Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Desertman84 Sal is the depiction of the final 24 hours of 1950's teen idol Sal Mineo.It features Val Lauren in the title role and it was directed by James Franco.Sal Mineo is a talented actor that appeals to teen-agers during the 50's.He was an Academy Award nominee and was known for his roles such as Exodus and two of the three James Dean films,Rebel Without Cause and Giant.Later in his career,he has become open about his homosexuality and tried to find his identity both as an actor and a director.He found positive reviews as bisexual burglar in his stage performance in a play entitled," P.S. Your Cat Is Dead".But one day after returning home from a rehearsal,he was stabbed to death.Lauren did a great job in his portrayal of Mineo.Too bad that we are left basically to only the last 24 hours of his life rather than a portrayal of his life and legacy in Hollywood.Too bad that Sal should have been treated better rather than just featuring his last day on earth where nothing is essentially told except his death in the finale.Overall,a better story could have been told.

Gordon-11 This film tells the story of the last day of the Hollywood actor, Sal Mineo, whose life was tragically cut short.Despite the potentially engaging subject matter, "Sal" is not a very interesting film to watch, unfortunately. I can hardly believe it can be so boring. The film starts off with a four minute scene of him working out in a gym. Then Sal on the phone for minutes, and you can only hear one end of the conversation. Then more phone calls. It's probably the most uninteresting day in real life, let alone in cinema. And where's James Franco? I didn't see him at all, and I did skim through the film again and I couldn't find him.This film is a waste of time. Avoid!

velitrae As a fan of Sal Mineo and James Franco I was looking forward to this film. With a short running time I began to worry as the 30 minute mark was approaching and I was not getting into it.This movie has parts similar to "The Brown Bunny" that terrible movie consisting of filming a driver wandering aimlessly and then ending with a surprisingly graphic unrelated sex scene. Only "Sal" omitted the surprise since of course the movie tells you at the very beginning how he dies. If you like Terrence Malick movies (I don't) with a dose of "Investigative Reports" you may enjoy it. If you are a fan of Sal Mineo you won't. The kind-of epilogue regarding the arrest of the killer seemed like an afterthought.Franco said his intent was to capture the mundane typical activities of someone on the last day of their life without them knowing it is their last day. That doesn't make for an interesting movie. I suppose if the character was fictional and the death at the end was a shocking out-of-nowhere surprise it could be entertaining, like a "Twilight Zone" episode. But Sal Mineo was a real person and we know already that he was murdered in a pointless random act.The tediousness of the opening workout scene (as appealing as a shirtless Val Lauren is), the smoking scenes, and the severely close-up conversation scenes, just dragged on and on. Even the play rehearsal scene was tedious and didn't tell us anything. I wanted to know who were the important people in Sal's life? Who were his friends? Did he have a relationship? Maybe he really was a has-been actor desperately trying to convince friends to fill the seats of his off-off-off-Broadway play. But I was hoping for more. The copy-paste of real Sal's "Rebel" Oscar-nominated performance upped the contrast of what this movie could have been.

bbmcdonald-828-981701 I love James Franco & know how talented he is as an actor & now in art as well. I heard he had begun directing so when I saw his movie "SAL" up for viewing I dug right in; not knowing much about Sal Mineo I thought this could be fascinating. Boy was I wrong...and I mean BIG time wrong. This movie looks like something a pack of High-School film club wannabes attempted to make over their Summer break. No make that over their Christmas break.The movies cinematography, if you can call a single light and one very shaky hand-held camera being filmed by some drunk pulled off the street entertainment, was actually boring and just totally substandard. The incessant & tedious closeups of the actors face, nose or eyes while doing some of the most mundane activities like the minutes long scenes of him smoking or driving were simply awful. No art form, no intrigue, no nothing. Any hope for cleverness remained nonexistent.Music & sound were other factors that were flimsily handled as if they really didn't matter because all the closeups of the actors nose meant so much more. The overall flabbiness and lack of tension made this 90 minutes particularly painful. The inconsistent tenor of the sound throughout was choppy and uneven while sounding especially tinny, as if hastily grabbed from some stack of tunes noted from long ago. Were those scratches I heard? Now the acting was particularly amateurish, calling upon memories of plays attempted when we were all of 14, cocky & convinced of our immense talents. I search for descriptives to somehow get across just how terrible this film is and I come up frustrated and empty...kind of like the movie itself. This is no experimental art film folks, it is simply a rotten flick for which you will kick yourself for spending the time and money. MISS IT!