As noted in other replies, "Tree's Lounge" has no direct connection with Charles Bukowski. But the film could certainly pass for a Bukowski novel or short story. The film involves "regular" people, just trying to get by the best they can, with alcohol sometimes acting as a salve for those wounds we all suffer from every day. Nothing particularly dramatic happens, unless you count the Tommy character receiving a beating for kissing an underage girl! But for the most part, the tone of "Tree's" is pitch perfect. It was easy to see myself in Tommy, as well as recognizing many people I know by the characters in the film's cast. Many are the times I've done (or tried to do) a few bumps of bad coke in a bar restroom with a stranger...or almost went home with a girl I met, only to have her pass out drunk or her friend run interference. I've screwed over friends and been screwed over BY them...and of course I've had my heart broken, and then couldn't do a damn thing about it, short of drowning my sorrows in drink and aimless wandering. I really have a deep appreciation for the low key indy film that isn't afraid to look at a real life, a film that refrains from inserting false or invented drama. There are not enough films like "Tree's Lounge"...films for thinking adults who don't always want to be jarred out of our seats by a loud action movie or pseudo-sexy thriller. Much like Bukowski's work, "Tree's Lounge" is, above all, believable. The film speaks to me because it IS me!
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13 years ago
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Jaybone23
13 years ago
I never suggested that "Trees" was just like a Bukowski story, only that it deals with subject matter similar to that often found in Bukowski's work. Bukowski wrote about the difficulties of life for the working class, and that's also what "Trees Lounge" is about. But a one to one comparison, equating Tommy to Chinaski, was never the question here. It would be difficult, however, to not make SOME kind of comparison between a story set around a neighborhood bar like "The Trees" and a Bukowski story, since the bar was Bukowski's milieu. Also the film's mixture of comedy and drama was something Bukowski did very well in his work. The ice cream truck subplot, for example, is a comic premise that would not have been out of place in a Bukowski story. One could definitely imagine Chinaski stumbling into such a job and the results would most likely have been hilarious. Most of Bukowski's work was anchored in the real world, and "Trees" is as well. I was only suggesting that if a person enjoyed this film, they would probably like Charles Bukowski's stories as well.
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youaresquishy
11 years ago
Nothing particularly dramatic happens, unless you count the Tommy character receiving a beating for kissing an underage girl!
17 is not underage in New Jersey. 18 is the age in 12 states. In the other 38 it is 17 or less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_North_America18 is the age you have to be in order to participate in porn though, under federal law. People get confused because of this I think.
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