ELIZABETHTOWN

[Moviefan02000]

http://www.cinema.com/image_lib/8668_poster.jpg

After causing the Oregon shoe company he works for to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, Drew Baylor (Bloom) is fired for his mistake, and promptly also dumped by his girlfriend, Ellen (Biel). On the verge of suicide, Drew is oddly given a new purpose in life when he is brought back to his family's small Kentucky hometown of Elizabethtown following the death of his father, Mitch, as it falls to him to make sure that his dying wishes are fulfilled. On the way home, Drew meets a flight attendant, Claire Colburn (Dunst), with whom he falls in love, in a romance that helps his life get back on track.

Genres: Comedy and Romance

Running Time: 2 hrs. 3 min.

Release Date: October 14th, 2005 (wide).

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language and some sexual references.

Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Starring: Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Biel, Judy Greer

Directed by: Cameron Crowe

Produced by: Donald J Lee Jr, Tom Cruise, Paula Wagner

http://www.cinema.com/image_lib/8668_eliz011.jpg

[ilovemovies]

Well considering that Cameron Crowe is responsible for my all time favorite movie and considering that Crowe has yet to make a bad movie (though I haven't seen Singles) I think it's a pretty safe bet that I am looking forward to this. Great cast too and I love both trailers. I REALLY can't wait for next Friday! I have no doubt that I will LOVE this movie!

[Moviefan1234]

ELIZABETHTOWN looks great. I've been looking forward to it for a long time, I'm sure I'll love it.

[optimus1]

I agree , it looks decent and I will go see it. I know a lot of people don't think Kirsten is hot but she just does something for me , maybe its the big rack on the skinny body..anyway I like her.

[Cronos]

Crowe has yet to disappoint me and this looks pretty damn good although im still not sure about Bloom having leading roles

[screamer581]

Even with the so-so reviews and my dislike for Orlando, I am still looking forward to it. Cameron Crowe is a golden god.

[Fisting Ackbar]

Originally posted by optimus1
I know a lot of people don't think Kirsten is hot but she just does something for me

I find she has an infectious energy that just screams she's alive and kicking, it's quite a turn-on.

And I'm also anticipating this, though hoping it's better than what some early reviews have suggested.

[adcrochunter]

I just saw a prepremiere in Las Vegas,( gotta love going to college here, free movie premieres all the time) and being a big fan Crowe he impresses again and I liked this alot more than his last release, Vanilla Sky.

The movie has a great mix of laughs, drama, and surprisingly, Bloom was a good actor and perfect for the part. And of course like with all of Crowe's movies, the music was perfect and I just bought the soundtrack on amazon.com.

Ane excellant cast and great script, this is more then just a "chick flick" like its being advertized as, and the Alec Baldwin cameo is hilrious.

9/10

[ilovemovies]

Glad you loved it. Cameron Crowe is one of my absolute favorite filmmakers (just look at my fav movie) so I'm very excited whenever he has a movie out. Can't wait to see it on Saturday. :)

[BananaDancer]

Originally posted by ilovemovies
Glad you loved it. Cameron Crowe is one of my absolute favorite filmmakers (just look at my fav movie) so I'm very excited whenever he has a movie out. Can't wait to see it on Saturday. :)

Sums up how i feel as well, big vanilla sky fan. I'll be at this over the weekend

[Hannibal21]

From the trailers, this looks like another typical, cliched romantic dramedy. Doesn't excite me. It also doesn't help that I don't like Cameron Crowe (WHAT do people see in this guy?) and that Orlando Bloom & Kirsten Dunce are two of my most hated celebrities of all time.

I'll see it eventually, just to see what the hype is about, but I'm not expecting much at all.

[JCPhoenix]

I'm reposting my review of the movie - not the final cut - the cut I saw was around 15 minutes longer:

MINOR SPOILERS
So I got back from the press screening a couple hours ago and I gotta say my overall reaction to the movie was...mild disappointment (with some hope).

