yourself for christ's sake. I'm out for entertainment and a good time. So, bring on Elizabethtown! Thanks for the review!
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I find that I really agree almost all the time with Rotten Tomatos... but it's really been getting on my nerves how people use it as the end all final word on if a movie is good or not. A review can effect my opinion. It might make me check something out I was going to avoid or it might make me wait for the rental when my wallet is light and a lot of films I want to see are coming out. A review sometimes can even change my mind about a film, make me give it a second shot. This most often happens when it was hyped wrong in the frist place. But at the end of the day I watch what I like and I watch what I want. Reviews make me think, but they don't do the thinking for me. Peace.
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Is when people just use the % meter. As strict as the criteria to be a reviewer for them is... it's not THAT strict. I mean, read the reviews. It is possible that their reviews are looking at it for very different things than you would. Ok I'm done. Oh and I do like Rotten Tomatos. Peace.
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i know this movie has its flaws. but damn, i loved every minute of it, and this review captures why even more than my own did. as for the tomatometer...the user reviews are 30% higher than the critic reviews. huh. go figure. moriarty, you rock.
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Oct 14, 2005 7:53:23 PM CDT
I swear, Orlando Bloom is the hottest lesbian I've ever seen
by hung-wei lo
Even hotter than those Hanson girls. Are they legal yet?
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Moriarty is getting his legs back. Good to see. you sold this film to me. I had given up hope. It looked kinda boring. Thanks for not trashing Braf in comparrison. Influences are more polite. And his film spoke loudly to a different generation...mind you, one that could enjoy this film too.
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Yeah, I wouldn't trash Braff. I enjoyed GARDEN STATE. But the comparison had been made so many times without people having seen both films that I thought it was important to point out what separates them.
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Once in awhile movies really connect with me, and this was one of those times. I am a mild fan of Vanilla Sky and Almost Famous, but I just dug the hell out of this. Yes, some of the music cues almost seemed to be pounding the audience over-the-head, again the word "embarassing" comes into play, but it was weirdly real. It was almost like the flaws of this movie reflect the flaws of us as people. Intentional? That is a strong possibility. And I loved Garden State, but I think I like this better, just very warm, and it really made me appreciate my family, something Garden State didn't.
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I don't try to sell anyone DVDs. I don't run any Amazon links. So go right ahead... pledge to not buy DVDs from me. I'd like to keep the ones I have, anyway.
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Really, this movie is such a piffle, such a non-entity, I forgot it as I was getting up from my seat at the screening I saw it in. Crowe has always been to me a good filmmaker on the Lifetime Channel. For Lifetime's standards, he is really good, but otherwise he sucks. All his films are based in treacle and sugar. Fuck outta here!
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...didn't make my decision (Bloom, Dunst, and the footage I've seen up to this date are responsible for that), but it certainly enforced it. There might have been a time when I would shell out $9.00 just because it was a Crowe movie, but not anymore, not when movies have a DVD release window of a few months. As far as the reliability of the Tomatometer, check out the box office tab for the list of movies out right now and find the gems that have a rating below 50%. I am sometimes surprised to see a rather mediocre movie get a positive rating, but nine times out of ten the rotten are indeed rotten.
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Come on, people. There is a difference between "cheesy" and "not cynical." Elizabethtown is about a guy dealing with an entire spectrum of experiences, all of them "normal" and all of them things we've experienced in life...things that every single person experiences. And the character comes through at the end. The real reason Crowe is not cheesy, as I've said before, is because his characters make conscious choices to be optimists and embrace life. That's the point. I've seen a lot of cheesy movies, and I've seen a lot of "feel good" movies. Bad cheesey movies rely on cliches and bad plot devices and winning the big game and the school play to tug (artificially) at the heart strings. They're constructed, manipulative shit. Crowe's stuff is not...it's honest, consciously optimistic, and character driven. Drew Baylor doesn't "happen into" a charmed life...he takes a hard look at what he has and doesn't have, what he finds important, and who he wants to be, and acts accordingly.
