Hounddog

There are a lot of well worn Southern clichés in Deborah Kampmeier's film - rusty trucks in the yard, bare feet, the drunk no-count daddy, the old swimming hole, and the rise of Elvis using Black Southern music as his own. They are dear and familiar, and provide a good framework to a movie, but it's all a framework. There isn't anything inside to make this film worthwhile.

I imagine that most people are watching and waiting for the infamous rape scene with 12-year-old Dakota Fanning. It requires a lot of slogging through a film that really isn't more than a young girl's obsession with Elvis. It is that obsession that gets her in trouble.

I remember David Morse from "House." I hated him, but he played the character extremely well. Here he is reduced to a drunk that gets hit by lightning and becomes even more of an intellectual cripple. He goes looking for Lewellen (Fanning) one night without a stitch on. Not a good role for a gifted actor.

There are two good messages in this film, and they both come from Afemo Omilami as the kindly black man (another Southern cliché). He shows that the differences between black and white is not related to race, but to class, and he helps Lewellen heal with music. She just spit out words before the rape, and now she can sing with real feeling.

A stranger (Robin Wright Penn) arrives to relieve her of her miserable existence, but there is a cost that I don't think Lewellen realized.

To those who think there might have been too many renditions of Hound Dog in the film. I was in the first grade when that song came out and I remember my babysitter playing it over and over. I certainly heard it more times than it played in the movie.

It was good to hear Jill Scott as Big Momma Thorton, the person who originally recorded Hound Dog.

I saw the premiere back in 07 in Sundance yes some people booed and some walked out. Some people will fault the obvious metaphors but Dakota deserves a 10 for her performance like Morgan Freeman she can save movies and she does here. The 'controversy' was not founded in the least. I also believe it to be her best performance since man on fire I will of course not give a thing away about the film or what happens suffice it to say her character is someone you want to see win even with her flaws. One scene dares you to see her in a bad way but it never seemed to happen for me. The movie is set deep in the swamps of the south. The first scene in which Dakota's character propositions her friend was a shock for me to I wasn't all the way prepared for her slightly adult turn yet I realized that she was making a turn or step forward in her career.

12 years old is certainly old enough to understand what rape is. Dakota is by far one of the most intelligent actresses in her field today. She's probably smarter than most of the other actors she is working with. For anyone to blindly judge what she is capable of understanding is absurd. I would gather that is is highly certain that Dakota's parents were directly involved in every aspect of this film, and that the director and other film personnel understood that this was a very sensitive subject. However, I would believe that in this country we as a society have a responsibility to not only the children, but also ourselves to stop hiding these kinds of issues. Some of the reasons there are problems with people understanding issues of this nature (rape, drug use, etc.) is because all this subject matter is considered too "taboo" to put into a mainstream film. We sugarcoat everything to the point where it ceases to have anything real about it. Dakota is one actress who, thankfully, isn't afraid to put herself out there and let it fly. She did it in Man On Fire, and this is no different. Wake up America!

This was really an excellent movie. Anyone who says this movie was pointless or boring I don't have any idea why. This movie was the complete opposite, I think it was the first movie I've seen in a long time that had a point and was not mindless or boring.

I'm a fourteen year old and the movie was great, it was very relatable even though I haven't been through any sexual abuse.

If a movie can relate to me so deeply even though I didn't grow up in that time period, grew up in New York City, and did not go through some of the things she went through then I really think it's an excellent movie.

The content was not disturbing to me at all in a sense most people say. I think most people who say it's disturbing haven't seen the movie because yes, it is very real and true but not gross. I think it's great the director/writer touched on the subject of sexual abuse in such a great way because that subject is not brought up often in our society but it's something that is happening.

I was not sure of seeing this movie-not because of the rape scene because I knew people were making such a big deal of it but because of the other comments about how the movie wasn't going anywhere or was pointless. But I was so surprised that they were so wrong and that for me and from what I could see in the audience it was the complete opposite of pointless.

Bottom line if you haven't seen the movie already and aren't sure if you ant to go and see it, go and see it. I wasn't sure if I should see this movie either but it turned out to be one of the best movies I've seen in a long time with great writing, directing, and acting. Very real but not gross or disturbing and a story that needed to be told.

I just watched the final Sundance screening of this film earlier this evening. It was excellent. I found it to a highly emotional film with a very powerful message. Also, Dakota Fanning has a beautiful voice for someone who had never sang before filming began. Not beautiful as in technically perfect, but beautiful in the way it conveyed the emotions of the character at the time. Just to clarify for all of those who haven't seen it, there is no pornography in this movie. In fact, Utah's Attorney General watched it for himself, and said that it does not break any laws and contains no child pornography. Please withhold judgment until you have actually seen it.