Jesus' Son
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Billy Crudup, Dierdre Lewis, Jimmy Moffit, Robert Michael Kelly, Torben BrooksDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-07-22
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
Movie Reviews of Jesus' Son
Movie Review: Very Original
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie surprised the hell out of me. I had never heard of this movie, but I will see any movie thrown my way and when I saw that Roger Ebert had called it "one of the best films of the year" and it had a good cast, I figured why not? This movie is spectacular. It's extremely original, funny and even hilarious at times, and features great performances by Billy Crudup, Samantha Morton, Denis Leary, Holly Hunter, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Black. Crudup I've only seen in "Almost Famous" and "Big Fish" and he never really impressed me. I thought he was good, but he never stood out in my mind. Here, he delivers an Oscar worthy performance that is memorable and perfect. I can not imagine anyone playing this character besides Crudup, he embodies the character. This character is F**k Head. Yes, that's his name. Well, it's obviously not his real name, but that's what we know him as throughout the entire movie. But, as you'll see, both the credits and cover refer to him as FH. There's something wrong with FH, we're never really told what, but there's just something a little off about him. He talks a lot, he has dreams and fantasies that merge with his everyday reality...Oh and he's addicted to heroin, which makes him even weirder. When we meet FH, we go everywhere with him. We follow him through all the strange moments in his life, beginning with how he meets the love of his life Michelle (Oscar nominee Samantha Morton, who's better in this than she's been in any other movie I've seen her in). We then see FH as he helps Wayne (Denis Leary) remove copper from his house to sell and buy alcohol. Then, after Michelle becomes pregnant FH gets a job at an Emergency Room. His co-worker, the orderly Georgie (Jack Black) frequently steals pills from the medicine cabinent at the hospital and is a bit loopy. That's pretty much all I can say about the synopsis. The movie, like FH, is weird. All the events that happen in FH's life would not happen in real life and the way FH views things is so interesting. This movie is not only original, it's also entertaining and NEVER dull. Every cast member gives an Oscar worthy performance, with my vote going to Jack Black who really could have got an Oscar nod for this movie.
But the performances aren't right there-in your face great, like Sean Penn in "Mystic River" or Hilary Swank in "Million Dollar Baby". The performances are subtle and none of the actors seem to try to be winning praise or anything. I highly recommend this movie, it's one of the best films of 2000, one of the most original movies, and an instant classic.
GRADE: A
Summary of Jesus' Son
Fans of the short stories in Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son will wonder how anyone could film a book so beautifully, radiantly, defiantly strange. The good news is that Alison Maclean's film version is more than just faithful to the book's spirit: It's the closest thing to a visual equivalent of Johnson's visionary prose. As a series of vignettes in the life of an unnamed Midwestern junkie-slash-holy fool, the stories are linked more through imagery than through anything so linear as a plot. Maclean preserves this episodic structure but adds just enough narrative glue to make the whole thing hang together as a film. (And wisely so; if she hadn't, there'd have been no role at all for Samantha Morton, brilliant here as Michelle, the narrator's girlfriend.) With a hero called Fuckhead, you know this isn't going to be entertainment for the whole family, and some of the scenes of drug use and associated gore are grim indeed. But the movie looks just right, and some of its images are so beautiful it hurts: old movies playing in an empty drive-in, snow swirling all around; a naked woman parasailing through the sky with her long red hair streaming behind.Maclean also coaxes wonderful performances from a dream-indie cast, including Morton, the magnetic Billy Crudup as Fuckhead, Dennis Hopper, Holly Hunter, an uncharacteristically understated Denis Leary, and even, in a gruesome cameo, Denis Johnson himself. (Hint: Look for the knife. Then look away quickly.) Once again, Jack Black hijacks every frame in which he appears, and his turn as a pill-popping orderly gives new meaning to the phrase "I save lives." Things drag a little during the last half-hour, but squirm not: Following Fuckhead through rehab and beyond, the book's closing scenes are genuinely redemptive without hitting the audience over the head with a "lesson" of any kind. Jesus' Son is Maclean's first feature film since 1992's Crush; let's hope she won't make us wait as long before the next fix. --Mary Park
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