Redwoods (2009)

Memorable, crazy movie

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

well, actually i had big hope for this movie. but, unfortunately this movie out of my standard of "gay themed movie". as far as i watch this movie was really sucks. I can't even imagine why the director (and the writer) makes this movie being cheaper than should be. So many "minus thing" in this movie. but one thing that make me annoyed is the story. the story was made me felt uncomfortable. perhaps because this movie portrayed about betrayal. and i don't like that story.if you compare this movie with "Brokeback Mountain" i thought that would be BIG MISTAKE. This movie is really out of standard. so i just give 3 out of 10

For the record, I am tired of calling movies I review predictable. I'm beginning to think all the movies I watch are. So, with that in mind, I cleared my mind to watch a "light-hearted" independent gay-themed, romance film called Redwoods. Heck, I had a feeling, five-minutes in, that this would be, yet another (incredibly) low-budget forced gay tearjerker. So, I shut off the "critic" side of my brain and watched the movie with an open mind.It was cute (as was the lead star, Bradley!) and if you really let yourself go, like I did, you'll fall for this pair of lost souls, Chase (Montgomery) and Everett (Bradley.) And if you loved The Bridges of Madison County, like I did, you're sure to love this. (By the way, it's hard not to compare this to that Clint Eastwood/Meryl Streep classic – it was virtually word-for-word that movie.) Obvious unhappy couple Everett and Miles (Coughenour) begin the movie when Miles takes their autistic son up to Seattle for a week, leaving Everett alone to meet wandering, free-spirit/novelist Chase within minutes. Again, here comes the predictability to their eventual budding romance and Everett questioning on whether he should remain with his unhappy life or take a risk with the drifter.As I wrote, I turned off my analyzing brain and just allowed myself to watch and enjoy the movie. It was really sweet, it had a lot of soft romantic moments and somewhat good cinematography.Once the movie was over, I had mixed feelings (so, I guess the critic inside was awakened.) On the one hand it did have the aforementioned good qualities, but on the other hand, a lot of it felt so, well, forced. The secondary characters were pushing so hard – without barely an ounce of true acting, to enforce "good morals" or "feel-good" spots, that I felt I was watching an after-school special, albeit a nicely gay-packaged, after-school special. The "somewhat good cinematography" for the most part looked like it was filmed as an afterthought and inserted/edited in to the feature. Also, the ending was, indeed, out of left-field, though not 100% surprising. And finally, as much as I admire the filmmakers, writer/director and actors taking on a small independent film with a great backdrop, all I could think of was how many much better-made films I could rewatch.Such as Brokeback Mountain and Big Eden – movies that both contained true romance and real actors playing real (good) supporting roles to further both the story and drama along, and the already mentioned The Bridges of Madison County. Yet, I would still recommend this harmless little picture. Not really as the tearjerker it wants to be, but as a gay themed light entertainment with some good eye-candy. (I am human, after all.)

I am sorry, I was really thinking hard about an other summary for this article, however there is nothing else I can say but that this film is just one of the worst movies I have ever seen...Maybe it is just the sugar-sweetness of it. The looks the characters exchange, the way they are dressed, combed, the way the camera moves... it just gives me the creeps of surreality! The writing is mediocre and I wanted to stop watching it however kind of hoped it is going to get better during the movie... it did not. It just got more and more honey-romantic... without any substance. I cannot say that the characters were interesting or engaging. Brendan Bradley is just looking really weird with his puppy eyes and holding his elbow - which I suppose should be a character tick of some significance (maybe his insecurity and innocence) but it just makes me wanna shake that man to his senses! I kind of liked the way the writers put loopholes into the screenplay making it not all to laid out for us... oh, that was not intentional... ups... and there were like two or three moments of a light shining through the darkness of these dialogs but other than that - I had my vomit bucket prepared.One amazing peace: the harmonica! OMG! If you please introduce an element within the writing, make sure there is a significance to it. Also, make your actors practice it, so at least the one character bringing it in, has an attachment to it!Also, why the supporting cast was even there... no clue. This could have just been even cheaper movie without them. The mother and the B&B owner or even the brother (was he just signed up because he could get naked in front of the camera?). Oh, speaking of sex - I kind of surprisingly liked the undressing scene - it was kind of all what this movie was not - realistic.I am not saying there only has to be realistic movies but this movie was so off the charts for me I could not give it more than 2 stars out of 10: one for the undressing and the other one for the nature.

I wish I could go to Redwoods and engrave on the trees Oscar Wilde's aphorism so that everybody could marvel on the splendor of the insight.For at least one more thousand years, oh Oscar, stay with us, for I go Wilde with this, this thing, for this is a symptom of our current predicament, not a film: Suffocating cheap chords of piano and wind mark our downfall to letting cheap soundtracks describe our intimacy; no I do not want any more bad music describe my, or anybody's intimate moments. They make their own f***ing music.Mediocre writers-cum-directors feeding primly on previous films, not as films, but as hits, and they miserably miss, dragging us with them.(The actors in their two bed scenes were somehow let to be, and these are the only almost redeeming moments in the film - along with Brendan Bradley's bland expression playing the harmonica towards the close, that achieves something of pathos - , but, oh, so bereft when then one remembers the pap surrounding them.)No I do not want any badly informed directors turning the unlived life into one more self-indulgence!(And why is it that Matthew Montgomery is involved with creepily mediocre gay films ("Socket", "Gone but not forgotten")?) But let's start at the beginning: Dear trees, fade out then fade in, then fade out then fade in, then fade out then fade in, then fade out then fade in - did you get the headache spin; No, cut it to the middle: slow mo so oh slow mo cut with mom and dad pensive so; slow mo and tears aboard this is really worstward ho; scenes with me and my lover so, wait, no, this is mom and dad again, this editing is so -FIVE YEARS LATER Now this what can it mean?...Are we to marvel that the protagonist has not aged a day, that the film comes five years after "Brokeback", or that five years from now that we are going to have more of this kind of film? One starts to get the feeling we need more of the punk sensibility that informed Derek Jarman's films; one yearns for films with spunk.