jazzbow

I got to see this at the Jersey Shore Film Festival and I simply loved it. It tells the tale of two small town brothers, Jimmy (Piazza) and Victor (Mihok)continuing their existence when a beautiful young and mysterious girl (Waterhouse) buses into to town and seeps into their lives.

It has many truly inspired moments, some epic shots, finely written characters, incredible production design and is superbly acted by all, especially Mihok and Waterhouse whose relationship is at the heart of this heartfelt movie. There are parts that were not as perfect where one could quibble, but who cares, these imperfections are completely absorbed by the beauty of the whole. Just like life.

I liked the characters and the comedy. I thought it was scary, the python was very large. The down thing about the movie was that you could tell the snake was computer generated. One more thing, better than Anaconda!

This movie tries to be great. It does not succeed but I'll take an effort like this over much of the movies I see out of Hollywood. I was reminded a great deal of the Deer Hunter (scenes in the PA town) in the look and feel of the movie. Beautiful acting by the great cast is the real strong point of this movie. The performances by Mike Madsen, Virginia Madsen, Tom Sizemore, Mary Stuart Masterson, Jeremy Davies and Chris Penn are believable. The movie has some great shots and an incredible soundtrack lead by Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen. My only complaint is that it seems to have too much going on. There are at least seven different subplots in the movie. I got the feeling that much was cut out to make it to the 100 minute run time. This movie should have been allowed to be three hours. This is not the fault of the filmmakers. This is well worth the price of a rental or a purchase.