Instant Favorite.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

best movie i've ever seen.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Absolutely crazy movie in a good meaning! He wants to catch a fish, she wants to fly, her daughter wants to become a turtle. They found each other. You just can't describe this movie with words, but maybe with music by Goran Bregovic. Dreams...should they come true? They are so different, but so real. "Two wrong don't make a right". It is just a feast! The movie is spinning, draws the audience into the whirlpool of events, characters & their dreams. There is not one mentally balanced character! Complete madness and it's beautiful. Personally for me all this movie is about dreams. I fell in love with the intro, "if you want to look at someone's soul, you have to look at their dreams". After that it's hard to decide whether you should laugh or cry for the rest of the movie.

If this movie were my dream, I would say that it is absolutely crazy and I wouldn't want to dream this again. Seems like this movie has a lot of story lines and I would like to say that too much. One moment I'm trying to understand one scene, but it's quite difficult because there are more than one story lines in one scene. Everything would be fine if those story lines were very clear, but they weren't. Actually, some scenes seemed silly for me. I love mind blowing movies, but this one... Yes, it is mind blowing, but I can't say that I liked it. I think it is too far from reality. Yes, this movie helped for Johnny Depp, helped to grow up like an actor, helped for his career path, but only he can say why and how, because I can't understand. Axel (Johnny Depp) was very passive character. He kept a close watch on everything. This movie balance between reality and fantasy. Personally, I prefer reality... By the way, some scenes looked unnecessary. Plot is too wide. Of course, this is my opinion. Watch this movie and make your own decision.

Axel is happy with his life in New York, having long since left what remains of his family behind him in Arizona. When his Uncle Leo is getting married, Axel is forced back home by his friend Paul. He finds his Uncle marrying a much younger woman and, while he wishes to leave as soon as he arrives, he finds himself staying around and selling cars with his Uncle – a job he maintains he has to desire to do. It is on the lot that he meets the dysfunctional mother and stepdaughter Elaine and Grace, the former of which he falls for and begins a relationship that evolves into an obsession with building a flying machine. Meanwhile, in stark contrast to his current desert setting, Axel's dreams continue to centre on an Inuit family and a flat fish with its face all on one side.Well over a decade ago now I used to make much more of an effort to get to my local cinema. At that time I lived near an independent art-house style cinema that, while it showed all the big releases on its two screens, it did also give over time to smaller independent films. It was here that I saw Arizona Dream – a film that I then never saw or heard of for another ten or so years until for some reason I remembered it and decided to watch it again. I couldn't remember much about it apart from a few scenes, nor if I had liked it or not so to all intents and purposes I was coming to it fresh. I say this but by the end of the film I had certainly remembered why I could recall specific scenes and my enjoyment of them but had no strong memory of the total film – the reason being that the film is at its best in small chunks but fails to work as a whole.The story is this wonderfully off-the-wall tale of love and dreams that fires out outrageous characters with abandon, allowing for many memorable scenes and quotable lines. It is comic, creative, silly and enjoyable. But it is also a bit tiring. The scenes don't come together as I would have liked and the general air of silliness undermines how much I was able to get emotionally involved and care about where the story was going. That it is almost two and a half hours long only serves to highlight this and it really does feel indulgent and unwilling to give anything up. The fault for this certainly lies with Kusturica as writer and director. He certainly has a creative flair to him, an ear for dialogue and an eye for a shot but his approach fragments the film and he doesn't manage to pull the heart of the viewer along with him. He does get good turns from his cast well, all of whom trusted him and seemed to go wherever he wanted them to go. Depp is wonderful as always, so willing to go with it, so willing to try anything and it pays off by him being good here. Lewis was a surprise to me then and was again on this viewing, he is solid in his character and he has this great presence that holds the attention. Gallo is also good although he is helped by how many of the better scenes he is the focal point in. Dunaway and Taylor both deliver their characters well and it is just a shame that their characters are the more "difficult" ones to like within the film – I think they did well though, I just acknowledge that I struggled with them due to their characters.As with all cult films there will be those that see great beauty in this film and love it beyond all reason. I salute them and I envy them to a point and, while I disagree with them, this does not make them wrong and me right. However to the majority of casual viewers this film will come over as a total curio piece that provides delight and enjoyment in specific scenes but doesn't work as a total film and certainly doesn't have enough to it to justify the overlong running time.

It's weird going from something as dense and epic in scope as director Emir Kusturica's "Underground", to the fairy tale tragic romance of "Arizona Dream". Weirder still is the cast of Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis, Faye Dunaway, Lili Taylor, and Vincent Gallo.The word "dream" comes up at least a dozen times in this movie, characters recounting dreams, or the film seamlessly showing them on screen, and appropriately it begins with a ten minute dream sequence(You only know it's a dream sequence because you're told it is afterwards), of an Eskimo in the snowy wilderness, catching a strange fish with both eyes on the same side, the Eskimo later becomes sick and is nursed back to health by his wife. From there we meet the dreamer Depp, who tags fish in New York, a job he loves because, "Most people think I count fish, but I don't. I look at them. I look at their souls and read their dreams and then I let them into my dreams." Then aspiring actor cousin Vinccent Gallo shows up, and asks Depp to come back to Arizona with him for his Uncle Jerry Lewis's wedding. Depp goes back and accepts a job selling Cadillacs, his uncles dream for them, until he meets an eccentric mother/daughter pair, the suicidal turtle obsessed accordion playing Lili Taylor and her vivacious, flighty, sexually aggressive mother, the latter Depp becomes immediately enamored with. Depp and Dunaway begin a very matter of fact and all consuming relationship (he leaves his job and uncles house and refuses to leave). After hearing of Dunaway's dreams to fly as a young girl, Depp decides and spends most of the movie, attempting to build her a flying machine. Meanwhile, Lili Taylor is sabotaging the machine, and Vincent Gallo is busy practicing his acting chops (his recreation of the crop duster scene from North By Northwest is one of the best all time comedy moments anywhere).All good performances, Gallo and Taylor, outshining the others though. The writing is also really good, mostly voice over by Depp, it definitely has a Jean Piere Jeaunut vibe (all the little details and phrases) "My dad always said that work was like a hat you put on your head. And even if you didn't have pants , you didn't have to walk down the street ashamed of your ass as long as you had a hat... " or " what's the point of breathing if somebody already tells you the difference between an apple and a bicycle? If I bite a bicycle and ride an apple, then I'll know the difference." The latter quote sums of the naiveté of the main character and the flaw that makes the tragedy. Depps relationships are passionate, sincere, but essentially child like, he doesn't know what to name how he fells about Dunaway so it must be "love". While Dunaway and her daughter are more two halves of the same person, stuck in an isolated country house, both with half the maturity and vitality the other needs.For the most part the movie is all comic smiles, and surreal shots of fish flying in the sky at random, but towards the end, the film takes somber tones, as the dream/relationships end.Not as dense and surreal as I had expected, but it does capture accurately the magical sensation of first love, especially with someone significantly older (without stepping on the toes of similar films like Harold And Maud or focusing too heavily on taboo).There were a few moments of emotional disconnect where the characters actions make little if any literal sense (the Russian roulette scene), but do give a greater sense of the contradictory emotions which almost all of the characters deal with, except Gallo, whose clearly just there for fun.Arizona Dream caught me off guard, the political allegory of Underground is replaced here with a very internal story of dreamy sensations, fleeting passions, conflicting dreams, conflicting loves, growing up, and magical fish. It's not great, but I definitely connected for personal reasons. If you liked Amelie, or Emir Kusturica, or any of the actors mentioned it's worth checking out.