Arizona Dream
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Arizona Dream
Plot
Director Emir Kusturica and screenwriter David Atkins crafted this absurdist comedy in which Johnny Depp plays Axel Blackmer, who lives in New York State and is obsessed with fish. He tags fish and monitors their habits for a living, but his greatest curiosity is when and how they dream. Axel's uncle, Leo Sweetie (Jerry Lewis) would prefer Axel take over the family business, a Cadillac dealership in Tucson, Arizona; against his better judgment, Axel drives from New York to Arizona to check out the lot and attend Leo's wedding to Millie (Paulina Porizkova), a woman who is hoping that marriage will keep her from crying all the time. While watching the Cadillacs, Leo meets Elaine Stalker (Faye Dunaway), the sexy widow of a wealthy mine owner, and the two strike up a romance, while Elaine's daughter Grace (Lili Taylor) wanders through her mother's home playing "Besame Mucho" on the accordion to her pet turtles. Needless to say, Warner Bros, the film's United States distributor, didn't figure this was a sure bet for box-office success, and they trimmed Arizona Dream of 22 minutes before putting it into limited release and eventually dumping it onto home video without opening it in most major cities. Kusturica's original 142-minute cut was released in Europe (where it did respectable if not ground-shaking business) and to a few art houses in America; the shortened 120-minute version is available on home video. ~ Mark Deming, RoviReview
Just the type of movie you'd expect with a cast as bizarre as Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway, Jerry Lewis, and Vincent Gallo, this oddity from the always interesting Emir Kusturica is sometimes maddeningly uneven (not to mention completely random), but represents the kind of off-the-wall filmmaking that general audiences so rarely see. The film features Dunaway in top form, and helps secure Depp's reputation as one of Hollywood's most challenging actors, willing to give his all even in roles that seem half-baked, as this one sometimes does. The back-story on Arizona Dream is almost as interesting as the film itself: reportedly, Kusturica walked off the set following a dispute with the producers and agreed to return only if the film was made on his terms. Additionally, there are two cuts of the film: the 119-minute U.S. and British version, and a 142-minute European version that was shown around the country in 1995 after the film garnered a surprising cult following, thereby broadening its exposure. ~ Jason Clark, RoviCast
- Johnny Depp - Axel Blackmar
- Jerry Lewis - Leo Sweetie
- Faye Dunaway - Elaine Stalker
- Lili Taylor - Grace Stalker
- Vincent Gallo - Paul Leger
Credit
Jan Pascale - Art Director, Richard Brick - Co-producer, Jill M. Ohanneson - Costume Designer, K.C. Hodenfield - First Assistant Director, Emir Kusturica - Director, Andrija Zafranovic - Editor, Paul R. Gurian - Executive Producer, Goran Bregovic - Composer (Music Score), Patty York - Makeup, Vilko Filac - Cinematographer, Claudie Ossard - Producer, Yves Marmion - Producer, Greg Landerer - Special Effects, Emir Kusturica - Screen Story, David Atkins - Screen Story, David Atkins - Screenwriter| Arizona Days (1928 Film), Arizona Days (1937 Film) | |
| Arizona Frontier (1940 Film), Arizona Heat (1987 Film) |
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Arizona Dream
| Arizona Dream | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover for Arizona Dream |
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| Directed by | Emir Kusturica |
| Produced by | Claudie Ossard Yves Marmion |
| Written by | David Atkins (screenplay) Emir Kusturica |
| Starring | Johnny Depp Jerry Lewis Faye Dunaway Vincent Gallo Lili Taylor |
| Music by | Goran Bregović Iggy Pop |
| Cinematography | Vilko Filač |
| Editing by | Andrija Zafranović |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | January 6, 1993 (France) September 9, 1994 (US) |
| Running time | 142 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $112,547 (USA only)[1] |
Arizona Dream is a 1993 film directed by Emir Kusturica and starring Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis and Faye Dunaway.
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Contents
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Plot
Axel (Johnny Depp) has a dream about an Eskimo who catches a rare halibut and brings it back to his family in an igloo. Axel's cousin Paul (Vincent Gallo) coaxes Axel from his job tagging fish in New York City to Arizona to attend his uncle Leo's (Jerry Lewis) trophy wedding to a much younger woman (Paulina Porizkova). His uncle tries to persuade him to stay permanently and take over the family business of selling Cadillacs. Axel resists at first, but he decides to give it a try. He encounters two strange women: Elaine (Faye Dunaway), a woman who always had a dream of building a flying machine, and her stepdaughter Grace (Lili Taylor) is jealous of Elaine and dreams of killing herself and be reincarnated as a turtle. Axel starts lusting after Elaine and decides to help make her dreams come true. As he and Elaine build the machine day by day, Grace starts destroying the contraption. Axel then rebuilds. Leo and Paul arrive at Elaine and Grace's house to encourage Axel to come back, but Elaine threatens them with a shotgun. Axel and Elaine complete the machine and test it, but it crashes in a tree.
