New Rose Hotel

Amazon.com

Abel Ferrara's adaptation of William Gibson's cyberpunk story (from the short-story collection Burning Chrome) is quite faithful to the source, which may explain why it bypassed cinemas almost completely to emerge on video. Gibson's story takes place entirely in flashback as its hero shuffles through the events that brought him to the tiny shoebox of a room in the New Rose Hotel, on the run and out of ideas. Ferrara winds up in the same place, but first plays out his story for us to see... sort of. Industrial headhunters Christopher Walken, limping through the movie with a cane and a rumpled white suit like an emaciated Sydney Greenstreet, and Willem Dafoe, his jaded, tired partner, hatch a plan to lure a genetic-sciences genius from one corporation to another for a $100 million payoff. The key to their plan is seductive bar girl and part-time prostitute Asia Argento, a flirting chanteuse with whom Dafoe falls in love. Set in a grimy technological future of generic cosmopolitan cities, the characters wander fluorescent mazes of bland malls, murky bars, and faceless hotels, a Blade Runner future without the spectacle. Apart from brief, blurry video-camera surveillance, the entire operation occurs offscreen, reported through conversations and phone calls, and even Ferrara fans may find the murky, dawdling narrative and cerebral conclusion disappointing. But the tech-noir conspiracy gives way to Ferrara's real story, the collision of the dreamers and the shadowy world they live in. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews:

Horrid mess.......2007-05-29

An unbelievable mess, this incredibly confusing movie makes Ferrara previous "The Blackout" a model of narrative clarity. This shoddy movie is one of the reasons that Ferrara has become more and more a marginal figure (his films are now barely released in the US). The reason why actors of the caliber of Dafoe and Walken starred and produced this movie is beyond me. The only thing that makes this movie worth a look are a few nude scenes from the beautiful Asia Argento.

Not enough Will Gibson movies, but this is a good one........2006-12-11

This is a very good, intelligent B-movie in the science fiction realm- especially if you have ever enjoyed some of William Gibson's stories. Having Wil Dafoe and Asia Argento in this is a very nice bonus, but not the only things that make this film so good. It is this director's raw talent in directing, as seen in all his gritty thrillers, combined with a great SF author and good job by the screen writer. I do not write reviews about romances or comedies, and I wish some others who do not care for a genre would offer the same courtesy. This is an excellent film. I had no trouble following the story, but had read the short story 10 years prior- so was vaguely familiar. Have also read nearly all William Gibson's novels, so very familiar with the concepts which some might find hard to follow.

New Rose Hotel sinks into ridiculously silly bore.......2005-10-26

Christopher Walken (Suicide Kings, King Of New York) wants Asia Argento (Scarlet Diva, Land Of The Dead) to seduced brilliant geneticist so that he can switch firms. Willem Dafoe (The Clearing, Shadow of the Vampire) is Walken's partner and is in deep love with Argento and as we go threw the story it gets really boring and eventually in the process of seducing the guy, Argento goes missing, she vanishes, but where does she go? Dafoe ends up flashing back, remembering, thinking, maybe, was it him that Walken and Argento were messing with or whatever...the flashback segment goes on and on and we are rendered bored watching this poor sap try to puzzle the pieces together and when it comes to the end you dont care about any of the characters. The part where I laughed the most was when Walken was through off to his death...I think he yelled "Wow!" really loud and all I saw was him fall and go splat...even when he gets killed, Walken is still the funny man. Also starring Annabella Sciorra (Jungle Fever, Underworld (1997) and Gretchen Mol (The Thirteenth Floor, Forever Mine), both are barely in this movie and are wasted. Probably one of Abel Ferrara's worst. This was released in 1999 but shot in 1997.

New York Grit goes Cyberpunk (sort of).......2005-04-09

The gritty back-alley path of writer and director Abel Ferrara's career so far seems to be his fervent desire to bring his tales of urban blight and plight to vividly disturbing life on the independent film screen. At times he has succeeded with glorious malignance (King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Funeral) and other times he sinks in the self-indulgent mire of his own philosophical and often violent musings on the contemporary urban habitat (The Addiction, The Blackout, Dangerous Game). With New Rose Hotel, Ferrara attempts to take his vision in a somewhat atypical direction by delving into the world of cyberpunk. He does this by tapping into the resources of cyberpunk forefather William Gibson, adapting New Rose Hotel from Gibson's seminal short story collection, Burning Chrome.

