Ask The Dust

The more I think about it the more I'm smitten...
`Ask the Dust' is not a bad movie, not by any means, but I will say that even with it's under two-hour running time it seems a bit long. The fact that this is a slow moving drama of course doesn't help the matter, but what does help is the dedication both Colin and Salma give to their characters. This film is adapted from the critically acclaimed novel by John Fante about an Italian writer Aturo Bandini (Farrell) as he moves to LA in 1932 in pursuit of inspiration for his next short story. As he struggles to find that inspiration he meets a sassy young barmaid Camilla (Hayek) who both tests his patience and his heart strings, for she is everything he wishes he had and yet is trying to escape.

They begin their love affair fighting and they continue fighting throughout most of the film. It's a wonder they stay together, but it's apparent that they see in each other something that makes them happy. Both of them share the similar wanting of acceptance, and neither of them...

I Really Enjoyed it!
This highly enjoyable film is told in a narrated form like a Raymond Chandler story. Collin Farrell plays a young writer named Bandini who recently moved to Los Angeles from Colorado. He lives in a type of boarding house where he can just enter his room through the window and he has the view out of the window of the first palm tree he has ever seen. Donald Sutherland plays his alcoholic neighbor who constantly barges into Bandini's room (it is never locked ) to talk about life and to let Bandini know when he is entertaining the milkman so Bandini can grab some milk from the unwatched milk truck.

Bandini idolizes M L Menckin and aspires to be just like him. He writes stories based on his experiences and submits them to Menckin, hoping that Menckin will publish them. Down to his last nickel, Bandini goes to a bar and orders a cup of coffee from the exotic looking Mexican waitress (Salma Hayak). The coffee comes literally curdled from probably spoiled milk. Bandini uses...

Critics Didn't Love The Film, but Give It A Chance, You Might
I know, the critics didn't love ASK THE DUST. I think I know why. Any film that has a writer as a protagonist, who writes what sounds like amateur prose and falls in love with a woman who seems to have more than a few similarities, at least health wise to the heroines of CAMILLE/LA TRAVIATA isn't going to make too many critics cheer. They've seen it all before and believe it was done better in earlier versions. It's also a bit far fetched to believe that a mediocre at best writer would have a champion in a figure like H. L. Mencken, but it all happens in this film. There is also a character who doesn't add much to the film but is played by a revered veteran, in this case Donald Sutherland. Fail to use a great actor in a proper way and the critics will balk. Of course there are times when clichés on the screen work well on the written page, and people I know who have read the 1939 classic on which the film is based say that the book does work well, but critics didn't seem to...

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