source: Local Color

The most important thing to know about this movie is it is unusually boring. I kept waiting for it to end. The curtain came down, the music soared, then it took off again, over and over and over, like some spoof of a Beethoven symphony endlessly ending. It mocks art and art critics with straw men situations, that might have been concocted by Archie Bunker. For example, Ron Perlman plays an obnoxious screaming queen art critic who mistakes the paintings of retarded children for high art. An artist displays an empty frame and slings BS about the deep inner meaning of its flatness. The plot: A young man with a rabidly homophobic father invades the home of a reclusive alcoholic artist demanding to be taught to paint. The artist lets him in, but just leaves him to paint. They snipe at each other, for what feels like weeks even though the movie fits on one DVD. The dialogue is nausea-inducing e.g. "clouds are where angels hide", "follow your dream".

I'm watching this now and I'm growing more impatient by the minute. Usually I like silence in movies but the pauses here within the dialog scream too loudly. Trevor Morgan's wretched performance doesn't help. Ray Liotta is saddled with an Archie Bunker stereotype that wears thin after his first scene. The actors have to constantly fight the inert direction. Not even Mueller-Stahl's solid work here can't save the film from grinding to a slow death. You can always predict the next scene. That's how clichéd it is (Karate Kid anyone). The stationary camera work is unimaginative and does nothing to evoke its subject matter. Saying all that, this movie delivers to the layman when it comes to lessons in art. The observations on art are basic but astute. There are some decent rules of thumb for anybody to take to a museum or simply when looking at the world. The complexity of shapes and colors in everyday life are explored here in the guise of painting. Ruining all this is a closed-mindedness towards abstract art that doesn't make sense. Painting abstract artists and those who appreciate it as morons and dilettantes contradicts the film's basic message of life as art. Better pacing, and better acting from the young actor, could have gone a long way to make this film work. For a film about colors and shapes, there is very little here to inspire or at which to marvel. Watch it only for Mueller-Stahl's performance and some minor lessons in how to look at the world.

There are pretty landscape shots. Writers putting trite mouthings into actors mouths. With lesser actors this show would be silly. 'Art must uplift humanity or it's BS.' Not so because art of all those mentioned is also to stir humanity and express the dark side. The lead character even says those who don't drink hide the shadow side. Wrong , he lived in darkness and repressed his dark side by drinking and being one dimensional not expanding his horizons with something other than landscapes. There wasn't a breathing organism in his work nor expression of his pain. All the artist did was limit himself to dime a dozen landscapes. The discussions between the characters was grade school, trite stuff always giving the one character the upper hand the writer wanted. I tried to like it after reading all the first wow comments on here. I had to dig deep to see those i agreed with. I figure the great comments were from those connected to the movie. I was moved only once towards the end. The kid was way too passive. The scenery was nice and the music ridiculous. Just my opinion but nowhere show for me.

"Local Color" is a wonderful gem of a film with powerful themes, complex characters who struggle with their fears and shortcomings, and a story that anyone who has ever felt intimidated by their dreams while at the same time wanting so badly for them to come true can relate to. The film draws you in gently, makes you laugh, makes you feel the longing and frustration of the characters, and takes you along a beautifully realized and genuinely heartfelt journey of self-discovery. The lead character is faced with many difficult challenges as he struggles to become a respected painter, but as the film progresses he finds his voice and the ability to confidently express his feelings on canvas. He is awkward at first, and wholly relatable in his fumblings, but by the time he finds the courage to paint with conviction, the audience soars with him. A wonderful film!

If you like patriotic movies, in which it is said that you must be thankful for living in the USA, because the rest of the world is really awful, if you like stereotypes, if you think that the Germans are always the bad guys and Russians have vodka for breakfast, if you think that contemporary art is crap and only realistic painting is real art and if you like artificial dialogs that are never spoken in real life, then this film is for you. And I am saying all this even though I normally actually like movies that people classify as "art movies", like many European films use to be! My humble opinion: Boring.

