Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Pieces of April

This is topic Pieces of April in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 12-02-2003, 06:48 PM:

AMC Hamilton, 11/30, 3:20 PM matinee. Hall #3, attendance ~15.

This movie spells "Thanksgiving from Hell": Punk-rock princess cooks Turkey Day dinner in her apartment on the Lower East Side. Her oven conks out and her building manager can't help (but other tenants do). Her family is coming in from the suburbs -- complete with her hypochondriac mom. Not only that, her boyfriend goes out on an errand and gets roughed up by kids who work for the neighborhood drug dealer (her ex-boyfriend!). At least there's a happy ending.

Why did MGM not get this movie into more theaters before Thanksgiving? Maybe the movie would have hit too close to home. I've come across one or two of these Thanksgiving horrors myself.

Image: Good for a video-to-35mm transfer. The damned CRAP code showed up in R3 -- why do we need the CRAP code in arthouse fare? Plenty of dirt in the reel changes (AMC must have gotten a circuited print). Also, the booth framed the image too high.

Sound: Good for SR, though some dialogue was lost at the reel changes.

Trailer programming was strange. AMC ran 3 trailers for films that have come and gone (The Station Agent, Elephant, Sylvia) plus 3 trailers for films not yet out (The Butterfly Effect, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Havana Nights). I figured AMC wanted to play Pieces of April around Halloween but MGM didn't make a print available until Thanksgiving.

[ 12-03-2003, 11:01 AM: Message edited by: Charles Everett ]

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 12-03-2003, 02:09 PM:

MGM kind of biffed the release of Pieces of April. It was the only "Thanksgiving" Themed movie out there. They should have Platformed the release very slowly for word of mouth and then done a big push wide the week of Thanksgiving.

By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, we were done with Pieces of April.

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 12-04-2003, 11:51 PM:

A very watchable movie. It kind of has that early 90s indie cuddliness. However, not a must see in the theater if you have seen many of these kind of movies in the 90s. Not as good as something like the Daytrippers, but well worth a video rental.

I think it was shot on digital video rather than 16MM. So it may play better at home.