Customer Reviews

Tweek City

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

 

 

This film was amazingly and accurately dark. While viewing I couldn't help being drawn in by the characters yet, appropriately, couldn't get comfortable either. The scene selections and use of varying media helped identify with Bill's dichotomous existence. All of this was framed with one of the best soundtracks I have ever heard. Great work - keep them coming!

I recieved "Tweek City" off of amazon.com last week and spent my Friday night with it. (I have a bit of a thing for Giuseppe Andrews and have been waiting for this movie for awhile.) I honestly can say that I enjoyed the movie very much. A lot of it I didn't expect at all, but who really purchases a film in hopes of seeing a girl get puked on or a "Cleveland Steemer"? Some of it reminded me of the times I used to get messed up with friends...and made me appreciate that I'm not living that lifestyle anymore. Still, it felt like a love story for the demented at heart...because if a past love crashed my wedding and put a gun in my face, I'd probably have to shag him. Random events of random people's lives, it felt more like a documentary than fiction. Because the truth is, somebody out there is living that life. It's 2007, a large percentage of the world is living that life.

Hey it has Giuseppe Andrews in it, that is all that matters, and Eric is a great director.

Hey, it's the "Hey, it's the party man!" dubious cop from Cabin Fever (Giuseppe Andrews) who stars in this dark and gritty odyssey into the bowels of lost innocence and self-hatred. Because of the graphic nature of some of the sex scenes (one involving fecal matter), it seems that the nether regions have been optically blurred out. In the director's commentary, Eric G. Johnson talks articulately about how the film was put together on such a low budget, thematically and technically. If you want indie, this is it.

SCREENING ROOM
Odyssey of drugs and denial
Poetic, stylish "Tweek City" debuts Sunday at the Dances With Films Festival.

By Kevin Thomas, Times Staff Writer

Eric G. Johnson's "Tweek City" is a double-whammy discovery -- for writer-producer-director Johnson and for his star, Giuseppe Andrews. It is a harrowing yet illuminating odyssey driven by an impassioned, confident filmmaker and a young actor of equal resources and daring.

Although not autobiographical, the film draws upon a dark period in Johnson's life, which gives it a sense of being told by someone who's been there and done that.

Andrews' Bill is a charismatic San Francisco drug dealer who spirals downward on crystal meth over a period of several days. He takes drugs to blot out nightmares of a troubled childhood, which only intensifies his paranoia, his denial of his half-Latino heritage and his homophobia, which may mask a latent homosexuality. Johnson and cinematographer Barry Stone employ various types of cameras, film and tape, and add stylistic flourishes that express Bill's quicksilver shifts of mood and temperament in a manner that is darkly vital and poetic.

I watched this film mainly to see Giuseppe Andrews, and for that reason I am not wholly disappointed in this otherwise crude indie. I agree with the previous reviewer in that the drug addict story is certainly becoming almost mundane. Andrews is a wonderful actor (and an up-and-coming film director in his own right). But appreciating Andrews' abilities is often a chore given the distractions of the movie's almost embarrassingly low-budget look: the videotape footage, the unimaginative time-lapse photography, the near-nonstop profanity, and the utterly hilarious use of blurred spots to hide Andrews' private parts during nude scenes.

Please don't waste your time with this poor excuse for an indie movie. I did not watch it through to the end - it was that bad, laughably bad even!

There's a difference between an indie film and a low budget film. This film is neither. This is guerilla filmmaking without the growl.

The script is juvenile and the acting is largely jaw-droppingly bad. It feels like a high school kid's video project.

The male privates are digitally blurred out, which makes this "indie" film seem laughingly tame at the same time as it purports to be an "in your face" look at crystal meth addiction and yadda yadda yadda.

The lead character is so revolting that it is impossible to muster any sympathy for him. The sex scenes are juvenile and unnecessary.

If you must get this film then make sure you've got a table or chair that has one wonky leg. You'll want to use the DVD case to prop it up when you've cursed yourself for getting this film.

Look, to be honest I'd rather see another "so hip it hurts" Indie-wood annoyance by Tom DeCillo than a GENUINELY independent movie like TWEEK CITY. Why? Because A.) it's the same old junkie story 50 other similarly sterile and smug films like TWEEK CITY have already told, and B.) I'm tired of slogging my way through one well-meaning micro-budget street drama after another, when those involved don't seem to have a clue what they're talking about. I'd reccomend that the makers of this angst ridden torture session of a film look at martin Bell's STREETWISE or Lech Kowalski's STORY OF A JUNKIE before they take it upon themselves to portray drug addiction in another film. Supremely irritating and obnoxiously unconvincing. PS: the digital video is hideous.