SunnyHello
Nice effects though.
SincereFinest
disgusting, overrated, pointless
Seraherrera
The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
dgcasey
I love to see movies come along that deal with artists and their craft. The Girl With The Pearl Earring or Vincent and Theo. Even enjoyed Art School Confidential because it hurt to laugh at the truth that was evident in the movie about a young, talented artist that has all his hopes and dreams beat out of him by the modern nonsense crowd at the school.But, I digress. Local Color is a lovely movie, again about a talented, young artist, looking for some guidance and mentorship from an aging Russian master. Getting his persistent foot in the door was harder than he imagined, but wedge it in he did. The movie follows their journey during a mid-70's summer, a journey that takes the young man deeper into the world of classical art and one that takes the old man out of his despair and drowning in the bottle of vodka in his hands at all times.Stahl and Morgan are great, going back and forth at each other, sometimes cutting deep into tender feelings, sometimes soothing those wounds. Perlman was fantastic in his role as the stuck-up, modern art snob and the dinner scene where he gets skewered is worth the price of admission all by itself.That is the scene that probably earned all the One Star ratings here. Those that think modern art is somehow relevant will not like that scene at all and will be slobbering all over themselves to get in here and write a scathing review. The rest of us that like real art will be howling with laughter when Curtis gets shown how big a fool he really is.I loved this movie so much I made sure to buy the DVD new so as to help the filmmaker, George Gallo, make another payment on that mortgage he took out to make the movie. You can find out about that at Artist Mentors Online.If you like good movies that don't have any gun play, no bloodshed, no gratuitous sex scenes, then this movie is for you. Oh, there is that one part where the 20-year-old guy kisses the 36-year-old woman, but I'm sure you'll live through it. What a cougar she could have been. It did get an R-rating, but that was for the use of the "F" word by the old man, but it sounded quite natural coming from him. So you probably won't want your little ones watching this one with you. Wait until they get to junior high school and can teach you even better cuss words.
jcjs33-1
There are pretty landscape shots. Writers putting trite mouthings into actors mouths. With lesser actors this show would be silly. 'Art must uplift humanity or it's BS.' Not so because art of all those mentioned is also to stir humanity and express the dark side. The lead character even says those who don't drink hide the shadow side. Wrong , he lived in darkness and repressed his dark side by drinking and being one dimensional not expanding his horizons with something other than landscapes. There wasn't a breathing organism in his work nor expression of his pain. All the artist did was limit himself to dime a dozen landscapes. The discussions between the characters was grade school, trite stuff always giving the one character the upper hand the writer wanted. I tried to like it after reading all the first wow comments on here. I had to dig deep to see those i agreed with. I figure the great comments were from those connected to the movie. I was moved only once towards the end. The kid was way too passive. The scenery was nice and the music ridiculous. Just my opinion but nowhere show for me.
Calvinxxx-1
I enjoyed the movie very much, emotionally, intellectually, and visually. It contains no violence or sex or drugs or special effects, and doesn't need them one bit, holding my attention the entire time with the visuals, story, and interspersed words of wisdom.However: [1] some of the foreign language accents made the dialog difficult to hear & understand; [2] there is unnecessary overuse of swearing (especially the F-word, which is the only reason this movie was rated R). [3] The movie is balanced with humor and emotion, but most of the emotion that holds you throughout the film, except the final resolution last minutes, is unpleasant due to the exaggerated long-lasting dysfunctional reaction of some of the characters to loss, living in the depths of bitterness and depression for too long. [4] I will not recommend this movie because of 5-seconds of background narration, which did not add one bit to the side-character it applied to, or the film -- it only turned me off to the movie and stuck in my brain through the whole movie and afterward: the main character's mother of German ancestry, when watching old WWII movies, "secretly roots for the Germans." There would be no "local color" or art if the Nazi's won the war. I don't know of any Germans today except radical skinheads who think the world would be a better place if the Nazi's won WWII.
Jeannie Epper
As gently as I can, I sincerely believe this movie is a waste of time. I did not find it the 'warm, emotionally satisfying' film others did. I found it boring, with music that distracted from the film. The story was thin, the characters overdrawn, and the direction pedestrian.Fooey.Now I'm going to write some more about this movie, so I make the 10 line minimum. There really isn't more to be said and brevity is important, but IMDb has its minimums, so here goes.Young eager kid finds nascent talent, seeks time with aging, embittered mentor in spite of father's cartoonish homophobia. Aging, embittered mentor turns out to drink a lot and teach very little. conflict arises. While I don't think this is a spoiler, I've added the warning in case someone feels this much information is too much. Mostly, I just found the film boring and pretentious. A waste of my time. I honestly don't understand what little fuss there seems to be, mostly on this web site, about the transcendent quality of this movie. I think it's really worth avoiding. But, as Dennis Miller used to say, "Maybe I'm wrong."
