The non-linear story of "Chelsea Walls" is an atmospheric collage of a variety of stories. What brings the film its merit is the performance of Kris Kristofferson. Finally, he's given some material to express his talents and delivers a passionately, brooding performance. He sucks in the essence of his drunken-has-been writer, and expels it for all to witness and reflect. If there's one reason to see this film, it's for Kris.
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elvis197329 April 2002
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Vomitron_G23 November 2007I actually had quite some hopes for CHELSEA WALLS. It looked like Ethan Hawke took the basic concept of an ensemble-movie or mosaic-picture (a lot of different characters, each with their own story, that might cross each other at one point) but including one aspect that's somewhat different: Using only one location for the actors to roam about. It could have been all so interesting Sadly, my hopes weren't met.
It had nothing to do with whether the characters were likable or not. It was more about them, just like this movie, being so empty. Now, I've always found the concept of a "struggling & tormented artist" intriguing, and that's mainly what all the characters in CHELSEA WALLS are. There's a singer/songwriter, a painter, a writer (and more). It's just that, when I think of them, "intriguing" is the last word that comes to my mind. None of them actually had a story to tell. None of them showed wisdom or insight. None of them were exuberant or eccentric. None of them even had something remotely interesting to say. The poetry coming from Rosario Dawson was sweet and slightly depressing, I could dig that. Kris Kristofferson's character brought some weight to the movie, yes, but nothing more. At not one point even, the characters started to really interact with each other. The actions portrayed in this movie were merely uneventful situations in various rooms of the hotel. Oh yes, Kristofferson stumbles into Uma Thurman's apartment drunk, but do you think that scene leads to anything? No, of course not. And Miss Thurman and Vincent D'Onofrio can be seen together in a kitchen. Was there supposed to be some affection between the two of them? I just couldn't tell, because again: Nothing happened.
Maybe director Ethan Hawke deliberately tried to make no point with this movie. Or maybe the point was within the walls of Chelsea Hotel all along (Faded Glory? Hopes & Dreams in Vain?). I just couldn't tell. CHELSEA WALLS was based on Nicole Burdette's play, who also turned it into the screenplay for this movie. Maybe she shouldn't have done it, because I felt it didn't work very well as a movie. But Ethan Hawke did manage to bring some favorable aspects into the movie. Most of the time, when the camera registers a fixed shot, the framing is well thought out, making the cinematographic qualities of CHELSEA WALLS slightly memorable. Another thing that was rather excellent was the music in this movie, whether it be played by the actors or used as a score. I liked it all. Near the end there even was this instrumental score (played by a guitar) that kept on playing through various scenes, very subtle, barely noticeable, but yet very present. It provided some sort of constant tension, like if it was for the viewer to notice that this was the final act, that the movie is about to come to a close (even without any form of climax showing on the screen). That worked very well for me. Also, the acting from the whole cast wasn't even bad, not at all. It's just that their performances felt a bit uninspired.
It's sad that CHELSEA WALLS failed to live up to my expectations. Quite a lot of movies have used the setting of a hotel or apartment-complex very successfully. Whether it be comedy (FOUR ROOMS), drama (THE MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL), action (THE TESSERACT) or sci-fi/thriller (ONE POINT O). So why didn't this one work? Lack of content is my guess. CHELSEA WALLS is proof that throwing a bunch of respectable (and pretty famous) actors & actresses in a movie doesn't always mean you're going to end up with a good one. If you want to see it done right, you might as well see Wayne Wang's BLUE IN THE FACE (and that movie didn't even have a decent script). But still Even if halfway through the movie I couldn't care much anymore for the characters or what they had to say, I strangely didn't mind having watched this movie in the end either. I can't really recommend seeing CHELSEA WALLS to anyone. Most people might even find it a waste of time. On the other hand, I suspect this movie might actually be interesting or enjoyable for people who have seen Burdette's original play. Unfortunately I haven't. But there might be one reason for watching it, though. That is, if you need to clear your head from everything for a while. Because it will leave you with nothing and for some unexplainable reason, I even felt kind of peaceful after finishing it. -
jrhpax8 July 2002This movie has all the makings of a good movie, and the cast is excellent. What a shame that, by the end, it adds up to very little. I wasn't bored, but I was curiously unmoved and uninvolved with the characters, who were undeveloped. Certain scenes have stayed in my mind several days later, and perhaps someday this movie will be rediscovered and proclaimed an underrated gem -- but I doubt it. I particularly liked Uma Thurman and Rosario Dawson.
