Comments on: An American Crime

By: zhuoji

zhuoji — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:21:03 +0000

真是好心碎的画面，是一部感人肺腑的电影，最重要的是它的真实性和不拙作。

By: RICHARD MARTINEZ

RICHARD MARTINEZ — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:50:13 +0000

I GUESS GUARDIAN ANGELS,GOD,APARITIONS OF THE VIRGIN MARY ONLY HELP ONLY THOSE WHO THEY CHOOSE TO HELP.BECAUSE I REMEMBER MY EPILEPTIC SISTER BEEN LEFT UNDER ME, MY BROTHER AND MY SISTER CARE….BY MY “MOTHER”..WITHOUT MEDICAL CARE NOR MEDICINE.WE WERE 10-11-13 YEARS OLD.WE BATHED HER IN COLD WATER WHEN SHE SOILED HER CLOTHES,MADER EAT BAD TASTING FOOD,WHICH SHE CHEW FOR HOURS UNTIL WE SLAPPED HER TO MAKER EAT (SHE NEEDED HER ANTIDEPRESANT)SHE HAD SEIZURES 10-15-TIMES A DAY&NIGHT.SHE ATE HER TOE&FINGERNAILS RAW—SHE BLED,SHE CHOKE DURING THE SEIZURES….UNTIL WE HATED HER,.MANY MONTHS LATER OUR MOTHER CAMEBACK,TOOK HER AWAY,AND GAVE’HER TO THE STATE TO TAKE CARE OF MY LITTLE SISTER,(SHE WAS NINE)TODAY SHE IS A PIANO TEACHER & MARRIED &HAVE A GOOD LIFE.AT THAT AGE I WAS RELIGIOUS,TODAY I’M AGNOSTIC..MY MOTHER NEVER SAID ,SHE WAS SORRY….AND I SAY I’AM…TO MY LITTLE SISTER,SHE IS 54 I’AM 58…I HAVE NO PRAY TO GODS NOR ANGELS EVER AGAIN…I ONLY HELP PEOPLE WHO SUFFER,HERE ON THIS EARTH..AND US IS ALL WE HAVE….THANK YOU…

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:57:05 +0000

I can’t even begin to tell you how angry this movie madem me. If Silvia was my daughter, I’d be in jail and Gertrude would be six feet under.

By: miffy

miffy — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:46:19 +0000

I am heart broken too, as all of us are that this poor soul was not rescued and lived like no-one should. I just can’t believe that children from school would come and abuse her too, I cannot wrap my head around it. Also, why didn’t the parents call to speak to the children ever? Ellen Page is the most amazing actress. Has anyone seen the movie she is in where she is looking for her lost sister?

By: Sam Juliano

Sam Juliano — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 04:41:08 +0000

I saw HARD CANDY, but not this film. I think we can look at your final sentence, superbly worded to absorb the final judgement–if it doesn’t wrench your heart and drive you towards activism, it doesn’t resonate. I am not surprised that Page and Keener were superb.

Exceptional, outstanding review. It is apparently worth a look-see despite the well reasoned objections.

By: joan mariano

joan mariano — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:01:52 +0000

This was a real story this poor girl was abused in all mental and eventual a physcical way. i was sick to the stomach on the real crime comments.
this pig gertrude is beyond me in the way that all this happened i think she had no care for life and got her kicks, I just wish i was there I would have done something about this from day 1.. Just goes to show how things can happen under your nose and you dont know. totally made me feel sick, these people hope they rot in hell, cos that is where I hope they will be….
Why would any mother do this to anyone, anyway.

sick, sick, sick
had nightmares about it all
cant believe it really happened

By: SS

SS — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:19:12 +0000

I went to the house last week, very scary

By: Evan Derrick

Evan Derrick — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 02:30:40 +0000

Thanks for dropping by, Ted. I considered Hard Candy one of my Top 10 of 2006 – it completely blew me away. Brilliant, brilliant film, and it kind of ticked me off when people kept calling Juno Ellen Page’s breakout performance.

By: Ted Forrester

Ted Forrester — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 21:41:13 +0000

If you liked this movie, Ellen Page also did another disturbing movie called Hard Candy, where she tracks down a pedophile and tortures him for his deisres. It’s similar to this one in the sense that it’s not a truly fantastic movie, but it’s very disturbing and really makes you think about things you may no want to.

By: Evan Derrick

Evan Derrick — Sat, 31 May 2008 02:54:45 +0000

Wow, a lot of strong opinions on this one. Regardless of the film’s quality, it certainly seems to have struck some kind of nerve with people.

By: Phillip Johnston

Phillip Johnston — Sat, 31 May 2008 01:31:58 +0000

Very well put, Sahara. I just worked on a film that the whole team made with the best of intentions to portray a particular idea yet when we reached the cutting room, it came off as the exact opposite of what we wanted. It’s just how art-making works sometime.

