The literal train wreck that caps the film is an apt metaphor for this hallucinatory fiasco.
Tideland (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:20
Fresh:1
Rotten:19
Average Rating:2.8/10
Consensus: Tideland is a disturbing, and mostly unwatchable effort from Terry Gilliam.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for bizarre and disturbing content, including drug use, sexuality, and gruesome situations - all involving a child, and for some language.
Runtime: 2 hrs 2 mins
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
Theatrical Release:Oct 13, 2006 Limited
Synopsis: Terry Gilliam, the director of such fantasies as TIME BANDITS, BRAZIL, and THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN, tells a very different kind of story in TIDELAND. Based on the novel by Mitch Cullin... Terry Gilliam, the director of such fantasies as TIME BANDITS, BRAZIL, and THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN, tells a very different kind of story in TIDELAND. Based on the novel by Mitch Cullin and cowritten by Gilliam and Tony Grisoni, TIDELAND follows young Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland), the daughter of Noah (Jeff Bridges), an aging, drug-addicted rock-and-roller, and Queen Gunhilda (Jennifer Tilly), a mean-spirited, drug-addicted chocoholic. After her mother overdoses, Jeliza-Rose and Noah move to his mother's home in the middle of nowhere, an abandoned wreck of a house. As Noah gets lost in one of his "vacations"--his drug trips, for which his daughter prepares the speedball--Jeliza-Rose becomes friends with an emotionally and physically challenged epileptic named Dickens (Brendan Fletcher), the brother of Dell (Janet McTeer), a terrifying witchlike woman who is deathly afraid of bees and has a penchant for taxidermy. Jeliza-Rose also falls farther into her own fantastical world, particularly with her doll heads Mustique, Sateen Lips, Glitter Gal, and Baby Blonde--one of which falls down a dark and narrow rabbit hole--and a mysterious talking squirrel that is trying to tell her something important. Part PSYCHO, part ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, Gilliam's challenging film also includes an eclectic soundtrack featuring original songs such as "Wash Me in the Blood of Jesus" and "Van Gogh in Hollywood" (the latter performed by Bridges as the leader of a heavy metal band), as well as an eerie set that echoes Andrew Wyeth's famous painting "Christina's World." [More]
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Jodelle Ferland, Brendan Fletcher, Jennifer Tilly
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Jodelle Ferland, Brendan Fletcher, Jennifer Tilly, Janet McTeer, Dylan Taylor, Wendy Anderson
Director: Terry Gilliam
Director: Terry Gilliam
Screenwriter: Tony Grisoni
Producer: Jeremy Thomas, Gabriella Martinelli
Composer: Mychael Danna, Jeff Danna
Studio: ThinkFilm
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Reviews for Tideland
The movie itself feels like an overstuffed burrito: Nicola Pecorini's cinematography has verve but no visual sense, and the film's self-important pace turns deadening over the long haul.
Becomes an excruciating exercise in gothic excess and progressively more disgusting imagery.
A triumph of costuming and production design over plot, theme and main characters.
The film drags in the middle and feels excruciatingly slow and repetitive in the final stretch.
Tideland's unmodulated frenzy has the effect of a prolonged shriek, too high and shrill for individual words to make themselves heard.
It's crazy, dangerous and sometimes gorgeous: a feast of nuttiness that takes you, for a while, over the edge.
I came very close to walking out of the screening room. And I never do that.
The film has nary a gram of human reality or compassion anywhere in it.
An endless, pointless drone with characters like bacteria and dialogue like an untuned radio.
Gilliam drains any remaining signs of life and humanity from his adult characters, underscoring their grotesqueness with expressionistic camera work and shock-tactic effects.
This time [Gilliam] has stumbled into a different no-man’s land, the one between the merely bad and the completely indefensible.
What we get, sadly, is easily the worst production Gilliam has ever been involved in, either behind the camera or in front of it. Tideland is, by turns, a complete bore and a creepy experience. And I don't mean 'creepy' in a positive sense.
The movie dies early on, but it keeps hanging around, looking a little more rotten with each new scene.
Gilliam has suffered more than his share of butchered projects, but with this exercise in kamikaze auteurism, he appears to have made exactly the mess he wanted.
Tideland sees the fanciful helmer overindulging his dark side with a slice of Gothic nastiness.
A misconceived washout of a darkly gothic story of madness, addiction and child abuse made all the more unpleasant by Gilliam's trademark intense visual style.
Latest News for Tideland
February 27, 2008:
Total Recall: Fairy Tales for Grownups
On the festival circuit, Penelope, starring Christina Ricci as a pig-nosed recluse embarking upon the modern world for the first time, seemed to get about as much press... More...
November 18, 2005:
Time to face it. A lot of Gilliam's movies fail not because of some outside influence, but because of him. ![]()
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| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
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