Random Movie: Jesus' Son (1999)

No one has ever heard of the movie Jesus' Son when I ask them about it. I myself, saw it by happenstance. I was flipping through the guide on the cable box and saw the synopsis for this film. It listed Frank Black (lead singer of the Pixies) as being in it. Having never seen Frank Black in a movie I turned it on. Turns out it was a misprint, and it was in fact Jack Black. However, what I found was quite an interesting film. Billy Crudup plays a character listed as FH, or Fuck Head. He narrates the story, which starts in the middle, backs up and then cathes up with itself around the real middle of the film. A large chunk of it deals with his heroin addiction (the title of the movie comes from a line in Lou Reed's song "Heroin") but the movie is really more than that.

We watch a journey through life, as FH deals with whatever he encounters, and how he moves from one thing to the next. The movie is actually quite nicely directed. At some points during the narration, it almost sort of feels a little messy; FH backs the story up for getting ahead of himself, and at one point after telling a 30 or 40 minute story, it ends with him telling us that he may have told us the wrong story. This is done I am sure to produce a mild feeling of confusion as the characters are strung out the whole time during this part of the film. Some excellent lines in the film as well: "...made me feel like the inside of my veins hads been scraped out." "I knew every rain drop by it's name." The film also stars Denis Leary, Dennis Hopper, Samantha Morton and Michael Shannon, all of which are great. It is a dark comedy that very much embodies both; Jack Black certainly delivers the comedy in a toned down version of his normal fashion, and the subject matter and character deaths certainly provide the darkness. I recommend viewing the film at least once just so that you have experienced it. It sits on my DVD shelf, and is played quite often.