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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Buffalo 66

08:35 / 09.12.02

I got this out the video shop yesterday after rave reviews from various of my friends, and in the press and thought it was absolutely rubbish. I wnated to shoot Vincent Gallo's character after 10 minutes and the plot is annoyingly implausible. I turned the damn thing off after 40 minutes, angry that my £2.50 didn't go on a Carry On film or something vaugely entertaining. I just wondered as it seems to have semi-cult film status, any fans here? Can you give me any reasons to watch the rest of it before it goes back to the shop?

uncle retrospective

08:49 / 09.12.02

None at all. It's wank in the worst tradition of "controversial" indie film making. Be thankful you didn't see the end, the plastic gunshot splats stuck to people are just the pits.
God I hate this film.

autopilot disengaged

09:28 / 09.12.02

i love this film.

...and why, exactly, is it so controversial? there's no body count to speak of, an absence of soft focus substance abuse... essentially it's a strongly character-driven film about family and love.

plausibility is not the goal here, and as for gallo's character - this is one anti-hero who actually develops thru the film - no one-dimensional cartoon, no authorial soapbox...

gah. it's a long time since i saw it, so i really can't argue convincingly. my memories are hazy - but warm.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:35 / 09.12.02

...and why, exactly, is it so controversial? there's no body count to speak of, an absence of soft focus substance abuse... essentially it's a strongly character-driven film about family and love.

Ummm...because he abducts a woman who is then shown to fall desperately in love with him, depsite his being abusive and at times threatening her either implicitly or explicitly with violence? Just a thought.

autopilot disengaged

10:00 / 09.12.02

romance, haus - romance. non-consensual romance, maybe but - (treading water...) couldn't it be said... (thinking...) long time. since saw it. (excuse reflex...)

as i remember - and correct away if i go astray - the whole film is essentially unrealistic - a black(ish) comedy, but laced with a vein of underdog sensitivity... when gallo's character abducts ricci's, it's every bit as transparent as one would expect from a (bad) mainstream pic... but as the movie progresses, and we start to understand what a dysfunctional idiot gallo's lead actually is - when we see the horrendous family he's trying to impress - and their complete lack of interest in him...

the way ricci's character shifts into sticking up for him in this obviously hostile environment, and then, eventually chooses to hang around when she could easily walk out - is wish fulfilment writ large, i'd agree... but i still thought it was supersweet.

The Return Of Rothkoid

10:21 / 09.12.02

I'll hopefully write something up when I'm a little more with it, but my thoughts are pretty much distilled to this: Gallo is a fuckhead. While this isn't exactly meeting Flyboy's "saying something's lame isn't a good enough reason", I just couldn't believe the handjobs he got for this: it seemed weak, lacked direction, and as Haus points out, isn't exactly full of glowing messages about relationships and violence. If anything, though, it all fed back into what I opened with: Gallo is a fuckhead, and I liked him better when he was playing a corpse for Ferrara.

To be perfectly honest, the tagline for this film could've been: hey! I'm edgy'n'shit and got to see Christina Ricci in the bath! and that would've perfectly encapsulated it. Wank. Tedious, arse-numbing wank.

So that's a thumbs-down.

11:12 / 09.12.02

Funnily enough, I saw this for the first time the other week as well .. guess the video must be on special offer or something..

Thought it was an extremely well made film, terrifc soundtrack, some exquisite individual scenes, but..

..yeah, I guess it was deliberate, but it's one of those films where the character's actions & motivations just .. don't make sense.. and not in a good way either..

Why the hell does she fall for him? I mean, I could understand it if they went into her personality / background a bit and gave us some reasons why.. but the film doesn't even bother to give her a character at all.. it's just like "I'm the tortured and maladjusted hero who's mental makeup and history is explained in mindnumbing detail, and you're, er, the girl. And I'm also the DIRECTOR, so FALL IN LOVE WITH ME, DAMMIT!"

Gallo's 'completely hung-up aggressive anti-social bastard' thing works well at the start of the film, but rather than have his character gradually change, which might have been interesting, he just carries on in that mould all the way through, to the point of comnplete self-parody, and then suddenly changes completely in the last five minutes..

The whole awkward-to-the-point-of-weird section where he visits his parents works well, but it's goodness is largely nullified by the fact that it's a near complete rip from David Lynch..

