Customer Reviews

Between Something & Nothing

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

 

 

This is a far more polished film than Bulldog in the Whitehouse; it made me happy to discover that all of Verow's films do not look like that one. Except for a few grainy night scenes, you'd never know that this was shot on HD video - Verow's preferred medium. Between Something & Nothing is an unusual film; a weird cross between The Paper Chase and Midnight Cowboy. I liked the art class scenes (though I never had a male model that built when I took figure drawing class back in 1977; if I had I might have figured out that I was gay a year earlier) and I liked Joe's walks on the wide side too. The two opposing storylines are actually quite complimentary. There are some very sexy love scenes too and Tim Swain is major league cute, and then hot with a mohawk, as Joe. With the exception of some bad, or inappropriate music during a couple of climactic scenes, I can't find much fault with this film.

The acting throughout is also superb.

Is it for everyone? Maybe not but it sure beats some of the Brat Pack films from the '80s that tried to mine similar territory. I don't know how much of Between Something & Nothing is autobiographical and how much is fiction - or simply embellished - but it feels authentic and a lot of it got under my skin.

by Michael D. Klemm, Cinema Queer

The one customer review was a cut and paste from the description on the back of the box. This leads me to believe that the person who left it was involved with the film which I find to be a bit disingenuous

On the whole, I liked this quirky flick. It had some of the elements of a film school senior thesis/1990s indie production. Filmed as it was in Providence, RI, home to the Rhode Island School of Design, it could easily have been the former. In any event, this is a challenging film, and whether it's worth the viewer's time is more subjective than usual. If you prefer your films to have clear character motivation provided at some point as well as some kind of a visible conclusion, you probably aren't going to love this story. On the other hand, director Todd Verow's look at the seamier side of student and urban life, is often colorful and interesting.

There were plenty of moments here when all of the otherwise very attractive principal characters seemed hellbent on some form of self-destruction despite their obvious intelligence, looks and talents. No plausible reasons for the behavior are provided by filmmaker, which leaves a sizable hole in the story. On the other hand, much of the excessive drinking, petty larceny, and coke sniffing on view here is probably not so far from actually happens when young adults are on their own for the first time in their lives. (RISD would probably not be fond of this reasoning and doubtless would prefer that the student characters not be poster kids for their school.)

On the positive side, there is some very interesting chemistry between the two lead male characters in the film--Joe and Ramon. The first, a gay boy-next-door type and aspiring artist and the second a handsome and fairly articulate street hustler. The attraction between these two attractive young men is totally understandable, but their growing relationship is far more complicated. Likewise, the bond between Joe and his student pal, Jennifer--both of them outsiders at the school--has its logic and is touching at times.

I wished that there had been more resolution to this story, but there are some good moments to be mined here by the patient viewer. A three-plus for an attractive cast and for a long look at Providence.

After first 30 minutes I started to watch this movie with my finger on "scan" button. THERE IS LITERALLY NOTHING INTERESTING IN IT ;(
The plot is sooooo sensless that I don't even feel like briefing it in one sentence.
Another example of very bad gay theme movie.
CRAP!

There is no doubt that the director is good despite the low budget that is clear in the poor and bared setting, as there is no doubt that this is also a true story (it's partially based on the life experience of the director, Todd Verow), but again, as for Vacationland, it's so sad that, even if a light can be see in the end, it's too weak to enlight the mood. True, if you see the movie in perspective, knowing that the young boy in Vacationland first, and in Between Something & Nothing here, is the director himself, and you know that he managed to find his path in life, well, then you can consider this as a must passage, life experiences that help you to grow.

Okay, I'm a little confused here, because this movie appears to have been filmed on a cell phone, but I think this pretty much is the plot. We're in some dark post World War III future, when the world is divided into two clans. First, there's the Clan of Old People, who are all stupid and extremely ugly and have to pay to have sex. This sex part naturally involves EVERYBODY ELSE, namely the Clan of Young and Good Looking People. And they steal a lot, and have sex a lot, and inexplicably die or commit suicide or vanish forever after one brief scene in the film. Oh, and drink coffee. (Gallons and gallons of coffee went into the making of this feature.) This second clan is headed by a REALLY HOT GUY, who spends all his time wandering around empty city streets or abandoned buildings or construction dump sites or windowless basements. (Come to think of it, I don't remember ANY rooms having a window.) Anyway, eventually what he does is make a religious icon out of a broken mirror and paper and his own blood. (Seriously!) Apparently it wins him some contest, the prize being (I assume) a cell phone of his own so he can churn out even more films. Please understand that I honestly DID try to verify my facts here by clicking on the EXTRAS button, which then called up DELETED SCENES AND UNUSED FOOTAGE. I watched just long enough to verify that these are, in fact, ACTUALLY WORSE than the movie itself. And since I'd already wasted almost two hours of my life on the previous crap, I figured that was punishment enough. Your move.