My Own Private Idaho - Criterion Collection
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Chiara Caselli, Matthew Ebert, Mickey Cottrell, Sally Curtice, Tom CramerBrand: Image Entertainment
Primary Contributor: River Phoenix
Primary Contributor: Keanu Reeves
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Italian (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 104 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-03-01
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of My Own Private Idaho - Criterion Collection
Movie Review: River & Keanu make a great team - a classic!
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm a major River Phoenix fan. He was the finest actor of my generation - simple as that. He had that rare ability to make you feel...in every film he did. IMO, this is some of his greatest work. You can almost touch his vunerability - that's how powerful it is. You forget your watching River...he totally becomes his character Mike. And of all the Keanu Reeves movies I've seen, I thought he did some of his best acting here. He and River were a great team. They had done a film before this together and their deep affection for each other and their friendship is clear - it shows through. It may have been working with his good friend, River, that made his acting so great in this film. They worked well off each other - and it showed. When I first rented this movie, I didn't get it...thought it was so wierd...and wondered why in the hell would River and Keanu do a film like this??? That was my mistake - I didn't give it a fair chance the first time...only half heartedly watching. But a few months later, I rented it again...feeling I had missed something the first time around - and I'm so glad I did. This is a raw, messy masterpiece that absolutely deserves your attention. River's performance alone is worth the price of the dvd. It touched me...made me laugh and cry. this movie will stay with you for awhile because River's performance is so hauntingly good. The ending was sad to me. But I think it's what you make of it. To me, River will always be searching...and that was Keanu's character that drives by in the end and picks him up. Have a nice day!
Summary of My Own Private Idaho - Criterion Collection
River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves star in director Gus Van Sant's haunting tale of two young street hustlers: Mike Waters, a sensitive narcoleptic who dreams of the mother who abandoned him, and Scott Favor, wayward son of the mayor of Portland and the object of Mike's desire. Navigating a volatile world of junkies, thieves, and johns, Mike takes Scott on a quest from the grungy streets to the open highways of the Pacific Northwest, in search of an elusive place called "home." Groundbreaking and visually dazzling, My Own Private Idaho is a stirring look at unrequited love and life at society's margins.Mapping the spaces between fortune and degeneracy, Shakespeare and street cant, Europe and the Pacific Northwest, and gay and straight, My Own Private Idaho is the 1991 masterpiece by director Gus Van Sant. River Phoenix gave the most generous and memory-searing performance of his tragically shortened career as Mike Waters, a narcoleptic street hustler in search of his mother. His best friend, Scott, played by Keanu Reeves, is a son of privilege who fosters plans of rejoining the moneyed world of his father after gallivanting with assorted urchins and ne'er-do-wells. The beautifully symmetrical story that emerges between the two is one of friendship, yearning for lost time, and sexual identity conveyed with a poet's eye for landscape. The camera lingers on abandoned houses in golden fields and time-lapse clouds, providing what T.S. Eliot called "the objective correlative"--external representations of interior emotional states. We're treated to striking iconic sequences like a barn falling from the sky and still-life scenes of carnal entanglement. The supporting cast is a rogues' gallery that includes Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Udo Kier, director William Richert, and a variety of "nonactors" pulled literally off the street to provide documentary veracity to a film that gleefully careens into riffs on Henry IV. It's beautiful.
What's also beautiful is the Criterion Collection's treatment of the film's DVD debut. The director-approved transfer successfully conveys the warmth of the film's palette of oranges and browns, and preserves the whimsical atmospherics of the yodeling country music soundtrack. Many members of the original crew contribute their fond memories to the documentary features, which include a conversation between Phoenix's sister Rain and producer Laurie Parker. There are also two lengthy audio-only conversations--one between Van Sant and Velvet Goldmine director Todd Haynes, and another between author J.T. Leroy and filmmaker Jonathan Caouette about their experiences on the street. The deleted scenes mostly suggest alternate endings that Van Sant wisely left on the cutting room floor. A superb example of a beloved film on DVD. --Ryan Boudinot
Stills from My Own Private Idaho (click for larger image)
 The Cast |  River Phoenix |  Keanu Reeves |
 Keanu and River |  Udo Kier |  Gus Van Sant |
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