List Price: $29.95You Pay Only: $26.99 You Save: $2.96 (10%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Binding: DVD
Brand: REICHARDT,KELLY
EAN: 0738329050429
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Kino International
Manufacturer: Kino International
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Kino International
Release Date: May 01, 2007
Running Time: 76 minutes
Sales Rank: 29356
Studio: Kino International
Theatrical Release Date: 2005
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Two old friends take a camping trip in the Cascade Mountains and learn how different their lives have become.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: UN
Release Date: 1-MAY-2007
Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com:
Based on a 50-page script by Jon Raymond, and shot in ten days, Old Joy has a quiet energy that propels it further in its simplicity than many big budget movies. Director Kelly Reichardt, a former assistant on early Todd Haynes films, has enlisted Haynes as an executive producer and Yo La Tengo for soundtrack, lending Old Joy a hipness that it exploits to reveal the relationship between the two main characters. Mark (Daniel London) leaves his pregnant wife, Tanya, at home for an excursion into the woods with his hippified buddy, Kurt (Will Oldham). Leaving Portland in Mark's Volvo, with dog in tow, Kurt smoke bowls while Mark navigates into the Cascades backcountry, where the two get temporarily lost then camp until morning, for a hike to paradisiacal Bagby Hot Springs. Slight tension arises out of their divergent lifestyles. Mark's a liberal yuppie, while Kurt's easy drifting underpins his idealism. In key scenes, Kurt verbalizes his fears that the two old friends are losing intimacy. But Kurt's sweetness, for example when he asks, 'Is it cool if I sleep in the tent with you?' or massages Mark's shoulders, overrides any real conflict. Cuts to birds chirping, slugs crawling, and campfires raging also relax the viewer as illustrations of the forest's healing power. More a meditation than a packed adventure film, some may find Old Joy slow and meandering, while others will enjoy this pace as precisely the film's point. --Trinie Dalton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Great Purchase
Love this movie and I was really happy with the service provided from the seller. The movie came really quick and they sent me a nice personal note about the film.
John
Rating:  - ugh
The praises of all the positive reviews about strained relationships and feelings explored are entirely true.
However, I think any adult is capable of understanding those aspects and extracting all this film has to offer in the first twenty minutes. If you picked a conversation out of the middle, you could probably cut that to about five minutes.
It's a story far too mundane for a film and should be avoided - just like the relationship it portrays.
Rating: - An Accurate Depiction of the Bagby Experience
I probably can add little to the many comments here about this movie itself; you can read as many who think the movie is great as who think it is a waste of time. Therefore, I would like to address the Bagby Hot Springs experience. [Like many, many others, Bagby is one of my two favorite hots springs in the Northwest. (My other favorite is Jerry Johnson Hot Springs in Idaho.)] First, when I saw these two men drive across a particular bridge I told my wife they're going the wrong way. And, of course, we learn that they did get lost. So, if you think you'd like to visit Bagby, bear in mind that the roads shown in the movie, while in general give the feel of the forty miles from Estacada, should not be believed is the right way out there. Years ago there used to be signs directing the way, but the last time I went there the signs had been removed so you really have to know on your own how to get there.
The movie gives the impression that it is undeveloped, except at the hot springs itself. In fact, there is a good-sized parking lot and a forest service campground almost next to the Bagby parking areas. [I have seen a 'milk truck' concession stand there in busy weekends.] Once you are parked, you immediately go across a Forest Service footbridge over a creek, and then start up the trail, about a mile and a half to the hot springs. With my family it would take twenty to thirty minutes to walk. I don't know what trail they followed up in the movie, but it looks a lot more rugged ... Read More
Rating: - There Is Comfort To Be Found
Despite the corny-looking poster image of two dressed-down guys in the woods, I decided to check out this indie film which had its premiere at Sundance and won a top prize at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. I wasn't expecing much, but WOW! The pace is careful yet easy, the dialogue spare and to the point, the acting style much understated and natural. As a whole the film achieves a rare quality of emotion that burns, glows, then left an imprint on my heart. Will Oldham has to be congratulated for his subtly magnificent acting job as Kurt. He deftly portrays the part of the loser, while slyly stinging us with his two arresting monologues, one about "worn out joy" and the other of the "physics" of a tear. This is a sad, sad film, but writer John Raymond's thoughts and words will somehow comfort you, as there is comfort to be found.
Rating:  - A little conflict would go a long way!
We played "Old Joy" last year at our college theater and the audience (those who stayed awake) were stunned. Nothing much happens in this picture. It has been praised by many critics as a great work of art. I think that's the same mentality that calls a blank canvas a great work of art. This film has good acting (considering they didn't have much of a script to work with) and the photography is beautiful. The main problem with this picture is the total lack of conflict. It seemed like I was watching a 90 minute home movie of friends on a camping trip. The reason good movies keep our interest is the conflict. Without it we may as well just sit and watch the fish swim in an aquarium. This is the kind of film you can go out to the kitchen several times for snacks and make a couple trips to the bathroom without pausing the DVD. You wouldn't miss anything important, anyway. What a shame!
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