I've been a Cameron Crowe fan. Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky, Jerry Maguire, I liked all of them a lot, and how can you not like the script for Fast Times at Ridgemont High? Therefore, the first few minutes of Elizabethtown left me a little wobbly. Then I was stunned. Then I came to the realization that yes, this really is unfolding in front of me, I'm not dreaming, I'm watching a truly atrocious movie. A truly awful horror. The script was seemingly written by a 19 teen year old, and then they turned it (and a pretty big budget) over to a 13 year old to direct it. These actors aren't usually this bad. Crowe, famous for his use of music in his films, doesn't usually use it in such an oppressive, worst-Kodak-ad-ever kind of a way. What was he thinking? It's not even bad in any sort of amusing or entertaining way. It's simply crap.
So my question to those of you've who've seen it is this - should I keep watching this fiasco? So far it's the worst thing I've watched in ages - much worse than The Brothers Grimm even. Does it get better?
Posted by armand at March 22, 2006 11:33 AM | TrackBack | Posted to MoviesHuh. My first comment (upon picking up the Elizabethtown box and seeing that Crowe directed it) was "well, at least it will have a good soundtrack." I'm amazed to hear that it doesn't.
Did Crowe need to pay some loansharks back, and just cranked this one out?
Posted by: baltar at March 22, 2006 12:44 PM | PERMALINKI don't know that the soundtrack sucks exactly. But it's really hard to tell. B/c you see the music seems to be blaring (or at the least remains exceedingly intrusive) through 95% of the film. It's there SO much, that you almost stop noticing it (or you're desperately trying to do that, it's so distracting). And when it is there it sounds like the soundtrack to some sort of friendly lets-all-hug commercial for BellSouth or Kodak or grandma-take-this-pill-so-you'll-see-Susie's-next-birthday that's playing on something like VH1-gamma (it's lamer than what you'd get on normal VH1).
Posted by: Armand at March 22, 2006 02:03 PM | PERMALINKYou actually watched the Brothers Grimm???
Posted by: Crystal at March 22, 2006 03:44 PM | PERMALINKWell, I like the stars, and I sometimes like the director - I didn't realize the scale of the trainwreck Grimm happens to be. But even with its flaws and perplexing lack of any sort of consistent tone, I think I liked that more than the first section of Elizabethtown.
Posted by: Armand at March 22, 2006 04:14 PM | PERMALINKSo I guess this means I'm glad that when I collected your mail over spring break, that I didn't break into your Netflix DVDs.
Posted by: binky at March 22, 2006 05:47 PM | PERMALINKOK, so it got somewhat better, but it's still by far the worst Crowe movie I've seen. BY FAR. It never does develop a particularly clear tone, perhaps partially b/c the timing of it seems badly off in places. In spots that might be an editing matter, but given other parts, it feels to me like it's really the fault of the director. And really, the script just feels off in a number of spots too (particularly early on) - or more to the point, the words don't seem to match the style of their presentation.
And, I don't know, Bloom and Dunst are both very attractive people, but maybe they were miscast. And it's close to criminal to underutilize Judy Greer (Kitty on Arrested Development) like that - she's one of the funniest actresses working today. Susan Sarandon's got one good scene, but ...
Well, overall, I'm still giving this a definite thumbs down.
Posted by: Armand at March 22, 2006 10:18 PM | PERMALINK