MusicChat
It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.
Portia Hilton
Blistering performances.
Matylda Swan
It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.
Tobias Burrows
It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
Scoats
This movie seems to do a great job capturing what was like to live in NOLA pre-K. The John Travolta NOLA movie was similarly as effective. This movie runs along crisply enough but comes to series of dead ends. It presents itself as a mystery but eventually gives up on that. The Internet Chatroom technology is quite unbelievable (too flawlessly fluid for a realistic avatar) but was easily overlooked since the movie was holding my interest otherwise. The various stories are all at least a little interesting and do all intersect in the ending "climax". The ending I guess made sense to the director and/or editor, but left me very unsatisfied. This is a movie that could have used some more work with the script before filming.
Randall Phillip
This is a mystery with a charming dose of very low-budget sci-fi added to it about a girl's missing sister, duality, imitation, and the internet. Those looking for an Arnold Shwarzenegger shoot-'em-up will hate this movie because you actually have to pay attention to it and have half a brain. If you do pay attention and do have half a brain, you will be rewarded with a moving experience and be able to enjoy the sites along the way. There are lots of great characters, wonderful scenery, and plenty of wiggle room for going out on a limb. The acting is super. The directing is top-notch. And the story is mighty cool! Thank you Michael Almereyda! Please keep making lots of movies!
Suzie True
There is great potential in the premise and some of the characters, but no commitment to an engrossing story. The main character is as flacid as one comes, and it's mostly not the actress's fault. There is no delivery of any coherent message in each of the subplots that is taped together with scotch tape (no offense to 3M), And any direction each story goes in ends up in not only a dead end but a colorless, bland cosmos.Not recommended for even those who go to movies to hallucinate. Unless you need some extra sleep. - A sleeper, in the literal sense.
openalias
Now let me clarify that I love art films. I love abstract ideas. I love seeing and hearing things on screen that make me go,"Wha????, and then go "oohhhh...i get it." But this is no Godard. This film, well, I just don't know. Is it in art film? Is it an excuse to display the gritty, third-world beauty of New Orleans, and the array of characters that lie within? Or is it a low-budget independent film that juggles from one concept to the other, never bothering to connect the dots because, well hell, there wasn't really a solid script in the first place, and never a real purpose to the story(how's that for a run-on sentence)? i guess my problem with this film is that, though it may have been low-budget, they still spent a a good deal on its production and actors, but didn't bother making an actual story with what they had. I was intrigued by the film and the ideas it was portraying. And if the whole film would have been as beautifully-abstract as the final dream sequence, or even the beginning (the music score, by David Julyan is great!), I would have wept--in a good way--like a child. I saw this at the New Orleans film fest in a packed house of audience members happy enough to see people and places they recognized: Ernie K. Doe, Bud's Broiler, etc. But perhaps they loved it...who knows?The ideas, talent, and potential are there for a good film. But as a whole, the film makes you go, "hmmmmm....interesting....NEXT PLEASE!"