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This is about the most brilliantly original thing on film I've seen all year, BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE, this is a movie strictly for movie people. The rest of you may want something more quickly-paced to go with your popcorn, and no one's judging.

Clocking in at almost three full hours, narrated like a PBS documentary, and with enough silent pauses to where one could legitly ponder whether or not it would've worked as a silent film (yes, by the way, it would've, and wonderfully), "James" (I'm not gonna repeat that damn whole title over and over) certainly has potential to bore those who come in looking for something more like "3:10 to Yuma," but then there's the performances of the flawless, yes, motherphucking FLAWLESS cast, music that carries one through the tale in a trance, and a steadily edited flow of the most beautiful cinematography an eye could conjure up.

Some Pissy Petulas (like Kenneth Turan of the LA Times, who once was the only man to stand up to "Titanic" and then became the dog who licked up "American Pie") may call this kind of filmmaking, say, "self-important," and that's why I call those kinds of critics Pissy Petulas. "Self-important" would apply if the filmmaking technique drew attention to itself (to the filmmaker), like "Snatch" or "Backdraft" or whatever over-stylized crap that's fun to watch when you're on coke. Or stoney. Once.

The way "James" is presented, while not hiding in the least that it's more about "poetic" than "gritty," sucks you in like a dream you've been sat down in a dark room to watch. Not only until the last withering minutes, when a few freeze-frames showed up like a bad case of hiccups, did I remember I was watching a movie. This thing plays like one of those flicks from the late-60's-to-early-70's, that one span of a few years where people around the world not only liked some movies from America, but respected the shit out of them.

Hats off to all involved here, there's too many names to bother with. This old tale of celebrity obsession sticks to you after it's over. And haunts. If you're a movie person.
 
(five bongs - six if it weren't for the freeze-frames)

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