Customer Reviews

Jefftowne

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

 

 

ok anyone who knows troma knows that they release some of the bloodiest most offensive material in the country (and oh how i love it.). well get ready for something totally out of the norm for troma. jefftowne is about a 39 year old with downs syndrome. when i bought this i expected something very troma, totally offensive with few redeeming moral qualities, which i had no problem with at all. but this movie actually turned out to be a touching (not very troma) look at someone who doesn't suffer from downs syndrome, he lives as if he didn't even have it. you meet jeff's 93 year old foster mother who is confined to a wheelchair as well as his extended family at the mall movie theater. they take just as much, if not more care of jeff than his mother. I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO DISREGARD MIKE DAVIS'S REVIEW OF THIS MOVIE! jeff is not treated the way that mr davis has said he is in this movie. the people are just so friendly with jeff that they can joke around with him as much as they want to. when i first saw the first scene in this movie, i thought that the guy making farting noises and blaming it on jeff was intended to upset jeff, but after a second watch you can see that it was just friendly. im really sorry if this review sucks, its pretty late and im dozing off in front of the keyboard. the DVD also includes jefftowne 2, which is a follow-up to the movie 4 years later, which i also think is good. again im sorry if this review sucked, but please, give jefftowne a chance.

I was very upset when I first read about Jefftowne, it seemed quite controversial, and didn't like the idea of offending the dignity of a person with Down's Syndrome. Anyway, I bought it, just to seem how far could it go... Now I've seen it... I was too way wrong...

The DVD is great, with a good transfer and nice english subtitles. Also is packed with extras, a little video shoot of the actual Jeff Towne nowadays, the slamdance premiere and some extra stuff worth watching (like the 2 audio commentaries).

The movie itself is just the opposite to what I expected. Jefftowne is made with something very unusual these days... it's freedom. Of course, in terms of tecnical quality, it's a very cheap docu, and crapy at sometimes. However, filmmaking isn't just about expensive material, it has also a moral. And let me tell you that the director of this movie (Daniel Kraus) treats Jefftowne with more dignity than any Hollywood production would have. Because dignity doesn't mean to explain the good things of anyone, dignity means to explain everything about Jeff, and still love him, but not because he's ill or retarded, love him because he's a person; and people have good and bad things.

As one who prefers non-fictional, gritty and anti-Hollywood filmmaking, I think "Jefftowne" is a major accomplishment, especially in the way it develops and celebrates relationships between a man with Down's Syndrome and those he befriends at his local mall's movie theater. Did the filmmakers try to profit from Jeffy's disability? Hardly. I'm pretty sure they were film students at the University of Iowa, surviving by working at the theater with one of the film's heroes, Kim the manager. Kim is the man who accepts, appreciates and nurtures Jeffy, who otherwise would be forced to spend his life living with his invalid foster mother. This woman, Genevieve, deserves credit for adopting Jeffy, but she is hopeless, can't take care of Jeffy's hygiene and somehow believes that she will be the next Clearing House Sweepstakes winner.
I bet the movie derived from boredom at work, when director Daniel Kraus and associates realized that Jeff Townes' life was a readymade documentary that only needed to be filmed. You can tell that Kraus, and almost everyone else, loved Jeffy and wanted to give him the spotlight he always dreamed of. That Jeffy loved beer, women, Star Trek and wrestling normalizes him, and without his movie theatre friends, he would have never met William Shatner or seen Hulk Hogan live.
This is a touching story about one man's bizarre journey through life, vocalized through his dozen or so vocabulary words that end up saying it all. Credit goes to Jeffy's friends who participated in the film, and of course to the production crew, who spent only $6,000 to make it.
The only drawback is the company that released "Jefftowne," Troma, whose reputation is questionable and likely caused this movie to end up buried in the Cult section of your non-corporate video store, which is where I uncovered it. The DVD does offer much more than just the film, including a short feature, "Jefftowne 2," that revisits Jeffy's situation four years after the original film. In "Jefftowne 2" we see Jeffy making great strides toward independence, after Genevieve has gone into assisted living and Jeffy has his own apartment. His theatre friends are still there to help him, and these films document the important friendships that disabled folks must trust to help them through life. I would be very interested to see "Jefftowne 3," should there be one.

