Alvin Straight is not the twisted David Lynch character audiences expected… he’s a well-adjusted old Iowan with the same kinds of regrets that most people have. Taken from a true story, Alvin can’t drive and hasn’t much money, but he undertakes an eccentric Odyssey that in different circumstances might get him committed. And there’s the rub — his ‘impossible’ 5 mph trek across Iowa becomes a voyage of affirmation. Lynch is no cheater: we may expect bloody disaster but he instead gives us a statement about common decency and goodwill from his own Midwestern roots. This one movie will lower your blood pressure by 10 points.
The Straight Story
Region Free Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] 61
1999 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 112 min. / Street Date August 25, 2021 / Available from / 39.95au
Starring: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Dan Flannery, Everett McGill, Barbara Robertson, James Cada, Sally Wingert, Kevin P. Farley, John Farley, John Lordan, Russ Reed, Harry Dean Stanton.
The Straight Story
Region Free Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] 61
1999 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 112 min. / Street Date August 25, 2021 / Available from / 39.95au
Starring: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Dan Flannery, Everett McGill, Barbara Robertson, James Cada, Sally Wingert, Kevin P. Farley, John Farley, John Lordan, Russ Reed, Harry Dean Stanton.
- 9/21/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Disney+ is an oddity in the streaming landscape. While it took over pop culture last fall with Baby Yoda and “The Mandalorian,” that blockbuster series was very much the exception for its content model thus far: this is a platform that relies almost entirely on its studio’s back catalogue of classic films. There won’t be another original live-action series of the stature of “The Mandalorian” until, well, “The Mandalorian” Season 2 later this year (assuming its post-production still continues as planned).
As for its classic film titles, Disney+ maintains a family-friendly focus, so many of the company’s more mature titles produced under its Touchstone banner, let alone its 20th Century Fox archive, don’t appear on the service. Even still, Disney+ touted the depth of its content offerings in the leadup to its November 12 launch with an epic Twitter thread of hundreds of beloved (or at least on-brand...
As for its classic film titles, Disney+ maintains a family-friendly focus, so many of the company’s more mature titles produced under its Touchstone banner, let alone its 20th Century Fox archive, don’t appear on the service. Even still, Disney+ touted the depth of its content offerings in the leadup to its November 12 launch with an epic Twitter thread of hundreds of beloved (or at least on-brand...
- 4/4/2020
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
Any parent hoping to watch a David Lynch movie with the whole family is in luck starting in April. Disney+ has announced Lynch’s 1999 Disney movie “The Straight Story” will be available to stream next month, which is exciting news as the movie has been hard to come by in recent years on streaming. “The Straight Story” is available to purchase on YouTube and Amazon, but Disney+ subscribers will be able to stream the biographical drama as part of their membership staring April 3.
“The Straight Story” is an outlier in Lynch’s challenging and experimental filmography, with the majority of his movies only be suitable for adult viewers. Co-written by John Roach and Mary Sweeney, “The Straight Story” tells the true story of Alvin Straight, who made headlines in 1994 for journeying across Iowa and Wisconsin on a lawn mower. The cast includes Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, and regular Lynch collaborator Harry Dean Stanton.
“The Straight Story” is an outlier in Lynch’s challenging and experimental filmography, with the majority of his movies only be suitable for adult viewers. Co-written by John Roach and Mary Sweeney, “The Straight Story” tells the true story of Alvin Straight, who made headlines in 1994 for journeying across Iowa and Wisconsin on a lawn mower. The cast includes Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, and regular Lynch collaborator Harry Dean Stanton.
- 3/18/2020
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Huo Meng graduated from the Communication University of China. Before trying his hand in a long form, he made a short film “Hongguang’s Holiday” (2008), which won the Best Short Film award at the 15th Beijing University Student Film Festival. His other etude, “My Best Friends” (2015), was selected for the 7th Macau International Film Festival. During making “Crossing the Border”, his debut feature, he successfully combined the roles of a director, producer, editor, and a scriptwriter. His movie has been presented in line-ups of several festivals. At Beijing, it received the audience’s award, while at the Pingyao it got laurels for the best director, best actor and was also noticed by the youth jury. Now it is screened during Ulju Mountain Film Festival in Netpac section.
“Crossing The Border” is screening at Ulju Mountain Film Festival 2019
Meng Huo tells a simple story that follows parables’ structure with its modesty and wisdom.