Maybe that’s what happened with this film, but we may never know.

By: Sahara-Rain Jozanga

Sahara-Rain Jozanga — Sat, 31 May 2008 00:59:01 +0000

Though the movie upset me a great deal, it was not the images that hurt my heart the most. It was the fact that this is a real person this happened too. There should be more pride in putting it together, though I thought it was done just fine. But when you take a look at the whole story than you would see that it should all be there and the dream sequence towards the end was very misleading and left out a great bit that would have put more completion to the story.

By: Janine

Janine — Tue, 27 May 2008 03:33:11 +0000

This is such a disturbing movie that I want to know more of Sylvia. My heart aches for her.

By: becky

becky — Mon, 26 May 2008 05:39:51 +0000

I honestly had to turn it off mid way of the movie and calm myself cause i was that upset by it!!! A couple of days later i finally got the nerve up to finish it..

By: Anil Usumezbas

Anil Usumezbas — Wed, 14 May 2008 20:50:31 +0000

I’m more than glad to contribute

By: Chuck

Chuck — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:03:26 +0000

have NOT shaken Girl that is.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:02:52 +0000

I believe Christian is referring to my look at The Girl Next Door, the adaptation of Jack Ketchum’s fictionalization of this case. I’ll have to see this, I still have shaken GIRL, and I’m curious to see if a film with a more professional, polished cast can cast the same spell. Girl was also tasteful in its implication of unimaginable misery.

By: Phillip Johnston

Phillip Johnston — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:01:11 +0000

Anil, while I was watching the film I thought the things I was assuming were happening inside characters (in their minds, hearts, etc.) were far more interesting than what was going on outside. I was going to bring that up, but figured I wasn’t eloquent enough to expound upon it. Thanks for your comment.

By: Evan Derrick

Evan Derrick — Wed, 14 May 2008 11:57:41 +0000

To add to Anil’s observations, it also recalls the Stanford prison experiments, although in a different light. They set up a mock prison but had to shut it down within days because the ‘wardens’ were becoming nasty and abusive and the ‘prisoners’ were retreating into the psudo-anonymity that they had been shackled with.

On a simpler level, it always amazed me what I was willing to do with a group of my friends as a kid vs. by myself. We vandalized stuff and were generally public nuisances, but on my own I would have been horrified to do any of it. And I was a pretty good kid overall.

Freaky stuff.

By: Anil Usumezbas

Anil Usumezbas — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:42:19 +0000

I agree with the review. I’ve had the chance to see this in Istanbul Film Festival this year, with the attendance of Tommy O’Haver and I can say it was an impressive work, although it could be much much more. I wrote a short review about the film and O’Haver’s explanations regarding the film here:

http://long-take.blogspot.com/2008/04/27th-international-istanbul-film_20.html

Quoting from here, I can also say that “If the film would realize that its power lies within the idea of inner evils and not lose time with other drama conventions (like the confrontational scene at the end or the escape sequences) it would’ve been remarkable.” For me, “What makes the story (and therefore the movie) so uniquely disturbing and horrifying is not the psychopathic mother (let’s face facts, we have many psychopaths today and many slasher movies to match them), nor the specific details of the torture she implemented but the fact that everybody else went along with it.” The film reminds me of the Milgram Experiment videos that I recently watched on youtube – I sense that they both tell something horrific about the human nature.

Nice review.

By: Phillip Johnston

Phillip Johnston — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:30:07 +0000

In short, what makes you flinch isn’t long shots of someone being brutalized but facial expressions coupled with creative camera movements (people punch and kick the camera, etc.). Cinematic trickery that cuts deep.

By: Evan Derrick

Evan Derrick — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:49:30 +0000

“The scenes of abuse in An American Crime are extremely tasteful, but still very disturbing.”

You need to write an essay on that sentence, Phillip. I find if quite intriguing.

By: Phillip Johnston

Phillip Johnston — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:40:04 +0000

I used to be totally desensitized to screen violence because I grew up watching movies like Braveheart and The Patriot. Now, I don't like how those films treat violence so flippantly. In fact, most of Hollywood is flippant about it. I like to think of "resensitized" myself. The scenes of abuse in An American Crime are extremely tasteful, but still very disturbing.

By: christian

christian — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:25:21 +0000

Like I mentioned on Chuck’s blog, I can’t stomach this. Even tho I grew up watching FACES OF DEATH. I’m more sensitive to screen abuse now, no matter how artful. So disturbing.

By: Phillip Johnston

Phillip Johnston — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:38:50 +0000

If you have Showtime, it’s playing there. It traveled around the festival circuit (starting at Sundance in January 2007) and had trouble finding a distributor. It should be on DVD around August, I think.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:56:39 +0000

Wow… I didn’t even know about this Ellen Page movie. It looks really dark and disturbing… I might try to check it out at some point!