Archive for the 'High School' Category

The Tracey Fragments

Published
by
Chalupa
on January 8, 2009
in Based on a book, Based on a novel, Drama, Dysfunctional, Family, High School, Narrated and Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

I must admit I added this to the queue because I saw that Ellen Page was in it.  And by in it, I mean she was once again the leading lady.  The first time I experienced a Page film was with Hard Candy so I was more than eager to see Juno.  She’s quite the amazing actress for her age.  The Tracey Fragments reminded me a lot of Pieces of April.  Both films are about a young girl/woman trying to make it on their own.  They have not so desirable families and are trying to work things out in their lives.  This film was even visually fragmented on screen.  There were often multiple camera shots and angles, of the same scene, being shown all at once.  Some were from different perspectives, some from a different vantage point, others just sped up or down.  It was kind of interesting and kind of hard to take it all in at the same time.  Almost like being visually overstimulated.

The timeline was a bit hard to follow.  I think the multiple camera shots helped with my confusion.  I had never seen something like this persist throughout a whole movie.  This kind of seemed like a gutsy, young director thing to do.  I checked out who did the directing and saw that Bruce McDonald did have 35 other projects to his name before this one.  So he’s definitely not a rookie.  A pretty interesting style.  The saving grace was the ending though.  Eventually everything came together and made a lot more sense.  In the end you realize what was real, what was imagined, and how all the fragments fit together.

This is definitely a sad story.  Tracey’s 9 year old brother has disappeared and she’s trying to find him.  She also happens to be a very unpopular 15 year old in high school.  I’m sure many of us can relate to that…trying to find our way in the world.

I could see a lot of people not being into this movie.  If you start watching it, please stick through to the end.  You won’t be sorry.  It totally redeems itself.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Paranoid Park

Published
by
Chalupa
on March 27, 2008
in Adolescence, Based on a novel, High School and Trains
. 2 Comments

Gus Van Sant is known for making unique and interesting films. I can’t say I’ve seen many of them. Good Will Hunting might have been one of his biggest money making films, but the most recent I’ve seen, and own, would be Elephant, a fictional story based heavily on the Columbine school shootings. Van Sant likes to go for realism. Elephant is the first movie I’ve seen about high school students that were actually played by people of that age and were believable. I feel like some the same methods were used in Paranoid Park.

This film, involving teenagers, is all about a skateboarder named Alex, played by Gabe Nevins. Alex and a friend of his just started going to a park known as Paranoid Park. This is where all the “real” skate boarders come to hang out and skate around. One night, a security guard is found dead on some train tracks next to the park so Detective Richard Lu, played by Daniel Liu, starts canvassing the local schools in an effort to glean any information about the case.

Alex is trying to deal with the knowledge he has about the security guard, his parents getting divorced, and girl friend problems on top of everything else a teenager has to deal with these days. To cope, he pulls out his pencil and paper and tries to release his burdens through writing.

I mentioned Elephant earlier and I found a lot of similarities between the two. There are times when a particular scene is shot multiple times from different angles and following different characters. Classical-sounding music, including Beethoven, is in the soundtrack for both films. Very real-life actors were used to portray characters. Both films also take place in high schools and include teenagers. I’m sure there are some other similarities you’ll notice if you’ve seen both films.

Even though this is another one of those films one might describe as depressing and dark, there is still a lot of beauty to be found in it. I know some people laugh and make fun of the scene in American Beauty when Ricky Fitts shows Jane the most beauty thing he’s ever filmed, but it’s true, you can find beauty and truth in just about any place you look. Sometimes these places are even those weird, independent movies the masses aren’t clamoring to see.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Paranoid Park

Superbad

Published
by
Chalupa
on August 20, 2007
in Comedy, Coming of age, High School, Romance and Teen Movie
. 2 Comments

I finally saw the long awaited and hoped-for Superbad and have to say that I was in no way dissapointed. I think this is by far, the dirtiest teen-genre movie I’ve seen and it wasn’t full of naked co-eds going at it like rabbits. In fact, the only nudity is at the very beginning of a movie when we see a magazine cover. One side note is that when Liz and I saw this, a guy walked in with his 3 or so very young children. We were pretty worried about them being in there, but he got up and ushered his youngtsers out before they were even out of the convenient store (couple minutes in). That made us quite relieved. He must not have realized what the movie was.

As I’ve said before, Judd Apatow is amazing. He didn’t direct this, but he did produce the film along with co-writer and star Seth Rogen and co-writer Evan Goldberg. Like most “cool” Hollywood people, Apatow and Rogen brought in tons of their friends from previous shows and movies. That’s one thing I’ve really enjoyed about Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up - I get to see all my favorite actors and actresses again. One of my favorites was seeing Steve Bannos as the math teacher. He was also the math teacher in Freaks and Geeks. Then there are also the new people brought in like Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Michael Cera, an upcoming comic genius to be reckoned with.

