Rating: 
Summary: low key movie with good acting
Review: I like this movie, it's interesting yet not quite satisfying. Brad Pitt is very understated in this movie, doesn't quite go over the top like in his other films. Katherine Keener is excellent has his insecure, emotionally unstable girlfriend. Interesting film about relationships but I have to admit it doesn't really go anywhere. It can't decided if it wants to be a straight ahead romantic comedy or a surreal Lynchian type trip, and kind of meanders between both, the result is somewhat tepid. Mostly for Pitt or Keener fans.One thing that REALLY annoyed me though, was my DVD had stupid commentary at the beginning and the end which I *swear* is not on the VHS version. Kind of reminded me of Blade Runner, just ruined it. It's not quite as bad as BR, but I was disapointed.
Rating: 
Summary: A haunting tale of loneliness and isolation
Review: I stumbled across this movie by chance, when watching Australian SBS's movie of the week slot with Margaret Pomeranz. When renting the video some-time later the blurb on the back did not do the movie any justice. Johnny Suede is an original and haunting movie which touched my heart like no other. Brad Pitt is excellent as Johnny Suede. He captures all the emotions so well; alienation,loneliness,dreaminess, naivety. The catchy guitar riff at the start sets the scene so well as you drift off into Johnny Suede's idealic dreamworld. I can relate to Johnny Suede's character very well. Being an outsider with a very naive but positive outlook on the world. People using you for their own needs (eg, Darlette, Yvonne even Deek.)Also having a bizarre but unique way of thinking and saying. The shoes were great symbolism also. This movie could well be about the director himself in Tom DiCillo. It seems to be a very personal movie. I also loved the supporting cast; Deek made up his own mind on Johnny, Darlette just used Johnny for support, Was Yvonne still seeing the married guy (remember the bruises, Flip Doubt was great as the weird, possesive photographer guy, I think he was actually a nice guy, Freak storm was convincing as the con- man muso. Being a big fan of James Dean, you can see the comparisons between Pitt and Dean. Unfortunately in my opinion, Brad Pitt ended up taking the easy road playing no emotion macho types which are not really him. This movie is the closest to Brad Pitts personality - vulnerable and sensitive. Anyone could've played Tyler Durden. The bleak wasteland environment where Johnny lives demonstrates the hardships you have to endure when you follow your heart as an artist. This movie deals with issues that I struggle to accept about myself; intimacy, belonging, trying to fit in, being too nice, being a doormat. Pitt has some excellent dialogue. Some of my favourites are; These hands were not meant to hold a god-damn paintbrush, What'ya think I was doin' playing hockey! Babe..you look so beautiful right.. now, The name's suede johnny suede, With these shoes on I'm pretty light on my feet. And heaps more. Johnny Suede will touch those dark subterrannean caverns in your heart where you hardly ever visit. ....
Rating:
Summary: An odd, unique, affecting film
Review: JOHNNY SUEDE does what indie films do best. It presents an odd, unique vision that's tough to describe or market. (A similar oddball film is THE LAST BIG THING).
The film takes place in Brooklyn, but you wouldn't know it unless you read the credits. It's not the recognizable Brooklyn of Spike Lee, or Woody Allen, or John Travolta. With the sparse sets and anachronistic pop music costumes (of Darlette, Johnny, and Freak) I wasn't even sure about the time period. Sometimes it seems to be set in a surreal alternate realm (like STREETS OF FIRE).
Johnny is a musician who plays retro rock, but his huge pompadour hair is so buffonish, one wonders if he's not meant as a caricature, a joke that no one quite gets. Then one sees Freak Storm in the same hair, and one wonders again if we're in an alternate realm in which this is a common style. (We see the same bizarre hair in TROUBLE IN MIND, and that film was indeed set in the near future.)
Like STREETS OF FIRE, JOHNNY SUEDE draws you in. You can't try and figure out this film, you just have to accept it on its own terms and enjoy the ride.
The music is excellent. I wish they'd release a soundtrack, though it seems they never have.
I disagree with a comment that said that everyone takes advantage of Johnny. I see it as largely the other way. Johnny is a parasite and sloth. (1) Deek tries to help him with getting a real job, and even lends him money. Johnny shows no gratitude. (2) Johnny turns down a music gig because it goes against his artistic sensibility to perform without a bassist, even though the other band members are ready and willing to go ahead. Then Johnny complains that it's the others who are no help. (3) Not wanting to work, Johnny comes up with the idea of robbing a barber shop. Deek does the work of getting the gun, but Johnny flakes out. (4) Yvonne is a devoted girlfriend, cooking for Johnny, baking him a birthday cake, buying him a shirt, and Johnny only cheats on her in return. (5) Johnny is behind on his rent, so he's also taking advantage of his landlord. (6) And Johnny tries to take advantage of Darlette's music business mother. Sure, she also wants to bed him. But does that let Johnny off the hook?
