As always, it really does come down to opinon in movies. I enjoyed it myself, but it seems that something like this really isn't intended to get a middle ground response from people. It seems more of a love or hate type deal.
I thought the movie was honest and unpretentious, and had some dialouge that was good without trying too hard to be clever. That's a symptom of a lot of "indie" flicks nowadays, and I gotta say, seeing something where the characters aren't all masters of poetic witicism was a nice touch. Not that I have anything wrong with poetic language, it's just that the tone of this movie was very real, and the plain speak of it's characters (bar maybe a few scenes) was satisfying.
I also really enjoyed the scenery and the way that the characters existed outside of Howard. I really got the sense they were all their own people and that Howard wasn't the center of the universe, which is good when you want to establish reality.
The son's performance was the most cliche, but I wouldn't call it unbelievable or the poorest acting I've ever seen...it's just that I've seen that type of character reaction and dialouge in a lot of things, but that doesn't necessarily mean the actor himself was terrible (although he was the weakest of the cast). I had never seen anything with Sam Shepard or Sarah Polley before this, and I'm now interested in seeing more from both. Tim Roth was good as always, and as for the poster in this thread confused about Jessica Lange's last scene, well, I liked that, because this wasn't a melodrama and the emotions the characters felt weren't 100% one way or another. Her situation contained a mixture of happiness and frustration, and when people are faced with something like that, it can be very hard to express yourself. I think Jessica Lange actually pulled that off well.
All in all, the original posters needs to lay off the exaggeration with statements like "this must be one of the worst movies I've ever seen". If this is the worst you've ever seen, then you must watch nothing but classics and top of the line stuff, because I can guarantee this movie has a lot more to offer than any of the truly horrible movies out there. Seriously, where do people get these ideas? Look at the IMDB Bottom 100 if you want to see what terrible is; this is far from it.
"Bulls**t MR.Han Man!!"--Jim Kelly in Enter the Dragon
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16 years ago
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Celtfire
15 years ago
A really dreadful, flabby film. I've directed films with professional actors and I know the director must use the storyboards with script and come up with the timing of the actual scenes before shooting begins. Wenders could have had a tight production but his very loose control encouraged the actors to chew on the scenery, especially Jessica Lange. She's damn good in films where the directors knew what they wanted and controlled the scene timing, but here she went all over the place, mostly, I think, because Wenders thought her searching delivery seemed really creative.
A good 30 to 45 minute story idea here, but not the loosey-goosey, amateurish, over long film I witnessed.
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Trp1985
14 years ago
Some scenes were overly corny, I felt no emotion at all for anyone.
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dbeane
8 years ago
Yes, it was the writing that was the weak point of this movie.
Wem and Sam apparently couldn't decide whether they wanted to make a dramatic, theatre-style drama, or a gritty realistic indie naturalist drama.
So we get some great cinematography in Butte and elsewhere, an attempt at "keeping things real", but that was badly undermined by some of the melodramatic and overwrought "speeches" - from Doreen and Earl and particular.
Also, without more backstory of Howard, the viewer doesn't really "get" (at least not for a while) Howard's lifestyle and angst, so a lot of the plot seems haphazard and arbitrary.
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frankstallone1
10 years ago
Nwmoor, You mention the money involved as if this movie had a big budget. It didn't
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