DiCillo's spot-on writing -- and the exceptional performances by Buscemi and Pitt -- creates a touching and vivid friendship that stabilizes the film.
Delirious (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:55
Fresh:46
Rotten:9
Average Rating:6.8/10
Consensus: A funny, energetic satire of the paparazzi life and the entertainment industry, Delirious is another winner for indie helmer Tom DiCillo.
Runtime: 1 hr 47 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: Director Tom DiCillo scrutinizes the entertainment industry once again (see also: LIVING IN OBLIVION and THE REAL BLONDE) with DELIRIOUS. The film stars Steve Buscemi as a scuzzy New York... Director Tom DiCillo scrutinizes the entertainment industry once again (see also: LIVING IN OBLIVION and THE REAL BLONDE) with DELIRIOUS. The film stars Steve Buscemi as a scuzzy New York City-based paparazzi photographer named Les, and Michael Pitt as a homeless wannabe thespian named Toby. Toby moves into Les's squalid Lower East Side apartment and works, for free, as his assistant. But it doesn't take long before Toby's career is on the up after he's invited to an exclusive party by Les. Toby meets casting director Dana (Gina Gershon) at the party, and subsequently meets pop star K'harma (Alison Lohman). Dana helps Toby to realize his silver screen dreams, while K'harma becomes his celebrity girlfriend. Unfortunately Les, who becomes apoplectic with rage at this sudden upturn in his protege's life, decides to stalk Toby and, fueled by bitterness and jealousy, plots to bring his career to an abrupt halt. Buscemi gives a wonderful performance as the cranky Les, perfectly portraying a self-loathing New Yorker whose brash exterior masks genuine insecurity and grave personal disappointment. Pitt, Lohman, and Gershon also deserve praise for the way they inhabit the kind of characters that run rife throughout the film and music industries. DELIRIOUS further develops various ideas from DiCillo's previous work, particularly THE REAL BLONDE, and his oeuvre is slowly developing into a fascinating treatise on the love/hate relationship he grudgingly endures with the entertainment industry. [More]
Starring: Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Alison Lohman, Gina Gershon
Starring: Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Alison Lohman, Gina Gershon, Elvis Costello
Director: Tom DiCillo
Director: Tom DiCillo
Screenwriter: Tom DiCillo
Producer: Robert Salerno
Composer: Anton Sanko
Studio: Peace Arch Entertainment
Reviews for Delirious
DiCillo is ultimately grounded in the eccentric, awkward relationship
Steve Buscemi and Michael Pitt are easily the best odd couple the movies have seen since Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.
Off beat in the best sense of the term; surprisingly successful with a theme that could easily have gone down the gully hole of corn; "Delirious" delivers.
Someday, far in the future, a team of archeologists will dig up the black, wizened, still beating heart of New York City, and it will look exactly like Steve Buscemi.
DiCillo finds comedy in the tragic, depth in the shallowness, and surprises in the cliché
It's not as sharp as his indie gems from the mid-1990s, but the thing's packed with bright performances and unique characters, which is what DiCillo does best.
It's an achingly funny film that is also a little sad around the edges.
The movie is exhilarating in a way that only hard-won knowledge of the world can be.
A lark, a fairy tale, a tantalizing mix between John Scheslinger's much darker Midnight Cowboy and John Water's ultra sweet Pecker.
Delirious, by writer-director Tom DiCillo, has a special quality because it does not make paparazzi a target but a subject.
The caricatures of Hollywood sycophants and media scumbags are obvious and painfully unfunny, while the life lessons about friendship feel as if they’ve been lifted from a Hallmark card. Delirious? Not quite. Delusional? Most definitely.
It would be nice to see a sharp, funny, penetrating satire of the new, kicked-up culture of empty media fame, but Tom DiCillo's scattershot buddy movie Delirious isn't it.
Delirious is a funny, insightful, entertaining poke at celebrity culture that lands quite a few notches above the typical, New York-set ensemble indie.
One of those savvy, low-budget crowd-pleasers that arrive in local theaters only via film festivals like San Sebastian and Sundance.
The film isn't as broadly funny as the previous DiCillo-Buscemi collaboration Living in Oblivion, but its outsiders peering in have an uncomfortable resonance.
Tom DiCillo's Delirious is a mild Midnight Cowboy, a minor King of Comedy, and mainly a vehicle for Steve Buscemi as a lower Manhattan–based paparazzo.
Tom DiCillo’s angry comedy Delirious subjects modern celebrity culture to a microscopic examination that shows the toxic virus of fame squirming under its lens.
A high-energy rags-to-riches satire about a deranged New York paparazzo and a wannabe thesp, Delirious is hilarious.
Buscemi again proves himself one of our great character actors in the role of a paparazzo who feels regularly betrayed--by his parents, by the celebrities, and by a homeless kid he helps.
Latest News for Delirious
April 07, 2008:
Delirious director Tom DiCillo on Richard Widmark, Hollywood, and Dumb and Dumber ![]()
I'm proud of the way I fought for it; every step of the way. I burned so many bridges my fingerprints are gone. I would do it again in second. To Richard Widmark; goodbye. You... More...
August 16, 2007:
Critical Consensus: Superbad is Certified Fresh; The Invasion Crash-Lands
This week at the movies, we've got some McLovin (Superbad, starring Michael Cera and Jonah Hill), pod people (The Invasion, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig), and... More...
July 14, 2007:
At once chaotic, moody, outrageous, ridiculous and deeply tragic, Delirious reaches way beyond Buscemi's wacko rabbit hole excursion into the fetid, goofy shallow heart of celebrity glitz. ![]()
More...
May 04, 2007:
SFIFF Report: Red Carpet, Parker Posey, Capsule Reviews!
It's been half a century since the San Francisco International Film Festival began (making it the longest-running domestic fest of its kind) and its lineup reflects that history... More...
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