List Price: $14.99 Our Price: $13.49YOU SAVE $1.5!
Buy it
DVD Gerry
In Gerry, two young men (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck) wander beautiful, barren, and surreal landscapes, gradually growing more and more lost. This film from Gus Van Sant (director of Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, and Good Will Hunting) has no story, hardly any dialogue, and even less in the way of "action" or "events." Yet the movie is by turns maddening and hypnotic; although few people will agree on which are the maddening scenes and which are the hypnotic ones, you will leave Gerry with one or more stunning images in your head. In fact, Gerry is probably more pleasurable to remember than it is to sit through. Committed performances, flashes of dark humor, and a smattering of visual effects give the movie some shape, but the more you just surrender to the emptiness of the landscape, the more rewarding Gerry will be. --Bret Fetzer
Wow. I read the reviews. I still don't understand it.
You know, let's face it. We've all done it. We like writing reviews for Amazon but occasionally we stumble on a movie and we're just not able to put it together. Surely it must have meant something. Surely I missed it. Surely someone else can explain it to me. So we peek at the other reviews.
I like Matt Damon. He seems to harbor two polarized views. I'm in the camp that will see a movie because of him, not in spite of him. High marks for Good Will Hunting. Loved the scene on the chalkboard at Havaaaahd. He's the Jason Bourne I thought of when I read Ludlum as a kid, not the other guy.
So, if you have an idea of what Van Sant was trying to do, I need to know. Here's a thought. If he was in a time warp and it was the late 60's, probably there would be a school of thought that would say it touched the face of God or something like that. But it isn't. And Casey Afleck (is he one of the Baldwin Brothers?) and Matt Damon just wonder around. Oh. I'm sorry. I meant 'wander' around.
I will tell you one good thing. I got it from the library. 1 star. Larry Scantlebury
Please enter a title for your review
I went into this movie not really knowing what to expect. I probably wouldn't have bothered if it knew it had "no story, hardly any dialogue, and even less in the way of "action" or "events."" as the amazon.com editorial review accurately states. I found myself alternatingly bored, frustrated, and enchanted during the opening 5 minute scene of the car driving along a dirt road through a barren landscape with sparse piano and cello backing, and I continued cycling through those same three emotions for the length of the film, which is essentially an expanded take on the essence of that scene. Oh and it made me thirsty too. Maybe the characters should have had more conversations, about the situation they found themselves in and just life in general, but then that would have detracted from the atmosphere of the mood piece that the film basically was. On the other hand maybe the characters could have just been eliminated entirely, and more emphasis placed on the atmospheric landscape photography slideshow that the film basically was, but the characters journey was important in giving the film a sense of movement and progression. Ultimately I think the director was misguided if this film is supposed to be a refined artistic statement. It comes across more like a half-assed experiment. Maybe that's what it was approached as though. Maybe the director doesn't hold it in as much reverence as some viewers do. The rabid fans mostly come across as self-congratulatory apologists and propagandaists for the film, rarely offering any semblance of an honest explanation of why they enjoyed it. I'll restrain myself from backlashing against the fans though, and judging this film as the half-assed experiment I consider it to be, I'll give it four stars for at least achieving some kind of impact.
van sant's becoming
if you enjoy the films of tarkovsky, soukarov, and stanley kubrick, then this film is for you.
if you would like a michael bay shoot-em-up, flash some ladies, blow-em-up movie, do not watch this.
this is an incredible gorgeous film, which is very demanding of the viewer. it reminds me of that zen saying "the only zen you find at the top of the mountain, is the zen you bring up there". being attentive and thoughtful are keys to appreciating either this film, or the subsequent two, "elephant" and "last days". van sant is not handing you anything, but he is seriously engaging the audience. something too few american directors attempt, let alone accomplish.
this is my favorite film in the "silent death" trilogy. i hope that you see its beauty.