“Crossing The Border” is screening at Ulju Mountain Film Festival 2019
Meng Huo tells a simple story that follows parables’ structure with its modesty and wisdom.
- 9/9/2019
- by Joanna Kończak
- AsianMoviePulse
As sunny as Eraserhead was dark, David Lynch’s The Straight Story tells the tale of Alvin Straight’s (Richard Farnsworth) journey to visit his estranged brother. This being a Lynch film, Alvin makes the cross-country trip on top of a John Deere lawnmower, clocking in at a steady five miles an hour. It’s also a true story (as Mark Twain said, “It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.”) Co-starring Sissy Spacek and Harry Dean Stanton and photographed by Freddie Francis.
- 5/22/2017
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Author: Andy Furlong
The Hatton Garden Job,which is released in cinemas this week,is a film based on a real life robbery that has been called the “largest burglary in English legal history”. A daring heist from an underground safe deposit facility in London that captured the public’s imagination as much due the advanced age of the criminals involved as the brazenness of the crime itself.
With that in mind we take a look at some other films in which the characterisation of the elderly is defined beyond the usual physical limitations and vulnerability associated with senior citizens.
Gran Torino
In many ways Clint Eastwood has been channelling the spirit of a grumpy old man as early as his 40s when he played Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry series. Eastwood, perhaps more than anybody else, has cultivated the persona of the ageing hero for sometime now in films like Unforgiven,...
The Hatton Garden Job,which is released in cinemas this week,is a film based on a real life robbery that has been called the “largest burglary in English legal history”. A daring heist from an underground safe deposit facility in London that captured the public’s imagination as much due the advanced age of the criminals involved as the brazenness of the crime itself.
With that in mind we take a look at some other films in which the characterisation of the elderly is defined beyond the usual physical limitations and vulnerability associated with senior citizens.
Gran Torino
In many ways Clint Eastwood has been channelling the spirit of a grumpy old man as early as his 40s when he played Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry series. Eastwood, perhaps more than anybody else, has cultivated the persona of the ageing hero for sometime now in films like Unforgiven,...
- 4/14/2017
- by Andy Furlong
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
The Conversation is a feature at Sound on Sight bringing together Drew Morton and Landon Palmer in a passionate debate about cinema new and old. For their fourth piece, they will discuss David Lynch’s film The Straight Story (1999).
Drew’s Take
I am in the midst of my 1999 class and I assigned two films I had yet to see from the acclaimed year – the year that Entertainment Weekly claimed to “change movies” – Kimberly Pierce’s Boys Don’t Cry and David Lynch’s The Straight Story. I like doing this as a Professor, because it varies the class and keeps me from getting too settled into a comfort zone. It challenges me to be more spontaneous and in the moment, a zone I typically find stimulating and energizing. Needless to say, the sixteen year old legacy of Lynch’s The Straight Story created a certain predisposition. Having seen all of Lynch’s other films,...
Drew’s Take
I am in the midst of my 1999 class and I assigned two films I had yet to see from the acclaimed year – the year that Entertainment Weekly claimed to “change movies” – Kimberly Pierce’s Boys Don’t Cry and David Lynch’s The Straight Story. I like doing this as a Professor, because it varies the class and keeps me from getting too settled into a comfort zone. It challenges me to be more spontaneous and in the moment, a zone I typically find stimulating and energizing. Needless to say, the sixteen year old legacy of Lynch’s The Straight Story created a certain predisposition. Having seen all of Lynch’s other films,...
- 4/11/2015
- by Landon Palmer
- SoundOnSight
Director David Lynch turns the true story of a geriatric road trip (on a lawnmower) into a gentle parable – and a classic, if unlikely, American road movie
The Straight Story must be the slowest road movie ever made. And that pace is the point. Somewhere along the way, our world got itself in a damn hurry. And maybe more than any great American road movie – counter-culture trip (Easy Rider), burnt-rubber hellride (Natural Born Killers), wistful wine run (Sideways), feminist freedom trail (Thelma & Louise) – it took an old man on a lawnmower to remind us that life's journey should never be rushed.
The first thing in director David Lynch's strange, tender film is a vast night sky winking with stars; but those stars died long ago. All we see now are fading memories, their light reaching us after a one-way trip along the cosmic interstate.
And so it goes for 73-year-old Alvin Straight.