Fox (Ferrara regular Christopher Walken doing his Christopher Walken thing) and X (Willem Dafoe) trade in international espionage. They are going to use an alluring prostitute named Sandii (the enigmatic Asia Argento) to seduce a world-renowned techie, and make sure she convinces him to defect from his present biotech employer to a rival company. For accomplishing this task, the Fox and X will receive 100 million dollars. But while navigating this perilous trail, mistakes are made, people end up dead, and the two men become bounty.

Cyberpunk has been splashed across the movie screens a handful of times for the past several years, often successfully (The Matrix) and often not quite so successfully (Johnny Mnemonic). Of course, Mnemonic was also an adaptation from Burning Chrome, a stupefying and inane translation that reeked of filmmakers who did not have a grasp on Gibson's imagination and intentions, or the cyberpunk genre in general. It seemed they wanted to make a "hip" effects-laden sci-fi film and only managed to alienate Gibson-loyal viewers who rightfully barraged Mnemonic with contempt (Johnny Moronic, anyone?).

Such should not be the fate of the low key New Rose Hotel. No, it is not a great film, it might be classifiable as passable, but overall, an imaginative and fairly absorbing beginning deteriorates into an anti-climatic and pointless final act. Ferrara and co-screenwriter Christ Zois certainly understand cyberpunk and Gibson specifically, but their translation of New Rose Hotel is rambling and muddled. Of course, this can prove a problem whenever anyone is trying to turn a thirteen-page story in a ninety-minute film. A certain amount of freedom for expansion is required. But, with New Rose Hotel, there does not seem to be an expansion on the story (okay, there's dialogue in the film, unlike the story), but rather a staunch, almost literal translation. The events of the film are set in motion in a linear fashion, refashioned from the jagged first person recollections of the short story. This lasts for perhaps the first hour of the film, culminating with Dafoe's character holing up in the New Rose Hotel. Then, Ferrara tells the story... again. But this time he tells it as Gibson wrote it in Burning Chrome, using flashbacks of previously viewed scenes interspersed with X realizing how he blew the deal, grasping his delusions about life and love, and longing for Sandii. This provides no new revelations, and does little to further the film. And this is the point when a degree of tedium sets in and the viewer might very well blurt out, "We know, we know. Been there, done that." This is frustrating because, hell, Ferrara could have made a solid and engaging twenty-minute short film to tell a story he tells twice in ninety minutes.

John Lurie (Down by Law, Oz) and Annabella Sciorra (The Addiction, The Sopranos) make cameo appearances in the beginning, at a murky nightclub, and longtime Ferrara regular Victor Argo appears later in the film. Gretchen Mol (who was also in The Funeral) is peppered throughout, without much to do or say. Her character is pivotal but her role is negligible. Ken Kelsch provides some interesting cinematography, hazy and wobbly, sometimes hallucinatory, and generally providing a futuristic feel. But it is not enough to allay viewer apathy about a story that unravels and comes to a shrug-worthy close.

Cyberpunk is not about cool effects and big guns and slow motion bullets, no matter what viewers took away from the Matrix (a good movie, sure, but not the pinnacle nor the point of cyberpunk). Insofar as fleshed-out characters with truly human qualities and their interactions with technology and futuristic bureaucracy, Ferrara gets it. But his technique, mainly in the writing, unfortunately lacks. Ferrara is always a ballsy and interesting director, for better or worse. For the Ferrara neophyte, the top recommendations would be King of New York and The Funeral. For the Gibson neophyte, start with Burning Chrome, and then move immediately to the all-time cyberpunk classic, the brilliant Neuromancer. And for those familiar with Gibson, the question may be raised, "Is it better than Johnny Mnemonic?" Well, sure, of course. But saying New Rose Hotel is better than Johnny Mnemonic isn't really saying much.

