Dr Mabuse

I caught this film this week. It's really good stuff. I'm not sure how I missed this for so many years. Billy Crudup, Samantha Morten, Michael Shannon, Dennis Hopper, Denis Leary, Will Patton, Holly Hunter, Jack Black(who actually gives a decent performance btw), etc. A lot of talent involved.

Anyone who knows Lou Reed gets the title right off.

Anyway, just wanted to make thread in case any of you hadn't seen it. It's terrific and I recommend it. Crudup really knocks it out of the park. What a supporting cast too.

81% on RT with 42 in.


From Ebert's 3.5 star review: "Thinking at first I am seeing still one more road movie about a druggie, I find I am wrong. "Jesus' Son" surprises me with moments of wry humor, poignancy, sorrow and wildness. It has a sequence as funny as any I've seen this year, and one as harrowing, and it ends in a bittersweet minor key, as it should, because to attach this story to a big climax would be a lie, if not a crime. Like all good films, it is not for everybody (only bad films are for everybody).

The story revolves around the time and place of Iowa City, circa 1971, although the hero does a lot of traveling all over the country, and in his own memories. His name is FH, which is short for guess what, and in the beginning he is one of those college town layabouts with no plans and not many problems. One day on a bench he meets Michelle. They talk a little and he asks, "Do I kiss you now?" Later, she asks him, "You ever seen anybody shoot up before?" He has not, but soon heroin is running his life.

But this is not a drug movie like any you've seen. It doesn't glamorize drugs or demonize them, but simply remembers them from the point of view of a survivor. FH (Billy Crudup) narrates the story, sometimes doubling back to fill in gaps or add overlooked details. He isn't a hero or an anti-hero, just a fairly clueless guy with good intentions who gets muddled by the drug lifestyle--which creates a burden the mind is not really designed to endure.

The movie's director is Alison Maclean, a New Zealander whose screenplay (by Elizabeth Cuthrell, David Urrutia and Oren Moverman) is based on short stories by the American author Denis Johnson. Some will complain that the episodes jostle too loosely against one another (it's "a barbiturate-driven version of `Pulp Fiction,' in which the guns misfire and the cars don't have brakes," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir, in a negative but somehow affectionate review). I think short stories are right for a story about druggies. Their lives are too episodic to add up to a novel; the highs and lows settle out into disconnected adventures and anecdotes, separated by voids and blackouts."

starman9000

I loved this. It's in the small rotation of films I watch at least once a year.

auto

Yep, really great film. Seen it only once but have caught pieces on television many times. Hard to stop watching once I start.

Dr Mabuse

I actually caught it on Flix(I think) this week, one of the unedited movie channels, anyway I just happened by flipping channels at like 3 in the morning. Luckily I had only missed maybe a few minutes.

I already have the DVD now and have watched it again in full.

I love finding little gems like this and wanted to pass the word along.

starman9000

Love the Hopper line of "talk to the bullet hole in my face and tell me I'm fine."

Geofferson

Good flick. I rented this DVD several years ago as part of a Billy Crudup double header (the other movie was Waking the Dead, which is also quite good).