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sorabji29 March 2004I connect with what this thing is supposed to be, but the substance of these artists is poor. Nothing we see from them rises above the level of teenage poetry. The Chelsea Hotel is still a mecca for poets and artists, even if today it's more a mecca for kids of Kerouac. This movie shows the Chelsea as a mecca for 21st century sulking hipsters who learned hippy-dom from Woodstock DVDs. I don't think that's accurate. If you take away the artist premise and the reputation of the Chelsea as a setting, and replace it with a college dorm full of political science majors, you'd have an equally fascinating film.
But I find the building, the inside of that building, to be beautiful. -
film-critic27 July 2007The Chelsea Hotel is a landmark in American culture, alas, due to modern advances in low-income housing; it has become nothing more than a demolished idea coupled with a forgotten past. Hawke, using nearly every technique patented by Richard Linklater, attempts to revitalize the forgotten hotel with non-sequitur stories and impossible characters, yet incredible actors. Using now-cliché camera style (a.k.a. The grain of pure film school) and a powerful score by Wilco, Hawke pulls every grunge independent filmmaker technique known to man, mashes them together like potatoes, and hopes actually prays that it will be a big "hurrah" at the cinematic Thanksgiving. Enough references for now, but truthfully, Hawke creates an eyesore of a film with "Chelsea Walls'. Beginning with characters that never develop AT ALL, coupling with a story that is never existent, Hawke horribly displays whatever talent he may have thought he had by employing friends to carry the burden. "Chelsea Walls" was a smear on cinema, not because of the subject (of which I do believe an honest film needs to be made of the events leading to the demise of this building), but because of the surroundings. Hawke borrows, as mentioned before, unsuccessfully from Linklater's work, attempting to bring a "Waking Life"-esquire story to the surface sans the animation. Where Hawke failed was that he brought unexcited characters into a place that really needed an introduction. He needed to guide this audience through his train of thought not just assume we were all as intellectual as he portrayed himself to be.
What upped me about this film was that we had intelligent, powerful actors giving us nothing. From the beginning of the scene until the end, there was nothing solid for us to stand. Kris Kristofferson is a phenomenal actor, but he couldn't bring me to the surface in "Chelsea Walls". He cried, he drank, he womanized, but for what purpose this critic has absolutely no idea why. The same can be said for Natasha Richardson, whom in my eyes, cannot do wrong, was misguided from the beginning thanks to Mr. Hawke. Rosario Dawson gave the only comprehensible portrayal throughout the film, but she was flanked by horrid direction and choppy "anti-independent" cliché surroundings. She tried, but Hawke wouldn't allow her to prosper. The only one that went the distance, albeit horribly, was Robert Sean Leonard who only was given screen time because of his friendship with director Hawke. He did have a moving story, and if we were left with just the central focus of Leonard's character as he interacted with the others of this building, I think we could have had a keeper of a film, but we didn't. We jumped. We jumped from one actor to another hoping that we could see the chaos surrounding these talented artists. Alas, all we witnessed was Jell-o slipping down a wall -- nothing was sticking.
I hate to be pessimistic because I had high hopes for this film. Look at the billing for "Chelsea Walls", who wouldn't get excited. What did happen is that Hawke went to the Linklater school of direction, but abysmally failed out, possibly never quite going to the first class, but instead just copying someone's notes. This was a dark depressing tale that had elements that could work, but just like any first year filmmaker, it all depends on how you put those ideas together. Hawke had some great ideas, but he could not assemble them. He tried to bring music into the scene, and the use of Wilco was genuine, but overbearing not to mention overused throughout the film. This seemed to be the common theme or pedestal that Hawke used for "Chelsea Walls" overuse, until it becomes painful to the viewer. You can obviously see that with the extra lack-tastic features attached to this disc. There are some additional scenes, which only continue the abrasive, unknown of the film. There are some interviews, but done many years after the film. Hawke tries his best, but the funniest is Robert Sean Leonard who forgets everything and attempts to change the subject. My favorite, "What was your favorite scene Mr. Leonard", answered with a long pause and the phrase, " anything with Rosario". That sums this film up in a nutshell.
