Blue Citrus Hearts was one of those films you buy out of curiosity because Amazon associates it with a lot of the films that you like and enjoy. I'm a huge indie fan and this sounded sweet and had some positive critical review behind it, so I took the chance. I can't say that I'm upset that I saw it, but honestly it hasn't really changed me in any way as good cinema ought to.
First, the good: Paul Foster as Julien is wonderful. He's charming, interesting, beautiful, and lights up every scene that he's in. I would be very excited to see him in something that displayed his talents better. Lee Ann Roberts as Sam's mother and Helen Bowman as Sam's grandmother were both very good and made the most of their few moments on the screen. I have nothing against the "two boys fall in love and it's tough" script; it's pretty much what one expects from a low-budget indie. It's a very rough effort that tries hard but the writer clearly needs more life experience to really grab hold of an issue and do something revelatory with it.
And then, the bad: The camera-work is pretty much unforgivable. I completely understand that it's a budgetless indie, but the cinematography in BCH is a step below what you see people doing with their cell phones and posting on YouTube these days. The shaking, the awkward angles, and the crappy lighting all made the film very difficult to watch. If there's something worse than what they did with the camera, then it's the audio mix. The ambient sound made parts of the film un-hearable and some elements were so loud that you just wanted to press 'stop.' I have probably never encountered a movie ever that I so wanted to stop watching on account of the audio. The soundtrack was horrific; it sounded like they went down to skid row and had all the drugged-out buskers sing into a microphone whatever they could make up at that moment and decided to call that the movie's musical score. Alex Booth as Arielle and Suzie Cyanide as the local tranny were grating and terrible. Cyanide in particular spent chunks of his time staring right at the camera as if reading his few lines off a cue card - it was very uncomfortable to watch.
But the real problem here is a complete lack of direction. Several times through the film, the actors are just kind of sitting there looking at people behind the 4th wall spitting out dialogue that they seem to be improvising as they go. They don't understand what's supposed to be happening at that moment in time, they're not telling us any part of a story, and that is entirely the fault of the Director. If someone had effectively been able to get the actors to understand what they were supposed to be doing and feeling throughout the script, this movie would have been much improved.
I don't know what to say about the star, Joshua Peter Laurenzi. He's not a good actor, but he's not unwatchable. Again, it seems the Director just told him, "hey, you're full of angst and unhappy" and then started filming him as he did whatever he wanted to do.
All the badness aside though, there's something endearing about watching such rawness. We were all teenagers and a lot of the issues are familiar. The film just tries way to hard to be the most indie indie-film ever when it would have done much better to actually create something less painful to look at with some sense that the characters themselves believed that they were not just actors. If this were made by junior high school students (and make no mistake, it looks as though it was), then I'd say "good job, kids." As an effort by adults; however, it just didn't win me over despite the charming Paul Foster and some not-terrible motivating ideas. If it's showing on cable some time, see it. For heaven's sake, don't spend money on it though.
First, the good: Paul Foster as Julien is wonderful. He's charming, interesting, beautiful, and lights up every scene that he's in. I would be very excited to see him in something that displayed his talents better. Lee Ann Roberts as Sam's mother and Helen Bowman as Sam's grandmother were both very good and made the most of their few moments on the screen. I have nothing against the "two boys fall in love and it's tough" script; it's pretty much what one expects from a low-budget indie. It's a very rough effort that tries hard but the writer clearly needs more life experience to really grab hold of an issue and do something revelatory with it.
And then, the bad: The camera-work is pretty much unforgivable. I completely understand that it's a budgetless indie, but the cinematography in BCH is a step below what you see people doing with their cell phones and posting on YouTube these days. The shaking, the awkward angles, and the crappy lighting all made the film very difficult to watch. If there's something worse than what they did with the camera, then it's the audio mix. The ambient sound made parts of the film un-hearable and some elements were so loud that you just wanted to press 'stop.' I have probably never encountered a movie ever that I so wanted to stop watching on account of the audio. The soundtrack was horrific; it sounded like they went down to skid row and had all the drugged-out buskers sing into a microphone whatever they could make up at that moment and decided to call that the movie's musical score. Alex Booth as Arielle and Suzie Cyanide as the local tranny were grating and terrible. Cyanide in particular spent chunks of his time staring right at the camera as if reading his few lines off a cue card - it was very uncomfortable to watch.
But the real problem here is a complete lack of direction. Several times through the film, the actors are just kind of sitting there looking at people behind the 4th wall spitting out dialogue that they seem to be improvising as they go. They don't understand what's supposed to be happening at that moment in time, they're not telling us any part of a story, and that is entirely the fault of the Director. If someone had effectively been able to get the actors to understand what they were supposed to be doing and feeling throughout the script, this movie would have been much improved.
I don't know what to say about the star, Joshua Peter Laurenzi. He's not a good actor, but he's not unwatchable. Again, it seems the Director just told him, "hey, you're full of angst and unhappy" and then started filming him as he did whatever he wanted to do.
All the badness aside though, there's something endearing about watching such rawness. We were all teenagers and a lot of the issues are familiar. The film just tries way to hard to be the most indie indie-film ever when it would have done much better to actually create something less painful to look at with some sense that the characters themselves believed that they were not just actors. If this were made by junior high school students (and make no mistake, it looks as though it was), then I'd say "good job, kids." As an effort by adults; however, it just didn't win me over despite the charming Paul Foster and some not-terrible motivating ideas. If it's showing on cable some time, see it. For heaven's sake, don't spend money on it though.