Trash Fire

Good movie!

source: Trash Fire

This movie is just plain silly. And full of unanswered questions (as well as being full of baloney). When Owen is told by his girlfriend she is pregnant he decides they must visit his wacko grandmother and sister to make amends after years have passed. The couple have a love/hate relationship (mostly hate) and why they would want to become parents is anybody's guess. And why he would want anything to do with his relatives is also a mystery. I will not delve into the silly plot but some more of the questions generated are...why does Owen and his girlfriend stay there after Grandma continually insults her, calling her the vilest names. Why does the reverend (who apparently has had a sexual relationship with Grandma) keep a live rattlesnake in his office? Why does he show up at Grandma's house with a tire iron, stand in the driveway for a few minutes, and leave? What pills did Grandma crush up and who were they for? Who's skeleton was under the house? I could go on and on, but why? The only reason to watch this is if you are an Adrian Grenier fan and enjoy seeing his bare bum, otherwise, just skip it..

It's hard to rate and review this film. It wants to be a dark comedy, but then tries to be something much more serious and emotionally disturbing as it dives into horror, yet springs back again here and there... and even some of the horror elements are quite funny. I'd have to say this is much more of a dark comedy drama with a lot of tension and negativity. This is not a Romance/Comedy or even your typical Horror comedy. The comedy is much more situational and mostly stems from the interaction of emotionally disturbed people who loathe one another. That said, this wasn't a B-rate production. There are some very talented actors with very believable characters and some enjoyable moments with the dark humor. It's quite twisted, but well-made. So, I give it a 6 because it never bored me and though I cringed a lot, it was enjoyable enough to deserve a positive rating. However, I doubt it has much replay value. I wouldn't recommend this as a must-see to anyone, but if you love dark comedies and/or twisted horror and have some time to kill, I think this would entertain.

A self destructive bulimic guy and her complaining girlfriend. This girl is not happy after 3 year relationship with his boyfriend and yet she never decided to leave. Why? This guy is having seizures during sex (that's the only funny scene in the whole movie). The grandma is a religious bitter woman with a double moral. The story, the dialogues and the acting is HORRENDUS. The final is pointless. The title of this movie is very accurate.

Okay so of course good actor Adrian Grenier knows how to play his characters. Loved his sarcasm in the movie. I like the story plot was interesting. Disappointed by the ending but all in all it wasn't bad. It could have used a little more of something but at least it wasn't slow paced. It is not horror by any means, but the story line is interesting. The more you watch the more you will understand why the star is how He is. If you are familiar with family dysfunction than this will make sense to you. The whole time you're watching thinking what a horrible guy He is, but you start to understand what kind of craziness He stems from.

It's a very dark, twisted movie, that delivers a few shocks, and keeps you totally entertained. It's hard to find a huge level of sympathy initially for Owen, but when you meet his grandmother your sympathies switch to him. It gets better as it gets going, the first half hour or so is quite slow, you feel like you're caught up in a melodrama, but when the switch comes, it's very good. Very well acted all round, however it's Fionnula Flanagan that stands out I thought. Rather good. 8/10

Or was that mad? Whichever one it is, there is not always a clear or just one answer to that question. The movie is not really here to make friends either. A. Granier is really someone who is not very likable most of the time. But can you blame him? That's after you see where he came from or what he had to "suffer" (some call it childhood). Family matters ... sometimes it matters too much. So much that you lose sight of other things. And both our male and female lead can attest to that. But while it is not about winning any popularity or beauty contest it also does not pull any punches. It may get ugly, but it is coherent for the world it portrays. Not an easy watch and not for the squeamish either. But different in a good (read: bad) way!

