"Not the art of scholars but of illiterates." (new movie thread)

[diesel_powered]

Yeah and Melle Mel in Beat Street* >>>> Ice-T in Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo but it's still funny to see T back then (wikipedia says he now considers his performance then "whack")

This is true.

[Snarfyguy]

Saw Ponyo last night, the last Miyazaki joint.

It didn't make a lick of sense, but it was beautiful to look at, esp the underwater sequences.

Also recently The Monkees 1969 TV special 33 1/3 Revolutions per Monkee, which I'm still getting my head around...

[G.C.R]

I got a question, I need help for an example on an essay and my mind is a complete fuckin blank. Can any of you think of any films that came out recently, that depict alienated teenage boy(s)/ young men? There should be a million but all I can think of are things like Wonder Boys but thats a bit older than what I'm wanting. Ideally I'm trying to think of a modern James Dean kind of character.

[davy]

Ooh, Igby Goes Down! A personal favorite.

[auto-da-fey]

Ken Park? (or even Wassup Rockers--any Larry Clark film really)

[G.C.R]

Thanks! I could only think of things in the kind of "Superbad" vein, which was way off the mark. Embarrassing, because the point that I was actually trying to make is that there is a proliferation of these types of characters through teen film history, and I couldn't think of any recent ones at all.

[Snarfyguy]

Charlie Bartlett recently took a stab at the teen alienation thing, but it wasn't very good.

Before that, Igby and Rushmore, but that's already ten years ago.

Chumscrubber, Brick and Alpha Dog have elements of this theme, too.

It doesn't seem as popular a subject as it was from the 50s through the 80s for some reason.

[Maaik]

Donnie Darko

[Snarfyguy]

Donnie Darko

Wow, that only came out in 2001. It seems so much longer ago than that, for some reason.

[donblood]

Probably due to eddies in the timestream

[Andrew_TSKS]

"The Wackness"? Ben Kingsley and Josh Peck play a therapist in a midlife crisis and a dude who just graduated from high school, respectively. It came out last year.

[jm]

My assumption about The Wackness was that it was going to be a movie that was (made by and) about people who were nostalgic for a time and place and culture that they were never part of, full of ill-fitting, poorly-executed tropes to the point of nauseating offensiveness.  Apparently, at least according to the people I know who have seen it, I was right.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Actually, I think that's inaccurate inasmuch as I'm pretty sure the guy who made it was nostalgic for a time he did live through, though I doubt he had a job where he sold weed out of an ice cream cart, or that he was banging a really hot girl he'd lusted after throughout high school. I think he was probably selling ice cream and still not getting laid, and the movie is him fulfilling some wishes that didn't come true the first time. Which, of course, pushes some elements of it into exactly what you're talking about, but for different reasons. I still enjoyed it, because I thought parts of it were well done, but I saw it for a second time recently and there were parts that seemed particularly hard to suspend disbelief about--every interaction with the Method Man character in particular.

[hannah]

Actually, I think that's inaccurate inasmuch as I'm pretty sure the guy who made it was nostalgic for a time he did live through, though I doubt he had a job where he sold weed out of an ice cream cart, or that he was banging a really hot girl he'd lusted after throughout high school. I think he was probably selling ice cream and still not getting laid, and the movie is him fulfilling some wishes that didn't come true the first time.

Andrew is correct.

And GCR:

Paranoid Park
Elephant
Napoleon Dynamite (JK!!!! barf)
Lords of Dogtown
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys

[elpollodiablo]

Both those Van Sant movies are like unto poop

[jm]

My take on The Wackness was really more of a reaction to "New York hip-hop culture that didn't exist in the way it was portrayed, but rather as it was co-opted by a later generation" rather than any of the aims of the film itself or the desires of the writer/director's youth.

[hannah]

jm, when I glance at your name I think it says "girl" and I get so confused. So thanks for nothin'!

Now I have to think about the Wackness, don't I? What have I gotten myself into? I don't remember there being much about NYC hip-hop culture per se, just a white Jew nerd-dweeb who listens to Biggie a lot, which is true to my experience of knowing a heck of a lot of white Jew nerd-dweebs in NYC in the mid-nineties. And the movie was in fact made by a white Jew nerd-dweeb, etc. But the movie was pretty stupid and the more I think about it the more I hate it. Ugh.

[davy]

I thought of the Altar Boys movie right after I thought of Igby, but then I couldn't remember if it was about Culkin's character or some other character, or all of them together or what.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Hah, there is NO hip-hop culture in that movie. It's just a dude who likes hip hop listening to the biggest hits of that particular year, which was a really fertile year for mainstream hip hop.

xpost I agree w/hannah except that she hates it way more than I do

[jm]

Yeah, again, I haven't seen it myself, I'm just having a reaction to a combination of a) what I feared it would be "like", and b) the vindication I received when various people (who had been present in New York and who were listening to hip-hop at the time, etc.) who had seen it registered their disgust.

[jm]

jm, when I glance at your name I think it says "girl" and I get so confused. So thanks for nothin'!

Not only am I not girl, I'm not even a girl.

[DCDave]

I liked the Wackness because I thought Ben Kingsley acted the shit out of his (admittedly ridiculous) character.

[G.C.R]

Both those Van Sant movies are like unto films i actually really liked

I don't know why I couldn't think of anything. Last minute essay nerves. I keep reading this and going "of course!" *headslap*

[diesel_powered]

I liked the Wackness because I thought Ben Kingsley acted the shit out of his (admittedly ridiculous) character.

Yeah, that was definitely the high point. Plus, I'll always have a soft spot for white Jew nerd-dweebs who have trouble scoring with hotties because, well, I'd be their goy cousin.

[elpollodiablo]