Overall, I cannot suggest this film. I love the actor Ethan Hawke, and I like this style of film-making, but for "Chelsea Walls" it just didn't seem put together. Linklater would have been upset with the results just as we were as we watched it. Do not be fooled by the big names associated here, they accomplish nothing and in the end, make you want this hotel to be torn down. This was a sad attempt at film-making, and I can only suggest watching a better combination film with these actors called "Tape". I have mentioned this in a couple of other reviews and truly believe this is the best Hawkes/Leonard/Linklater combo platter you will ever get.
Grade: * ½ out of ***** -
Sylvio1 June 2002A good film has to be visually interesting. This movie is unbelievably murky, to the point that you can't see what is going on. A good story establishes its characters. See the first page of P.G.Wodehouse's Laughing Gas, if you need some hints. Adapting a movie from a stage play is a difficult task and not for a young guy's first time out. Plays tend to feel claustrophobic when simply filmed. That should have been reckoned with before the project was started. The actors did a good job. They were all good actors. I would like to see them in a better movie, especially, Tuesday Weld, just because I've always had the hots for Tuesday Weld.
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This story didn't have a story. Bouncing around the lives of several couples living in a run down seedy hotel had no real plot. All the characters seemed to sit around, dance down the halls, strum guitars or otherwise providing inane performances. Frank Whaley, as an example, played the part of a want-a-be stand up comic, a second attempt for him for which he again failed miserably. Ethan Hawke should keep his day job as an actor, something he does extremely well and quit trying to be a director. The rest of the actors were equally inane in their performances. The camera angles were faulty, the multiple colors from one scene to another added nothing all the while the various characters moped around whining about their sad lot in life. A movie you will be glad you missed. I gave it a 1/10 only because they don't allow zeros. Waste of time.
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noralee28 October 2005"Chelsea Walls" is a sensual meditation on the lost and troubled souls who drift in and out and settle down at the historic Chelsea Hotel.
Ethan Hawke here stays behind the camera as director and gathers his friends Robert Sean Leonard and Steve Zahn, wife Uma Thurman, veterans Kris Kristofferson, Tuesday Weld and Harris Yulin and luminous relative newcomers Rosario Dawson and Mark Webber for moving monologues and dialogs written by playwright Nicole Burdette, as well as mesmerizing poetry renderings of Rimbaud and Dylan Thomas.
Hawke has an unusual eye that loves and respects women that's more romantic and empowering than nude humpings in most films today, even as here all we see are fleeting moments in confusing relationships with their irresponsible men, even though I really had no idea what was going on.
The music, mostly by Jeff Tweedy and Wilco (with a striking cameo by Jimmy Scott, both acting and singing Lennon's "Jealous Guy") was used as lovely commentary and yearning revealed.
Filmed in digital video, the bleeding over the screen and the blurriness could have been due to lousy projection.
(originally written 5/4/2002) -
CinemaDude26 April 2002This is what happens when an actor is handed a video camera and convinces himself that he has the talent to make a full-length feature as his first "project" out of the starting gate, rather than honing his directorial skills on smaller, lesser efforts first.
CHELSEA WALLS is a meandering, unfocused film that has all the ear-markings of a self-indulgent, pretentious, look-at-me-world-I'm-directing film school assignment. Scenes go on excruciatingly long, saying nothing and begging for an editor, and worse, not even creating a mood for any substantial ideas to build on. It seems that the ONLY rational idea that comes out of this hodge-podge of ill-defined, self-pitying and pitiful characters is no more than that old, hackneyed cliché that somehow if you are a drunk, an addict or a looser -- or better yet, all of the above, then any gibberish issuing forth from your mouth or your pen MUST be high art.
