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DVD The Velocity of Gary
Life in New York City, apparently, ain't what it used to be. In director Dan Ireland's "slice of life," Vincent D'Onofrio is a former porn star named Valentino (how's that for subtle metaphor?) who is slowly dying of AIDS. That's the least of your worries. He's also one third of a symbiotic ménage à trois that includes waitress girlfriend Mary Carmen (an obnoxious Salma Hayek) and fetishistic gigolo boyfriend Gary (Thomas Jane, strutting like Madonna on valium). The movie comes across like some Midwestern housewife's salacious idea of what life is like "on the edge"--teeming with drugs, wild dancing, and drag queens. There's even a deaf, transgendered, Patsy Cline-wannabe who, no kidding, gets hit by a car while trying to call for an ambulance. Ireland and screenwriter James Still make such an embarrassing show of being outrageous that it's almost offensive; everybody is so busy being dangerously fabulous that nobody is even remotely human. --Steve Wiecking
A good cast wasted. Poorly written, filled with every cliche of "life on the edge", the film never gives depth to the three characters whose lives are so deeply intertwined. Their feelings for each other are never illuminated, so we don't know why they are together. They yell and fight and act outageously, but they give us no reason to care about them. For this I blame not the actors, but the director who seems to have no idea how real life happens or how real people talk to each other.
Salma Hayek comes off the best, though her charcter is unrelentingly irritating. Vincent D'Onofrio is good as always, a very intelligent actor. Thomas Jane is pouty and intense, but has the least well-written character to work with.
And why is the movie named after him, when the center of this drama is not Gary (Thomas Jane) but Valentino (Vincent D'Onofrio)?
One of the worst movies ever made...yes, I'm serious
Where to begin? Cliched. Pretentious. Flat. Static. Maudlin. Melodramatic. Homophobic. And finally, just plain BORING. Start with an over-the-top caricature of a deaf-mute Patsy Cline young drag queen arriving the big city, pile on cardboard "colorful" characters like typical AIDS patient, porno star, and loud-mouthed Latina hot mamna, and whaddya get? An amateur film populated with some of the most UNLIKABLE, UNATTRACTIVE characters ever, all spewing some of the unbelievably BAD dialogue ever written - and to think the (formerly talented) director made THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD also with D'Onofrio? Go figure. Nice cover art, though.
The one that got away
It's a travesty that this film is not available on DVD. Travesty.
This is the kind of movie that is not what it seems. From the cover jacket, you expect it to be about the harshness of city living, full of darkness and anger and seedy characters, but it's not. It's about three people and a world that most of us (thankfully) haven't experienced in our lives. The three lead characters are: Valentino, a bisexual ex-porn star dying of HIV; Gary* (not his real name), a gay hustler who falls hard for Valentino; and Mary Carmen, Valentino's spitfire girlfriend who is jealous of her lover's relationship with Gary but who has no choice but to share him. The world they inhabit is the underbelly of NYC, but director Dan Ireland never looks down on the characters, nor does he put them on a pedestal. It's a fine balance, but one that is achieved. The result is that it is impossible to watch this film and not feel the affection that Ireland has for the characters and their world, and that transfers to the viewer. It's reminiscent of Boogie Nights, another film set in the world of porn,drugs and hustlers, and a film that also makes you care for its characters and the alternative family they create.
The three leads did amazing work. Vincent D'Onofrio is mesmerizing as the center of the love triangle, a character so full of life even as he's dying that he can't be contained. This was a brave role for the respected character actor, and it deserves to be seen. Salma Hayek turns in another great performance, and one scene in particular, breaks your heart. Valentino is dancing in a club with Gary and Mary Carmen, and when he turns his back on Mary Carmen for a second to bump and grind with Gary, the slow-motion shot of the pain, longing and jealousy in Hayek's eyes will rip your heart out. And Thomas Jane has never been better. For anyone who's only seen his work in Deep Blue Sea and that raunchy Cameron Diaz "comedy", brace yourself for an actor whose potential hasn't been tapped in his subsequent projects.