Jefftowne is a masterpiece. I was literally laughing and crying at the same time. No kidding. There isn't a single scene in here that tries to solicit your pity, your contempt of a disabled man, or his demented stepmother. It is a triumph of the human spirit and how we will help people that need help. The people at the cinema where Jeff works obviously get a kick out of Jeff, but they also love him. It's obvious because he brings out the best in them. Only a freako, liberal 'academic' would mistake the people in Jeff's life for not loving him. They treat him with respect and (at least on camera) never exploit him or publicly humiliate him. If Jeff did not have the people he works with, he would be 'hurtin' for certain'. They take care of his social, emotional and even his warped sexual needs. They don't have sex with him, but they allow him to type the captions in his girlie mags that lets him process it without shame. The scene where Jeff has the camera affected me physically. It was timed so wonderfully in the film that I really felt like I was looking at the world through Jeff's eyes and I laughed out loud as tears were rolling down my face. Not tears of sadness or pity, but raw emotion knowing that Jeff has a place in the world and he knows it. This is due to his friends. When you see Jefftowne2 and how far he has come, it's amazing. Each one of the people he hangs out with have a completely different view of Jeff, yet they all accept him. I could go on and on but I'll leave it at this: If you don't finish this tape and feel good (not because you're not Jeff, but because you can share in his accomplishments and the way in which these normal folks take him into their lives) then you are absolutely emotionally retarded. Well done Troma and bravo Jeff.

Jefftowne (Daniel Kraus, 1998)

In the world of Troma film distribution, every once in a while you come across something that makes you start singing "one of these things is not like the other" in your head. Jefftowne is that thing, a documentary that is not at all played for laughs. How on earth did Troma find this, and what were they thinking? (Unfortunately, I'm sure the answer to that is "people will laugh at this guy." More unfortunately, I'm sure they were right.

Jeff Towne is a forty-year-old with Down's Syndrome. He lives alone, has a job at a movie theater, and actually lives pretty much like a lot of other confirmed bachelors; he drinks a lot of beer, looks at a lot of porn, watches pro wrestling. How is this out of the ordinary? Because Jeff has Down's Syndrome, of course, and because he does everything he does to extremes.

You'd expect a movie like this to be exploitive, and I'm sure that's what Troma were thinking when they picked it up for distribution (and because of that, I'm sure there's a segment of the populace that will see it exactly that way), but it really isn't. Kraus (Musician), a friend of Jeff's, treated him pretty much like any other documentary subject you'd see captured on film, Yes, there's some humor here, but it flows naturally (Jeff is something of a raconteur) rather than coming from Jeff's lot in life. The documentary is sensitive and fascinating despite, essentially, following a regular guy around doing regular stuff.

The DVD contains a wealth of extras that make it well worth checking out even if you've seen the movie itself, including a short follow-up Kraus filmed two years after the original movie. Very good, this. *** ½

OK, so this movie borders on exploitation, but so do so many worthy documentaries, whether they be "Hoop Dreams" or "Grey Gardens". Amateurish? Yes, but by no means is this movie without merit. The quotes that are on the DVD box (some of them, from places like Details, Spin, and the Village Voice, pretty impressive) do a good job pointing out what makes this movie tick. It's gut-wrenchingly honest and extremely personal. The fact that the filmmakers had barely ever picked up a camera before (as revealed in the commentary) just makes their drive that much more impressive. If you find this movie shocking and offensive, then you're missing the point, which is that Jeff's friends DON'T find him shocking and offensive. The problem (if there is one) is more likely in the viewer, not the filmmakers. Accept Jeff how he is. The filmmakers did, and this is their weirdly charming love/hate letter to Jeff.

If you are expecting random violence and nudity, this is not the movie for you. It is kind of entertaining in parts, and funny sometimes, but I felt like I had to force myself to sit through it just because of the Troma label.

an interesting movie, along the lines of "american movie". not really entertaining, kind of monotonous and non-climatic. i found myself finding other things to do while i watch this movie at the same time.
the funny thing is that during the beginning of the movie i couldn't understand a work jeff would say, but towards the end i began to almost understand what he was saying.
the part where he makes his own movie is, by far, the best.

When I had first read about this movie it was being described as exploitative and amateur at best. Well, after further review of the DVD, I will have to confirm these sentiments and add the word tasteless as well. Unlike some critics of the movie, I am not bad mouthing the premise, the life and times of a person afflicted with Down Syndrome is a very interesting topic, but to make a movie about how you and your friends use the person for your own personal enjoyment and fodder for entertainment is a bit tasteless.
The movies highlights include the director, who is about as charismatic as a rock, fumble through scenes as well as guide conversations with the subject in order that you and I the viewing audience can join in and point our finger at Jeff and laugh along with the people in the movie.... Pathetic is more the word you will be looking for after watching a few scenes while this is going on.
I was a bit disappointed in the movie, I found the subject matter very interesting, but the people in it somewhat... disgusting
To truly grasp what this movie is all about, and I can assure you that it is not about Jeff, go to the extra section of the DVD and look for the alternative beginning.
In short, you can tell that this entire movie was shot very last minute with nothing other than shock value in mind when filming it.