An eleven-year-old girl watches her father come down with a crippling depression. Over one summer, she learns answers to several mysteries, and comes to terms with love and loss.
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Fact-based biography of early film Producer and Director Bill Tilghman (Sam Elliott). Tilghman was a real-life cowboy, who rode with the Earps and faced down countless bad guys. When he ... See full summary »
Director:
John Kent Harrison
Stars:
Sam Elliott,
Arliss Howard,
Carolyn McCormick
A mysterious bomber is planting explosive devices in Seattle, Washington. Since their quality takes too big a toll amongst Seattle Police bomb experts, John Pierce, former head of the Bomb ... See full summary »
Director:
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Stars:
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Charles Martin Smith,
Kelly Benson
Rafe Covington promises a dying friend that he'll watch over the man's wife and ranch after he's gone. When Rafe gets to his friend's ranch, he finds that Barkow, the local power in town, ... See full summary »
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Simon Wincer
Stars:
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Virginia Madsen,
Wilford Brimley
Terri Hansen is discovered in the desert beside the blackened husk of her car which contains the charred corpse of her husband. When forensic evidence makes her out to be her husband's ... See full summary »
Senator Laine Hanson is a contender for U.S. Vice President, but information and disinformation about her past surfaces that threatens to derail her confirmation.
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An eleven-year-old girl watches her father come down with a crippling depression. Over one summer, she learns answers to several mysteries, and comes to terms with love and loss.
Joan Allen and Sam Elliott appeared in The Contender (2000). See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Adult Bo:
[narrating]
The summer my father was depressed the face of our Lord Jesus Christ appeared on a tortilla at the Taos Junction Cafe. It hung on a nail by the door, and pilgrims came to bear witness. Maria, who saw the face emerge and fainted dead away, wanted to shellac it to preserve it for all eternity. It was a wish of vanity, for she'd hoped only to extend her new-found notoriety. But time had its way, and within the years the face was gone, though something of its anguish ...
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This movie just blew my mind!! Let me start by quoting some of the review in LA Weekly:
From beginning to end, the movie achieves nearly complete originality of expression that makes it as anomalous a figure on today's independent film landscape as the film's characters are on theirs. Sequestered on a ranch deep in the recesses of rural New Mexico, a part-Hopi woman (Joan Allen), her catatonic depressed husband (Sam Elliot) & their precocious 11-year old daughter (Valentina de Angelis) live off the land...
The characters rarely do what we expect of them, while tragedy, absurdity and mordant humor are held in a precarious balance that recalls Sam Shepard at his best...
The ocean meets the sky in a cycloramic mural that, like the movie itself, is a small masterpiece of tone and form. To watch Off the Map is to be pulled into a private universe on the brink of civilization--from which, at the end of two hours, it is impossible to exit unaffected.
This is too true. Half the audience sat through all the credits & then sat for a long few minutes more, just unable to move. For the second time in a week--1st was after Dear Frankie--I was walking the beach for an hour working off feelings stirred up by a film. I don't usually react this way!!
Some more observations from me:
Acting: Joan Allen has GOT to get an Oscar nomination for this! She's excellent throughout, but there's one scene you will never forget: She's hoeing the garden nude with a floppy hat standing like a statue. I won't say more, but what you think is going on isn't. The whole way the scene is filmed is both hilarious & just wow all at once. She was so brave doing that--and no ridiculous implants for her! She's just gorgeous.
Valentina: She shines. It reminded me of the reaction Natalie Portman got in Beautiful Girls. The one where men were saying, "I feel like a pervert, but I can't wait for her to grow up." But this blows Natalie away, in my opinion.
Sam Elliot does an amazing job as the depressed husband. He looks old & grizzled these days but he's got a sexy deep sand papery voice I've always liked. And he's still handsome.
Jim True-Frost plays a visitor who gets drawn into their strange world. He has several excellent scenes where he blurts out all these intense feelings.
Script: The whole story is just so unique. And the dialog is really clever. It will remind you a little of David Mamet.
Directing/camera-work: Campbell Scott created an amazing film and has an eye for beauty and a feel for understated but potent eroticism. But what really got me is the way they framed shots when the characters start doing something really random. The action often starts outside the audience's POV & pans over so you're craning in your seat to see what's going on in anticipation.
I can't recommend this highly enough!
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This movie just blew my mind!! Let me start by quoting some of the review in LA Weekly:
From beginning to end, the movie achieves nearly complete originality of expression that makes it as anomalous a figure on today's independent film landscape as the film's characters are on theirs. Sequestered on a ranch deep in the recesses of rural New Mexico, a part-Hopi woman (Joan Allen), her catatonic depressed husband (Sam Elliot) & their precocious 11-year old daughter (Valentina de Angelis) live off the land...
The characters rarely do what we expect of them, while tragedy, absurdity and mordant humor are held in a precarious balance that recalls Sam Shepard at his best...
The ocean meets the sky in a cycloramic mural that, like the movie itself, is a small masterpiece of tone and form. To watch Off the Map is to be pulled into a private universe on the brink of civilization--from which, at the end of two hours, it is impossible to exit unaffected.
This is too true. Half the audience sat through all the credits & then sat for a long few minutes more, just unable to move. For the second time in a week--1st was after Dear Frankie--I was walking the beach for an hour working off feelings stirred up by a film. I don't usually react this way!!
Some more observations from me:
Acting: Joan Allen has GOT to get an Oscar nomination for this! She's excellent throughout, but there's one scene you will never forget: She's hoeing the garden nude with a floppy hat standing like a statue. I won't say more, but what you think is going on isn't. The whole way the scene is filmed is both hilarious & just wow all at once. She was so brave doing that--and no ridiculous implants for her! She's just gorgeous.
Valentina: She shines. It reminded me of the reaction Natalie Portman got in Beautiful Girls. The one where men were saying, "I feel like a pervert, but I can't wait for her to grow up." But this blows Natalie away, in my opinion.
Sam Elliot does an amazing job as the depressed husband. He looks old & grizzled these days but he's got a sexy deep sand papery voice I've always liked. And he's still handsome.
Jim True-Frost plays a visitor who gets drawn into their strange world. He has several excellent scenes where he blurts out all these intense feelings.
Script: The whole story is just so unique. And the dialog is really clever. It will remind you a little of David Mamet.
Directing/camera-work: Campbell Scott created an amazing film and has an eye for beauty and a feel for understated but potent eroticism. But what really got me is the way they framed shots when the characters start doing something really random. The action often starts outside the audience's POV & pans over so you're craning in your seat to see what's going on in anticipation.
I can't recommend this highly enough!