Garden State
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Movie Reviews of Garden State
Movie Review: An Artistic Dramedy
Summary: 5 Stars
It's a little sad at how underpromoted this movie is. I think that I may have seen one ad for this movie (in which it is referred to as the "Lost in Translation" of this year). I went to see this movie completely on faith from the good things that I had been hearing about it. This movie definitely shattered even my highest expectations. It had great drama, laugh-out-loud comedy, and great performances from the actors.
The movie is centered around Andrew "Large" Largeman (Zach Braff), a New Jersey native who has been living in LA for the last nine years developing an acting career. Suddenly, the death of his mother brings him back to Newark so that he can attend his funeral. Once there, he realizes that he is very emotionaly numb, probably due to all the lithium prescribed to him by his psychiatrist father (Ian Holm). During his time in Jersey, he meets Sam (Natalie Portman), and the two begin to fall in love. Sam is the exact opposite of Andrew; she is open, original (or she likes to think she is), and a compulsive liar. She also has a pet cemetary in her backyard.
In some ways, this is very similar to "Lost in Translation" in the sense that the sense that it's not the plot that counts, it's the characters. Also, the movie is kind of a series of little adventures involving Andrew and Sam. However, the humor is definitely more potent, and this movie has a more "Hollywood" ending. I mean, it's not exactly a flaw, but I don't think that the happy ending completely fit with the rest of the film. Hey, ever notice that Hollywood and happy both begin with "h"?
Overall, this movie is great. It has the right mix of drama and comedy. Be warned, if you are a big action fan, you probably won't like this movie. As I said, it's not the plot, it's the characters.
Movie Review: Wow.....The More You Watch it The Better it is!
Summary: 5 Stars
I'd like to call it a dark Comedy but it's a sad dark drama. Each time I watch it I get something more from it. It's one of those movies that you grow attached to the characters each time you watch it.
"Large" plays an Actor/Waiter in L.A. living his life as a walking zombie due to the fact that he is on so many anti-depressants. He comes back to his home state, NJ for his mother's funeral after a nine year absence.
He meets up with all his old friends who seemingly haven't changed a bit from the high-school days of petty stealing, spin the bottle and pot parties. However this time it is different, he stopped taking all those horrible mind-altering drugs and starts to feel for the first time in years. Good, bad and ugly but to feel anything again is a wonderful thing.
He meets up with quirky Sam (Natalie Portman) and starts a friendship that blooms into a touching warm relationship. They both lend a hand to each other.
There are some scenes that are pretty meaningless like when he and his friend goes to meet up with a guy to swap money for a helium ballon machine which is actually in a hotel that has peep holes in the rooms where men are "enjoying" the "show." However, these non-functional scenes are covered up with clever camera shots and FANTASTIC music.
By the time I've watched this movie about 8 times, I realized the big draw is not just the movie but the soundtrack. A must! Buy it...you won't be disappointed. It will go down as one of my must have CD's (as well as DVD) of 2005!
It does have a happy ending with Large realizing he needs to stop with the prescription drugs and deal with the problems at hand and maybe share a life with Sam.
Movie Review: 'You can't await your own arrival - so Let Go" Heap/Sigsworth-Frou Frou
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this movie, I found it to be a very reflective experience.
Aldous Huxley's book 'Brave New World' is referenced in the story. "Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Huxley's utopian World State where everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression. Andrew Largeman, Zach Braff's character decides to escape his soma/lithium existence and finally open his eyes, start feeling again and actually find community, identity and stability. That awakening is Garden State. What an excellent poignant and comedic debut by Zach Braff
A couple of themes explored are: 'being homesick for place that doesn't even exist' our idea of what should be, but often isn't, and finally coming to terms with that. And the other as sung by Frou Frou "There's beauty in the breakdown', change takes courage so Let Go. Largeman doesn't so much breakdown as breakout.
Two great young actors, Peter Sarsgaard as Mark and especially Natalie Portman as Sam are prefect bookends to Andrew Largeman. I can hardly wait to see what Portman does over the next 30 years she is a sensational talent.
The soundtrack is fantastic. There are many great little visual touches, such as his neurologists having so many plaques that he hangs one on the ceiling. The automated faucets all triggering as Largeman walks by them in the airport bathroom. Sam's family applauding after watching her skating videos and the lights go out, clap on, clap off. For Harlan Coben fans, much of the movie was filmed in and around Livingston NJ the setting of so many of his wonderful books.
I look forward to Braff's next project currently in production 'Open Hearts', based on Susanne Bier's 2002 Danish film.
Movie Review: A Pleasant Suprise
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm a college kid, and all my female friends have constantly been quoting this movie or referencing it since it came out, so i was expecting this to be a total chick flic. When my sort-of girlfriend at the time suggested we watch it I said ok just to be nice to her. I was pleasantly suprised when i Really, really really liked the movie. This movie was completely different from what I was expecting... I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't this. The story isn't anything overly exciting, but it is quirky and charming, as are all of the characters in their own unique way. This movie is quite funny at times, although not a comedy. It isn't so much exciting, as it is attention grabbing. Its a very weird movie in that the theme is just people hanging out, sort of like napolean dynamite, but the story is much better. The dialogue is constantly amusing, and I feel like i could relate to a lot of the characters and events that occured iwthin it. The drug explorations within the movie add an interesting twist. The love story is reflective to a lot of things that have happened in my life... I know what its like to be leaving your loved one at the airport never expecting to see them again. True natalie portman is a little overdramatic at some points but that makes it so much better. I woulnd't say this is the best movie i've ever seen but I definitley thouroughly enjoyed it and would rank it 9/10. I would recommend it to all, because i believe almost everyone could sit down and watch this movie and truly enjoy it. The ending scene is beautiful, and the main characters find what I think we are all looking for in life: Love. They realize that nothing else really matters.Movie Review: There he was, looking for love!
Summary: 5 Stars
From time to time, we use to watch - thanks to the unrestricted rules of the conventional circuits - films that breath a warm poetry, a fine artistic feature, surrounded of an accurate sense of existential vertigo.
An aspirant to actor, who lives in Los Angeles, is notified about his mother has paused away. A long time has gone since he left his birthplace; his childhood friends have grown up and have decided to undertake different professions. That sad reencounter with his family and circle of friends dates him back to his origins, but besides will allow an unexpected love.
The film has three brilliant sequences, the first one is when we realize the emotional burden that represented the horrid accident suffered by his mother that affected him since his early childhood (he was nine, by then), carrying with him the enormous weight of the guilt over all those years; on the other hand the brief but memorable clash with his father (brilliantly performed by Ian Holm) and third that mesmerizing metaphor of the unfathomable abbeys in the coda of the plot, that works out as an admirable mirror image of his own existence, acting over him as a powerful device to bring him back to the lost emotional equilibrium.
Nathalie Portman steals herself the show with her memorable acting. She looks so natural through her dialogues, absolutely identified with her role that constitutes one of the sever highlights of this unconventional portrait of what the lack of love may infringe on the human behavior and at the meantime how this same feeling brings him back to the normality.
A film that must be seen due its ambitious proposals.