Ultimately, JOHNNY SUEDE is fascinating to watch, occassionally funny (especially Freak Storm), with great music. But it's also a depressive film. These people do not live great lives, and there's no bright future ahead. All they have is their youth, which allows them to dream. What will happen when they're no longer young?
Johnny is happy only because he's too dense to know better, his vision of reality obscured by his dream world. However, there's a hint of hope at the end, in that he apologizes to Yvonne and loses his shoe (the latter perhaps symbolizing his budding maturity).
I've seen this film several times. Well worth a look for fans of oddball indie films.
Rating:
Summary: A man , his shoes and his imagination.
Review: There's a stillness all through Johnny Suede that for some reason brings more atmosphere and tone than if it was a feverish exhibition in recounting motion and reality. Suede's dreams, hopes,romances even haircut are stilted - a lack of real interaction or movement. His life is going nowhere. Johnny Suede is disillusioned yet he finds shoes, not just any shoes but suede shoes that give him an identity and a direction. Immeditaly his life picks up , he finds a beautiful girl, gets some sexual tips, loses girl yet finds another. In terms of plot that is about it. The only other vital information is that Johnny has a dream - he wants to sing - sing in a fifties ultrasmooth style that is long since deceased. Tom DeCillio, with this as his first movie, has created a not only a weird and wonderful bit of film yet also a wacky and surreal empty world where your imagination might just push you to realise your dreams, in your imagination. Much of the movies abundant humour comes from Brad Pitts (in easily his best role apart from maybe his turn in True Romance) innocent, dumb, dreamer. His deadpan manner in which he shows us his struggling, carrot eating want to be artist is the perfect rebel without a brain. All the style and image of James Dean with none of the intelligence or drive. The romance of an eternal loser! All the better. The film flows to the infectious twang of a plucked bass tune that for some reason gives Suede's meandering's an almost heroic feel. Is it worse to be an idiot who believes in dreams or an average person fully in touch with modern reality? Adventures are what people make of them and Suede preceded by DeCillio make little monumental ones. The musician Nick Cave (cult Australian and fully functioning practitioner of the violent carnivalesque) puts in a brilliant mini role as Freke Stone - ultimately cool rock star and a man in full control of his surroundings. Rumour has it that a scene was chopped where in a bar sequence with Suede, Stone lifts the arm of an accompanying groupie licks her underarm and takes a shot of tequila. True or false this is indicative of the live fast figure he portrays in the movie. His hilarious eulogy to his father in lyric terms is a classic scene in its own right. The film is peppered with dream sequences, a slow motion exploding window, bizarre characters and a supersmooth "hero". His ideals are as large as his quiff. By the films conclusion Suede's hair is flattened and by his betrayal so is he. Does this signal a more normal existence for Johnny Suede? Who knows? Personally I hope he makes it in some two bit back bar, playing to drunken all nighters. For Johnny Suede that is superstardom.
Rating:
Summary: Who knew?
Review: This film is pretty terrific I think,and i don't even particularly care for pitt.But in this movie hes damn good,and even better is that hair-cut.The photography was quite appealing,as di cillo seems to have a great eye for location and space here. there seems to be an aesthetiscm here thats not too far removed from Jarmusch,as the barren and empty surroundings beautifully reflect the character and even perhaps pitt himself.As a rather vain and shallow person myself, I found the film quite telling about narcissm more so than any american film released around thaty period, and boy does that terrific guitar score along with those great shots of whatever city this film takes place linger long after you hit the eject button.
Rating:
Summary: A haunting tale of loneliness and isolation
Review: This is one of my favorite movies, right up there with Local Hero. It is completely quirky and funny in a very offbeat way, and Brad is absolutely wonderful in it. This film didn't get much attention when it came out, but it seems to have its own following. It is not your typical movie in terms of its structure, but it is extremely entertaining and worth watching numerous times in order to catch all the little nuances. It also stars the superb Catherine Keener as one of Johnny's girlfriends.
Rating:
Summary: Offbeat and Wonderful
Review: This is one of my favorite movies, right up there with Local Hero. It is completely quirky and funny in a very offbeat way, and Brad is absolutely wonderful in it. This film didn't get much attention when it came out, but it seems to have its own following. It is not your typical movie in terms of its structure, but it is extremely entertaining and worth watching numerous times in order to catch all the little nuances. It also stars the superb Catherine Keener as one of Johnny's girlfriends.
Rating: 
Summary: Not to mention the hair
Review: This was really quite a deplorable little movie. The awfulness of the acting, with one exception, eclipsed even the painfulness of the concept. Brad Pitt, never very gifted as an actor, here hit rock bottom, fortunately early in his career. When I say fortunately I mean for him, not for the rest of us, who have had to endure his later somnolent roles whose dreadfulness is said, by some, to be compensated for by his abs and pretty face.
I am sure this movie would have sucked out my life and left me a vegetable, except for the performance of Catherine Keener, whose brilliance as an actress has, alas, never been rewarded with the success that she deserves.
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