Comments on: Sundance review: Ballast

By: seriously?

seriously? — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:01:09 +0000

Get your buckets ready.
I think it is safe to say that “Ballast” didn’t have the same budget as “No Country for old Men”. I do agree that it was a great film, but it comes with experience and, in reality, money. I guess maybe it’s best to just agree to disagree. Nothing can be perfect. I don’t think it’s the Mona Lisa either. Far from it. It doesn’t make me freak out and “wanna. like, text my friends ‘OMG!’ and, like, this movie is sooooo good”, but it could be worse. It could have been yet another “indie” film with a Jon Brion knock off soundtrack and some cool NYC kids walking around being all “like” junior-existentialists.

p.s. No country for old men was a bit grande in comparison. Simple to a degree, but I do recall a few explosions.

By: Glenn LaFollette

Glenn LaFollette — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:49:38 +0000

I’m glad someone else has seen this, and if it’s true that somehow I’m looking at Mona Lisa and just seeing a smug fat chick, I’m sorry. But I really don’t think so. I think it’s a film worth seeing because of the obvious intrigue. If you took the idea for the story, wrote it on a couple sheets of paper and slid it across the table, I’d say that sounded like a wonderful story. It doesn’t need to be ‘American.’ It doesn’t need grandeur. What it needs is to translate from those sheets of paper, onto the screen into a wonderful film as well. And it’s not. I don’t need a soundtrack. ‘No Country for Old Men’ jumped through that hoop and was spectacular. And there are several films that peer into the real world and come away with some substance. I just don’t see it here, but others might. All I see is a good idea from a director who may have a brilliant vision, but doesn’t see the mistakes right in front of his nose.

Sometimes that happens. Sometimes a Lawrence becomes a Lance. And sometimes a reviewer sees a smug fat chick instead of the Mona Lisa. I dunno. We all make mistakes, and I think Hammer did with this film. When it wins something, I’ll fetch the tar and feathers.

By: seriously?

seriously? — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:42:42 +0000

First off, “Lance” is the directors name, while “Lawrence” is the characters name. Little mix up but no big deal. I think what you are really asking for from the film, with all of your desired expose, is a blockbuster, American film. Sometimes it is so wonderful to experience a film that doesn’t treat the audience as if they were unable to, not only GET the point, but as if we were to unable to just revel in something as primitive as a simple story of human life. I’m afraid that the constant “need” for grandeur is what makes US cinema so lackluster. How many explosions does one need to be fulfilled? I can see how sometimes a “stating the obvious” film can be good. I get sick too and I can slurp chicken soup with the best of them, but to say that Ballast is sub-par because it lacks in expose is simply tragic in and of itself. The “hype” just might so happen to be the fact that it attempts to tell a story. So be it a simple one with no soundtrack, at least he achieved HIS intention.
Ballast Rating: B+