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Oct 15, 2005 1:44:40 PM CDT
Saw this---isn't retched or horrible, it's just really,
by orbots commander
It reminded me of one of those CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame made for TV movies. A sappy snooze fest.
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Oct 15, 2005 1:51:48 PM CDT
Oh, and Orlando Bloom is NOT a movie star. The guy is a block
by orbots commander
He may be a swell guy in real life, but he has zero screen presence. I watched Kingdom of Heaven on DVD this week, and he does not make that movie better by one iota, muddled as it is, by his 'acting'. When he shares scenes with Liam Neeson and Jeremy Irons, he is figurately shoved off the screen. A masked Edward Norton made more of an impression. Peter Jackson knew how to direct Bloom---minimal dialogue, limited but well-used screen time, and use of fantastical physical abilities to build up the Legolas character.
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SPOILER...sort of...From Ebert's review, I do know there was an epilogue where the shoes (that apparently whistled) become a success, but I am unaware of the other changes. Which is counterproductive? I agree with the cut of the epilogue, only because, as you mentioned, the movie is about finding those little successes after great failure, and this would muddle the theme. And you're not the only one to say that Sarandon should be reduced to her appearance at the end (the best scene in the film)...James Berardinelli said the same thing when he saw it in Toronto.
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Oct 15, 2005 9:22:03 PM CDT
Hey mocky_puppet, the line Mori is referring to is said by someo
by lenny nero
And I was quite surprised by this film. I'm biased toward Crowe for he is one of my singles, but I didn't think I was going to like this on the basis of previews and buzz. It ain't no ALMOST FAMOUS, but damn if it wasn't something introspective, humble, real and entertaining. That's what I want from a movie.
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Really nice review, Mori. Good to see different shades - saying what worked and what didn't, as opposed to a total slam or total worship. The music question is a tricky thing - straddling the line of cheese. Haven't seen it yet - but perhaps the Pride stuff is more from the perspective of what Bloom's character might associate with it. The thing is, as music listeners, we create our own life soundtrack and act in our own music video. I remember in high school when my first major girlfriend and I broke up, I promptly went home and played The Smiths' 'I Know It's Over'. Fucking cheesy? Hell, yes. True? Yes as well. We play stuff to fit our mood and sometimes make over-obvious associations. Crowe tends to have a talent to make this work on film. It may not always work, but sometimes it does brilliantly. I'm still a defender of the Tiny Dancer scene in Almost Famous, which most people seem to find too cheesy - but I thought it was perfect.
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Oct 16, 2005 3:39:21 PM CDT
I'm still a defender of the Tiny Dancer scene in Almost Famo
by neosamurai85
I too defend the Tiny Dancer scene... as well as the Wake Up Maggie from Lords of Dog Town. Peace.
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I find the criticism of the use of "Pride" inattentive and lazy. It is made quite clear that the soundtrack to the closing journey is provided by Claire, that it is a "typical" mix tape and that the song choices are really all about her. That said, instructing him to listen to "Pride" at the MLK memorial struck me as pure Claire.
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I think the reviews (based on Rotten Tomatoes) are a little off, this felt more like a 50% fresh kind of movie. I thought the suicide contraption was very lame, I never believed that he really wanted to kill himself, no matter how many times he said he did, it just never felt real to me. Mostly because it was a lame reason to go (you lose a megacompany 1 billion bucks, boo hoo, and besides it's not your total fault, Alec has to take blame for greenlighting the fucking thing right?) at any rate, I never bought the suicide angle, so when he was 'redeemed' it had little effect on me. The U2 song was too obvious, it's one of those songs you hear so much, you stop hearing it, just filler sound really. The rest of the music was very good. I liked Kirsten in this alot. I thought it was overly convoluted how it was setup. (He's sent to Louisville to drive to Elizabethtown while his family is in California (just kidding, Oregon) and he worked where again? Not that it's hard to follow, it just seems unneccesary, and even though I know it's setup like this so Drew will be alone initially, it could have been handled better. The 'boner' dialgue was lame. Overall I think Crowe has a good heart, and even when he puts our stuff only half decent, it's got more to it than most fluff like this. And I can't say I agree with Orlando carrying a movie, he was passable in this, but not memorable.