I'm just gonna post a couple brief thoughts right now but one thing to keep in mind is that the man who introduced the movie said that Crowe has worked extensively on the film after the cut we saw and so the version we saw was a "work-in-progress" print.

Now just to clarify - it wasn't a bad movie. And as much as it would be neat to use Drew Baylor's phrase from the movie, a "spectacular fiasco", it wasn't a full-fledged fiasco. But it could (and can) be so much more than it is - the good news about this, is that I think the film can be fixed and turn out brilliantly with some tweaking of the music, trimming down of some scenes, etc.

The bad stuff - The two major issues with the film I had were the pacing and the lack of focus in the film. It is a fairly long movie (clocking in at around 130 minutes) and the pacing just felt off here and there. I think a major reason for the pacing feeling off was that there didn't seem to be enough meat to the storyline to carry the film through to the end. A lot of the dialogue felt short and clipped and just overall not really important enough to the storyline.

For once, Crowe actually manages to overuse music - imo anyway. There are way too many montage scenes set with music and it's like there's 4 different songs per minute or something (while that's probably a little hyperbolic, it's not actually that far off, truth be told). In fact, during the last 30 minutes, I'd say there were more than 4 different songs per minute, but I didn't consider that a bad thing and I'll get to that in a minute. But anyway, the lack of focus just made the middle half drag. You just sort of wonder, where is he going with this film? Why are there so many random storylines that don't really go anywhere?

The good stuff - Crowe is spot on still with his best area - the little personal moments of the film. He continues to have a ton of the little extra touches that he's known for and there are some very good ones here (Claire's camera quirks, Drew's continued pronunciation of Louisville, Chuck and the beer bottle hug, the father-son "dream" sequence, the Roman Holiday/Claire with flower sequence, the movements of the characters and the looks they share - brilliant Crowe stuff). Claire (Dunst's character) is well done and a little quirky but not over-the-top so. While I wasn't totally convinced with Bloom's performance in the film (whereas my friend who watched it with me absolutely hated his performance), I think Crowe pulled the best performance out of him that we've seen yet. While the music is overused, all of it is excellent as one would expect from Crowe.

The storyline is pretty good overall I'd say but it's been stretched way too thin. Cut things down a bit, cut a bunch of the montage scenes, and I can see a better Crowe movie behind it all. But I love the 20 minute? "phone" conversation in the middle of the movie although again, music overuse and I would've liked to see more of a full conversation here and there instead of one line and then fading it out with music and then another random line, etc...(which he does a lot in this movie)...still, the cutting between the different characters is awesome and it's a neat scene which peaks beautifully.

And I love the last 30 minutes of the film. At first, after the overload of music, etc from the first majority of the film, I was against the whole idea of the last part of the film, but it makes a sort of sense to me that music would play an important part in the catharsis of a Crowe character. And the more I thought about it, it sort of just fit perfectly into the film. This and the phone conversation mainly are where I felt the most Crowe-ish parts of the film in that, you just get dragged along into the romantic sentiments of the film, and can't help grinning. That's classic Crowe for me, anyway.

So I'm hoping the cut that ends up in theatres is cut down, and more focused. I have faith considering the guy did say he worked on the film a lot more after this version of the film, and I have faith also cause Crowe is brilliant and I just think he'll realize (or already have realized) the problems with this cut.

It's not a bad movie - in fact, I think parts of it are absolutely brilliant. I'm glad I saw it. But it could be so much more and it still can be. With any other director I wouldn't expect so much but it's Crowe we're talking about here so...in any case, this screening of the movie gets roughly a 6/10 from me at this point. But I'm definitely going to see this again in theatres a month from now.


I'm still looking forward to the cut in theatres but I've cut my hopes down a little as reviews are not good at all (31% at rottentomatoes, 45 at metacritic)...I was hoping Crowe could fix the movie and make it more focused but it doesn't sound like he has been able to. I still think it's all the damn montage scenes with fifty different bits of music that's killing this movie...no real, full conversations...