Of course this is nonsense. But it seems that the director has incorporated that misnomer as his own film-making style -- evidently he feels that all he has to do is aim a camera and shoot without benefit of script, or even a vague notion of what should happen from point A to point B, without adequate lighting or even a simple focus puller, and that will somehow the resultant murky, low contrast, dark (in many scenes, barely visible) and mostly out-of-focus images will rise to "Film Festival Winner" quality. This too is film student's cliché and it is dead wrong. Hopefully by the senior year they have either learned how wrong this is, or they have flunked out. I am afraid, Mr. Hawke is about to flunk out.
If you think it is fun to sit and watch Kris Kristofferson play a falling down, drooling, nearly incoherent drunk, then by all means, knock yourself out. If you think you will be entertained by an endless string of poorly lit scenes in which the characters are barely visible while they spout nonsense lines, supposedly odes to the famous artists who once populated that hotel like Bob Dylan -- however, Dylan they certainly are not, then by all means, hunker down because CHELSEA WALLS is peppered with this kind of aimless, pointless dialogue; it's the "poetic meat" of the film, or so Ethan Hawke keeps telling the hosts on the string of talk shows he's visited in the last week to promote this unpleasant, oh-so-serious trash (even Andy Warhol's TRASH had sense enough to laugh at itself).
The film's director keeps bragging that it only cost him $100,000 to make. It looks it. It feels it. Now there certainly have been plenty of films out of Hollywood that cost hundreds of millions and nevertheless wound up being nothing but garbage, but at least in those they had enough money to pay for key and fill lights so you could at least see the garbage that was going on.
If this is what video-to-film is going to engender -- all those actors who think they can be directors because they can cough up enough money to direct a vanity "movie," then please, in the spirit of truth-in-advertising, let it be clearly stated on the marquee before we plunk down our $10.50 -- "This film was made with a video camera for less money than most productions spend on sandwiches for the crew -- enter at your own risk." -
coedog330 August 2003I don't know why most people don't like this movie, especially if your a connoisseur of the cinema. I admit I am not a big fan of Kris Kristofferson, but aside from him I thought it was a well done movie. It was a bit hard to understand what was going on sometimes, but I think that might have been Ethan Hawke's intention. Any how, if you like indy films, and don't mind being confused, I think this movies worth watching. There were just certain moments in the film when the natural beauty was almost overwhelming it was so powerful. I think Ethan Hawke is on his way.
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stuhh20019 November 2002I've contacted the proper authorities, and everyone connected with this "project", down to the kid that delivered coffee to the set, will be apprehended, prosecuted, persecuted, and sentenced to the full extent of the law. This film makes Andy Warhol's twelve hour film of the Empire State building, eight hour one of a man sleeping, and his "Trash" starring Holly Woodlawn seem like Oscar contenders. Mr. Kristofferson, whom I've enjoyed on other occassions, extends his acting range from A to B. His "prep" for a scene seems to be awakened in the middle of the night, thrown before the camera trying to figure out where he is and what it is he is supposed to be doing. Vincent D'Onofrio, whom I believe has it in him to be in the Brando/ Pacino class, once again finds himself in another project that makes us ask, "You needed the money this bad?". This sort of thing was started by John Cassavetes, who thought if you throw actors in front of a camera, and have them improvise, THE TRUTH will emerge. The result was something called "Shadows". He learned nothing from this. Then he took his wife, Gena Rowlands, one of the most beautiful, and talented actresses in Hollywood, and had her "star" in several improvised diasters when she should have been doing real movies, and in my opinion wrecked a great career. Mr. Skinny Bones is played by the great singer Jimmie Scott. A memorable film could be made from his life story, but no one would believe it. If you ever faced adversity, and thought you were dealt a lousy hand in life, check out Jimmie's life and career. Still performing in his seventies, he is a man who could write the ultimate book on survival.
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xaing928 September 2003All these characters have problems. But i think that is the point. Because the movie is mostly supposed to be about the hotel itself. The people in it are just passing through. The film is showing how the people change, but ideals stay the same. The ideals that the hotel was built on and for the first place. Is it creativity? Or madness? Or apathy? I like all the open spaces in this story. You can fill in whatever you want. It's the sort of spirit of the Chelsea Hotel of old. But most people these days probably won't get it. Or don't want to. Or can't. Nobody dreams about art anymore. Everybody wants a million bucks. Who's life is richer?
