Elizabethtown

[whitenavel]

Possible Minor Spoilers






Crowe is a master at using perfect music to get emotions out of his audience. He's also the best writer at developing romantic stories and his films are always good hearted, funny and well made.
I enjoyed Elizabethtown, but it's not Crowe's best work at all. His writing style is there, and the music is great, but the acting isn't quite up to par from his other films. Dunst is cute and likable (to an extent, she does seem a bit over the top), Bloom is plain and dull.
I read that Crowe cut 18 minutes after the Toronto premiere, and he should have cut more. Most of the Kentucky family scenes weren't quite right. It should have stuck with the character's life crisis and the romance and it would have been better. Still a decent watch with two really good scenes (the all night phone conversation and the ending road trip).

[billythrilly7]

The greatest music user of all time.

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/35/003_SAYANYTBPS.jpg

[elephant1978]

I disliked this movie quite a bit. I would say that Crowe used to be a master of film music, but it was way over the top in this film. It was jarring. Every moment needed to be interrupted by an Elton John piano to tell me how I should feel instead of the writing and directing telling me how I should feel. It was distracting.

But that's the tip of the iceburg for Elizabethtown's problems. It's chock full of half-thought ideas, setups with no conclusions and conclusions with no setups. It's a movie that's not really sure what it wants to be. Its storylines of Bloom blowing a huge business deal, the re-discovering of his family, the grief over his father, and the romance with Dunst never come together. It feels like four incomplete movies. The stuff with the family was very underdeveloped. It felt like Crowe wanted to do a movie about finding your relatives in a small town but didn't have the right spine to lay the ideas on. In other words, he wrote this story before it was ready. The supporting characters just didn't work. They're a mix of emotions that never come across as believable. The romance between Dunst and Bloom felt forced. And on a personal level, I can't see what anybody would find attractive about Dunst.

I think Bloom did a pretty good job. Hell, it could've been Ashton Kutcher in that role. And the saving grace of the film is the final road trip. Not because of the influence of Dunst's character, but because of the sweet bonding between Bloom and the memory of his father. It's a great moment that is muddled only by the mix of the romantic story and the father/son story. Just like the rest of the film.

Ele...

[roscoegino]

It's been getting really tepid reviews. Perhaps his worst ever.

Dunst looks great, but she seems so whimisical. Haven't seen all her films though.

[wcmartell]

It's like he wrote a script using all of the random ideas he collected over a month or two. So some of the ideas are great, but it doesn't all add up to a story. Also, some ideas undercut other ideas. The road trip would have been great... without Dunst's character as part of the story.

- Bill

[dclary]

Orlando Bloom is hunky.

Rowr!

[whitenavel]

I actually think the music is it's strong point. Sure, he overloads every scene with a new song, but it's better than having a score over the entire film trying to get emotions out of the viewer. Especially when several songs are recognizable.

[Kelsey]

My sister referred to it as "a ****tier version of Garden State. It was trying to be deep but just wasn't."

[elephant1978]

Tell me more about your very wise sister. Is she hot?:cool:

Ele...

[Kelsey]

She's 13.

[elephant1978]

She's 13.

But is she hot?

Ele...

*I'm going to DD hell for that one. :p

[dclary]

Is there a law against 13-year-olds being hot?

You know the rule... if there's grass on the field...

There's probably an illegal mowing it.

[Kelsey]

Hah. I'm not answering that.

That's a horrible rule by the way d :)

[Khabs]

Sadly I think Etown has worst soundtrack of all Cameron's films.

I used to be inspired by some hardly known artists he used. In Etown you get just chewed up songs forced way too predictably into the scenes.

Overall the film is not bad, I just expected much more. Of course, if you're on a date, it's best choice out there.

[dclary]

That's a horrible rule by the way d http://64.78.28.161/boards/images/smilies/smile.gif


I agree. Without exception, I've dated and been with women who were older than me, simply because...

There is no substitute for years of experience, my friend.

[cluckyburger]

what a trainwreck! horrible terrible movie. first and last 15 minutes are good but cannot save the goo in between. what was that susan sarandon 25 minute monologue?

[razerfish]

When I check my watch during a movie, it's a bad sign. When I check multiple times, it's a disaster. And I think I checked my watch at least 5 times during this dog.

What did arouse my curiosity was the fact that the chubby chick a few seats down from me actually seemed to be enjoying this turkey. My hypothesis is that she was mentally retarded. I found myself watching her more than the movie because during the song moments (every few seconds in this movie), she would physically dance from her chair. By the way she moved around and gyrated with the songs, I was pretty sure I was right about the retardation thing.

But back to the movie. What was the plot of this thing? Nothing drove it forward. Just lots of inconsequential scenes with the family or music videos with the main characters talking over the phone while the B-side of some obscure pop record played. Is Crowe trying to tell us how cool he is by playing some of these tunes that most people have never heard of? How about showing us how cool you are by entertaining us with your stupid movie. How about that, Cameron?

Anyway, this is a bad movie. A really bad movie. Though I'm sure the retarded girl disagrees with me. She's probably still dancing even though the movie ended three days ago.

[kaos1000]

yea..............this didn't quite sit right...................I fell in love (like I ususally do in his movies), but the logic just didn't play out for me.

I appreciated how rich and deep it looked though............

[Teris]

Easily the worst movie I've seen all year (and I see a lot of them).

It's a rambling, unstructured mess. Bloom was horrible and in way over his head. Crowe should be embarrassed.

[**I've been gone for a while, but I was surprised to see that I'm a "new user" with 6 posts. I've been on this site since the very beginning. Will, hath you forsaken me?]

[dclary]

You're a new user because you've only posted 6 times. Post more, earn a new title.

The highest rank attainable is "dclary"

[Pencey]

She's 13.

Guess that means you'll have to take her across state lines, Ele.

[alipali]

I'm sure Pencey can lend you one of his burlap sacks.

[Teris]

dclary, the point i was making - apparently not very clearly - is that i have been on this site for many years and have far more than 6 posts. i'm just wondering why the system "reset."

[elephant1978]

Guess that means you'll have to take her across state lines, Ele.

Eh, who am I kidding? Like I have the time to go door to door if I get caught.

Ele...

[OzFade]

I just saw this movie today mainly because I liked Almost Famous and I while I didn't love it I did enjoy it. As another poster mentioned, yea I also checked my watch a few times...mainly because I had to pee really bad (a common scam by cinema's today that push the buying drinks and then laugh as you miss 5 minutes of the film as you run down to the toilet all the while looking like an ass) towards the end of the film.

Dunst was great, really sweet (had to let the accent grow on me...was it just me or did her accent mellow out as the film went on?). She made me fall in love with her again. Bloom's strill striving to get there. I liked him for the first half though.

I liked the writing...a lot of small almost missable (hope that's a word) jokes and play on words.

The only thing that really put me off was how choppy some of the scenes were, I'd like to see some of the stuff Crowe cut out. Music was great.

Enjoyable. Good date movie. Might be a while until I see it again though.