Girl Walks Into a Bar

A compelling and agreeable multi-story ensemble dramedy from writer/director Sebastián Gutiérrez, who has made several of these anthology format films. I'm particularly fond of these kinds of ensemble films and while there remain some acceptably unresolved loose ends by the time GIRL WALKS INTO A BAR is over, it's a very intriguing and entertaining movie. While its storyline is pretty thin, I felt it maintained interest through an effective Tarantino-esque intersection of characters and plenty of engaging dialog and an abundance of stimulating eye candy. Its focus is on character confrontation and interaction rather than the unveiling of the beginning, middle, and ending of a storyline, although it's a few of its story lines converge and resolve intriguingly. One segment shifts into voice-over narration by one of the characters; another segment suddenly shifts into another character's internal monologue, but I felt Gutiérrez handled these transitions effectively and they never seemed jarring; going with the flow of the film and its occasional style transitions, there is much to be absorbed out of this movie. For an independent film, Gutiérrez has attracted a notable A-list cast, including Carla Gugino (she happens to by Gutiérrez's wife, and has starred in about a dozen of his films), Danny Devito, Rosario Dawson, Josh Hartnett, Robert Forster, and Zachary Quinto, whose diverse stories intertwine and pass in the night as the characters interact between ten different L.A. bars during the course of one evening. Singer/songwriter Grant Lee Phillips supplies a folk-rock based soundtrack and has a brief role as a bar singer, performing a likeably cynical song written with Gutiérrez, called "Only Bad Can Come," that fits nicely into the mixture of story lines being conveyed. The film was the first feature film to be made specifically for internet distribution, although fortunately it's made its way onto DVD for non-streaming watchability.

Characters drink like one whiskey per minute (I'm not exaggerating), and nobody gets drunk. Bars are always completely empty but there's always some show on. The main story is nice but it's 10 minutes long. Lots of weird characters, but hey, who cares? What's the point of all this. You can look at Emmanuelle Chriqui, maybe you can get to the end without feeling you have wasted 1 hours 19 minutes. The silly western dance dury the end titles is the best part of the movie. Nice atmosphere and images overall, but I would have preferred watching a movie. I don't know what to say again but I have to continue writing IMDb says. Like writing things using more words makes something better... This policy of IMDb reminds me of this movie, it would have been good if it was a 20 minutes short film.

I feel like those who have given this film such bad reviews either expected too much going into it or just couldn't let themselves go for the brief slice that this movie was. This is not a deep or complex movie, despite weaving together almost seamlessly multiple arcs, and it's not meant to be some heavy, meaningful piece (as least in my opinion). The point of any movie is to entertain, and I certainly was. I put this on with the intent to read a book while watching; by five minutes in I had abandoned the book completely. It's a quiet, unassuming comedy featuring some excellent performances. Simply charming.

this movie is small in many ways, the scope is to romanticize the movie by setting it mostly in bars. none of the characters develop in any way, and it seems like the producers have not spent any time in either bars or strip clubs. it was like how an 8th grader might imagine the nightlife of adults

having said that, the actor playing Henry is very charming, alexis bledel is her excruciatingly adorable self even when delivering some fairly awful lines, robert forster nailed his character, amber valletta is so beautiful it hurts even while dressed as a lesbian, and carla gugino's sensuality strides over the whole production

oddly the best part of the movie is the very modest little dance number at the end during the credits. the 3 actors dance with such charm and sincerity that you find yourself wishing you lead a life that served up gorgeous little moments of humanity like this.

but even that is sort of a flaw because it made you realize how much of a waste of time and talent and potential the preceding 90 minutes were

oh also emmanuelle chriqui in a very skimpy outfit gave this movie 2 extra stars

"Girl Walks Into a Bar" is made up of a bunch of connected scenes, each taking place in a different bar. These scenes are heavily dialog-driven (sometimes with internal dialog). Some of them work, some don't.

Most of the dialog is clever, well-written, and delivered by good actors. It's unrealistic and fast paced, with no time between a line and the response to that line. This is good entertainment, but if you get bored by dialog you'll get bored fast--there's no action here.

There's a sense throughout the movie that you're watching a long, fast paced joke. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you start to wonder when the punchline is going to show up, which can be distracting.

Good movie overall, there's a lot of talent involved.