Freeland's film offers a poor man's Los Angeles opus.
Garden Party (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:19
Fresh:2
Rotten:17
Average Rating:3.6/10
Rated: Not Rated
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Jul 11, 2008 Limited
Starring: Tierra Abbott, Christopher Allport, Lisa Arturo, Erik Bragg
Starring: Tierra Abbott, Christopher Allport, Lisa Arturo, Erik Bragg, Candice A. Buenrostro
Director: Jason Freeland
Director: Jason Freeland
Screenwriter: Jason Freeland
Studio: Roadside Attractions
Reviews for Garden Party
Their lives eventually intersect, but in more or less arbitrary ways.
This ensemble piece works if you know Los Angeles. After all, it's very possible for a homeless kid, pot-smoking Realtor, young model and a number of perverts to cross paths in that town.
Sophomore writer/director Freeland doesn't quite feel like the host of this particular "garden party," but rather like the party's Sabrina, secretly spying from the sidelines.
Oddly, halfway through when Freeland strains our credulity even further, the film finally feels fresh
A bit like Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), taking a look at a cross-section of Los Angeles characters, though it runs less than half the length and, conversely, half the depth.
The characters aren't interesting, and the stories toggle between tawdry and ridiculous.
They're not a likeable bunch, to be sure, but the bigger problem is that there's little resonance to their stories.
Willa Holland is the one good thing about Garden Party -- not because of her performance (which is neither good or bad) but for that nostalgia she evoked in me for young Fairuza [Balk].
A dreary drama about a group of selfish and amoral characters whose lives intersect in Los Angeles.
A blandly pointless roundelay of bad acting, forgettable characters and flat drama.
If we're meant to take these threads as a tapestry of L.A., then Freeland clearly needs to stop watching Robert Altman DVDs and go outside to see what the real world is actually like.
There’s neither brilliance nor bite to this look at innocence lost. Next time, go Nathanael West, young man.
A fatally fractured, disconnected mosaic of unappealing, marginal Hollywood types haphazardly interconnecting.
A tapestry of intersecting Hollywood lives that illuminates nothing except for writer-director Jason Freeland's obvious fondness for Short Cuts.
Not exactly a feelgood drama, but nonetheless an eye-opening peek at the ugly underbelly of a merciless metropolis that could care less about the fate of the least of its brethren.
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| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie | Date |
|---|---|---|
| | Four Seasons Lodge | 11/11 |
| | The Good Soldier | 11/11 |
| 92% 92% | Fantastic Mr. Fox | 11/13 |
| 83% 83% | 2012 | 11/13 |
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