Rating: 
Summary: Gilliam's impossible dream
Review: Lost in La Mancha is a highly entertaining documentary on Terry Gilliam's disasterous attempt to adapt Cervantes Don Quixote for the screen. Like Orson Welles before him, Gilliam becomes the latest victim of the Don Quixote curse. Gilliam's 10 year obssession is thwarted after only 6 days of actual shooting. The film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, collapses under the weight of financial burden, flash floods, jet fighters and a painful prostate condition. Everything that can go wrong does and what Gilliam has to show for his efforts are his wonderful storyboards, a few finished shots and the desire to resurrect the project in the future. The film is narrated by Jeff Bridges, features Gilliam as well as Jean Rochefort and Johnny Depp. It was directed by Keith Fulton & Louis Pepe, the same team responsible for the delightful DVD bonus feature The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of 12 Monkeys. As far as production documentaries go, while not the nightmarish freakshow that Hearts of Darkness was, Lost in La Mancha is still a compelling portrait of the filmmaking process. As an extra bonus the DVD comes with a second disc of material featuring 2 lengthy interviews with Terry Gilliam. Both are enjoyable, if somewhat redundant, but be warned - one interview is conducted by NY Times film critic Elvis Mitchell in front of a live audience. Mr Mitchell is downright painful to watch as he sqirms, tries to articulate questions & laughs like an nervous and insincere hyena.
Rating:
Summary: Documenting Every Film Maker's Nightmare
Review: Narrated by actor Jeff Bridges, "Lost in La Mancha" documents the failed efforts of director Terry Gilliam and his cast and crew to make a movie based on Cervantes' "Don Quixote". Terry Gilliam, who directed "Brazil", "The Fisher King", and "12 Monkeys", has a taste for the extravagant and elaborate, but is no stranger to difficult adaptations. He tried for a decade to mount a production of "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" and finally thought he had succeeded when he secured exclusively European funding for the film. Had the film come to fruition, it would have been the most expensive film ever produced with solely European financing. As it was, Gilliam tried to make a logistically complex Hollywood film without a Hollywood budget, which left, at best, absolutely no room for error or bad luck. But good fortune eluded the film as one major financier backed out at the last minute, the leading actor, Jean Rochefort, was plagued by illness, and everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong. Poor planning, poor judgment, and plain bad luck turned the production of "Don Quixote" into every film maker's nightmare and eventually shut it down. "Lost in La Mancha" traces the film from its hopeful beginnings, through difficult pre-production, brief elation, and eventual demise. This is an interesting look at film production from the inside and an informative examination of the financial and logistical realities of filmmaking. I give it three stars because "Lost in La Mancha" looks as if it were made to be featured as a extra on the film's DVD, had the film been completed. The documentary is simply too bare to stand alone as a film. Students of film and anyone interested in learning more about the process of filmmaking may find it worth a look, though. Ironically, Orson Welles tried for two decades to produce a film version of "Don Quixote" and also failed. We are left with incomplete footage from two different interpretations of the novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Insightful companion to Gilliam's work
Review: OH! The pieces of film the documentary shows is alone worth the price. The clips of Gilliam's film look gorgeous. Watching the making and unmaking of this creation is compelling viewing.
