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brandon [ 9.0 ]
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one of the most sympathetic portrayals of loneliness and self-destruction i've seen in recent times .. although at times the plot kind of drifts a bit too slowly, it doesn't take that much away from the film ..
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Dancing_P [ 8.0 ]
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Surprising, original drama about a recently-released loser (Vincent Gallo) who kidnaps a young woman (Christina Ricci) to pose as his wife so he can impress his parents (Ben Gazzara and Anjelica Huston), who think he’s been working for the CIA. Gallo’s debut is a deeply personal film done in the style of a “gritty” 70’s character studies (think Midnight Cowboy, sorta). What’s most surprising about Gallo’s oeuvre is his knowledge of film: he’s a bit like the anti-Tarantino. Where Tarantino influences are Bruce Lee, Leone and giallo, Gallo is more influenced by Ashby, Warhol and Ozu. His film is a deeply felt, stylish piece of work, using split-screens, grainy print (Gallo shot on reversal stock for maximum effect) and bizarre musical interludes to maximum effect. The script is decent as well, although it feels like Gallo added a lot of repetition just to make the movie seem… well, I have no idea what he was shooting for. Dialogue goes something like this: “This pie sucks. It sucks. I hate it. I hate this pie. It sucks. It sucks and I hate. Hate it. I hate it. This pie, I hate this pie.” Although I understand this “gives character”, it also “tests my patience”. The talented cast (also including Mickey Rourke, Rosanna Arquette, Kevin Corrigan and Jan-Michael Vincent) are all doing sterling work, particularly Ricci.
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chapter11 [ 8.5 ]
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Vincent Gallo's "Buffalo 66" doesn't seem like much of a feel-good movie. Though the plot--- a man fresh out of jail kidnaps a tap dancer and forces her to pose as his wife for the duration of a hellish dinner with his dysfunctional family--- has the opportunity to fuel a quirky, Coen-esque comedy, the actual product is something different entirely. (Not that I'd *want* it to be like something out of the Coens' ouvre--- much as I love the Coens' films, Gallo's bleak interpretation of the material works better.) And while it's not a happy film by any stretch of the imagination, the overall message, the payoff, isn't quite as gloomy as the buildup. It's not all sun and fun, mind you--- Gallo's Billy Brown, the kidnapper, is pretty despicable for much of the movie, and Christina Ricci, the kidnapped, is quite detached--- and she's the most likable character in the entire movie. While there are moments of extremely black humor, "Buffalo 66" is far from cuddly--- in fact, it's cold, dark, and extremely disturbing. Still, the acting is fantastic, and the film itself a fascinating intertwining of the beautiful and the ugly.
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kcremer [ 9.0 ]
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I don't know what's better - Vincent Gallo's direction or his performance. Both are quite impressive.
Gallo plays Billy Brown, who's just been released from prison for a crime he didn't commit - he took the fall for someone in order to avoid being killed over a gambling debt - and kidnaps Christina Ricci while taking a piss at her tap dancing class on the way to his parents house. He tells her to pose as his wife for his parents - they don't know he was in prison. He told them he was away doing work for the government and got married recently.
Once I met Billy's parents I realized that the movie was not taking the conventional route, doing what lots of movies which start off similar to this typically do. No - next, we find out that his parents are quite fucked up. The mom, played by Anjelica Huston, is an obsessed Buffalo Bills fan - she has never missed a game, except the day she had her son, which she audaciously tells Billy and Ricci she regrets doing, because that was the last year the Bills won the Superbowl. Also, she seems to have extreme ADD because she never seems to understand the simple things that Billy tries to ask and tell her. For instance, Billy's allergic to chocolate donuts (the movie intercuts several disturbing flashbacks, one showing Billy's face swelling up after being fed donuts as a kid), yet his mother still tries to feed him them. His father is no better. He doesn't say or do much, except when he loudly accuses Billy of trying to stab him at the dinner table, even though Billy wasn't even touching a knife, or when he's hugging Ricci and sticks his face in her tits.
You look at Gallo's face during the scenes with his parents and begin to sympathize with him and understand why he's such a miserable prick.
We find out that the gambling debt he owed was from the 1992 Superbowl. He bet on the Bills to beat the Giants, which of course they did not. In real life, the kicker, Scott Norwood, missed a game winning field goal at the buzzer to lose the game; in this movie, the kicker's name is Scott Wood (which apparently did not make the Bills or the city of Buffalo happy with Gallo, who openly states his disliking for the city). Billy is convinced that Wood deliberately missed the field goal because he was paid to, and makes it his mission to find him and kill him, even if he gets killed in the process, as revenge.
Meanwhile, Ricci is free to go home, but becomes progressively attached to Billy, and stays with him for a while....
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.8 |
| No. Ratings | : 12 | |
| No. Reviews | : 5 | |
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