Love & Distrust

khan 2705 nails it! I was also suckered into watching this film because of the actors listed on the cover. It is merely a patchwork of old and dissimilar short films or clips. The segments are of very different quality and appearance. One is Australian -- no harm in that, but the sudden change in accent was a bit jarring! Any claim of coherence or a unifying theme is a great stretch. One piece, "Washington Square," consists of 5 or 6 similar sequences which are interspersed between other segments of the film, seemingly in an attempt to enclose or unify them. It doesn't work. I foolishly watched it all, in semi-disbelief, thinking maybe something worthwhile was going to happen after all. Not so. The only reward, and this was modest indeed, was seeing two actors I admire performing very well at a much younger age than I have seen them. Maybe the clips were from their acting or film school days (?)

Most of us choosing to watch this movie will probably know about the movie before watching it. I actually chose it in a bad movie month (November) because as a guy I actually thought (and still do) that Robert Pattinson of Twilight fame and on the back of 'Remember Me' was a good actor. the movie also featured Robert Downey Junior and Amy Adams and I thought it was worth a whirl.

sorry, it wasted my evening, what a complete load of absolute rubbish, garbage, words fail me. It is one of the worst films which I have ever seen and was surely made to mock us all in our intelligence of watch ability.

The film starts okay but goes rapidly downhill from there. I was expecting a connection between the five stories but there was absolutely none and as for any love theme, that lost me completely.

Movies like Crash, Fragments, Babel and others enthralled me but this one leaves me wondering what it was Alla bout and the sad thing is I will hesitate about watching another Pattinson/Adams movie after this debacle.

This makes movies like 'Cloverfield' look like an Oscar nominee.

The 'waitress' thing was quite watchable but far from entertaining and the 'cars' thing towards the end - the guy trying to pick up the ladies - and the mature lady who finds her 'cowboy' - just leaves you wondering what we are watching. The ending has absolutely no meaning and if there is any acting of real note, it is probably from the sexy girl on the train.

Be warned - this movie should definitely carry a health warning!

I'm not sure what the point of this compilation of clippings and half thoughts is supposed to represent. I am only left to determine that this was a joke by the people involved and those who distributed it. If there were negative stars I would use them.

I would think that the major actors given top billing in the movie for their brief scenes would pay large sums of money to have them removed.

If I may quote from my favorite review on Rotten Tomatoes - "This movie is a huge piece of crap in a crap bucket."

I actually want to sue someone for lost time and suffering plus the $1.08 I paid at the Red Box.

Someone please explain.

I have to fully agree with Paul David's assessment! This movie is made to mock us in our intelligence. In no way are the short "skits"...I can't even call them a compilation of short "movies"...complete enough to be worthwhile to the viewer. They are certainly artsy...and dramatic, but without a congruent storyline overall (and perhaps there is...but I have a hard time finding it) the movie is not worth the dollar that I put in the Redbox. I watched the WHOLE movie hoping that I would find a common thread, only to be disappointed that I wasted that much of my life. I believe that if they had fewer story lines and went back and forth between story lines the viewers would be much more interested.

Surely the actors must have known what a joke the movie was. Once again, I agree with Paul David in that I feel let down by the big players...Amy Adams, Robert Downey Jr.(his skit was like watching bloopers at the end of a serious movie), and Robert Pattinson (for the life of me, I can't understand why he agreed to do this movie...with such a budding career ahead of him...it was like a slap in the face to his fans).

This was one of the worst movies that I have EVER seen. The only reason that I just wasted this much time, was to prevent others from wasting their lives' precious time!

Just as there is a surge in the attention being paid to flash fiction (stories that are limited, in general, to 1000 words) and other evidences that we are running too fast through life to really commit to just about anything (relationships, long novels, thoughtful motion pictures, food that requires more than 40 seconds to 3 minutes in the microwave, instant weight loss, chats on the computer or cell phone rather than sit down conversations, etc), so here is a DVD that presents five stories with the loose theme of love. In some ways these vignettes work - quickie ideas that don't merit further exploration than what is offered - and in more ways they seem so poorly made that even the excuse of low budget can't cover the results.

This DVD is five stories, briefly described as one form of love and the results, given a name, and then proceeds to a short story attempted to make passable by the use of star names but self-defeating in the fact that they seem shot on home video gear - grainy, poorly focused, meaningless lighting, and embarrassingly bad script writing. SUMMER HOUSE (shot in Normandy we are informed in the credits stars a house with the incidental, very brief placement of Robert Pattinson in the deep shadows as the love who got away from Talulah Riley and who wants back. BLUE POLES is a truck ride in Australia with Sam Worthington on his way to Canberra to see a painting called 'Blue Poles' and offers a ride to Emma Randall whose naiveté crossroads don't seem to alter the driver's desires. GRASSHOPPER places James Franco on a train with Rachel Miner, a Goth-like sex kitten who retrieves Franco's cell phone and opens a thankfully brief silly near blackmail episode to retrieve the cell phone - with a corny twist at the end. PENNIES places Amy Adams in a diner, taking a job as a waitress to make enough cash to keep her daughter from being 'cut' - the 'cut turns out to be less than dramatic - and discovers the varieties of people's reactions to diner help on several levels. AUTO MOTIVES deals with cars - Michael Imperioli tries in vain to seduce girls into his car parked in Washington Square while Robert Downey Jr appears VERY briefly as a car detailer who wants to get in front of the attention of Director James Cameron.

Why make this five-part movie? Perhaps it is a project of a wealthy philanthropist who needs a diversion, perhaps it is payback for favors in the industry. The material is lack luster and it is surprising that the star actors took on the project. But then step back and consider the means: this is one way to get flash fiction on the screen for little money and a lot of hope that people will buy into the concept that from little seeds, gardens grow.

Grady Harp