Rating:
Summary: The Curse of Don Quixote
Review: Painful to watch, like anticipating an accident, this film kept me interested. I watched it with a producer who kept flinching, wincing and groaning as the story moved agonizingly forward. Why was so much attention placed on such a public display of failure? I believe reality TV is popular because people are fearful of failure. The truth is people come up short every day in millions of ways, and it's better to have failed at something than not to have tried anything. And this is not the first failed attempt to bring Don Quixote to the screen. Orson Wells couldn't do it and Terry Gilliam fell short. Bravo to anyone who has the courage to break the Curse of Don Quixote. Michael Duranko
www.bootism.com
Rating:
Summary: Anatomy of a Disaster
Review: Poor Terry Gilliam. He spends time, money, energy, and I'm sure eaten a lot of antacids, and it comes to naught. But I guess the worse part is not being able to fulfill his dream. For the uber-creative director of many marvelous films, including personal fave "Twelve Monkeys", you'd think he'd be able to whip up a nice little Don Quixote film. But without Hollywood's resources, the money, punctuality from the actors, and cooperation from the weather his film, and his dream, came crashing down. It's unfortunate, because it looked really, really good. Unlike the glossy "making of" features on many films that are standard DVD extras these days, this documentary goes underneath the smiles and compliments and "best time of my life" statements and makes you wonder how films even get made. Although Gilliam's "Quixote" had more than it's fair share of problems to deal with, this documentary shows very well the perpetual purgatory of panic that can befall a production. From the very beginning we see Gilliam struggling with props and sets, and his exhausted and frustrated crew wondering what exactly he wants while struggling to find resources that aren't as abundant in Spain as they are in London or Hollywood. We see Gilliam's right hand man, 1st Assistant Director Phil Patterson, and various producers trying to reel in actors, Johnny Depp, Vanessa Paradis, and Jean Rochefort, from all over Europe on schedule (while making the said schedule). Once shooting, a hail storm from nowhere strikes, fighter planes do test runs over the set, a studio is actually a warehouse with horrendous sound, Rochefort comes down with a prostate problem, and calamity after calamity hits the weary production. It's painful, and by the time Patterson informs Gilliam that his film is basically dead, it's the emotional, inevitable climax of a very taut and stress-packed narrative. It never was going to happen from the beginning, and we see almost every minute of it. The filmmakers of this film don't interfere with what's going on, and most of the input we get is a more honorable (and very visual) form of eavesdropping, with the exception of a few knowing glances here and there and short explanations from producers, Gilliam, and crew members. And Johnny Depp shows up totally at ease and laid back (with sympathetic worried glances and tension breaking wisecracks when needed), to the delight of this Depp fan. I think this is one of the best films about the making of a film, a subject we really don't get to hear much about although it's remarkably fascinating. It's up there with DVD commentaries and the similarly apocalyptic "Project Greenlight" series in it's dive into the real machinery of a film. Where "Project Greenlight" gave us an idea of what a line producers do, behind the scenes relationships, and budgetary fidgeting, this gives you a good idea the enormity of the movie set and everything that could possibly go wrong. According to these, it's more akin to managing a company or running an army and trying to win every battle than creating the vision of a renegade artist. In the end, Gilliam is Quixote, an irony not lost on the filmmakers, Gilliam, or viewers. And the project? It's that blasted windmill.
Rating:
Summary: Gilliam, head on...
Review: Terry Gilliam, the dreamer. Now this director is the one to look up to. he fights, struggles, and maintains his vision.
whether you get him or not, this guy is a character. and this dvd goes head on with that very man.
this particular dvd, would normally be considered the extra discs for a feature film. but since the film fell through, for the time being, we are presented with the idea of Gilliam's vision and promise of Don Quixote. which is a true journey to take. it is a true 'documentry' and has a bit more just so it can stand on it's own. whether your an aspiring filmmaker or a curious other party, this piece is truly depressing, and displays inner compilations of the set up system that is big budget production.
Rating: 
Summary: Passafist Reviews Lost In La Mancha
Review: The Windmills of Reality Fight Back.....' -Terry Gilliam In the theater there is an old superstition. Your not supposed to say Macbeth, it's bad luck and sure to destroy your production. I sometimes wished someone would have walked into CATS in 1984 and done that but hey you can't win them all. In film you probably shouldn't say Don Quixote. It could spell disaster as well, just ask Terry Gilliam. If ever there was a story that needed to be filmed it's Cervantes classic novel of a man near the end of his life that reads romantic stories and sets out on an adventure of a life time. Terry Gilliam is very much like Quixote himself. Every film he touches is full of the same whimsy and adventure that Quixote was famous for. You'd think a project entitled THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE would be the perfect Gilliam film and I think it would have. That's what makes Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's documentary LOST IN LA MANCHA so tragic. Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe probably have the greatest job in Hollywood. They follow Terry Gilliam around with a camera. Their earlier film THE HAMSTER FACTOR is an insightful look into Terry Gilliam's visionary science fiction film 12 Monkeys. SO this is probably why they were hired to follow Gilliam around again. To make a short documentary for a future DVD release of THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE. It's lucky they were there or this story would have never been told. LA MANCHA begins very straightforward. Sure there are problems with the pre-production of QUIXOTE, but nothing that is hindering progress. We learn that the budget for the film is much less than it probably should be, but Gilliam as a director has been there before. So he's not worried. The actors begin to show up for costume fittings, schedules are finalized and everything is set to go. Then all hell breaks loose. LOST IN LA MANCHA is a film scholar's dream. Fulton and Pepe have unlimited access to the crew in this movie and each person becomes a character. Not only that, but they also they get mostly unfettered access to Gilliam. I wonder if any other major director would put himself out on a line like this. Gilliam has guts, There is so much to love in LAMANCHA; I especially loved of the completed footage that was shot for the movie. Just seconds of the film are shown and they are breath taking. It makes me sad to think I will never get to see this movie. But alas such is life. The documentary does run about 15 minutes longer than it has to. I found some moments dragged on much further than they needed to. But the film is so captivating I can forgive it this one small fault. I just realized how hard it is to try to review a documentary film like this. There are so many great little moments; Gilliam's eyes sparkling as he gets that first shot. His anger at NATO planes flying over head. His little laugh that I'm not quite sure was genuine after Johnny Depp (On of his actors) makes a silly observation about his character. It's so hard to paint a picture of just how interesting this movie is.
