SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

ShangLuda Admirable film.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

subterranean_catalyst I watched this movie on a rainy day when I had nothing else to do...and b/c it has Guy Pearce. I usually find Lily Taylor really annoying and strange but she does pull innocent off well. So many moments in this movie are AWKWARD. LOL but I found her father poignant and wistful. One other commenter mentioned that there were 13 original songs- one of the songs is Elizabeth Jade which I recognized instantly as a Robyn Hitchcock song (Jewels for Sophia album). It did break my heart to see Evie's father in law insult her in front of her own father. As a parent thats hard to see... Another thing: Guy Pearce is obviously a super attractive man usually. But I do NOT understand how any of the woman here thought he was so great- his character that is- was gruff and he just spoke a lot less than I prefer out of a man. I'm surprised he didn't just grunt through the movie. He does have a good accent. This movie is depressing. I never read the book and I don't plan to but based on the other comments here it does seem as though Evie's character should of remained a teenager. Irma P. Hall was hilarious and thank god for her role/character - it lent some much needed lightness.

marilynscaggs I just happened to catch this movie on satellite. I like both Lili Taylor and Guy Pearce, so I sat down to watch it. I thought Guy was very hot in this movie. He is a good actor and I didn't know he was a musician until I saw it.As for the movie, I didn't know anything about it or the book, before watching. It was kinda off the wall, but what kept me watching was the songs. Guy Pearce has a sexy voice and can sing! So all in all, I wasn't disappointed. The satellite went out for about 20 minutes, so I missed whatever happened from where he kisses her for the first time until his mom and that pr*ck were eating dinner with Evie, Drum and her dad. I'll probably try to watch it again.I don't really like Shawnee Smith's character. Was she ever sober?

B24 Sort of warmed-over grits -- containing every trite character and expression that inhabits "Southern" storytelling down through O'Connor, Welty, Flagg, etc. None of the parts is more than one stereotype after another.Therefore, the viewer is compelled to observe by contrast any small feature that redeems the larger picture. In this instance there is one that stands out: the versatility of actor Guy Pearce playing a weak, indecisive, and mushy musician whose impact lies solely in how he how he takes on an impossible role and somehow brings it to life.How this Australian actor can master such a wide variety of theatrical work is something of a mystery to me. Lacking the "star" quality of such countrymen as Crowe and Gibson, he nevertheless steals every scene of every picture I have seen in which he appears, from "Priscilla" to "L.A. Confidential" to "Memento." Very impressive indeed. Worth watching this otherwise drab film.

Dilip Barman Tonight I watched "A Slipping-Down Life", Toni Kalem's film based on Anne Tyler's 1970 novel by the same name. It was originally released at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, but just released commercially in May 2004. I saw this with a friend on the spur of the moment, not knowing anything about it, when the film we went to see was sold out.The film takes place in a sleepy small town in North Carolina around 1962 or 1963 (based on the music we hear on the radio). Naive Evie (Lili Taylor), who lost her mother at childbirth, lives with her father (Tom Bower). She hears musician Drumstring "Drum" Casey (Guy Pearce) on the radio, is drawn to his ego and voice, and seeks him out at his performances. Other women flirt with Drum, but shy Evie can only take a quick photograph of him and then in a strange (and, I found, hard to believe) act, carve his last name on her forehead with broken glass. The story is of their relationship to each other and to life in their small town, where they fear nothing changes and their existence or non-existence is hardly noticed.I didn't enjoy the film. I couldn't understand where it was going, and found the utter simplicity of Evie unrealistic. I found Drum to be rather wooden and two-dimensional as in fact I found many of the characters. The only characters commanding any admiration were the gentle father who seemed to indulge Evie, their gutsy housekeeper, Clotelia (Irma P. Hall), who told it like it was (reminding me just a bit of Dilsey in William Faulker's novel, "The Sound and the Fury"), and Evie's loyal friend, hairdresser Violet (Sara Rue).I wondered about the raucous music of Drum's band, which seemed to me at least a 15-year anachronism in the early 1960s. I didn't find the editing to make a dull, uninspiring, and "so what" story anything but even more dull. Of course, my comments could be attributed to my unfamiliarity with Anne Tyler's novels or lack of attention to slow, sleepy, small-town southern culture (though I enjoyed the 1989 film, "Steel Magnolias"). --Dilip June 15, 2004