Buttwhistle

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source: Buttwhistle

Entertaining in a weird sort of way. Good acting and funny movie but ending is a letdown.

I watched this movie twice. First watch left me cold. Second watch I felt I developed some insight to Ogden because everything important in this story revolves around him. So here's my take on Director Fairchild's movie. Ogden is living his daily life with a more positive attitude than he had when his best friend Rose was alive. Enter Beth, she is bitchy, rude, demanding, insulting, and domineering. Beth is a projection of Ogden's thoughts on how he treated Rose. (I say this because there is a scene in the story where Beth jumps on Ogden's back screaming "Let me go!") Beth is an element of Ogden's personality that he is examining thinking it had something to do with Rose's suicide. Thus when he saves Beth from falling to her death it is actually Ogden realizing he hasn't been so nice to Rose and he wants to consider the consequences of his bad attitude. Rose occasionally shows up giving Ogden advice and insight. Here he is remembering the best of Rose. As most of us do when someone loved dies. At the story's end Beth is released and is no longer a part of Ogden. Ogden then sees a girl that looks like his idea of Beth but she is just a stranger on the street. Ogden has grown emotionally - his life continues.

First of all, I have a great appreciation for this film, even though I don't entirely understand it. It has a very unsatisfying ending, however. I can't explain everything, but I'll broach a few of the overall themes I do think I have a handle of ... Beth was abused and neglected; if you watch for it, there are clues to this throughout the movie. In the end, Ogden imagines Beth as the happy daughter of his parents ... he sees that things could have been different for her, that her world and circumstances brought out the worst in her. He tries to bring out the best of people and of himself. The film contrasts love and hate, different ways of looking at and interacting with the world and the people in it. I don't think the message is that we should be like Ogden of the present, or that we should not follow his example, either. I think it's just acknowledging a reality of the world ... that you can't help everyone, and that you will suffer for trying. Ogden knows this. He warns Roadcap, "Yank the thorn out of the critter's foot, doesn't mean he's not gonna eat you." Later, when freeing the parrot, you can see he's afraid of getting pecked by his bird beneficiary. Later yet, Ogden explains that a dog craps on a rug because it's a dog and can't help it, not because of any malice. Ogden understands the risks, the nature of people. He doesn't feel that everyone should take those risks, but he feels that he must "to make (him) feel better about (himself)". Ogden had more hate in his past and made mistakes. He took his anger out on someone who probably didn't deserve it. Rose may have been his savior. Ogden wants to help Beth in the same way that Rose helped him. Ogden sees some of himself in Beth. He acknowledges that he was once "the new kid" too, a point Beth seemed to use as an excuse for her meanness. Bonus: There seems to be an Easter egg in the scene with the Nazi flag hanging above the porch ... in the background there's someone dressed in a purple dinosaur suit. This might be a reference to Trevor Morgan's role in "Barney's Great Adventure".

Once in a while, a movie comes along and just breaks everything you thought you knew about movies. Buttwhistle is not an "ordinary" movie and I don't think many people will find interest in it. It doesn't have huge actors with million dollar paychecks. It doesn't have special effects that make your eyes drool. It doesn't have big lows followed by gigantic highs. And really, this movie sorta divides it's audience. It asks you, are you feeling cerebral tonight..? Buttwhistle is like a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, crammed into a clear plastic ziplock bag. If you have the time and the desire, you can dump those pieces on your mental workspace and try to find a few that will fit together. But without a "box" or a cover, you have no idea what you're building so things soon become rather confusing. Why is the sun where the ground should be, there can't be dirt where the sky should be. Can there..? We struggle to see the relationships between the characters because again, no cover, no image of our puzzle to copy from. This movie has surprising moments of humor laced throughout and it might be said that that's the only thing keeping you from pushing this puzzle off your space. There are also some truly beautiful female actresses, some scenes with gorgeous * so that might also keep you motivated. But the big surprise doesn't smack you in the face at the end. It doesn't show you where the last piece fits. It lets you struggle, much like the lead character, even when there's only one piece left and you're sure it simply has to fit. And it's this "use a hammer to make it fit" mentality that stunned me for after it appeared before me, puzzle complete, I could finally see what it was that I had been building. And wow, have you ever seen something that you just couldn't get out of your mind, like, forever..?

As a reviewer, I try to judge films by young filmmakers a bit differently than I'd judge a big-time Hollywood project. This is because I don't want to discourage these newbies and I am sure it's very, very hard work to make a movie. However, I am really stumped with Buttwhistle, as I cannot come up with much that I liked about the film— and I really wanted to like the film. With a title like this, I was hoping it would be strange. It was, but not in an enjoyable or funny way. The movie DID start off amazingly well—with an opening scene with a telemarketer that made me laugh. And, the opening credits were amazing— some of the best and most inventive I've ever seen. The credits are apparently done by someone or some business called 'Ring of Fire'—and I definitely want to see more of their work. But it was all downhill after that and had little to do with the movie that followed. Ogden is an eternal optimist when it comes to people. He seems to like everyone—even people who are not very likable. He's also incredibly kind. But, when he saves a young girl who appears to be ready to kill herself, he befriends Beth. This is understandable. But what isn't understandable is what follows. Beth is a thoroughly hateful and horrible person and anyone with a brain larger than a pigeon's would avoid her like the plague. Apparently Ogden has a brain smaller than a pigeon because he hangs around this awful person throughout the movie. Even when he discovers that she's destroying his things and hurting people, he inexplicably maintains his great mood and relationship with her. It continues like this and the film is very frustrating because there just doesn't seem to be any point to this…it's just vicious and practically plot-less. Apart from having a confusing and irrational theme, the film irritated me to no end because it was obvious that the screenwriter was writing inside jokes to make himself laugh*. In fact, the entire film seemed like a giant inside joke with no concern whatsoever for the audience's enjoyment. Additionally, I found the film raunchy and filled with a lot of material inappropriate for teens—yet this seems to be the intended audience for the film. Rarely have I been left this confused and unsatisfied by a film. Choppy edits and underdeveloped characters and a meandering plot didn't help. *Here are a few of the inside jokes: 1. A neighbor is named Angus Blancmange. This is taken from a Monty Python episode about an alien invasion. I knew this and the writer knew this…but who else would?! 2. Ogden also goes by two names he's made up—Buttwhistle and the sound made by blowing an air horn. When folks call him, they blow the horn. This gets old very, very quickly. 3. The head explosion. Neat but irrelevant—even though there were references on the news concerning this later in the film. 4. CONSTANT hipster talk. Please, enough already. No one REALLY talks that way…and if they do, I hate them—and most would as well. 5. Impossible to believe or like characters abound. Again, shouldn't there be an attempt to get the audience to like someone?!

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