Opinions of the films of Gus Van Sant

[Jimmie Higgins]

I feel like I always overlook him as a director, but when I think about the films of his that I've seen, I've always found them really interesting even when I didn't think they quite worked.

On a side note, anyone know much about his political views? I had a few political quibbles with "Milk" but on the whole, hell yeah a movie about LGBT activism, even flawed, right now is pretty great! "Good Will Hunting" has some fucking awesome class-anger in it. My overall political impression of his movies is that he has some good political points and instincts but is more or less "progressive/liberal" (not that expect anything further left than that from Hollywood or Indy films right now) and sees working class people as one of an array of marginalized or oppressed groups.


Anyway, what do y'all think? Not just the question about politics, but of his movies in general.

[Pirate Utopian]

Bleh or miss.

I hated the Psycho remake. Milk was okay I guess.

[Book O'Dead]

I feel like I always overlook him as a director, but when I think about the films of his that I've seen, I've always found them really interesting even when I didn't think they quite worked.

On a side note, anyone know much about his political views? I had a few political quibbles with "Milk" but on the whole, hell yeah a movie about LGBT activism, even flawed, right now is pretty great! "Good Will Hunting" has some fucking awesome class-anger in it. My overall political impression of his movies is that he has some good political points and instincts but is more or less "progressive/liberal" (not that expect anything further left than that from Hollywood or Indy films right now) and sees working class people as one of an array of marginalized or oppressed groups.


Anyway, what do y'all think? Not just the question about politics, but of his movies in general.

I like the ones I've seen such as My Own Private Idaho, Elephant and Last Days. I think I saw one other but I can't remember.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I'm not really a fan.

[x359594]

Van Sant's Paranoid Park was a sad film about adolescence and
loneliness that recalled The 400 Blows. Not so much in terms of style or texture (Van Sant's sensibility is quite different) but in sympathetic understanding.

While it won some prize or other at Cannes, reviews were not good. I found it quite different from his "conceptual art" pieces (Elephant, Gerry, Last Days) as it's a straightforward character study of a "latchkey kid" who inadvertently
causes the death of a security guard and doesn't know what to do or who to turn to in a world that utterly ignores him. Shot by Chris Doyle its' not at all a wet
smack a la Good Will Hunting or Finding Forrester. I'm tempted to call it a Michelangelo Antonioni After School Special, but that might be too glib.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah I thought that was by and far the best of the "alienated youth" movies he's done in the last decade. I love a lot of French movies about youth because they don't seem to pander and they show kids as really obnoxious a lot of the time:lol:. Paranoid Park really wasn't afraid to show kids being awkward and confused and inarticulate rather than the snappy and precocious miniature-adults that populate most TV and Hollywood.

[00000000000]

Enjoyed 'Good Will Hunting', still surprised that Affleck had a part in writing it.

'Psycho' remake a crime against humanity

'Elephant' was good, took a while but the ending was a real sucker punch

[Xenophiliac]

His best three films IMO are Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, and Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. Finding Forrester and Milk were okay. Psycho was shit. Haven't seen the rest.

[blake 3:17]

Milk and Drugstore Cowboy were great. I liked Last Days a lot though it wasn't any hit. Psycho seemed interesting, and I'm curious to see Elephant. He seems to do a good job balancing the commercial & the art house.