Curse of the Starving Class (1994)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

J. Michael McClary

Writers:

Sam Shepard (play)
Bruce Beresford (writer)

Release Date:

5 May 1995 (South Korea)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Sam Shepard's coming of age drama about a dirt-poor 1950's-era farm family. Dad's a foul talking drunk...

Plot Keywords:

Farm | Alcoholic | Poverty | 1920s | Based On Play

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

James Woods	...	Weston Tate
Kathy Bates	...	Ella Tate
Randy Quaid	...	Taylor
Henry Thomas	...	Wesley Tate
Kristin Fiorella	...	Emma Tate
Louis Gossett Jr.	...	Ellis
Jim Fitzpatrick	...	Emerson (as James Fitzpatrick)
Joel Anderson	...	Slater
Lauren Abels	...	Taylor's Assistant
John Cannon Nichols	...	Des
Jerry Biggs	...	Policeman
David McDavid	...	Will
Gary Carter	...	Weston's Buddy #1
Peyton E. Park	...	Weston's Buddy #2 (as Peyton Park)
Del Roy	...	Ellis' Buddy

MPAA:

Rated R for language, and for a scene of nudity.

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Ultra Stereo

Certification:

Australia:M | USA:R (certificate #33194) | South Korea:15 | UK:15 (video premiere)

Filming Locations:

Dallas, Texas, USA

Company:

August Entertainment

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Breaking News (2008/II)

Soundtrack:

Something In Red

Beyond Bad

This would've been a *great* silent film. The acting really is good, at least in a Look Ma, I'm Doing Really Big Acting! sort of way.

Everything is HUGE. Every line is PROFOUND! Every scene is SHATTERED BY HUMAN TRAGEDY!

Mostly, I felt like gagging. Yet, like any train wreck, I couldn't tear my eyes away. This dialogue might've worked on the stage, although I doubt it. On the screen, it was cluttered, haphazard, hackneyed and pretty much every other stereotypical negative adjective you can come up with to describe a really bad dramatic work.

If you enjoy your melodrama in huge, heaping doses, you *might* enjoy the movie. Be prepared to wait, however. For all that melodrama, this thing sure plods along at its own pace.

This script must've sounded a lot different when the actors involved were reading it to themselves. It simply doesn't work once they get around to delivering it in front of the camera.

IMDB does us a great disservice, at times, when it uses its goofy computer-controlled "weighted score". Curse of the Starving Class deserves less than a 1.

Character-driven fiction is great, but when you develop your characters by simply pushing them through hoops with no plausible explanation for their maturation or evolution, it isn't character development! Your characters must have a motivation. Being drunk for a while and waking up in a field is *not* character development. That's a plot contrivance.

Stay away from this movie. Or at the very least, watch it muted. Perhaps you'll get some amusement from all the arm-waving the characters do.

Oh, and word to the wise -- to prove that this is truly an artsy film, you see James Woods in all his dangly male "look-at-me, I'm-the-figurative-and-literal-representation-of-the-naked-vulnerability-of- man" glory.

Don't say you weren't warned.