adamariasoto

This is a film that dances the line between realism and nostalgia. In a way the novel On The Road is a nostalgia piece glorifying a set of memories and read at a certain you want to believe that you could go out and wander the wild roads of America. The film invokes the same wanderlust desire but also has enough freezing nights, blistering hot days, and screwed up broken hearts to keep you at home.

With free love, drugs, and jazz these kids were doing the 60's before it all went mainstream. The original hipsters. Sam Riley's portrait of Sal Paradise, the young struggling writer, is reasonably layered as he trails along behind the louder, flasher, more insane Dean Moriarty, while at the same time trying to keep just enough reality in his life that he can write it all down. Garrett Hedlund's Dean Moriarty is flashing madness. Half the time you want to be him, the other half of the time you want to absolutely throttle him for being a selfish, self-obsessed, bastard. And Kristen Stewart is quite good as Marylou. You are able to forget she's in those movies which I bet is half the reason she took the part.

The film runs a little long and it weaves about, but so does the book. It's a halfway decent adaptation but like all books into movies it's best just to consider it on its own merits.

The Color Wheel is a truly awful movie. Let's start with the simple fact that the title has nothing to do with the movie, which was shot in black and white for an unknown and almost certainly completely pointless reason. A 'slacker road trip' film, I can buy the idea that the filmmakers were trying to capture some Clerks like magic and failed miserably.

It's the story of a brother and sister on a road trip, played by the couple who made the thing, which gives it a very weird vibe off the bat. The dialog is all improvised, which can be a good thing if the people doing the improvising have talent. This couple does not. If you've ever been stuck on a long car ride with people who think they're witty and won't stop bickering until you have the urge to put an icepick into someone's head (possibly your own) then you have experienced this film. The big Shock! Twist! ending is so unmotivated, and the characters are so unlikeable, that it feels painfully forced and falls flat. And if you haven't walked out of the theater by that point in a vain hope that it might get better you will be thoroughly disappointed. Stay home and watch reruns of the Simpsons instead of subjecting yourself to this mess.