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The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005)
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Movie Review by Emily
February 3rd, 2007
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((SPOILERS))
To say that this movie changed my life would be a little bit of an understatement. Daniel Day-Lewis gives a stunning preformance of Jack, a man who hates the idea of a modern life, so he has taken his daughter Rose, (Camilla Belle), to live in a small commune, with no other people. She has no human interaction, and they go around defacing new property. However, Jack knows that he is dying, and chooses to bring his mainland girlfriend Kathleen (Catherine Keener) and her two teenage sons Rodney (Ryan Macdnald) and Thaddius (Paul Dano) out to the commune to live with them. Rose goes a lttle crazy, and decides that she needs to learn about sex, and life from her new family.
All of the preformances in this movie are outstanding, and even though I hate both Camilla Belle, and her character, I do have to say that she knocked the socks right off my feet. Daniel DAy-Lewis, was amazing, which goes without saying, and carried the whole movie, tying everything together. Catherine Keener gave an excellent preformance as a woman who didn't know what was going on with her new family, but she was trying hard to keep the family together. Ryan Macdonald stole my heart in the role of an all around nice guy, which was countered beautifully by Paul Dano, who played the Snake of the movie. But he got what he deserved in his final defenestration. The supporting cast of Jena Malone, Beau Bridges, and Jason Lee was also outstanding, and this small cast worked very hard to make an excellent, while creepy, movie, that I find myself watching again and again, involving classic lines, such as "hey little freak, have you ever eaten a snake before?"
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 | Bobby B
Jan 28, 2008 4:49 AM
also wrote a review of The Ballad of Jack and Rose 
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I saw There Will Be Blood a couple of days ago and am now on a major Daniel Day-Lewis kick. Soooo...I just watched this movie. I haven't written a review of it yet but I was greatly intrigued by yours because my experience of the movie was very different. All of it was, I agree, extremely well acted with Camilla Belle (Why don't you like her? I've never seen her before)being quite a revelation. I found the story really bizarre and I guess part of what was complicated for me was that everyone seemed nuts. For instance, you wrote "Rose goes a little crazy" and I'm thinking "a little crazy? Which part -- walking into the bedroom with a loaded shotgun and firing it, bringing the snake into the house to kill Dad's girlfriend, or hanging a sheet on a clothesline with the blood of her broken hymen circled in the middle of it-- like a flag of lost virginity?" But everyone in the movie seemed to respond like you did. Of course, the Beau Bridges character only seemed mildly put out when learning that Jack had just leveled one of his houses.
But...okay, it Changed Your Life. I found it wanting. That's just, as Jack says, a matter of taste. So why am I writing this? Hm, I'm not sure. I guess there's something I want to know, something I want to understand about this often beautifully shot, obviously heartfelt and really kind of twisted and disturbing little film. If you're interested in hashing it out, I'd be interested in discussing it further. |
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Jan 28, 2008 6:22 AM
Jan 28, 2008 1:14 PM
Um, can you delete your review? How do you do that? Can you edit them once their posted? Pray elucidate. I'm glad you also thought Blood was smoking. I got a response to my review on that movie from a woman who fell asleep in the middle of it! I was like "whaaaaat??"
Jan 28, 2008 1:33 PM
Jan 28, 2008 1:51 PM
Jan 28, 2008 2:03 PM