He's Not There
Added 12/5/2008
I don't know about Robert Forster, but when he's on, he's on, and when he's overworked, he acts like he's been hit over the heat with an anvil. That's the mode we find him in as he speaks his lines as Gram Parson's father, apparently stricken by grief when his son dies of an accidental overdose of drugs in Southern California in the 1970s. When he arrives at the airport, he discovers that his son's corpse has been commandeered by road manager Phil Kaufman (Johnny Knoxville) in a psychedelic yellow hearse, and the chase begins. Forster can barely even pretend to be interested in this strained road farce, but such is his gravitas that for awhile, we read his pained features as the earnest and moving performance of a man doubled over by the pain of surviving one's own child. Since the real Parsons Senior died in the 1950s, he's playing a part that didn't really exist, and something of that unreality is perhaps affecting his weightlessness here. Jack Lemmon did it all much better in Costa-Gavras' Missing, and I don't even like Jack Lemmon, but he was risking something emotionally, whereas for Forster, the draw seems to be the next paycheck over the horizon.
Christina Applegate is playing someone fictional too, but at least she seems to have read even the other parts of the script. But gee, Christina, all I can think of, get a new agent. Even Marley Shelton is getting the better part in this movie, and who is Marley Shelton? (Well, everyone knows her as the girl whose strange resemblance to Heather Graham made people think she was Heather Graham's stunt double.) Here Shelton plays the girlfriend of Johnny Knoxville and winds up with a strange understanding of Christina Applegate's greedy gold-digger survivor. The two women undergo a unique bonding while the grand chase is on. And who gets to play the late Gram Parsons? None other than Gabriel Macht--soon to leap across the world's multiplex screens as the embodiment of Will Eisner's pioneering comic super-hero The Spirit. He's great here in a very tiny part and let's hope he does The Spirit with half of the spirit he brings to this very misbegotten, yet entertaining indie potboiler.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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GRAND THEFT PARSONS
Added 2/13/2008
THIS MOVIE WAS AN OK COMEDY; NOT REALLY BUYING THIS DVD FOR YOUR COLLECTION. THE STORY LINE IS WEAK AND SOME PARTS I FOUND MYSELF LOST.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Hot Flying Flop #1
Added 1/6/2008
The truth at the center of this story is far more compelling than the shallow retelling here. Artistic license should yield a more substantial script at the very least. The male leads rise above the writing, but they can only take it so far. Why ignore the complex relationship between GP and his stepdad and Phil's reaction to that? Isn't that where the story is? The following documentary does a better job at sifting through the true story and setting the right tone.
Gram Parsons - Fallen Angel
2 out of 4 people found this helpful.
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Grand Theft Parsons
Added 9/12/2007
This movie surprisingly had great cinematography, screenplay and was well carried-through by all cast members. While it succeeds in being subtly humorous, the main plot of a corpse being transported by stolen hearse from LA to Joshua Tree, CA is perhaps too morbid to begin with, especially since it's based on the actual death of the `70's `Alternate Country Western' singer Gram Parsons, September 1973. But overall, I believe these offbeat, low-budget, independent film-makers often present interesting stories, otherwise not available. Unfortunately, without the budget for studio voice-overs, the audio fades in some crucial dialog points. However, this film includes actor summaries and is well acted by the primary 3 players, Johnny Knoxville (Phil Kaufman), Christina Applegate (Barbara) and Marley Shelton (Susie). And it soon delivers as a true, picturesque, hippie `road-trip' style flick, which I automatically enjoy.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Harsh judgement against Applegate's Character
Added 6/30/2007
I saw this movie on Cable in a motel room in Chicago and I really felt for Applegate's Character. I thought back to the time I visited Joshua Tree and about my personal relationship with a man with a serious substance abuse problem. I did stay in the Gram Parson's death room at the Joshua Tree Inn about 10 years ago, and I feel a certain connection to him in a way. When I saw this film, I just thought how terrible the woman Applegate's character is based upon must feel if she were ever to see this film. Gram Parsons basically killed himself. If you haven't lived with and loved an alcoholic or drug addict, you have no idea how this woman felt or would have reacted to his death. Of course she's going to be angry, what kind of person dies like that? He drove out to the middle of the desert and overdosed. He was alone in a hotel room, and he killed himself with substances. Sure, he was a great song writer, but come on, I'm sure he wasn't perfect, he wasn't a saint. You people don't know what it's like to fight for someone with an addiction. You people don't know what it's like to fight every day to make this person whom you