STILL, while Crowe's other films have for the most part gotten great reviews, Vanilla Sky rated similarly to Elizabethtown (39% at rottentomatoes and 45 at metacritic) and I LOVE Vanilla Sky so...we'll see soon enough I guess.

[MadsenOMC]

SPOILERS!!!

I love about 75% of this movie. I think some of the pacing is off, especially in the second half. It feels like it's been cut in a hurry, which of course it was. I also hated the scene with just Bloom and Dunst and the urn in the empty rehearsal dinner room. It's so poorly written and acted. Were they drunk? I couldn't tell. Such a weird scene that probably should have been cut. I wasn't crazy about Sarandon's infamous little dance either. And there were a few other minor things that bugged me (Bloom saying 1,000 times that he's OK is one of them). Overall, however, I liked it a lot. Easily Bloom's best performance, and I didn't hate Dunst as much as I normally do. It was nice to see the excellent Paul Schneider as well. For the most part it's very well-written. Funny when it needs to be and moving when it needs to be. And as per usual, the music is fantastic. Ryan Adams rules. The conclusion is just about perfect. Not Crowe's best work, but a solid effort.

7/10

[Lazy Boy]

4/10

*SPOILERS*


If this is the trimmed version, I'd hate to see the Toronto cut. The flow was on and off throughout the entire finished product. It didn't feel tight to me, too many scenes ran far past the point of no return. I'm referring to the dinner rehearsal room scene, which Madsen discussed. Plus, the entire memorial service, from Sarandon's dance to the awfully misguided "Freebird" fire hazard scene, should've been retinkered completely. Bloom is fine in a role that doesn't require him to shoot arrows or draw a sword. Dunst is ultra-annoying in the patented Cameron Crowe muse role, sort of like Penny Lane in Almost Famous; the wise beyond her years, infectiously bubbly young lady who dispenses down home homilies. It doesn't work here. There are numerous avenues Crowe could've ventured down, and there are glimpses of good stuff (Bloom trying to juggle a call between his sister, the Jessica Biel character, and the Dunst character) but it's overpowered by bad decisions (the exercise/suicide machine Drew devises is waaaaayy too eye-rolling).

[ilovemovies]

Originally posted by Lazy Boy

the exercise/suicide machine Drew devises is waaaaayy too eye-rolling



I thought that was hilarious!


This may not quite be on the same level as Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire (although I liked it more than the good but overrated Say Anything and Vanilla Sky, haven't seen Singles) but I still loved it, alot. I absolutely LOVE Kirsten Dunst in this movie! Infact, I love her here almost as much as I loved Kate Hudson in Almost Famous! She's wonderful and if there is any justice out there she will get an oscar nomination for her work here (I know, there is no justice as she's unlikely to get nominated). Though the problem is whether to nominate her for best actress or best supporting actress. I may agree that the pacing is off but the truth is I wouldn't want any scene to cut off. Infact, I wish it was a little longer. I wish Susan Surandon had more screen time. I loved her here. The scene where she tap dances and her speech about her husband is one of many of the movie's highlights. I actually don't think this is Bloom's best performance. I thought he was a little better in Kingdom of Heaven. And there are a few scenes where he strikes a false note (namely any scene where his character shouts). But for the most part, he gives a fine performance.

Cameron Crowe easily remains one of my absolute favorite filmmakers and this movie certainly didn't disappoint. It's definately one of my favorite movies of the year so far.

8.5/10

[MadsenOMC]

I like the movie, but Dunst will not be nominated for anything. No chance whatsoever.

[chinton]

I loved Vanilla Sky

[TrippingBalls]

I could care less what the pompus "professional" critics think of Elizabethtown. Seeing as the equally-hated Vanilla Sky just so happens to be my favorite film by Cameron Crowe, the bad reviews don't put me off at all and so I'm still interested in seeing it.

[ilovemovies]

Originally posted by MadsenOMC
I like the movie, but Dunst will not be nominated for anything. No chance whatsoever.

