Buffalo '66
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.41 You Save: $9.57 (64%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.88 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Buffalo '66
Movie Review: Loser cool with a heart. . .
Summary: 5 Stars
Actor/Director/Writer Vincent Gallo's Buffalo 66 is, on a superficial level, almost irritatingly 'indie' (i.e. that which seethes with artistic reaching and uses gritty film stock to prove it). Characters wear clothes best suited to an old Blind Melon video, dialogue is pungent and ironically repetitive, and gloomy weather endlessly hangs over everything, in what at first glance appears to be yet another entry into the 'loser chic' school of cinema.
But wait. . .
Instead of wearing its disaffected stance as a badge of credibility, Buffalo 66 uses it as a springboard to a far deeper, and very affecting, exploration of the psyche of human failure. Using Buffalo (and its poor, woeful Bills) as a backdrop and rather hilarious metaphor for missed opportunities and blown chances, Gallo picks at the protective, pseudo-celebratory scab that was Beck's 'Loser', and exposes the real pain of the loser.
Gallo is terrific as Billy, just released from a five-year prison stint after a 10,000 bet with a loanshark (played by that perennial loser Mickey Rourke, in fine scuzzy form) and a missed fieldgoal kick force him to take the fall for a crime to pay back his debt. Jimmy's first move is to kidnap a cherub named Layla (Christina Ricci, in an inspired performance), only to convince his parents, who've never known he was in jail, that he's married.
Angelica Huston and Ben Gazzara play Billy's unbalanced parents in a reunion scene which is at once uproariously funny and horrifyingly telling (they have exactly one childhood picture of Billy). Slowly, Buffalo 66 reveals itself to be a tragi-comic parade through an agonizing childhood and adolescence, one that still vividly and actively haunts Billy's present.
As a director, Gallo brilliantly employs his quirky visual playfulness to compliment the plot's unfolding, while never overstating his ideas (Oliver Stone, take heed). There is much that is funny, tragic, and startlingly beautiful in Buffalo 66, and it ranks as one of 1998's finest films.
Movie Review: Wicked Black Humor!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
"30 years I haven't missed a game." says Billys mother. Buffalo has just missed a field goal on TV. "They haven't won the championships since 1966, and I missed that game 'cause that's the day I had Billy.."
Billy went to prison. The movie starts with him just getting out. Why was he in prison, you may ask.. Well, Billy bet $10,000 one year that the Buffalo Bills would win the superbowl, which he loses of course. The gangster bookie (Mickey Rourke) tells Billy that instead of doing really bad to things to him for not being able to pay off his huge bet, he can take the fall for another guy in relation to some crime concerning one of the bookie's friends.
There's something pretty weird about this movie that had me laughing over the most horrible things.. His family life for one.. Christina Ricci's story to his parents about how she and he first met - Billy being an FBI agent and she a lowly typist (all the while, his father rolling his eyes and his mother glued to the Bills game on TV).
Billy's a considerate son to his parents, and an excellent bowler. Christina Ricci, his kidnapped girlfriend, is a tap dancer and as patient as any kidnapping victim could be. The bleak shots of a dreary Buffalo (contrasting nicely with Billy's red platform shoes and Ricci's low-cut baby blue tu-tu) are a nice backdrop to the story.
Vincent Gallo, who I've never seen before, is fantastic as Billy. His performance is so wrought with angst, passion and conflict, it's hard to beleive the movie was so hilarious! Christina Ricci is a perfect complement as "Wendy Balsam", also the name of the grade school girl Billy had a crush on, and who makes a short appearance in the film (Rosanne Arquette). This is a real character driven movie, though a lot of creative camera work, and a mad music track - 70's Yes in the final strip club scenes??!! - also help bring this wicked, yet poigniant love story to life.
