Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

"Chelsea Walls" is a sensual meditation on the lost and troubled souls who drift in and out and settle down at the historic Chelsea Hotel.Ethan Hawke here stays behind the camera as director and gathers his friends Robert Sean Leonard and Steve Zahn, wife Uma Thurman, veterans Kris Kristofferson, Tuesday Weld and Harris Yulin and luminous relative newcomers Rosario Dawson and Mark Webber for moving monologues and dialogs written by playwright Nicole Burdette, as well as mesmerizing poetry renderings of Rimbaud and Dylan Thomas.Hawke has an unusual eye that loves and respects women that's more romantic and empowering than nude humpings in most films today, even as here all we see are fleeting moments in confusing relationships with their irresponsible men, even though I really had no idea what was going on. The music, mostly by Jeff Tweedy and Wilco (with a striking cameo by Jimmy Scott, both acting and singing Lennon's "Jealous Guy") was used as lovely commentary and yearning revealed.Filmed in digital video, the bleeding over the screen and the blurriness could have been due to lousy projection. (originally written 5/4/2002)

This quite possibly is the most boring picture I have every seen, and, believe me, at my age (just a a bit younger than God) I've seen a lot of boring movies. And such a waste, too. A lot of thought--perhaps too much thought--and talent went into making this picture. Such a waste, the most notable being Natasha Richardson. Were I not in love with my wife, I would be in love with Natasha Richardson, gazing into her lovely eyes and watching the feelings and emotions flow across her exquisite face for all eternity. But I never was able to figure just what she was supposed to be in the story--something to do with poor old beat up Kris, I think. In fact, I was so bored I fell asleep before the opening titles, etc., were completed, and was having the most wonderful snooze while the voices and background sounds droned on, creating in my dozing mind the impression that something was really happening. Which impelled me to wake up and scroll back through the disk, looking for the point when I had passed out, back and forth, back some more, back, back again, until, lo, here come the openers. Well, this time I stayed away, determined that I wouldn't miss a single word, a single scene or shot. Alas. I should have stood asleep the first time.

I watched, with unenthusiastic anticipation, Chelsea Walls last pm. Ethan Hawke directed it, and well, and it was filled with top actors and a few good unknowns. Another independent, Art-house movie no one saw! A collage of struggling artists in a rundown New York hotel once haunted by great and famous artists. Interesting and sad. An authentic commentary of the lives of people who would wrench beauty and truth from their starving souls, bodies, and lives in a surrounding world of indifferent walls and lost, disconnected, bustling, solipsistic climbers. For the casual movie goer or average movie buff? - too raw, too realistic, too deep into the nightmare life of those simultaneously struggling, slavishly, and exclusively devoted, full of emaciated hope, to their art and, yet, never having been loved enough are still - and eternally and desperately - reaching with withered and scared hands and hearts for connection. While both wanting to and searching for elusive care, even while self imprisoned in their anguished solitude, they labor, possessed by and surrendered to their evolving dream creations, to just eke out survival so as to have one more day to forge one more note, one more line, one more stroke of their brush, or one more verse. It is a portrayal of a tattered but soulfully beautiful social Ghetto in the midst of a dazzling, opulent, technologically overly well-appointed, commercially successful, sky-rocketing, Gotham-like Empire. To the artistically inclined: Look and listen to its intimately personal, heart-singeing, message at your own risk. You may find it more informing and rewarding than entertaining.

I'm generally patient with movies and will watch almost anything. My trick to get through dull stuff like this is watch 10-15 minutes at a time, take a break and come back to see if either my mood or the movie has "improved". Now I have sat down twice over a period of several months and tried to watch this thing, but gave up after about 45 minutes and fast-forwarded through it. Awesome cast, total disappointment.