love stop using drugs, stop drinking and want to live. To BLAME Applegate's character in the end, was just a low blow. Who are you to make that kind of assumption? That Parsons killed himself to get away from her? Maybe he had his own demons that Applegate's character didn't have any control over. Who are you to accuse her and that she had any influence in his death? You write this screenplay and make her responsible for his death, in the end. He killed himself. Maybe he was beating her, there are several different types of abuse, mental, physical, emotional, sexual... did you ever think of that? Maybe Applegate's character had been abused beyond her limit of tolerance. Maybe he was too insane to live... and his death was the final blow. Death was so easy for him and he left behind a cross for her to bear. Maybe she was just trying to save him, and after his death she had a normal reaction of anger and frustration. Even in the synopsis of this film they call her "Betty (Applegate) the psycho exgirlfriend"...living with a drug addict makes you psycho...that's not fair. What misogynist wrote that discription? To the screenwriter... were you there? Did you witness private moments between the two of them? How dare you say she would be responsible for his suicide. Do you have any idea what it's like to pick up the pieces after something like that happens? His death was a selfish, careless, loveless act. It was his choice, in the end. To include that line at the end, about how he did what he did to get away from Applegate's character did a disservice to all women involved with men with substance abuse problems. That line adds insult to injury. Maybe she was in for the long haul and he was a black hole and maybe she was just trying to pull herself out of the pit he dragged her into. Unless you lived her life, you have NO RIGHT to make that accusation against her. It doesn't help that he was famous and people sing his praises and basically forget that he had a substance problem. He killed himself, she had nothing to do with it... no one is defending her and the screenwriter should feel ashamed.
0 out of 4 people found this helpful.
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He's Not There
Added 12/5/2008
I don't know about Robert Forster, but when he's on, he's on, and when he's overworked, he acts like he's been hit over the heat with an anvil. That's the mode we find him in as he speaks his lines as Gram Parson's father, apparently stricken by grief when his son dies of an accidental overdose of drugs in Southern California in the 1970s. When he arrives at the airport, he discovers that his son's corpse has been commandeered by road manager Phil Kaufman (Johnny Knoxville) in a psychedelic yellow hearse, and the chase begins. Forster can barely even pretend to be interested in this strained road farce, but such is his gravitas that for awhile, we read his pained features as the earnest and moving performance of a man doubled over by the pain of surviving one's own child. Since the real Parsons Senior died in the 1950s, he's playing a part that didn't really exist, and something of that unreality is perhaps affecting his weightlessness here. Jack Lemmon did it all much better in Costa-Gavras' Missing, and I don't even like Jack Lemmon, but he was risking something emotionally, whereas for Forster, the draw seems to be the next paycheck over the horizon.
Christina Applegate is playing someone fictional too, but at least she seems to have read even the other parts of the script. But gee, Christina, all I can think of, get a new agent. Even Marley Shelton is getting the better part in this movie, and who is Marley Shelton? (Well, everyone knows her as the girl whose strange resemblance to Heather Graham made people think she was Heather Graham's stunt double.) Here Shelton plays the girlfriend of Johnny Knoxville and winds up with a strange understanding of Christina Applegate's greedy gold-digger survivor. The two women undergo a unique bonding while the grand chase is on. And who gets to play the late Gram Parsons? None other than Gabriel Macht--soon to leap across the world's multiplex screens as the embodiment of Will Eisner's pioneering comic super-hero The Spirit. He's great here in a very tiny part and let's hope he does The Spirit with half of the spirit he brings to this very misbegotten, yet entertaining indie potboiler.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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GRAND THEFT PARSONS
Added 2/13/2008
THIS MOVIE WAS AN OK COMEDY; NOT REALLY BUYING THIS DVD FOR YOUR COLLECTION. THE STORY LINE IS WEAK AND SOME PARTS I FOUND MYSELF LOST.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Hot Flying Flop #1
Added 1/6/2008
The truth at the center of this story is far more compelling than the shallow retelling here. Artistic license should yield a more substantial script at the very least. The male leads rise above the writing, but they can only take it so far. Why ignore the complex relationship between GP and his stepdad and Phil's reaction to that? Isn't that where the story is? The following documentary does a better job at sifting through the true story and setting the right tone.
Gram Parsons - Fallen Angel
2 out of 4 people found this helpful.
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