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ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

rooprect Oh how I haaated this movie for the first half hour! It begins with a mishmash of unrelated scenes, half a dozen actors switching roles without warning, and lots of mumbling non-sequitur banter that could've been the rejected lines from Pulp Fiction.That's not what made me hate it, though. What made me hate it was the idea that the director seemed to be trying too hard for that "indie" feel: using lots of random, quirky images for the sake of being random and quirky. I swear I came this close to going home and watching reruns of The Partridge Family instead.But somewhere after the half hour mark, a story starts to emerge. Several stories, actually. "On the Road with Judas" teases us with a crime story, a love story, a tale of friendship betrayal, and of course the story of a man who is rapidly losing his grip of reality. It is ultimately the last story that shines and makes this a great film.The plot is basically irrelevant so I won't bother talking about that. Instead this becomes a film of philosophical depth, attacking the question of reality vs. fiction (truth vs. intentions) and the infinite conflict that falls on the poor sap who's in charge of it all.If you've seen the excellent film "Synecdoche NY" which came out several months after "On the Road with Judas", you'll definitely notice many parallels between the two. Both films tell the story of a writer who is attempting to write about his own life as it happens. As real life and written pages become intertwined, the task becomes impossible, confusing, maddening.Mixing reality and fiction in a film is tough for a filmmaker to do without totally losing the audience (which I think may have happened here, judging by IMDb's low rating of 4.3). Certainly it requires a lot more audience effort than your standard linear storyline. But many films have pulled it off, notably: "Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story", "American Splendor", "Beyond the Sea", "The Science of Sleep" and the aforementioned "Synecdoche NY". "On the Road with Judas" fits right in with the rest as a challenging yet ultimately rewarding experience for people who can bend their perceptions of reality. The ending is classic.A final word about the soundtrack: nice! Being set in 1991-1993, the film features some interesting versions of songs by Depeche Mode "Enjoy the Silence", Modern English "Melt with You", and others plus some very nice classical sonatas such as Debussy's "Claire the Lune".Overall, this is a very deep and powerful movie disguised as a "fun romp" (or whatever the dumb DVD cover says). If you can make it past the first half hour, I think you'll really enjoy it.

jeffroutine This played Sundance I think last year. It's crazy. It's like a not-at-all creepy David Lynch. It's very hard to explain. But you have a writer of an autobiographical book, and the book is being adapted into a movie. The film follows the author, the actor playing the author, the filmmaker making the movie, and also the author of the REAL book/actual director of the movie, JJ Lask.If you think Charlie Kaufman is meta, then you haven't even scratched the surface of On The Road With Judas. There are some of my favorite actors in the film too - Kevin Corrigan, Aaron Ruell (from Napoleon Dynamite), and that guy from American Pie Eddie Kaye Thomas is in it too. It's a real mindfuck of a movie - it's kind of like the movie version of a really hard sudoku problem, but really rewarding when it all comes together.And unlike a lot of other films that are about themselves - it never sacrifices human emotion for the sake of it's cleverness. At it's very core is an honest love story, that is very well drawn.

mcmurtis I saw On The Road With Judas in Phoenix a few weeks ago and have been transfixed on this film ever since. Everything about it is completely mesmerizing... The multiple planes of reality are constantly toying with the viewers perception of what is happening on screen, what is implied as "reality" and the meta-reality of the film's world...Definitely warrants multiple views.I happened to catch this while the filmmakers/distributors were touring it around the country this Fall and fell in love! It is definitely a challenging film, and I can see why it hasn't gotten a very wide release, even despite the great cast, many of which are well-known actors (I LOVE Kevin Corrigan!), however, if you liked Eternal Sunshine, even Synecdoche, NY, you should certainly check this one out, the non-linear, meta-narrative is prevalent! If nothing else, this movie has the timeless appeal of a classic con-man story. The two kleptomaniac main characters are excellent in their extra-curricular pursuits of collegiate artifacts ranging fro faculty Apple computers to rare art pieces adorning scholastic hallways…They are hilariously casual in their thievery!Highly recommend you seek this one out, it's on Netflix… I picked up a copy of the DVD at the screening and have already revisited it a number of times and it just keeps getting better. There should be more films like this out there!

minimusmaximus206 I've been flying a lot lately, which means I've been watching a lot of saccharine movies or action flicks where censors have cut out the compelling bits. Everyone of them ends with a clear good guys/good girls get what they want (or at least get revenge) ending. Frankly, I'm sick of it.So, it was refreshing to see JJ Lask's film On the Road with Judas, a film that squishes time and the viewer's perception of reality. What extrudes are overlapping story lines that meet on a promotional interview of the film-- the "real" characters interact with the "actor" versions of themselves in a cheesy talk show. The story clips pieces from the "real" past together with the movie---so don't be surprised when you find yourself thinking, "But, uh, I thought he was..." I feel like if I say much more about the plot, I'll give a "spoiler," though, I'm not sure if even *I* know what the spoiler is.Look, I don't live in LA, and I'm not obsessed with IMDb like the folks I met recently in LA, so maybe this review won't help you judge why this movie is worth trekking to the next film festival or tiny showing it is at. All I can say is that I really enjoyed the movie--and I loved how people were normal, life was complex, and how a sense of low-key humor slithered it's way through the film. Take a chance and see it.*This movie was viewed at SIFF, the Seattle International Film Festival (North America's largest film festival), at the Northwest Film Forum.