Argentina Hotels Travel - Gummo
|
List Price: $24.98
Argentina Hotels Travel Price: $19.99
Your Save: $ 4.99 ( 20% )
Availability: Usually ships in 10 to 13 days
Manufacturer: New Line Home Video
Starring: Wendall Carr, Charles Matthew Coatney, Bryant L. Crenshaw, Darby Dougherty, James Glass (II)
|
Average Customer Rating:   
|
|
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 9780780634596
Format: Closed-captioned
ISBN: 0780634594
Label: New Line Home Video
Manufacturer: New Line Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: New Line Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2001-03-20
Running Time: 89
Studio: New Line Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1997-10-17
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
From Harmony Korine, screenwriter of Kids, comes a haunting portrait of life in small-town America. Through a collection of dreamlike and devastating images, Korine offers a glimpse of Xenia, Ohio, a world existing in the aftermath of a tornado.
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: WTF was that
Comment: This movie RAPED my mind..... I have no Idea what I watched...
I recommend it for those that are crazy or wish to be crazy
Customer Rating:
Summary: Mixed Feelings
Comment: Honestly, I don't know how to feel about this film. The formal structure of the film is brilliant. Korine uses a collage style that mixes film, digital video, home movies, and photos. He employs not a conventional linear narrational structure, but a more associational, non-linear logic that resembles poetry rather film. This idea of form has great potential, but I don't know that Korine fulfills that potential. Gummo is so reference-heavy (much like the poetry of T.S. Eliot) that it's almost impossible to understand all of the connections Korine makes and to understand the metaphors. Many of the images he uses (like Bunny Boy) have the potential to be symbolic, but in an interview on the special features of the DVD, Korine explains that like Bunny Boy and the title, Gummo, a lot of the images and references were things that he chose just because he liked them and wanted to see them in a movie. To attribute symbolic meaning to these things may be beneficial for the viewer as a personal exercise, and if an audience is affected by the associations they make on their own, that's great. However, I think that giving the credit to Korine just because he chose images he simply likes may be unwarranted.
I also think that Korine also uses a lot of shocking material for the sake of shock. Gummo is set in Xenia, Ohio (though actually shot near Nashville) and focuses on the poverty-stricken society that strives to exist in the aftermath of a tornado (although attributing the state of the town on the tornado seems like a red herring). So much of what the film depicts is pretty disturbing. We see kids who kill cats and huff glue, a man who prostitutes his sister with downs syndrome, and a girl who describes the sexual abuse she receives regularly at home, just to cite a few scenes. Most of the characters are violent, racist, and ignorant, and many of the actors are actually members of the surrounding community who are playing themselves. As a result, I sometimes feel like Korine is exploiting them as freaks. This especially concerns me in the scenes involving Ellen, the mentally disabled woman who is shown shaving her eyebrows off. I'm worried that Korine is somehow trying to benefit from the spectacle of this image, and the shock value it has, which I find cheap. I think Korine does a lot to shock his viewers and not much in the way of making us sympathize with his characters, especially those who are violent and racist.
Fans of the movie often defend Korine's intentions by arguing that he is attempting to show that although these people seem like lowlifes and freaks, they are still beautiful and interesting in their own right. I do agree that they are beautiful and interesting, but I don't think that Korine is responsible for giving us that. He is so busy showing us the gutter of humanity that when he does attempt to show us the beauty, it's buried under the hatred, violence, and abuse the characters subject each other to. Korine doesn't show us beauty overpowering the grotesque, though perhaps he attempts to. What we end up with is beauty buried under the grotesque. For that reason, I don't think the actual thematic content of the film lives up to the potential given by the form Korine has created. Each time I see Gummo, I walk away feeling pretty indifferent about the characters, like I haven't learned anything I didn't know before. I don't think anyone can presume to know what Korine "meant" by the film or if there was any greater intention at all. If there was, I think Korine's attempts to express it were ineffective.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Typical uber-bitchin' indie flick.
Comment: No real plot here, just a lot of socially dysfunctional trash acting the part in southern Ohio. It's interesting like a train-wreck so it doesn't get 1 star. The train-wreck qualities aren't enduring enough to grant it a higher rating though. Supposedly it was originally given an NC-17 but was trimmed down to an R. It makes you wonder how weird the uncut version was.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Documentary-ish as all Harmony Korine films are . . .
Comment: I bought this thinking I hadn't seen it - alas, yes I did! I definately remember the scene of the boy in the tub filled with murky water eating a candy bar, and his mother tap dancing in the basement. . .It's not quite as good as it's rated, but I - well, I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, but it is interesting. If you can find that dark place that people retreat to after complete decimation - wrap your head around that - and you can see these people, sadly, but look around they're there. The whole cat thing I could do without - and it's really disheartening if that goes on - but the kid Soloman played by Jacob Reynolds shows some potential in recoverying - although, it's pretty obvious his mother would like to keep him a little boy forever. I've like Jacob Reynolds ever since I saw him in "the road to wellville" - he's not only interesting looking, but he's quite an actor - I'm gonna have to see more flicks he's been in.
Customer Rating:
Summary: 90 minute ode to torturing cats.
Comment: Watching this film, I was reminded of a a term Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert used to employ to describe schlock near the same level as Gummo back in the day. That term would be "geek show". And no other combination of words describes this film better.
The film revolves around a character whose name I didn't catch. Filmmaker Korrine must've realized before casting began that he was in trouble. This lead character is completely void of any interesting character traits other than the fact that the actor playing him looks like the result of a brother-sister union. Gummo follows this unfortunate character (along with other distasteful characters that populate the film's tornado-ravaged town) through a series of "oh-so-disturbing" scenarios that seem to exist simply to shock the viewer rather than to build towards a cohesive plot. Within the film's ninety minutes viewers are subjected to children struggling to recite essay-length dialogue peppered with every curse word you can imagine and very little else, a brother pimping his mentally challenged, overweight sister, and a group of girls examining a pet cat's nipples (among other places) to determine whether it's pregnant.
Even with all this, Korrine does manage to succeed in some arenas. The scenes with Chloe Sevigny and her sisters(?) were so good that I yearned for them to appear more frequently. In fact, they should've been the movie. And Korrine DOES establish an authentic and memorable setting with his rural Ohio town. But still, Gummo falls short. Trash connoiseur Howard Stern and Jerry Springer accomplish what Korrine does with Gummo on a daily basis. And at least they aren't so pretentious as to try and pass it off as art because of indie/ironic soundtrack selections. But of course, you can't criticize films like this without the risk of being grouped in with all the other middle-America squares who just didn't "get it". Sadly, that's not me. I've seen and enjoyed movies more shocking than Gummo and will continue to. The difference between Gummo and those films is that Gummo settles for being a sideshow and sacrifices a plot in doing so.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Argentina Posters
Argentina Art Prints
Argentina Travel 2008 Calendars
2008 Monthly Calendars
Argentina Hotels Travel Special Resources
Argentina Arts
Argentina Business
Argentina Culture
Argentina Education
Argentina Government
Argentina Health
Argentina Map
Sports & Recreation
Travel & Tourism
Tourist Attractions
Argentina Museums
Argentina Travel Important Resources
Argentina Books
Argentina Magazines
Argentina Travel Destinations
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Calafate, Argentina
Cordoba, Argentina
Iguaza Fallsar, Argentina
Jujuy, Argentina
Salta, Argentina
San Carlos Bariloche
Trelew, Argentina
Tucuman, Argentina
Ushuaia, Argentina
Argentina Travel Hotels
Bariloche Hotels
Buenos Aires Hotels
Trelew Hotels
Cordoba Hotels
|
