Ask the Dust


Ask the Dust
Set in Los Angeles back in the 1930s, a struggling young writer has arrived with dreams of making it big. However, holed up in his hotel room, he is fast running out of money, and suffering a series case of writer's block. Inspiration arrives in the form of a sexy young waitress, and although they have a love-hate relationship, it soon gets steamy. Things get more complicated when another woman with wedding plans arrives to stake her claim. All the while, they are struggling to survive while dreaming the American dream.

115 minutes.
No persons under 13 (Sex, Nudity).
Drama, Romance, On the art circuit

Not currently showing on the local cinema circuit.

Have I been a bad boy?
Have I been a bad boy?

Credits

Cast
Colin Farrell, Salma Hayek, Donald Sutherland, Eileen Atkins, Idina Menzel, Justin Kirk
Director
Robert Towne
ScreenplayRobert Towne, from the novel by John Fante
MusicRamin Djawadi, Heitor Pereira
CinematographyCaleb Deschanel
EditingRobert K. Lambert
Sound formatsDolby Digital, DTS
Made in2006
Produced byParamount Pictures, Cruise/Wagner Productions, Ascendant Pictures, Capitol Films, Moonlighting Films, Noble House Entertainment Pictures, VIP 3 Medienfonds

Official Site | IMDB page | ScreenIt Report
Trailer: Small | Medium | Large

Film and Publications Board (FPB) Report (SA)

GenreRomantic, drama
LanguageSome
NuditySome
SexMild
ViolenceBrief
PrejudiceNone
BlasphemyNone
Drug abuseNone
CommentsAn adult love story, nothing gratuitous with poignant themes.
These details are supplied by the FPB. If you have a problem with any of the above, please take it up directly with the FPB. Read the Classification Guidelines.

ScreenIt Report (USA)

Sex / Nudity
5
Violence
2
Blood / Gore / Gross
1
Guns / Weapons
0
Profanity
4
Alcohol / Drugs
4
Smoking
5
Disrespectful / Bad Attitude
4
Imitative Behaviour
2
Frightening / Tense Scenes
2
Jump Scenes
0
Tense Family Scenes
2
Music (Scary/Tense)
0
Music (Inappropriate)
0
Topics to talk about
3


Ratings

Scale (Max)20

What the Critics say

Cape Argus / The Star
Diane de Beer quote iconWill likely only gather dust.
1
Cape Times
Kevin Crust quote iconTouch of doomed romanticism.
10
iAfrica.com
Melanie Daly quote icon'Ask The Dust' is a cure for insomnia, nothing else.
5
Mail & Guardian
Shaun de Waal
12
The Citizen
Sabrina Dean quote iconFails to rise above being a somewhat inconsistent romance lacking in purpose.
11
Sunday Times
Barry Ronge quote iconThe cast and director work hard but the film remains inert.
10
24.com
Alistair Fairweather quote iconIt's got passion, ambition, intelligence and even Salma Hayek naked, but Ask the Dust just doesn't work.
5
BBC
Stella Papamichael quote iconLike the desert beyond, the film is arid and airless.
5
Box Office
Annlee Ellingson quote iconDespite acute period detail and gorgeous desert cinematography by Caleb Deschanel from a South African locale, real life doesn't always shape up into a tightly structured script.
5
Chicago Sunday Times
Roger Ebert quote iconAsk the Dust requires an audience with a special love for film noir, with a feeling for the loneliness and misery of the writer, and with an understanding that any woman he meets will be beautiful.
15
eye Weekly
quote iconThe casting of Colin Farrell in Ask the Dust as a sexually inexperienced Italian-American intellectual is inspired in the same way that hiring Tom Cruise to not get laid in Eyes Wide Shut was: he's playing so far against type as to appear alien.
1
ReelViews
James Berardinelli quote iconAt a time when juvenile movies often dominate theaters, this is an adult movie through-and-through, and evidence that there are filmmakers who care about entertaining a more mature audience.
15
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers quote iconThe film, which is literary to a fault, includes an earthquake, but if the earth moves at all, thank Hayek, who gives the tale a smoldering life that finally lifts it from the page.
13
ScreenIt
quote iconAnd by the time the predictable and supposed tear jerker bit finally comes along at the end, you likely won't be emotionally connected or otherwise engaged enough to think about much beyond wondering how this could have been made by the same guy who wrote Chinatown.
8
Metacritic.com
33 critics
12
Rottentomatoes critics
99 critics
10
Rottentomatoes tomatometer
Tomatometer quote iconThough Hayek is luminous, Farrell seems miscast, and the film fails to capture the gritty, lively edginess of the book upon which it's based.
7

What the People say

Internet
1852 Netizens quote iconA film that is more than Farrell's buttocks, but not quite the great classic it aspires to be.
12

Average .. 44%

9




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