Wonderful character development!

hyped garbage

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Dakota Fanning. I haven't seen much with her in it, but she was pretty good in Kelly Reichardt's 'Night moves'. There, she played a much more sober role than in this one, and it seemed befitting. Here, she is quite disappointing; some provocative dancing, some mediocre singing, a few teen tantrums and some awful screaming (the scene in which David Morse joins in with the screaming is truly awful). Never did she convince me of the pain and anguish Lewellen was in.The premise is relatively promising, but the story quickly becomes inane and boring. Seldom do I wish to turn off a movie, but 'Hounddog' accomplished that. The dialogues range from nothing special to truly annoying (although I was unable to understand all of them, due to the lack of subtitles), and really none of the acting was impressive, which also had much to do with the poor direction, I'm sure. There are some pretty pictures of the American South to look at, but they amount to very little here.Uninspired is the key word here, even if the story is all about being truly inspired (through blues music)... It's almost shocking to learn that the director is a prominent name in the academic world.2 out of 10.

I was intrigued by the synopsis when I stumbled upon this movie. I typically enjoy these 50's/60's coming of age period movies ala "Man in the Moon". That was my expectation, a different spin on "Man in the Moon". The movie started out pretty good and I was intrigued. Around 20mins in, story elements just seemed scattered all over the place. In the introductory scene, Lewellen discusses bruises on her body and how she's going to kill her daddy. I'm all set to witness a young girl who's obsessed with meeting Elvis, kill her dad. One of those two things ought to be her goal? Nope. That's the last thing we hear or see about her resentment towards her dad. In fact, she's quite fond of her dad through the rest of the story. So, maybe it's about her journey to see Elvis? I recognize his music is what comforts her, but the story is setup for an Elvis meeting... and when she misses out on the Elvis concert at the midpoint, I figure the ending will also involve Elvis. As a screenwriter myself, her missing out on Elvis at the midpoint has me suspect that she will not be successful in this goal, and she isn't. In fact, Elvis is really never mentioned in the last half of the movie. The snakes throughout were kinda cool, but what did they mean? Symbolism for sure... but extremely vague in my mind. Throughout the last half of the movie, I'm waiting for something to happen. I want clarity on what her goal really is, what the story's about, and I'm waiting... still waiting... and end credits. What? It's a shame that such beautiful scenery, music, and acting talent was wasted on such a lousy story. I didn't get it at all. So, I do some brief investigating and this is what I found...I've already mentioned I didn't like the story or the screenwriter's (Deborah Kampmeier) attempt at putting together a story. OK, so who's the director? Hmm, the director is also Deborah Kampmeier. Hmm, OK so who's the producer that actually liked the project enough to through some money at it? also, Deborah Kampmeier. I'm sorry to say it, but this leads me to believe that no one in the industry wanted to get on board this project. This explains the strange use of 'symbolism'(?) throughout the movie, because it was weird enough that only one person understood it... Deborah Kampmeier. I couldn't figure out if the snakes represented evil, poison, personal demons, etc... who knows? With 20mins remaining in the film, I suspected the snakes were actually symbolic for good? Perhaps a cleansing of the soul? But then at the very end, when dad goes to pick up a dead snake and the snake has a 'dead reflex' to strike... the dad is bit. Yet, Lewellen skips happily along and into the house... roll credits. What? Backup. OK, so maybe... just maybe... if she actually disliked her abusive father this would make sense. But, he wasn't abusive and she loved her father. What? It almost seems like there was an original script with a major rewrite, and no one bothered to fix the ending?I also noticed that pretty much any film Deborah Kampmeier has been associated with, has also been written, directed, and produced by herself. She's also teaches a master scene study class in New York City. Who am I, a newbie screenwriter (who can spot 20+ things wrong with this story), to critique Deborah? Hmm, maybe it's just me?

This film is sheer brilliance. I love it, and it was an emotional film, which I am a fan of. It sounds to me like all of these people heard about the movie, got their hopes way to far up and then were let down. I saw this for the first time today, I never heard any hype about it because I wasn't into indie-films when it first came out so I had no pre-conceived notion about this film before watching. The writing is beautiful, Dakota Fanning's portrayal is amazing. The character of the father was done so well and all in all this was a wonderful movie. I don't think it was meant to have a clear cut "this is the point of the movie". Not all movies are like that and not all movies should be like that. This is a real and raw film and truly heart breaking. Most of the reviewers who reviewed this movie are way off base because I thought this was wonderful.

HOUNDDOG(In the style of Elvis' hit song "Hound Dog")You ain't nothing but a "Hounddog" Stinking all the time You ain't nothing but a "Houndog" Boring all the time Well, you ain't caught a "love it" And you ain't no movie friend of mineWell they said you were high classed (did they?) Well that was just a lie Well they said you had no plot class Well that was not a lie You ain't never caught a viewer And you ain't no friend of fine (Song over)Let's just say that the awful southern-themed "Hounddog" had no bark and no bite. The film stars Dakota Fanning as Lewellen, a tween southern girl in the 50's who obsesses for Elvis music. Dakota was not north or south in her mediocre performance as Lewellen; even though I was hoping Ms. Fanning would muzzle the "Hound Dog" after her 100th rendition of Elvis' classic song. Lewellen's father is an idiotic redneck who was struck by lightning, a feeling I was hoping would happen to the film screen as I was watching David Morse's repugnant performance as Daddy. Her grandmother Grammie (portrayed stupidly by Piper Laurie) is a prejudiced controlling woman whose pathetic behaviors made me want to hope that this grandma would get run over by a reindeer, or any deer for that matter. What in the world made the talented Robin Wright Penn get involved in this atrocious film playing a hideous Stranger Lady and also serving as Executive Producer? It was the wrong Pennmanship for the former Mrs. Sean Penn. Writer-Director Deborah Kampmeier's disturbing and flat film-making pulled in a Non-Oscar Kampmeier Weiner disgraceful status. "Hounddog" has been labeled as the Dakota Fanning rape movie, but I think it's the viewers of this film which were really victimized with a dreadful cinematic assault. *Failure