Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
39 Adventures of Power
66 Afterschool
73 Amreeka
49 Antichrist
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
71 Big Fan
65 Black Dynamite
76 Bliss
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
76 Broken Embraces
70 Bronson
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
60 Collapse
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
53 Dare
50 Defamation
67 Departures
70 Earth Days
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
88 Fantastic Mr. Fox
31 Fix
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
xx From Mexico with Love
28 Gentlemen Broncos
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Horse Boy, The
74 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
26 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
43 Little Traitor, The
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
46 Love Hurts
84 Maid, The
45 Mammoth
75 Messenger, The
55 Missing Person, The
59 More Than a Game
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
48 New York, I Love You
66 No Impact Man
26 Oh My God
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
79 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73 Red Cliff
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
65 Skin
41 Splinterheads
42 Staten Island
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
58 Storm
82 Sun, The
49 Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73 That Evening Sun
61 Trucker
49 Turning Green
83 U2 3D
45 Uncertainty
67 Visual Acoustics
32 War on Kids
67 Way We Get By, The
65 Wedding Song, The
xx White on Rice
59 William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74 Woman in Berlin, A
43 Women in Trouble
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Garden Party

EMAILPRINTRoadside Attractions

Garden Party reviews
31
3.2 User Score:

Generally unfavorable reviews

Based on 10 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 5 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama

Written by: Jason Freeland

Directed by: Jason Freeland

Release Date:
Theatrical: July 11, 2008

Running Time: minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Vinessa Shaw, Tierra Abbott, Christopher Allport, Willa Holland, and Lisa Arturo

Los Feliz, CA - On the sleazier side of Sunset, teenage beauty APRIL has humble ambitions. She’s searching for a way to get by without taking off her clothes—any more than she already has. Sally St. Clair is a realtor whose business has been built upon her sex appeal and secret past. Nathan, has moved to Los Angeles from Nebraska in search of fame as a dancer. Lacking drive and confidence, Nathan finds himself making late night photocopies for Sally and her clients. Todd is one of those prospective clients. A porn addicted artist in search of a way out of a sexless relationship and into an adventure, he’s happy to help Sally get revenge for some past indiscretions. (Roadside Attractions)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

More a collection of character vignettes than a full-blown story, Garden Party nonetheless shows as much promise for its makers as it gives to its characters.

Read Full Review >
50

Variety Peter Debruge

Isn't racy enough to warrant the word of mouth necessary to make pic a sensation with its generation, the way the unrelated disaffected-twentysomething hit "Garden State" was.

Read Full Review >
50

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Whatever else it may accomplish, Garden Party, which is clumsily structured but well acted, with pungently realistic dialogue, puts you in a world without a center in which you can't tell upside down from right-side up.

Read Full Review >
50

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Although competently acted and directed, lacks a fresh point of view and its people lack individuality.

Read Full Review >
42

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Whether or not Garden Party is an accurate portrait of the shadow L.A. culture where the young, pretty and desperate can find quick rent money, this low-budget production never engages with its characters or stories enough to make you care either way.

Read Full Review >
38

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It's familiar stuff if you've sampled the vast body of work devoted to LA-dammerung.

Read Full Review >
33

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Taken together, these stories are a symphony of inconsequentiality, drained of tension and purpose until all that remains is a vague sense of collective ennui.

Read Full Review >
25

Premiere Jenni Miller

The leaden performances (Erik Scott Smith is the worst offender), the unlistenable musical interludes, the amateurish caricatures, and the short stories' lack of overall cohesion make this a garden party you should take a rain check on.

Read Full Review >
20

Village Voice Aaron Hillis

Trivial, commercially calculated ensemble drama (porn! pot! rock music!), which plays like a non-musical "Rent," or a faux-edgy "Shortbus" for kids raised on "American Pie."

Read Full Review >
12

New York Post Kyle Smith

A slow ride to nowhere.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 3.2 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Claudia H. gave it a1:
So a screening of it and it was completely awful, not one redeeming quality. Bad script, acting, and direction.

Bobby G gave it a1:
The 1 point goes to a star-making turn by Jessica Havard, the rest of the cast is unwatchable and the directing is Korine level bad.

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use