12:04 / 09.12.02

I think Rizla's on the money there. It wasn't just the ethics, or lack thereof, of Gallo's character that got on my tits, so much as the just sheer lack of credibility around Christine Ricci. Is she a kidnap fetishist or what? I like my fantasy to have dragons, trolls and spaceships the size of suns. Love in abusive relationships is something that could be covered a lot better.

Te other thing that really pissed me off was the constant machine gunning verbiage of Gallo's character - he seemed to be thinking if I keep talking, maybe no one will notice I can't act.

And also, worse than that, there's those horrible little red boots he wears. Ugh.

autopilot disengaged

12:40 / 09.12.02

ok: get this:

buffalo 66 is a film in which gallo's character, rejected by his family though he doesn't deserve it - is then redeemed by ricci's - though he doesn't deserve it.

how about that?

The Natural Way

12:52 / 09.12.02

Those shots of him in the photo booth. Just. Staring. still make me crack up.

The Natural Way

12:53 / 09.12.02

Why are we talking about this? Why aren't we talking Tenenbaums?

BAUMS!

Murray Hamhandler

13:46 / 09.12.02

I've not seen it in a couple of years, but I used to watch Buffalo 66 all the time. It used to be on a constant double bill w/Gummo in my girlfriend-at-the-time's apartment. Perhaps it was the freakshow aspect of the two films that so enraptured my friends and I in those days of old. Perhaps I shall have to give it another viewing.

The Natural Way

13:53 / 09.12.02

The only film I've had that kind of relationship w/ was 'Dazed and Confused'. It was.....always on. We knew it so well. I don't even remember how and why we ended up watching it so much (I mean, I really like it and all, but it's not as though it's my favourite film or anything), but I could probably reel the entire script off from memory.

Foxy Runce on the run, he screams and every runce 'a' comes, a runcin'....

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:25 / 09.12.02

Hmm. remember loving this, will have to give it another watch, not having seen it for ages.

It *does* reek of indie-pretentions, but since when is that a crime around here?

I found the dynamics of the family hysterical (in both senses), and - within the not particularly realist setting - pretty sharply observed. I *liked* the way we discover why VG is such a pathetic bully... the switch from 'sinister ex-con' to 'bullied disappointment to his parents/practically invisible child... the shift in power when he realises that he 'needs' Ricci to pull things off is well done...

and the things a farce anyway... I never saw it as attempting realism..... it shoves its fakeness/constructedness at you constantly...

Love the styling and the casting as well.

20:35 / 09.12.02

I just liked the fact that he used that particular Yes song so much (and so well) in the film.

22:41 / 09.12.02

Buffalo 66 is definitely one of those films that you either like or dislike since it makes just about everyone uncomfortable watching it. I think part of the problem is that it goes beyond acerbic. Gallo is trying to get the demon urine of Buffalo out of his veins, trying to overcome his hometown's cyncism, by taking himself and the audience through the filth. Buffalo, NY is quaintly known as the City of No Illusions because it has a curse, an ineffiable taint, that clings to its sons and daughters and turns their dreams toxic, hence his father brutally killing the puppy, a scene that turned my stomach. It's hard to like a film filled with so much disdain for a hometown, particularly when the disdainer is as vocally and visually opinionated as Gallo. I don't think many people really get the movie or enjoy its "f**k you" postcard nature. Gallo's cinemaphotography is adequate, as is his script. Angelica Houston has definitely been better in other films and she seems drugged in this one. I don't this movie was made to be loved. It was made to shame and spit.

And if you wonder how I know so much about Buffalo, I'll slyly point out that Gallo is urinating on the grounds of my high school early in the picture. Not that I mind that. I did it once or twice myself.

gentleman loser

18:46 / 11.12.02

The Return Of Rothkoid

To be perfectly honest, the tagline for this film could've been: hey! I'm edgy'n'shit and got to see Christina Ricci in the bath! and that would've perfectly encapsulated it. Wank. Tedious, arse-numbing wank.

My thoughts exactly. Gallo couldn't be a credible actor if his life depended on it and all of the old "I'm the definition of independent! Seriously! Look, look at all of the arty editing and wacky characters!" cliches worked my last nerve so much that I couldn't even watch the whole thing without falling asleep. Hadn't Lynch and Tarantino run this genre into the ground by '98?

I also would like to add that I've never understood the supposedly undeniable appeal of Christina Ricci either.