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List Price: $29.95 | | Label: Kino International
Salesrank: 33059
Released: May 1, 2007 |
| Our Price: $14.88 |
| Used Price: $7.34 |
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MPAA Rating:
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Studio: Kino International Release Date: 05/01/2007 Run time: 76 minutes
Description of Old Joy:
Based on a 50-page script by Jon Raymond, and shot in ten days, Old Joy has a quiet energy that propels it further in its simplicity than many big budget movies. Director Kelly Reichardt, a former assistant on early Todd Haynes films, has enlisted Haynes as an executive producer and Yo La Tengo for soundtrack, lending Old Joy a hipness that it exploits to reveal the relationship between the two main characters. Mark (Daniel London) leaves his pregnant wife, Tanya, at home for an excursion into the woods with his hippified buddy, Kurt (Will Oldham). Leaving Portland in Mark's Volvo, with dog in tow, Kurt smoke bowls while Mark navigates into the Cascades backcountry, where the two get temporarily lost then camp until morning, for a hike to paradisiacal Bagby Hot Springs. Slight tension arises out of their divergent lifestyles. Mark's a liberal yuppie, while Kurt's easy drifting underpins his idealism. In key scenes, Kurt verbalizes his fears that the two old friends are losing intimacy. But Kurt's sweetness, for example when he asks, "Is it cool if I sleep in the tent with you?" or massages Mark's shoulders, overrides any real conflict. Cuts to birds chirping, slugs crawling, and campfires raging also relax the viewer as illustrations of the forest's healing power. More a meditation than a packed adventure film, some may find Old Joy slow and meandering, while others will enjoy this pace as precisely the film's point. --Trinie Dalton
Old Joy Reviews:
A really dull exercise, indictative of a deadly subgenre in indie cinema... 
2009-09-27 - There seems to be an annoying mini-genre emerging from indie (and foreign) cinema, and that is a genre composed of films with long takes, leisurely pacing, lots of long shots, and with characters and plotlines you don't see in Hollywood films. Many of my favorite filmmakers shoot their films in this style (like Andrei Tarkovsky), and some modern directors pull it off masterly (like Abbas Kiarostami, Alexander Sokurov, and the great Bela Tarr), but there are many who don't, and who are overpraised to the hilt because of it. The practioneers of this horrid subgenre are David Gordon Green (whose George Washington is an incoherent mess, despite stunning cinematography), Ramin Bahrani (Goodbye Solo, despite a fine lead performance, is a plodding mess), Courtney Hunt (Frozen River is a really overrated film that is, actually, awful), Carlos Reygadas (Silent Light is a ripoff of Dreyer's Ordet), and this film.
Old Joy hooked me at first with its beautiful location shooting (Oregon, to be precise), but then ventured off into a real, crashing bore, with mundane dialogue and bland performances by the two leads. In Goodbye Solo, for instance, the lead character's performance is exemplary, which made up a lot for the plodding screenplay, and Frozen River's lead performances are good, too. Here in Old Joy, the leads are dull. Perhaps it's the mundane material they've been forced to deal with. Actors can only do so much if the script is purposely dull. John Ford used to show working class people with a lot more dignity and better dialogue than Kelly Reichardt does here. And while the Oregon scenery is really beautiful, you can see stuff like that in a nature documentary easily. It's nice that directors like Kelly Reichardt are trying to create something different, but they're not succeeding at all. In fact, it's almost like they're reading a manual of what an art film should be and working from that manual, instead of working from their guts.
Old Joy is not a good film despite the pretty scenery. Watch a Tarkovsky, Ford, or Dreyer film instead.
Unbearably stiff and dull. 
2009-09-18 - My wife heard good things about this movie. We were not initially impressed - painfully slow, very dull, stiffly acted. It did not get better. I stopped watching about 30 minutes in...she lasted another 15. Overrated.
