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andreas
Member
Username: Andreas

Post Number: 70
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Tuesday, June 27, 2006 - 07:05 pm:   

does anyone saw this film? i just read today for the first time about that film. the writer recommended it. no, he was crazy about. a roadmovie. atrip through the south of the usa. with music of 16 horsepower and the handsome family. and a few others. but please lokk and read here:

http://www.searchingforthewrongeyedjesus.com/
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Randy Adams
Member
Username: Randy_adams

Post Number: 446
Registered: 03-2005
Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - 03:24 pm:   

Hmmm, Andreas. I'd like Hardin to weigh in on this one.

I watched the trailer and, to me, it looked like a perpetuation of the stereotype of the south that people in the north and the west of the U.S. enjoy so much. It looked like a string of tired cliches. And I saw nothing but white people. That's not the South that I've seen.

Rural america in any part of the country presents some pretty unusual characters but surely this is true in any country. The american South is not just rural any longer. There are some quite large and modern cities and a good deal of in-migration has occurred because people wearied of freezing in the northern climes or of falling behind in super-expensive California and businesses were lured by attractive concessions offered by local and state governments. A much more interesting and nuanced film would explore the tension between the "old" South and the New South which is really what you find there.
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Hardin Smith
Member
Username: Manosludge

Post Number: 473
Registered: 03-2006
Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - 07:45 pm:   

Eloquently put, Randy. You've, once again, hit the proverbial nail on its sorely in need of a good whackin'head. I haven't seen the trailer, but reviews of "Wrong-Eyed Jesus" have called it condescending and pretentious and said it featured every lame-o Dixie, white trash stereotype in the book. And, though I'm no apologist for, or defender of, the South, despite being from there (it is a backward-ass place, particularly La. It is, in short, like visiting a Third World country, without leaving the US. In fact, that slogan should be on travel posters), I was turned off of seeing it. At best, it sounds like a rather pointless wallow in the squalid. And also, not that I'm all that PC, but it sounds like a racially imbalanced portrait, as well....

I was disappointed to find out that it was such a stinker, too, because I am a particular fan of Jim White and his Southern Gothic stylings. He's done a handful of excellent, intriguing records, some in association with David Byrne (hey, a GoBees connection, of sorts). My favorite of them is probably the one called, "No Such Place". With song titles like, "Handcuffed to a Fence in Mississippi" (I can't imagine a state of more abject misery) and "God Was Drunk When He Made Me", how can you go wrong?

For a truer, Hardin-approved version of the South, the one that gets me all nostalgic and misty-eyed, I'd recommend the novels of Walker Percy, starting with "The Moviegoer", and "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole.
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andreas
Member
Username: Andreas

Post Number: 74
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - 09:48 pm:   

ah, thanks randy and hardin. all the german critics i read about that film were positive. but your comments showing me that it is an rather unbalanced film. i watched the trailer and all the other stuff which you can watch and listen on the film-website and it seems that it is more like a film about country/alt-country music imbedded into a road movie. even when the music and the bands featured in the film promises a lot for now i will keep my hands off the dvd.
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Michael Bachman
Member
Username: Michael_bachman

Post Number: 120
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - 10:06 pm:   

The area just south of Knoxville, Tennessee is booming from what I have been able to gather. Not to far from the Smokey Mountains. I have also heard some nice things about the Ashville, North Carolina area.

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