Axel then decides to put both Elaine and Grace out of their misery, but can't go through with it. Grace has the idea to play Russian Roulette with him. Axel is scared at first, but at his second turn he pulls the trigger multiple times. The gun doesn't fire. Axel, Elaine, and Grace come to Paul's talent show. He decides to play Cary Grant's role from North by Northwest with the famous crop duster scene. Paul receives the score of 1. Leo's fiancee then approaches them to say there's something wrong with Leo. Axel realizes that Leo is dying and calls an ambulance but Leo passes away. The day before Elaine's birthday a few months later, Axel and Paul finally come back to Elaine and Grace's house. Elaine is mad at Axel for not contacting her but forgives him. The next day on Elaine's birthday, Elaine is given an airplane as a present. The four celebrate Elaine's birthday by beating a piñata, but are interrupted by a storm. As the others dry off inside, Grace remains outside to free her turtles, telling them to "Go play," Axel goes upstairs with Grace to wrap the presents where she gives Axel a globe, telling him that she wants him to have the world. Axel tells Grace that Elaine has changed and that he is not in love with her any more. He makes a promise to Grace to go to Alaska. Alex, Elaine, Grace, and Paul talk about how they want to die. Grace says she's going to sleep and walks upstairs, dressing herself in a white shift and a hat with a veil. As she walks outside, Axel and Elaine see her through the window and run outside in an attempt to stop her. Grace shoots herself, and a lightning bolt destroys Elaine's airplane. Sometime after Grace's death Axel breaks into Uncle Leo's abandoned Cadillac store at night and goes to sleep on top of a Cadillac with a cat that has just had her litter. The film ends with Axel and Uncle Leo as Eskimos in Axel's dream. They catch the halibut and discuss it. It flies from their hands into the sunrise.
Cast
- Johnny Depp as Axel Blackmar
- Jerry Lewis as Leo Sweetie
- Faye Dunaway as Elaine Stalker
- Lili Taylor as Grace Stalker
- Vincent Gallo as Paul Leger
- Paulina Porizkova as Millie
- Michael J. Pollard as Fabian
- Candyce Mason as Blanche
- Alexia Rane as Angie
- Polly Noonan as Betty
- Ann Schulman as Carla
- James R. Wilson as Lawyer
- Kim Keo as The Mechanical Singing Doll
Production
Many of the Arizona scenes were filmed in Douglas, Arizona.
Reception and Box office
North America
Arizona Dream received a generally positive response from critics, garnering an 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 14 reviews with an average score of 6.9/10.[2]
Janet Maslin of the New York Times liked the movie, praising it as "enjoyably adrift, a wildly off-the-wall reverie" and opining that its best feature is "its lunacy, which is so liberating".[3]
Referring to Arizona Dream as "the quintessential Nuart movie", Los Angeles Times' Kevin Thomas sees it as "a dazzling, daring slice of cockamamie tragicomic Americana envisioned with magic realism by a major, distinctive European filmmaker".[4]
In his affirmative review Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert called Arizona Dream "goofier than hell" while adding that "you can't stop watching it because nobody in the audience, and possibly nobody on the screen, has any idea what's going to happen next" and referring to Kusturica as "a filmmaker who has his own peculiar vision of the world that does not correspond to the weary write-by-numbers formulas of standard screenplays".[5]
Although filmed in 1991 and released throughout Europe in 1993, Arizona Dream was not released in the U.S. until September 9, 1994. Its total U.S. gross, in three theaters, was $112,547 in limited release.[1]
Awards and honors
The film won the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival.[6]
Alternate versions
Although shown theatrically in the U.S. at its full length, the TV prints and home release versions run 119 minutes.
Home media
Warner Archives released the film on made to order DVD in the United States on March 16, 2010.[7] Studio Canal has released the film in Europe on both DVD[8] and HD DVD.
Soundtrack
Main article: Arizona Dream (soundtrack)
In popular culture
- Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl has revealed that the song "Enough Space" off of their album The Colour and the Shape is based on Arizona Dream.
References
- ^ a b "Arizona Dream (1995)". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=arizonadream.htm. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
- ^ Arizona Dream;Rotten Tomatoes
- ^ Lunacy With Missing Minutes;The New York Times, 7 June 1995
- ^ Dazzling 'Arizona Dream' of Tragicomedy;Los Angeles Times, 11 July 1995
- ^ Arizona Dream;Chicago Sun-Times, 6 January 1995
- ^ Berlinale annual archives - 1993
- ^ http://www.wbshop.com/Arizona-Dream/1000151923,default,pd.html?adid=C
- ^ dvdtimes.com review
External links
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