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List Price: $24.98 | | Label: New Line Home Video
Salesrank: 25968
Released: July 27, 1999 |
| Our Price: $5.07 |
| Used Price: $3.36 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
At the very juncture where hollywood meets the mountains where the almost-rich and not-yet-famous live on cheap thrills and heady ambition while searching for true love and redemption eddie and his three best friends engage in a wild life of witty repartee and snappy come-backs of ex-wives and future lovers. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 05/10/2005 Starring: Sean Penn Meg Ryan Run time: 126 minutes Rating: R Director: Anthony Drazan
Description of Hurlyburly (New Line Platinum Series):
You wouldn't want to spend much time with the folks from David Rabe's play Hurlyburly. A sensation when it played on stage (with marquee names Harvey Keitel and William Hurt), Rabe's tale of the cocaine-influenced days of Hollywood in the 1980s is a bitter rambling of what humans do with too much drive, power, and money. Robin Williams's joke about cocaine being God's way of telling you have too much money certainly comes into play here. A few days in the life of casting agent Eddie (Sean Penn) and his friends (separated by a year) take place in Eddie's posh L.A. bungalow. Here he and his roomie Mickey (Kevin Spacey) talk nonstop about sex and power, syntax and meaning. Into this wash comes a charitable bigwig (Gary Shandling), a street kid (Anna Paquin), and Eddie's rudderless friend, the violent Phil (Chazz Palminteri). If there is a central story to be found, it's Eddie's drive to fall in love with Darlene (Robin Wright Penn), who finds this world exciting--or at least intoxicating.
This is not the bunch to invite over to your house, and many might even want to skip the two-hour film with its talky, pathetic prose. These characters would probably be despicable even if they weren't addicted to some narcotic. And the talk is endless; conversations that finish with a door slam are taken up moments later on the cell phone (a nice updating touch by Rabe). What draws big-name actors to Rabe's work is the chance to work on one's raw acting talent. Penn and Palminteri fit their roles like gloves, and Spacey again proves he is one of the most watchable actors around. Every nuance, bad pun, and irrelevant slip of Spacey's wicked tongue has a brutal kind of poetry here in a film that can be admired but not loved. --Doug Thomas
Hurlyburly (New Line Platinum Series) Reviews:
When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain? When the hurlyburly's done, when the battle's lost and won 
2009-01-29 - Hurlyburly is a film based on a play by David Rabe, who also wrote the screenplay. A lot of Rabe's work is based on his Vietnam War experiences, and he also wrote the screenplay for Casulties of War, also starring Sean Penn. The play was over three hours long and was set in the 80's, but the film was condensed and updated to the late 90's, which was when it was released. The title is drawn from Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 1, and the definition of "hurlyburly" is "noisy confusion" or "tumult."
The story concerns low to mid level players in Hollywood, who take massive amounts of drugs to fuel their search for meaning in their isolated, empty lives, and their endless, pretentious discussions of said quest, laced with misogyny.
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Mickey: You don't know what you're saying. You don't.
Eddie: I do.
Mickey: No. I know you think you know what you're saying, but you're not saying it.
Eddie: No, I know what I'm saying. I don't know what I mean, but I know what I'm saying. Is that what you mean?
Mickey: Yeah.
Eddie: Right. But it's not like anybody knows what anything means, right? It's not like anybody knows that. So at least I know I don't know what I mean, which is better than most people. They probably think they know what they mean, not just what they think they mean.
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Eddie (Sean Penn) and Mickey (Kevin Spacey) live and work together. Is this a bromance? No, it is more like frenemies. Amusing scene where Eddie calls Mickey while Mickey's on his way to work. Eddie is on the balcony, and he turns from the phone and shouts at him as he drives by. There is a lot of friction between them because Mickey is dating Eddie's ex-girlfriend, Darleene (Robin Penn Wright), and though he pretends to be cool, he still has feelings for her. Why don't they car pool? Obviously, they want to maintain their autonomy at work. Mickey is separated from his spouse and children, but this is just a goof for him--he intends to go back to his family when this episode is finished. Their pad is like a frat house where they remain frozen in adolescence; and friends like Phil (Chazz Palminteri) and Artie (Gary Shandling) drop by.