The Straight Story must be the slowest road movie ever made. And that pace is the point. Somewhere along the way, our world got itself in a damn hurry. And maybe more than any great American road movie – counter-culture trip (Easy Rider), burnt-rubber hellride (Natural Born Killers), wistful wine run (Sideways), feminist freedom trail (Thelma & Louise) – it took an old man on a lawnmower to remind us that life's journey should never be rushed.
The first thing in director David Lynch's strange, tender film is a vast night sky winking with stars; but those stars died long ago. All we see now are fading memories, their light reaching us after a one-way trip along the cosmic interstate.
And so it goes for 73-year-old Alvin Straight.
- 4/26/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
How many filmmakers can you think of that have their own verb? “Lynchian” is a part of even the most casual cinephile, though it’s often used erroneously. All too often, anything a little out of the ordinary, with a vague sense of the uncanny, earns the term. Looking back at the man’s filmography, however, it’s clear that there’s much more to Lynch’s work than mere eccentricity, especially given that he’s made films that don’t easily fit into common ideas about what it is for a film or a work of art to even be “Lynchian.” Beyond that, Lynch himself is such a singular presence beyond his films – as a thinker, a writer, and even as a musician – that attempts to Xerox his work are doubly pointless. As it’s David Lynch month here at the site, we decided to poll our writers on their favorite Lynch movies,...
- 3/20/2013
- by Ricky da Conceição
- SoundOnSight
The Straight Story
Written by John Roach & Mary Sweeney
Directed by David Lynch
France/UK/USA, 1999
A film entitled The Straight Story seems like a lie in the bizarre hands of a director like David Lynch, famous for injecting art house storytelling and theater styling into his more mainstream fare. An adaptation of an Iowa farmer’s journey? From Mr. Twin Peaks? Alright, what’s the catch?
The Straight Story’s title is no trick. In fact, it’s about as real as stories get, adapted from the actual 1994 journey of Iowa farmer Alvin Straight. After a less than satisfactory visit to the doctor reminds him of his mortality, Alvin (Richard Farnsworth) decides to set things right. He begins by setting off to Mt Zion, Wisconsin to make amends with his estranged brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton), who’s fallen deathly ill. There’s just a one problem: Alvin has no way of getting there.
Written by John Roach & Mary Sweeney
Directed by David Lynch
France/UK/USA, 1999
A film entitled The Straight Story seems like a lie in the bizarre hands of a director like David Lynch, famous for injecting art house storytelling and theater styling into his more mainstream fare. An adaptation of an Iowa farmer’s journey? From Mr. Twin Peaks? Alright, what’s the catch?
The Straight Story’s title is no trick. In fact, it’s about as real as stories get, adapted from the actual 1994 journey of Iowa farmer Alvin Straight. After a less than satisfactory visit to the doctor reminds him of his mortality, Alvin (Richard Farnsworth) decides to set things right. He begins by setting off to Mt Zion, Wisconsin to make amends with his estranged brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton), who’s fallen deathly ill. There’s just a one problem: Alvin has no way of getting there.
- 3/10/2013
- by David Klein
- SoundOnSight
For his next trick David Lynch changed tack and shifted gears completely to tell the true story of Alvin Straight, a man who travelled across America to visit his estranged and ailing brother…on a lawnmower. The film was made independently based on a screenplay from Lynch’s frequent collaborator Mary Sweeney and even filmed chronologically along the route that Straight took from Iowa to Wisconsin.
After a successful debut at Cannes, the film was picked up by Walt Disney Pictures for distribution. In a case of art imitating life imitating art, Richard Farnsworth who played the title role was stricken with bone cancer during filming and so much of the frailty he exhibits on screen is in fact real. The following year Farnsworth would tragically commit suicide aged 80.
The Straight Story (1999)
At the time, people were puzzled as to Lynch’s decision to direct this film. The film is...
After a successful debut at Cannes, the film was picked up by Walt Disney Pictures for distribution. In a case of art imitating life imitating art, Richard Farnsworth who played the title role was stricken with bone cancer during filming and so much of the frailty he exhibits on screen is in fact real. The following year Farnsworth would tragically commit suicide aged 80.
The Straight Story (1999)
At the time, people were puzzled as to Lynch’s decision to direct this film. The film is...
