Reviews (6)

Great Film
This film blew me away, but I am a sucker for the excrutiatingly long shot. The best film I have seen in years.

my take on the movie
This was a fascinating film and in my opinion, the whole point of the srtuggle was caused by the rape of the forests by a normal man who did not realize his actions until it was too late.
Sure there are long, slow shots, but worth setting the tone. Music was also perfect.

FIVE STARS FOR THE FILM, ZERO STARS FOR THE DVD
This is definitely one of the greatest films ever made, arguably Jon Jost's best film to date. However, this DVD's treatment of the film is atrocious. I have 100s of DVDs and I am unusally forgiving about technical quality, especially when a company choses to release an excellent hardtosee film like THE BED YOU SLEEP IN. However, as a concerned consumer I feel compelled to say that, technically, this is the single worst DVD I own. The image constantly flutters, as though you're at the movies and there's something wrong with the projector gate. You'd do much better with the VHS tape. At least then you wouldn't suffer incessant picture jitter. I'd think twice before buying any DVD from Vanguard Films again.

the bed you sleep in
Acting is superb,but the long tedious shots of the small town are as exciting as watching an X-Ray film I kept wanting to fast forward.Watched it once and then straight into the never watch again basket.

Say no more
This is by far one of the greatest films ever made. ... Read more

Amazon.com

In another of director Jon Jost's American investigations into the dual quest for money and romance, another of his pet themes emerges:a Maileresque study of the male criminal mind via Gary Gilmore. Probably the most sarcastic, sexually explicit homage ever paid to Hollywood (and American society), this imaginative re-creation of Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde attempts to demystify the manufactured, romantic myth of the lonely desperado and the woman who falls for him. Ricky Lee (Howard Swain), fresh from the Washington State Reformatory, picks up Beth-Ann in a Coeur d'Alene diner.In a stolen pickup, they drive to the California Redwoods, gleefully "making like bunnies" in roadside motels along the way. Ricky Lee's preoccupations are with money, the law, and image (he keeps his mirrored shades on during sex); Beth-Ann is a cluster of paperback Harlequins and high-school superficialities: through internal monologues, the heartbreaking rift between the two characters and their romantic imaginations is felt. When they run out of cash, Ricky Lee holds up a convenience store, killing three people.An early anticipation of Dead Man Walking, Jost offers his characters none of the moral consolations, however bleak, that that picture allowed.Instead the camera is pointed more unforgivingly toward the fugitive romance-novel and true-crime imagination. --Christopher Chase ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Innovation and Humour
This film is another striking example of Jon Jost's boundless creativity. He has a witty, sharp-minded gift of bringing aesthetic pictures alive! You'll see "redwoods" that you won't forget again. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Director Jon Jost may have made a few enemies with the localhomebuilder's association and the Mormon Church in this devastating 1993 psychological drama, but then again, hardly anyone has seen it. "Just a one-day drive" from the urban sprawl centers of California, the quiet and beautiful Utah landscape in and around Circleville becomes the gleam in the eye of a struggling real-estate developer (Tom Blair). A middle-aged entrepreneur, with the talent of a certain cheery, common-sense sales-pitch, is, at this late stage in the game, only barely able to contain his raw and mean temper with friends and family. Despite tensions with his wife and friends, he nonetheless forges ahead toward his version of the American Dream. Themes of economic growth versus environmental decay (both in the geographical and community sense) have been visited by filmmakers before, but Jost links his narrative with the locale in a complex, original way: with awesome economy, he pares what we see of human conflicts down to the bone while generously allotting much of his 85 minutes to the rural landscape.A lonely road and a long line of ecstatic poetry appear on screen, but this ain't no hymn to Walt Whitman or Manifest Destiny. No other filmmaker has explored more deeply the dark side of the American entrepreneur.The unforgettable final scene--a weekend hunting expedition in which his son Philip learns the mechanics of a rifle as well as the male code of what "not to tell mom"--is both astonishing and horrifying. Jost dedicated the film to his father. --Christopher Chase ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Fine, disturbing study of cultural decay
This is a an excellent low-budget film about a controlling, possibly psychotic Utah businessman and his eventual meltdown and the way it affects his already tenuous relationship with his family.
Interesting in the way it portrays middle America as a place of extreme spiritual and emotional corrosion. Blair is very, very creepy in the lead.

Similar in many ways to Michael Haneke's films in that the focus is extremely narrow and the director's primary statement seems to be about cultural decay.

This is definitely not a film one would watch to be "entertained". But it is quite powerful.

