ultimt3 I rarely comment on movies on IMDb but there are a few that I remember for all the wrong reasons. When I see they have a really high star rating I feel compelled to weigh in. I usually agree with IMDb's assessment (with the exception of "bad" horror films which I enjoy). The movie starts out with an interesting premise but it is a bit gratuitous and I would say a bit exploitative of the 13 year old character in this movie. It almost struck me as a film that was written by a pedophile. This movie was depressing and depicted a heck of a lot of depravity and even pedophilia. I love film noir, love gritty grindhouse films and stuff like that. This is VERY different from that. I got itchy watching it and as a parent, I was revolted with the sexual depiction of the young girl in this. I understand reality in films but this was just going too far to be enjoyable in my opinion. I was not entertained.

TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews 13-year-old Aviva is awkward and sensitive. And she wants a baby. She meets(and yes, has intercourse with) a couple of potential fathers, runs away from home and is at one point with a family of fanatical Christians where most of the members are children who were abandoned because of a disability they have... and this portion is the creepiest and most disturbing thing I've ever seen(and you feel trapped there). Solondz divides audiences yet again. This has been called provocative, smart, artsy, disgusting and honest, and I think it is all of the above. No, the man is not "well", mentally. The line between genius and madman is thin, if there is one. While this doesn't mean that we should accept everything that is offensive, I do think that this one offers enough insight and poses important questions. Sometimes you have to break the rules, go against taboo, to point something out. If there isn't a message, or it is a purely destructive one, we can discard the work as "wrong". This confronts abortion from several angles, with the usual black, frank approach and existentialism of the writer/director. The story's structure is a palindrome, and several of the names are... because we never really change. We are what we are, and the fundamentals of that remain the same. There are a handful of different people portraying our lead, including a boy(not unlike I'm Not There). This is to show her emotional state at the time, and all we ever see of others are projections, anyway, we never truly see the entire person. Every single role in this is perfectly cast, and the acting is utterly amazing by them all. This arguably makes the point that women want kids, and men want sex. Every character is well-developed, credible and a real human being. We may like them or hate them; we can't help but respond to them. This has few cuts and many long takes. The camera moves if it should, and otherwise not. This is funny at times. The theme song is haunting. There is a lot of pedophilia, a little strong language and brief, bloodless violence in this. The DVD comes with a trailer for this. I recommend this to anyone with a sufficiently open mind to appreciate this. Not for everyone, and not meant to be. 7/10

frankenbenz http://eattheblinds.blogspot.comIf a director's films are a window into their soul, then Todd Solondz would have to be described as one miserable son-of-a-bitch. In 2004, the king of all things ugly dropped Palindromes like a fetid coil onto masochistic audiences hungry for more of Solondz's patented abuse. This attempt to make people squirm in their seats and twitch with uncomfortable laughter topples the crowd pleasing topic of abortion and seasons it with one of Solondz favorite topics - pedophilia. Solondz mined pedophilia for controversy in 1998's Happiness, and in Palindromes he revisits the taboo topic crafting a handful of truly offensive, but darkly humorous scenes. Solondz has been justly criticized for exploiting controversy in attempt to provoke audiences and while the reaction to his films has always been divided, love him or hate him, he has to be respected for being so utterly disrespectful. The humor might be tasteless and suffocatingly dark, but in addition to being funny it is, at times, poignant as well. After murdering an abortion doctor, one of Palindromes' characters bangs his head against a motel room wall and asks aloud: "how many times can I be born again?" The absurdity and silliness of Christian hypocrisy is a subject that flies under the radar far too often and if it takes a sorry S.O.B. like Solondz to make a joke of it, then so be it.

downstairs_roro Let's get one thing perfectly straight before continuing in what is about to be a well-balanced and thorough beating-about-the-brow of this movie: There is literally *no* reason for anyone to watch this mess. It has been mentioned that the director, Todd Solondz, spent his *entire life's savings* to create this film, because no studio would back it. And why wouldn't those awful, money grubbing, corrupt SOBs back it?Why, because "Palindromes" is utter, festering drivel. Quite truly, its one redeeming quality is that it ends.Let us forget the fact that the main character is bewilderingly played by eight different actresses, that the cinematography is a step below what you'd expect to find on Youtube, and that the entire plot basically takes the audience on a snore-inducing non-adventure. What truly drives me to hate this movie is that not one single cast member can muster up the ability to actually act. I felt like I was watching cardboard cutouts with dumbstruck little faces scrawled on them.If there was ever supposed to be a deeper meaning to this rubbish, it was lost somewhere between Solondz's inner thoughts and what he actually ended up producing. There are people moving, talking, partaking in awkward sex scenes, and being shot to death, but when it's all said and done, there is truly nothing to be gleaned from this movie save for the ice-cold assurance that you just wasted an hour and forty minutes of your life.