Customer Reviews

Garden Party

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

 

 

Ensemble cast flick about a bunch of very young Angelinos as they go about their lives. No plot to be bothered with. Some gratuitous nudity. In fact, people seem to be disrobing every few minutes here to compensate for the lack of drama. No matter. This is still entertaining enough for a night's viewing pleasure.

First off the picture on the front cover never appears in the movie, nor do all those characters enter a swimming pool. The title "Garden Party" comes from the Ricky Nelson song which is sung at a Garden Party. The movie centers around the sleazy Internet Porno traffickers, their clients, and users plus those who intersect with their lives. The characters in this film are human. They are neither all good nor all bad. Victims are not all victims and people who help you all want something, but only a few demand.

Vinessa Shaw plays a real estate agent, Sally St. Clair (the box says LA, but the Hollywood sign is real prominent in the background). We find out she was once a stripper, who became a real estate agent. She helps street urchins, but demands their loyalty and hard work in return. She is ruthless and unethical in business and is not afraid to use her sex to get what she wants. Working for her is a Nebraska boy, who is unsure about his sexuality. He is mostly gay, but is confused. April is a 15 year old who runs away from her perverted step-dad who spies on her in the bathroom. He hasn't touched her, but she has to leave and will do anything to stay out of his home. She stays with some friends who are lesbians and works posing for Internet porn. Sammy, another street urchin is a gifted musician who stays with the semi-gay Nebraskan until is he is discovered. There is also a pervert who constantly downloads Internet porn who stalks, then hooks up Sally and helps her get her nude pictures removed from the Internet. This loosely ties them to other characters in the story.

The music is excellent. There is just one nude scene near the beginning. At times the movie seems like it is soft porno without the nudity. Excessive pot use. The movie, like a Ricky Nelson song is light in spite of the sleazy situations and all ends well.

Garden Party is one of those movies that feature a few storylines that all intertwine throughout the movie. I usually like movies like this one because I enjoy the variety of characters presented and the interesting ways their lives intersect. Unfortunately, this is one movie that I found my self feeling completely blank on. I neither like it nor hate it. I do feel as if I wasted my time watching it though.
Let me see... there was diversity. There was a real estate agent who was extremely successful who had a few dirty pictures floating around on the internet. She has a stalker guy who is obsessed with her and having woes with his girlfriend and cannot seem to decide if he wants to sell his house. Her assistant is a guy who seems confused... really confused... about his sexuality but he does have an affixation for pot. He picks up this homeless kid who is a musician who is on the verge of being big and develops a swift attraction to him. The homeless kid seems to be a "pleaser" and will do whatever to make someone happy. He meets a girl at a party and she seems to develop some odd... swift sexually charged emotional connection with him. OH! And then there is the young woman who runs away from a "pervert step-father" infested home to live with her lesbian cousin. Also in the mix are a dirty picture photographer who also seems to double as a creepy therapist and an older man who has the lust of a school boy when it comes to women but the attitude of a pig when it comes to them saying no.
So, while the cast is rather diverse and their pasts seem interesting, when it all gets fleshed out it all seems so bland. The acting was serviceable but it just wasn't enough to make me really care for anybody. Even though the film dealt with some rather "dirty" elements, it came off to squeaky clean for my tastes. I have nothing against squeaky clean, don't get me wrong. But I do have a problem when squeaky clean is in a movie that seems to follow the world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
Lame horse... meet pasture...

Jason Freeland's Garden Party is one of those films that tries hard to be hip and chic but doesn't always hit its mark. The intersecting story film is notoriously hard to pull off. When done well (Altman's Short Cuts, Haggis' Crash) they can be quite realistic and interesting to see. Unfortunately Garden Party comes off as improbable and contrived.

Garden Party (it takes its name from the Ricky Nelson song) attempts to tell the story of a group of young people living in Los Angeles. First there is 15 year old April (Willa Holland) new in town and trying to get by without having to take off her clothes. Sammy is a muscian who is looking for a break, Nathan is a intern at the real estate office of Sally St Clair (Vinesaa Shaw). St. Clair is a pot growing real estate agent who has some particularly nasty skeletons in her closet who is the glue that holds the film together.

While not a bad film it could have been much better. The biggest complaint is that Freeland does little to make his viewers care about his characters or their stories. The entire film has a sort of sordid feel that makes it hard to get into.

As a small release the film is presented in standard definition with no extras to spesk of.

This may be worth a rental if your interest lies in this type of filmmaking.

Garden Party is a smorgasbord of different groups of people in the artsy business. The genre skims the scoop of acting, music, porn, and drugs in the entertainment biz very well depicted in the setting that is truly the blended unique landscape image of Los Angeles. Like the other movie of a similar genre, Mulholland Drive (2001), there's no plot or story line, just clips of scenes. The driving force is the acting, drama, vernacular lingo, flavor tasting image, and of course, Willa Holland. She's in the mist of a garden variety party of Gen Y's, playing out their lives in the heart of a place like no other, trying to find the Hollywood glitz. Like many of those seeking but never reaching fame, their quest never concludes, so the story never plays out, and the end of this flick will leave you empty as the credits roll. But overall, the crux of Garden Party is to amuse, and to display the gaudy desperation of promoters (or agents), and the interesting insight into each of the characters' lives driven by the likelihood of a talent on the brink of discovery, or to just survive a dream. For that, it is well done.

Let's just say that I saw it free on Hulu, and thank goodness it was free. Otherwise I can't find any justification for the enormous waste of time. I see what this movie is trying for- a cool, complex movie full of dark, twisty characters set in Los Angeles. However, indie it is not. Don't kid yourself. Instead, the characters are overly shallow and annoying to say the least, and cannot act to save their lives: Empty-headed girl who poses for pedophiles, pot smoker, more pot smokers, a wannabe musician who looks like he never fully woke up, a stony artist with too much time on his hands, pervert, more perverts, and...that's about it. Plot was messy and ridiculous, cinematography non-existent, storyline quality was a hairline above the text on a Taco Bell hot sauce packet, and the rest, well, it seemed to gear itself towards perverts. Really, the movie leaves you nothing but a raging headache and a belief that not everyone who can afford to finance a movie should do so.

This is a good film. It is not perfect but I really enjoyed it. The charecters and situations are realistic. Its well written, directed and acted. If you like movies that realistically depict the life of teenagers and young adults in today's society you will enjoy this movie.

I really enjoyed the movie. I found the cast very entertaining and I loved the music. The acting was great and I am now going to buy the DVD.

Ben