Well I know that. That's why I said in parenthesis that I know there is no justice out there because she's unlikely to get nominated.

[MadsenOMC]

You really think Dunst is Oscar worthy in this movie? What did she do that is so impressive or noteworthy?

[ilovemovies]

I thought she just really brought her character alive. She was wonderful and full of spirit and I really loved her here. Almost as much as I loved Kate Hudson in Almost Famous.

[Lazy Boy]

It's basically the same performance Natalie Portman gave in Garden State, or Kate Hudson in Almost Famous. Dunst doesn't bring anything new or unique to spin the character in a different direction than those previous performances.

[MadsenOMC]

Originally posted by Lazy Boy
It's basically the same performance Natalie Portman gave in Garden State, or Kate Hudson in Almost Famous. Dunst doesn't bring anything new or unique to spin the character in a different direction than those previous performances.

I agree completely. I don't think there's anything special about Dunst's performance. I don't care for her at all, and I found her to be tolerable here, but barely at certain times.

[Buck Turgidson]

Originally posted by Lazy Boy
Dunst is ultra-annoying in the patented Cameron Crowe muse role, sort of like Penny Lane in Almost Famous; the wise beyond her years, infectiously bubbly young lady who dispenses down home homilies. It doesn't work here.

From Knight-Rider newspapers reviewer Chris Hewitt's zero star review: "He chucks it all and travels to Elizabethtown to forget his troubles, hang around with one of those pushy/cute free spirits you meet only in the movies (Dunst) and listen to what we can only assume is Crowe's iPod playlist, a mind-numbing overload of songs that clog the soundtrack and tell us exactly what to think at every moment of the film."

I'll preface this with a couple of items: First, haven't seen the film and don't really intend to, at least not anytime soon.

Secondly, I think my status as a Crowe fan is established. Fast Times at Ridgemont High (which is more his than anyone else's, regardlof who sat in the director's chair), Singles and Almost Famous are all big favorites of mine. I've come to terms with the fact that Cruis abuses him every few years and has him waste his time writing and directing some vanity project for him, but to have him apparently dropping the ball like this, on one of his own films...it's distressing.

Is there a straight man here who doesn't want to slap the taste out of Orlando Bloom's mouth? I won't go over the litany of reasons why I wait patienly for the day that Dunst retires, but I think we all know where I stand on her.

He used to have a good feel for casting but it's largely deserted him.

[ilovemovies]

Originally posted by Lazy Boy
It's basically the same performance Natalie Portman gave in Garden State, or Kate Hudson in Almost Famous. Dunst doesn't bring anything new or unique to spin the character in a different direction than those previous performances.

And I thought Portman deserved to be nominated as well (more for that movie than for Closer) and Hudson should have won!

The characters may be somewhat similar, but I still think Dunst was wonderful and I'm rooting for her to get a nomination no matter futile that may be.

[Fergus]

After all the bad buzz that has surrounded this flick over the past month or so, had really turned me off from seeing it, but I am undoubtedly drawn to anything Cameron Crowe.

After all was said and done, I liked it. There were so many things that could've been done better, but I really liked it. For example, I thought there should've been a more powerful scene where it finally hits Bloom's character that his father is dead, but we got just a little snippet. The memorial scene was worse than I expected, it was not surprising nor touching. But this was Crowe's tribute to his dad, and on that level I appreciate the work he has done here. The writing is very sloppy and the movie loses focus more than it should. On the other hand, many memorable moments (some I wish I hadn't seen in the trailer). Disappointing? Yes. But why was everyone expecting Almost Famous, I think expectations were too high on this one, and very few went in with an open mind, like the guy at my local paper who pisses me off. Reminds me of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village last year, when everyone expected a scary movie and got the opposite, much to critic's and audiences dismay. I don't think I'm finished judging the movie yet...need to think on it...i think.