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Oct 17, 2005 4:40:37 PM CDT
Kirsten and Orlando acted like they were on X in this movie...
by mentallymariah
I would honestly say Orlando Bloom cannot act, he is just a pretty face and Kirsten better knock off her I am on Drugs shaking her ass pyschotic quirky act because frankly it's getting a bit tired...needless to say, I think these charecters were all on drugs, serious drugs, so comparing Garden State's characters, at least they were REAL, these charecters in ElizabethTown were so fake, it was eye rolling from beginning to end...I never bought it!
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First off.. the drug use in Garden State. I only saw about 15 minutes of this movie, and it was the scene in the basement at a party where, I believe the self-absorbed little prick Zach Branff does 'E'. Why, oh why, does it always feel like these directors have NOTHING philosophically significant to say? Same thing with Cameron Crowe, Kevin Smith, Tarantino... but, getting back to the drug use in that movie, it just feels so damn phony. In a Scorsese movie, or in a movie like Panic In Needle Park, it always feels real or like they took the time to think about how people actually do drugs, why, what sort of situations this happens in... in short, they took the time to put themselves in the shoes of other people in order to give it a feeling of reality. That, or the filmmakers really do know what it's like so they're going on their own experience. And the difference, is that it always seems like what it is... desperate, full of self-loathing, and something that people do when they really want to numb themselves from a horrible reality. Even Blow, in my opinion, doesn't have that feeling. It feels like a guy who worked mostly for MTV for many years, had a priveleged, New York City, trust-baby upbringing wanted to cross over to the other side of the tracks, the side most of his idols are actually from, and do a movie 'just like Goodfellas'. I know the guy died of a heart attach brought on by ODing, (at least thats what I was told), but let's all remember that happened after a lot of success. I even know he was a nice guy, because my girlfriend works at VH1 and her and anyone that worked with him many years ago at either network said he was a sweetheart. But still... come on... that opening with... can't remember if it's the Stones "Monkey Man" or "can't you hear me knockin'" is so effing cliched just cause of the song choice. It just screams 'I've never heard of this song in my life before Scorsese used it, but damn, doesn't it just make regular, boring, uppity life in the city feel like we're down and dirty criminals who do drugs and shoot people? It's not much different than all the rapper Scarface wannabe films like Belly. But... all of these others have to bow down... KNEEL... before the all-time most self-obsessed, self-important, navel-gazing writer-director of all time, CAMERON CROWE. To me, he's the antichrist. Far worse than anyone else, because, for some reason, people actually take him seriously... but I suspect this movie and looking back on his previous work will change all of that. I mean... is there ANY reality to the characterizations? Does Crowe have any ability to write scenes, that, upon closer inspection, do not resemble nerd fantasies about the way life is or can be? I think the main reason so many of these filmmakers films are like this is because they're straight out of the basements/and or priveleged teenage nerdy 'dream-life' that somebody like Demme or Crowe came out of. None of them have a period of time, even if it's just between 19 and 25, where they were married or some other such situation in which a person is forced to really evaluate themselves and to not think the world revolves around them and their quest to get back at the bullies and popular girls, a scenario that, in a weird way, their entire film career seems hell-bent on doing. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm no less a navel-gazer then they are, and maybe I'm just a blow-hard troll... but I sure do know a whole lot of people who think the same thing about this generation's crop of film 'artists'. Lastly... I caught the Village again this weekend. The last time I saw it was last summer, when critical opinion and a horrible ad campaign touting it as another of Shyamalan's 'horror/sci-fi twist' crowd pleasers(not that it was a total move away from that) ruined the films chances of being seen for what it actually was - one of the best movies in recent years. That film was shot like a 70's movie, totally understated, insanely well-acted, but really... the script wasn't that great. It was an average script elevated by the hand of, what I consider to be at least, the greatest director we currently have. If he would take that skill and completely get away from those types of movies... his skill for visual metaphor, shot composition, and cutting from one scene to the next in a meaningful way, are all unmatched. I do agree with many who think he's a total prick, over-confident but... at the same time, I can't deny that he has the chops. And I went to see that movie twice, both with groups of friends and family who, aside from that Invasion of the Body Snatchers element of, "if the media says I shouldn't like the movie, then I don't like the movie", really enjoyed it. That scene where Adrian Brody stabs Phoenix... I wanted to stand up and cheer that someone had actually not used a loud, surround sound, 128 channel, fully mixed bullshit thud or stabbing noise, and that, afterwards, he held on the scene for what seemed like an interminable amount of time, making the audience extremely uncomfortable. And then they all come out falling right in line with what their opinion is 'supposed' to be. Imagine if things were like that when 2001 came out? I guess taht scene didn't numb them enough, like Spiderman 2, one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but everyone seemed to like... or pretended to cause hey... it made 450 million dollars. Oh well... rants over... guess it's time to go back to waiting for another Easy Rider to blow things back the other way again.
