13 Moons Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES PLOT SUMMARY
The director of such off-beat independent films as In the Soup, director Alexandre Rockwell once again teams with that film's star to deliver this Los Angeles-based comedy concerning superstition and intersecting lives. Things aren't looking so good for television clown Banana's (Steve Buscemi) career, and the fact that his estranged wife, Suzi (Jennifer Beals), has just been arrested for assaulting his girlfriend, Lily (Karyn Parsons), just serves to compound Banana's despair. Teaming with sidekick Binky (Peter Dinklage) to enlist the aid of bail-bondsman Mo (David Proval), Banana and Binky discover that Mo is currently negotiating the release of hip-hop mogul Lenny's (Daryl Mitchell) wife, Sandra (Rose Rollins). The hapless group soon teams to help Mo by finding a suitable kidney donor for the bail-bondsman's ailing son, and though they quickly happen across a drunk (Peter Stormare) who fits the bill, the trouble comes in keeping the prospect in the hospital. Doing their best to help Mo's son under increasingly chaotic circumstances, personal tensions flare as each character desperately tries to simultaneously battle their own inner demons.
| Jennifer Beals | Suzi |
| Elizabeth Bracco | Louise Potter |
| Steve Buscemi | Bananas The Clown |
| Peter Dinklage | Binky |
| Daryl Mitchell | Lenny |
| Karyn Parsons | Lily |
| David Proval | Mo Potter |
| Rose Rollins | Sanandra |
| Peter Stormare | Slovo |
| Pruitt Taylor Vince | Owen |
| Gareth Williams | Thad |
| Austin Wolff | Timmy |
| Francesco Messina | Robert |
| Sam Rockwell | Rick |
| Matthew Sussman | Doctor Monroe |
| Alexandre Rockwell |
5.60 out of 10 (465 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Quirky, consistently surprising, with a seemingly effortlessstructure!
posted on 06 Mar 2008Thank the cinema gods that movies like this are still being made - personal, inimitable, expressive visions you'll never see in a studio boutique division's wildest dreams!Doing his best work since the very funny "In The Soup," Alexandre Rockwell again works with a large ensemble cast of fine but often under-used actors to tell the niftily interwoven stories of an unlikely set of characters all of whose paths cross because of a marital spat and a life-weary bailbondsman getting saddled with his waifish son - who's in desperate need of a kidney transplant. Problem is, it seems the only good match is sloshing about in the innards of the bedrugged, drunken, wacked-out Peter Stormare (in a Santa suit, continuing Rockwell's ongoing leitmotiv in several films). The movie, beautifully shot on hi-def video by the estimable Phil Parmet, with an insinuating score, all takes place in one night, an extended but befuddled chase after the wayward, reluctant kidney donor.Among an as entertaining group of actors as you're likely to find, Daryl Mitchell, Rose Rollins, and Peter Dinklage are especially sharp and funny. Keep an ear peeled for Rollins's perfectly pitched horribly bad rap song!Lots of incidental pleasures along the way, and, typical in the Rockwellian oeuvre, an uplifting moment at the end - literally and figuratively. All in all, a shaggy-dog delight.
OK, but tries a bit too hard to be "quirky"
posted on 07 Nov 2007No doubt about it that this is one weird movie, but there's something about the overall feel of it that didn't work for me. A young boy is left by his mom with his bail-bondsman dad while dad is working, enabling them to interact with all manner of weirdos, like Bananas the Clown (Buscemi) who is fresh from an encounter with his estranged wife in which she tried to run him down with a car. There's also some guy with a big RV who has a girlfriend that can't sing, a drug & drink-addled Santa (the ever-loopy Peter Stormare) that is a would-be kidney donor for the boy until he manages to escape the hospital, a trio of priests, one of which decides to hit a strip club, one of whom is arrested and carted off to jail, and a host of other low-lives and weirdos. Now this group of people all converge upon each other & wander around LA looking for the escaped would-be kidney donor, and havoc ensues. This has plenty of potential but to me it lacked something I couldn't put my finger on. I guess a lot of it just seems too forced, and it left me kind of cold at the end. 6 out of 10, may appeal to others but to me only just OK.
