Customer Reviews

Americana

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Made on a shoestring, dircected and starring David Carradine, it's about a Vietnam vet (possibly shell-shocked) who attempts to start up a dilapadated merry-go-round in a small redneck Kansas town, just "for something to do." The town can't understand what he's up to, of course, and makes life miserable for him; but he succeeds in the end. Carradine employs a lot of long, quiet introspective scenes (a la the Kung Fu things he did for TV); most are pretty effective. But it's so low key the movie seems incoherent at times. Despite that objection, the movie is a good one and keeps us watching right through to the end.

I saw this flick years ago and remember it as an interesting and sort of sad movie about David Carradine as an ex-Vietnam loner in a small town. I think it must be worthwhile if you liked the series Kung-Fu and you are over 32 years old, you'll like this mellow movie.

If you liked Tender Mercies, you'll like this one. Americana is a surprisingly effective movie about a man's quixotic quest for peace and wholeness. Beautifully understated writing and acting. The cinematography is definitely of its time(early 1970's), and the audio sounds like fake stereo. Not letterboxed, so it feels kind of cramped at times. That said, I still recommend it to anyone who likes minimalist movies like Two-Lane Blacktop, Tomorrow and Stranger Than Paradise.

Searching for self and values describes the story line. This is a glimpse of a typical small USA town of the 1970's: poverty, few jobs, lack of values, no appreciation for the returning Vietnam Veteran. The carousel represents an America that is long past and only the soldier cares enough to try to resurrect that past. No one else seems to really care much about anything. It is a good, but sad, story. There is something terribly wrong with the sound which makes it difficult to hear some of the dialog.

The sound is terrible! I think the affects channel is on the right and the dialog on the left. The video quality is worse than VHS! How could Rhino do this to such a classic movie?