Gasoline Rainbow

20 minutes into "Gasoline Rainbow" and I was pretty bored. This movie is why I don't want to hang out with 18 year olds. The kids in this can barely form a coherent, intelligent thought. Their vocabulary is limited to variations of the "f" word. They all seemed interchangeable. I barely knew their names. If they had interests, hobbies, aspects of their personalities that set them apart from each other, you don't learn about them.

But, while I'm not sure I ever completely got over my restlessness while watching this movie, this movie does work a kind of modest spell. By the time it was over, I realized that I had gotten to know these kids and had started to feel a little protective of them, and my wife and I had quite a bit to ruminate about after the movie was over. It made me appreciate living in a place like Chicago, with access to so much, and where I can expose my kids to the world. A lot of Americans who've never known anything other than big cities and the suburban areas immediately around them have no concept of the vast spaces out there, and how deadening and hopeless it can feel to grow up in them.

"Gasoline Rainbow" feels like a bunch of young people without any resources to actually make a movie decided to just go ahead and make one anyway. For that reason, it feels often like you have to do a lot of the work yourself. That can be wonderful, and many times is actually what I prefer in my movies. But it can sometimes also come across as lazy and half-baked. It's like paying for a meal in a restaurant and having to make half of it yourself. It feels like the directors gathered some friends together and just started winging it, hoping something substantial would emerge. It sort of does, but not enough to be really satisfying. If you're not going to have a strong screenplay and give your actors structure and direction, then you need to make sure they're really good at improvisation. Stoned, drunk people are actually really boring to hang out with.

So while I overall am glad I saw this, I can see why others would be bored to sobs by it. I don't blame them, and I'm not sure I could unequivocally recommend it to anyone else.

Grade: B.

The entire movies dialog between characters consists only of drunk teenagers talking. No real conversations, just blabbering. The few lines in between that want to seem philosophical or meaningful, are as empty as the movies storyline. Sounding like quotes, a 14 year old puts on their bathroom mirror, they almost annoyed me.

The only maybe good thing was the camera, it made the movie feel like it was filmed by college students, which gave it a raw creative feeling. Sadly the story felt like it was written by college students as well.

The only time in my life I walked out of a cinema, I wanted to endure it, but the before mentioned philosophical parts were too much to endure.

I created an IMDB account just to give this terrible movie a bad review.

Would not recommend.

Would rather sit around quietly in a room doing nothing than watching a second of this movie.

I suppose you can watch a movie like this and feel nothing at all if you really want to.

That wasn't the case for me. Loved the thing, felt really connected to the group even though I more than double their age and I'm South American. Made me realize how similar the life experiences of people can be across time and space. How universal our feelings are.

And the closing track almost made me cry, so much beauty and feeling.

Sorry, not very great with the English language, but wanted to offer a counterpoint to the chorus of jaded reviews. I watched, I loved, left an impression on me. Hope you can be open to it as well.

That was pretty cute but was long at the same time. If u want to impress ir something like that don't watch with that expectation, I wanted be on the journey when I watch it, chill.

Life is not bad as u see there is more out there, I saw a lot with all my journey but I know there are more like this guys showed me.

I see a lot of bad review people hate it just I didn't understand what they expected, the movie tell you chill but as I understand from your review you didn't.

I mean yea maybe would be better but I don't think they wanted show as something better and impressive I think they exactly showed us what they want and it was chill.

"...small-town Oregon who, with high school in the rearview, decide to embark on one last adventure: to make it to a place they've never been -the Pacific coast, 500 miles away."

I don't need everyone who writes about a place to literally be from that place, but maybe a glancing familiarity would be useful, no?

Just look at a map of Oregon. There isn't a town, and there isn't a route, that would make the ocean 500 miles away. It's a bizarre detail to center the entire story around, especially considering these kids could have been from any town further inland.

I don't need 100% accuracy to be invested in a story, but if you're trying to tell an authentic story about a certain part of the world, how can i trust your take on the subject when you don't even know the basic lay of the land?