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www.filmcritic.com - : Judy Davis might have commanded the definitive Joan Vollmer role in Naked Lunch, but in Beat, Courtney Love makes a not-half-bad at reinterpreting the last weeks of her life before being accidentally(?) shot in the head during a William Tell parlor trick by her famed writer husband William S. Burroughs. more...
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www.sover.net - : Beat is based on true story about the notorious literary giant William Burroughs, but is fictionalized in parts and feels as if there's more missing than what was captured. The story never moves one closer to understanding Burroughs or what was his mindset when he drunkenly shot his wife to death while playing a game of William Tell. The only one cast right for this downbeat, moody docudrama set back in the days of the ''Beat Generation, '' between 1944 and 1951, was Courtney Love as Joan Vollmer--the hapless bookwormish and alcoholic wife of William Burroughs. Kiefer Sutherland's psychic vampire William Burroughs, never seemed confident of who he was and got bogged down with voice inflection problems from time to time -- he would oddly go into character with the voice of more...
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www.filmthreat.com - : They sure didn't do much writing back in those early days; ''they'' being the now quasi-mythical American figures -- William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac -- who formed the core of the titular literary movement after World War II. ''Beat,'' Gary Walkow's moody portrayal of the fatal events that brought several of these friends and colleagues together -- Kerouac is conspicuously absent -- purports to dramatize the events that served as catalysts for their writing. The film opens in 1944 New York City with Lucien Carr (Norman Reedus) and Joan Villmer (Courtney Love) romantically circling each other while Lucien desperately, and eventually lethally, fends off the homosexual advances of their friend Dave. Fast forward to Mexico City in 1951. Burroughs (Kiefer Sutherland) has now married Joan and fathered two children with her, perhaps as a cover to hide his ''queerness,'' to use the vernacular of the day. Hearing that Ginsberg (Ron Livingston) and Lucien, more...
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Critic Reviews