Phil is an out-of-work actor prone to explosive angry outbursts. He hopes to get parts playing thugs or hoods, but he's a much too authentic thug--an ex con, not too smart--who nevertheless has adopted the pretentious psuedo-intellectual speech patterns of his peers. He turns to Eddie for support as his life crumbles.
Artie is kind of a dork, and he is jealous of the bond between Phil and Eddie. He suspects that Eddie uses Phil to make himself feel better, because no matter how far he falls, Phil is always that much farther gone. As an example of just how awry their collective moral compass has gone, Artie tries to ingratiate himself by giving them a runaway girl, Donna (Anna Paquin), that he found in an elevator.
Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, and the tension ratchets up. In a misguided attempt to buoy Phil's flagging spirits they set him up with a druggie named Bonnie (Meg Ryan). Bad idea, as Phil is so far gone that it is dangerous to be alone with him. The slightest slight--real or perceived--could set him off. He says he's hungry and Bonnie suggest some Jack in the Box. Paranoid, he asks if that is code for something--and pushes her out of her moving car.
A stellar cast doing their best work. Sean Penn, Anna Paquin, and Kevin Spacey have all gone on to win Oscars, but I think their performances here were better. It is a scathing critique of Hollywood, and no wonder they didn't reward it. Sean Penn in particular gives a tour de force performance. He really drinks deep of the human experience, draining his three-quarters empty cup to the dregs. The scenes where he fights with his girlfriend, real-life wife Robin Wright Penn, are priceless. He talks around what is really bothering him, arguing about the most trivial things, anything to avoid what he is really feeling:
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Darlene: I don't care.
Eddie: What do you mean, you don't care?
Darlene: It doesn't matter to me anymore.
Eddie: No, it matters, and you care. What you mean is it doesn't make any difference!
Darlene: UGH! I cannot stand this semantic insanity ANYMORE! I can't be that specific about my feelings! I can't!
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Spacey is amazing as the cynical, slick Mickey. No matter how strict the edict, how ironclad the commandments, he will find ten loopholes--ten ways to rationalize his bad behavior. He will also cling to rhetoric and semantics to avoid the real issue:
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Eddie: Flip is sarcastic.
Mickey: No, it's not. That's crazy. Sarcastic is mean, it's heavy - it's funny, sure, but it's mean. I do both, but this was flip.
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Though all the pretentious chatter, the hurlyburly, the billingsgate, as it were, would seem to be most tedious to sit through, trust me, the dialogue crackles with intensity. Even though the characters struggle to articulate their thoughts--they even struggle to think any coherent thoughts--often falling back on "blah blah blah," David Rabe has constructed an incredible screenplay. It says so much. It says so much.
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Eddie: Do you ever have that experience where your thoughts are like these totally separate, totally self-sustaining phone booths and there's like this vast uninhabited shopping mall in your head? Do you ever have that experience?
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No, really. It really does. It says so much. Even though the characters seem so very far from redemption, it says so much.
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Eddie: In the Middle Ages everyone really had to worry about witches and goblins, but what we have is stuff eating at us. We've got stuff we don't even... I mean, why do you think that all the warlords of the world are so anxious to get their own personal little stash of chemical weapons. They call them weapons of mass destruction, but they're not. They're very *very* selective about what they destroy. They annihilate people and preserve things. They love things. You and I would be dead, gas... puke... gone. Whereas, you know, other earlier older people - the ancients - could look to the heavens, which in their minds was inhabited by this thoughtful, meditative, you know, maybe a trifle unpredictable and wrathful, but nevertheless up there - this divine onlooker. We've got anchorpersons and talking heads. We've got politicians who decide life and death issues on the basis of their media concerns. That's what we've got.