This film has more than enough heart to spare, and that is what is truly so great about it. It defies expectations and cliches, yet it leaves you feeling renewed and hopeful. I only saw this film this past week, and I can't believe it escaped me before. Don't make the same mistake I did. See Velocity of Gary. It will haunt you, but in a good way.
D'Onofrio also produced the picture with Ireland, along with a previous collaboration called The Whole Wide World, and these two should continue their work together. They've created two wonderfully different films about passion and love and the human condition. And that's something that's sorely lacking in today's cinema.
This unusual but strikingly affecting movie stars Marisa Tomei as Ruby, a young woman with a string of bad relationships behind her, who falls in love with a guy named Sam (Vincent D'Onofrio, Full Metal Jacket, The Whole Wide World). Initially, Sam just seems quirky, but eventually he tells her his secret: he's a time traveler from 400 years in the future. Happy Accidents walks a delicate line between genres, never making it clear whether Sam is delusional or telling the truth until the end. The strange blend of genres (which plays like romantic comedy, not like science fiction) may make some viewers balk, but writer-director Brad Anderson (Next Stop Wonderland) has a gift for both revealing psychological insights and sensual moments--like when Sam... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Marisa Tomei - Vincent D'Onofrio Director(s): Brad Anderson (II) DVD Release Date: Released the 17 December 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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He is,as always,mesmerizing! The story is a standard soapy pot-boiler that borrows rather heavily in my opinion from "Casablanca". But Scacchi is no Bergman and Smits did not compel me to root for him, nor did I see in him the nobility I sensed from Victor Lazlo.
But D'Onofrio smolders! He suffers beautifully and when he crashes the party I thought of "Wuthering Heights". (What a Heathcliff that man would make!)
How could any woman turn him away? More Info about this DVD Director(s): Gillian Armstrong DVD Release Date: Released the 26 December 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Director Dan Ireland shows a talent for authenticity with this heartbreaking love story based on Novalyne Price's 1988 account of her prickly romance with 1930s pulp-fiction writer Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian. She was a schoolteacher in a small Texas town; he was the odd-ball writer who lived at home and created comic-book characters that were sexier and more violent than was considered decent by the locals. Renée Zellweger's performance is a gem of sweet unconventionality matched by Vincent D'Onofrio's powerful show of eccentricity and increasing mental illness. Though smart and feisty, this leaves us wishing the filmmakers had dug deeper into Howard's unusual relationship with his manipulative mother. --Rochelle O'GormanMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Vincent D'Onofrio - Renée Zellweger Director(s): Dan Ireland DVD Release Date: Released the 29 July 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Vincent D'Onofrio is one of our most aggressively commanding actors, and he makes a good choice to impersonate Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman. All loping, shambly charm and occasional frenzied explosiveness, D'Onofrio's Hoffman is close enough to the real thing that, just like the Yippies themselves, he appears magnetic and forceful to the already converted, but a fraudulent, egomaniacal hambone to everyone else. (Even those unimpressed by D'Onofrio's indulgences can only admire the simmering commitment Janeane Garofalo brings to the role of his wife Anita.) Which is more than you can say for Robert Greenwald's unfocused hagiography, which should manage to pull off the rare feat of displeasing anyone no matter what their opinions of Hoffman. Racing through the years with the greatest-hits... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Vincent D'Onofrio Director(s): Robert Greenwald DVD Release Date: Released the 06 November 2001 Usually ships within 24 hours
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I rented this video on a whim, and enjoyed it, although it wasn't at all what I expected. The story is intriguing, the acting is excellent, and the story is well-told. But it's not a comedy by any stretch of the imagination.
Lisa Kudrow was the only actress/actor in the film I'd heard of, so I figured she had the leading role. However, she is not the woman who barks--in fact, her role is relatively minor. Because of Kudrow's presence and the write-up on the box, I assumed the film would be a wacky comedy along the lines of Romy and Michelle Go To The Dogs. Not.
There are light moments, but overall the film is sad and touching. I'd put it more in the category of Rain Man or Awakenings--dramas that affirm the worth and lovability of those whose brains aren't working quite right, that... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Kasia Adamik DVD Release Date: Released the 14 October 2003 Usually ships within 24 hours
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