Deliberately bizarre story, strong acting, chaotic
posted on 17 Jun 2006This movie is definitely unusual, but it doesn't seem to believe in itself or in the worth of its story, so by the end it falls flat and can only really be evaluated as a farce. We start out with Steve Buscemi and Peter Dinklage as a couple of clowns struggling through their jobs on some cable-access kids' show. Eventually we are introduced to a number of other characters whose lives all intersect over the course of one night (a la Magnolia/ Short Cuts/ Crash). Buscemi is always a solid character actor, but here he seems somewhat confused about his motivation and I can't really blame him. Rockwell is known as a very hands-off director, and I have to say that this movie seems to have just derailed on him, despite some touching visual concepts and decent, potentially explosive backstories. The scene in the swimming pool in which a priest who is going through a crisis of faith teams with Steve Buscemi to teach a sickly young boy how to swim is just so overstuffed with tropes as to completely destroy the viewer's attentiveness to any throughline or narrative thrust. The subplots are all individually interesting and are handled with at least a fair amount of investment and decent performance by nearly everyone involved. But they only intersect in odd ways that seem to desire to make some sort of larger statement but only end up in chaos, and perhaps a vague statement about everyone coming together to help solve their shared problems. But really it seems that Rockwell's strength is in showing people who are insane or in the absolute gutter, and so any kind of humanist impulse that he has is only articulated vaguely and without enough buildup to be moving. That being said, there are a number of intriguing minor characters in the film, and as I've mentioned it is filled with acting talent. It's almost like this is a movie where you want to extract assorted moments and enjoy them as if they were short films so that you don't have to cringe painfully at their inability to flow in the overall storyline. The brief moment where Ernie Lee Banks, as a zoo's night watchman, argues honestly with the bail bondsman and his son is touching, almost like something out of Magnolia. The character played by David Proval is taken almost directly out of the bail bondsman character in Jackie Brown, a film by Rockwell's friend Quentin Tarantino. That being said, Proval does a decent job with the muddled and cut-rate character he is assigned by the screenplay.I tried hard to like this movie but in the end it is so riddled with head-scratching loopholes and mistakes and poor transitions that I could only call it gutsy at best. I wouldn't call it great, and not even "good". Rockwell's use of hand-held video cameras didn't bother me, and if anything it was visually interesting. I guess the ending of this movie, without giving it entirely away, made me wonder if Rockwell was merely trying to "make up for" the dark comic sense or atmosphere of decay that permeates the rising action of the film. In any case, it just does not seem to flow and it does not fit organically with the rest of the bizarre story.
Order out of Chaos, and a Happy Ending
posted on 02 Apr 2006At first glance the initial scenery was enough to make me change the channel until I saw that Steve Buschemi was one of the leading characters. The dull grainy cinematography in combination with sad clowns performing poorly before a local TV station child audience, was enough to make me think, OK this is just weird.But even during those first few scenes I saw a dark humor typical of today's attitude towards the unfailing reality of life, so given that, I decided to watch on. What I witnessed was a film about one of those strange nights when the Moon is full, the mystical powers are strong in the air and the lives of strangers will cross.The relationships of these strangers center around the Bail bondsman "Mo" (David Proval) but the events of the night surround his estranged son "Timmy", whose mother comes to the father in a babysitting emergency. Unbeknownst to the father his son has only one kidney that is barely functioning and he is waiting a beeper call from the hospital for a donor. While this is happening most of the other characters also need Mo for Bail at the very same time, sort of a convergence of need all at one moment. After going to the Jailhouse to perform his duties, the child wanders out in the parking lot and almost gets hit by a car. At this very moment the story changes from a group of quirky adults trying to solve their own problems to a group of adults realizing that all of their selfish desires are nothing compared to the needs of this child. From this point forward the scene changes are chaotic and bizarre in a Pulp Fiction type fashion, but the message remains clear, even while whining about their pathetic lives these adults keep their focus and do all that they can do to help the boy and find his Kidney donor who has wandered out of the hospital.There are defining moments that will remain with the boy, the scene in the hospital, the trip his father takes after hours to the zoo to see the monkeys and when everyone jumps into the pool, giving the child a sense of joy you feel he has had yet to feel in his pitiful little life. There are several epiphanies amongst the cast of characters. One of my favorites is when the night watchman from the Zoo tells Mo "shooting me with that gun isn't going to make you a better father". In the end the child is saved by the supreme sacrifice of the priest "Owen", who had been suffering from doubts about his priesthood and searching for the meaning of his life.This Movie has genuine moments of dark humor and a very meaningful and happy ending. If your looking for something a little different that doesn't leave you feeling haunted, you will enjoy this movie.