Story - this is probably the best high school portrayal I’ve seen in a long time. This is even better than Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Dazed and Confused. Elephant is another amazing high-school movie, but it’s in a totally different league. One thing I love so much about things Rogen and Apatow are involved in is just the dialog. It’s so real. Yeah it can be rough around the edges and a little “dirty” at times, but it’s how I remember high school. Just the way people act, think and look is so amazingly perfect. I’m continually wowed.

The basic gist of the story is you have three fairly average senior high school students. One of them has just acquired a fake ID with the name ‘McLovin’ and the three friends have promised to buy booze for a popular girl’s party. This sounds pretty average. In fact it sounds way too average. What happens in between the promise and fulfilling it is what makes this a masterpiece. Store robberies, mistaken identities, crazy adult-parties, bar fights and a pair of buddy-cops that could give Hot Fuzz a run for its money and turn this into one of the best movies of the summer.

I know I can’t recommend this to a lot of people just because of the content. They’ll turn it off or walk out just like that responsible father did within the first few minutes or scenes. Even though this movie is pretty dirty, it’s still going in my top three movies of the year. The hard part will be decided which I like the best.

Notes On A Scandal

Published
by
Neville
on February 23, 2007
in Based on a novel, Drama, England and High School
. 0 Comments

What can’t Judi Dench do? She can play the Queen of England with a fierce, jewel-lined-smile in Shakespeare in Love. She can play the rambuctious, sexually free owner of a dying English theater in Mrs. Henderson Presents. And now she’s playing a sexually frustrated and lonely old school teacher (borderline crazy teacher at that) in Notes on a Scandal, another Oscar-nominated performance. So what can’t she do? Really?

Even though Notes on a Scandal feels like raw material for an ABC Sunday Night Special, Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett (also nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category) set this film high abovce that status. Told with conviction, a North-Country-meets-The-Talented-Mr.-Ripley-meets-Psycho-meets-What-Ever-Happened-To-Baby-Jane little schoolhouse drama/thriller that eventually creeps you out and makes you chuckle at Dench’s voice over at the same time. Clearly a great DVD rental, if not somewhat unsettling, this movie’s just one of the many in the long line of 2006 that could be called “good films.” And speaking of 2006. Top ten lists you three????

Half Nelson

Published
by
nathanshorb
on October 11, 2006
in Drama, Drugs, High School and Independent
. 1 Comment

Half Nelson is all the rage in the indie film circuit right now. Remember that hunk in the Notebook? His name is Ryan Gosling, and he’s in this one too, except now he’s a young, hip inner city teacher.

Yes, a movie about an inner city teacher. You’ve seen it before, right? Coolio and Michelle Pfeiffer, or Stand by Me or Stand and Deliver or whatever all those other inspirational movies are titled. This one’s different. Why?

Because this inner city teacher is addicted to crack and cocaine. His life is a mess, and while he still seems to be impacting his students, it’s not the clean, neat, tidy, sweeping success story we’ve come to see too often (which, I’ll be the first to tell you, is quite rare and unrealistic outside of Hollywood).

There is so much to unpack in this movie it is unbelievable. That, I believe, is what is so commendable. The writers and directors successfully intertwined layer upon layer of rich themes to explore. You could watch it over and over and each time discover more to talk about.

The teacher strikes up a friendship with one of his female students (who finds him high and overdosed in the bathroom). So now we have two worlds colliding: a rich young white drug addict trying to tell a poor black teenager to stay away from drug dealers. So not only do we see the contrast of cultures, the awkward explosion that occurs when different worlds intersect, but we also have a hypocrite trying to teach kids, sending mixed signals. (Romans 2:21 “You, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself?”)

The interaction between people is another highlight, a study of relationships. Every scene is a dialogue between two people, the girl and the teacher, the girl and the mom, the girl and the drug dealer, the teacher and the girl, the teacher and his coworkers, the teacher and the drug dealer, the teacher and a woman. It’s a powerful example that what we do impacts others.

What is most striking, though, is the study of change. The teacher tells his classes that history is change; it is two opposing forces pushing against each other until one becomes the majority and stays the majority until the minority pushes back and takes over. It is a gridlock, an arm-wrestling match. And while he relays this to his students, we see his life of addiction spinning wildly out of control. He knows he must change, but this gridlock keeps him from it. (Romans 7:23 “I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.”) The minority force that wants to change cannot take control.

Many people are using a vague ending to draw conclusions that I think are overly optimistic. They are turning it into an inspirational movie filled with hope without a whole lot of ground to do so.

To me, I see a bleak picture of a life filled with addiction. I see the depravity of man, a force so strong that no will of his own can cause change. And at the risk of overspiritualizing things, it points to a need for a different agent of change, one outside of ourselves that is powerful enough to become the majority force. (Romans 7:24,25 8:2 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.)

