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Johnny Suede
The same year he stole the few scenes he had in Best Picture nominee Thelma and Louise, Brad Pitt also played the lead in a forgettable comic character study called Johnny Suede, which suffers from an all over the place screenplay rich with pretentious symbolism and a totally moronic central character whose only redeeming quality is that he looks like Brad Pitt.
This 1991 oddity features Pitt as Johnny, an aspiring musician who sports a huge pompadour, idolizes Ricky Nelson, and is dumb as box of rocks. He claims that he wants to become a rock star but doesn't put a lot of work into it, or anything else for that matter. The viewer watches Johnny aimlessly drifting through his life while getting involved (sort of) with three very different women.
I'm not really sure what director/screenwriter Tom DiCillo was going for here. The opening dream sequences of Johnny commanding a stage in front of a bunch of screaming girls after finding the right pair of black suede shoes is fun, but then the story degenerates into the real Johnny, an amateur musician with only a modicum of talent but in complete denial about it. The haphazard attempts to make something happen with his band are laughable as are the big dreams of him and his BFF Deke (Calvin Levels). Their conversations reminded me of two guys who sit around smoking pot, coming up with all these incredible ideas for making their lives better, but not really executing any of them.
The most interesting aspect of the film is Johnny's relationship with a vivacious bohemian named Yvonne, beautifully played by Catherine Keener, who inexplicably falls in love with the guy but eventually pays the price for it. The funniest scene in the film is when Johnny and Deke are listing the pros and cons of him actually moving in with Yvonne.
DiCillo has supplied this moronic character with a vivid imagination, which allows DiCillo to stage some startling and nonsensical dream sequences that come out of nowhere and end way too abruptly, not to mention some odd symbolism that is never really explained, primarily a panel of glass that keeps shattering at different parts of the movie for a reason I couldn't fathom.
Pitt has rarely been prettier and works very hard at making the title character likable, but he really has his work cut out for him here. Keener is always watchable and there is even a brief appearance by Samuel L Jackson as one of the members of Johnny's band, but this movie is, for the most part, pointless, and snore-inducing. Can't believe this was the same year Pitt was so fabulous in Thelma and Louise.
The same year he stole the few scenes he had in Best Picture nominee Thelma and Louise, Brad Pitt also played the lead in a forgettable comic character study called Johnny Suede, which suffers from an all over the place screenplay rich with pretentious symbolism and a totally moronic central character whose only redeeming quality is that he looks like Brad Pitt.
This 1991 oddity features Pitt as Johnny, an aspiring musician who sports a huge pompadour, idolizes Ricky Nelson, and is dumb as box of rocks. He claims that he wants to become a rock star but doesn't put a lot of work into it, or anything else for that matter. The viewer watches Johnny aimlessly drifting through his life while getting involved (sort of) with three very different women.
I'm not really sure what director/screenwriter Tom DiCillo was going for here. The opening dream sequences of Johnny commanding a stage in front of a bunch of screaming girls after finding the right pair of black suede shoes is fun, but then the story degenerates into the real Johnny, an amateur musician with only a modicum of talent but in complete denial about it. The haphazard attempts to make something happen with his band are laughable as are the big dreams of him and his BFF Deke (Calvin Levels). Their conversations reminded me of two guys who sit around smoking pot, coming up with all these incredible ideas for making their lives better, but not really executing any of them.
The most interesting aspect of the film is Johnny's relationship with a vivacious bohemian named Yvonne, beautifully played by Catherine Keener, who inexplicably falls in love with the guy but eventually pays the price for it. The funniest scene in the film is when Johnny and Deke are listing the pros and cons of him actually moving in with Yvonne.
DiCillo has supplied this moronic character with a vivid imagination, which allows DiCillo to stage some startling and nonsensical dream sequences that come out of nowhere and end way too abruptly, not to mention some odd symbolism that is never really explained, primarily a panel of glass that keeps shattering at different parts of the movie for a reason I couldn't fathom.
Pitt has rarely been prettier and works very hard at making the title character likable, but he really has his work cut out for him here. Keener is always watchable and there is even a brief appearance by Samuel L Jackson as one of the members of Johnny's band, but this movie is, for the most part, pointless, and snore-inducing. Can't believe this was the same year Pitt was so fabulous in Thelma and Louise.