How did this one slip through the cracks?
posted on 11 Jan 200513 Moons is an ambitious, unusual film that works really well. It has beautiful imagery, great music and fantastic acting. And it manages to feel spontaneous and free in a way that big-budget studio films never quite do. In fact, it's exactly the kind of movie a big studio would never attempt. It features a huge, eclectic ensemble cast in a wild series of events that are, at first glance, pretty far-fetched. But the result is surprisingly smooth and genuine. First of all, the cast is fantastic. In addition to Steve Buscemi and Jennifer Beals, I recognized many of the actors from television and other (mostly independent) movies: David Proval from The Sopranos, Karyn Parsons from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Daryl Mitchell and Sam Rockwell from GalaxyQuest, and Peter Dinklage from Living in Oblivion. The plot doesn't exactly ramble, but there are definitely points where it's unclear where the story is moving. It's hard, with so many interesting characters, to maintain a perfect narrative balance. But the great thing about 13 Moons is that it is a little off-balance. It's basically a collection of strange little moments, but they all feel so sincere that it's easy to lose yourself in them. And in the end, everything and everyone comes together. In fact, it's one of the most satisfying movie endings I've seen in a long time. It's a shame 13 Moons wasn't released to the public the way it deserved to be. I hope more people can find a way to see this movie.
About 10 characters with a full moon in L.A.
posted on 21 Oct 2004This indie was shown recently on cable. Alexandre Rockwell (any relation to Sam?) directs this strange account of a night in L.A. While the film is interesting there are a lot of things that make absolute no sense in the way the director, working with Brandon Cole in the screen play, presents the story and then proceeds to solve it in the next 90 minutes.Mr. Rockwell has to be congratulated in employing these young talent. Given the choice between a studio film and and independent one, I will always choose the latter one. That said, there are a lot of unanswered questions in the film.We have no inkling at the beginning of the film that Timmy is a sick boy, he is suddenly in the hospital where a donor has been matched and will undergo a kidney transplant. The donor is Slovo, a man who was hit by the boy's father, and it's an obnoxious man. The quest for the search of this man, who disappeared from the hospital, is at the core of the action. It gives the writers an excuse for bringing the assorted characters into the picture.Another thing that doesn't make sense is how can anyone be arrested for attending a T&A club? Evidently it can only happen in the city of Angels! There is the rapper with the gorgeous girlfriend who can't carry a tune who come to help the boy and his father and in the process take us into the streets of a seedy section of town and end up in the rapper's mansion where everyone jumps in the pool.There are a lot things that don't make sense, but we go along the ride because the director, at times, shows signs of brilliant film making, but ultimate, the movie leaves us questioning a lot of things as to why they happen.The cast is wonderful. Daryl Mitchell and Rose Collins are perfect as the rapper and his girlfriend. Steve Buscemi and Peter Dinklage as the clowns, don't get a lot to do. Pruitt Taylor Vince, an actor's actor makes an incredible Owen, the man who will eventually save the boy. David Proval and Elizabeth Bracco are the estranged parents of the sick young boy, Timmy, who is portrayed with an uncanny maturity by Austin Wolff. Jennifer Beals and Sam Rockwell have only limited time in front of the camera.While we wished "13 Moons" would have been better, it shows a great team of writers as well as an excellent director.
Terrific indie cast in gawd-awful movie
posted on 13 Jul 2004Proof positive that just the presence of a great indie cast doesn't guarantee you a great indie film.The story revolves around the relationship of a number of people in need of a bailbondsman ("Sopranos" David Proval) during one wild night in L.A. The story switches about mid-point to the search for a manic runaway Santa who was supposed to be an kidney donor for his son. Sounds full of possibilities, huh? With a flat, uninvolving and very unfunny script and a cast who looked like the were lost, wandering from scene to scene, making it through the screening of this film was a grueling experience for me. Major plot motivations are lame and unplausable. For example, three of the characters in the film are priests who wander into a strip club. One priest gets arrested...for what, were not sure, except that he didn't run fast enough when one of his friends causes a fight (hey...it got the priests to the bailbondsman...won't that be funny!). But then the young son is diagnosed (in about 5 minutes, without any diagnostic tests being done) that he only has one kidney and needs another THAT NIGHT, and hey, there just happens to be a donor in the e.r. right now (the manic Santa), well...there were just so many things wrong with the scene that I lost all hope that the film could ever redeem itself.The full house at the Seattle Film Fest. screening sat quiet and emotionless throughout the film with a few scattered walk outs and tepid applause following the film (this is a rabid group of moviegoers who are usually supportive of the films here, especially when the director and two stars are in attendance). I couldn't stay for the Q&A afterwards...the carnage had already been brutal enough.What's the secret of the 13 moons? I'm not sure, I don't care and you won't either.
