Linklater fans, or pretentious types who want to appear avant-garde will suck up to this

| Original Score: C- | Oct 9, 2011

...a disastrously ill-conceived drama...

| Original Score: .5/4 | May 21, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 26, 2005

Pretentious navel-gazing hoo-hah.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 17, 2005

As you may know, this film is directed by Ethan Hawke. Nicely shot, well acted, fine direction, well-organized (for what it is), but short on both impact and message.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 15, 2004

The film apparently takes place in a fantasy world where people in hotel hallways recite poetry in voice-over instead of speaking to each other.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Feb 2, 2003

This is a very ambitious project for a fairly inexperienced filmmaker, but good actors, good poetry and good music help sustain it.

| Original Score: C+ | Jan 9, 2003

A free-for-all of half-baked thoughts, clumsily used visual tricks and self-indulgent actor moments.

Full Review | Original Score: 35/100 | Oct 23, 2002

It's a beautifully accomplished lyrical meditation on a bunch of despondent and vulnerable characters living in the renown Chelsea Hotel ...

| Original Score: A- | Oct 17, 2002

This thing is virtually unwatchable.

Full Review | Sep 17, 2002

Pretension, in its own way, is a form of bravery. For this reason and this reason only -- the power of its own steadfast, hoity-toity convictions -- Chelsea Walls deserves a medal.

| Aug 5, 2002

It is dead on the inside, never quite achieving the movements and emotional solidity the material demands.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 20, 2002

A complete waste of time.

| Original Score: F | Jun 17, 2002

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 15, 2002

Hawke's actors are a talented troupe, and even when things get self-indulgent and fuzzy-headed (and boy, do they!), interesting stuff is going on.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 13, 2002

Movies like this do not grab you by the throat. You have to be receptive.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 7, 2002

Hawke's film, a boring, pretentious waste of nearly two hours, doesn't tell you anything except that the Chelsea Hotel today is populated by whiny, pathetic, starving and untalented artistes.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jun 6, 2002

Were Dylan Thomas alive to witness first-time director Ethan Hawke's strained Chelsea Walls, he might have been tempted to change his landmark poem to, 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Theatre.'

| Original Score: 1/4 | May 24, 2002

A dreary, incoherent, self-indulgent mess of a movie in which a bunch of pompous windbags drone on inanely for two hours...a cacophony of pretentious, meaningless prattle.

| Original Score: F | May 20, 2002

The movie is essentially a series of fleetingly interesting actors' moments.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | May 17, 2002