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nv-119 January 2010I happened to see this movie on HBO the other night. To me it was a ho-hum movie. Nothing exciting, rather the usual depressing stories of down and out people living in 5 different rooms of the famous Chelsea Hotel, all at the same evening in time. The movie is filmed as if from a cam-corder, at times, very under-lit. The jumping from one room and story to another was chaotic. This movie reminded me of a book "Life A User's Manual" by Georges Perec. Except the book was far better. In the book, each story was like part a giant jig-saw puzzle slowly connecting the lives of the people in a large Paris apartment building so in the end the final piece was placed, the entire story connected. Not so with this movie. It is missing several pieces of the puzzle. So nothing connected. It was all about individual lives. Their only common piece is the Chelsea Hotel. I know that historic hotel must have lots of stories to tell in those walls. Just these stories were not so unusual to keep the movie interesting. I kept waiting for somehow the movie to make its point and connect all the stories together, then it just ended. The actors were great. The soundtrack was marvelous! So for that it was worth 6 stars.
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ridgeback17 April 2002Terrible as in audience walking out of free screening terrible. There is no discernible plot. No characters worth caring about. The "arty" filming is pretentious and self-conscious. Even this cast of fantastic actors are reduced to over-acting to try and make something out of it. There is nothing artistic about this film, apart from one touching moment between Uma Thurman and Vincent D'Onofrio's characters when they are allowed to develop story between them. Don't waste your time or money on this stinker.
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wildstrawbe23 June 2003There are many lines like the one above in this film. Ethan Hawke in his first work as a director has tried to capture the feeling of these modern beatniks who reside in the Chelsea Hotel in NYC and have chosen for themselves a way of life that is different than the kind of life our society would consider successful. These people aren't even artists, they're just artist wannabes. A little boy says it very clearly "It's hard to say who really is a poet these days". What makes them interesting and what they have in common is that they can't stand the modern world, their perspective on life and the belief that happiness is in simple things. There are several moments in this film that make that so clear. One of them is when Val tells Audrey (played brilliantly by Rosario Dawson) "We only have 43 dollars" and her answer is "We're just living Val. Lots of people do that.". While I was watching this film I was thinking of something I had heard in Charlie Kauffman's 'Adaptation'. "In real life nothing really happens" and I think that's exactly what Ethan Hawke's purpose is, to show us the life of some not so ordinary people who however have feelings and ordinary problems. Ethan Hawke has a wonderful script in his hands, but he fails to deliver and that's the most diappointing thing about this film. But other than that this film has so many beautiful poetic moments that it's worth watching. I understand though that if you never dreamed of this kind of life, if everything that you think matters is to make money in order to afford the comforts of modern life then this film will never appeal to you.
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This quite possibly is the most boring picture I have every seen, and, believe me, at my age (just a a bit younger than God) I've seen a lot of boring movies. And such a waste, too. A lot of thought--perhaps too much thought--and talent went into making this picture. Such a waste, the most notable being Natasha Richardson. Were I not in love with my wife, I would be in love with Natasha Richardson, gazing into her lovely eyes and watching the feelings and emotions flow across her exquisite face for all eternity. But I never was able to figure just what she was supposed to be in the story--something to do with poor old beat up Kris, I think. In fact, I was so bored I fell asleep before the opening titles, etc., were completed, and was having the most wonderful snooze while the voices and background sounds droned on, creating in my dozing mind the impression that something was really happening. Which impelled me to wake up and scroll back through the disk, looking for the point when I had passed out, back and forth, back some more, back, back again, until, lo, here come the openers. Well, this time I stayed away, determined that I wouldn't miss a single word, a single scene or shot. Alas. I should have stood asleep the first time.
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vertigo_1412 March 2004Chelsea Walls is supposed to document the daily occurrences of several "artists" housed in the notorious Chelsea Walls hotel in New York, which is an entertainment landmark that has grossly mutated into a housing community to New York yuppies (though the movie doesn't show that).