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Sean Penn as Eddie
Mystic River (2003) .... Jimmy Markum (won best actor Oscar, and cast included Kevin Bacon)
Sweet and Lowdown (1999) .... Emmet Ray (best actor Oscar nomination)
Dead Man Walking (1995) .... Matthew Poncelet (best actor Oscar nomination)./;
Casualties of War (1989) .... Sgt. Tony Meserve
The Falcon and the Snowman (1985) .... Daulton Lee
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) .... Jeff Spicoli
Kevin Spacey as Mickey
Pay It Forward (2000) .... Eugene Simonet
American Beauty (Widescreen Edition) (1999) .... Lester Burnham
L.A. Confidential (1997) .... Jack Vincennes
The Usual Suspects (1994) .... Roger 'Verbal' Kint
... aka Die Üblichen Verdächtigen (Germany)
Swimming with Sharks (1994) .... Buddy Ackerman
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) .... John Williamson
Robin Wright Penn as Darlene
What Just Happened (2008) .... Kelly
Beowulf (2007) (as Robin Wright-Penn) .... Wealthow
Sorry, Haters (2005) .... Phoebe
Nine Lives (2005) .... Diana
White Oleander (2002) .... Starr
Forrest Gump (1994) (as Robin Wright) .... Jenny Curran
Chazz Palminteri as Phil
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006) .... Monty
One Eyed King (2001) .... Eddie Dugan
A Night at the Roxbury (1998) (uncredited) .... Benny Zadir
Mulholland Falls (1996) .... Elleroy Coolidge
Jade (1995) .... Matt Gavin
Bullets Over Broadway (1994) .... Cheech
Garry Shandling as Artie
Town & Country (2001) .... Griffin Miller
What Planet Are You From? (2000) .... Harold Anderson
Doctor Dolittle (1998) (voice) .... Male Pigeon
"The Larry Sanders Show" .... Larry Sanders (89 episodes, 1992-1998)
Love Affair (1994) .... Kip DeMay
"It's Garry Shandling's Show." .... Garry Shandling (72 episodes, 1986-1990)
Anna Paquin as Donna
The Squid and the Whale (2005) .... Lili
Finding Forrester (2000) .... Claire Spence
Almost Famous (2000) .... Polexia Aphrodisia
X-Men (2000) .... Rogue / Marie D'Ancanto
A Walk on the Moon (1999) .... Alison Kantrowitz
The Piano (1993) .... Flora McGrath
Meg Ryan as Bonnie
In the Cut (2003) .... Frannie (cast included Kevin Bacon, uncredited)
You've Got Mail (1998) .... Kathleen Kelly
When a Man Loves a Woman (1994) .... Alice Green
Sleepless in Seattle (1993) .... Annie Reed
The Doors (1991) .... Pamela Courson
When Harry Met Sally... (1989) .... Sally Albright
First Witch: "When shall we three meet again / In thunder, lightning, or in rain?"
Second Witch: "When the hurlyburly's done, / When the battle's lost and won."
~William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 1
BEST REASON NOT TO DO COCAINE... 
2008-12-17 - THIS MOVIE IS REALISTIC THE ACTING IS GOOD BUT, THESE ARE SOME REALLY MESSED UP PEOPLE. IT'S LIKE WATCHING A TRAIN CRASH YA WANT TO LOOK AWAY BUT, YOU ARE KIND OF RIVETED AND YA JUST HAVE TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS TO THESE IDIOTS...
Movie For Analytical People with OCD/Addiction/Narcissism Issues
2007-04-13 - I guess I can understand why people don't like this movie. It can seen as pointless and depressing. However, obviously, I have a different opinion. This is actually one of my favorite movies. I've studied addiction psychology (in class and in life), and I am going for a double major in psychology and philosophy. A lot of people think philosophy is pointless and boring, but someone like myself finds it to be a fabulous subject into which one can invest oneself. So, that having been said, I think people don't like this movie, at least in part, because they don't like philosophy, or they don't relate to addiction problems, or they don't relate to the desire that so many people have of "making it" in Hollywood.
Hurlyburly has an extremely witty script, and the performances are well delivered.
I think that this very dry humor may turn a lot of people off. But if you like philosophy and dry humor, and you don't mind a few three or four-syllable words scattered around in a script, and if you can find the silver lining in a film that, without analysis, had the ability to take you down in the dumps, then I recommend this movie to you. (Where ever you are, you are probably my soul mate).
Nose Dive to Oblivion 
2006-11-14 - When David Rabe's play "Hurlyburly" opened on Broadway in August 1984, it was directed by Mike Nichols. It ran for 343 performances -- a long Broadway run -- and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. William Hurt was nominated for Best Actor in his role as Eddie. Judith Ivey who recently appeared in the Clint Eastwood film "Flags of our Fathers" won the Tony as Featured Actress in a play. The rest of the cast included Harvey Keitel as Phil, Cynthia Nixon as Donna, Ron Silver as Mickey, Jerry Stiller as Artie and Sigorney Weaver as Darlene. It's easy to see why a producer would want to bring this to the screen.
