Sal

9 of 10 stars. James Franco Directs this film raw, and I mean that in a very good way. It brings to mind brilliant Directors like John Cassavetes. I know Martin Scorsese has a great appreciation for raw Directors like John Cassavetes, and Scorsese always seems to have a degree of this type of Directing in his films, but his film 'Mean Streets' is the one that comes to mind to me. The Cassavetes film (though they are all raw, with different nuances) would be 'The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie'.

It is refreshing to see this type of Directing which is incredibly hard to do, and let's face it, other than Scorsese and aspects of Stanley Kubrick, Directors typically do not have commercial success with this type of Directing; these films are made for Film lovers that like watching beautifully filmed and performed movies. So I appreciate that.

During certain scenes, Franco will use unique close up angles, have the camera stay on the person listening instead of talking, go from a close up to filming from around the corner, go from a focused close-up to a blur of the ceiling. A bunch of little marbles that keep the movie unbalanced but having a clear Direction both at the same time; all those little marbles add up to a huge pile of marbles that bring Directors like Cassavetes to the forefront of my mind, and the artistic feelings he would bring to his films.

Franco stars alongside Val Lauren. Franco is really only in one scene and we mainly hear his voice as the Director of a play that Sal Mineo is rehearsing for. Lauren plays Sal Mineo great, and really hits the mark highly, without overreaching.

The film mainly focuses around the last day of Mineo's life.

This film should not get mixed reviews, and I understand why, it's 'artistic' in its approach, but it's a great film, a great piece of Cinema.

Someone once told me when I was in college, "When the writers don't know what to say, you will surely end up with a bad movie". They must have seen this picture in their radar. This movie goes minutes without speaking lines and there is no motivation for the silence. This isn't film making, this is wasting film and time. Turned it off half way thru simply because this is absolute trash. The person playing Sal bears no resemblance to Mineo, but that really doesn't matter: fortunately, his skills as an actor are up to par with the requirements of the script.

The trouble with close-ups of two men eating lunch and discussing Sal Mineo's upcoming film is that we don't get much more than two men shoveling food in their mouths. I don't know why director Franco was so locked in to the close-up. Or why we get so much footage of Sal Mineo driving through LA in his Chevy Malibu. Without any dialog or view out the window, this is downright boring. The accompanying torch song (Pink Flamingos?) on the sound track was so loud I had to cover my ears. As for period authenticity, someone should have checked the script: in 1976 people did not use the expression, "You're good to go." —- not even the nurse as the health clinic.

I love James Franco & know how talented he is as an actor & now in art as well. I heard he had begun directing so when I saw his movie "SAL" up for viewing I dug right in; not knowing much about Sal Mineo I thought this could be fascinating. Boy was I wrong...and I mean BIG time wrong. This movie looks like something a pack of High-School film club wannabes attempted to make over their Summer break. No make that over their Christmas break.

The movies cinematography, if you can call a single light and one very shaky hand-held camera being filmed by some drunk pulled off the street entertainment, was actually boring and just totally substandard. The incessant & tedious closeups of the actors face, nose or eyes while doing some of the most mundane activities like the minutes long scenes of him smoking or driving were simply awful. No art form, no intrigue, no nothing. Any hope for cleverness remained nonexistent.

Music & sound were other factors that were flimsily handled as if they really didn't matter because all the closeups of the actors nose meant so much more. The overall flabbiness and lack of tension made this 90 minutes particularly painful. The inconsistent tenor of the sound throughout was choppy and uneven while sounding especially tinny, as if hastily grabbed from some stack of tunes noted from long ago. Were those scratches I heard?

Now the acting was particularly amateurish, calling upon memories of plays attempted when we were all of 14, cocky & convinced of our immense talents. I search for descriptives to somehow get across just how terrible this film is and I come up frustrated and empty...kind of like the movie itself. This is no experimental art film folks, it is simply a rotten flick for which you will kick yourself for spending the time and money. MISS IT!

This film tells the story of the last day of the Hollywood actor, Sal Mineo, whose life was tragically cut short.

Despite the potentially engaging subject matter, "Sal" is not a very interesting film to watch, unfortunately. I can hardly believe it can be so boring. The film starts off with a four minute scene of him working out in a gym. Then Sal on the phone for minutes, and you can only hear one end of the conversation. Then more phone calls. It's probably the most uninteresting day in real life, let alone in cinema. And where's James Franco? I didn't see him at all, and I did skim through the film again and I couldn't find him.

This film is a waste of time. Avoid!