Pff.......2003-12-17

Well,
Everybody seems to hate this movie in almost all regards. I would say that it isn't spectacular, but I think it deserves better than a lot of these people are giving it. I can respect that they think differently of it.
*chuckle*
It's amazing how many people can be wrong.

Many complained that they didn't understand what was going on. Sucks for them, I guess they just aren't very bright I know I watched it, and had no trouble seeing what was going on. I read the book afterward, and thought it was quite a well-done adaptation, though I would have thought that they could have come up with a better william gibson story to do a movie of, considering the brevity of this particular one, and the abundance of other stories out there, many of which are considerably longer.

Average customer rating:
Erotic Thrillers 4-Movie Box (Color Of Night; Crash; New Rose Hotel; Wild Side) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Netherlands ]
Director: David Cronenberg , and Abel Ferrara
Manufacturer: Indies
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Canada | By Country | Art House & International | Genres | DVD | Video
Canada | By Country | Foreign & International | Stores | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000FVW8V8

Product Description

"Netherlands released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. LANGUAGES: English (Dolby Digital 2.0), Dutch (Subtitles), SYNOPSIS: The Box contains 4 movies: Color of Night: Psychologist Bill Capa gives up his practise when he unintentially pushes a patient to commit suicide. In an effort to come to terms with this tragedy he visits an old colleague, Bob Moore, who is subsequently murdered. The quest to catch the killer centres around a group of Moores psychologically disturbed patients, however equally as important is an affair which develops between Capa and the mysterious Rose. Crash: After surviving a brutal car wreck, commercial director James Ballard finds himself slowly drawn to a mysterious subculture of people who have transformed automobile accidents into erotic events. New Rose Hotel: Maas and Hosaka are two large Corporations in the future world. They are fighting to get control over the best minds of the world. The best is Hiroshi and at the moment he is working for the Maas Corporation. Fox has accepted an offer to persuade Hiroshi to go over to the Hosaka Corporation. Sandii is a little Italian girl from Japan and she should be the way to get to Hiroshi. Wild Side: Alex Lee (Anne Heche) is a Long Beach bank executive who moonlights as a $1,500-a-night call girl for financial purposes which takes a turn when one of her clients, Bruno Buckingham (Christopher Walken) is an international money launder/handler who takes an instant liking to Alex... SPECIAL FEATURES: 2-DVD Set, Interactive Menu, "

Charlie Rose with Don Nelson; Ian Schrager; Jim Rogers (December 18, 1995)

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Charlie Rose with Don Nelson; Ian Schrager; Jim Rogers (December 18, 1995)

Manufacturer: Charlie Rose
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Description

First, Don Nelson, head coach of the New York Knicks, talks about being compared to Pat Riley, and about being a member of the Boston Celtics. Then, a conversation with hotel mogul Ian Schrager about cities, trends, and hotels. Finally, investor Jim Rogers, author of Investment Biker and a CNBC commentator, discusses the Japanese economy and why he thinks China represents the economic future of the globe.

Charlie Rose with Maria Bartiromo; Barry Sternlicht (June 19, 2001)

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Charlie Rose with Maria Bartiromo; Barry Sternlicht (June 19, 2001)

Manufacturer: Charlie Rose, Inc.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

General | Educational | Genres | DVD | Video

Business | Special Interests | Genres | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000HBL6N2
Release Date: 2006-08-15

Description

Maria Bartiromo, reporter for CNBC and author of Use the News, talks about her reporting on financial news and the instincts that allow her to keep up in a fast-paced, competitive industry. Then, chairman and CEO of Starwood Hotels, Barry Sternlicht who is behind the new and incredibly successful W hotel chain. He talks about his decision to go into the real estate business and how he was able to transform a fledgling hotel real estate business into an international conglomerate.

New Rose Hotel (Sin Escrupulos) [NTSC/REGION 1 & 4 DVD. Import-Latin America]

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New Rose Hotel (Sin Escrupulos) [NTSC/REGION 1 & 4 DVD. Import-Latin America]
Director: Abel Ferrara
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video

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