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List Price: $24.98 | | Label: Universal Studios
Salesrank: 35698
Released: January 30, 2001 |
| Our Price: $7.88 |
| Used Price: $5.33 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
"Jesus' Son" is the story of a young man's circuitous journey from drug dependency and petty crime to a life redeemed by his startling discovery of compassion. Set in the drug subculture of the 1970's, a young man in his twenties (Billy Crudup) careens through his days getting stoned, stealing, or scamming a quick buck. He is driven by an overwhelming desire to help those around him, to save them from their often sorry fates, but he repeatedly fails. Almost by a miracle, redemption does come to the young man. It sneaks up on him almost imperceptibly, through barely observed lessons learned from a colorful parade of characters who range from a crazed, pill-popping hospital orderly (Jack Black), a down-on-his-luck-divorcee (Denis Leary), to a half-paralyzed woman (Holly Hunter) who teaches him about love. Bit by bit, the young man stumbles towards sobriety and lands a job at an assisted living facility where he discovers the depths of his own compassion for others, and the grace that comes with it.
Description of Jesus' Son:
Fans of the short stories in Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son will wonder how anyone could film a book so beautifully, radiantly, defiantly strange. The good news is that Alison Maclean's film version is more than just faithful to the book's spirit: It's the closest thing to a visual equivalent of Johnson's visionary prose. As a series of vignettes in the life of an unnamed Midwestern junkie-slash-holy fool, the stories are linked more through imagery than through anything so linear as a plot. Maclean preserves this episodic structure but adds just enough narrative glue to make the whole thing hang together as a film. (And wisely so; if she hadn't, there'd have been no role at all for Samantha Morton, brilliant here as Michelle, the narrator's girlfriend.) With a hero called Fuckhead, you know this isn't going to be entertainment for the whole family, and some of the scenes of drug use and associated gore are grim indeed. But the movie looks just right, and some of its images are so beautiful it hurts: old movies playing in an empty drive-in, snow swirling all around; a naked woman parasailing through the sky with her long red hair streaming behind.
Maclean also coaxes wonderful performances from a dream-indie cast, including Morton, the magnetic Billy Crudup as Fuckhead, Dennis Hopper, Holly Hunter, an uncharacteristically understated Denis Leary, and even, in a gruesome cameo, Denis Johnson himself. (Hint: Look for the knife. Then look away quickly.) Once again, Jack Black hijacks every frame in which he appears, and his turn as a pill-popping orderly gives new meaning to the phrase "I save lives." Things drag a little during the last half-hour, but squirm not: Following Fuckhead through rehab and beyond, the book's closing scenes are genuinely redemptive without hitting the audience over the head with a "lesson" of any kind. Jesus' Son is Maclean's first feature film since 1992's Crush; let's hope she won't make us wait as long before the next fix. --Mary Park
Jesus' Son Reviews:
soooooooooo great 
2009-08-16 - NO ONE knows how great this movie is,
everyone takes it for granted.
It's hilarious,trippy,sad,well acted and
awesome.
My hometown
2009-04-08 - A few scenes where it's supposedly Iowa it is actually my hometown of Riverside, NJ! I remember back then my coworkers told me that a movie was being filmed in my town and I should go watch the filming. Unfortunately I worked so much and was always on my feet all day that when I was at home I would be sleeping. I wish I could go back and change that but oh well. Some of the scenes are only 1 block away from my old house!
hilarious and sad at the same time 
2009-02-27 - great movie. hilarious but also very sad, you really see the price the main characters pay for their addictions.
'We're wrecking like trains.'
2008-08-21 - "All these . . . weirdos, and me . . . getting a little better every day right in the middle of 'em. I had never known . . . I had never even imagined for a heartbeat that . . . there might be a place in the world for people like us." --"FH"
Titled after Lou Reed's song, "Heroin," there is a reason Jesus' Son was considered one of the top ten films of 1999 by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Roger Ebert. Adapted from a Denis Johnson's visionary collection of short stories of the same name (Jesus' Son), this 1999 film stars Billy Crudup (Almost Famous) as "F***head," a drifter, and Samantha Morton as Michelle, the junkie lover who first introduced FH to heroin in the early 70s. The film follows FH's journey from a life of drug addiction, petty crime, detox, and AA meetings, to a life of compassion working at an assisted living facility housing troubled souls like him. Ultimately, Jesus' Son is an radiant redemption story of mesmerizing scenes. The film left me exhilarated and speechless. Jesus' Son also features an outstanding supporting cast including Holly Hunter, Dennis Hopper, Denis Leary, Will Patton, John Ventimiglia, and Jack Black. Highly recommended.
G. Merritt
A Beautiful Mess
2007-08-25 - This movie has a number of things going against it, principally its utter lack of anything resembling a plot... although given its source material (11 disjointed short stories), this is hardly surprising.
So why is it so eminently watchable? Billy Crudup may be easy on the eyes, but good looks alone don't explain how he brilliantly exposes the gentle, goofy heart of his character... there are no inner demons here, just the fundamental personality flaw of a man so erratic, even his junky friends call him "f***head."
Lots of cameos to enjoy herein as well, including a somewhat frightening Jack Black.
