Arizona Dream

4.00
    Arizona Dream
    1993

    Synopsis

    An Innuit hunter races his sled home with a fresh-caught halibut. This fish pervades the entire film, in real and imaginary form. Meanwhile, Axel tags fish in New York as a naturalist's gofer. He's happy there, but a messenger arrives to bring him to Arizona for his uncle's wedding. It's a ruse to get Axel into the family business. In Arizona, Axel meets two odd women: vivacious, needy, and plagued by neuroses and familial discord. He gets romantically involved with one, while the other, rich but depressed, plays accordion tunes to a gaggle of pet turtles

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    Cast

    • Johnny DeppAxel Blackmar
    • Jerry LewisLeo Sweetie
    • Faye DunawayElaine Stalker
    • Lili TaylorGrace Stalker
    • Vincent GalloPaul Leger
    • Paulina PorizkovaMillie
    • Michael J. PollardFabian
    • Polly NoonanBetty
    • Tricia Leigh FisherLindy (uncredited)
    • Candyce MasonBlanche

    Recommendations

    • 88

      TV Guide Magazine

      Lewis is only slightly awful, and he and Depp have a nice rapport; Dunaway gives a particularly juicy performance; and Taylor is simply amazing, seemingly able to transform herself physically for every role she plays.
    • 80

      Empire

      Bold and beautiful ideas perfectly realised.
    • 80

      Chicago Reader

      It illustrates the truism that the biggest difference between European and American directors using America as a site for fantasies is that the Europeans are likelier to know what they're doing.
    • 75

      Chicago Sun-Times

      It is goofier than hell - you can't stop watching because nobody in the audience, and possibly nobody on the screen, has any idea what's going to happen next.
    • 75

      San Francisco Chronicle

      Arizona Dream is an inspired, erratic goulash that ignores standard movie- making formulas.
    • 70

      The New York Times

      Arizona Dream is enjoyably adrift, a wildly off-the-wall reverie. It's more than a fish out of water.
    • 70

      Los Angeles Times

      Arizona Dream is the quintessential Nuart movie. It’s a dazzling, daring slice of cockamamie tragicomic Americana envisioned with magic realism by a major, distinctive European filmmaker, the former Yugoslavia’s Emir Kusturica.
    • 70

      Time Out

      A curate's egg with more than its share of longueurs, but its comically surreal viewpoint is infectious.

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