Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) This is a 25-minute short film from over 20 years ago written by and starring Billy Bob Thornton, who was still in his 4th marriage at that point and hadn't even met Angelina Jolie, his 5th of (so far) 6 wives. The director is Emmy winner George Hickenlooper and Thornton's co-stars are Golden Globe nominee Molly Ringwald and Emmy nominee J.T. Walsh. The latter is the only one of the trio who returned for the full feature movie that was loosely based on this short film. Hickenlooper and Walsh died very early. Thornton went on to win an Oscar for "Sling Blade" in the Screenplay category beating the dominant movie from that year: "The English Patient".Anyway, this short black-and-white film here did not impress me too much. I cannot say that this somehow motivated me to watch the full feature film. The performances weren't too memorable and I have to say I did not find the story really great or think that Thornton's character could make it into my all-time favorite villain list. He plays a murderer in a prison / insane asylum who is paid a visit by a journalist who wants to interview him. There is a problem with the journalist being a woman early on, but none of this was really a factor during the actual interview, which was really more of a monologue. All in all, I hoped this would be better. Not recommended.

julian kennedy Some Folks Call it a Sling Blade: 5 out of 10 A curiosity piece for Sling Blade fans this short is the opening act of the original film done in black and white with Molly Ringwald as the reporter and a nebbishy mental health director.Everything else is the same right down to J. T. Walsh's rape stories. The only real surprise is how quickly it is over. (25 brisk minutes) Unlike other viewers I really didn't notice a menacing nuance in this version. It really seemed almost note for note. One might rightly wonder why this short simply didn't appear as an extra on the Sling Blade proper disc. The included behind the scenes docs explain that pretty clearly.The first doc is of little interest except to see J.T. Walsh chain smoke and hear director George Hickenlooper expound on how he likes short films and how European it is to make one. The second doc proves all that art for art sake stuff a lie.Hickenlooper shows very lengthy clips from three of his features. The first Heart of Darkness a Filmmakers Apocalypse looked interesting. Even more interesting is how Hickenlooper got a directing credit even though Coppola's wife shot all the footage. The other two features the Killing Box and the Low Life look awful. The Killing box is a vampire civil war hybrid from which Hickenlooper removed the vampires and the Low Life seems like one of those self conscious auto-biographical films that comes out of Project Greenlight.The real treat is hearing Hickenlooper completely trash his former friend Billy Bob Thorton basically describing him as an unstable maniac. Since Thorton went of to fame and fortune and Oscar gold. (Hickenlooper even attacks Billy Bob's eligibility to win an Oscar for best adapted screenplay) and Hickenlooper was not asked to direct one can only assume a little payback was in order during this "record straightening".Even funnier Hickenlooper accuses Thorton of trying to turn the short into an audition reel (Why else would you do a short?) while in the next breath explaining he was going to use it to shop a feature film. (And all of this in one of the most self centered promotional docs I have ever seen. It's like a childhood film retrospective at a sweet sixteen party.) The whole mess is imminently skippable except for the morbidly curious.

Andrew Nixon This is the short film that lead to the feature, Sling Blade. It covers just the opening interview of Karl before he's let out. Billy Bob Thorton and J.T. Walsh play their same roles and Molly Ringwald plays the reporter that interviews him. It was interesting to see what led to Sling Blade, especially since I never knew it existed.*** (Out of 4)

hawktwo I saw this movie when I rented a DVD that came with a lot of brief "movies" such as this. I wonder if it was done to show the head of a studio what a great feature length movie this would make. I enjoyed the short story format and was impressed with Molly Ringwold's acting.