In this elliptical ensemble piece, which marks the directorial debut of indie bad boy Harmony Korine, the teens of tornado-scarred Xenia, OH, kill cats, tape their boobies, arm-wrestle, bathe, cross-dress, huff glue, avoid perverts, pay to have sex with retarded girls, lift makeshift dumbbells to the strains of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” fight, cuss, shave their eyebrows, undergo cancer treatment, euthanize senior citizens, and pee on passing cars. A hallucinatory barrage of images and scenarios with little in the way of traditional plot, Gummo has been variously described as a surrealist joke, a visual poem, and a worm’s-eye view of white-trash suffering. –amctv
Harmony Korine (born January 4, 1973) is a US film director and writer. He first appeared in the public’s eye as the author of film director Larry Clark’s debut, Kids, a tale of irresponsible teenagers in New York which garnered rave reviews but was literally unable to be seen by the intended audience due to the NC-17 / unrated rating.
Following the success of that Harmony directed and co-produced Gummo, another unique story loosely based around the premise of aspects of life in Xenia, Ohio, post-tornado (although most of it was not filmed there). Harmony cast himself in the film, which features very unusual / disturbing images (bacon on the walls, deaf people arguing, delinquent children) in a bit part as a shy gay teenager. He also had a cameo in Kids as a clubgoer. His sometimes girlfriend, actress Chloë Sevigny (who first appeared in Kids) was perhaps the most well-known star in an otherwise largely non-actors movie.
Mr. Korine followed this movie with another one… read more
What the fuck did I just watch? I mean it was very good and the imagery was fantastic but like... what the fuck was that?
When the boy in the bunny constume glides on the empty street. A sight to behold...
Say what you will about Harmony Korine's films, but his posters are something else. If his cinematic output can be criticized as formless
Cinema Scope's new front page - the splash page, you might call it - sports a still from Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers and, inside, in the
Written on the occasion of the semi-final round of the Critical 20 game in the forums. Go read review
Gummo; disturbing, depressing, and sometimes confusing but at the end of it , makes you wonder what is the main difference between what we are as a society and what we think we are. It is definetly… read review
Gummo is the first and (besides Julien Donkey-Boy) only of its kind. It’s a film about a certain sub-group of people that many have derogatory names for (poor white trash, hick, etc.). It’s also about… read review
Werner Herzog: What I like about Gummo are the details that one might not notice at first. There’s the scene where the kid in the bathtub drops his chocolate bar into the dirty water and just behind… read review