Buffalo 66
Director: Vincent Gallo.
Starring: Vincent Gallo, Christina Ricci, Angelica Huston, Ben Gazzara.
What a load of self-indulgent twaddle! Very few things depress me more than sitting through a rubbish movie that's getting good reviews. Who are these people who like Buffalo 66? They deserve a cruel and unusual punishment for making me believe that I could possibly enjoy that movie. Clearly, I'm not fit to think up their punishment since the worst thing I can think of at the moment, is making them sit through Buffalo 66 and apparently, that's not much of a punishment to them.
Where to begin? How about a plot summary? Here goes: everybody hates me, nobody loves me, I think I'll go sulk. If I died that would show them. They'd all be sorry then. And I'm such a wonderful person too. Most of all, it's important that I let the people know that I have a large penis! Really, I'm not kidding.
You think I'm being facetious, but honestly, that's a pretty accurate summary of Buffalo 66. It's the story of a man (at least by appearance a man, more aptly a boy) who's life is rotten and it's all his parents' fault. I think we're meant to believe that he's a really nice guy (I'm guessing this because we're told it over and over again; we never see any evidence of his actually being nice). He's a nice guy who has just had a bit of bad luck, particularly in his allocation of parents.
His big complaint is that his parents are awful to him and treat him terribly. It's hard to tell since they are such caricatures. Sure, I'll admit that the flashback imply that his parents were pretty evil but they never come across as real people: they are nasty creatures built out of the imagination of a person with a real chip on the shoulder. It's the sort of picture you build up when you've been sent to your room for doing something wrong. You lie there, remembering how cruel the whole world has been to you, recalling every nasty thing that anyone ever said to you and attributing deliberate intent to everything. You vow revenge. Most of us get over it. Vincent Gallo, however, made a movie out of it.
On balance, he's not exactly nice to them either. Of course, this isn't important; it's how people treat him that matters. Again, it's the world of a six year old, who doesn't realise that his parents are people too, and thinks only of them in terms of himself.
As well as this sulking six year old in Vincent Gallo's body, Christina Ricci plays the role of someone kidnapped by Billy Brown (Vincent Gallo) and forced to play his wife for the benefit of his parents. I'm a big fan of Christina Ricci and will admit that she acts quite well in this, but the role is so horrid. What is wrong with this woman that she actually thinks Billy Brown is a nice guy. A couple of times in the movie she states something like, "I think you're the nicest guy and the best looking guy I've ever met." At certain times, we get to see flashback scenes of Billy's childhood that are meant to tell us that he's had a horrible life; one can only imagine what torture Layla (Christina Ricci) must have gone through to actually think Billy is nice. He's awful to her the whole movie. >From this I can only conclude that men are such prizes that we've got to be glad when one of them just shows us a bit of attention! Ugh!
Add to this really irritating effects, such as the cutting from one scene to another and the point of view scenes in the family home, and you have a very painful 110 minutes. In fact the only thing that makes this movie vaguely watchable is the calibre of the people performing in it: Christina Ricci, Angelica Huston, Mickey Rourke. These are all good actors. It makes one wonder if the script was appreciably different from the final product. This is the only excuse I can make for these great people being in such a lousy film.
I don't mind so much that I actually paid to see this film. I mind more that the people responsible for such an onanistic movie get paid obscene amounts of money. Surely there are talented people out there. I know lots of really clever people. Why, oh why, are such miserable excuses for movies being made?
Rating: F
Ratings System
HD: High Distinction D: Distinction CR: Credit P: Pass CP: Conceded Pass F: Fail
review page: http://www.cs.usyd.edu.au/~nikki/m_r/Intro.html
--
Nicole Lesley email: nikki@cs.usyd.edu.au
"The world won't end in darkness,
it'll end in family fun"
The Beautiful South, One God.
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