BUFFALO 66 (1998)
At some point in the recent past, we here at the Screengrab compiled a list of our guiltiest pleasures, and one of mine was The Brown Bunny, which I pretty much only wanted to see because of the notorious...uh...love scene between director/star Vincent Gallo and his co-star (and former paramour) Chloe Sevigny. Such a prurient interest is sad on two levels: first, that a grown, married man would rent a movie just to watch a quasi-famous actress get busy with an allegedly prosthetic schwanzstucker...but secondly that Gallo’s sophomore directorial effort would have so little else going for it after the flat-out brilliance of Buffalo 66. Starring as an ex-con loser who kidnaps a bored teen (Christina Ricci) in hopes of passing her off as his wife in a doomed effort to impress his hateful parents (Ben Gazzara and Anjelica Huston), Gallo's Billy Brown is all jittery desperation and hostile self-loathing...yet somehow, by the end of the movie, you’re rooting for both the character and the director, while the grim, hellish landscape of upstate New York in winter (a perfect reflection of the protagonist’s stunted isolation) has somehow blossomed with unexpected hope.
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