Customer Reviews

Carny [VHS]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

what a pleasure to find this is in print again.
ages ago i searched high and low and found a sticky
old rental to buy and now can finally replace it with a nice new one. sad it isnt out on dvd.

the best of everybody in this little treat too...teen jodie foster at her adolescent peak, wolf-eyed meg foster in one of the few movie roles i actually liked of her...the best gary busey ever had to give, a choice acting performance by musician robbie robertson,
and a positive and a delightful assortment of circus [employees] that make this movie both sleazy and sensitive, funny and moving, and gives the feeling of being let in on a dark and daring secret world.

This is my favorite Jodie Foster flick. There's something very sexy and mysterious about living life on Carny Row. Jodie Foster plays a really gutsy girl (not an unusual role for her!). She's incredible! This film also has my favorite lezzie-tease scene...!

Gary Busey is also VERY good in this film...certainly a career high-light for him, in my opinion....

While reviewing some old tapes I was considering getting rid of in a yard sale, I found I was able to run my own little early-Jodie Foster film festival. Well, a mini-festival anyway, since I stumbled on this one and FOXES. And after, reviewing both, I'd have to concur with all those who find her early films quirky, entertaining and intriguing--but flawed as all get-out.

CARNY is an atmospheric flick, one that captures the carnival milieu pretty well. The acting is solid, with Jodie as the obvious stand-out. Gary Busey and Robbie Robertson are also quite good, but their roles could use a bit of fleshing out. As could the plot overall. The film meanders along until someone decided to up the ante in the last twenty minutes. The last ditch effort to end the film with a somewhat muted bang pretty much falls flat. Probably, the film would have worked better strictly as the mood piece and character study it started out to be.

But CARNY is still well worth your time. As an unromanticized look into the world of traveling carnivals, it's pretty effective. The three stars show a kind of promise that only Jodie Foster actually ever began to realize. Robertson pretty much dropped out of acting after this not inauspicious debut, sad to say. And the effect of Gary Busey's turbulent private life on his career has been fairly well documented. Come to think of it, even Jodie Foster's career hasn't been all it could be--lots of interesting films, not that many great ones. With CARNY, that pattern was already emerging.

I gave this title a one star rating due to the manufacture quality
of the disc(s), not based upon the actual content of the disc(s).
I recently purchased five Warner Archive titles from [...].
Titles purchased were: All The Marbles, Bermuda Depths, Carny,
From Hell It Came and Razorback. On the back cover of each disc it states,
Discs are for use in playback only devices. All five of these discs would
not function correctly. What I mean is that the menu would not come up
on any of them. The screen would just show black with no picture until
I skipped forward to approx 30 to 50 minutes into the film. Then I had
to fast reverse search back to the start of the movie. Upon doing this
the films/discs then played through the films. Quality of the films
themselves I feel is very good. I attempted playback on five different
brands of DVD players with the exact same result. It would seem these M.O.D.
(Manufactured On Demand) titles are either so heavily encrypted with
Macrovision or just so poorly manufactured that playback is very frustrating.

This is a highly atmospheric trip through Carnival life. I wish that the relationship between Frankie and Patch had been fleshed out more to show how they entered their peculiar double-act, but a fascinating double-act it is. Robbie Robertson isn't so much an actor, more he is a tantalising presence - broodingly sexual in contrast with Busey's lecherous attitude. Jodie Foster gave a surprisingly mature performance. I've never seen Taxi Driver, so for me the effect of seeing Donna's Baptism by Fire into Carny life was chilling and powerful. This VHS is let down by the muddy audio - the DVD issue can't come soon enough! But overall, this movie is watchable. It's heartening that Robbie Robertson brought some real knowledge of Carny life from his teens. It's hard not to swoon at him though! Good film.

As of July 2006, Carny is not yet available on DVD, but get it when it appears. Foster, Robertson and Busey are fascinating in this little-known gem. And the music includes some incredible stuff. (Some numbers have been cut on commercial tv airings, which is a shame. Pray that the eventual DVD release is complete.)

