Best movie ever!

A Brilliant Conflict

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

I watch so many movies they're just a forgetful blur. Same boring ass plots over and over and over. There's only like five stories to tell. And then there's the rare movie like this one that thankfully falls in the "Other" category. I must like it a lot because it has a persistent memory.To be honest, I saw a lot of my much younger self in Cera's character. Elitist, hardcore traveler convinced he has a better grasp on sniffing out adventure than most. And how to maximize the experience once revealed by experiencing what you are experiencing -- like a double track recording. And the annoyance of being stuck with silly people who managed to worm their way into your adventure making it less wonderful than it could have been. Their bad manners and immaturity defile the sanctity of the quest. They take snapshots of each other. There are no do overs in adventure.

I don't understand these deeply esoteric character portraits of some seriously completely unrealistic, demented, BORING people. I find the characters in this movie, especially the fairy, to be utterly ridiculous, and would only actually be found in a mental institution. No one like her could realistically survive outside of one.I mean, what do these people do for a living? How do they even makes ends meet, afford clothing, food, a shelter, let alone other belongings? All they do is go on and on about nothing. Sleep fest.The truly disturbing part of this movie was these pictures the main character finds near the end of the movie.They actually showed a CLOSEUP of a man being sodomized by a woman with a strap-on, with ACTUAL PENETRATION. I'm NEVER going to get that out of my mind. Be WARNED if something like this bothers you.How the hell did this pass the censors? Penetration is strictly forbidden in rated R movies and even rated X movies!! Not to mention you saw a closeup of an angle that showed the penetration, his scrotum and penis. WHAT?! They would NEVER allow a shot like this to be taken of a woman, even without any penetration. Why is that? You can't even show a labia in R-rated movies (which I agree with), so why so much penis and scrotum? I'll never understand why one is OK but not the other.There's never a close up of something like this, male or female, in even soft-core porn (X-rated movies).Is this a preview of things to come? There's been more penis in movies made in the past 8 years, even closeups, than from all of the movies from 1940-2000 combined. What's going on here? Do audiences want to see this? I'm pretty sure the vast majority doesn't.

I am late seeing this flick and I must disagree with a few other reviewers and their take on this very simple yet complex movie.Once again Sebastián Silva is offering up questions on youth and how youth sees the world around them. Jamie is obviously a self centered person with a limited experience in communicating with others (sort of like the US) (as Jamie is an American) and we can see this in his 'attitude' throughout the story. The other three boys have had to share with others and they try to make the best of their trip to the beach. Jamie, on the other hand insist they do it as planed.Enter Crystal Fairy into this mix and you already have an altered perception of exactly what they want to do - she is like the drug reduced from the cactus later in the story (she has an altered view of reality). She wants to share everything the three other boys don't seem to mind. Jamie can't tolerate it - he wants none of her.Crystal mothers them, she wants to know them, the boys are like children to her - yet she is very childlike herself. Jamie suddenly wants to be friends with her but only when he's 'high', after he comes down he's back to his original self. Crystal leaves quietly, Jamie sees her leave and calls her name, Crystal disappears behind a rock.What is Silva showing us here? Crystal is the personality of many different people, she's giving, caring, willing to accept life on her own and take risks - and being alone isn't easy, she is alone throughout the movie and Jamie thinks she's a phony. Jamie cannot see that he is the phony because in the end Crystal is what Jamie was seeking in the brewed Cactus they drink and even when high he could not accept it.

Michael Cera goes a long way toward changing his lovable doofus image in this road trip movie with a laid back and ultimately rather sweet vibe.Cera plays an obnoxious American vacationing in Chile who's trying to chase down a special kind of cactus that has mind-altering capabilities when the juice is distilled and drunk. Along for the ride are three native Chilean brothers and another American, a hippie-dippie girl named Crystal Fairy. The Chileans are quiet, polite and tolerant while the Americans are both unpleasant, Cera because he's a jerk and Crystal Fairy because she tries too hard. If this had stayed yet another Americans-behaving-badly movie I wouldn't have liked it. But it goes a very different, and welcome, direction, as the group's time together causes defenses to be relaxed and vulnerabilities to emerge."Crystal Fairy" does a great job of capturing that unique dynamic that evolves when a random assortment of people spend a lot of time together on a road trip. The characters created by Cera and Gaby Hoffman (who plays Crystal Fairy) certainly aren't pleasant to spend time with for much of the film's running time, but they're so like people I've actually known that it's fascinating to watch their performances and how thoroughly they can create characters that feel so authentic.I was already won over by the film's casual, relaxed atmosphere by the time the last few scenes came around, and then, after a late-act revelation and the sensitive way in which the film handles it, decided that I had sort of fallen in love with it.Grade: A