Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | December 01, 2005 | | Summary | If you like Full Metal Jacket, you'll take your girl to see this one | Content
 | In some respects,I prefer to see this than FMJ because there was more abuse to this recruit except for the blanket party in this movie. It's all about two screwed up people who is in love and they goes through all these changes that screw people up more. I just love all the Marine scenes. |
| Rating | | | Date | October 18, 2005 | | Summary | Troubling. | Content
| I wanted to like this movie. Really I did. I came into watching it with the mindset of "This looks like it'll be good." Unfortunately, I was wrong.
"Stateside" is set in the early 80s, although there are points where it looks like the 50s. It is about a teenager named Mark, a member of a very rich family, who attends a Catholic school and seems to be something of a slacker. To me, the early part of this movie wasn't very well delineated - I didn't get a good feel for Mark's character at the beginning of the movie. He and his friend find out one of their friends/one of the guys' brothers (I think) has sex nightly with somebody in the class, a girl named Sue. Sue is bright and fiery and makes fun of Mark in class. So of course what is the logical course of action? Why of course Mark and his friend drive out to where Sue and other other guy make out every night. They knock the guy down, kidnap Sue, and drive away in their car very fast. If this doesn't make sense to you, don't worry, it doesn't make sense to me either. They get in a car wreck that paralyzes the head priest of Mark's Catholic school. In lieu of jail time, Mark has to join the Marines. Sue's mother (played hilariously by Carrie Fisher) finds smutty notes Sue has written to her boyfriend and reads them to Sue while she is in the hospital. Sue doesn't like her mother's scorn, so she runs out the door screaming. I can't say I blame her.
However, then we see Sue has been dumped in a mental institution. Apparently having sex with a boy and then not liking your mother sneering as she reads your private note to him is grounds for being committed. So be it. That strikes me as something more likely to happen in the 1930s, not the 1980s, but okay.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Dori is an actress and a rock star who can't do either well because she's distracted by her mental problems. Then she is gang-raped (apparently) by her roommates. Uh huh. She leaves L.A. to go to a mental institution in Connecticut. Her roommate is Sue.
While visiting Sue, Mark runs into Dori. He gets her wet with a drinking fountain and poof, they are in love.
I won't give away much more of the story, but it really doesn't matter, you can predict everything that's going to happen. If you predict that Mark and Dori fall in love the first day they spend together and have sex the first night, congratulations, you've unravelled one of the byzantine plot twists of the movie! If you predict Mark goes through some now-required "Full Metal Jacket" type scenes in the Marines with a drill sergeant (played by Val Kilmer) who drones the typical drill sergeant insults, you win a gold star.
Unfortunately, this movie gets few gold stars from me. The cast is great. Rachel Leigh Cook is hauntingly beautiful and does a good job as a schizophrenic young woman with what the script has given her. Jonathan Tucker is fine as Mark. Not superb or anything though. Agnes Bruckner is quite good as Sue, though her presence in the mental institution, while necessary, is incongruous. She doesn't seem to belong there. Val Kilmer brings more than you could expect to a rather thankless role as the drill sergeant. His speech to the recruits about finding yourself married to a foreign woman and responsibility was an amazing, great departure though, one of the strengths of the movie. The supporting cast of Ed Begley Jr, Carrie Fisher, Joe Mantegna, is all well above average.
I guess my problem with this movie is that it doesn't seem to know what it wants to do, it doesn't flow well, and while the booklet the DVD comes with professes it isn't "candy-coated" it certainly is melodramatic and oddly put together. I wasn't really sure what to think of Mark. He develops a burning passion for Dori in about a second, and it's probably only believable because RLC as Dori is so enchanting. Other than being suddenly passionate, though, I'm not sure there's much to Mark. He apologizes to the priest he cripped, so maybe he's learning lessons about life as he goes along. But right after he professes love for Dori Mark goes to a strip bar, gets raging drunk, dances with a stripper on the bar and falls off, breaking his leg. He tells everyone he fell off a helicopter and spends most of the rest of the movie on crutches, and it is never addressed again. Okay. Those actions don't make him very sympathetic, and they don't jibe well with his passion for Dori.
While the movie professes that schizophrenia is horrible and that Dori is "not well" as Sue sagely notes, that's not what the viewer is treated to. What the viewer gets to see is Dori, beautiful and languid, with quirky, odd, charming behavior that makes her like a sprite or nymph or otherworldly creature; that is to say, her schizophrenia gives her odd behavior, but not odd-scary or odd-out-of-control, instead it's odd-"oh my God, what a charming, beguiling girl." You can really see this at work in Mark. All he seems to know about schizophrenia is that it makes his girlfriend spacey, refreshingly innocent and child-like, otherworldy, and irrepressibly charming. Very seldom in the movie do the actual, devastatingly realistic effects of this horrible disease rear its ugly head. That to me is problematic.
