EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

UK Shaun 'I'm Boo Boo. I'm the bipolar bear..' For some reason this line stuck with me, made me laugh.First impressions are less than favourable. How can I explain it? Slip Stream plays something like:Freeze frame, slow motion, fading from colour to black & white, overlay one frame on top of another, flick back & forth rapidly between frames. The experience feels like an intense eye workout. Who ever edited Slip Stream appears to have had a field day with an editing suite.Needless to day, Slip Stream isn't for everyone. It at least offers an interesting experiment.Slip Stream takes place in Vegas. From time to time, the camera pulls back to reveal the filming of Slip Stream, thus all those behind the scenes (cameraman, director etc) appear in front of the camera. Then there's those moments off set. While all this is going, the thoughts of those involved in the production are revealed in the form of brief cutaways. Needless to say, the line begins to blur. In this sense, it reminded me times of Inland Empire.

DutchRonin This is a movie-festival film I would say. "Movie buffs" will woo Hopkins for his great artistry, while regular people will hate it, or at least won't "get it". In general, I like movies of any kind. I've seen very good and very bad ones. If Hopkins isn't insane then this film is just too artsy for me. Didn't like it at all; the first 20 minutes were chaotic. In the end the story gets some closure, but it's too random or unstructured as a whole in my opinion. On IMDb the genres are comedy, drama, fantasy. Drama and fantasy okay but I didn't even chuckle once. While watching (at increased speed) I found myself doing other things, which implicates the story wasn't very catchy. Would not recommend.

petterspinetta I really love movies, for me is the best form of ART, combining living images, music and words. And this movie is the best i've ever seen, it really accomplish to drag you into it real/surreal worlds of subliming imagery, it uses all the editing techniques and effects, and it make the simplest effects looks great and provoke the exact feeling that Sir Anthony Hopkins wants to. Seeing this movie is a roller-coaster ride with extremely intense feelings of all kind : Horror, Drama, Suspense, Fantasy, etc. I think it comes from a mind suffocated by the complex and stressful lifestyle of a movie superstar. There's no meaning of telling you something about the plot or explaining what this movie is about, especially because everyone has to find his own meaning, i only invite you to dive into the experience of seeing and living an ART MASTERPIECE, and i strongly recommend to see it all alone, in total darkness and with headphones, to really FEEL the experience of the best movie ever made, with the best acting, music and plot.

mstomaso Be forewarned... this entire review is a spoiler. It should probably be read AFTER, you've seen this movie.A Bit Pretentious... Slipstream jams as many postmodern cinematographic clichés as possible into a relatively small package - and throughout the film we are vaguely aware that Director/Writer Hopkins is poking fun as the genre, directing, writing and therefore, indirectly, at himself. This is an art film which seems to parody and pay homage to other art films. Yet Slipstream - if you GET IT - is actually entirely linear. Is this simply modernist gimmickry clothed in postmodern garb, or is it REALLY Hopkins' attempt to make a cinematic joke, as he has said? Is this simply arrogance? Does Hopkins really think that the very serious matters the film involves can be appropriately examined comedically? I do not believe Slipstream is a joke, a bit of arrogance, or a gimmick. But I can not explain Hopkins' attitude toward the film either.Had Hopkins strictly followed a post-modern formula, he would have situated himself more completely within the film's metanarrative. However, he denies us this. The one postmodern trope Hopkins is VERY careful to leave out is reflexive self-examination. For me, this artistic decision was aggravating, and I suspect that it will be similarly annoying to anybody who understands what this film's central theme is really about. However, the film itself IS reflexive and in the most obvious manner possible - an important, and jarring, component of the film is the film (Slipstream) being made within the film (Slipstream), with Hopkins (the actual screenwriter and director) himself playing the screenwriter. I will return to this important detail at the end of my review. Not much of a mystery.... If you have ever intimately known somebody who suffered a severe brain injury, you will understand virtually everything in this film immediately, and you will understand the central plot five minutes after it begins. If you have not, you are more apt to compare the film to better postmodern efforts such as Inland Empire, Elephant Man or postmodernism-influenced pop films such as Memento, The Truman Show, etc. While the comparison is structurally sound, the major difference is that Slipstream is actually about ONE THING - a major brain injury. If you understand Slipstream, these comparisons appear entirely superficial. Rather than creating a feeling or mental state (like Lynch) through impressionism, or playing clever games with chronology, perception, etc, to enhance an otherwise simple set of concepts and stories, Hopkins plays a kind of insider joke which those who have known hemorrhagic stroke victims and other sufferers of major right hemisphere brain injuries will get. Remarkably Accurate.... This film is a REMARKABLY ACCURATE portrayal of the interior life of a man who has had an acute brain injury. The fact that this man is screen-writer whose most recent effort is being mishandled by a production team of absurd stereotypical Hollywood incompetents is, perhaps, the only truly comedic aspect of the film - but it also an allegoric comment on the subject's experience. The only other possible interpretation (and either one works perfectly in the world of severe brain injuries) is that the film (entitled "SlipStream") is nothing more than a red herring created by the brain-damaged screenwriter as he begins to lose his grip on reality and his perceptions (film being an analogy) spin out of control (as does the film being shot within the film). Which brings me to an interpretation which, perhaps, explains the joke Hopkins was attempting to make. Not knowing Hopkins (the person) very well, my reader should understand that this is the only part of this review which is abject speculation. Perhaps Hopkins is reflexively telling us that all of this postmodernism is a result or akin to brain damage (or the societal equivalent). I wouldn't put this level of social criticism past him - the man is certainly brilliant, but, unfortunately, I think we'll never know. And perhaps this is the most postmodern and mysterious aspect of this actually very simple story which has been exploded into a vastly complex thing simply through the method of its telling.