So anyway. It’s well done, the soundtrack is great, and it ends up being pretty meaningful. I’m recommending it to you.

And Ryan Gosling is a hunk.

Accepted

Published
by
Chalupa
on September 24, 2006
in Based on urban legend, College, Comedy and High School
. 0 Comments

As soon as I saw the trailer and Lewis Black, I knew I needed to see this movie. After finally seeing it, I can’t necessarily call it a high quality film, but I can say it was very entertaining.

The basic plot is there are a couple guys having problems getting into a college after graduating from high school. So to trick/apease their parents, they create their own school. Soon, things get a little bit out of hand and their little rouse turns into a full blown reality. In the end, they are eventually found out and the movie ends with an Animal House style hearing where their legitimacy as a place of higher learning is decided.

I gave this one a 4 stars out of 5, just because I liked it. If you’re a Lewis Black fan, you’ll want to definitely check this one out as you’re sure to get at least a few laughs.

The Heart of the Game

Published
by
nathanshorb
on August 27, 2006
in Documentary, High School and Sport
. 0 Comments

The Heart of the Game is the latest documentary getting rave reviews. I had the privilege to see it last night.

An eccentric college professor decides to start coaching girls basketball at a local high school in Seattle. He has some interesting philosophies and tactics, all of which seem to really work. The school is mostly upper-middle class and white, and in comes a basketball star who is black, from the lower class side of town. The guy coaches this girl, bringing her into her prime, and colleges are knocking on her door already during her sophomore year. There are some twists and turns and drama and court cases and everything. It deals with gender, race, class, urban culture, sports, and more. And all of it is filmed over the course of seven years.

First things first, this documentary is complete and utter luck. For whatever reason, this director decides to start filming this coach. Little did he know little Darnelia Russell would be arriving on the scene shortly, and drama would be coming along with her, and all of it would turn into, seven years later, a real-life happy ending. The chances on capturing this are one in a million. It is truly amazing.

Second things second, this will win the Oscar for best documentary this year. I’ll go ahead and make the prediction now.

But in the end, I was a little disappointed.

The material is there, no doubt about it. The coach is exceptional, unique, inspiring, successful. He’s a great character. The clash of races and classes is there. The shy yet feisty and determined Darnelia is intriguing. Mix it all up with sports, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and you’ve got a recipe for a great documentary.

But there is no denying the fact that whittling 7 years of footage into an hour and a half is an extremely daunting task. Maybe that’s the reason for its downfalls.

I don’t know what exactly it was, but the way it was presented lacked emotion. We were never given a chance to REALLY get to know any of the characters, to become attached to them. We know the coach and his philosophies, but we don’t know him. We watch Darnelia with admiration, but we don’t know her. We see these girls and want them to win, but we aren’t on the bench cheering for them. Maybe it’s the laborious narration, maybe it’s the lack of in-depth material (for the sake of getting through 7 years in a concise manner), but whatever it is, I never got attached to the movie until the last 10 or 15 minutes.

It’s a shame, really, because like I said, the material is there.

(And while it never goes far enough with any of the material, I’m glad it didn’t go too far, dramatizing the issues, exagerrating or exploiting them. The director should be commended for not going in that direction.)

It will get rave reviews because of that material, because it’s simply remarkable that it’s all caught on film, and because of the last 10-15 minutes. And it deserves the rave reviews, probably. It’s definitely worth seeing. But in the end, I know it could have been much more.

Maybe I’m just too tough to please, my standards are too high. Maybe I’m a documentary snob.

Orange County

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 30, 2005
in College, Comedy, Drama, Dysfunctional, Family and High School
. 0 Comments

I would deem this one another Jack Black classic. I loved it. Starring in this movie is Colin Hanks, son of Tom Hanks. We also had a ton of other familiar faces including Catherine O’Hara, Mike White, John Lithgow, Lily Tomlin, Chevy Chase, Olivia Rosewood (Almost Famous), Natasha Melnick (Freaks and Geeks-Cindy Sanders), Shawn Soong (Freaks and Geeks-Stroker), Sarah Hagan (Freaks and Geeks-Millie), Leslie Mann, Jane Adams, Harold Ramis (Ghost Busters), Monica Keena (Undeclared), Lizzy Caplan (Mean Girls) and Kevin Kline.

The basic story line is Shaun wants to go to Stanford but the high school guidance counselor sends in somebody else’s transcript and he gets rejected. A girl at their school has a grandfather on the board so he comes over to meet Shaun but his stoner-loser brother (Jack Black) and his alcoholic mother (Catherine O’Hara) along with his old, crazy step father convince him otherwise. So they then go to crazier and crazier means trying to find somebody to assess this grievous error and get Shaun into the school of his dreams.

If you’re a Jack Black fan, I’d tout this one as a must see. If you’re also just looking for something funny that doesn’t cross the line that much (compared to many other movies of this genre) I’d still say it’s something good to watch.