Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

easlayton This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. And it's sad because James Gandolfini does a great job, as he always does, with his performance. The problem is not the actors. The problem is the script and the direction. I liked the beginning of this film. It had real promise and direction. As the movie breaks into the hour and thirty minute mark it begins to wander aimlessly to the point of having no point, no direction and nothing to say. Until, at the very last moment, the meaning of the film is told to us by a break of the fourth wall. This practice, breaking the fourth wall-having one of the characters in the film talk directly to the audience-is tricky business. It's done far better in other films but not in this one. Especially not when one of the characters walks up to you and tells you what the movie is all about in a few words. That's not art. That's gutless. In regards to the length of this film; that's beating a dead horse. When you do something that blatant in film or story or any other kind of medium, the only thing you are doing is being lazy. It's telling me and the other members of the audience that you couldn't let the rest of the movie stand on its own. It's telling me you're a chicken. This movie would've been fine if it had wrapped up it's point by using metaphor. It was almost there. And then the end lines happened and if I didn't love my TV so much, my foot would've gone right through it. I write this as a warning to people who enjoy good movies; don't waste your time. The people who made this movie don't deserve it.

tillzen As a fan of Mr. Chase I ached for this work to take off but it never does. The film fails primarily upon the page.It says little about the character of those heady times that were the 1960's. This failure is no easy task as rock music, suburban angst and the decade itself remain fertile with enough substance to fill 100 movies let alone 1. Where Chase fails first is in using the 60's as mere fashionable short hand. A news flash or a film clip without worthy exposition turns tempest to teapot. That the 60's and its artifacts are presented as mere fetish objects devalues that currency. It purchases clothes, cars and music rights without story ever rising above being a disposable trifle. The art direction is terrific and while accurate, it never connects actors to actions and exposition to plot. Too often anecdotes and pithy quotes substitute for genuine emotion, motivation or character. Luckily, the acting is fine. The best moments occur between James Gandolfini (the working class Dad) and John Magaro as his rock musician son.Their scenes crackled as no others did leaving the underwhelm pronounced. The female character's (clearly Mr. Chase's Achilles)are broadly drawn hysterical caricatures seemingly created mostly to advance the story of men. This was exemplified by Magaro professing to believing in a girlfriend whom we know nothing about. Equally inelegant were the fore-shadowed dramatic twists of staged fights, staged accidents and cancer as dramatic license. "Not Fade Away" was continuously so Hollywood soft that I found myself wishing that a Don Corleone type had read the script, met with David Chase and slapped his face yelling "Write like a man!"Ultimately this film seems unable to decide if it is a John Sayles' time capsule told within simple salt of the earth fables or is instead a history lesson told in the sound bites and cliff notes of genuine deep thinkers.It never chooses and it ends as it began; an exercise in excess signifying little. What a waste of a green light and 20 million dollars.

Twins65 Yes, I'm fully aware that America is currently infatuated with superheroes and apocalyptic fantasies right now at your local multiplex {right back atcha' Mr. Cruise, Mr. Damon & Mr. Smith (both of 'em)}. But can't a decent, well-acted, smaller period piece written and directed by the great David Chase find an audience? Anyone? I guess not, as this grossed less than $600,000 on a budget of twenty mil. Maybe this will catch new life down the road on cable, but that remains to be seen.I'm not saying this was the greatest thing ever, but I certainly enjoyed it. Awesome period sets (I loved the snippets of TV shots thrown in) along with cool music highlighted this great effort by Chase to bring back his days as a young suburban NYC drummer turned west-coast film school "refugee".It also really worked well to have a cast of unknowns, as they really helped make the story of many a 60's garage band like this looking for any kind of breakout believable. It took me several minutes to figure out the guitar wiz was Jack Huston from "Boardwalk Empire"…40 years, one eye and a great wig away from his chilling Richard Harrow character.And there surely was something comforting, and a great nod to nine years of quality work on "The Sopranos" with Chase letting James Gandolfini's one-dimensional 1960's "generation gap" father have a bowl of ice cream again on the couch, even though The History Channel wouldn't be invented for another 30 years! Do check this out if you somehow want to remember the mid-60's, as it's well worth the time spent.P.S.-best line for me was when our hero Douglas realizes he may have lost his babe at a Hollywood party to some "English Invader", but still asks the burning question: "Do you know where Rod Serling lives?"

Steve Pulaski David Chase's Not Fade Away is an exercise in nostalgia in a competent order, meaning that those who enjoy or, above all, relate to the events in the film will appreciate it the most. I'm stuck in the position where I often find my self; on the corner of admiration and disappointment.Stylistically, David Chase (TV's The Soprano's) and cinematographer Eigil Bryld (Netflix's own TV series House of Cards) couldn't have made a more bleeding-gums representation of the 1960's if they tried. It looks marvelous in all its polished, minimalist glory. Thematically and applicably, there should've been so much more of a story to tell about a garage band that never made it despite determination to "not fade away." For this reason, the film can be viewed as one where talents embrace culture, chew scenery, and nothing more.The story concerns Douglas (John Magaro), a young man in the 1960's during a time of The Vietnam War and inevitable social change. Family values and daintiness are becoming more lenient, and views on the war divide parents, who sat back and formed opinions on it, and teenagers who had to fight it. Douglas decides to round up a few pals and start a garage band with intent to "make it big" like the iconic Beatles and Rolling Stones. Faced with loud opposition from his demanding bigot of a father (James Gandolfini) and attachment to his girlfriend (Meg Guzulescu), Douglas must now keep a band together without alienating those close to him.This is a story that through heatbreak, aspirations, and prolific failures could've made a gripping film and possibly an emotional one. The downside is through Chase's direction does the film feel sterile and ill-equipped. He doesn't seem to possess any form of relation or personal resonance with his characters, and this awkward coldness halts the film's ability to allow its audience to admire if even differentiate the teenagers the sixties was known to birth.What we are left with, predominately, is an egg with a firm, ambitious, beautifully crisp shell, but sub-par, underwhelming contents. "Style over substance" would seem to be an appropriate term, but I hesitate to even call it that seeing as social order, parental discrepancies, and culture shock - all easy items to exclude or nudge out of bounds - are touched on and explored considerably. One of the tensest scenes, and arguably the best, is when Douglas is at dinner with many of his relatives, remaining silent while they discuss emerging culture and minorities in a wonderfully ethnocentric way. Douglas is ostracized and belittled for his optimism on his garage band project and his long, "hippie" hair before telling off his father and exiting the room.Chase definitely understands complex changes of norms and societal disconnect between parents and youths. However, his apparent lack of interest in his characters, giving them a shocking lack of depth and personality, undermines the power Not Fade Away could've head if it resonated with its target audience (those now in their forties or fifties). Yet, its characters are as vacant as clip-art pictures of teenagers from the time period. There's a powerful, life-affirming, deeply involving story in the material Not Fade Away provides and I anxiously await its telling by a director with more of an attitude and opinion on the subject.Starring: John Magaro, Meg Guzulescu, and James Gandolfini. Directed by: David Chase.