With lead actors Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey & Anna Paquin, there are four Oscars to make this an award-winning cast. Perhaps there is a great difference from a Mike Nichols production that would bring out the ironies and balance it with comedy to this film Director Anthony Drazen who won the filmmaker's trophy @ Sundance for "Dramatic Zebrahead." Whatever the reason, the film quickly become tedious and the down-spirals into a valueless void.
It is hard to deny that Sean Penn is one of the most brilliant screen actors working today. He won the Best Actor Award for this picture @ the Venice Film Festival. As Eddie, he snorts cocaine like a chain smoker, snarls, cries & puts his hand in his pants. Watching the actor bounce between highs and lows must be a qualitatively quite difference performance that William Hurt's on Broadway. Penn is worth watching. He's brilliant and makes the film worth a second star.
Kevin Spacey as the manipulative Mickey is hardly endearing. Yes, compared the other guys he seems relatively together. But his separation from his wife and family are hardly touched upon in the screenplay. It leaves Spacey with a mono-level performance that, while interesting, does not move us because he doesn't change.
Chazz Palminteri as the gorilla-minded Neanderthal Phil that can't control himself around women is utterly obnoxious. It's unclear why Eddie keeps him around. Perhaps to feel that he's better than someone else, as the dialogue indicates. But we don't really get that emotional need. Thus when Phil drives off Mulholland, we're really just glad to be rid of him.
I agree that the women are the most likeable. However, we fail to understand why they hang around these guys. Robin Wright Penn's Darlene seems too bright & together to connect with Eddie. As the waif Donna, Anna Paquin almost made me forget her Rogue character from the X-Men movies. She is so vulnerable that I felt sorry for her. As Bonnie, Meg Ryan takes the role that won Ivey the Tony, but we fail to understand why she is loose. She doesn't seem like a girl who'd have such low standards. The fact that she walks out on Eddie seems to confirm this.
Screenwriter David Rabe had worked with Penn in two other films, "State of Grace" & "Casualties of War." While Penn comes off the best, the overall effect of the story is that these are successful people who live in the Hollywood hills, but who have no moral compass and are profoundly unhappy. It was a chore to make myself sit through the entire film. I could only do it late at night after my wife had gone to bed, because she wanted nothing to do with it after the first 10 minutes. So while this project may have been wonderful on Broadway, the film version nose-dived into oblivion. Taxi!
A Swill Time Was Had By All 
2006-10-28 - David Rabe, author of the play upon which this temple of twaddle was built, cannot blame the film's sins on others, he also did the screen adaptation. Considering the exemplary cast, he and director Anthony Drazen must assume the magnitude of guilt in its entirety.
Plays that adapt well to film have compelling characters, shifting relationships, well-hewn plots that offer surprises, and sparkling dialogue. Good actors love them because they provide opportunities to hone their craft. In Hurlyburly, excellent actors play despicable, uninteresting roles and try to breathe life into tortured, endless dialogue that is vacuous, pretentious, and - dumb.
The film rests on Sean Penn, and he is definitely capable of great performances. (It's rumored he devoted weeks to snorting coke, smoking weed, and consorting with call girls to prepare for the role.) Penn certainly gives it his all, but the part is just so stupid that the effort is wasted.
Eddie, Penn, appears to be going through some sort of existential crisis which necessitates bonding with Phil, Chazz Palminteri. Phil, who is going to night school in hopes of evolving a thumb, really embodies all the men of this movie - soulless, brutish, and without any redeeming human qualities at all.
In addition to being thoroughly misanthropic, Hurlyburly has a strong misogynistic streak. These are the kind of men who obsess about finding women and as soon as they do, beat them - emotionally, psychologically, or physically. It is therefore ironic that the women of this movie come off best. Meg Ryan, a stripper, brings clear rationality and a sense of values, a street waif played beautifully by Anna Paquin brings serene wisdom, and Darlene, Robin Wright Penn, brings an ability to understand her own emotional limitations lacking in all the men.
These performances do not even begin to redeem Hurlyburly, which is far worse than bad; this is a film to be vigorously avoided.