Rating:
Summary: Monty Python and the Man From La Mancha
Review: This documentary about Terry Gilliam's attempt to make a film about Don Quioxte is facinating. Seeing the disasters that are thrown in front of this film can be hard to watch at times. One definiitely feels sorry for the cast and crew. What was most interesting to me is to see how little Gilliam had to work with after having his film budget cut drastically. From location, to equipment, to actors who had agreed to work for a fraction of their normal salaries - the documentary not only chronicles a disaterous attempt to make a film, but also captures the struggles that any director has while working on a budget. Worth seeing if you have any intellectual interest in the film making process.
Rating:
Summary: Terry Gilliams Disaster
Review: This documentary about Terry Gilliam's attempt to make a film about Don Quioxte is facinating. Seeing the disasters that are thrown in front of this film can be hard to watch at times. One definiitely feels sorry for the cast and crew. What was most interesting to me is to see how little Gilliam had to work with after having his film budget cut drastically. From location, to equipment, to actors who had agreed to work for a fraction of their normal salaries - the documentary not only chronicles a disaterous attempt to make a film, but also captures the struggles that any director has while working on a budget. Worth seeing if you have any intellectual interest in the film making process.
Rating:
Summary: Like watching a train wreck
Review: This is a fascinating but ultimately heartbreaking disaster movie clothed as a documentary about a failed attempt by Terry Gilliam of Monty Python and BRAZIL fame to make the film THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE. It is also a highly informative glimpse into the way films get made, or, in this case, how they fail to get made.
To be honest, I have never been an especial fan of Terry Gilliam's films. I generally find them a bit too metaphysically bleak, a tad too desparing and pessimistic. I'm not sure what his personal philosophy is, but it has always struck me as something like, "First you're born, and then you die." The events leading up to the disaster of this film production would certainly have fortified this view. From the earliest moments of the documentary, it is clear that things are not going well. The various performers have never met each other. Sets are unfinished. Much of the design is incomplete. Even as filming begins several of the major performers are not even there. And from there, everything goes downhill, or in the case of a flash flood, downstream. If one has heard anything about the documentary, one knows that the film failed to get made. But watching one disaster after another take place is like watching a film of two trains colliding head on. You know that only bad things are going to happen, but you can't take your eyes off the screen. What is stunning is the sheer variety of problems. On the first day of shooting, on a location shot in arid mountains, they discover that they are underneath the flight paths of military aircraft that continually pass overhead. They are then hit by a sudden storm that not only washes away much of the set but also changes the coloration of the landscape, making all of the footage they had previously shot unmatchable. Then the sun disappears behind a thick cloud cover. The clincher comes when they discover that Jean Rochefort, their Don Quixote, is physically unable to undergo the role, at first bothered by a prostate infection, but later diagnosed with a double hernia of a vetebrae. As the cowriter of the script points out about Quixote, the more he suffers, the more we love him (Vladimir Nabokov declared DQ a sadistic novel because of the massive amount of physical pain inflicted on Quixote in the novel). Much the same applies to this film. The more things go wrong, the more you wish they would go right. But they don't, and by the end of the documentary the production is abandoned. A closing shot informs the viewer that Gilliam hopes to repurchase the script from the insurance company, and that he still hopes to make the film. But it seems unlikely. The only positive note is that at least two of the principles in the film have managed to get back on track. Johnny Depp followed the experience with an Oscar nominated performance in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, while Terry Gilliam has completed THE BROTHERS GRIMM with an all star cast headed by Matt Damon and Heath Ledger. These are good things to know, because while watching the film you wonder if it might have taken others down with it. One peripherally nice thing about the film is that it provides some great visual panoramas of Spain. I'm currently reading the Edith Grossman translation of DON QUIXOTE, and I have been very grateful to have some idea of what that part of Spain looks like.
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