Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

tomgillespie2002 Genius, alcoholic, misogynist, poet, borderline psychopath. These are some of the words and labels branded on 'Beat' poet and author Henry Charles Bukowski Jr. during this extremely detailed and informative account of his life and work. For those unacquainted with his blue- collar genius, Bukowski started out drifting through meaningless jobs across America in the 1940's, drinking and writing all he could in his spare time. It wasn't until the 1960's when a collector of 1st editions and manager of a printing company offered to publish a collection of his works, when his career took off. He wrote possibly thousands of poems and was asked to write a novel. This work was Post Office, an deadpan account of his 16 years working for the U.S. Post Office.Although he was, and still is, recognised as a 'Beat' writer (alongside the likes of Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg), he was very much a man of his own style. Where Kerouac wrote about his personal journeys in a structured, detailed way, Bukowski wrote about mundane things in a straightforward way. It was very much poetry for the blue collar workers. In this documentary, John Dullaghan pieces together interview footage shot by the likes of Taylor Hackford and Barbet Schroeder, as well as pieces conducted by Italian and Belgian TV, to create a portrayal of a very complex and misunderstood man (there are also interviews with the likes of Sean Penn, Bono, Tom Waits and Harry Dean Stanton).Like A Man Within (2010), which focused on fellow beat writer William S. Burroughs, Born Into This tries to tackle the various attributes that made the man. While telling a relatively chronological story of Bukowski, it covers the subjects of his childhood abuse at the hands of his father, his alcohol abuse, his treatment of women, his reaction to fame, and how this led to an influx of women begging for his 'purple onion' (as he called it). Running at 130 minutes, this is an incredibly (and necessarily) detailed documentary that really gets to the heart of the man who created some incredibly pieces of literature. I remember reading Post Office and Factotum when I was younger, and being blown away by its simplistic beauty and honesty. A must-see for any fans.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

TheExpatriate700 Charles Bukowski was arguably the greatest poet of the twentieth century. His output sustained its quality long after that of Beats such as Allen Ginsburg had faded, while still retaining a daring unknown to figures such as Robert Frost. This documentary gives insight into Bukowski's life, showing both his artistry and his personal problems.Particularly for someone who is new to Bukowski's work, this film will be a revelation. The documentary artfully combines information about the poet's life with excerpts of his work, including a reading of "Dinosauria, We" the poem which gave the film its title. We see how the artistry reflected the reality of Bukowski's life, particularly fitting given the experiential focus of his work.The film is not a hagiography, and gives extensive coverage to the poet's dark side. However, it makes clear that his behavior was a mechanism of coping with his childhood traumas and sensitivity. Ultimately, it is a moving portrait of a flawed man.

knichols1 For Bukowski fans, this film is another of those items you have to possess but which will leave outsiders repulsed or appalled.Most of the information in the film has been captured in various published interviews and biographies and in Bukowski's own autobiographical writings. But it is good to see the man moving about before our eyes again, driving his VW, visiting the track and the laundry, and his childhood home, where he 'reminisces' about the beatings his father administered with a razor strop. And it's interesting seeing some of Bukowski's lovers and associates again.The quality of the archival footage is pretty poor, having been shot, it appears, with amateur 8mm equipment. We can be thankful it was shot at all, since who knew what value it might have. The sound, however, is quite good.After many years of reading about Bukowski, I still haven't decided whether he was a sensitive soul driven to occasional episodes of egotistical pettiness and meanness by a bad childhood or just a self-centered ass who happened to have talent. However you view him in that regard, you cannot deny that he stuck by his vocation in spite of all. He personified the driven writer.

CitizenCaine Charles Bukowski is probably the greatest American poet, who, to this day, remains largely unrecognized by the literary establishment in the United States. His greatest recognition came in and still is in Europe. He's the poet that college professors love to dislike; because, many of them tried to do what Bukowski did and failed. Bukowski became a cult, literary underground figure in the late 50's, known only to the few thousand fellow small press readers and publishers of the time. He wrote of his experiences in flop houses, bars, and women in a very distinctive, one-of-a-kind, formless fashion. He worked for several years for the post office in two different stints in the 1950's and 1960's. Bukowski wrote on his own terms and never compromised, thanks to his $100 monthly "grant" from a man that would become his lifelong publisher, who started Black Sparrow Press. For the next 24 years from January of 1970 until his death on March 9, 1994, Bukowski wrote stories, poems, and novels, finding time in his later years to replace drinking with racetrack betting. This is an extraordinary documentary, capturing Bukowski in the 1970's and 1980's mostly, telling the story of his incredible life and alternatively capturing private moments that define him as well as defy his reputation. The film uses interviews of those that lived with him and knew him to portray a man that waded through an interpersonal sewer of a life, only to conquer the literary world on his own terms and make a decent living from it to boot. It's the story of a man, a writer, who just lived life as it presented itself to him. He had an unflinching ability to face the realities of his life with charm, wisdom, and a determination that even he would not be able to recognize. Whether he spoke of his upbringing, his drinking, his laziness, his unattractiveness, his women, and especially about love, death and sex, he remained steadfast in his cynicism laced with humor, much like the comic artist Robert Crumb. Most of the highlights in the film occur when Bukowski is either conversing or reading his own work. He reads his own work in a world weary tone of voice that possesses a cadence that seems to say he's tired of it all. Just then though, he hits us with another gem, another truth about ourselves and the world around us. See this at all costs. **** of 4 stars.