SYNOPSICS
Bellflower (2011) is a English movie. Evan Glodell has directed this movie. Evan Glodell,Tyler Dawson,Jessie Wiseman,Rebekah Brandes are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2011. Bellflower (2011) is considered one of the best Action,Drama,Romance movie in India and around the world.
Bellflower follows two friends as they venture out into the world to begin their adult lives. Literally all their free time is spent building flame-throwers and weapons of mass destruction in hopes that a global apocalypse will occur and clear the runway for their imaginary gang "Mother Medusa". While waiting for the world to end, their call to excitement comes unexpectedly when one of them meets a charismatic young woman and falls hard in love. Quickly integrated into a new group of friends, they set off on a journey of betrayal, love, hate, infidelity and extreme violence more devastating and fiery than any of their apocalyptic fantasies. Often life's simplest and most obvious truths are the hardest to see, but once you've burned everything to the ground it may be the only thing left standing.
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Bellflower (2011) Reviews
Bellflower or The Most Annoying Film of the Year
I have to be honest here, I am barely ever compelled to come on the web and write a review for a movie with a negative thrust. For one thing, I watch all types of films, even the so-called no budget or low budget films that other people will stay clear from. In fact, just this year, I have seen all the Sundance NEXT films, some at the Sundance premiere in January, and some, like BELLFLOWER, only recently. I feel the need to clear that first, so that I'm not accused of a negative bias for ultra small films. I had heard the buzz of BELLFLOWER at Sundance, and I missed it, and my trip to SXSW was too brief to catch, so, I waited patiently for the theatrical. Up until then, I had read many things about the movie, plenty of positive reviews, and was pretty enthralled by the trailer. I should have been a little more cautious on the get go, seeing that even the trailer was a little fishy. You know, it was extremely light on substance, but full of those great pull quotes from the likes of Peter Travers, the king of whoring a few positive lines for maximum effect. And, of course, the reviews themselves were mostly copies of one another, with a great chunk of prose spent on context based stuff like, "the film cost 17,000", or "they made there own camera's", and even, "he wrote about his own break-up". This stuff is mostly about justification and the press angle, so, I'm not going fault the work on that. But, lets get to the actual film itself, and how this particular film outright compelled me to come on the web and give my two cents. Basically, the film is in essence, a break up movie. The lead character Woodrow, played here by the director himself is a typical "disaffected" young man, who, along with his best friend spends his days drinking, smoking and with the country boy craftsmanship of building "cool" stuff. They are seen spending time blowing stuff up at the beginning. Soon, they go out to what I assume is a dive bar, and low and behold, a cricket eating contest (in LA mind you), when we meet our lead female, the narrative conflict of the movie. We see Woodrow and soon to be lady friend Milly engage in eating crickets in slow mo, while a "cool" music track plays in the background. This is the essence of the movie. These bits of music video montage scenes are in my mind, the only respectable albeit very thin moments of the film, especially the final moments. They come and go in-between some of the most banal, and base scenes I have seen in years. After this, Woodrow picks up Milly for a first date, and she proposes they go and eat at the most disgusting restaurant around, and guess what, Woodrow has a suggestion, but its located in Texas. So, what happens next, shoot, they go to Texas. The film carries on in this vein. I can go on, but even writing about it gets tiresome. Anyways, to shorten this up, the relationship heads south, but for no reason other then the fact that Milly tells Woodrow that she is going to hurt him. And then she hurts him. Yup, thats it, because things go bad in relationships, but the audience is left to just assume things happen. The problem is, we are not lead to care any bit about them. All this heartbreak stuff doesn't add up, when you don't buy any of it. The film then continues to jump ahead and behind after an accident. And then things get violent, but in a pretty safe way. The film basically alludes to everything, and always in an extremely swallow, hey look at me mom kind of way. But heck, they built a "totally sweet ride brah" . With the finale going straight into film school cope out mode. I won't say anymore, so that I don't spoil the twist. As you can tell, I did not like this movie. It felt as cliché as could be. I did not like the characters, all of whom became increasingly annoying. I did not like the writing. I did not like the acting, which goes into B level and below many, many times. And the visual style gets pretty dang boring after awhile. Note to some reviewers; spend some time on Vimeo, or Tumblr, and yeah, you got the visual aesthetic this strives for. Basically, everybody is doing that anyway, and really, swallow depth of field and especially tilt shift is boring when used for no reason other then, "to look cool". Which apply describes the hipster culture itself. It yells to be looked at, but on closer inspection, you realize that all its desires are superficial. Thats all it knows. And that sums up the film for me. Everything done for effect, and nothing done to strive for a deeper reading. And thats the issue, because its not even entertaining. In fact, its altogether boring, but in the American style of boring, and not in the European, sophisticated, by design way boring. I guess maybe its utility is best served as a sort of Hollywood calling card for the troupe, and for that, maybe it succeeds. But for something that I have to pay money to watch, no. And truth be told, if this was for free, I would probably pass as well.
