Cheap Jesus' Son (DVD) (Billy Crudup) (Alison Maclean) Price

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Customer Reviews of Jesus' Son

A collection of memorable performances
Watching the film adaptation of Denis Johnson's collection of short stories, Jesus' Son, is a lot like watching Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. You sit there entertained by wonderful performances but you can't help but notice the story isn't all that great. The script is very clunky, feels a bit forced and loses much of charm of the source material, but thankfully, Billy Crudup's performance saves the film. Billy Crudup really shows his acting range in this film, portraying the hapless but lovable protagonist, "F.H.". This episodic film is futher helped along by an all-star cast of cameo appearances by Dennis Leary, Will Patton, Holly Hunter, Dennis Hopper and the hilarious Jack Black.

Stylistically, Alison Maclean does a decent job of transferring Jesus' Son to the screen. Personally, I felt the film wasn't visually dark enough in comparision to the book. But with most book to film adaptations, perceived accuracy tends to differ from person to person. Although there are some really interesting visual effects, Jesus' Son cinematically is quite plain.

Overall, Jesus' Son is worth watching. In fact, Jack Black's scenes alone warrant a viewing.

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Dark laughter: tears: redemption
My first take on first viewing was: right, I want to watch a movie about some disgusting, sleazy, young idiots. The sex. The violence. The drugs. And then, you start to pay attention to the narrator's voice, and you begin to understand the intelligence, the attempt at a philosopy of life that lies behind the voice. And you laugh as a dead guy gets beat up in a corn field.
I own two movies--the other is John Huston's "The Dead". I only buy movies that have enough complexity in script, acting, and production, that you can watch over and over and still see new things.
This is a movie that changes gears on you constantly. One viewing will not suffice.
I still scream with laughter when I see it, and I still weep.

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"Have your ticket in your hand...
. . .Before it is too late" ~ That line comes from the Woodie Guthrie tune, Airline To Heaven,(performed by Wilco)that plays over the end credits of Jesus' Son. It captures the flavor of this movie, & it sums up the blend of hope, loss, faith & acceptance of life ~ not only for drug guzzling "losers", but for any & everyone.

The late 60's/early 70's didn't exactly corner the market on lost weirdo's who found solace behind a substance-induced mask of happiness. One of my closest friends IS that character that Denis Leary plays ~ sometimes comical, sometimes tragic. Just like this movie.

Jesus' Son offers the really straight, by-the-numbers people a little insight into the people & lives that those folks usually avoid & disregard; "only bad people use drugs".

Not so.

It's also interesting to watch a movie that has character's using a variety of street drugs that was made at a time, currently, that is, when most young people in this culture have been heavily bombarded with anti-drug/"War On Drugs" propaganda, & have been steadily for about twenty yrs or so . . yet the story is of an era where that level of propaganda wasn't as pervasive & all encompassing as it is today.

Well, anyway, other people have already written better reviews of this than I could, or have, but I had to write something about this heartfelt little movie.
"Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine, we'll understand it all by & by"