Oof. I was totally unaware of this until reading Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy's excellent memoir earlier this year, and was astounded to find out Tweedy had composed the score for Ethan Hawke's directorial debut.

Five minutes in, I was not surprised I had never heard of this. It's both a testament to Hawke's improvement as an artist and director and to the improvement in digital video technology that Hawke's 2018 film Blaze is very good, because this is so, so bad.

The cinematography is terrible, and it's impossible to get over just how bad this looks. Whereas those same deficiencies are easily surmountable with Richard Linkater's Tape, this can't recover from a bad script poorly delivered. It's one of those…

“time passes, listen! time passes!”

most criticisms of this movie are in regards to it being too artsy or too pretentious and i guess i can see how people could say that but honestly i think i’m just too in love with talky-no-plot-character-study movies that i kind of enjoy classically pretentious things

it’s nothing spectacular, but there are enjoyable things about this. i really really loved the backing “track” of the different characters singing or reading their writing or poems. there was something about that that really struck a chord with me

loved the stories of kris kristofferson’s character and rosario dawson especially (i thought the scene of her reading poetry over clips of her and mark webber were really…

So, the Chelsea Hotel is a famous bohemian dwelling for artists. Ethan Hawke does his part to romanticize their home. Not because any of the characters are doing anything worthy. But because previous inhabitants did. And this isn't a historical account either. It's a day in the life.

There is no real plot. We see a painter, a poet, a writer, a musician, etc. But we don't really see their work. Glimpses, but nothing centers. And I don't love the fact that there's no point. Yeah, it's not about that... or anything really and as an independent flick, I'm supposed to go with it. I did and wish there was more.

In the end, there was Kris Kristofferson though. Who…

"I want to contradict myself by accident, and for you to know what I mean..."

This film, which really isn't a movie as such, more a feeling of mood with snatches of conversation, is definitely going to be something of an acquired taste. Directed by Ethan Hawke, the film shifts focus between the various occupants of the Chelsea Hotel in New York (which in the past has been inhabited by various famous poets, authors and artists, from Tennessee Williams to Bob Dylan). There's very little in the way of narrative or story, we just catch glimpses of peoples feelings, thoughts, hopes and doubts. There isn't a sudden understanding at the end of the film, and the various peoples lives don't…

“time passes, listen! time passes!”

most criticisms of this movie are in regards to it being too artsy or too pretentious and i guess i can see how people could say that but honestly i think i’m just too in love with talky-no-plot-character-study movies that i kind of enjoy classically pretentious things

it’s nothing spectacular, but there are enjoyable things about this. i really really loved the backing “track” of the different characters singing or reading their writing or poems. there was something about that that really struck a chord with me

loved the stories of kris kristofferson’s character and rosario dawson especially (i thought the scene of her reading poetry over clips of her and mark webber were really…

Oof. I was totally unaware of this until reading Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy's excellent memoir earlier this year, and was astounded to find out Tweedy had composed the score for Ethan Hawke's directorial debut.

Five minutes in, I was not surprised I had never heard of this. It's both a testament to Hawke's improvement as an artist and director and to the improvement in digital video technology that Hawke's 2018 film Blaze is very good, because this is so, so bad.

The cinematography is terrible, and it's impossible to get over just how bad this looks. Whereas those same deficiencies are easily surmountable with Richard Linkater's Tape, this can't recover from a bad script poorly delivered. It's one of those…

If these walls could talk!

People inside did instead (perhaps unfortunately). The second offering (after Richard Linklater's Tape) in a start of millennium project, InDigEnt, when a group of established screenwriters, directors and actors agreed to work within a framework of budgetary and technical limitation shooting on digital video. After 2001's Richard Linklater's Tape a stage play shot real-time in a motel room starring only three characters played by Uma Thurman, Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke, the latter got his directing debut in this CW, featuring an acting ensemble of almost 30 stars, including the former two, together with Kris Kristofferson Paz De La Huerta Tuesday Weld among the others. Jazz vocalist Little Jimmy Scott seems to improvise on…

Three views over the years of Ethan Hawke's directorial debut experiment and I still drift out of the picture at the 80-90 minute mark. That's not necessarily a complaint, nor lack of an ease of digestion. I am continually oddly intrigued and inspired. And I keep coming back. The film has lingered within me for many years. The first time I went to New York City I made a special detour to snap an exterior photograph. However, I didn't feel the need to go inside. That's what the film is for, I guess? I first gravitated towards it in 2002 by stumbling upon Jeff Tweedy's soundtrack on CD at a music store closeout sale. This blind (deaf?) purchase did not…