Rating: 
Summary: Beauty or Shock? Purpose Or None?
Review: This film hasn't topped my top 10 film list. Its somewhere right below that, but its up there in the top 100. And the reason for it not being one of my faves is not because of the film itself, but rather for its creator. The director and writer, Harmony Korine, tries his best to shock. And believe me, its quite apparent. And that doesn't always make a great film. In fact, it never has. And never truly will make a film great. But this film may not come out in the open and attempt to shock you, but I've read countless interviews in which Korine mentions that he'll do anything to shock. Infact, in an interview with the New York Times, this Gummo director said "I make films however I want. I'd put a blind girl on a toilet seat." And to add to that, Korine tries to shock arthouses by releasing VHS tapes of himself beating up husky guys on the street. The joke is that Korine is shrimpy and its shocking to see him get the junk beat out of him, I guess. The point I'm trying to make is that Gummo isn't good just because its provoking or shocking. And to most, its neither. It's usually called "weird". I'm trying to say that Gummo isn't as interesting as it was said to be all over the media at the time of its initial release. Gummo has some beautiful imagery, but is that all that makes a film? Scenery? Gummo doesn't even have a strong plot. And what's Korine's excuse for that? "I don't like films with plot". I didn't make that up either. Welcome to the world of plotless films and weak ideas. Or as most would call it, SHOCKING ART! Thanks, Korine, for such a great image, but one of the worst stories I've ever encountered.
Rating: 
Summary: "Life's beautiful, without it you'd be dead"
Review: This movie was the best movie I have ever seen by far. Take heed you must be either extremely twisted or artistic to truly enjoy this film. First of all there isn't really a plot, which is beautiful in a world where every main-stream movie is predictable. It's rather a collection of events, different people lives meshing together connected only by the fact that they live in the same town. The cinematography is amazing, and Harmony Korine is genius. Every scene in the movie has meaning, whether you think so or not, it's placed perfectly for the biggest possible impact it could have. You have to be open-minded when watching this film, and see the world from a different perspective, dare to see the ugly which in this case is actually quite beautiful indeed.
Rating: 
Summary: WHY OH GOD WHY HAVE YOU PUNISHED US WITH GUMMO?!?!
Review: I have to take a few seconds out of my day to help out my fellow man and tell them to avoid "Gummo". And I mean avoid.I've seen my share of bad movies. "Glitter"? Horrid. "The Real Cancun"? Mind numbingly awful. BUt they all pale in comparrison to this movie, which has my vote for the worst movie of all time. You maybe asking yourself, what is "Gummo" about. Well, nothing. Absoulutly nothing happens. Some kids kill cats and sell them to a grocery store to buy gas to huff. Shocking. Shockingly bad. And then there's these albino girls who do, well, uhm nothing. There are several scenes here that are either so bad there funny, so disgusting that you may break your stop button trying to make it all stop. The head charactor works out by lifitng spoons while his mother dances to Madonna and threatents to kill him. A group of drunk rednecks wrestle a table. A kid bathes in dirt brown water and drinks it. Does this sound like fun? Well, if you say yes, you need to have your head checked. The writter/ director Harmoney Korine said he wanted to make something origanel. Well I have something origanel. lets string him from a tree and punsih him for punishing us. "Gummo" isn't just bad. There are no words to say how awful it is.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, Bizarre......GOOD!!!!!!
Review: I actually bought this soundtrack before I saw the movie. Even after listening to the soundtrack a few hundred times I was still unsure of whether or not to watch "Gummo". All too often movies will be terrible but have excellent soundtracks. Luckily I was proven wrong. Right from the get go "Gummo" had my attention. I mean how could a kid who's wearing pink bunny ears, smoking and taking a leak off of an overpass not get your interest??? The characters in this movie are some of the best I've ever seen in any movie, in fact at many points during the film you'll find yourself wondering, "Are these actors?!?!?! Or is this for real." As far as I'm concerned it's a toss up between the two. I've also found that many people that are into metal and grindcore (me included) seem to love this movie. How can you not like the scene when Tummler and Solomon (wearing a denim jacket with a Slayer patch) are riding down the street while Sleeps "Dragonaut" blasts in the background. I never really understood why I enjoy this movie so much.....maybe I should just leave it at that.
Rating: 
Summary: Harmony Korine's White Trash epic!
Review: This movie is a classic! From the first scene to the very last, everything about this film screams masterpiece. Harmony Korine captures the most disturbing human images he can find and constructs a movie around them. Special appearance by skating legend Mark Gonzales as a white trash chair-wrestler! WARNING: Do not view this film with a cat lover. They will leave the room and hate you for watching it. I say...lighten up and have a laugh. It's a comedy after all!...Right?
