Product Details

• Region: Region 4 (Read more about DVD formats.)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000AMLYXK
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #674,173 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

An L.A. satire that's not nearly sharp enough or mean enough for its own good. Allison Anders and Kurt Voss, who co-wrote and co-directed, introduce us to a group of friends and acquaintances on the fringes of the movie and music businesses. Everybody's dissatisfied. The rock guys, who were big in the eighties, are now having trouble getting arrested. The actress (Rosanna Arquette), a former horror-film ingénue, balks at having to play her age. The production designer (Ally Sheedy) will try every New Age technique in the Yellow Pages to cure her loneliness. And, of course, the clerk in the health-food store keeps his head shots on hand just in case his ticket to stardom stops in for wheat berries. It's all pretty familiar material by now (Robert Altman's nailed this milieu at least twice), and it's not helped by the marshmallowy consistency of nearly every scene. -Ken Marks
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars John Taylor is a very talented actor!, February 21, 2008

By 

Shiloh Kremer - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sugar Town (DVD)

Sugar Town is a comedy with a good cast of actors. Ally Sheedy is convincing in her role. John Taylor steals the show as a dysfuntional ex rock star. He adds depth to his role by mixing humor into his acting which actually enhances his on screen presence and interaction with the other actors.
The only criticsm I have regarding Sugar Town is that the movie ends too abrupty leaving the viewer with many unanswered questions about what eventually happens to the characters. One example shows that John Taylor is surpised by a little boy who claims to be his long lost son. J.T. has his doubts. However, the movie ends and never reveals if J.T. is the boy's father.
Despite this shortcoming, I rate Sugar Town with 4 stars.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars the city of angels has devils too, March 21, 2001

By 

Peter Shelley "petershelley" (Sydney, New South Wales Australia) - See all my reviews
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This is like a low-key version of Robert Altman's Short Cuts but without the ironies of Raymond Carver's writing or the brilliance of Altman's direction. Here writer/directors Allison Anders and Kurt Voss present a mosaic of groupings all associated somehow with the members of a British 80's rock band on the comeback trail. If there is a common theme it's probably that Los Angelonos are all manipulative and celebrity seekers. There is no apparent diivision of tone that would explain having two directors, and since it is the female actors that make the stronger impression, it's hard to know which one to congratulate. As the milieu is the music industry, the soundtrack can be justified, though occasionally it's obtrusive - you tend to look to see if someone has a radio on during their conversation to explain the noise. And in one instance some discordant sounds work against the truth of the confession of a rape. There is the odd funny line - a tight dress is described as a "glove", and a songwriter says how the music has to come from somewhere, it's not just waste (the actual word he uses is profane). The narrative provides one act of callousness which approximates the tragedies of Short Cuts, but there is no wrap-up to connect the scenarios for a satisfying conclusion. Anders/Voss provide an amusing cut from an implied blowjob to a carrot stick in a de-juicer, a laugh when a prodigal child raised by a hippie resembles a gothic alien, and a woman checking her makeup as a deliberate strategy to avoid seeing a couple embrace. A plot point about a man refusing to sleep with Beverly D'Angelo seems silly considering how beautiful she looks, and her cynical rich lady is probably the best performance in the film. This film was made after Ally Sheedy's career reinvention in High Art, and she is funny in her self-consciousness when dating. She can survive being imitated by another character, partly because the imitator is the one who commits the act of callousness, though her first scene on a massage table isn't the best introduction. Rosanna Arquette has some nice moments as a possibly cuckolded wife (her response to the hippie is funny), but her brother Richmond Arquette is all hunky method-shoulders and deep voice.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Independent Film, August 6, 2000

By A Customer

This film features an excellent cast of known and relatively unkown stars. All give great performances in this movie and is for fans of independent films. If you liked films such as "Pulp Fiction," and "2 Days in the Valley," you'll enjoy this one.