 List Price: $19.98 
Amazon.com essential video: Part coming-of-age chronicle, part road movie, Carny is memorable for Jodie Foster's sexy, intelligent heroine and the pivotal influence of costar, cowriter, and producer Robbie Robertson. As principal songwriter and guitarist in The Band, Robertson had already been accorded the stature of rock auteur by some critics; when director Martin Scorsese captured the musician's laconic sex appeal and deep, mesmerizing speaking voice on celluloid for The Last Waltz, the seed was planted for the Canadian rocker to graduate from documentary to dramatic feature. The lurid, colorful carnival milieu also dovetails with Robertson's Band legacy as songwriter, and his penchant for crafting picaresque story lines with a vivid sense of place. Robertson is Patch, a carny veteran whose de facto partner is the leering, cruel Frankie (Gary Busey), an abusive clown, and the film lingers on the tawdry and menacing world behind the carny's garish public spaces. When the young, self-confident Donna (Foster) shows up and joins the troupe, the bonds between Patch and Frankie are strained. Donna's walk on the wild side brings her in intimate, sometimes dangerous proximity to the freaks and lowlifes that populate this world, which the writers and director Robert Kaylor savor for its atmosphere of outsider surrealism. Foster acquits herself wonderfully, making this a revealing step between the prematurely hardened nymphet of Taxi Driver and the actress's first truly adult roles, soon to follow. Busey and Robertson fare less well, their work long on mannerism but ultimately cryptic to a fault. Like the movie itself, they transmit a cynicism that seems hollow without more real insight into how they came to inhabit this netherworld, and why they can't escape it. --Sam Sutherland Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2006-09-22
Something Wicked This Way Comes
and it is Carny...The nudity and profanity were bad. The people representing the South really put her down and was not fair or accurate. To see our beloved Battle Flag on some low life's truck made matters worse. Southern people are polite, God-fearing, home loving people and should be represented as such. I think everyone in that movie was disabled either mentally or physically. Gary Bussey was the best. Jodie Foster was too preppy for a waitress/carny worker. Robby Robinson was too attractive to play a con man and mumbled his words. The Freaks were the real stars and seem to show high character and were more interesting to watch than the others. Rating: 
Date: 2006-09-10
A world that is gone forever.....I think
I was born the same year as Jodie Foster. I remember seeing her in various commercials, TV shows and movies as I was growing up. She was the unofficial poster child for single parent families and independent, if somewhat dysfunctional children. This film was made just as the 70's were ending and the 80's were starting. I remember these days, the Carnival, what it was like. One could learn a lot on the midway. That when things look too good to be true they were, like the shiny switchblade knife that one could win, "aren't they illegal" I asked, "illegal is a sick bird". I will never know if the knife worked, one could not win it, it was fixed. Freak shows and hoochy coochy dancers, people trying to make a living, or people being exploited? Who could say? Those who knew best decided to clean up the midway, but can anyone tell me if there is less exploitation, cheating, and dirty dealing without the midway? I lost some money but I got an education that saved me more money in the long run, that's gone now and the world is worse for it. By far and away the star of the show is the 17-year young Jodie Foster, the little girl who was in the Disney films had come of age, oh how she came of age! Her dancehall outfit is a classic that will never be repeated, as was the girl/women inside it just like the rest of us, she was growing up. The film is well paced, perfectly cast (they simply took a real carnival and shot there), and all too believable, you don't need to make up characters like Donna, Bozo, Gary Busey in his best role ever and Robbie Robinson as the low level manager who collects money and keeps "rubes" in line with his trusty straight razor, there was a kind of justice there that one does not see anywhere else, another world where different rules apply. A place for the disenfranchised, the ugly and the beautiful, in one unforgettable scene, the "fat Lady" stands alone in the rain, relishing her chance to take an all over shower. Such simple images say so much. Like all classics, it becomes more poignant with age. Of all of Busy's and Fosters films, none were better or more telling then this, and of all the Characters Jodie Foster has played before or since, none is more important, none is better. It's a shame that other of Ms. Fosters films that don't come close to this, Svengali, Blood of Others, etc have been made into DVD, but this gem sits and waits, perhaps it is an irony that the prize we see behind the counter is the one we cannot win. Rating:
Date: 2006-08-16
Atmospheric trip through the fair.
This is a highly atmospheric trip through Carnival life. I wish that the relationship between Frankie and Patch had been fleshed out more to show how they entered their peculiar double-act, but a fascinating double-act it is. Robbie Robertson isn't so much an actor, more he is a tantalising presence - broodingly sexual in contrast with Busey's lecherous attitude. Jodie Foster gave a surprisingly mature performance. I've never seen Taxi Driver, so for me the effect of seeing Donna's Baptism by Fire into Carny life was chilling and powerful. This VHS is let down by the muddy audio - the DVD issue can't come soon enough! But overall, this movie is watchable. It's heartening that Robbie Robertson brought some real knowledge of Carny life from his teens. It's hard not to swoon at him though! Good film. Rating:
Date: 2006-07-03
a delightfully quirky trip off the beaten path
As of July 2006, Carny is not yet available on DVD, but get it when it appears. Foster, Robertson and Busey are fascinating in this little-known gem. And the music includes some incredible stuff. (Some numbers have been cut on commercial tv airings, which is a shame. Pray that the eventual DVD release is complete.) Rating: 
Date: 2003-10-03
Three stars for the three stars
While reviewing some old tapes I was considering getting rid of in a yard sale, I found I was able to run my own little early-Jodie Foster film festival. Well, a mini-festival anyway, since I stumbled on this one and FOXES. And after, reviewing both, I'd have to concur with all those who find her early films quirky, entertaining and intriguing--but flawed as all get-out. CARNY is an atmospheric flick, one that captures the carnival milieu pretty well. The acting is solid, with Jodie as the obvious stand-out. Gary Busey and Robbie Robertson are also quite good, but their roles could use a bit of fleshing out. As could the plot overall. The film meanders along until someone decided to up the ante in the last twenty minutes. The last ditch effort to end the film with a somewhat muted bang pretty much falls flat. Probably, the film would have worked better strictly as the mood piece and character study it started out to be. But CARNY is still well worth your time. As an unromanticized look into the world of traveling carnivals, it's pretty effective. The three stars show a kind of promise that only Jodie Foster actually ever began to realize. Robertson pretty much dropped out of acting after this not inauspicious debut, sad to say. And the effect of Gary Busey's turbulent private life on his career has been fairly well documented. Come to think of it, even Jodie Foster's career hasn't been all it could be--lots of interesting films, not that many great ones. With CARNY, that pattern was already emerging. |
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