1/5 A Complete Disaster
  by Peter Baklava (Charles City, Iowa)
This film is the riposte for "Field of Dreams" oft-quoted line, "Is this Heaven?" "No, it's Iowa."

Now, this film IS called "Iowa", and no it's not heaven, it's pure, sleaze-ridden drug Hell. It's not even up to level of the all-night, drive-in exploitation movies that are lovingly referred to as "grindhouse classics" nowadays. Matt Farnsworth should take the measly proceeds from this embarrassing failure and use them to go to a film school to learn how to direct a movie. The Coen Brothers, Tarentino, and Larry Clark cover some tawdry territory, but they do it in style. And, David Lynch, bless his weirdness, actually made a lovely film about Iowa called "The Straight Story".

Really, I wish I could say something good about this movie, but I can't. The production values, the acting, the plot, the dialogue---every component of the film is simply awful. The musical score? Well, the musical score could be a plus, since it features a number of folksinger Greg Brown's better imitations of Johnny Cash, but the snippets are too short to appreciate, and the audio to the dvd is marred by an annoying "tunnel effect".

The Iowa State Legislature should draft a resolution in the form of a restraining order which prevents Mr. Farnsworth from ever filming in the state again. He's an embarrassment to a state that produced Jean Seberg, Sue Lyon, John Wayne, Cloris Leachman and other film greats.

As for this cow chip of a movie, may it deservedly sink into the great recycling lagoon reserved for total stinkeroos!

4/5 Seems a bit far fetched, but not that far with Tweekers.
  by Concerned One (Clarinda, IA)
This movie is set in rural Iowa (Centerville is shown, but could be any small farming town), and revolves around Esper Harte, a young man who just lost his father, and is set to inherit $200,000, as long as his father's urine is clean. Turns out, Esper's Father is a known "tweeker", and is on parole with a crooked parole officer entangled with Esper's mother in a plan to get the inheritance from him. However, in going through Dad's belongings with his girlfriend Diane, Esper discovers a Jar of Crank, and the degradation trip begins from there.

Being in Iowa myself, and seeing first hand what meth does to people, this far fetched scheme to some people for quick cash, either by murder or manufacturing more drugs is actually a good plan to someone in the thrawls of meth psychosis. These folks can not think strait the longer and more meth someone uses. At first it starts recreational, and it's all down hill from there.

Matt Farnsworth does a great job with his first film, and a nice list of actors such as Rossanna Arquette (Executioner's song, Pulp Fiction), John Savage (The Deer Hunter), and Michael T Weiss (T.V.'s The Pretender). The acting is fair, and with the funding this was likely shot with, reasonable camera and film work. If you liked films like Requiem for A Dream, then this is worth a viewing.



4/5 Meth Cooking, Gun Toting, Tweaking Boobs
  by Ken Douglas (The Coast)
It's plain to see that as a director and as an actor, Matt Farnsworth has quite a future, but jeez this movie about a couple kids who one day happen upon a meth lab, taste the white powder, decide they like it then turn into meth cooking, gun toting, tweaking boobs in a few short weeks is a bit hard to take.

Still, if this was a horror movie with a little different plot line, it would be first rate. Matt should make himself a zombie move or two. Brrr, they'd be good. He's a good writer, too, Matt is, but the story falls down right from the get go when the Rosanna Arquette character is willing to have her son sent away to jail and murdered for a mere two hundred grand. And once the bad probation officer-slash-cop throws said son in the slammer, the last thing he's going to do is rape his girlfriend, who just happens to be the daughter of the guy who decides who gets the above mentioned cash.

That being said, Matt Farnsworth moves his characters through the film in such a way that you can't turn away. On more than one occasion either Vesta or I got up to eject the movie, but before we got to the DVD player something else happened on the screen to keep us watching. So I gotta say kudos to Matt Farnsworth, because though his movie about flawed people is flawed itself, he kept us watching, waiting to see what happens next on the way to it's inevitable conclusion.

Four stars, because as much as much as we wanted to stop watching, we just couldn't, we were hooked. Watch out for Matt Farnsworth and Diane Foster, his female lead in this film. They're going far.

2/5 Tough film, good Iowa scenery, but too much tweaking
  by Steve Kuehl (Ben Lomond, CA)
I had heard loads about this Farnsworth guy playing Iowa years back at Tribeca and getting some awards. Was hoping for some artistic insight into a nasty topic whilst taking place in some scenery waiting to be captured.

I will admit, there were some great geography panoramas, a few nice town square shots and plenty of dilapidation preserves. But the plethora of tweaking episodes and unique camera angles attempting to make the watcher understand tweaking, gets overwhelming. The story revolves around a young couple trying to make a better life for themselves in a small city Iowa setting. Instead of going the right way, they cook meth, share needles, tweak, and then tweak some more. Splice in more forced/rape sex scenes then should be in a film like this, some disgusting flushed baby scenes, meth sex and voila, a film enamored with the fallout of meth usage.

There are obviously important points to take away from this, and it does not belittle the need to raise awareness on this scary epidemic, but it just feels muddled and lost too many times. Decent performances, nice footage, some short DVD extras make for an ok release, but definitely not rewatchable. Some of the cast and crew are making what appears to be a more approachable film this year so I know we will be seeing more of them.