7/10 for Elizabethtown

[Moviefan02000]

I'm seeing it tomorrow at 6:30. I'm hoping for the best ;) Who knows, maybe it will be another IN HER SHOES for me. I don't really like Cameron Crowe though, he's way overrated.

[DareDevil]

Wow when the movie started and Bloom was in the helicopter i had this deja-vu of Garden State with Zach in the plane... then it dawned on me how many things this movie had in Common with Garden State

**Contains miner-spoilers**

-Both titles are the name of the town that they have to go back too
-They both star an emotionaly depressed male, with family issues
-It takes a quirky crazy girl to get them feeling normal
-People in the town whether it be Gardenstate or Elizabethtown are all quirky charchters... example is buddy in the rock band and buddy who shots bow and arrows
-I think if you break down the runing time for both films, the time from the begining of the film to the time where the lead female charchter is introduced are the same.
-Both have regrets and unfinished buisness with a dead parent and the backdrop for the film is for a funeral.
-both leads have problems with career
*****SPOILER******
-Same Endinds
***DONE****
Thats not all the simularities I thought of but some of the major stand outs

Trust me I don't think Garden state was the first movie to be of that genre either.... but damn these 2 are so freekin simular


Never the less i liked the movie quite a bit hahaha

Blooms best performance to date, though his shitty
American accent was painful at times, the movie's sentimental charm rubbed off on me, a 7/10 or 8/10... not sure yet.

[Ender]

You know when push comes to shove I liked ELIZABETHTOWN. I can think of about a million problems with this movie. It was too long, especially the last act, I thought Dunsts's character was more than a little trite, a lot of the jokes were very obvious and not as funny as Crowe's usual material, and too often it seemed like the movie was just trying too hard to be profound or significant and strayed into Hallmark territory. Although I liked Orlando Bloom's onscreen role, his narration bugged the shit out of me and felt very forced. And so on and so forth.

So why did I end up liking it? Well, I guess the bottom line is that Cameron Crowe is a really great writer. Just as in ALMOST FAMOUS, he managed to coral me into a theatre and then show me my actual life onscreen. I can't count the number of little things , phrases, conversations, affectations, experiences and so forth that I saw people do in ELIZABETHTOWN that I know I've done myself (holding the phone out the door while you flush, yeah, that's me). Even if half of the gags I saw a mile away, the other half were gold (Bloom and Jed Rees's scene in the hallway, I died, I literally died). It felt less like a movie and more like life. ELIZABETHTOWN might be the sum of it's flaws and certainly not the best work of anyone involved, but I'll be damned if it's not a good movie anyway. Crazy.

[Buck Turgidson]

Originally posted by Fergus
But why was everyone expecting Almost Famous [...]

Because Crowe has a track record. When you're responsible for Almost Famous, Singles and Say Anything, people get pissed when you put out something less than that, as he seems to be doing with increasing frequency.

[ilovemovies]

Originally posted by Buck Turgidson
Because Crowe has a track record. When you're responsible for Almost Famous, Singles and Say Anything, people get pissed when you put out something less than that, as he seems to be doing with increasing frequency.


Even if I agreed that it wasn't very good, which obviously I don't, but even I did I would still think that Cameron Crowe has made enough great movies that he's earned the right to make an off film. To many people, this is obviously Cameron Crowe on an off mode. He'll rebound next time. No doubt about it.

[Lazy Boy]

He's definitely in off mode, and I'm somebody who liked Vanilla Sky when people were trashing it left and right.

[MadsenOMC]

Personally, I would watch this one 1,000 times in a row before I'd sit through Vanilla Sky again. VS isn't even close to being as good as Abre Los Ojos, and it's not nearly as good as Elizabethtown. Obviously there's nothing wrong with a director wanting to expand their horizons, but VS clearly showed that Crowe has certain gifts as a filmmaker, and also certain areas where he isn't nearly as strong. I can't imagine he makes another movie like that anytime soon.