I waited a long time to see this, eager to see many of Frank Whaley's hard to find titles, even though he mostly shows up in a movie these days for about two minutes.
Chelsea Walls is one of THE most boring movies I have ever seen, I'm surprised I managed to get through the remainder of it. There is absolutely nothing particularly interesting or wonderful about these characters that I could see the need for anyone to want to make a movie about it. Kris Kristopherson plays a mumbling, drunk writer. Uma Thurman floats around there, she's supposed to be a sculptor. There's some awkward scenes with Rosario Dawson, playing a poet, and her boyfriend who I don't know whether he's supposed to be a ska musician or a gangster. All I can say that Chelsea Walls is one of the most boring "artsy fartsy" pretentious movies that I have ever seen. This, in addition to some other films, have made me weary of Ethan Hawke-directed films.
If you're looking for entertainment, it surely doesn't lie in Chelsea Walls. -
david_bixby12 August 2002Here comes another "edgy" film with a constantly-shifting camera, and grainy, washed-out footage. If you have an extremely short attention span, perhaps you will enjoy it; the people who made the film don't seem to be interested enough in any one character in order to develop any of them. Lazy film making.
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chron11 January 2003Ethan Hawke garnered a lot of criticism for the poor direction on this film. It was all deserved. Let me add to the chorus.
The film was shot in a very grainy fashion with very distruptive scene transitions that would have taken away from this movie if there was something to take away.
The actors seemed to all sleep through this movie. So did I, as there is no plot. I watch a lot of foreign movies in which we enter in the midst of someone's life and exit before there is a concrete conclusion. I don't mind that type of cinema as long as the plot is interesting and the characters evolve from their experiences. I felt that these characters remained the same through the movie with no cohesive plot to keep my interest.
There are better ways to spend 1:49. I want my 109 minutes back. -
eetsoop24 March 2002This was without a doubt one of the worst films at SXSW this year. How could they have possibly screwed it up? I was looking forward to seeing this movie, it has tons of great actors and actresses in it. Well they managed to mess it up. Or maybe not, this kind of film seems like it was probably messed up from the beginning. Now I am not a close-minded moviegoer, nor am I a moviegoer who enjoys only big films like Lord of the Rings and writes the smaller films off as boring because I have a minute attention span; In fact this is almost exclusivly not so. However, this film was boring. It was almost like a parody of an art house film. The first hour I kept myself entertained by musing over how absurd the dialog was but after that I just wanted to leave. Oh but I stayed. And let me say the cinematography is very good, the music is excellent, and the acting as well, although everyone cast in the film is wasted on the most god awful script I have ever heard. The dialog is extremely pretentious and psuedo-intellectual, many will enjoy pretending to grasp some deeper meaning so they can look cool, but that is like trying to put on shoes that are 10 sizes to small. Gifted Actors like D'nofrio are only given a few lines of dialog with no meaning, emotion, and (as one can observe on the film) no direction. Did Ethan Hawke really direct this film? Did anyone direct it? It plays like a film with no director. No direction...literally. Before you say:
"No you have it all wrong, you didn't understand the film. It was about the struggle of the creative mind or <insert some other B.S. here>"
let me just say the film wanted to be about alot of things, but it failed. Somewhere in between the lovers reading high-school english class poems and some little kid talking about how when he grows up he wants to be Mr. Invisible or something when he grows up, the movie loses any meaning. ALL MEANING IS LOST! DONT GO AND SEE THIS MOVIE.
What really gets me is the film was originally about 4 hours. Four hours! -
thejowatson23 April 2002Chelsea Walls ~ for me, was like peering into a snow globe, deep into the magnified lives of these haunting people who cohabit in the Chelsea Hotel. I loved every moment of the film, every spoken line, every expression, every look, every touch, every note of music, every movement of the camera, scanning a world that I felt akin to as well as intrusive of; I could not look away nor did I want to.
I fell in love with:
Mary (Natasha Richardson) ~ I just plain love her face while she is talking!
Bud and Greta (Kris Kristofferson and Tuesday Weld) ~ How could I believe they were performing? They tore me up with their intensity, then blew me away with their frailty.