I decided to scan the previous reviews in case there might have been some redeeming quality that I overlooked, but there was no such quality. There isn't even a consensus on how to categorize the film-- is it horror or thriller or drama or comedy or Southern Gothic or all of the above or none of the above? No consensus, because there is no there there. Reviewer John Anthony Mazzei of Cleveland writes, "The viewer sees all but not the players. Two rounds from a twelve gauge and a wordless epilogue close the movie." However, assuming for the sake of argument that there does exist in literature such an self-contradictory device as a wordless epilogue, it's as flimsy and pointless as a Kardashian's see-through nightie. Beatrice, a young interior decorator with the world's worse taste in men, is the long-suffering girlfriend of cynical, sarcastic. pain-in- the-ass, epileptic Owen. After three years of unprotected relations, dumbbell Beatrice is with child, and she compounds her stupidity by badgering Owen that they absolutely have to drive out-of-state somewhere to see Owen's crazy grandmother Violet and crazy sister Pearl, both of whom he hasn't seen in eleven years and does not want to ever see again. After arriving at Grandma's house, even dumbbell Beatrice can understand that grandma and Pearl are not just ha-ha crazy but bats--t crazy, but she and Owen keep hanging around until one day, Pearl splatters the guts of both Owen and Grandma all over Grandma's kitchen with Grandma's own shotgun. Beatrice, cowering on the kitchen floor, survives unscathed, and the twisted pastor of Grandma's church has pulled up to the house in his Lincoln Continental and is lurking outside with a tire iron in his hand. That is the wordless epilogue? What unspoken pearls of wisdom do we learn here? 1. When a healthy, attractive young woman with a career and a nice apartment has the world's worst boyfriend for three years, she should cut her losses and kick him out before she gets knocked up and not wait until she is feeling too old and too attached to start to look for someone better. 2. Like a broken clock, even the world's worst boyfriend is still right twice a day, at least when it comes to his own damn bats--t crazy relatives, and his butt-in-sky girlfriend should learn to butt out and give him at least an ounce of credit. 3. Don't leave a twelve-gauge shotgun around the house for the deranged, disfigured relatives up in Grandma's attic to find. Thing is, moviegoers like me may not mind quirky black humor and dark family secrets of mayhem and murder and deranged, disfigured relatives who stay up in Grandma's attic, but we don't want to sit through it all and then get no resolution or redemption in the end--only people's guts splattered all over Grandma's kitchen and moviegoers scratching their heads. Usually, moviegoers like me can get enough of a hint about where the movie is headed before we see it or at least before we sit through more than the first ten or twenty minutes. Many years ago, before the internet and this website, someone I knew insisted that we had to go to a fantastic new film called Halloween at the mall theater, but as many times as I asked, he would say that, no, he didn't know anything about what kind of film it was or who was in the film but that he knew for a fact that it was a great film that we absolutely had to go see. So we did to the theater, and the house was packed, but within three minutes into the film, I said, no, I'm sorry, I am not sitting through this, you should have told me, and then I got up and left. And unless maybe we are watching a John Waters film-sort of film and know what to expect, we do NOT want to see white-haired, arthritic, Bible-thumping Grandma masturbating herself to a televangelist-—it's as clever and subtle as a pipe wrench. I would though have more respect for writer/director Richard Bates, Jr. if he had cast his own grandmother from real life to play crazy Grandma Violet.

Trash Fire is such a remarkably odd film, thriller? romance? comedy? horror? It truly does have it all. Starring Adrian "Entourage" Grenier it tells the story of a young couple struggling to stay together, partially because the guy is a bit of an a-hole (Yet oddly I related to him more than I've related to a character in years). In an effort to build bridges they travel to spend time with members of his highly religious family, but things take a dangerous turn. Notably the performances are fantastic especially Grenier, the script is first class and some of the best writing I've seen in months and the concept behind the movie is solid (Though simple). It's a tale about relationships, redemption and the lunacy of religion. It still surprises me how 80% of the US identifies as Christian yet the vast majority of the time when religion is presented as subject matter in movies it's shown as either dangerous or "Wacky". This always pleases me and demonstrates a firm grasp of reality by those who write these things. The inclusion of Christianity into the tale which evolves into an antagonist is fantastic and really helps the film no end. Trash Fire though very oddly constructed is a very enjoyable film hampered only by the questionable finale. I don't think the ending is bad, but had it been better so too would my rating. Regardless this is very enjoyable stuff for those seeking something that little bit different. The Good: Some incredible writing Great characters The Bad: Weirdly put together film Ending could have been better