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Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9780780606999 Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC ISBN: 078060699X Label: New Line Home Video Manufacturer: New Line Home Video Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: New Line Home Video Release Date: September 09, 1997 Running Time: 104 minutes Sales Rank: 9700 Studio: New Line Home Video Theatrical Release Date: September 29, 1991
Amazon.com: Gus Van Sant's often-beautiful 1991 film stars River Phoenix as a narcoleptic, Seattle male prostitute and Keanu Reeves as the rich friend who agrees to help him find his mother. After a solid hour or so of the two traveling on this quest through Idaho and Italy, Van Sant throws a wrench into the works by conjuring a gay version of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I, with Reeves's character as Prince Hal and filmmaker William Richert (who directed Phoenix in the 1988 Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon) as a variation on Falstaff. The experiment is interesting to watch, but you can't help wondering what on earth happened to the movie. Still, the film has a cult status one can't argue with, and Phoenix gives a tragic performance that stays in the memory. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - River & Keanu make a great team - a classic!
I'm a major River Phoenix fan. He was the finest actor of my generation - simple as that. He had that rare ability to make you feel...in every film he did. IMO, this is some of his greatest work. You can almost touch his vunerability - that's how powerful it is. You forget your watching River...he totally becomes his character Mike. And of all the Keanu Reeves movies I've seen, I thought he did some of his best acting here. He and River were a great team. They had done a film before this together and their deep affection for each other and their friendship is clear - it shows through. It may have ... Read More
Rating: - charlotte lmp
This was an independent movie which was visually beautiful but a bit hard for me to understand. It was one of the beautiful River Phoenix's last roles and he was so great in the character, almost too natural and brilliant.
Rating: - A Movie Like No Other That I Never Tire of Watching
I had bought the original version of "My Own Private Idaho" on VHS a number of years ago. (It was probably within a year or two of first seeing it). Essentially, it describes the lives of teens and young adults struggling to survive on the streets of an area (which I, of course, am forgetting now) in Oregon.(More than anything, the focus is on young men who are gay or heterosexual trying to survive as street hustlers, having sex with strangers for money. It's gritty, intriguing-there are numerous characters, many of which have small roles and I didn't recognize them from anything. The two main roles ... Read More
Rating: - Keanu and River's Excellent Adventure
I used to be a film critic for KALX in Berkeley, and I interviewed Gus Van Sant for his movie, Mala Noche. It was a low budget black and white art film based on a semi-autobiographical novel by a writer who was kind of obsessed with young Mexican immigrants. In the interview he told me that the writer visited the set but he made the cast nervous. With edgy material like that, I never expected Gus to break through to the main stream, but Drug Store Cowboy did pretty well, and then he got a chance to make My Own Private Idaho. It still seems like a bit of a fluke that a film like this got made.
... Read More
Rating: - Discovering America - One State at a Time
What a stunning film.
Lush greenery and slow drives across rural America collide with the gritty slime and sensuality of the big city in this epic film that propelled both Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix to cinematic glory. While other reviewers might concentrate on the story, I wanted to point out just how *gorgeous* this film looks on any format. The director had an eye for the environment, to be sure, and his overhead shots (especially the poignant climax) should be lessons in film-making to any aspiring film student.
The breakthrough performance here is by River Phoenix, whose ... Read More
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