MovieChat Forums > Great World of Sound (2007) Discussion > Overall impressions and questions...

Overall impressions and questions...

posted 15 years ago by Limeginger
1 reply | jump to latest

This movie struck me as just ok.

Stories about con men are always chilling and worth being cautioned about.

It's not very well made, or conceived, but the director/writer is still young and learning how to make movies.

I think friends of the director and writer may have been sent to this board to write favorable comments. Most of them sound the same and have similar misspellings and grammatical errors.

If these auditions were real then Clarence and Martin were ad libbing almost the whole movie. And if that's so, the actor playing Martin did and said comparatively little, and the actor who played Clarence carried much of the movie by himself.

In general, the actor who played Clarence was phenomenal; Martin was kinda weak. Not just his character, but his acting.

It's illegal to film people without their knowledge. If that's what the filmmakers did, how did they get away with it?

[–] actionfilm-2 15 years ago

I liked the movie a lot, its honest and has charm. It doesn't come across as the same type of examination of con artists the way films like Matchstick Men, The Grifters, House of Games, and others do. Namely because they are not con men in the traditional sense. There's also the sympathy factor, the 2 main characters are genuinely likable.

I would also submit the film is extremely well made and concieved by the filmakers who recognized its budget limitations, its sparse style relies heavily on the story and performances.

I don't know about the filmakers circle of family and freinds posting rave reviews here, with currently only 6 or 7 topics on the board, this page hardly qualifies as recieving heavy traffic.

As for the auditions, I don't know if they were real or not, but it seems they were not real in the sense that the performers thought they were auditioning for a record deal but rather they were real people (not actors) taking part in a film.

Kene Holliday as Clarence, gave one of the best performances I've seen in quite some time anywhere, you're right he was phenomenal. Consider that Martin's low key personality was the best for Clarence to work off of, in that regard Pat Healey did a terrific job with expression and gesture alone. Actors need something like this to shine, evidenced by Denzel Washington's remarks when thanking Ethan Hawke after recieving the Oscar for Training Day.

People are filmed all the time without their knowledge, its the airing of any footage that shows their identity without consent that becomes a problem. Thats why filmakers are required to have them sign a consent form (after Filming).

If you're inclined watch the film again in 6-8 years and see if it seems different to you at all.