A lot of promise that dwindles as it progresses.
Bellflower is an interesting film because even in it's flaws it kind of speaks to the kind of film that it is. Unfortunately for me though, that doesn't mean crap when the flaws are so blatant and intrusive. The film starts off interestingly, a really in-your-face turn back the clock montage that takes us to the beginning of our characters, two wild twenty-something youths who spend their free time (which it seems is all they have for some untold reason) preparing for their Mad Max vision of the end of the world. In their mind it's perfectly normal to spend their time building flamethrowers and tricking out muscle cars, which is so dumb and idiotic and an absolute perfect depiction of men at this time in their life. The first hour takes a relatively standard approach to following these guys, but despite some pretty awful amateur performances and awkwardly obvious pieces of dialogue, it had a certain charm for me. Writer/director/star Evan Glodell gives an aesthetic feeling that was off-putting at first -- the focus falls off every so often, flecks off dirt come up into the lens -- once I settled into it I really began to embrace the tone he was going for. However once the film started to really get a rhythm going it decided to awkwardly jump forward a period of time (you can tell because the main character has a beard now!) it really caves in on itself. It was going along smoothly but then decided to move the plot forward into more serious territory and then none of it worked anymore. Those bad performances became worse as the scenes progressed further and further into laughably horrendous melodrama with some of the most obvious and artificial character progressions and dialogue stretches I've seen. The film spirals down and down until it gets to it's last two chunks where I was just hoping they would clip the wings off and stop tarnishing the promise it once showed. There's a disastrous fifteen-minute sequence that felt absolutely worthless even before we find out that it actually is worthless, followed by the final act which just nonsensically rambles on for what seems like an eternity. Ultimately, it felt like this was a premise that would have worked great as a short feature, but in stretching it out to something full-length Glodell really destroyed everything he had going for him. Still, despite ultimately being a failure, I think Glodell shows some promise here as a filmmaker and I'll be curious to see what he does next.
Boring
We saw a few movies at the Seattle film fest and this was the worst of what we saw. I like the premise a lot but the actual story does not live up to its potential. It was directed amateurishly and worse is the cinematography. I know others like this but I don't get it. I thought the acting was weak and over-the-top in some parts. I really wanted to like this film but after 30 minutes I was so bored I couldn't take it. My wife wanted to leave but I gave this movie every chance and stuck it out. For those who think there's some sort of nuclear blast; there is none. There is Apocalypse or anything of the sort - it's just a character study and a boring one at that.
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant
When David Fincher was preparing to shoot Fight Club, he briefly considered dispensing with stars and a big budget to shoot the film guerrilla style on digital video. Had he gone that route, the results would have been something along the lines of Bellflower, an audacious, flame- spewing, spit in the face of everything stale and conventional about modern cinema. Shot on a nothing budget using a camera that director/writer/star Evan Glodell built from odds and ends, Bellflower is a stark critique of characters lost and struggling in the sun soaked wastelands of Southern California. To go into detail would certainly ruin the joy of discovery this brutal movie has to offer. Suffice to say it is a love story like no other, chock full of drunken brawls, flame- throwers, and a muscle car named Medusa (also built from scratch by Glodell). Personally, I think this is one of the most important movies that's come out in recent memory. With a raw, ugly beauty reminiscent of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the sparse immediacy of films like Two Lane Blacktop, and David Lynch's ability to make the banal nightmarish and horrifying, Bellflower incinerates the very notion of narrative filmmaking, redefining it on its own terms. If indie filmmaking is meant to push the envelope, this movie leaves that envelope charred and twisting in the wind.
Amazing movie, visually stunning...
Just got out of the screening of this movie at the Independent Film Fest of Boston. Bellflower is a visually stunning movie and is sure to make help make the career of the star/director and a few other members of the supporting cast. The basic premise is that two friends decide to future-proof themselves by creating weaponry designed for ruling a potential post-apocalyptic wasteland. They figure that if Mad Max has taught us anything it is that whoever has the most badass weapons will end up on top. Evan Glodell, Jessie Wiseman, Tyler Dawson and Rebekah Brandes turn in impressive performances. I am sure that we will be seeing plenty of Jessie Wiseman. The film was shot on handmade cameras that the director built which allowed him to create amazing tilt-shift visuals. All of the gadgets featured in the film were also built by the director for the movie. Filming happened over the course of 3 years on a meager budget of only $17,000, an amazing feat. If this movie is playing at a local festival you need to go see it ASAP. I'm pretty sure that there will be plenty of buzz surrounding the film once it gets a wider release.