What more could Abel Ferrara ask for: acerbic Christopher Walken, inscrutable Willem Defoe, hot Asia Argento channeling Cat Power, Schoolly D laying beats. Dynamite. Unfortunately, Abe couldn't find the fuse. A dud.
The opening credits, in three different languages like a DSLR instruction manual (German, Chinese, and English), are accompanied by Schoolly D's great soundtrack, the best part of the movie.
Asia, the heroine, is of the kinky persuasion, a denizen of dark underground group gropes. Shades of Jack Smith and Andy Warhol.
The dialog is nonsense like an uninteresting Little Steven's Underground Garage. Someone needs to tell Abel that gangsters spouting philosophy doesn't work. Godard tried and bored us to tears. Like Jean-Luc, Ferrara stretches his scenes interminably with dialog that made its point after the first two lines but for reasons that can only relate to stretching to meet a budget goes on forever. Gangster films are about, as Sam Fuller famously said, emotion and violence, not long interludes of one thief pitching a caper to another.
Abel is a consummate hustler, his packages find big money, but wind up garbage. It's not as if the movie ran out of ideas early on and the director had to pad it to deliver the requisite hour and a half to meet his business commitment, the movie has no ideas. "New Rose Hotel" serves only one purpose, as an investment loss to a tax write off. The last 20 minutes rehash scenes already shot, as if the director had run out of production money and had to make up the time in post-production. Thus the movie is in two parts: the first part bad, the second part, a rehash of the first, worse.
A low brow effort with high brow pretensions clearly beyond the director's capabilities. Abel, stick to street punks.
In summary, the best part Schoolly D. (See the extra on Schoolly D from the DVD of "The King of New York." It's better than the feature.)
The opening credits, in three different languages like a DSLR instruction manual (German, Chinese, and English), are accompanied by Schoolly D's great soundtrack, the best part of the movie.
Asia, the heroine, is of the kinky persuasion, a denizen of dark underground group gropes. Shades of Jack Smith and Andy Warhol.
The dialog is nonsense like an uninteresting Little Steven's Underground Garage. Someone needs to tell Abel that gangsters spouting philosophy doesn't work. Godard tried and bored us to tears. Like Jean-Luc, Ferrara stretches his scenes interminably with dialog that made its point after the first two lines but for reasons that can only relate to stretching to meet a budget goes on forever. Gangster films are about, as Sam Fuller famously said, emotion and violence, not long interludes of one thief pitching a caper to another.
Abel is a consummate hustler, his packages find big money, but wind up garbage. It's not as if the movie ran out of ideas early on and the director had to pad it to deliver the requisite hour and a half to meet his business commitment, the movie has no ideas. "New Rose Hotel" serves only one purpose, as an investment loss to a tax write off. The last 20 minutes rehash scenes already shot, as if the director had run out of production money and had to make up the time in post-production. Thus the movie is in two parts: the first part bad, the second part, a rehash of the first, worse.
A low brow effort with high brow pretensions clearly beyond the director's capabilities. Abel, stick to street punks.
In summary, the best part Schoolly D. (See the extra on Schoolly D from the DVD of "The King of New York." It's better than the feature.)