- 11/23/2012
- by Chris Holt
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Five readers discuss the films they believe have best depicted older people
From 6 July 2012 you'll be able to watch the documentary Ping Pong online exclusively with guardian.co.uk/film. Ping Pong follows eight people with a combined age of 700 as they head to China to compete in the over 80s Table Tennis Championships in Inner Mongolia.
Two of the film's stars, Terry Donlon, 83, and Les D'Arcy, 91, spoke to the Guardian earlier this week. The spirit and competitiveness conveyed by both men indicates how markedly different they are to the clichéd image of old age pensioners that cinema often puts across.
To mark the release of Ping Pong, earlier this week we asked readers to give their thoughts on the films that have done a decent job of representing older people. Below are five of our favourite responses. But what do you think? Which films in your opinion have best portrayed old age?...
From 6 July 2012 you'll be able to watch the documentary Ping Pong online exclusively with guardian.co.uk/film. Ping Pong follows eight people with a combined age of 700 as they head to China to compete in the over 80s Table Tennis Championships in Inner Mongolia.
Two of the film's stars, Terry Donlon, 83, and Les D'Arcy, 91, spoke to the Guardian earlier this week. The spirit and competitiveness conveyed by both men indicates how markedly different they are to the clichéd image of old age pensioners that cinema often puts across.
To mark the release of Ping Pong, earlier this week we asked readers to give their thoughts on the films that have done a decent job of representing older people. Below are five of our favourite responses. But what do you think? Which films in your opinion have best portrayed old age?...
- 7/4/2012
- by Guardian readers
- The Guardian - Film News
Another pleasant surprise -- along with Takeshi Kitano's highly entertaining, gentle "Kikujiro no Natsu" -- David Lynch's "The Straight Story" is a winning change of pace from a talented filmmaker known for darker highs and lows.
Picked up for distribution by Disney before its premiere in competition, "Straight" may leave some long-time Lynch ("Lost Highway") fans cold. But the elegantly simple, perfectly pitched, true story of a 73-year-old man's unspeedy journey to visit his estranged brother has potent commercial appeal and should be one to watch come awards time.
Photographed in classic widescreen style by two-time Oscar-winner Freddie Francis ("Sons and Lovers", "Glory"), the film's storytelling is primarily visual, with most dialogue scenes short and not striving for more than a literal reading of John Roach and Mary Sweeney's sympathetic portrayal of the stubborn lead character. Although it could have been something sillier, the film is warmly humorous rather than grotesquely satirical or surrealistic like Lynch's past takes on ordinary middle-American folk.
As the endless fields begin to yield their bounty in the harvest season, Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) of Lurens, Iowa, receives word that his brother in Wisconsin has suffered a stroke. Alvin, a diabetic, cigar-smoker forced to use two walking canes and a "grabber" (a device that he uses to collect firewood on his trek), is fully aware that his time is running out.
The widowed father of seven, living with his "slow" daughter Rose (Sissy Spacek), who speaks in a halting manner, Alvin longs to recapture the youthful contentment and familial togetherness with brother Lyle Harry Dean Stanton) after a decade of not communicating. Ignoring suggestions to make the trip more conventionally, Alvin constructs a trailer and hooks it to the back of his John Deere lawn mower.
After a false start, the clear-headed and adventuresome "old geezer" takes almost two months to ride 350 miles across the plains and over the Mississippi River, with one major setback and several encounters with memorable three-dimensional characters. There's a deliberate slow pace to the film, with almost no abrupt cuts for comic or dramatic effect. Likewise, the characters are free of eccentricities and the performances are understated but effective.
When he goes to buy a new mower at the outset, Tom the dealer (Everett McGill) is skeptical of Alvin's chances but sells him a 1966 classic with neighborly good cheer. Once he hits the road, Alvin sits around the campfire looking at the stars and gives advice to a runaway girl. On another occasion, he witnesses a distraught woman's despair at colliding with another of the countless deer in her regular, unavoidable route.
In perhaps the most moving scene, when he's momentarily stalled getting repairs, Alvin shares bitterly painful memories about his role in World War II with another veteran, Verlyn (Wiley Harker). Nearing his destination, a priest lets him stay in one of the oldest graveyards in the Midwest. The climax is short after the buildup, but tremendously moving.
In several fine examples of his unique skills, Lynch essentially turns off the soundtrack for muted tableaus that welcome one into the soothing rural milieu. Just as the journey is the thing, the particulars of the story are less important than the reflective, soulful spirit of Alvin, with Farnsworth handily carrying the film in perhaps his finest performance.