blew me away
posted on 08 May 2004I rented 13 Moons because I love Steve Buscemi. It was an amazing movie- full of twists and turns, humor, and reality. It was a touching film without being sappy. Its just one of those must sees, I think. The basic premise is that a little boy needs a new kidney. A cousin of his happens to be in the hospital, but said cousin is a drunken santa dude who escapes and tries to have one last night of mayhem. Strangers become involved in his pursuit, including a clown who has lost his humor, a priest who has lost his god, a stripper, a rapper, a mother to be who isn't anymore, a midget, and others. The cinematography was very different- kind of like American beauty. bottom line- this movie gave me hope.
Lost Characters
posted on 30 Apr 2004What we have here is an attempt to shape a movie by simply defining interesting characters. These aren't radical characters like, say you would get with "Hitchhiker's Guide" inspired projects. You have a few choices when sitting down to write a story. One of these is to decide what sort of agency your characters have. To my mind, the best storytellers start with a world, a notion of sweeps within that world that creates situations or drives or needs. Within all those gusts you place characters, or perhaps (depending on the world) your characters are secreted by other forces.Noir, the great invention of cinematic storytelling has this character. Cinematic storytelling is different than writing because you see the world with the people. With the written world you can separate them and the world always comes through some voice.This is to say that starting with characters is risky in film. I think it never works, ever, by itself. These aren't particularly interesting characters. But if they were, you would need something else to season them: some dialog or situations.It didn't work here.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
Tiresome with Under-used Actors
posted on 24 Feb 2004This is yet another jerky, hackneyed "indie" film. The director sounds like a nice guy, at least he comes across that way in the multiple "behind the scenes" stories floating around on DVD and the Internet (www.nobodywantsyourfilm.com).Why Buscemi (and the extremely talented Dinklage) made this is beyond me, maybe they lost a bet? The film had an O.K. start and was set up for some interesting twists. Instead the filmmaker threw so many secondary characters into this (Stormare's crazy Santa, the priests, etc.) the plot just wanders around L.A. in the wee hours. But ending it with the cute kid getting a kidney (oh, please!) and a tearful ending just killed it dead.Nobody wants this film, damn straight.
I knew them all
posted on 05 Sep 2003I knew every character in this movie as a real person. I knew the depressive clown and the hard-boiled midget and the drug addicted drag queen and even the self-doubting priests. While "13 Moons" was not set in New York City in the seventies, it might as well have been. Granted, I've been out of that crazy, all-night life for a long time, but I'm sure it hasn't gone away. People don't change, and the same kinds of tormented souls have to be there, pursuing their crazy odysseys, all night long. Perhaps you've missed them if you've been cocooned in the enclaves of the middle class, but if you're brave enough to go out and find them, you can.I was totally engaged by "13 Moons." The ensemble acting was first-rate, so the characterizations were virtually perfect. The plot may be slightly less than believable, but if you tossed that particular batch of odd characters together under the right circumstances, something like it just MIGHT have happened.Many reviewers refer to this film as "quirky." Well, LIFE is quirky, children -- and if you don't think Bananas and Binky and Lenny and Slovo and Mo and Lily and Suzi are real enough, you haven't been drinking in the right bars.See "13 Moons." Believe in it. It's a close approximation of a world you may not have encountered, but which certainly is real.
