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Simple Men Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 11 Reviews)

Wonderful movie, indifferent transfer
I won't speak to the joys of this movie...others have done so here much more eloquently than I ever could. I will, however, note that there are a few technical aspects of this dvd that bothered me. First is the aspect ratio. Hal Hartley is a master at framing a shot, and there are many times in this release that his framing is ruined, because the top or bottom is lopped off. There are also scenes in which a mood was set using dark, heavily tinted light. Thanks to (I assume) automated conversion to dvd, those scenes have been altered so they appear to take place in nice, bland sunlight.

I won't go as far as recommend against buying the disc...the movie is excellent. But you should be aware that some small part of what made this such a wonderful movie has been lost.

Deeply Felt
I'm not one to go in length about films on Amazon, but I'll write a short little bit for this amazing film. I first saw this 10 years ago when I was in my teens and have never forgotten it, it really touched something inside of me, much like a great piece of art would affect you after seeing it up close for the first time.

"Trouble and Desire" = Another Terrific Hartley Project
Hal Hartley never fails to entertain, never fails to engage my mind and emotions on a parallel level. Simple Men is no exception. The seemingly simple - two brothers in search of their missing dad. plot allows his characters so much room for character growth that I almost wish more movies centered around these characters.

With a hard-edged view of the world as: "There's no such thing as adventure. There's no such thing as romance. There's only trouble and desire" (actually from a Fritz Lang movie of the 1920's) there's plenty going on to both prove and disprove Hartley's ambivalent theories.

Simple Men also formally introduces us to the absolutely delicious Elena Löwensohn. In one of the coolest and hottest scenes in all of cinema we get to watch her bizarre 50's beatnik-style dance to Sonic Youth's "Kool thing." Then joined by the two lost soul brothers it turns into an unlikely production number.

Many dismiss this film, and Hartley as unwatchable or trivial and miss the point. What is amazing about Hartley is that he takes the seemingly trivial and elevates it to a level of art that, once seen, reflects our lives on every level from brilliance to the inane.

Simple Men is pure cinematic delight.

Hooray for Hartley!

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