World Artists should be ashamed of themselves...
This is absolutely the worst DVD I own. The actual film is quite good but for this release World Artists chose to transfer from a video source and the results are close to unwatchable. The image is dark and murky throughout and the poor quality is especially damaging during shots of what are supposed to be beautiful Utah landscapes. I cannot imagine Jon Jost would approve of this.

Break-out performance by Robert "Bob" Nalwalker
Jon Yost may have done it again. Bob Nalwalker is a fresh new actor that will be hard to ignore. His gritty performance as "the sheriff" will leave you breathless. Yost obviously uses Nalwalker as a touchpoint that beautifully ties this movie beginning to end. The humanity he brings to his role is a clever counterpoint to the ramblings of "Wes" played masterfully by Tom Blair. Rural life has never been depicted in such a real yet disturbing manner. Yost sets the viewer free and provides ample time to digest the poignant theme. Fade to black editing is as cutting-edge as it is primative.

Sure Fire
"Sure Fire" is a compelling story about Wes a hunt obsessed entreprenneur living in a small town of Utah. I particularly liked this film because of its pain's taking attention to detail and it's beautiful saturated color photography. I've seen this film both on the big screen where it is a treat and more recently on video where it still works very well and kept me glued to the screen right to the end. It will serve as a great introduction to Jon Jost's work, for this is one of his more accessible and popular pieces, being very dramatic and plot driven. The end will come to you as a complete shock and surprise. Above all this a film about the America we never have a chance to see usually, centering on both the business and family crisis' that effect our main hero Wes, convincingly and chillingly played by the ever versatile Tom Blair. You'll be watching it not just for the great performances and ensemble playing, notable aswell are the creative visuals where landscape becomes an integral part of a classic American story. There's also an affecting and powerful sountrack by Erling Wold.

Fans of the American outdoors and all types of lowlife will have a ball watching this film, which is why this film has quickly become one of my personal favorites in my video collection ... Read more

Amazon.com

Probably the most maligned American Playhouse production ever aired,All the Vermeers in New York inspired unanimous contempt from TV reviewers. This 1990 anti-rhapsody in Manhattan landscapes forewarned its viewers of a tedious experience, and People magazine saidit was "as exciting as watching a painting dry." What they objected to as "arty" may have had something to do with Jost's static photography or minutes-long lyrical interludes. Composed in, on top of, and around steel and stone urban monuments--as opposed to the warm and unabashed human subjects of Vermeer--Jost's brash depiction of a post-Reagan-era Manhattan and its inhabitants (at various turns a usurious art dealership, a cutthroat Wall Street brokerage, and the superficialities of the New York dating scene) may make Woody Allen's Manhattan seem like a scenic flight inpositive-thinking guru Tony Robbins's helicopter, but Jost's dramatic interestisn't in mere exposé. A stock trader's lust for the killer deal is juxtaposed with his obsessions for a rare painting and later for a homesick, unemployed French actress (Emannuelle Chaulet). He spies her in a room looking at the same painting--but what they are looking at becomes, in the psychological context of the film, as mysterious and elusive as what they are looking for. Jost's most expensive movie to date--a mere $250,000--turned out to be the most virulent of his unflinching critiques of the destructive powers of materialism in the American--or, by the romantic and historical associations he provides, European--psyche. --Christopher Chase ... Read more

Reviews (4)

A brave independent film
The presence of Vermeer in the art has always been powerful and many times neglected. His works seem to have a weird enchantment in all the viewers inside and outside the painting craft. The delicate equilibrium in the form and the sumptuous employment of the light and shadow seduce inmediatly the soul, the eye and the spirit. Salvador Dali, for instance, stated in a conference that Vermeer was his favorite painter. And it's interesting to remark how film makers so distant in styles as Greenaway (A zed an two noughts) and Riddley Scott (Blade runner), have shown Vermeers's paintings as admirable narrative devices in their respective scripts, as clever clues.
The premise made by this talented independent director -Jon Jost-is setting in New York (Metropolitan Musseum) a young artist Frenchwoman and a stockbroker who meet in front of a Vermeer painting as a smart raising relationship.
The european style (Wenders, Altman, Losey, Antonioni and Rohmer among the closest authors)developed by Jost, allows explore several issues, such as the mercenary underworld in art dealing, the hipocrisy beneath the surface, and above all the perceptions contrasts about how the art is considered as just another more market object.
Francis Coppola told in 1981 in an interview, this bitter thought: "Ïf anybody thought that the art was just a wrench of market, then you could buy a Picasso, to cut it in two parts and sell both parts as if those of them were two Picassos".
This is a very unusual movie, carefully filmed and cleverly directed.
If you are a Vermeer admirer (as I do) and even you don't , you should not miss this movie. I recommend to read a remarkable essay about Vermeer written by Marcel Brion.

