:
John Turturro,
Sam Rockwell,
Catherine Keener,
more...
:
Tom DiCillo
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: 
: Lions Gate
: Black Comedy
: 111 min.
: English
: Spanish, French
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In this whimsically absurd comedy, Al Fountain (John Turturro) is an rigidly self-controlled electrical engineer who has discovered his first gray hair and has begun seeing things (bicycles running backwards, coffee pouring from the cup into the pot). To Al's shock, he's fired without notice from his job and told to go home. Instead, he rents a car and heads out in search of Splatchee Lake, a vacation spot he remembers visiting as a child (and one of the few places where he ever felt truly content). Al discovers that the lake is too polluted to swim in, but he finds The Kid (Sam Rockwell), a genial eccentric who wears a coonskin cap and lives in the woods with a large collection of junk scavenged from trash heaps. The Kid encourages Al to be spontaneous and take some chances in his life; an opportunity to do so presents itself when Dupree sisters Floatie (Catherine Keener) and Purlene (Lisa Blount) appear, and love (or a reasonable facsimile) is in the air. Writer/director Tom DiCillo had originally intended this project to follow his debut feature, the hipster comedy Johnny Suede, but problems with financing and production delays led him to make the indie film satire Living in Oblivion first. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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| Good acting, truly pathetic script.
by emdoub
August 25, 2009 - 10:06 PM PDT
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Nice acting, with a script that was downright annoying. I was expecting a touch of the fantastic, but the people who were not bad caricatures simply had no motivation for what they were doing. I understand that lots of people love this movie, and it does give a lesson that's important - don't take yourself too seriously. Unfortunately, it does so by presenting pointless situations, demonstrating that any seriousness is just not fun enough.
***** minor spoilers follow *****
For example, John Torturo's son is in summer school, apparently to learn his multiplication tables. He tells Dad, on the phone, that he's studying, while he's playing a video game. Mom gets on the phone, looks at her son playing the game, and affirms that he's studying. Flash cards are suggested by the father - cards almost as tall as the kid are provided, and he's left alone with them, apparently as a memorization aid. All conversations between the husband/wife roles are vaguely polite, unless she's complaining about something - and even the complaints are not in any character - it's hard to believe that anyone has ever said things like this to any spouse, for any reason.
Lawn Dogs was, truly, a much better film if you're looking for something of this sort. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.12)
52 Votes
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