Wristcutters - A Love Story
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DVD details
Actor: Patrick Fugit, Shannyn Sossamon, Tom WaitsBrand: FUGIT,PATRICK
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-03-25
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
DVD Reviews of Wristcutters - A Love Story
DVD Review: Has some problems, but still good.
Summary: 4 Stars
Wristcutters: A Love Story (Goran Dukic, 2006)
I was somehow unaware until the main titles were rolling on Wristcutters: A Love Story that it was based on Etgar Keret's graphic novel Pizzeria Kamikaze, which has been on my list of stuff to go digging for at the library for just about ever. So as soon as the movie was over, I went digging, and so I'll be comparing the two side by side (see below for PK review), and pretty much by definition there's going to be a lot of comparing of the two. Especially where a graphic novel adaptation is concerned, I'm always expecting slavish devotion to the source material (unless stuff goes on the novel it's simply not possible to film without millions of dollars' worth of special effects, unless you're Zack Snyder). And somehow, despite knowing this will never happen, I always end up wondering to myself what on earth director X and screenwriter Y were thinking when they decided to change detail Z, which doesn't save time or money, but ends up confusing the hell out of the viewer. I got a lot more of that in Wristcutters; it was only after reading Pizzeria Kamikaze that a few quirks in the personalities of the characters made sense. (I will give Dukic one huge bonus, though, for making Eugene into a failed musician, because this movie's soundtrack is everything that so many crappy indie soundtracks have tried to be recently and failed.)
Plot: depressed emo kid Zia (Deadbirds' Patrick Fugit), whose girlfriend has just broken up with him, decides to kill himself. He succeeds, and when he wakes up in the afterlife, "it's a lot like Tel Aviv, only a little bit worse." He finds himself a job at Pizzeria Kamikaze, whose logo is wonderful, and PK's owner helps him find a place to live. Unfortunately it comes with an insane Austrian roommate (ER's Abraham Benrubi), and so Zia spends a lot of his time out at a local bar. It's there he meets Erik (Splinter's Shea Wigham), an Eastern European musician. The two of them begin to pal around, and when Zia finds out that his ex (The Midnight Meat Train's Leslie Bibb) killed herself about a month after he did, he enlists Erik (and Erik's car) and heads out on a grand quest to reclaim his lost love. Along the way, the two of them meet hitchhiker Mikal (Catacombs's Shannyn Sossamon), who throws every expected monkeywrench into the journey.
The big change here is the characters' names and nationalities. The names are just kind of confusing, and that's what I was referring to in the opening paragraph; why bother changing the characters' names, of all things? The nationality thing is a little more problematic, because some of the jokes come off as less funny (or in the case of Erik's phobia of Arabs, which at least makes sense for an Israeli, outright racist), and some of the characters' tics or modes of expression make a little less sense. If they share a culture, rather than being from three wildly disparate cultures, they have at least something in common that will allow them that first bonding, and the lack of it here jars a bit, where it all works perfectly in the book from which this is adapted. (And, jeez, that ending.)
Not to say that Wristcutters is a bad movie. In fact, it's a pretty good one, really. Fugit is one of those actors who does a fine, fine job with whatever material he's given, and if you haven't yet experienced the joy that is Shea Whigham, do yourself a big favor and check out a silly, but loads of fun, direct-to-video release from 2008 called Splinter, where he steals the show as effortlessly as if he were the lead. His performance here shows he's not just a one-trick pony; this is about as different a role as it could have been, and he's just as good here. Aside from a few odd juxtapositions and problems that come from breaking with the source material, this is a solid little flick with a lot to like about it; it's worth checking out. *** ?
DVD Review: Great flick, get your shipping status straight, Amazon
Summary: 4 Stars
At the time I placed the order, Amazon indicated this DVD would be shipped UPS and projected a reasonably quick delivery date. When it hadn't yet arrived by that delivery date, I checked the shipping status and found that it supposedly had already been delivered by the USPS. The next day I checked with the USPS, and they indicated that UPS considers the package delivered when they deliver it to the local USPS office. The following day, two days after the "delivered" date, it finally arrived via USPS. This is nonsense. The whole purpose of allowing a customer to track the shipping status is to provide them with accurate information, not to leave them wondering where the item they paid for and now shows as "delivered" actually ended up.DVD Review: an entertaining little story with likeable characters
Summary: 4 Stars
While I don't think this movie will blow anyone away, I do think it's a good story (based on a long short story or novella, by Etgar Keret - whose short stories I highly, highly recommend)and an interesting take on suicide. By focusing on the humorously monotonous afterlives of a couple characters (all of whom are very likeable) and then adding an eccentric Tom Waits (another genuius whose body of work I highly recommend)we get a unique take on suicide, friendship, love, life and afterlife. If you're the increasingly rare type who can enjoy a movie without supermodels and explosions, then I think you'll probably enjoy Wristcutters - A love story.
Oh, and as an added bonus, the music of gogol bordello makes up a large part of the soundtrack (this movie actually served as my introduction to both Keret and Gogol - and by proxy Eugene Hutz... yet another genius)
DVD Review: Dodgy
Summary: 1 Stars
I ordered this movie a few weeks ago and upon recieving it, I tried to PLAY it on my
DVD Player - DID NOT WORK!
Computer - Barely viewable, very scratched and DODGY!
It was very disappointing, and I do not advise you buy this product.
It simply does NOT work.
Wristcutters - A Love Story
DVD Review: Highly Underrated Magical Romantic Comedy
Summary: 5 Stars
I wasn't expecting much from this movie with its bland poster and bizarre title, but what I discovered was one of the best romantic comedies in recent memory. Inventive and eccentric, this movie is touching without being maudlin. I liked it so much I sought out its source material and fell in love with the rest of Etgar Keret's short stories.
Description of Wristcutters - A Love Story
No Description Available.Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 25-MAR-2008
Media Type: DVD
The world might have many people unhappy enough to commit suicide. But the quirky and imaginative Wristcutters: A Love Story suggests there's a special place beyond this one for those who take their own lives, and it isn't very pretty. Not that anything particularly bad takes place; it's just that not very much happens at all. Director Goran Dukic, adapting a short story by Etgar Keret, presents an afterlife for those who kill themselves that looks pretty dreary, full of broken-down cars rotting on roadsides, roommates obsessed with cottage cheese, cops who don't inspire a lot of confidence, and messianic losers promising paradise if only the dead, well, commit suicide all over again. Into the mucky mediocrity comes Zia (Patrick Fugit), a nice young man who opens his veins and ends up in this limbo for losers. There, he takes a menial job, finds an unlikely friend in Eugene (Shea Whigham), a laconic Russian rocker, and meets apathetic girls in a lousy bar. The monotony of it all is broken up, finally, when Zia gets word that his girlfriend back on the mortal plane also killed herself, prompting him to take Eugene on the road in search of her. Naturally, the trip becomes a journey in unexpected new directions and new hope (particularly when a comely hitchhiker, played by Shannyn Sossamon, jumps aboard), though a diversion at a camp for miracles run by an eccentric (Tom Waits) adds a lot of color. Full of low-key wit and intentionally low-rent surprises, Wristcutters is a vision of the persistence of the human heart even in the most somber circumstances. --Tom Keogh
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