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Apartment Zero

Apartment Zero

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: CULT CLASSIC - GREAT ACTING - DON'T MISS IT!
Review: "Apartment Zero" is one of the best psychological character studies ever put on film. Colin Firth (in an amazing performance) portrays Adrian LeDuc, a lonely movie theater owner in Buenos Aires whose mentally ill mother is in the hospital.

Adrian and the other misfit tenants in his apartment building (a transvestite, two elderly British alcoholic sisters, a lonely housewife starved for attention, et al) are all smitten by Adrian's charming new roommate, Jack Carney (played by Hart Bochner, who smolders with every close-up). Adrian feels Jack "has a certain James Dean je ne sais quoi," but he soon finds out that his gorgeous roommate is not all he appears to be.

Great acting by Firth and Bochner. Lots of suspense, double-entendre and sexual innuendo, plus an over-the-top ending you'll never forget.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Dark psychological horror.
Review: Argentina has been called a "country of Spanish-speaking Italians who live in French houses and want to be English." This is even more so in the capital of Buenos Aires. A city with an identity crisis, and a people uncertain about the future and haunted by a past of corruption and terror. A claustrophobic, anxious environment that is the setting for this film. Adrian, the resident of Apartment Zero, has created within that space a controlled, sanitized existence into which the outside world cannot penetrate. He purposefully avoids intimacy of any kind, preferring to absorb himself in a celluloid reality of male screen idols (Montgomery Clift, James Dean) and classic American movies. The outside world begins to close in on Adrian after his institutionalized mother dies and the necessity of having a cash-flow forces him to rent one of the rooms in his flat. The prospect of a suitable flat mate is grim until Jack walks into the room. As Adrian puts it, Jack possesses a certain "James Dean je ne sais quoi." Jack turns out to be a chameleon of a man, who is also a quick study of human weakness and insecurity. In a short time, Jack has Adrian, along with the other lonely residences in the apartment complex, dependent upon his affections. All the while this interaction is going on, the "classic American" movie theater that Adrian operates, is now being used to show films from Argentina's past in an effort to hunt down former members of the death squads that once held the country in a state of terror. And staring in one of the reels is Adrian's very own screen idol Jack!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: THE ODD COUPLE FROM HELL
Review: Colin Firth fidgets like Felix Unger by way of Norman Bates.

Hart Bochner hams it up like a bisexual Jack Nicholson.

Can two psychos share an apartment without driving each other crazy?

"Apartment Zero" is a claustrophobic, atmospheric mystery, most reminiscent of Roman Polanski's "The Tenant". (Firth's character is named LeDuc: any fan of Polanski's "Repulsion" will get that reference.) The film includes strange, well-developed characters and a beautiful score, a synth variation of Jerry Goldsmith's "Chinatown" score.

I first saw the film on its initial theatrical release (Fort Lauderdale, December 1989, age:16); I've loved it ever since. I can still remember the clips from "Apartment Zero" shown on Movietime, the E! Channel before it was E!

The creative team behind this near masterpiece, Martin Donovan (director/writer "Apartment Zero") and David Koepp (writer "Apartment Zero", "Carlito's Way", "Jurassic Park")were supposed to do a film on the heels of "Apartment Zero" called "Close Enemies" but nothing ever came of it. Another one of those potential classic films lost in development hell.







Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A sure-fire cure for acute movie fanaticism!
Review: Do you ever feel like you're obsessing about movies just a bit much? Are you TOO good at playing the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game? Do you participate in every daily movie poll at imdb.com and "Ain't-It-Cool-News"? Have you watched "Pulp Fiction" a hundred times in search of some unifying theme? Or do you know someone who exhibits these symptoms?