THE STRAIGHT STORY
Bunes Vista Pictures Distribution
Walt Disney Pictures
Alain Sarde presents
a Picture Factory, Les Films Alain Sarde
and Le Studio Canal Plus production
Director:David Lynch
Screenwriters:John Roach, Mary Sweeney
Producers:Alain Sarde, Mary Sweeney, Neal Edelstein
Director of photography:Freddie Francis
Production designer:Jack Fisk
Editor:Mary Sweeney
Music:Angelo Badalamenti
Costume designer:Patricia Norris
Cast:
Alvin Straight:Richard Farnsworth
Rose:Sissy Spacek
Lyle:Harry Dean Stanton
Tom:Everett McGill
Verlyn Heller:Wiley Harker
Running time -- 112 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
Picked up for distribution by Disney before its premiere in competition, "Straight" may leave some long-time Lynch ("Lost Highway") fans cold. But the elegantly simple, perfectly pitched, true story of a 73-year-old man's unspeedy journey to visit his estranged brother has potent commercial appeal and should be one to watch come awards time.
Photographed in classic widescreen style by two-time Oscar-winner Freddie Francis ("Sons and Lovers", "Glory"), the film's storytelling is primarily visual, with most dialogue scenes short and not striving for more than a literal reading of John Roach and Mary Sweeney's sympathetic portrayal of the stubborn lead character. Although it could have been something sillier, the film is warmly humorous rather than grotesquely satirical or surrealistic like Lynch's past takes on ordinary middle-American folk.
As the endless fields begin to yield their bounty in the harvest season, Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) of Lurens, Iowa, receives word that his brother in Wisconsin has suffered a stroke. Alvin, a diabetic, cigar-smoker forced to use two walking canes and a "grabber" (a device that he uses to collect firewood on his trek), is fully aware that his time is running out.
The widowed father of seven, living with his "slow" daughter Rose (Sissy Spacek), who speaks in a halting manner, Alvin longs to recapture the youthful contentment and familial togetherness with brother Lyle Harry Dean Stanton) after a decade of not communicating. Ignoring suggestions to make the trip more conventionally, Alvin constructs a trailer and hooks it to the back of his John Deere lawn mower.
After a false start, the clear-headed and adventuresome "old geezer" takes almost two months to ride 350 miles across the plains and over the Mississippi River, with one major setback and several encounters with memorable three-dimensional characters. There's a deliberate slow pace to the film, with almost no abrupt cuts for comic or dramatic effect. Likewise, the characters are free of eccentricities and the performances are understated but effective.
When he goes to buy a new mower at the outset, Tom the dealer (Everett McGill) is skeptical of Alvin's chances but sells him a 1966 classic with neighborly good cheer. Once he hits the road, Alvin sits around the campfire looking at the stars and gives advice to a runaway girl. On another occasion, he witnesses a distraught woman's despair at colliding with another of the countless deer in her regular, unavoidable route.
In perhaps the most moving scene, when he's momentarily stalled getting repairs, Alvin shares bitterly painful memories about his role in World War II with another veteran, Verlyn (Wiley Harker). Nearing his destination, a priest lets him stay in one of the oldest graveyards in the Midwest. The climax is short after the buildup, but tremendously moving.
In several fine examples of his unique skills, Lynch essentially turns off the soundtrack for muted tableaus that welcome one into the soothing rural milieu. Just as the journey is the thing, the particulars of the story are less important than the reflective, soulful spirit of Alvin, with Farnsworth handily carrying the film in perhaps his finest performance.
THE STRAIGHT STORY
Bunes Vista Pictures Distribution
Walt Disney Pictures
Alain Sarde presents
a Picture Factory, Les Films Alain Sarde
and Le Studio Canal Plus production
Director:David Lynch
Screenwriters:John Roach, Mary Sweeney
Producers:Alain Sarde, Mary Sweeney, Neal Edelstein
Director of photography:Freddie Francis
Production designer:Jack Fisk
Editor:Mary Sweeney
Music:Angelo Badalamenti
Costume designer:Patricia Norris
Cast:
Alvin Straight:Richard Farnsworth
Rose:Sissy Spacek
Lyle:Harry Dean Stanton
Tom:Everett McGill
Verlyn Heller:Wiley Harker
Running time -- 112 minutes
MPAA rating: G...
- 5/24/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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