Man, I never heard of this movie coming out. I discovered this in Target of all places and I've always been a HUGE Sean Penn fan especially for the movies She's So Lovely and Sweet and Lowdown and for the movies he has directed.
It's beautifully shot, slow paced, but most of all, great dialogue--existential stuff that sounds like poetry.
Sean Penn is hard to look at. He's this guy in drag minus the women's clothing if that makes sense, with Granny glasses. He stumbles around like Frankenstein and speaks very slowly.
Dublin--my favorite part of the film--I wish it all took place here
Cheyenne, played by Penn, is an ex-rocker with a beautiful mansion in Dublin. Occasionally he meets this goth girl Mary at a coffee shop at the mall and tells her to be nice to a guy who works at the mall, Desmond, a shy quiet guy who is trying to ask her out the fact that he likes Mariah Carey is a deal breaker.
His wife played by Frances McDonald is SO COOL. She's smart and his age--all very non-stereotypical for a rocker's wife. There are probably Sharon Osbourne/ Ozzy Osbourne references going on.
A singer of a band called "Pieces of Shit" --great name!! wants him to produce the band's next album. The singer liked that Cheyenne and The Fellows (Cheyenne's band) made the rhythm guitar more important than the lead guitar back in the day and wants the same. "You can change anything but our name," the singer says to Cheyenne, Sean Penn's character.
I wish the movie stayed here. I wish I got to see Cheyenne produce that album. I wish I got to see Mary go on a date with Denton. I wish the movie was more about Cheyenne making music again, but it's not.
New York
The movie gets darker. Cheyenne's father is dead. The search for the Nazi war criminal his father was looking for is on.
David Byrne playing himself may inspire Cheyenne to be an artist. Cheyenne drives around listing to Pieces of Shit's demo perhaps considering to produce them but the movie doesn't go there.
Bad Axe, Michigan
Road trip for a week. Great existential conversations. Scenes that look like Nan Goldin photographs. A Batmanish character randomly walks by him and it reminds me of a David Lynch film.
Alamogordo, New Mexico
Cheyenne hangs out with a woman and her son. I'm pretty confused at this point. I can't tell where this movie is going.
Huntsville, Utah
Harry Dean Stanton!! (The Straight Story; Pretty in Pink; Wild at Heart; Paris, Texas).
The movie is over and I'm not sure anymore if I should be telling you about this movie. This movie is like Paris, Texas or My Own Private Idaho or The Straight Story in that it's a road trip, it's so painfully slow to watch but it's uber cool and leads up to a final scene that reverses the order of things. I'd have to watch it again probably to understand it more.
