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Rating:  -
I often confused this film with Drugstore Cowboy, but this film stands on it's own for it's more surreal quality to it. A memorable scene is when Billy Crudup's character is working in a hospital with Jack Black's character and some guy comes into the emergency room with a butcher knife through the eye. Great film about a young man's awkward journey into life.
Rating:  -
That line from the film kind of sums up what was going through my mind while watching this snorefest. Okay, maybe snorefest is a bit harsh, but I will admit that I dozed off for a few minutes and definitely day-dreamed through at least a third of the film. I'm all for movies that remain somewhat plotless but explore more or less human interaction, but `Jesus' Son' was one of those films that didn't explore much of anything. Honestly if it weren't for Samantha Morton's wonderful performance I may have deemed this a pointless waste of my afternoon, but her performance alone made me happy to have at least sat through this once. Billy Crudup was terrible here. He has done much better in other films but here he just came off amateur.
As the nameless narrator Crudup gives us sequences of events that try and tell us who he is as a person but fail miserably to do so. We see him meet and fall in love with Michelle (Morton) and then watch them fail to clean up (their drug use). We watch him pop pills with Georgie (Black in a scene stealing role) who works as an orderly at the hospital our hero (should I call him that) works in. We see him kill some baby rabbits and peep on the Amish woman who lives near him. The problem is that none of these scenes, none of these events really establish any ground or make us care one bit for our narrator (well, I say `us' but I mean `me'...they didn't make me care about him at all). The acting on the parts of Morton, Black and Hunter are great but they are not enough to elevate this movie beyond a one time regret.
Rating:  -
The story of "Jesus' Son" is lifted from a series of short stories by author Denis Johnson. That explains the jostling and somewhat disjointed episodes of FH's (Billy Crudup) life. Given the subject, I think jostled and disjointed works to its credit.
"Jesus' Son" is a story about a man named FH. FH is a junkie. His girlfriend Michelle (Samantha Morton) introduces him to heroin and a lifestyle that's... well, disjointed, focused on just getting by. It's a tender bond born of a shared weakness. FH soon becomes a hardcore drug addict, taking (and breaking) anything he comes into contact with. Thus begins a series of comic and tragic episodes featuring a motley crew of supporting characters (played in part by Jack Black, Denis Leary, and Denis Hopper).
The movie represents drugs honestly. They aren't portrayed as evil, nor does the movie get caught up in naïve drug glorification. The drug sequences are surreal and comical. They even add depth to FH's experience, not just in terms of short term sensory perception, but his experience of tragedy and human deprivation. The movie contains one of the funniest episodes I've ever seen, where FH becomes an emergency room orderly. He and fellow orderly Georgie (Jack Black) use their position to score drugs. When the ER is visited by a man with a Rambo style survival knife sticking through his eye (says FH, trying to out-pun the ER staff: "Patient complains of a stabbing headache."), the local doctor refuses to touch it. Georgie doesn't have similar scruples (or medical training). He emerges from the operating room knife in hand, apparently after gripping the handle and pulling it out. When the man survives without brain damage, one of the ER staff asks him what it is he does. "I save lives," says Georgie. It's one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen, in any move, period.
When I see the drug scenes, I think of a quote by the late Hunter S. Thompson, "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me." They work for FH, for a short time, until he realizes its give and take. He can't juggle the distractions of drugs with keeping a normal life, and through personal loss he finally appreciates what's happened to him, and sobers up. The ending isn't too sugary--FH learns through mistakes that had disastrous consequences. "Jesus' Son" is a really incredible movie. I highly recommend it.
Rating: -
This movie surprised the hell out of me. I had never heard of this movie, but I will see any movie thrown my way and when I saw that Roger Ebert had called it "one of the best films of the year" and it had a good cast, I figured why not? This movie is spectacular. It's extremely original, funny and even hilarious at times, and features great performances by Billy Crudup, Samantha Morton, Denis Leary, Holly Hunter, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Black. Crudup I've only seen in "Almost Famous" and "Big Fish" and he never really impressed me. I thought he was good, but he never stood out in my mind. Here, he delivers an Oscar worthy performance that is memorable and perfect. I can not imagine anyone playing this character besides Crudup, he embodies the character. This character is F**k Head. Yes, that's his name. Well, it's obviously not his real name, but that's what we know him as throughout the entire movie. But, as you'll see, both the credits and cover refer to him as FH. There's something wrong with FH, we're never really told what, but there's just something a little off about him. He talks a lot, he has dreams and fantasies that merge with his everyday reality...Oh and he's addicted to heroin, which makes him even weirder. When we meet FH, we go everywhere with him. We follow him through all the strange moments in his life, beginning with how he meets the love of his life Michelle (Oscar nominee Samantha Morton, who's better in this than she's been in any other movie I've seen her in). We then see FH as he helps Wayne (Denis Leary) remove copper from his house to sell and buy alcohol. Then, after Michelle becomes pregnant FH gets a job at an Emergency Room. His co-worker, the orderly Georgie (Jack Black) frequently steals pills from the medicine cabinent at the hospital and is a bit loopy. That's pretty much all I can say about the synopsis. The movie, like FH, is weird. All the events that happen in FH's life would not happen in real life and the way FH views things is so interesting. This movie is not only original, it's also entertaining and NEVER dull. Every cast member gives an Oscar worthy performance, with my vote going to Jack Black who really could have got an Oscar nod for this movie.
But the performances aren't right there-in your face great, like Sean Penn in "Mystic River" or Hilary Swank in "Million Dollar Baby". The performances are subtle and none of the actors seem to try to be winning praise or anything. I highly recommend this movie, it's one of the best films of 2000, one of the most original movies, and an instant classic.
GRADE: A
Rating: -
As is the case with most of the films I watch, I saw this movie on IFC one day in 2003. I have to say, it was one of the most compelling films I've saw that year. The basic premise deals with a young man who's trying to keep his life in order while attempting to say goodbye to heroine and other notable drugs. His one huge problem is that everything in his life before drug rehab revolves around the narcotics he's so earnestly trying to flee from. The result is a journey - spiritual and psychological - where the young man begins to see life for what it really is: simple beauty, and finds himself taking pleasure in listening to a woman singing each day as he walks from work and the insane patients he works with.
Fluent all throughout this film, characters that we encounter are there for a reason and in some ways, each newfound character is like another individual in our anti-heroe's own personal odyssey.
Jack Black, Denis Leary, Dennis Hopper, Holly Hunter and Will Patton(Mothman Prophecies, Armageddon) also make notable apperances.
One of my top ten indy films, Jesus' Son lacks the sacrilegious tones that many might envision it possesses. A worthwhile film for fans of story-based screen plays.
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