Rating:
Summary: You never lived there
Review: I love these reviewers who -- almost in the same breath -- express how disgusted they are by the folks portrayed in Gummo, and their outrage at Korine for "exploiting" them. I've no doubt some people appreciate this movie only as a freakshow. Can't be helped. But I watched it more with a sense of familiarity than shock. I knew these people. I still get calls from these people. Some of them I still call back. No, I didn't grow up in Korine's Xenia, but I have fond memories of places much like it. People compare this movie to Jerry Springer. Springer doesn't make me homesick. For all their talk of exploitation, most reveiwers could've summed up their response in a single line: "I DON'T WANT TO LOOK AT THESE PEOPLE." Paul Tatara would never step into my old neighborhood for fear of accidentally making eye contact with guys like the ones I used to get drunk with. Screw you, Paul. And double for Elspeth Haughton.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Movie
Review: It's funny how people often miss the point of this movie. I have read countless reviews about how this movie is vile, disgusting, cruel to animals. One review stated that "one almost wishes another tornado would descend and wash away these subnormal characters for whom there is neither redemption nor purpose in life." Maybe it is just me, but these are skin deep reads into a movie that is not all that hard to understand. What this movie shows is that there is humanity even in the most looked down upon people in the United States. These are people that live in misery and add to it, but it is the only thing that they know! Quite honestly, the only thing that distinguishes a person who is civilized, and the characters depicted in Gummo is luck. I guarantee that if the person who wrote the review that I quoted was born and raised in Xenia, Ohio (the setting of the film) you would be the same as these people. At the same time, it is not fair to proclaim these people as subhuman. Unlike most people, the characters in the film seem to find a sense of happiness in such a place. For example, take the scene where the boy is taking a bath and his mother brings him lunch. It's a beautiful scene between a single mother and her son, who she obviously loves to death. I can't stress enough how ignorant it is to indict these people as filth and trash. These are human beings, that have been looked down upon by society that we forget what they really are. This movie is an eye opener to that fact, and it is not something really difficult theme to determine. Anyone who says that this movie is horrible because these people are gross, or because the characters kill cats are no better than the characters in this film. A great movie and a winged victory for Harmony Korine.
Rating:
Summary: My All Time Favorite Film
Review: Harmony Korine definately blows John Waters's shocking and disgusting films away. Harmony Korine makes this film the way the real world actually is. Most people find this film repulsive and freaky to watch, but they don't understand that there is hundreds of places in the world just like this. Everything in this movie is poetic and dumbfounding. Just the little things are amazing such as the memorable bunny boy and the guy talking about where we'd be without wood. Any of you people who can't comprehend this movie have a microscopic world view and need to re-watch this mindblowing film. Trust me, this is an original.
Rating:
Summary: A piece of art
Review: I fist rented this movie a little while back. I thought it was an excellent movie. it is interesting to watch and there are some very hilarious parts. I would reccomend this movie to people that are not offended easily, if you are do not watch this movie.
Rating:
Summary: Like nothing you've ever seen on TV
Review: Director Harmony Korine may or may not be the latest "enfant terrible," but he's certainly given us something to think about with "Gummo." He's given us about 90 minutes of in-your-face immersion into a culture that most of us only glimpse in "Cops" and other "reality" programs that deal with the hopeless, hapless people who make up the bottom strata of White America.
We suddenly find ourselves immersed in a culture where single moms huff glue with their teenage sons and their buddies and where boys hunt neighborhood cats with BB guns and sell the carcasses to a guy who supplies meat to Chinese restaurants. As the story develops, we learn the boys spend their cat money on glue and the services of a young prostitute who looks like Anna Nicole Smith with a lobotomy.
This movie is like a train wreck - at once horrifying and mesmerizing.
I disagree with an earlier reviewer who saw "Gummo" as an outrageous piece of elitism.
I think that charge misses the point. This is not some arrogant exposé of the quaint ways of the poor, it's a 90-minute tour of the self-perpetuating Culture of Stupidity that can be found on the fringes of every city and town in America. These are people who turn bad choices into a way of life because that's what their parents did and their parents before them. Yes, Korine packs the screen with enough geeks and freaks to populate a dozen circus sideshows, but his point is well taken. This is a strata of society that Hollywood ignores, except for the occasional cameo role in films like "Deliverance." It's a vision of a reality that we recognize instantly from our day-to-day experience, but which is carefully filtered out of the mass media.
Whether Korine has talent or promise in any convential sense of the words remains to be seen, but he's created a unique film that is destined to become a cult classic.
But, as an earlier reviewer noted, this is not a suitable date night substitute for "Casablanca" or "The Sound of Music."
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