The Salton Sea (2002)
Directed by D.J. Caruso
After the murder of his beloved wife, a man in search of redemption is set adrift in a world where nothing is as it seems. On his journey, he befriends slacker Jimmy "The Finn", becomes involved in rescuing his neighbor Colette from her own demons, and gets entangled in a web of deceit full of unexpected twists and turns.
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What critics compared The Salton Sea to
While The Number 23 will recall certain films in the minds of well-versed cinefilesBlue Velvet, Angel Heart, Memento, The Salton Sea and Carrey's own Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to name a fewthere's a vibrancy and a robust vibe to it that let it stand alone as something almost singular in the genre.
Caruso isn’t exactly Fassbinder, but much was expected of him after his stellar work on 2002’s “The Salton Sea.” “Eagle Eye” is junk food, but worse, it’s comatose, predictable, and a facsimile of nearly every action film over the last 10 years, down to a multitude of repetitive, zoom-happy car chases.
The director, D.J. Caruso ("Disturbia," "Taking Lives," "The Salton Sea"), working from a screenplay by Dan McDermott, John Glenn, Travis Adam Wright and Hillary Seitz, weaves a tale designed to incite paranoia and anxiety.
Hack director D.J. Caruso ("Disturbia"/"Taking Lives"/"The Salton Sea") takes the Michael Bay route in filming a non-stop action thriller and comes up with the same preposterous big explosion nonsense.
Director D.J. Caruso ("The Salton Sea," "Taking Lives") teamed up with LaBeouf last year for the "Rear Window" rework "Disturbia," a pretty good movie with an overblown last act.
Desperate though I am to see The Salton Sea, a movie which by all accounts is terrific, director D.J. Caruso's past filmography simply doesn't support the notion that he can carry off all of these disconnected ideas individually, or combine them successfully.
In this case we have a hero, Jonathan Rivers (Michael Keaton), who becomes obsessed with listening to the spirit of his late wife, Anna (Chandra West, The Salton Sea), as she natters away in recordings of "white noise" taken from untuned TV sets.
Michael Keaton stars as Jonathan Rivers, a successful architect who loses his second wife, the gorgeous and successful author Anna Rivers (Chandra West, "The Salton Sea" ), to a terrible accident.
Jonathan Rivers (Michael Keaton, "First Daughter") has only just learned that his second wife Anna (Chandra West, "The Salton Sea"), a successful author about to publish her latest book, is expecting their first child when she doesn't return home one night after meeting a girlfriend.
It's in the collision and its aftermath that director D.J. Caruso (The Salton Sea) distances the film from other teen scream fare.
Director D.J. Caruso ("Two for the Money," "Taking Lives," "The Salton Sea") is searching for a mixture of wacky teen skepticism and taught suspense machinations.
Directed by D.J. Caruso, who has yet to deliver on the promise of his noirish 2002 debut, "The Salton Sea," "Disturbia" opens with a horrific collision that kills the young protagonist's father.
What happened to D.J. Caruso, the promising director who debuted with the little-seen The Salton Sea? Sure, his 2002 film shambled through its noirish paces, but its mournful saxophone riffs interwove into an atmospheric narrative fugue.
While director D.J. Caruso (The Salton Sea) has obviously taken elements from Hitchcock’s masterpiece, Disturbia is hardly a remake.
(OK, Caruso's Taking Lives is equally forgettable, but I'm a big fan of The Salton Sea , plus I found Two for the Money to be more entertaining than most folks did.)
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Cinematographer Amir M. Mokri ("The Salton sea," "Taking Lives") provides an edgy, sometimes bordering on hyperrealistic, look to the film.