Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead

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Summary: dillo's reviews from down under
Review: Wow!! One not to be missed. Highly underated in all areas, direction, production, script and acting. Now how could anyone not like a film with two of the best actresses of recent times giving 100%- I refer to Fairuza Balk and Gabrielle Anwar. Top them off with a wonderful effort from Andy Garcia and Steve Buscemi and this really is a collectable, in whatever format you can grab hold of. One of the top 20 films in my collection of over 3500.

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Summary: They had me fooled until the very end.
Review: This is a really good movie for those of you whom enjoy a
movie that makes you think. The plot twist at the very end and
leaves you thinking about it long after the movie is over.

Rating:
Summary: Flawless
Review: For those of you who haven't seen this thing, go out and get it. One of the most underrated crime flicks of the last twenty years, it has Andy Garcia as Jimmy The Saint, a former crook who abandons his vocation in favour of the more leisurely business of filming the departing wit and wisdoms of the terminally ill. Life is calm and profitable until Christopher Walken, a wheelchair- bound mob boss calls in an old favour. His son, a... paedophile, has assaulted a young girl and Walken, convinced that the root of the problem is the departure of his son's girlfriend to the arms of another insists the new boyfriend be given a scare. Garcia is reluctantly forced to reassemble the old gang, a now fifty-ish crew of misfits, bums and losers who drift through American lowlife in various guises, the most monstrously entertaining of whom is Treat William's 'Critical Bill' a corpse-punching psychopath whose antics on the night turn the 'scare' into a homicide and whose reaction to Garcia's incredulous wrath is "Well, it was sort of your fault, Jimmy. You trusted me." Walken's response to the unmitigated disaster is to declare 'Buckwheats' on all of them, an instruction that they are each to die in the most painful way possible. ...BR>If this sounds too off-the-wall, let me tell you that it works superbly, partly because of first rate acting by Garcia, Williams and Christopher LLoyd as well as a great script, but mainly due to the criminal argot and patois which at times achieves almost poetic levels and makes anything by Tarantino seem amateurish and contrived. What more is there to say?

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Summary: Gangsters a la mode !
Review: Great cast, simple story line, timelessly delicious. This is like your favorite ice cream scooped onto your favorite hot pie, theres nothing not to like and no dull moments. Cliches and hook phrases abound as a gang of slightly over the hill hoods does one job too many. Treat Williams lives up his name and Christopher Lloyd is a total surprise. Have a double scoop, sit back and watch it twice like i did.

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Summary: Not a Tarantino ripoff
Review: Despite common misconceptions, the screenplay for Things To Do In Denver was written before Pulp Fiction came out. Based on that simple chronological fact, it would be hard to say this movie is a "post-Tarantino ripoff."

Rating:
Summary: turgid
Review: This movie is loaded with stuff---maybe too much.It runs close to two hours,has some excellent performances,some snappy but hard to follow dialog,some humor,some sadness,some brutality,and a lot of other somes. The sum of which could be too much.The first half of the movie is better than the last half. It gets a little heavy for a causual viewing.If you watch it be ready to a little depressed but if you watch the performances of a great cast and remember it's a movie you'll do okay. Garcia is good,but the smaller roles are the gems. Lloyd,Williams and Balk are sensational. Christopher Walken is beautiful in the Christopher Walken way. Forsythe tends to be underrated but is excellent.Bill Nunn and the charming Steve Buscemi are also excellent.Jack Warden's narration trys to help us understand.I do ,however,think that Gabrielle Anwar was miscast. Her acting is fine,but she just seems,well,young.The film has some nasty parts---don't let the kids in the room,but be sure to watch Christopher Lloyd.I didn't know he had it in him.Pay attention to this film and you'll have some emotions,about the film,maybe about lives you would rather not know about.

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Summary: ahead of it's time
Review: this is one of the most underrated movies of all time. the writing is flawless and the dilect is untouchable. christopher walken plays a great role along with andy garcia. the terms used in this movie and the plot alone would be fit for anyone who watches the traditional "Gangster" flicks, i.e, goodfellas, scarface, etc.

