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

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 20, 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

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

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

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

Hampered -- no, paralyzed -- by a self-indulgent script ... that aims for poetry and ends up sounding like satire.

| Original Score: 1/4 | May 10, 2002

The cinematic equivalent of patronizing a bar favored by pretentious, untalented artistes who enjoy moaning about their cruel fate.

| Original Score: D | May 9, 2002

I liked this film a lot...

Full Review | Apr 29, 2002

I'm not suggesting that you actually see it, unless you're the kind of person who has seen every Wim Wenders film of the '70s.

| Apr 25, 2002

Like the Chelsea's denizens ... Burdette's collage-form scenario tends to over-romanticize the spiritual desolation of the struggling artiste.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 19, 2002

Hawke draws out the best from his large cast in beautifully articulated portrayals that are subtle and so expressive they can sustain the poetic flights in Burdette's dialogue.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 19, 2002

Hawke achieves something special but less than industry-shaking.

Full Review | Apr 19, 2002

Calling it pretentious doesn't do justice to the toxic faux-bohemianism and unearned self-regard that bubble and ooze out of every aspect of Chelsea Walls.

Full Review | Original Score: .5/4 | Apr 19, 2002

If Chelsea Walls builds a mood of boozy poetic disorientation, a crucial ingredient is missing: the scent of genuine artistic genius.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 18, 2002

The ethos of the Chelsea Hotel may shape Hawke's artistic aspirations, but he hasn't yet coordinated his own DV poetry with the Beat he hears in his soul.

| Original Score: C- | Apr 18, 2002

The digital-video results play like a flatulent teenager's first discovery of jazz, cigarettes, and hooch.

Full Review | Apr 16, 2002

Ethan Hawke has always fancied himself the bastard child of the Beatnik generation and it's all over his Chelsea Walls.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 11, 2002