ChicRawIdol
A brilliant film that helped define a genre
SeeQuant
Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
Mike_Noga
Well, there's this disturbed guy named Roman who works in a metal shop. He doesn't mix well with others and this isolates him from people especially his co-workers.( The scenes with them are a little sad but also pretty funny.) There are two women in Roman's life. For one of them, well her encounter with Roman doesn't work out too well. The other may or may not be a figment of Roman's imagination. Roman eats a lot of pork and beans.This isn't a straight horror movie but more of an emo-horror-rom-com. It's some kind of experimental meditation on life, death, art, insanity, loneliness and beans. You might love it; you might decide you've had more than enough after a few minutes. I dunno but it is odd and sometimes interesting. The strangest & most interesting aspect of this movie is that it features Mr. Cub himself, Ernie Banks, in his first appearance in an emo-horror-rom-com. I'd love to know the story behind that. Kristin Bell might surprise you. If you like movies that are deliberately paced, twisted, off-beat and macabre, then give it a try.
charlytully
Though an uneven effort, this flick is a dark, quirky gem-in-the-rough, not unlike the agates that don't look like much when you pick them up at Little Girl's Point, but turn out rather stunning after a week in the tumbler. In order to have ANY memory of this film after seeing it, one must skip the crappy extras on the DVD or the last remnant of good feeling toward the feature likely will be canceled out. The patronizing and absurdly repetitious cast & crew interviews last an endless 24 minutes, consisting of these people donning cheap Groucho masks (a gambit that's old in 24 seconds!) and asking each other the same sophomoric handful of questions over and over and over again. The only interesting tidbit to emerge here is that Lucky McKee wrote the first draft of the script in three days when he was a college student. "Alternate cast outtakes" is not much better. These 13 minutes are divided almost equally between two other actors (besides McKee) in the title role of Roman; they both suck. The earlier 2002 aborted effort with Kevin Ford is the more interesting (and, unfortunately, the second presented)--mostly because of background music and a nude chick, neither of which are present in the final 2006 version. It's best to just skip these miserable add-ons, in order to leave the mundane Pirandelloism of the feature's final frames unsullied in the mind's eye. Reinforcing the parting images is Kara and Boyd Jacobson's rendition of the haunting lost youth ditty "I Don't Want to Play in Your Yard" over the closing credits, which strongly invites an allegorical interpretation of this whole effort. Like the ephemeral playmates in this bittersweet tune, is it not possible that both "Isis" and Eva are figments of Roman's imagination; competing dream girls on par with Roman's two-minute fantasy about a flowery Earth mother and the alternate FLASHDANCE-styled welder that sets the tone for the movie six minutes in? Throughout the film, Roman is totally inarticulate with his coworkers, his landlord, and his neighbors. Yet he is philosophically verbose with the two ladies. Perhaps he is so taciturn with real people because his interior dialogs drown them out. No doubt the inspiration for this script was the Nineteenth Century Georg Buchner play WOYZECK, which I had to read at the same age McKee was when he wrote this script. An army doctor forces Mr. Woyzeck onto an all-pea diet, which soon causes him to flip out and kill his wife. In McKee's movie, a girl (real or not) entices Roman onto an all-pork & beans diet (cases of the stuff are the main furnishing of his efficiency), with similar murderous results (real or not). Maybe it's time to check on the safety of Morgan Spurlock's significant other, given his all-McDonald's diet?
infomage
Roman would have made an excellent short film, if it was made outside of Hollywood, by people who knew nothing about film. Oh, wait, did I say film? I meant video. Strangely there is no attempt to escape the camcorder look and scratchy open mic sound. The compression on the incidental sound effects (cars passing, doors closing, etc.) has such an irritating level of attack... I mean... yuck. The lack of attention to technical details is just atrocious. The lighting is two-dimensional, the blocking is repetitive and is all angled either too low or too high.In the sense of story, there is potential. You don't, unfortunately, get the sense that Roman is time bomb where 'the girl' is concerned, which is unfortunate. His big mistake with the girl really has no rhyme or reason. I mean this was shot on video folks, what was stopping you from getting enough takes to reach an appropriate level of intensity. Even Kristin Bell was operating well below her A-Game in this pivotal scene.
umdicctum
If you were one of those looking forward Roman as the weird kinda male version sequel of May you'll probably will get disappointed. But even so I recommend you to see it (you maybe like it, its up to your taste). First of all was very disappointing to see the visual quality... Video... it might be done in HD or MiniDV (I bet for the second one, also it might be the reason it went straight to DVD), in May you could see a good technical development specially in Art and Photography, here you cant see the same thing, the Photography is awful, and everything looks plain (In lots of time sub exposed) didn't saw any rhythm in the edition, there was raccord jumps in the lighting...The sound seems captured with the Mic of the camera, so you cant hear well the duologue's... in the tech view you feel like the movie is maded in a rush by some rookie.The script isn't strong as May... The character development is dull, also tries to accomplish the same Black Humor that May had but fails on it, The character isn't deep, and doesn't have a justification to be as he is... (Sorry if a compare it with May a lot), you feel like the acting overacted... Its is really sad to see how this movie turned out... I really didn't like it at all... And i think seeing it one time its enough for me (I have see May six times and I still loving it)The only thing that I liked was the soundtrack, it was so good that in a point of a movie I asked myself "How comes there's such good soundtrack in such crappy image?" its an awful contrast...In conclusion...Roman its just disappointing, I dunno how after the great work on May, this movie ended like this, as I said before: if you're expecting something like May, you'll get disappointed, the movie its just plain bad, and I don't say this cuz was looking forward for a copy of May only male version (Maybe more like a JTHM :P), I say that its bad, cuz as a movie is bad overall... if someone likes it I'll respect their opinion, and Im looking forward to discuss about it...-D!PS: Excuse my crappy English
