Product Details

• Actors: Steve Buscemi, Seymour Cassel, Jennifer Beals, Pat Moya, Will Patton
• Directors: Alexandre Rockwell
• Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Fantoma
• DVD Release Date: July 27, 2004
• Run Time: 96 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0002CX14I
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #70,077 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
This is a low-key gem that is at once about the power of dreams, the power of suggestion, and the tyranny of artistic vision (when there really isn't one to fight for). This disarming comedy by director Alexandre Rockwell was a hit at the Sundance Festival but barely registered commercially. Steve Buscemi stars as a hard-luck case: Adolpho, a wanna-be filmmaker with a phone-book-sized screenplay and no money. He lives in a hellish Lower East Side apartment and has a thing for his standoffish neighbor (Jennifer Beals). When he places a want ad to sell his script, he lands Joe (Seymour Cassell), a would-be investor who, it turns out, is really a con artist. Together, they go looking for money to make the movie. A dizzily funny and understated film in which Cassell gives the performance of his career. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great wacky comedy, August 17, 2003

By	LGwriter "SharpWitGuy" (Astoria, N.Y. United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: In the Soup [VHS] (VHS Tape)

With a stellar cast including indie film fave (sorry for the chintzy language!) Steve Buscemi, Seymour Cassell, Stanley Tucci, Will Patton, Carol Kane, and filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, Alexandre Rockwell's In the Soup takes the tried and true tale of a guy wanting to make a film and manages to make this story decidedly fresh and original.

Seymour Cassell's Joe is a consummate con man who knows exactly how to squeeze, steal, and/or cajole money out of a whole plethora of situations. Joe the slickster with a sexy Asian girlfriend is a perfect match for Steve Buscemi's close-to-broke Adolfo the intellectual bumbler (who dreams of his neighbor Jennifer Beals' Latina Angela), whose 450 page film script--Unconditional Surrender--sends Joe into a rapture of delight at the prospect of financing a real film. Of course the way Joe raises the dough to make the film is not exactly, shall we say, kosher.

The juxtaposition of naivete, dream, imagination, and petty crime, along with Will Patton's menacing hemophiliac brother and Stanley Tucci's French ex-husband should be seen to be believed. This is one film that truly deserves to be on DVD. As of this writing (August 2003), it ain't. A shame.

A great picker-uppper, a lot of fun, and an all around hoot. Put In the Soup on your shelf. You won't be sorry.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Clove Oil? What are you, a salad?", June 26, 2004

By	gymkata (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

The title to this review is one of my favorite movie lines ever, EVER. This movie came out right before Steve Buscemi had a part in literally every movie that came out for 2 straight years. As cool as he is, I must admit I got a little over-Buscemi'd there for a while. This is one of my favorite roles he's done but the main reason I have always remebered this film is Seymour Cassel. His role as the fatherly, mysterious and awesomely spontaneous gansgter is pure freakin' genious. I've yet to see him in a role I didn't like but this has got to be one of his best. Another classic Seymour Cassel line: "20 minutes, what are they gonna do, read it in brail?" You'll just have to see it but trust me, if you even remotely enjoy films by Hal Hartley, Jim Jarmusch and the like, you will love this film.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars back in black & white, April 19, 2005

By	M. Miller (TN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In The Soup is a fine modern indie-styled film. The story features Steve Buscemi (Aldolpho) as the bedraggled screen-writer, or screen-writer hopeful, who is infatuated with his neighbor, but at the same time willing to do almost anything to get his script published or rent paid. In fact, I believe it is whatever comes first.

This is Aldolpho's way till interest peaks in his script from an apparently rich man named Joe. But money sometimes charades with smiles, and Aldolpho is tossed into a more-then Hollywood plot of his own.

I personally find this really quite funny. At times you kind of question what's happening, and really why, but as long as you run with it you should end up really enjoying the film. The characters are interesting, and quite match the relativeness of the sleazy apartment complex, but that adds all to the interest.

My favorite portrayal was that of Seymour Cassel's character as the more then eccentric 'fool' that is Joe. Why at times the craziness of his actions makes you just so curious, while other times he makes the audience purely laugh out loud.

All though you may find the black and white disturbing, this was yet another nice impression to enhance the style of the film; and, as long as you can look past it and the oddity of it all, then please do relish the film.