If so, it's time for you (or them) to check THIS movie out. "The movie for people who watch too many movies," as I like to call it. As a movie fanatic who's seriously losing touch with the real world, Colin Firth's character makes a superb negative role model. Viewing this film can ONLY be a sobering wakeup call for someone too enamored of cinema.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Atmospheric, haunting, compelling
Review: Hollywood could never pull off a movie this hard to define. Set in Buenos Aires, it stars British Colin Firth, whom everyone is seeing stars over due to the new Bridget Jones film, and American Hart Bochner, the definition of attractive leading man if there ever was one. We need more movies with Hart Bochner's face filling the screen! When he rescues the cat on the ledge, it is movie-making magic. Bochner is a mysterious character who shows up and is taken in by Firth. While the film's ending is quite unexpected and, frankly, a little on the weird side, the flow of this film is gorgeous, careening between humanistic character study and slightly gory crime scenes. At its core, it's about a male friendship between two men who are unstable in different ways -- fascinating to watch. Why more people haven't seen this movie, I have no idea ....

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Atmospheric, haunting, compelling
Review: Hollywood could never pull off a movie this hard to define. Set in Buenos Aires, it stars British Colin Firth, whom everyone is seeing stars over due to the new Bridget Jones film, and American Hart Bochner, the definition of attractive leading man if there ever was one. We need more movies with Hart Bochner's face filling the screen! When he rescues the cat on the ledge, it is movie-making magic. Bochner is a mysterious character who shows up and is taken in by Firth. While the film's ending is quite unexpected and, frankly, a little on the weird side, the flow of this film is gorgeous, careening between humanistic character study and slightly gory crime scenes. At its core, it's about a male friendship between two men who are unstable in different ways -- fascinating to watch. Why more people haven't seen this movie, I have no idea ....

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: great movie, bad transfer
Review: I loved this one when it came out, so I couldn't resist picking up the DVD for under $5. What a waste. The DVD is simply a copy of a VHS taped copy & of rather dubious origins, despite the legitimate looking info on the back sleeve (no mention of copyright info.). Hopefully this will get a proper anamorphic release sometime soon.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Movie
Review: I recently watched this movie three times in a row. The acting by Colin Firth and Hart Bochner is first rate. Jack is very likeable and lures people of both sexes. The sexual chemistry between Adrian and Jack is very evident. Adrian is one of several people that Jack seduces and he just has to look at you with his beautiful blue eyes to make you want to do whatever he wants. It is a very interesting look at human nature and it shows us that you can't always judge a book by its cover. People are not always what they appear to be. The ending of the movie was very intense and somewhat surprising. Once again, you can't judge a book by its cover. I highly recommend this movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Absorbing Thriller
Review: I should probably see this one again, to sort out all the details, but a first viewing was enough to have me hooked on the story and characters, and left me thinking about them for days afterwards.
As a thriller it is superb, drawing you in slowly, building tension by what is left unsaid, by limiting your knowledge of the characters, and also by making them both thoroughly likable and somewhat detestable. A long, musical scene where the immensly attractive if somewhat sinister Jack rescues a cat from a ledge is a perfect example--he's irresistable to everyone, including the viewer, but we also see the way he stares down the cat and don't quite trust him. Colin Firth's lonely, film-obsessed and alienated loser Adrian is fascinating in his own right.
The heart of the movie lies in the many difficult relationships-Adrian's dislike of the other tenants, their adoration of Jack, and the marvellous, tense, sexually charged relationship between the two, sort of Withnail and I meets Vincent and Theo, meets The Talented Mr. Ripley.
If I have a complaint, it's that all this is carried a little too far, and I think it might have ended a bit better with that plunge from the balcony. Still, that's only a small quibble for an original and daring film like this.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not for the faint-hearted
Review: It's not often you see a movie that makes you think about how truly lonely people are and what is really meant by friendship and loyalty. These two guys are lonely down to their core, but it is their loneliness that creates a silent loyalty, they drive each other crazy, test one another, and ultimately save one another's souls - or are they damned? (you decide)

Hart Bochner (hubba-hubba) is completely without conscience until his last moment, incredibly sexy, Colin Firth (OK, maybe not so hubba-hubba, but he sure is adorable) is a man of integrity being pushed to the brink, and the final scene with the two of them is nothing short of amazing brutal power - and the ultimate in 'black' comedy.


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