Indie comedy that doesn't skimp on intelligence, laughs or heart.
posted on 23 Jul 2003SLAMDANCE pulled a major coup by opening with a quality film by one of the directors who gave SUNDANCE such a sterling reputation for indie films. One of the great things about film festivals is on rare occasions you get bragging rights to having seen a quality film before the rest of the world gets a look at it Steve Buscemi is always killer, and here he's given material to match his talents. He's probably the last guy you'd pick to play a clown (he's seems a crying on the inside AND outside actor), but the counterintuitive comic casting works like a dream. Hard to p*** and moan and be funny at the same time, but Buscemi and the writers pull it off. Karyn Parsons, who was so good on THE JOB with Denis Leary and was so much better than the material in such crap as MAJOR PAYNE and THE LADIES' MAN -- is killer, and hot to boot. A smart, genuinely funny comedy for adults that doesn't suck. Rarer than a perfect spring day and just as welcome.
horrible!
posted on 19 Mar 2003I don't want to waste too much more of my time regarding this movie so I'll keep this short. I haven't finished the movie yet (it's playing as I type this) but I had high expectations for this film and they weren't met. A great cast working with one of the worst scripts in recent history. Basically, just a boring movie with little to like. I 'm curious if the cast found the script promising or if they worked on the movie as a kind gesture to someone; not sure what there could have been in the script that they would think was worth it. I hope there are better movies to come from all who were involved. Disappointing.
Great Film !!!
posted on 30 Sep 2002One of the BEST films I've seen in a long, long time! Interesting characters & storyline! The film manages to follow it's multiple sub-plots in a skillful & stylistic manner. Steve B. & Peter D. prove to be a winning pair on camera. Overall this film was well cast.I've seen allot of negative reviews for this film and I must say that I am at a loss to understand why. Perhaps these reviewers were expecting a more predictable film. The usual Hollywood tripe! This film conforms to no such standard! In summary: I really enjoyed the quirky characters, Clever dialogue, Touching storyline and the overall style of this film. I Highly recommend it!! :)
A complex film with a deceptively simple message
posted on 25 Aug 2002Writers Alexandre Rockwell and Brandon Cole managed to do the impossible: combine ten misfit characters into a storyline that gives each individual characterization bona fide arc and dimension. The combination of Steve Buscemi and Peter Dinklage as an out of work clown and his loyal sidekick is priceless. Peter Stormare uses his entire acting arsenal to bring his homeless drunk to life and Sam Rockwell is terrific in his smaller part as an enterprising strip club bartender. Daryl Mitchell and newcomer Rose Rollins nearly steal the show as a P Diddy-esque record mogul and his tone deaf girlfriend, respectively, and Karyn Parsons is a long way from Bel Air as the stripper who is the object of Steve Buscemi's affection. Jennifer Beals is effective and stunning as ever as Buscemi's wronged wife. Austin Wolfe is touching and believable as the little boy who brings them all together and David Proval does a great turn as the kid's absentee father.After a night of unparalleled shenanigans, in the end, the message is simple as delivered by Elizabeth Bracco as the little boy's mother. Having been told that this group of strangers has risked life and limb to help her son, she asks innocently, "Why would they want to help Timmy? They don't even know him." And therein lies the question that in a more compassionate world none of us would be compelled to ask.
Finding your way in(to) LA
posted on 19 Jun 200913 Moons, surprisingly, is one of the most lucid and hopeful flicks to emerge from the muddled dreams and frequently vengeful psyches of Los Angeles in years. A quest film every bit as compelling and complex-- and considerably less tricked out-- than Lord of the Rings, it's Alexandre Rockwell's valedictory to a city which may have little use for the independent filmmaker, but which offered him a way back to his own larger, more magnanimous instincts as an artist. An ever greater number of characters, from a clown Steve Buscemi to a bail bondsman and dead beat dad (David Proval) to a remarkably bad and self aware rapper/singer/ho (the extraordinary Rose Rollins), find themselves inhabiting, momentarily, a similar platform, a little piece of Los Angeles in the dead of the night. Like most of us, their dreams only bubble rarely to the surface of their lives, jostling there with their disappointments until they're submerged again under the monotony of their day jobs. But unlike most of us, these 7 people, in spite of themselves, find purpose in their movement. They go from a downtown bar to a bail bureau, from a cop station to a memorable moment in the zoo; and in their sojourn, they intersect with real need…an 8 year old, whose kidney is failing, whom dialysis only momentarily helps, who's thrown on the mercy of a city whose larger, social impulses seem deadened…and yet. A strong ensemble cast, energetically directed and brilliantly shot by Phil Parmet, makes 13 Moons that rare independent LA flick: one whose ambitions are so much greater than an audition for a studio picture. 13 Moons wants to give us a different way of imagining ourselves and the city we inhabit but so little know.