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Movies / On DVD / Chelsea Walls
Chelsea Walls

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Chelsea Walls (2002)

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Reviews Counted:46

Fresh:12

Rotten:34

Average Rating:4.1/10

Consensus: The meandering Chelsea Walls is more pretentious than poetic.

Runtime: 1 hr 52 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: The Chelsea Hotel echoes with loneliness, residents moving in and out, dreaming behind closed doors and searching for someone -- or something -- that got away. The Chelsea Hotel used to be grand,... The Chelsea Hotel echoes with loneliness, residents moving in and out, dreaming behind closed doors and searching for someone -- or something -- that got away. The Chelsea Hotel used to be grand, the place to live for New York City artists. Mark Twain, Thomas Wolfe, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix…they all passed through the hotel’s halls. Now, the iron façade has become rusty and the artists in residence are tarnished, too. Still, new dreamers come every day, hoping to be inspired by the ghosts of the past. Grace (Uma Thurman) and Audrey (Rosaria Dawson) are young poets, who constantly struggle with issues of art and love. Never learning from experience, they always seem to let the wrong men into their hearts. Grace should love Frank (Vincent D’Onofrio), an artist who respects and understands her. But she still responds to the siren call of the lover who went to Hollywood. Similarly, Audrey lets impenetrable Val (Mark Webber) back into her life, knowing he will go off with Crutches (Kevin Corrigan) to do something that could take him away from her forever. Down the hall, Bud (Kris Kristofferson) is a writer who faces more endings than beginnings. His pretends that his wife, Greta, (Tuesday Weld) and his mistress, Mary, (Natasha Richardson) are his muses. But his eight-hundred page book is really fueled by an endless supply of alcohol. A lion who is losing his roar, Bud is out of time. For every worn out writer, there are two new musicians who come to town. Ross (Steve Zahn) and Terry (Robert Sean Leonard) have just driven in from Minnesota, eager to experience the sights and sounds of the Chelsea Hotel. These new hotel residents, young and full of expectations, mingle with the old hotel ghosts, ultimately becoming interchangeable. They form a community, linked by their dreams, their isolation, and their pain. The Chelsea Hotel never really leaves the people who live there, nor do they ever really leave it. -- © 2002 Lions Gate Films [More]

Starring: Uma Thurman, Kris Kristofferson, Rosario Dawson, Vincent D'Onofrio

Starring: Uma Thurman, Kris Kristofferson, Rosario Dawson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Robert Sean Leonard, Natasha Richardson, Mark Webber, Tuesday Weld, Steve Zahn, Kevin Corrigan, Frank Whaley, Guillermo Diaz, Paz de la Huerta

Director: Ethan Hawke

Director: Ethan Hawke
Screenwriter: Nicole Burdette
Producer: Gary Winick, Alexis Alexanian, Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler
Studio: Lions Gate Films

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Reviews for Chelsea Walls

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41 - 53 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3
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Hawke achieves something special but less than industry-shaking.

Full Review Source: Hollywood Reporter | comment Comment
04/19/02
David Hunter
David Hunter
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Blunt Review | comment Comment
04/19/02
Emily Blunt
Emily Blunt
Blunt Review

Calling it pretentious doesn't do justice to the toxic faux-bohemianism and unearned self-regard that bubble and ooze out of every aspect of Chelsea Walls.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
04/19/02
Jonathan Foreman
Jonathan Foreman
New York Post

Hawke draws out the best from his large cast in beautifully articulated portrayals that are subtle and so expressive they can sustain the poetic flights in Burdette's dialogue.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
04/19/02
Kevin Thomas
Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Deadly dull, pointless meditation on losers in a gone-to-seed hotel.

Full Review Source: Compuserve | comment Comment
04/18/02
Harvey S. Karten
Harvey S. Karten
Compuserve

If Chelsea Walls builds a mood of boozy poetic disorientation, a crucial ingredient is missing: the scent of genuine artistic genius.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
04/18/02
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It's pretentious in a way that verges on the amateurish.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
04/18/02
Maitland McDonagh
Maitland McDonagh
TV Guide's Movie Guide

With virtually no interesting elements for an audience to focus on, Chelsea Walls is a triple-espresso endurance challenge.

comment Comment
04/18/02
Andy Klein
Andy Klein
New Times

The ethos of the Chelsea Hotel may shape Hawke's artistic aspirations, but he hasn't yet coordinated his own DV poetry with the Beat he hears in his soul.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
04/18/02
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

Confirms the nagging suspicion that Ethan Hawke would be even worse behind the camera than he is in front of it.

Full Review Source: Matinee Magazine | comment Comment
04/18/02
Chuck Rudolph
Chuck Rudolph
Matinee Magazine

The digital-video results play like a flatulent teenager's first discovery of jazz, cigarettes, and hooch.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
04/16/02
Michael Atkinson
Michael Atkinson
Village Voice

An intellectually stimulating structural experiment.

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
04/12/02
Rachel Gordon
Rachel Gordon
Filmcritic.com

Ethan Hawke has always fancied himself the bastard child of the Beatnik generation and it's all over his Chelsea Walls.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
04/11/02
Ed Gonzalez
Ed Gonzalez
Slant Magazine
 
 
41 - 53 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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