Rating: Summary: One of the BEST movies ever! Review: I have seen this movie three times already and I still can'tget enough of it. The Academy Award for Hilary Swank was welldeserved and Chloe Sevigny was robbed! I absolutely love this movie. Who would have imagined there could be so much chemistry between Swank and Sevigny, and yet their romance is the most touching and affecting part of the film, defying the traditional model of cinematic lovers and yet at the same time demonsrating the kind of yearning for true love that we all experience. END
Rating: Summary: Amazing, Moving Movie Review: When I was a child, after every Disney movie I saw, I walked out crying because I didn't want it to be over. Now, over a decade later, when this movie ended, I could not get up. I was paralysed with shock. Tears streamed down my cheeks, not because I was sad it was over, but because I knew it was truly over. Brandon Teena had died. His life was no more. He was different, so he was murdered. This was the best movie I have seen in years. I was touched beyond mere words. If I could put how I felt about this movie into words, you would smile at first (because some parts are funny), then gasp (because some parts are shocking), and finally your heart would break and your tears would flow. I don't know who you are. I don't know your background or your race or your gender. But I do know that if you are human, you need to see this movie. You must see this movie. This movie is why the first director picked up his camera and said "Action." This movie is life.
Rating: Summary: Brandon's Legacy Review: This film focuses on the true life of Brandon/Teena Brandon, a hermaphrodite who was brutally murdered in the early morning hours of December 31, 1993. Ater learning there was such a person as Brandon Teena, I was truly touched by his life...and at the same time I was filled with anger and sorrow from the horrific ways in which his life was ended-- all Teena Brandon wanted was to be one of the guys. When I was informed that Kimberly Pierce had written and produced a film regarding Brandon Teena, I knew that I had to see it. For 4 months I waited, and finally "Boys Don't Cry" came to a local theater. I saw the movie, and I must say Hillary Swank was outstanding in her role of portraying Brandon! I was very pleased to see her win the Oscar for best actress-- she deserved it every step of the way. This film is a definite must see! As Hillary stated in the acceptance of her Oscar regarding Brandon, "His legacy lives on through our movie."
Rating: Summary: How Much Can You Take? Review: I almost gave this video five stars for the acting alone. Yes, Hilary Swank deserves the Oscar she got for Best Actress of 1999. Chloe Sevigny, as well, turns in an exquisite performance in the role of her lover with an impossible dream of her own; together they mesh so beautifully that there is one scene in this movie--you'll know it when you see it--where happiness seems almost within their grasp. But it's as distant as the full moon above them, floating so beautifully in and out of view.The underriding sadness of the situation is so unbearable as it is portrayed, however, that I almost couldn't finish watching the movie. It isn't the transgender aspect that is so sad...nor is it the harshness of the surroundings, where these people are trying (or not) to survive and make lives for themselves in an intellectal and physical wasteland that is so obvious that that alone is difficult watch...rather, it is the incredible brutality, as portrayed by the secondary characters so sharply and offhandedly, as this true story unfolds. Could they be us? Ever? If I have a shred of their callousness in me, and I hope I don't, please let me be more understanding of someone else simply dreaming of having a happier life. I really hoped Brandon would make his dream come true. But this movie is well done and therefore worth watching, painful as it is. Maybe someone somewhere can explain how cruelty as final as this grows in the hearts of so many of our lost people. So, as was said not so long ago, quote: "Why can't we just get along?" best wishes, Jean
Rating: Summary: A slow paced jem of a movie! Review: Love is one of the components that drive us in our daily lives, without it life wouldn't be the same. In "Boys Don't Cry," that is all Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank) wants. His search to be accepted and love gets him into a lot of trouble because he is a she. To Teena that never seems to be an issue, she knows that deep down inside she is a guy longing for that right girl. Her search gets her in trouble and forces her to leave to another town. She meets the perfect girl Lana (Chole Sevigny) and her group of friends. She feels accepted and just one of the guys. She gets into bar room brawls and drinks and smokes with the guys. Her relationship with Lana blossoms and everything seems to be going great, until her little secret is revealed. She pays the price of her deception with her life. "Boys Don't Cry" is based on the true events of Teena Brandon's life in rural Nebraska. Directed by newcomer Kimberly Peirce, it is one of the best movies of last year. Hilary Swank gives the performance of a lifetime as Teena Brandon/Brandon Teena. Swank won the Oscar for her performance in this film. Swank has a certain charm and charisma that enables the viewer to love her character and not judge her actions. It doesn't seem out of the ordinary or weird that she wants to be a guy. She is a guy, her mannerisms and looks gives the viewer the sense that she was meant to be a guy. That somehow god made a mistake and that Teena is just correcting it. The viewer