Garden Party (2008)

Pretty Good

Good concept, poorly executed.

Best movie ever!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The teenager April (Willa Holland) arrives in Los Angeles expecting to find a job and she stays at her lesbian cousin's home. Sammy (Erik Scott Smith) is a talented homeless singer, musician and composer that meets a guy that offers an opportunity to him to become a pop star. Nathan (Alex Cendese) is a young gay that has come to Los Angeles expecting to be a dancer but works as secretary of the real state agent Sally St. Claire (Vinessa Shaw). Todd (Richard Gunn) is an artist that neglects his girlfriend and spends most of his time in porn sites. Their lives are entwined when the pornographer Anthony (Patrick Fischler) meets Nathan and April in a bar and he offers two-thousand dollars to take nude pictures of them. Nathan befriends Sammy on the street. Sally hires April to work in her office with Nathan. And Sally dates Todd and finds that there are pictures of her in Internet."Garden Party" is a film with enjoyable but pointless stories in LA. The characters are likable but the neither the characters and nor the situations are well developed. The one-dimensional characters are shallow and the story goes nowhere. My vote is five.Title (Brazil): Not Available

Firstly, If you enjoy generic, safe, and predictable movies, like the ones 'Hollywood' often churn out, then you might not enjoy, or appreciate, this gutsy offering....As we all know, independent movies are rather 'hit and miss', usually because they push the boundaries, regarding the industry standard rules, when it comes to the directing, production and writing.When an independent movie gets it right, it can be overly refreshing and satisfying.The first risk that 'Garden Party' takes, is that it refuses to give the viewers a recognisable lead character to follow. Instead, the first segment of the movie sets up the premise for several diverse characters, separately, each with their own story and subplot. This is dangerous, for any movie, as trying to follow multiple amounts of plots at once can easily become annoying, and result in an overload, causing the viewer to switch off in frustration. Luckily, in this particular case, it works, and the stories, and characters, quickly begin to intertwine and link with each other.We are introduced to a homeless, pretty boy, up and coming pop/rock singer, who remains placid and confused, as his ultra rise to stardom begins out of nowhere, and he starts to attract attention from promoters, beautiful women, and artists. We then have a young, attractive girl, from a questionable upbringing, who is encouraged by some friends, to get into the soft core porn industry. A young man, who has forgotten who he is, due to being on 24 hour duty to his control freak boss, in real estate, and drug pushing. A ruthless, sexy, and manipulative business women, who does anything to get what she wants, with a soft spot for losers, who she can mould and control. Other characters include an obsessive rich pervert, a seedy photographer, and a pot head who with no ambition.The movie runs along, at a fairly fast pace, and you suddenly begin to care about each character and their individual story. Whether it be in a good, or bad way, you are waiting for closure on each characters subplot, which eventually kind of combines into one big plot.Sex, and taboos, play a big part in the movie, but somehow, and strangely, the movie manages to be quite tasteful, and although sex, drugs, booze and porn are frequently mentioned, it manages to be non offensive, with no real smut element. Its realistic.With a mixture of comedy, drama, and passion, this one should keep you entertained throughout.I like this movie because it has the guts to be a bit different. Exploring scenarios that most movies wouldn't touch, and generally going with the flow. This adds excitement, and an unpredictable element for the viewer.Great acting, interesting soundtrack, good writing, and good directing.I would recommend this film to anybody with an open mind - 8/10

Well, it's my first comment here on IMDb, but since this movie only had two comments before mine, one of them rating it perfect and the other one below average, I thought mine would make sense.First of, I really liked the semi slow-flowing pace this film had. It kept me entertained the whole way through, and I was excited to see what happened next.Eash characters little story holds dilemmas, and situations we can understand and relate to. While the storyline isn't heading anywhere in particular, it takes you through a short period of time in the character's life. I like this style, and when this is done well, I find I don't long for a big climaxes, or an ending where everything comes together.Sadly there is a lack of depth in the characters. The stereotype characters work very well, but we aren't allowed to look much further below the surface. The perspective is always from the outside as a spectator, which makes the few reactions and emotions seem pretty superficial and hollow.This movie could have been much more! A bit more manuscript development, and it would have been up there.So all in all: This is not a masterpiece, and not a movie I will remember, but a good hour and a half's entertainment well worth watching.

I liked Crash. I thought the interweaving story lines was subtle enough to not make me second guess any of the writing. The issues dealing with race and class differences was very compelling and brought me to a different level when I left the movie theater.I do not like Garden Party. Here we have yet another film about people living or moving to LA to try and follow their dreams. The problem with stories like this is the subject matter itself. The film has a smart premise, but I simply did not care for any of the characters.That being said, Garden Party is not a total failure. While the story lines that do join together are forced and many times just don't feel genuine in the least bit. But we do have small scenes of character interactions that are quirky, funny, and charming.The movie portrays LA a little differently than people see it as on the outside. Unfortunately for LA, the more real perception of the city isn't very pretty. And when a movie comes along trying to push that specific point, it better do it with some characters we want to care about.In the end, Garden Party is the story of how we struggle to live our lives, and how not everything is golden and happy on the outside. You might connect with some of the terribly stereotyped characters, but in truth the writing doesn't lend itself to a strong character development, the acting as a whole is sub par, and the story simply not believable. I didn't buy into it, but you might.