In 1974, in the suburb of Port Chester, New York, the teenager aspirant artist John Talia (Trevor Morgan) has a troubled relationship with his homophobic father (Ray Liotta) that does not understand his talent. While visiting his friend Yammi (Charles Durning), John finds that the genius Russian painter Nicoli Seroff (Armin Mueller-Stahl) lives nearby and he decides to pay a visit to his idol. John finds a bitter alcoholic elder that still grieves the loss of his wife Anya many years ago but he successfully befriends the master. When Nicoli travels to the countryside in Pennsylvania, he invites John to go with him to teach him how to paint. Then John meets Nicoli's neighbor Carla (Samantha Mathis) who grieves that loss of her son, and the arrogant critic of art and Nicolai's friend Curtis Sunday (Ron Perlman). Along their vacation, the synergy of Nicoli and John improves their individual lives. "Local Color" is a nostalgic and melancholic movie about life and passion for arts. The story is based on true events and is beautifully disclosed through the magnificent performance of the fantastic Armin Mueller-Stahl, very well supported by Trevor Morgan. The gorgeous Samantha Mathis has also a minor but important participation and she does not appear her stated age (36); therefore she fits perfectly to the role of Carla. The movie plays with emotions, oscillating between few bitterly funny moments (like for example when Nicoli shows the paintings of the children with mental retardation to his arrogant friend or his behavior in the art exposition in the countryside) and many heartbreaking moments. The message to follow the dreams is nice; the cinematography is beautiful; the pace is adequate and my only remark is to the pronunciation (or accent) of the narrator in long texts, which is difficult to be followed. My vote is seven. Title (Brazil): "O Mestre da Vida" ("The Master of the Life")

As gently as I can, I sincerely believe this movie is a waste of time. I did not find it the 'warm, emotionally satisfying' film others did. I found it boring, with music that distracted from the film. The story was thin, the characters overdrawn, and the direction pedestrian. Fooey. Now I'm going to write some more about this movie, so I make the 10 line minimum. There really isn't more to be said and brevity is important, but IMDb has its minimums, so here goes. Young eager kid finds nascent talent, seeks time with aging, embittered mentor in spite of father's cartoonish homophobia. Aging, embittered mentor turns out to drink a lot and teach very little. conflict arises. While I don't think this is a spoiler, I've added the warning in case someone feels this much information is too much. Mostly, I just found the film boring and pretentious. A waste of my time. I honestly don't understand what little fuss there seems to be, mostly on this web site, about the transcendent quality of this movie. I think it's really worth avoiding. But, as Dennis Miller used to say, "Maybe I'm wrong."

I enjoyed the movie very much, emotionally, intellectually, and visually. It contains no violence or sex or drugs or special effects, and doesn't need them one bit, holding my attention the entire time with the visuals, story, and interspersed words of wisdom. However: [1] some of the foreign language accents made the dialog difficult to hear & understand; [2] there is unnecessary overuse of swearing (especially the F-word, which is the only reason this movie was rated R). [3] The movie is balanced with humor and emotion, but most of the emotion that holds you throughout the film, except the final resolution last minutes, is unpleasant due to the exaggerated long-lasting dysfunctional reaction of some of the characters to loss, living in the depths of bitterness and depression for too long. [4] I will not recommend this movie because of 5-seconds of background narration, which did not add one bit to the side-character it applied to, or the film -- it only turned me off to the movie and stuck in my brain through the whole movie and afterward: the main character's mother of German ancestry, when watching old WWII movies, "secretly roots for the Germans." There would be no "local color" or art if the Nazi's won the war. I don't know of any Germans today except radical skinheads who think the world would be a better place if the Nazi's won WWII.

I wanted so much to enjoy this movie. It moved very slowly and was just boring. If it had been on TV, it would have lasted 15 to 20 minutes, maybe. What happened to the story? A great cast and photographer were working on a faulty foundation. If this is loosely based on the life of the director, why didn't he get someone to see that the writing itself was "loose". Then he directed it at a snail's pace which may have been the source of a few people nodding off during the movie. The music soars, but for a different film, not this one....for soap opera saga possibly. There were times when the dialogue was not understandable when Armin Meuller Stahl was speaking. I was not alone, because I heard a few rumblings about who said what to whom. Why can't Hollywood make better movies? This one had the nugget of a great story, but was just poorly executed.