gets pulled into her charm. You want her to get the girl and be happy. You feel her desire for love and want and cheer for her to get it. Swank's performance gets the viewers to fall for Teena and see who he really is on the inside and not what he is on the outside. The supporting cast is also another strong point of this film. Sevigny gives a strong performance as Lana, a troubled buy loving girl who falls for Teena. Sevigny got an Oscar nomination for her performance in this film. Lana loves Teena for what he is, a charming, caring and sensitive person. Even when she is confronted with the truth, she looks away. His word is all she needs and even after the truth comes out she still loves him. She still goes to him and realizes that her love for him is more important than his gender. She sees the love in him and loves it back with no reservations in her mind. Peter Sarsgaard and Brendan Sexton III also give strong performances as John and Tom. They befriend Teena after a bar fight and introduce him to Lana. They are a rough group with a criminal past, but at first they seem like good people. But they have a wild temper and when they find out the truth, the consequences become deadly. The film has a slow pace, but with good cause. It stays close to the actual events of the story and treats the story delicately. The acting and writing keeps the story going and makes the viewer drawn to the characters and the events that unfold
Rating: Summary: Stinker Review: Every year the Academy nominates a real stinker for a major theatrical award, and this is 1999's. Supposedly based on a real murder in Nebraska in 1983, "Boys..." is the tale of Tina Brandon, a transexual wannabe who hacks off all her hair, binds her breasts, dresses all in mens clothing (including toilet paper wadded in trouser crotch) to get drunk and fight in roadhouses and poolrooms in order to pick up unsuspecting women for lesbian sex. She becomes infatuated with one of these and is brutally raped and murdered by her lover's nee'r-do-well ex-convict low life male relations once her deception is uncovered. All the characters are cheap and ignorant and ugly, all the settings are trailer-park tawdry, and the relationship between Hilary Swank (Best Actress Oscar) and Chloe Sevigny (Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar nomination) is too bent and exploitive to even evoke sympathy and pathos. A much better treatment of the same theme, i.e., the travails of transexuality, is rendered by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robert Di Nero in "Flawless", a flim of contrasting humanity, wit and warmth which the Academy never looked at twice. If for no other reason, "Boys..." is worth buying to remind us how often the Academy confuses art with social politics and how far out of touch It can get.
Rating: Summary: Boy's Don't Cry Review: I went to this movie to see Hilary Swank's performance and came away stunned not only with her amazing performance, but with the brilliant work of writer-director Kimberly Peirce. What a debut film for Peirce! She, too, should have had an Academy nomination and won the Oscar for her directing. The film is so powerful that I've seen it two days in a row and am both devastated and astonished by it.
Rating: Summary: A "must-see" movie for everyone Review: Reasons to see this movie: 1. Hilary Swank's performance isoutstanding. I have racked my brain thinking about the last severalyears' Oscar winners for best actress and she absolutely outshines them all, hands down. 2. It's not just a gay film, or a transsexual film, or a anti-bigotry film, although those are important elements in the film. In its own way, it's very much a love story. You can't always help who you fall in love with, regardless of sex, ( or race or religion or whatever.) It's Romeo and Juliet, it's the Crying Game, it's the Hatfield and McCoy's, it's West Side Story. As Lana finds out the truth about Brandon, she realizes that she (unlike other characters, notably Tom, John, and Lana's mother) can't just switch off the deep feelings she has for Brandon, just because it doesn't fit in with society's expectations. 3. See it and learn the lesson that we should accept our diversity and live with our differences in a humane manner.
Rating: Summary: Flawless Review: To think that this movie almost didn't get made boggles the mind. Kimberly Pierce does a superb job in her debut film, she definately went unrecognized and deserved an Academy Award nomination in both the writing and directing categories. Hilary Swank gives the most remarkable performance of the decade. I was just so excited when she won the Academy Award. I was a bit disappointed when Chloe Sevigny lost out the supporting actress Oscar to Angelina Jolie. This understated movie was definately overlooked in the best picture category.
Rating: Summary: Poor Film Making Review: I wish I could rate this 0 STARS! What were the movie makersthinking when they made this move? Absolutly none of the charactersdeserve simpathy, not even Brandon, I mean Tina. The story is so crazy I can't believe that this is an accurate portrayel of the real Tina. The movie shows her as a very stupid person who brought all of what happens on her self, I mean she stayed in the same town with the people who threatened her life and raped her. No one in the movie is worth watching as a character and the only reason to see it is for Hilary Swank. Her performance is very good and I see why she won an academy award but the rest of the movie is horrible, have no moral, and is downright horrible. Rent this movie don't buy it you will be wasting your money. THIS FILM HAS NO MORAL OR REDEMING QUALITY!
|