Lastly, the end of the movie is brought about rather abruptly. It feels somewhat contrived.
Don't get me wrong - this movie isn't awful. There's a really good movie in here somewhere. The cast gives fine performances for what they're given to work with. But it just doesn't flow very well and a lot of it seems either pretty typical or actually nonsensical.
If you like the cast members, watch it for that. I don't know whether I can recommend it or not, I think certain people will like it, but I think it doesn't appeal to the majority of movie watchers. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 30, 2005 | | Summary | Unconventional love story | Content
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This movie is an underrated gem. If you're into unique and intriguing love stories, you'll certaintly love "Stateside". Both, Rachel Leigh Cook and Jonathan Tucker, who play the lead parts, are extremely talented, yet endearing young actors and this film just proves that. The story is highly engaging and thought-provoking. Definitely one of the best movies I've seen lately. A must-see one! |
| Rating | | | Date | June 28, 2005 | | Summary | IRRESISTABLE GEM! | Content
| For Film going pleasure STATESIDE is a poignant much underated labour of love. A low-budget, high-production story of comedy, drama, fun & adventure, love & loss between two characters from very different crossrooads whom make it through an interesting set of life circumstances that never quite seem outright predicatable as in other hollywood fodder.
Military cruelty & Mental-haeth issues are a major recurring theme throughout between characters Mark(Jonathan Tucker) who lands in the Marine Corps & Dori(Rachael Leigh Cook) a former actress/band-singer with schizophrenia. The 2 leads are perfect casting and playout an unusual yet believable romantic relationship when apart or together after long periods of seperation. Production standards by First Look Pictures & Writer/Director/Producer: Reverage Anselmo is "Superb", excellently supported by noteworthy Cast: Agnes Bruckner, Carrie Fisher, Joe Mantegna, Ed Begley,Jnr & Val Kilmer.
Watch out for a hystericaly funny uncredited guest-cameo by Penny Marshall as a loopy Hospital Nurse nearing films end,priceless!
All in all a contemporary love-story to warm the heart and humor enough tom ake you laugh. NOTE: Addresses the serious issues of Mental-Illness better than GIRL INTERUPTED.
Bonus: Movie Premiere Party
*Main Cast Interviews
*Behind the Scenes
*Director Interviews
*Boot camp
*Previews
*Commentary
Thoroughly Reccommended to ALL!
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| Rating | | | Date | November 06, 2004 | | Summary | Stateside is an absolute mess. It's a disjointed mish-mash | Content
| Oh boy. Where to start? First of all, I was mistaken to believe this was a romantic comedy. Stateside is completely void of both romance and comedy. It also seems to be missing a cohesive story, and good direction.
The story follows a young marine (Jonathan Tucker) who can't help but fall in love with a mentally ill musician (Rachael Leigh Cook.) As he spends time with her, her recovery begins to slow to the point where he is forced to sever contact. Will love conquer all? Believe me, by this point you won't care.
I found the story hard to follow as the movie stumbled forward. With a story this simple, the audience really shouldn't have to question what is going on and why. And how believable is love at first site in a mental institution? "Oh, Hello. Sorry I squirt water on you from the broken water fountain... Will you marry me??" Give me a break.
I was shocked to find that this isn't director Reverge Anselmo's first movie. It has "first time filmmaker" written all over it. The fault can't be put solely on the director though. This is an absolute wreck of a script, written by.. oh, look: Reverge Anselmo. Ok, all the blame falls on him.
There is quite a fine conglomeration of talent gathered for this fiasco: Joe Mantegna, Val Kilmer, Ed Begley Jr, Penny Marshall, and Carrie Fisher all lend their faces to Stateside. All have small parts and try to lend credibility to the film. Ed Begley Jr did a good job with what he had. Val Kilmer however was very inconsistent. When he is yelling at the recruits he just seemed out of place. He wasn't a believable or natural military leader. However, when he slowed down to talk to the boys from his heart, he was quite good.
Jonathan Tucker does a good job as the lead, and Rachael Leigh Cook does a decent job as the mentally ill musician/actress. I just never bought into the relationship.
I really wish more time had been spent in the editing room prior to the films release. The story is interesting, but the way it unfolds is far too distracting to allow the audience to fall into a comfort zone and accept the story as told. The movie also feels very heavy. It really could have used a bit more humor to offset the dramatic tension caused by the marine's relationship with his father, and by his forbidden romance with his famous, mentally ill soul mate.
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