Montana Amazon

A crazed grandmother on the lam with two teenagers. Other reviews summarize, so I won't repeat. This film is kind of a grab-bag of treats. Really good performances; you've never seen Olympia Dukakis like this. Alison Brie is sexy and hilarious as a kind of over-grown backwoods Lolita. Haley Joel Osment is genuinely touching, all grown up now. I don't usually like narration, but the narration in this was actually helpful and funny. The voice sounded familiar and as the tail credits rolled, I learned that it was the venerable Phil Proctor from the old Firesign Theatre. The movie kind of left me speechless at the end, it was so weird, unusual and touching. And very funny in many ways.

I just watched this movie. Good grief. Three weirdly combative, unstable creeps (a mute grandmother and her bickering grandson and granddaughter) attempting to drive to Canada (without any sense of direction or knowledge of how to drive a car) after the grandson accidentally kills a man. Along the way, there are more accidental murders, weird dreams about the kids' long-missing father, and, for a flick Comcast billed as a comedy, there's not an ounce of humor. In other words, we have unlikeable characters in a meandering, aimless plot. There's a metaphor for purgatory here, that is a bit too blatant to be called sub-text.

The only positives about the movie: the actors do a good job, even though the material itself isn't worth it. And, outside of that, even as an emotionally stunted dirtball, Alison Brie is still so pretty she could sell a glass of fire to a man dying of thirst. And the ending was pretty good. But getting to that ending was such a chore.

I loved this movie. First and foremost for the acting of such original characters. Also, the look of the film is rich because of the locations and even the costumes. The amazing Olympia Dukakis as I've never seen her before--unforgettable. It's not a spoiler to say that Olympia has almost no lines; everything is done with grunts, looks and screams. All the acting is uniformly memorable, with a sexy and breakout performance from Alison Brie, and a surprisingly touching one from Haley Osment. The score and songs were energetic and fun, but never too dominant. An added plus is a very funny and gently ironic narration done by Phil Proctor, of Firesign Theatre fame.

I randomly came across this movie one day. After seeing who's in it and reading the reviews here (8/10!!?) I thought I'd try it out. I'm still dumbfounded this exists. The performances are.... ok given what the actors probably had to work with. How this ever got billed as a comedy, I'll never know. Plucky music behind a scene doesn't make it comedy. Full of mental illness and murder, it felt like some bizarro world fear and loathing. Like a train wreck, i couldn't look away.

But it's right up there. Terrible from beginning to end.