Movie Review: FUNNY AND ENTERTAINING INDIE FLICK----
Summary: 5 Stars
It wouldn't be like me to write this review without first mentioning Christina Ricci's buxom appearance in it. Apparently sometime at the beggining of the twentiots decade Christina Ricci underwent a breast reduction, and for a while looked to be much skinnier and frail then she used to be. Almost Calista Flockhartish (y'know the chicken lady from Brothers and Sisters and Ally McBeal) While Ricci has always been a hottie ever since her Wednsday Addams days and on into the future, there was no doubt that when this first was released, a fifteen year old Wally Gator was instantly drawn to her much fuller figure on the box cover for Buffalo '66. Hence me renting it initially and discovering this movie as an underated indie-classic.
I think this movie catches a lot of flack where it doesn't deserve. I can remember expecting a slow paced, dark sort of movie in this, overly serious as most indies go. What I got was a pretty fast paced, beautifully filmed, black comedy. Silly even at times and over the top- I think the entire film works and was pleasantly suprised. Vincent Gallos character as Billy is humorously over paranoid, overly obsessive and extremely manic... he's fun to watch. Ricci automatically becomes the soft spot in his mess of an existance and (as you may have guessed) is even more fun to watch. Rosana Arquette is in here too and of course the parents. Billys parents are more interested in the Buffalo Bills then anything else... even their son,,, which of course is the root of all his problems and the core of the plot. Hey- I liked this movie a lot, and still refer to it often. I don't think its meant to be taken too seriously. This may throw some people off but in my mind, is what makes it a good indie movie. I was entertained all around and recommend. Five stars.
Movie Review: Buffalo '66
Summary: 5 Stars
Buffalo '66, directed and written by Vincent Gallo, is an incredible film about this guy named Billy Brown, played by Gallo himself. Billy was a man who was severely down in his luck, from having neglegent parents, terrible luck, and dysfunctional relationships. The root of his anger and bitterness definitely comes from his parents. His mother (played brilliantly yet uncharacteristically by Angelica Huston) was so obsessed with the Buffalo Bills that she disowns Billy since he was born on the same day the Bills won the Super Bowl in 1966 and she couldn't go to the game (and they haven't won since).The story starts off with Billy being released from a 5 year jail sentence ("I was innocent") wandering the streets of Buffalo looking for a bathroom. He finds one at a dance studio, in which he runs into Layla (played by my favorite actress, Christina Ricci). He kidnaps her and somehow persuades her into pretending that she's this girl named Wnedy and that they are married, along with a whole barrage of lies, to impress his parents, not that they really care anyway.After that, Billy and Layla still go places together, but yet Billy is still very bitter and won't easily open up to Layla. He had many emotional scars and trauma (all shown in the movie) and contemplated doing a terrible act of revenge. Then he experienced an epiphany in terms of what would happen if he did it, with Yes' classic epic "Heart of the Sunrise" used effectively, and from there he finds himself in a way, and the film has a surprising ending. This film dealt with human emotion in a non-cliched way, and contained great music and even better acting. Definitely a new favorite film for me.Movie Review: did I just hear King Crimson in a bowling alley?
Summary: 5 Stars
and did I hear a Yes song in a strip club? Yes!
That's all you need to know as far as what to expect- a very different kind of drama, with a *very* subtle touch of comedy (especially from Vincent Gallo's parents who are impolitely hilarious!)
Buffalo '66 is actually an overall solid and wonderful movie.
It's about a man who finally gets out of prison, and he apparently doesn't know what to do or where to go, so he kidnaps a woman who just so happens to willingly go along with his every single demand, and the two of them go on an adventure of a lifetime.
I can honestly say I've never seen a movie quite like this. The character played by Vincent Gallo has parents who are extremely weird, haha. They apparently don't care about their son even a *little* bit when he shows up to their doorsteps one afternoon and... well, I really don't want to spoil the storyline for you. I promise you it's extremely entertaining though.
Vincent Gallo's character starts out by forcing the woman he kidnaps to do whatever he says, but Christinia Ricci's character is so laidback, nonchalant and just bizarrely quiet that she apparently doesn't have a single concern in the world, so she ends up going along with everything with no resistance whatsoever.
Honestly, the tone of the film is definitely on the serious side above everything else, and the comedic elements are few and far between. That's what you can expect. A really strange film. Gotta love it when film writers go the extra mile to create masterpieces like these!