Jon Jost's All the Vermeers in New York
Jon Jost shoots a little New York film, and bores the heck out of America.

The central story centers around French actress Anna (Emmanuelle Chaulet) falling for Wall Street money man Mark (Stephen Lack). Their courtship begins in the Vermeer room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where Mark passes Anna a note. She meets him later with her roommate Felicity, who pretends to translate for Anna. Mark pursues her until she decides to go back to France, with Felicity, and Mark finally confesses his love in a tragic phone call.

Yawn.

This slow moving film is so boring I took three days to watch the eighty-seven minute thing. The central story takes forever. There are subplots that are brought up and dropped worse than any other film I have ever see. Gordon, the poor artist trying to borrow money from a gallery owner? Dropped. Felicity's dad using her name to make possibly illegal stock transactions? Dropped. Felicity and Anna's constantly rehearsing roommate? Dropped.

The best scenes in the film involve Stephen Lack as Mark. All of his scenes just crackle, and he does some excellent ad-libs. His scene on one of the World Trade Center towers, as he talks about death while a jet plane can be heard over head (this was shot in the early 1990's) is creepy and fascinating. He held back too much in "Scanners," but here he is the only reason to sit through this muck.

"All the Vermeers in New York" is like Woody Allen on his worst day. I wish Jost could have given us more, not bore.

The remoteness of art--and some relationships
In the film, "All the Vermeers in New York", stockbroker Mark meets Anna--a French model while they are both gazing at paintings in the Vermeer Room inside the New York Metropolitan Museum. He is immediately struck by her physical similarity to Vermeer's models. They really have nothing in common--apart from a love of Vermeer, and their ephemeral relationship is vague and indecipherable.

There's a lot wrong with this film. The story is pushed aside for overly long camera shots of the museum columns and the floor (amongst other things), and the soundtrack is nothing short of annoying--there are screeching noises and even mini-siren sounds at some points. The film is also self-consciously pretentious at points, and the director's ponderous, introspective style may bother some viewers.

BUT, there's also a lot very, very right with this film. Some of the cinematography is spectacular--how did they make some of the New York scenes look like an Italian landscape? And in one of the scenes, Anna's profile is reflected in a framed painting. For me, however, the saving grace of the film--and why it gets 4 stars--is the story. The lonely stockbroker--who claims that art is his salvation--longs to connect with someone, and unfortunately, when he meets Anna, he thinks she is the embodiment of all he holds dear. His imagination is at once the characteristic that makes him so interesting, but it is also his downfall. Anna is attracted to Mark's money, and she fails to see the person behind the dollar bills. Ultimately they are as remote and indecipherable to each other as the Vermeer paintings created long ago. This is really a very beautiful film--in spite of its flaws--displacedhuman

All style. No substance.
I was extremely disappointed with "All the Vermeers in New York", a mid-80's film from French director/writer Jon Jost which was produced by American Playhouse (in case anyone was wondering, the film IS in English). First of, let me say that I am a big fan of movies dealing with the world of art, and there have been some great ones in recent years; "Pollock", "Maze", "I Shot Andy Warhol", "Sweet Thing", "Vincent & Theo", etc. I am also a big fan of arthouse/independent cinema, and even of films that most viewers would consider to be "slow moving". All that said, I STILL cannot find much to recommend in regards to "Vermeers"! Filmmaker Jon Jost has a photogpaher's eye for visuals and details, and there are plenty of lengthy static shots in this film that indeed look very artistic and "pretty",...but that is part of the problem. The film often seems more like a still-life slide show than a "motion picture", and Jost misses many opportunities to add some needed visual "life" to the film. As a writer and storyteller, I'm afraid Jost leaves a LOT to be desired! While there are three or four central characters, none of them are really devoloped or fleshed-out into people that we care about,...or even understand! Who are these people? What are their motive's? What drives their lives? Why should we spend 90 minutes of OUR lives watching them??? Unfortunately for his viewers, Jost's idea of "character devolopment" seems to be lengthy close-ups of the actor's expressionless faces not saying a word - and as a viewer, I desire a LOT more from a story than this! There is, I believe, a RIGHT way to make a slow-moving film. Take for instance Atom Egoyan's "Exotica"; a film where the story and characters slowly-unravel before your eyes as the writer/director peels back layers of information, and in the end, leaves the audience with a complete picture. The problem with "Vermeers" is that, unlike Egoyan's film, there is no "unvieling" of the story, no suspence, no building up of the characters, and nothing-in-particular driving the plot to an intesting conclusion. I have given the film 2 stars for Jost's considerable visual talents, but it dosen't even get a blip on the screen for it's shoddy storytelling! ... Read more