Terry and Ross (Robert Sean Leonard and Steve Zahn) ~ The wise man and the devoted jester perhaps ? Though, not as defineable as you may think. I loved them immediately and related to each of them at both ends of the eccentricity spectrum.
Audrey and Val (Rosario Dawson and Mark Webber) ~ A multi faceted love story, comprehensible by their stark, possibly misguided devotion. Audrey's poem, as she read it to Val, and the simple artistry in the portrayal of the ensuing scenes roused the most tender of spots in my heart and soul.
Grace (Uma Thurman) ~ As boldly determined to let loose and create poetry as she is unassuming and timid in establishing a human connection. In an elusive way, the Chelsea's "anchor". Figure THAT out.
Frank (Vincent D'Onofrio) ~ Heh, what a face ~ The bold, determined, cut loose, creative artist who understands and endures Grace's indifference.
And.......... the somewhat older poet laureate of sorts, "haunting" the halls decked in a t-shirt and baseball cap quoting beautiful, inspiring poetry. His final performance of the movie brought my heart to my throat and the tears, once again overflowed unashamedly.
The memory of what I saw and heard is lingering still ~ I'm having a hard time letting go of this film ~ and I won't. That night, I was metamorphosed, surprised at this startling change; the letting go of trivialities and, the fathomable realization of the holiness of merely existing in this world with all who are merely doing the same.
Oh, there is so much more to tell you of..... you just NEED to experience this film for yourself. Peer into your own snow globe and delight in what you see there! -
jenhammond731 December 2005I thought this movie was a tad on the pretentious side. It seemed like Ethan Hawke was trying WAAAAY too hard to make a like, super-cool, deep and arty indie film. On the plus side, I thought Uma and Vincent were both great. If only the whole movie had been just about their relationship! Not to mention that Vincent looked mad not with the nearly-shaved head and goatee. Tasty! Some of the outdoor shots of the Chelsea were really beautiful too, especially the ones at the end of the film in which it's snowing. The Chelsea Hotel has always been one of my favorite NYC landmarks, and I'm sure Ethan meant the film to be a loving homage to this artist's haven and its inhabitants, but I don't know... something got lost along the way.
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aristides-123 April 2004The young poet Audrey is shown writing an epic love ode to her boyfriend. Montage of her on her bare-roomed floor with voice over ("I want to be your wristwatch band so that every pulse throb will subtly remind you of my eternal love", etc.), images of this young Romeo, a spoiled-looking kid with all the depth of a ham sandwich. More poetic verbal images and then the [unintentional] comic moment, seen in a silent image: Romeo and Juliet on the balcony of the Chelsea Hotel where in a Romantic Moment that justifies all her deathless love and poetry....he spits, intentionally, on a sidewalk passerby many feet below. Yes, what Musedom he provides for the piss-elegant poetry of her young being. Priceless! (And, oh yes, a few lines must be dedicated to the usual Kris Kristoferson tired, substance abused, world weary artiste performance: would you want to spend 15 minutes with this drunken dope at a party?)
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moviegoer13 August 2003I'm generally patient with movies and will watch almost anything. My trick to get through dull stuff like this is watch 10-15 minutes at a time, take a break and come back to see if either my mood or the movie has "improved". Now I have sat down twice over a period of several months and tried to watch this thing, but gave up after about 45 minutes and fast-forwarded through it. Awesome cast, total disappointment.
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hphillips17 August 2002A literary style, namely poetry, make this energetic and non-linear
movie a real joy to take in; the mixing of sounds and dialogues or
monologues also follow a poetic and jazz-like bee-bop approach.
The characters presented are very real and yet also seems like
phrases in a continually changing musical piece. The DV'ography is just beautiful, some of the most tasteful and
downright pleasurable work I've ever seen in these video-to-film
times...Tom Richmond and Richard Rutkowski have really set a
new standard with this movie, where the form (digital video)
doesn't intrude on the content, but rather complements (and even
compliments!) the tones and textures of the story. Ethan Hawke
did a great job with the actors and the story, I totally recommend
this movie.