Elephant, the elegant and unsettling movie from Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting), depicts students at a high school before and during a harrowing, Columbine-style shooting. The movie follows one young boy who takes over the wheel from his drunken dad while returning from lunch, then loops back in time and follows another student who crosses paths with the first, then loops back and follows another--all captured in long, unedited tracking shots that are serene and unhurried, even when two boys in camouflage gear, carrying heavy bags, arrive at the school and begin shooting. Elephant doesn't attempt to explain their behavior; it simply places the audience back in the brief yet interminable window of adolescence, when life is trivial and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Alex Frost - Elias McConnell Director(s): Gus Van Sant DVD Release Date: Released the 04 May 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.96 Your Price: $17.96YOU SAVE $2!
Buy it
Gus Van Sant's Last Days is a film about the death of Kurt Cobain. While the name of the main character has been changed from Kurt to Blake and the setting of the suicide changed from a greenhouse in Seattle to a greenhouse in upstate New York, there's no mistaking this film is the product of Van Sant's imagination pursuing the final, lonely moments of the great '90s icon. Rock biopic fans seeking a traditionally gratifying plot should run as fast as they can from this movie and see Rock Star or Sid and Nancy instead; Gus Van Sant's methodology is all about the slow, oppressive creep of time. One shot lingers excruciatingly long on some random foliage outside Blake's (Michael Pitt, The Dreamers) mansion. In another, he makes cereal. Then he sits on a bench for... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Michael Pitt (II) - Lukas Haas - Asia Argento Director(s): Gus Van Sant DVD Release Date: Released the 25 October 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $27.95 Your Price: $17.98YOU SAVE $9.97!
Buy it
Gus Van Sant made his name with this offbeat story of a small group of drug addicts who heist pharmacies to feed their habit. Matt Dillon completely broke with his juvenile persona as Bob, the grungy ringleader and jittery mastermind of a junkie crew. With his frustrated wife Dianne (Kelly Lynch), his loyal partner, the easygoing Rick (James Le Gros), and Rick's juvenile girlfriend Nadine (Heather Graham in an early role), Bob plots ingenious heists and spends the rest of his days sitting around the house getting high. When the heat becomes too intense in Portland, the quartet hits the road for small-town drug stores and hospitals, but when their luck runs out it does so in grand fashion. Set in the Pacific Northwest of 1971, Van Sant so effortlessly re-creates the period that you'd think... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Matt Dillon - Kelly Lynch Director(s): Gus Van Sant DVD Release Date: Released the 24 April 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.98 Your Price: $11.98YOU SAVE $3!
Buy it
A dark and troubling dream that David Lynch must envy, made all the more unsettling because it's true, Tarnation can only be called at auto-documentary. It's a self-portrait of the family life of Jonathan Caouette, whose mother Renee (a former child model) was forced to undergo electric shock treatment repeatedly in her youth, leading to erratic behavior throughout her life. But though the events of Caouette's life are sad, horrific, or a testament to human resilience, what makes the movie striking is how it was made: Caouette cobbled the movie together from photographs, tape recordings, and home movies that he's shot throughout his life, ranging from footage of himself at 11 years old imitating a battered wife to trashy horror movies he made as an adolescent to the first time he... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jonathan Caouette - Michael Cox (VII) Director(s): Jonathan Caouette DVD Release Date: Released the 17 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $29.98 Your Price: $26.98YOU SAVE $3!
Buy it
Colin Farrell takes a break from action flicks (S.W.A.T., Alexander) to make A Home at the End of the World, an intimate film based on a novel by Michael Cunningham (author of The Hours). As a boy, Bobby (played as an adult by Farrell) loses both parents and his beloved older brother, ending up more-or-less adopted by the family of his best friend, Jonathan (played as an adult by Dallas Roberts). Jonathan's feelings for Bobby go beyond friendship; Bobby is open to the possibilities. Bobby follows Jonathan to New York and falls into a relationship with Clare (Robin Wright Penn, The Princess Bride). The three form an alternative family, move out to the country, and discover that even alternative families have their dysfunctions. Bobby is so innocent and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Sissy Spacek - Colin Farrell - Dallas Roberts - Robin Wright Penn Director(s): Michael Mayer (VI) DVD Release Date: Released the 02 November 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.96 Your Price: $15.97YOU SAVE $3.99!
Buy it
