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Lunch » Tags » Movie » Reviews » The Brown Bunny

The Brown Bunny

1 rating: -5.0

Drama movie directed by Vincent Gallo

After its scandalous screening at the 2004 Cannes film festival, Vincent Gallo'sThe Brown Bunnywas cut from 118 to 92 minutes, and that made all the difference. The film that critic and long-time Cannes attendee Roger Ebert originally called "the worst … see full wiki

Tags: Movie

Cast: Chloë Sevigny, Cheryl Tiegs, Elizabeth Blake (II), Mary Morasky, Anna Vareschi

Director: Vincent Gallo

1 review about The Brown Bunny

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Calling it garbage gives garbage a bad name!

Sep 28, 2005

by rmurray847
posted in Movie Hype

Rating:

-5

Bud is sad. The motor-cycle racer played by Vincent Gallo is carrying some sort of grief. We know this because he spends a lot of time driving his van cross country and looking unhappy. He conveys this unhappiness much of the time by rubbing his face in a way that demonstrates world-weariness. Do we know WHY he's sad? Nope, although we suspect pretty strongly it has to do with a girlfriend named Daisy.

If you want to see a movie about a sad man...here you go. We see the sad man put gas in his van. We see him purchase a cola at a roadside rest-stop...putting in about 8 coins. We get to see him drink a bit of it. We get to see him take his motorcycle out of his van and ride in on the salt flats in Utah. We even get to see him use a urinal and at one point...take a shower!! The whole shower we get to experience...and it includes a LOT of face rubbing and pausing to look contemplative.

My favorite scene involves Bud stopping at a little house in California. He goes to the door and knocks on it. He waits. Knocks again. Waits. Looks in the window. Waits. The scene takes (no exaggeration) at least two minutes. It tells us Bud can wait long past the time most of us would have given up. That's how sad he is.

Finally, near the end, Bud checks in to a hotel and we're led to understand that he may be visited by Daisy. Sure enough, she shows up and they have some dialogue (which is very exciting, because up until now we've had five minutes of dialogue stretched across 70 minutes of film). The dialogue allows us to learn some things about their relationship, and then we are able to see them kiss a lot and then Daisy (Chloe Sevigny) explicitly performs a sex act on Bud. It is graphic and not faked. It is also distinctly unappealing, because Bud berates Daisy throughout the act. When it's over, we get to finally find out what the "secret" Bud has been carrying around is. And the secret, when we understand it, is squalid, sad, and deeply uninteresting.

I hope you get some idea of the movie now before you run out to see it because you want to see two semi-well-known personalities engage in a sex act. This curiosity factor aside, there is no GOOD reason to see the film. It would only be to see for yourself just how bad a movie made by someone who actually knows how to make films can be.

Don't believe the reviewers who say their ten year old brothers could do the same. It takes a REAL ego to actually make some of the stuff that's on this film. There's a scene with a truly sad looking Cheryl Tiegs that nearly made me want to weep for her, because she is so dreadfully abused as a performer. Her part mostly consists of looking sad and then kissing Vincent Gallo for minutes on end because apparently he's just so darn irresistible. Don't believe the people who claim the film is saying something about male relationships with women and that it is some expose of how men really feel. It is simply a movie about a guy who is sad and feeling guilty and having a hard time dealing with it. Rather than tell us his story (except in the last 10 minutes) or reveal something about grief and how it can affect others, it simply shows how a person who is sad would actually look sad and move in a slow manner to suggest sadness.

It also shows a lot of boring countryside through a bug-splattered van window. Minute after endless minute of that.

And Gallo himself is supremely annoying. He has a singularly unappealing, whiny voice. In an early scene, he is exhorting a convenience store clerk to go with him to California. The dialogue is: "Go with me to California." Pause "Please." Pause "Please." Pause "Please Go With me!" He says this while staring intensely at her...so naturally she agrees to immediately throw away her life to leave with this complete stranger. And the great thing is this...his voice sounds like Alvin Chipmunk whispering. Imagine yourself throwing your life away for that!!!

I hate this movie. Chances are very, very good that you will too. I've tried to warn you.

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