Ferrara's worst film!

I'm not sure it's that bad. Certainly not his best. It is just a small story, yet as always with Ferrera, still has the scope to be a big idea.
I thought Ice-T was pretty good, as was Lillo.
But I agree about the street life issue, possibly overlooked.
Still, I find his films leagues ahead of most US directors.

"Gran'pa was always tha best...."

I haven't seen this but how can it be worse than Go Go Tales???
Gone are the days of Driller Killer and King of New York...
Sheesh...

-Outahand-
Cultural Design

I've been devouring Ferrara's filmography in the past month, and have seen eight of his now (China Girl, King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Addiction, The Funeral, The Blackout, New Rose Hotel and this). And 'R Xmas is my favorite, so far. I think one simply has to jibe with the film's sparse, poetic, almost impressionistic (yet still ultra-realistic) style to appreciate it. The thing is really just gorgeous aesthetically, chock-full of those dreamy slow dissolves Ferrara loves -- except, whereas they made up a relatively small portion of earlier works, here they're practically the main transitional device between shots. Ferrara had been working at this kind of visual poetry all throughout the 90's and here he finally achieves it, but it's lambasted to bits by people because the film forgoes the melodrama and violence usually found in drug/gangster flicks (like, for example, Ferrara's earlier King of New York, an excellent but much more sensationalized portrait of inner city drug-war violence).

I couldn't disagree more with the popular opinion on this heavily underrated, overlooked film. This is the work of a master; someone who knows cinema like the back of his hand, someone who knows that "story" is irrelevant and "feeling" is everything. I wasn't bored for a second, always at the very least enthralled by the way Ferrara unfolded such a simple, lifelike tale with appropriately minimalist, graceful aesthetic flourishes. In a way, it's akin to later Altman works like The Company, where very little "happens" and instead of traditional "plot" we have a kind of fly on the wall slice of life; yet there's a richness of tone, of pure filmic beauty, of subtext, etc. that invariably goes over many viewers' heads because they're just sitting there looking for the money shot, the payoff, the grand drama that never comes. So the average movie buff and the strictly old-school Ferrara fan will prefer something like Bad Lieutenant where everything is more instantly accessible, more in tune with the classical mode of storytelling found in American film.... but I personally am much more interested in the kind of poetic, elliptical cinema on display in 'R Xmas. A truly great film.

(It's also, as one reviewer noted, the rare film concerned with the drug trade that reminds of The Wire, in its hyper-realism and restrained, subtle qualities, but doesn't suffer the comparison as so many films do).

Sometimes a movie works.

IMHO "King of NY"; "Bad LT"; "The Addiction" all work. I think these are his best films.

Then there are other films like "Go Go Tales"; "Driller Killer" which are good but not great.

Then there are films that don't work. "The Funeral"; "Fear City"; "The Body Snatchers" and, sadly enough, this film.

I don't think it has anything to do with performances by Drea or Ice-T. A lot of it has to do with the underwhelming Lillo Brancato. He is an ok supporting actor but he's simply not at the point where he is a leading man. But worst of all, the film never seems to gel. I really didn't care about whether or not anything happened to him. Maybe if Ferrara had made the film about Drea getting kidnapped and her butch lover trying to rescue her I might have cared (provided he got a good actress).

This film just didn't work.

Nah, this is a masterpiece compared to, say, Ferrara's very own New Rose Hotel. I actually really admired the subtle and minimalist style of this film; suited the material and setting perfectly. It's definitely not for those who have to have everything spelled out for them or their hand held the entire time, let alone those of the ADHD generation who expect something huge to happen every five minutes in the movies they watch, which automatically makes it stand out from its contemporaries.

Ice-T was chilling, and I wish we saw more of his character in the film. Definitely one of the better performances he's given in his acting career, if not THE best.

Disney 4 life!

I think he captured the street life brilliantly with the spraseness of his direction. Part of the reason for this was because it was set in 1993 and he remarked in an interview how much the city had changed in the 8 years since, so you have to keep this in mind that as to why he took a more distant approach in filming it.

Actually, it`s the one where Ferrara`s attempts at building up a unique cinematic voice for himself, is finally successful - after two largely failed attempts in Blackout and New Rose Hotel. It`s radically elliptical, timeline-mixing, extremely fluid with a constant use of dissolves between scenes, and mood-based, with a far greater interest in the impact of the key events on the people`s lives than these key events themselves (which are omitted altogether - or, in some cases, only glimpsed on a TV screen). And unlike the two aforementioned numbers, `R Xmas is more coherent and less repetitive, even though there`s arguably less "story" going on somewhere on the outskirts of the movie. Really fascinating storytelling here - or avoidance of storytelling - and, as usual for Ferrara in all but his greatest failures, it`s spellbindingly shot, thick with atmosphere. I`d even rate it higher than 7-7,5/10 if it weren`t for the somewhat lacklustre ending and a pointlessly excessive ambition rearing its head (nothing new for Ferrara, either), trying to tie all that stuff to larger NY crime fighting politics by having the mayors show up etc.

Agree with the OP about Brancato though - he`s a total non-entity and looks like Robert De Niro`s dumb, dickish brother.

PS: Is this the only Ferrara film with no bare breasts on display? Not entirely sure about The Addiction & The Funeral...



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. It was so so. Drea de Matteo did very good, showing a lot of range from love and concern to rage, but in the end, what was the message this movie tried to pass? You can never leave the business? Even when most of the plot tried to display that? There really weren't any redeeming qualities to the characters.

[after killing an Irish] Burn him, see if his ashes turn green - Bill the Butcher