SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Lawbolisted Powerful

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

johncpickens Excellent film funny poignant beautifully filmed well directed. An excellent film worth watching, worth owning. Some have criticized the dialog. It was written by Indians. Some have stated it is not a very good movie. It is an excellent work. Well edited, well directed, well acted. I am not going to go through the list of naysayers. I will just stay they do not understand .Now lets get down to it. This is an Indy film totally made by Native Americans. That said there are things that will be lost on most of the audience. It is well scripted, well acted, and has a great sense of humor. Evan Adams is truly amazing he actually took and portrayed his character from someone that he knew and made the character believable, Frankly, he should have been given an award. For me he is the true or the epitome of an actor. He brings his character, which could have remained a flat story teller, to life. Excellent job Evan.For the direction, the characters were believable, the film flowed nicely, with the changes from one time period to present day flawless. Excellent! The actors knew the story and knew their characters and portrayed them well. Again with Evan Adams being excellent.For those that had low opinions please read the book, then get to know real Indians. You may learn something interesting. For those of you that know me, then you know that I truly believe that this is an excellent film and that I would not steer you wrong. It is a film worth watching. It is a film worth going out and spending 20 bucks for. It is a film that belongs in any collectors library, because it is that epic and that well done.My reaction to this film, if you haven't figured it out now is in one word, EXCELLENT. It has it's 5 stars and deserves more. John

middleburg The journey of Thomas Builds-the-Fire and Victor Joseph is told through a combination of social commentary, dreamlike tales and images, and a sensitivity for human emotion that sometimes takes your breath away. From the earliest tale of Thomas"flying through the air" during the harrowing and heartbreaking aftermath of July 4th celebrations, straight through to the stunning denouement with the powerful poem of "Forgiving our Fathers" accompanied by the haunting music of Ulila and the drummers and chanters which lifts us up to the Heavens, this film is a small masterpiece. It is very much a depiction of contemporary Native American culture--but it is told with such a keen understanding of universal human emotion, that everyone can relate to it. Love, regret, pain, forgiveness--all of these great enduring issues abound in the film. At what point do our lives turn out a certain way do to society, luck or misfortune, inner strength or lack of it--that final poem sums up the film brilliantly. The characters are so richly drawn--even those who appear ever so briefly in the film--that a rich tapestry is created as their lives and stories are woven together. Ultimately director Chris Eyre's and author Sherman Alexei's film celebrates forgiveness, understanding, acceptance, human compassion and perseverance. This is not to say that the film is somber or purely philosophical. My Heavens, no! There are a wealth of intriguing events, characters--moments of surprising humor, moments of very real sadness, the past woven seamlessly with the present, the reality woven seamlessly with Thomas' tales of dreams and imagination. The photography is glorious, the American West a place of great beauty--sometimes a desolate beauty, but beauty never-the-less. The music score is powerful and riveting. And most importantly we care about the characters--we want them to be happy, their lives to be fulfilled...we laugh with them, knowingly nod our heads in understanding with them, and in many instances, our hearts break right along with theirs. For anyone who has lost their parents--this movie can be unbelievably sad, but it can also be unbelievably cathartic and comforting. This is one for the ages!

byungkeepark I love this movie because it gives me ideas how the Native Americans think and live in the contemporary world. I like stories about fathers, friends, and forgiveness. I enjoy jokes between Thomas and Victor. "John Wayne's song" touched my heart.When I saw this movie, I focused on the lives and the thoughts of the Native Indians. Victor asked Thomas, "You watched 'Dances With Wolves' more than a hundred times." He meant that the movie didn't portray an Indian's life exactly. The auteurs said, "Dances With Wolves is not an Indian movie" (Reel Spirituality, 198). Movies are powerful because they show how people unknown live and think. Movies are sometimes dangerous because they produce stereotypes. The Native Americans are sometimes victims of stereotypes made by Hollywood movies.M*A*S*H was "meant to teach its contemporary viewers about the irrationality and inhumanity of the Vietnam War" (Reel Spirituality, 32), but Korea and the Korean people became victims of stereotypes the TV drama created.I liked "Smoke Signals" because this movie changed my prejudice against Indians. I thought they were "stoic and like warriors," but I found that they were like everybody else. And I felt for the Native Americans because they were put onto reservations. They are like one of the lost sheep.

sophiej468 Writer Sherman Alexie's new book, Flight, is his first in ten years, and would be another terrific movie (my review is at http://lakeconews.com/content/view/2580/42/ if you'd like to read it) and ten years between films is quite long enough. :-)Smoke Signals gives us an aspect of Native Americans most of us rarely see, their wonderful humor--possibly what saves us white folks from the kind of violent retaliation we see in other occupied lands. Road movie, rez movie,coming of age--it's all that. It would be perfect for discussion in film classes or community groups, especially if there are native people in the group to talk about their reactions to it.