Chrystal
List Price:
Our Price: $2.66
You Save: $7.32 (73%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.50 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Colin Fickes, Ed Corbin, Johnny Galecki, Lisa Blount, Walton GogginsBrand: First Look Pictures
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 106 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-08-30
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: First Look Pictures
Movie Reviews of Chrystal
Movie Review: Hal Needham, meet Atom Egoyan
Summary: 5 Stars
Rated 4.0 at IMDb.
Grossed $80,000.
I figured it must suck mightily, right? I almost passed on it entirely when I collected the new releases from Blockbuster this week, but I broke down and rented when I saw that it was rated R for, among other reasons, nudity. Best decision I've made in a long time.
The official publicity spin says, "Set in the Ozark mountains, Chrystal combines red-dirt realism with the fabulist Southern literary tradition - part Flannery O'Connor, part Johnny Cash - to tell a wild and haunting tale of the power of true love." I think this may represent the first time I've ever agreed with one of those official blurbs. That sentence sums it up beautifully.
Chrystal is a story about a man who made a great mistake when he was young. He landed in prison when his own criminal activity caused a car accident that killed his son and left his wife partly paralyzed. Returning to his Ozark home as a middle-aged man, he does his best to attain redemption, sometimes failing, but also succeeding in about equal measure.
Let me cut to the chase on this one and say that it is a helluva movie. Set among the improverished rurals of Arkansas, it manages to portray their lives with humanity and compassion, yet without condescension. Unlike most Hollywood movies, it manages to tell a central story that is heartbreaking without being phony or syrupy, and without resorting to obviously manipulative musical cues. The background stories are sometimes more interesting than the main plot, and can be very funny, because the unaffected characters react to events in natural ways. Here's an example. When a women tells her daughter solemnly that the family patriarch, apparently succumbing to senile dementia, was caught stealing a dress from a clothesline and wearing it, the daughter thinks a second, furrows her forehead in concern, and asks, "how'd he look?" Mother and daughter erupt in tension-relieving laughter. There is humor, but the writing can also be delicate and poetic, yet also gritty and realistic when required, following the tradition of the best Southern gothic writers. Hell, this is the screenplay Faulkner should have written when he was jerking off in Hollywood. The last act does include some unwelcome contrivances, but by that point, much like Magnolia, it had earned the right to jump into the deep end.
Ray McKinnon, the writer and director of this film, is a character actor in his forties who had never before directed a feature film. Hadn't written one either. I have a feeling that he'll get to make a few more movies before his career is over, because he didn't make many missteps in this film. His direction was as good as his writing, so good that it's impossible to believe him a rookie. I paid attention to his storyboarding, what he was doing with camera movement, when he was choosing to change the focal point of a scene, how he backed up the story with the musical soundtrack, when he chose silence over music, his control of the cinematography, his use of the local culture for background, and so forth. By God, I don't know if Atom Egoyan or Jean-Pierre Jeunet could have done this much better with this budget! McKinnon may have made a couple of rookie mistakes here and there, but I'll just tell you right now that this sumbitch has it. He just flat-out has it.
Of course, it didn't hurt his story about Arkansas that he happens to be married to a good actress from Arkansas (Lisa Blount), and it surely didn't hurt his little redneck drama that his lead actor is the king of all the redneck actors, Billy Bob Thornton. (Kudos to Billy Bob for doing this. It must have been a labor of love because he couldn't have drawn much of a paycheck, and he turned in a good dramatic performance.) And it didn't hurt at all that McKinnon was able to play the antagonist himself, because he's a damned good character actor. Oh, I know you don't know his name, but you'd recognize him. Most recently, you may have seen his tall, thin frame wandering through the streets of "Deadwood," playing the naive and slightly dotty preacher in season one of that series.
Of course, it is a quiet, slow, literary, heartbreaking, and almost arty redneck film, so the potential audience is not large at all. But if a piece of Southern fabulist lit sounds like the topping for your personal pecan pie, you should go for this.
Summary of Chrystal
CHRYSTAL - DVD MovieSimilar DVD Movies
AccountantUni; Release date: 2009-11-03; DVD
Best price: $5.08
Price in other shops:
The Man Who Wasn't ThereUniversal Studios; Release date: 2002-10-01; Published: 2002-10-01; DVD
Best price: $4.74
Price in other shops:
Sling Blade - Director's Cut (Miramax Collector's Series)LGF; Release date: 2011-04-26; DVD
Best price: $4.60
Price in other shops:
Monster's BallLions Gate; Release date: 2002-06-11; DVD
Best price: $3.72
Price in other shops:
LevityTHORNTON,BILLY BOB; Release date: 2003-08-26; Published: 2003-08-01; DVD
Best price: $1.87
Price in other shops:
The BadgeLions Gate; Release date: 2003-01-14; DVD
Best price: $4.97
Price in other shops:
One False MovePAXTON,BILL; Release date: 1999-03-09; DVD
Best price: $4.06
Price in other shops:
A Simple PlanTHORNTON,BILLY BOB; Release date: 1999-06-22; DVD
Best price: $19.90
HomegrownSony; Release date: 2005-06-07; DVD
Best price: $4.82
Price in other shops:
Daddy and ThemEBH; Release date: 2011-05-03; DVD
Best price: $2.80
Price in other shops: