Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

Iseerphia All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

fivedimensionalmanifold This movie is definitely unusual, but it doesn't seem to believe in itself or in the worth of its story, so by the end it falls flat and can only really be evaluated as a farce. We start out with Steve Buscemi and Peter Dinklage as a couple of clowns struggling through their jobs on some cable-access kids' show. Eventually we are introduced to a number of other characters whose lives all intersect over the course of one night (a la Magnolia/ Short Cuts/ Crash). Buscemi is always a solid character actor, but here he seems somewhat confused about his motivation and I can't really blame him. Rockwell is known as a very hands-off director, and I have to say that this movie seems to have just derailed on him, despite some touching visual concepts and decent, potentially explosive backstories. The scene in the swimming pool in which a priest who is going through a crisis of faith teams with Steve Buscemi to teach a sickly young boy how to swim is just so overstuffed with tropes as to completely destroy the viewer's attentiveness to any throughline or narrative thrust. The subplots are all individually interesting and are handled with at least a fair amount of investment and decent performance by nearly everyone involved. But they only intersect in odd ways that seem to desire to make some sort of larger statement but only end up in chaos, and perhaps a vague statement about everyone coming together to help solve their shared problems. But really it seems that Rockwell's strength is in showing people who are insane or in the absolute gutter, and so any kind of humanist impulse that he has is only articulated vaguely and without enough buildup to be moving. That being said, there are a number of intriguing minor characters in the film, and as I've mentioned it is filled with acting talent. It's almost like this is a movie where you want to extract assorted moments and enjoy them as if they were short films so that you don't have to cringe painfully at their inability to flow in the overall storyline. The brief moment where Ernie Lee Banks, as a zoo's night watchman, argues honestly with the bail bondsman and his son is touching, almost like something out of Magnolia. The character played by David Proval is taken almost directly out of the bail bondsman character in Jackie Brown, a film by Rockwell's friend Quentin Tarantino. That being said, Proval does a decent job with the muddled and cut-rate character he is assigned by the screenplay.I tried hard to like this movie but in the end it is so riddled with head-scratching loopholes and mistakes and poor transitions that I could only call it gutsy at best. I wouldn't call it great, and not even "good". Rockwell's use of hand-held video cameras didn't bother me, and if anything it was visually interesting. I guess the ending of this movie, without giving it entirely away, made me wonder if Rockwell was merely trying to "make up for" the dark comic sense or atmosphere of decay that permeates the rising action of the film. In any case, it just does not seem to flow and it does not fit organically with the rest of the bizarre story.

jotix100 This indie was shown recently on cable. Alexandre Rockwell (any relation to Sam?) directs this strange account of a night in L.A. While the film is interesting there are a lot of things that make absolute no sense in the way the director, working with Brandon Cole in the screen play, presents the story and then proceeds to solve it in the next 90 minutes.Mr. Rockwell has to be congratulated in employing these young talent. Given the choice between a studio film and and independent one, I will always choose the latter one. That said, there are a lot of unanswered questions in the film.We have no inkling at the beginning of the film that Timmy is a sick boy, he is suddenly in the hospital where a donor has been matched and will undergo a kidney transplant. The donor is Slovo, a man who was hit by the boy's father, and it's an obnoxious man. The quest for the search of this man, who disappeared from the hospital, is at the core of the action. It gives the writers an excuse for bringing the assorted characters into the picture.Another thing that doesn't make sense is how can anyone be arrested for attending a T&A club? Evidently it can only happen in the city of Angels! There is the rapper with the gorgeous girlfriend who can't carry a tune who come to help the boy and his father and in the process take us into the streets of a seedy section of town and end up in the rapper's mansion where everyone jumps in the pool.There are a lot things that don't make sense, but we go along the ride because the director, at times, shows signs of brilliant film making, but ultimate, the movie leaves us questioning a lot of things as to why they happen.The cast is wonderful. Daryl Mitchell and Rose Collins are perfect as the rapper and his girlfriend. Steve Buscemi and Peter Dinklage as the clowns, don't get a lot to do. Pruitt Taylor Vince, an actor's actor makes an incredible Owen, the man who will eventually save the boy. David Proval and Elizabeth Bracco are the estranged parents of the sick young boy, Timmy, who is portrayed with an uncanny maturity by Austin Wolff. Jennifer Beals and Sam Rockwell have only limited time in front of the camera.While we wished "13 Moons" would have been better, it shows a great team of writers as well as an excellent director.

cody_4343 I don't want to waste too much more of my time regarding this movie so I'll keep this short. I haven't finished the movie yet (it's playing as I type this) but I had high expectations for this film and they weren't met. A great cast working with one of the worst scripts in recent history. Basically, just a boring movie with little to like. I 'm curious if the cast found the script promising or if they worked on the movie as a kind gesture to someone; not sure what there could have been in the script that they would think was worth it. I hope there are better movies to come from all who were involved. Disappointing.

nototis SLAMDANCE pulled a major coup by opening with a quality film by one of the directors who gave SUNDANCE such a sterling reputation for indie films. One of the great things about film festivals is on rare occasions you get bragging rights to having seen a quality film before the rest of the world gets a look at it Steve Buscemi is always killer, and here he's given material to match his talents. He's probably the last guy you'd pick to play a clown (he's seems a crying on the inside AND outside actor), but the counterintuitive comic casting works like a dream. Hard to p*** and moan and be funny at the same time, but Buscemi and the writers pull it off. Karyn Parsons, who was so good on THE JOB with Denis Leary and was so much better than the material in such crap as MAJOR PAYNE and THE LADIES' MAN -- is killer, and hot to boot. A smart, genuinely funny comedy for adults that doesn't suck. Rarer than a perfect spring day and just as welcome.