Great Purchase 
2008-11-01 - Love this movie and I was really happy with the service provided from the seller. The movie came really quick and they sent me a nice personal note about the film.
John
ugh
2008-07-23 - The praises of all the positive reviews about strained relationships and feelings explored are entirely true.
However, I think any adult is capable of understanding those aspects and extracting all this film has to offer in the first twenty minutes. If you picked a conversation out of the middle, you could probably cut that to about five minutes.
It's a story far too mundane for a film and should be avoided - just like the relationship it portrays.
An Accurate Depiction of the Bagby Experience
2008-05-15 - I probably can add little to the many comments here about this movie itself; you can read as many who think the movie is great as who think it is a waste of time. Therefore, I would like to address the Bagby Hot Springs experience. [Like many, many others, Bagby is one of my two favorite hots springs in the Northwest. (My other favorite is Jerry Johnson Hot Springs in Idaho.)] First, when I saw these two men drive across a particular bridge I told my wife they're going the wrong way. And, of course, we learn that they did get lost. So, if you think you'd like to visit Bagby, bear in mind that the roads shown in the movie, while in general give the feel of the forty miles from Estacada, should not be believed is the right way out there. Years ago there used to be signs directing the way, but the last time I went there the signs had been removed so you really have to know on your own how to get there.
The movie gives the impression that it is undeveloped, except at the hot springs itself. In fact, there is a good-sized parking lot and a forest service campground almost next to the Bagby parking areas. [I have seen a 'milk truck' concession stand there in busy weekends.] Once you are parked, you immediately go across a Forest Service footbridge over a creek, and then start up the trail, about a mile and a half to the hot springs. With my family it would take twenty to thirty minutes to walk. I don't know what trail they followed up in the movie, but it looks a lot more rugged than the actual trail. There is at least one more footbridge to cross on the way in or out. So, once again the movie gives you a good feeling of being in the rain forest, but it is not along the actual trail.
What you see in the movie is the actual Bagby Hot Springs, My whole family, and friends who went with us, soaked in the actual hollowed out cedar log tubs shown in the movie. There is also a four or five person hot tub under the roof the movie shows. [If you are a bit too shy to go in the communal areas, there are maybe half a dozen private enclosures on the other side of the communal area walls.] The depiction of the two friend's soak in the hot water is exactly how it really is. It may seem boring to some, and it may be boring watching others in a movie, but the actual sound of the water and the many birds chirping or warbling, and even the gentle breeze have a tendency to create a spontaneous reverence arising from Nature. Needless talking there is about as out of place as babbling aloud in a great cathedral. So, it may seem that the movie lacks dialogue there, but that really is how one in tune with Nature feels while soaking at Bagby.
Don't get the idea that Bagby Hot Springs is as unused as the movie makes it seem. I've been there only once when nobody else was there, and that on a miserable rainy, cold summer weekday. Indeed, if it is a nice weekend day, you can expect to have to wait for your turn. But, the wait is worth it. Also, this truly is a family destination; the hike is challenging to children, but well within their abilities. Our kids have almost always found other kids out there to play with. Finally, at the end of the movie it says that nudity is not allowed. Hogwash. I can't recall ever being there when somebody wore a bathing suit, and that includes toddlers, children, adolescents, adults and even the elderly. So, if you are offended by the naked body, you'd do best to look for one of the more remote hot springs in the Pacific Northwest. Therefore, when the guys in the movie go naked in the log tubs, that is how you'll find it if you visit the place, except that also there with you will be the thin, fat, young or old naked people also soaking as well.
In short, I don't think there could be a more realistic and accurate depiction of the Bagby Hot Springs experience than that shown in this movie. The only reservation would be that the trail to it looks a lot less developed in the movie than it actually is. The trail Mark and Kurt are shown walking on as they leave is the actual trail. If you find this movie boring or not to your liking, then you probably aren't cut out to soak in Nature as you soak in Her natural hot springs.
