Ameriatch One of the best films i have seen

Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Jay Raskin People looking for action and thrills should watch another movie. This is for people looking for character driven movies which bring smiles, rather than laughs. Although obviously low budget, everything in the film was quite professional. All the acting was good and the camera-work was equal to any good television series. Standouts were Vinessa Shaw as real estate Sally St. Claire and Willa Holland as April. I haven't seen either before, but they both presented warm and delightful characters. Richard Gunn as Todd and Erik Smith as Sammy also showed themselves adept at light humor.I hope that Jason Freeland, the writer-director, gets a chance to do more stuff. He handles this material very well. While there's only a touch of nudity in the film, there is a nice subtle erotic vibe to the film with most scenes centering on some aspect of sexuality.

MBunge It's not that Garden Party is badly made, just that it seems like this exact same movie has been made 3 or 4 times a year by 3 or 4 different indy filmmakers for the last 15 years. Is there some book out there that teaches people to write this same script as some sort of screen writing exercise? Is there something in the bottled water shipped into Los Angeles that makes people forget they've done this film over and over and over again? Is there some cursed videotape floating amongst the aspiring fringes of the movie industry where if you watch it, you see a girl climb out of a well and the only way to save your life is to write this same script and get it produced?Garden Party is about a bunch of fairly aimless people in LA whose lives are tangentially connected. Yes, one of them is a kid from the streets trying to break into show business. Yes, another is a gay kid from the Midwest. And yes, there's young girl running away from a broken home. No, there's really not much of a plot or a particular reason to give a crap about anything or anyone involved here. There is a moment about 2/3rds of the way through when things almost get a little interesting. Unfortunately, writer-director Jason Freeland is apparently allergic to drama, undermining and deflating the tension before the moment is halfway over.Our cast of characters includes April (Willa Holland), a young girl running away from a leering stepdad who has to turn to nude modeling for fast money; Sammy (Erik Scott Smith), a talented young musician who rises from homeless to budding pop star so fast and relatively painlessly it might make any real struggling singer/songwriter who watches this movie want to kill themselves; Todd (Richard Gunn), a wealthy artist with nothing better to do than masturbate to internet porn; Nathan (Alex Cendese), a blonde slab of beef whose Hollywood dreams have fizzled; Sally (Vinessa Shaw), a real estate agent who slips her clients marijuana as a sales technique; and Anthony (Patrick Fischler), a low-level pornographer who still quaintly uses an actual camera with film in 2008.The actors all do perfectly fine work. Vinessa Shaw gives the standout performance as a very benign version of a film noir temptress. She's sexy and smart but way too nice to people. The almost interesting part of the story is when Sally lures Todd into a scheme to get naked pictures of her removed from the internet, as if such a thing were possible. If this movie weren't so determined to avoid any sort of excitement, that might have been worth watching. As it is, the film sets up some drama and then completely undercuts any sense of danger or even conflict. Then it does it again, just in case you didn't get the point the first time.Garden Party is well directed and looks okay. The dialog isn't memorable but neither will it make you cringe or facepalm. It's really not a bad movie.The problem is that there've been so many low-budget films about "tangentially connected people in city X" that it's basically become a sub-genre, like torture porn or zombie movies. If you're going to add something to a sub-genre, you need to do something a little different with it. Garden Party never does. There's no reason to avoid this movie, but also no reason to watch this instead of one of the umpteen other versions of the same thing.

BernardoLima Garden Party tells us the story of several individuals, all of them living in L.A.We have a homeless boy musically gifted,a 15 year old girl raised by questionable parents,a young gay men only now figuring out who he is and what he wants in life and a sexy and successful real estate agent with a not so bright past who has a soft spot for losers. This are the main characters. Also part of the story are a rich pervert and a sleazy photographer. What do most of this characters have in common? A dream or a certain ambition but also lack of money...due to this fact they find themselves hanging out with the wrong crowd or doing things they never thought they would.Eventually their paths cross.I really enjoyed this film, maybe it was my fascination for L.A. or my appetite for Indies... I'm not sure but I thought it was great. Very original script and the acting was great,despite most of the cast being somewhat unknown.Willa Holland who's probably the best known actress in this cast gave a subtle performance but she is one to watch. The soundtrack was also very interesting. I loved the film, it felt incredible refreshing and I would definitely recommend this movie regardless of the low rating it has on this website.7.5/10

wryter64 Los Angeles is a city of transplants, every person arriving with a dream that is eventually shown to be an illusion in the harsh light of city's reality. GARDEN PARTY weaves this theme beautifully with an ensemble cast of up-and-comers. The film introduces each character as a classic archetype - the runaway teen, the frustrated artist, the demanding successful boss, the aspiring musician, the dead-end job dreamer - but the film then spends its time delving deep into the personalities behind these stereotypes, revealing them all as individuals as it entangles them in various plots that flirt with destruction but offer redemption. Along the way there is porn, pot, homelessness, backstabbing, tools from the entertainment industry, superficiality, revenge ... and love!As a native Angeleno, what struck me most was how this film captures the mundane, day-to- day existence of Los Angeles with every hint of glamor and Utopian paradise removed from the stark cityscape. What GARDEN PARTY delivers is an accurate and memorable vision of the city of Angels being a landscape of personalities, each with a dream, some with a dark side and most with a sympathetic humanity underneath it all.