13 Moons

I knew every character in this movie as a real person. I knew the depressive clown and the hard-boiled midget and the drug addicted drag queen and even the self-doubting priests. While "13 Moons" was not set in New York City in the seventies, it might as well have been. Granted, I've been out of that crazy, all-night life for a long time, but I'm sure it hasn't gone away. People don't change, and the same kinds of tormented souls have to be there, pursuing their crazy odysseys, all night long. Perhaps you've missed them if you've been cocooned in the enclaves of the middle class, but if you're brave enough to go out and find them, you can.

I was totally engaged by "13 Moons." The ensemble acting was first-rate, so the characterizations were virtually perfect. The plot may be slightly less than believable, but if you tossed that particular batch of odd characters together under the right circumstances, something like it just MIGHT have happened.

Many reviewers refer to this film as "quirky." Well, LIFE is quirky, children -- and if you don't think Bananas and Binky and Lenny and Slovo and Mo and Lily and Suzi are real enough, you haven't been drinking in the right bars.

See "13 Moons." Believe in it. It's a close approximation of a world you may not have encountered, but which certainly is real.

13 Moons, surprisingly, is one of the most lucid and hopeful flicks to emerge from the muddled dreams and frequently vengeful psyches of Los Angeles in years. A quest film every bit as compelling and complex-- and considerably less tricked out-- than Lord of the Rings, it's Alexandre Rockwell's valedictory to a city which may have little use for the independent filmmaker, but which offered him a way back to his own larger, more magnanimous instincts as an artist. An ever greater number of characters, from a clown Steve Buscemi to a bail bondsman and dead beat dad (David Proval) to a remarkably bad and self aware rapper/singer/ho (the extraordinary Rose Rollins), find themselves inhabiting, momentarily, a similar platform, a little piece of Los Angeles in the dead of the night. Like most of us, their dreams only bubble rarely to the surface of their lives, jostling there with their disappointments until they're submerged again under the monotony of their day jobs. But unlike most of us, these 7 people, in spite of themselves, find purpose in their movement. They go from a downtown bar to a bail bureau, from a cop station to a memorable moment in the zoo; and in their sojourn, they intersect with real need…an 8 year old, whose kidney is failing, whom dialysis only momentarily helps, who's thrown on the mercy of a city whose larger, social impulses seem deadened…and yet. A strong ensemble cast, energetically directed and brilliantly shot by Phil Parmet, makes 13 Moons that rare independent LA flick: one whose ambitions are so much greater than an audition for a studio picture. 13 Moons wants to give us a different way of imagining ourselves and the city we inhabit but so little know.

13 Moons is an ambitious, unusual film that works really well. It has beautiful imagery, great music and fantastic acting. And it manages to feel spontaneous and free in a way that big-budget studio films never quite do. In fact, it's exactly the kind of movie a big studio would never attempt. It features a huge, eclectic ensemble cast in a wild series of events that are, at first glance, pretty far-fetched. But the result is surprisingly smooth and genuine. First of all, the cast is fantastic. In addition to Steve Buscemi and Jennifer Beals, I recognized many of the actors from television and other (mostly independent) movies: David Proval from The Sopranos, Karyn Parsons from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Daryl Mitchell and Sam Rockwell from GalaxyQuest, and Peter Dinklage from Living in Oblivion. The plot doesn't exactly ramble, but there are definitely points where it's unclear where the story is moving. It's hard, with so many interesting characters, to maintain a perfect narrative balance. But the great thing about 13 Moons is that it is a little off-balance. It's basically a collection of strange little moments, but they all feel so sincere that it's easy to lose yourself in them. And in the end, everything and everyone comes together. In fact, it's one of the most satisfying movie endings I've seen in a long time. It's a shame 13 Moons wasn't released to the public the way it deserved to be. I hope more people can find a way to see this movie.

What we have here is an attempt to shape a movie by simply defining interesting characters. These aren't radical characters like, say you would get with "Hitchhiker's Guide" inspired projects.

You have a few choices when sitting down to write a story. One of these is to decide what sort of agency your characters have. To my mind, the best storytellers start with a world, a notion of sweeps within that world that creates situations or drives or needs. Within all those gusts you place characters, or perhaps (depending on the world) your characters are secreted by other forces.

Noir, the great invention of cinematic storytelling has this character. Cinematic storytelling is different than writing because you see the world with the people. With the written world you can separate them and the world always comes through some voice.

This is to say that starting with characters is risky in film. I think it never works, ever, by itself. These aren't particularly interesting characters. But if they were, you would need something else to season them: some dialog or situations.

It didn't work here.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

TV clown Bananas (Steve Buscemi) has problems everywhere. His show hasn't got the same success it once had, his wife is discovered with another woman and tried to run him over, and with his partner Binky (Peter Dinklage) they have to help a sickly young boy left in care of a bail bondsman. Along the way they will meet drug addict Slovo (Peter Stormare) who after accidentally saving the kid wants to get rid of his habit of wandering the streets, two priests that got into a fight with the owner of a strip club (Sam Rockwell, the brother of the movie's director) and a few others.

Despite 13 MOONS is quite forgotten today, has a direct to video look and according to NateWatchesCoolMovies it wasn't even marketed properly back then, I found it unique. Now this doesn't mean it's a bad movie, but that you have to follow the movie really carefully for understanding the all point of the situations. At times I could relate for the characters because they were played by actors that are used to play normal guys and this was probably the most important thing in the movie for me.

Not an outstanding movie by all means, but if you are in the right mindset for it, you might probably understand the hidden meanings.