I was born the same year as Jodie Foster. I remember seeing her in various commercials, TV shows and movies as I was growing up. She was the unofficial poster child for single parent families and independent, if somewhat dysfunctional children. This film was made just as the 70's were ending and the 80's were starting. I remember these days, the Carnival, what it was like. One could learn a lot on the midway. That when things look too good to be true they were, like the shiny switchblade knife that one could win, "aren't they illegal" I asked, "illegal is a sick bird". I will never know if the knife worked, one could not win it, it was fixed. Freak shows and hoochy coochy dancers, people trying to make a living, or people being exploited? Who could say? Those who knew best decided to clean up the midway, but can anyone tell me if there is less exploitation, cheating, and dirty dealing without the midway? I lost some money but I got an education that saved me more money in the long run, that's gone now and the world is worse for it. By far and away the star of the show is the 17-year young Jodie Foster, the little girl who was in the Disney films had come of age, oh how she came of age! Her dancehall outfit is a classic that will never be repeated, as was the girl/women inside it just like the rest of us, she was growing up. The film is well paced, perfectly cast (they simply took a real carnival and shot there), and all too believable, you don't need to make up characters like Donna, Bozo, Gary Busey in his best role ever and Robbie Robinson as the low level manager who collects money and keeps "rubes" in line with his trusty straight razor, there was a kind of justice there that one does not see anywhere else, another world where different rules apply. A place for the disenfranchised, the ugly and the beautiful, in one unforgettable scene, the "fat Lady" stands alone in the rain, relishing her chance to take an all over shower. Such simple images say so much. Like all classics, it becomes more poignant with age. Of all of Busy's and Fosters films, none were better or more telling then this, and of all the Characters Jodie Foster has played before or since, none is more important, none is better. It's a shame that other of Ms. Fosters films that don't come close to this, Svengali, Blood of Others, etc have been made into DVD, but this gem sits and waits, perhaps it is an irony that the prize we see behind the counter is the one we cannot win.

"Carny" is a movie I recommend with two serious reservations. It's a terrific film to look at with a seedy ambience that'll keep you mesmerized. Director Robert Kaylor uses the traveling carnival to explore the dark underbelly of American society. Behind the ferris wheel and cotton candy lies the games of chance, parade of human oddities, and sexual exhibitions. Gary Busey is terrific as the dunk tank clown who goads customers into throwing baseballs at him. Robbie Robertson(of the Band) gives a creditable turn as the carnival promoter. Jodie Foster, however, seems miscast as the townie who runs off with the carnival. The makers also seem to exploit Foster more so than Martin Scorsese did in "Taxi Driver". The film's end is rather unsavory that seems more at home in a slasher flick. Despite the reservations I give "Carny" the pass because so much good material is mined here.

Carny is an excellent movie and it is much deeper than many think. It is not a classic "freak" show kind of movie, it actualy has quite a good plot. You get to know the characters pretty well and it makes you miss these types of carnival shows. They don't have 'em anymore. I reccomend this film to anyone who likes late 70's early 80's obscure films...

Carnivals are among my pleasures, and films about carnivals are all I have left in this politically correct world. The difference between a circus and and a carnival, IMHO, is that carnivals do not have clowns.
If you have not read Confessions of a Sword Swallower or Step Right Up by Daniel P Mannix III, or seen Freaks, or She Freak, you might want to view this, or the cable TV show Carnival. Carny has what it takes to make the big man laugh, and cry, every time sofar.
I purchased this one from Warner Brothers directly, and am entirely pleased. To play it on a DVR hit the functions button and choose Play DVD on the menu. It is a nice clean print of a dark, dark movie. I challenge anyone to name a better Jodie Foster or Gary Busey movie. Busey won my deepest respect before the credits were over. Foster is hotter than a two dollar pistol. Buy this one, you will not be seeing it on TV.