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I respect other people's opinions, but don't you think you can only formulate an opinion on the 1/8 of the film you saw?
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and beyond, I completely believe that I can make a judgement call that the rest of the movie will be more of the same bullshit. Hey, those movies can exist, all types of movies can exist, I don't think there should be a narrow kind of film made and that's it. But for that to be the ONLY movies made... it's like we either get empty, big-budget spectacle, big movies with big actors begging for Oscars, or we get small, self-important indy films that look to either shock and depress or look to show you how different, cool, ironic, and clever the filmmakers are. The "Indy film director as Rockstar syndrome." Just seems like there's nothing made from the heart that is not about making the director a star in his or her own right... and the independents always seem to set out to have an ending or even an entire film where you're like, "if things are this bad for the characters, why don't they just shoot themselves?" Instead of showing how, when human beings are in the most desperate circumstances, they cling to some strange hope, they show people who are so totally destitute and devoid of hope that, in real life, they'd just kill themselves. That's why they ring false, cause in real life, if you're the equivalent of a Joe Buck, a Travis Bickle, an Alice(Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore), or 'The Chief', there's that small ray that gets you through, even if it never comes to fruition. We all know we're like that, and, to me, no films portray that anymore. I guess that's the end of another rant.
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Oct 18, 2005 12:59:32 PM CDT
SK909, what I think you're saying about small independent mo
by orbots commander
Most independent movies are made by first timers who end up making 'young man comes of age' flicks. Sort of like many first novels. This type of story has been told many times, often well, but the problem is that inexperienced storytellers don't yet have a handle on a strong plot/narrative that can propel a story forward and make it compelling, so movies like Garden State often come off as meandering and frustrating. Crowe of course is not a first timer, so he doesn't have that excuse. Elizabethtown is just lazy storytelling on his part. In my opinion some of the better independent movies are in one particular genre or another like 'crime thriller' or 'science fiction'. Ex. Memento, Primer, The Usual Suspects. By the way, one of the best coming age stories ever made was Saturday Night Fever. Yes, you heard me, Saturday Night Fever.
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"What I like about the conception of her character in particular is how, even in that first scene, it
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And I wasn't impressed. It's corny and predictable. Also, Bloom's character is rich and brilliant, and looks like a male model yet i'm suppose to feel sorry for him? It's just stupid. I'll check it out again I guess on DVD to see this re-cut version, but i'm not wasting money for it in the theater.
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Oct 22, 2005 6:50:54 AM CDT
BORING! All the hype out of hollywood didn't sell this puppy
by the founder
Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring!!!!!
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Cameron Crowe's trademark icing of surealism compliments the very real substance in this movie about connections lost, connections never really made, and the connection to oneself that is necessary to truly fall in love. Claire's map was a profoundly beautiful gift. We all have a "course" that, if we are lucky, is altered by a navigator with a better sense of direction... a girl in a red hat with an alternate plan.
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