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Summary: Whatever Can Go Wrong......
Review: Jimmy "The Saint" played by the handsome and talented Andy Garcia, is a former mob associate gone almost straight. That is, until he owes former boss Christopher Walken, now a cripple in a wheelchair, one last favor. ............... Walken has a son Bernard, who has become a pedophile. After attacking a little girl who reminds him of his ex-girlfriend Meg, Walken decides that the only cure for his sons derangement, is to get Meg back. Since Meg left Bernard for a dental student, Walken recruits Jimmy to "scare" the new boyfriend into leaving, thus giving Bernard a second chance with Meg. After Jimmy agrees to do it, not having a choice, he recruits four old pals to assist him. Unfortunately for Jimmy, their incompetence, stupidity, and insanity irrevocably wrecks the plan and puts all five men on Walkens "Hit Parade". .............. This is a very unusual story, and wonderfully entertaining as well. Andy Garcia as Jimmy, is a sympathetic character. You feel his warmth and caring. His romance with young Dagney (Gabrielle Anwar) is at once wholesome and sexy. I particularly liked how Jimmy puts into words, the feeling a woman has for a man who excites her. "Does he make you THUMP?" Jimmy asks after Dagney says she's otherwise involved when first meeting Jimmy. After winning her over, Jimmy has to "give her back to the others" because he knows the end is near. ................. Fairuza Balk has a meaty, but peripheral role as a prostitute who Jimmy takes a fatherly interest in. In the end, she immortalizes Jimmy with a love child. ................. While the film is very well done, I can't understand why Jimmy picks four completely incompetent ex-cons to "Aid" his operation for Walken. The request seems simple enough, but is executed, literally, by inept and insane buddies of Jimmy, instead of Jimmy doing the job by himself. Treat Williams turns in a sick, yet hilarious performance as "Critical Bill", he always leaves his opponents in that condition, hence the nickname. He lives among corpses, and uses them for punching bags. "He don't mind much..." he tells Jimmy who witnesses his "stiff" workout schedule. It's hard to believe that anyone would entrust someone like this to be of help, not to mention the rest of the crew, Christopher Lloyd, a leper porn house manager, and William Forsythe, a trailer park biker. It is certainly proved herein, if you want a job done right, do it yourself. I suppose if Jimmy did that, the plot wouldn't have been nearly as entertaining. ................ Like in the movie "Suicide Kings", Christopher Walken is quite effective confined to a chair, only using his head once again, to express himself. He makes fun of Jimmy's "Afterlife Advice" video business where the dead can speak to their loved ones through pre-recorded tapes. He reminds Jimmy of the past, and how he owes him this last favor. ................ Other characters to enjoy, Jack Warden, an icecream parlor denizen who tells us the story in a sporadic narration, and Steve Buscemi as the hitman who comes to clean up the mess for Walken. He employs the "Buckwheats" method, namely, the bullets go where the sun don't shine. This is done for a particularly agonizing demise. ................ I've watched this film several times, and will watch it again. The roles are strongly portrayed by all, and like I always say, if it's quality, you care about the characters. This is a film not to be missed, especially if you admire the work of Andy Garcia and Christopher Walken.

Rating:
Summary: ALL TIME GREAT
Review: I saw the title of this movie and thought 'WHAT', intrigued i took it home. I have read the other reviews on this movie, it being compared to Quentin Tarantino flicks and i have to disagree, this is one of my all time favourites. A very original thriller supported with a fantastic cast. The movie has you hateing 'The Man With The Plan' (Christhoper Walken)right to the end, but his performance as a wheelchair bound criminal is definately one of his best. I love this film, and ive seen it over and over again and it is still entertaining. With Andy Garcia leading a group of misfit ex criminals including Treat Williams and William Forsythe, keep and eye out for small roles from Glenn Plummer, Don Cheadle, Tiny Lister and Jenny McCarthy. Opinions may vary, so get this and place yours.
Fantastic

Rating:
Summary: Thing To Do #1 - Invite G. Fleder & S. Rosenburg to join you
Review: "Give it a name". . . Seems that's ALL they gave it. The title is great! Now, let's see... Um, it looks pretty. If it were a painting it would be okay to hang in your den. It sounds good. If it were a song it could make the top ten for a week, maybe. As a movie, it's complete hackneyed trash. If you like action, comedy, character, style, dialogue or plot, do not see this movie. Ya know how you're supposed to care about what happens to a character when you sit down to watch a movie? Good luck here. These guys are not good guys with a bad attitude, not bad guys who have a reason for being bad. They are boring losers who think they are cool because they speak in slang and have a secret handshake. I'm convinced that the people who like this movie have been tricked into thinking that this movie is part of the new cool. They want to compare it to 'The Usual Suspects'. Excuse me, but that movie had a thing called plot. They want to compare it to Tarantino. His flicks are not cool because of style, obscenity or violence. They are cool because they give us characters who we care about--even though they are all shmucks. They are us in every way. (...). I'd rather have those 20 minutes than have to sit through this waste of time again.