[Lazy Boy]

Vanilla Sky was darker than Crowe's other films, and that's why I liked it -- it wasn't bubbly and lighthearted and "oh look at how precious these two lovebirds are"smug. In adapting somebody else's work, and doing it better IMO, he had a chance to take on a different style. Of course, he still had that aggravating notion to put popular music at awkward moments, such as "Good Vibrations" during a crucial scene.

The weirdest thing about that movie was that it got universally trashed by everybody I knew, but it still made 100 million at the box office. It goes to show you can never tell how some films are going to pan out.

[MadsenOMC]

Originally posted by Lazy Boy

The weirdest thing about that movie was that it got universally trashed by everybody I knew, but it still made 100 million at the box office. It goes to show you can never tell how some films are going to pan out.

It goes to show the power of one Mr. Tom Cruise. I still think it's an abysmal mess that pales in comparison to the original, regardless of how "dark" it is compared to Crowe's other work, but agree to disagree. It's his darkest work and it's not an original screenplay. Coincidence?

[Lazy Boy]

Then Magnolia should've had a better box office since Cruise was in it. Of course, it was three hours long, and Cruise wasn't really a lead, and it was kind of a strange movie, so maybe that defeats my theory. :)

[MadsenOMC]

Yeah Magnolia is an exception to the rule, for the reasons you stated and a few more. Not that anyone doubted it, and sorry for being off-topic here, but Vanilla Sky really proved the power of the Tom.

[Buck Turgidson]

Originally posted by ilovemovies
Even if I agreed that it wasn't very good, which obviously I don't, but even I did I would still think that Cameron Crowe has made enough great movies that he's earned the right to make an off film. To many people, this is obviously Cameron Crowe on an off mode. He'll rebound next time. No doubt about it.

I hope so. "Written and Directed by Cameron Crowe" used to be goosebump time for me when it came up. Now, it's full on trepdation instead.

Like I wrote, I understand that he thinks being used by Cruise to pad his resumé every couple of years is acceptable and while I hate that, I can live with it. It's when his main work starts geting bogged down that I start worrying.

And Madsen, my man, you're SO dead on about Vanilla Sky, especially in comparison to Abre los Ojos.

That's a battle we've had again and again around these parts :cool:

[moviegroupie]

I'm kind of curious. The tv spots look a bit appealing, but the actual trailer is a turnoff. See it? Don't see it? I liked In Her Shoes, duno if its the same type of film or not (probably not the case)

[The Prowler]

This movie was terrific. Don't be fooled by all of the bad word from critics on this one. I absolutely loved this flick and it is firmly in my top 5 for the year. Probably my favorite to date. Fast Times and Almost Famous were incredible movies and this one should be placed with those. Bloom was charming as the lead and Dunst was very likeable as ILOVEMOVIES states. The soundtrack was so dead on to the movie and made average parts of the movie more memorable. I loved the family scenes and Blooms discussions with his cousin. I plan on getting this on dvd. I can't wait. Already got the soundtrack and it is fabulous. My favorite tracks were from Elton John, Ryan Adams, and Wheat

10/10

[daddiefatsacks]

*spoilah's*

all i can say is that this movie was a mess...i never really felt attached to the romance, i never felt attached to the whole father dying thing, they never even explained how he fucked up the shoe company.....the music was way overdone, especially in the last bit where Drew goes on a road trip wtf?

and how about that road trip, i let out the biggest GROAN when that scavenger hunt ensues at the market, and woopdee doo there is dunst' character, how godamn cliched.

the only actor not on cruise control here is Susan Sarandon, but we only get about 4 scenes with her, her best being the speech on her husband

4/10

[Fisting Ackbar]

they never even explained how he fucked up the shoe company

With all the shoes being recalled, it seemed clear that retailers didn't want them or that there was something wrong with the design.

Going to have to sleep over this one. Bloom and Dunst made a cute couple and there were some great moments, but jeez, the pacing was off every now and then and I HATED everything with the stupid cousin and his hellraising son, not to mention the whole Susan Sarandon 10 minute standup.