Sal (2013)

Thanks for the memories!

Redundant and unnecessary.

Fantastic!

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It's evidenced by the number of credits he has per year that James Franco is wearing himself thin. As an actor, I've seen a handful of his films, his recurring "guest part" on "General Hospital" and even his Broadway stint in "Of Mice and Men". For this film about two time Oscar nominated hunk Sal Mineo, I expected so much more, but all I got was a glimpse into his doing regular daily activities, like going to a doctor, a gym, talking to an agent, confiding to a friend about a trick, and planning to move his L.A. play to Broadway, as well as make a movie where a controversial scene about gay rape is in danger of being rewritten. I never once believed that Val Lauren looked anything like Sal Mineo. Sure, he's dark haired and muscular, but he lacks the boyish look that even with a mustache (which Lauren does not have), Sal pretty much kept to the end. His version of Sal is presented as a nice guy, friendly with the cleaning lady, cracking jokes with the neighbors and inviting his gardener to his play. A phone conversation with the unseen Jill Haworth gives a hints but not much more than what you hear him saying to her. So he's a nice guy, all the more tragic for somebody murdered later that night, but this is a film, so where is the plot?The major problem with this film is the camera, often closely held behind two actors in a scene together that makes them completely blurry. Location footage of L.A. is blurred too, as if to hide 2011 in the 1976 setting. I used to know people who lived in the building where Mineo was killed, and there's not one closeup of it. I am sorry to have to report that this look at an icon I really admired is strangely emotionally empty, even if its director was passionate about the subject. A look at Mineo's rise and decline, then his hopes of a great comeback, might have had a larger impact, especially when the inevitable tragedy occurs.

Sal is the depiction of the final 24 hours of 1950's teen idol Sal Mineo.It features Val Lauren in the title role and it was directed by James Franco.Sal Mineo is a talented actor that appeals to teen-agers during the 50's.He was an Academy Award nominee and was known for his roles such as Exodus and two of the three James Dean films,Rebel Without Cause and Giant.Later in his career,he has become open about his homosexuality and tried to find his identity both as an actor and a director.He found positive reviews as bisexual burglar in his stage performance in a play entitled," P.S. Your Cat Is Dead".But one day after returning home from a rehearsal,he was stabbed to death.Lauren did a great job in his portrayal of Mineo.Too bad that we are left basically to only the last 24 hours of his life rather than a portrayal of his life and legacy in Hollywood.Too bad that Sal should have been treated better rather than just featuring his last day on earth where nothing is essentially told except his death in the finale.Overall,a better story could have been told.

I love James Franco & know how talented he is as an actor & now in art as well. I heard he had begun directing so when I saw his movie "SAL" up for viewing I dug right in; not knowing much about Sal Mineo I thought this could be fascinating. Boy was I wrong...and I mean BIG time wrong. This movie looks like something a pack of High-School film club wannabes attempted to make over their Summer break. No make that over their Christmas break.The movies cinematography, if you can call a single light and one very shaky hand-held camera being filmed by some drunk pulled off the street entertainment, was actually boring and just totally substandard. The incessant & tedious closeups of the actors face, nose or eyes while doing some of the most mundane activities like the minutes long scenes of him smoking or driving were simply awful. No art form, no intrigue, no nothing. Any hope for cleverness remained nonexistent.Music & sound were other factors that were flimsily handled as if they really didn't matter because all the closeups of the actors nose meant so much more. The overall flabbiness and lack of tension made this 90 minutes particularly painful. The inconsistent tenor of the sound throughout was choppy and uneven while sounding especially tinny, as if hastily grabbed from some stack of tunes noted from long ago. Were those scratches I heard? Now the acting was particularly amateurish, calling upon memories of plays attempted when we were all of 14, cocky & convinced of our immense talents. I search for descriptives to somehow get across just how terrible this film is and I come up frustrated and empty...kind of like the movie itself. This is no experimental art film folks, it is simply a rotten flick for which you will kick yourself for spending the time and money. MISS IT!

The trouble with close-ups of two men eating lunch and discussing Sal Mineo's upcoming film is that we don't get much more than two men shoveling food in their mouths. I don't know why director Franco was so locked in to the close-up. Or why we get so much footage of Sal Mineo driving through LA in his Chevy Malibu. Without any dialog or view out the window, this is downright boring. The accompanying torch song (Pink Flamingos?) on the sound track was so loud I had to cover my ears. As for period authenticity, someone should have checked the script: in 1976 people did not use the expression, "You're good to go." —- not even the nurse as the health clinic.