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Posts Tagged ‘teen’

The Runaways

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

I seem to be alone on this, but it’s not been a good 5 years for Dakota Fanning fans. After the kinda-sorta farewell to her true “child” performances in the wonderful Dreamer, the killer War of the Worlds, and the kinda heartbreaking Charlotte’s Web it was then a long wait for the release of the ultimately disappointing Hounddog and mediocre The Secret Life of Bees. True Fragments and Push were good, and she was good in them, but they weren’t exactly “her” movies.

Then she signed up for the sequels to Twilight (review of New Moon to follow shortly – preview, to be honest, marginally better than the first…). She did the “all growed up” photo shoots that all young actors and singers seem to have to do now. And here we have her big “I’m not a kid anymore!” role, playing second fiddle to an actress far beneath her. Luckily, the disappointment ends right there.

I will give Kristen Stewart this: she’s way easier to watch in this than she is in the Twilight saga or, god forbid, when being interviewed or presenting awards as if on Ritalin in real life. But I remain entirely unconvinced of why people think she can act in anything she’s done since Panic Room, and it’s even a long step down from Catch that Kid in my opinion to anything she’s done in the past few years.

Dakota, however, thank goodness still has it. I knew little about the band The Runaways and Cherie Currie but I’d seen the wonderful costume/make-up job they’d done on everyone in this movie in promo pictures etc and was excited to see what looked to be a pretty authentic Seventies biopic. On the whole, it is fairly standard stuff… kinda The Doors-lite with young girls. There’s a scene where we witness the flash-writing of the hit “Cherry Bomb” in a garage that almost exactly mirrors the “Light My Fire” scene in Oliver Stone’s movie. There’s a whole underline of drugs and a final parting of the ways etc… it’s very standard stuff but Dakota rises above it. I actually watched Cherie Currie in Foxes the day after and was even more amazed by how much she nailed the real Currie (I need to update that review some day, btw, I liked it a lot more a second time around…) I’d probably watch this movie again just for her. It’s not her best by far but it really shows that even without the “precocious child” thing, she can still seriously command the screen, and I can’t wait to see what she does once Twilight is out of the way and she no longer feels the need to “prove” she’s not a kid anymore…

Tags: biography, cuties, drugs, music, rock, teen
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Twilight [2008]

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

Where to begin on this but exactly where I imagined/feared I’d begin prior to seeing it. Simply, do yourselves a favour and if you must see this, you must see Let the Right One In first – it’s like as imperative as seeing [Rec] before Quarantine. Even if you’re a young teenager, this is my advice and just about all I ultimately have to say about Twilight, which I frankly found even more of a joke than I ever could have imagined … it coming from one of my favourite directors Catherine Hardwicke, I’d honestly thought I’d be pleasantly surprised.

Look How Moody We Are!

But this isn’t just a lesser vampire movie than that Swedish masterpiece. I find it honestly painful to think of anything it is. I struggle to imagine how it is in book form, so devoid is it of any kind of event. A vampire rescues a girl from an out of control car outside school, it takes her an hour screen time to figure out what he is, and for the last 50 minutes they run around looking moody like an Evanescence video. Though it entirely looks as pretty as a Catherine Hardwicke movie, I’m glad to hear she’s not going to waste her time on the sequels. This lacks any of the teen commentary of Thirteen, all the adolescent rush of Lords of Dogtown, and the ethereal (may I say supernatural?) sense of The Nativity Story. It’s literally just two hours of teen angst in the worst, and most passive way. It saddens me beyond words that this is the new height of teen culture. Thank God for HSM3, there’s no wonder they need that too.

Tags: high school, romance, teen, vampires
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Prom Night [2008]

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

I’ve seen the original Prom Night but once – actually relatively recently, it was one of those movies that when I finally sat down to watch I felt like kind of a traitor to my film-loving reputation. It’s not a movie I’d rush to see again, but I know this: it had atmosphere, whereas this version is so full of commonly beautiful blondes and fratboys so shiny you could shatter it with the tap of a toffee hammer. There’s just nothing to speak of here – it’s as background-watchable-missable as this year’s remake of April Fool’s Day saddled with the baffling fact that someone thought it worthy of the big screen. It’s stuff like this that makes me realise no matter how bad I think I waste my time sometimes, there are always people out there doing worse with theirs.

Tags: horror, remake, teen
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April Fool’s Day [2008]

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

Well, I feel privileged, because the one thing that could ever hope to make this movie part watchable is perhaps watching it on the exact day it takes place, that is, April Fool’s Day 2008 lol. If you haven’t seen the original production that this is a remake of, then it’s possible you might get the one-hit kick off it that I seem to remember I might have as an impressionable 11 year old or whatever age I was when I snook a watch of it with my brother many years ago. On the other hand if you have seen the original, then you know how it’s probably the most pointless and stupid cheat of a horror movie ever made, no matter what its cheese value may be.

I’d been misled into thinking this remake had made big changes in the ending and as soon as I got wind of this, clicking around the ‘net as the movie began, I immediately stopped browsing for fear of spoiling the surprise. Unfortunately, aside from an admittedly hilarious genuine jolt, there’s really no change here. It takes a full 38 minutes to really get going – the pacing is way off, everything up the the graveside scene could and should be covered in 20 minutes max – once it’s in the zone, it works as a direct-to-video slasher I guess, but what kind of praise is that? It has a very tacky plastic 90210 shiny TV people feel to it which is strangely appropriate.

I’m a sucker for event-relevant viewing options and coupled with that one little shocker at the end I can’t entirely dismiss it … but, meh, I’ll be going to the ’86 production on this day in the future …

Tags: horror, prank, revenge, slasher, teen
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Carrie [1976]

Monday, October 29th, 2007

The most tragically beautiful horror movie ever made? I think so. That said, I find the more I watch it, the less it even feels like a horror movie and more like the saddest, most painful high school movie that just happens to be punctuated by blood and the supernatural. The only part that always really chills me is Piper Laurie’s eerily joyous performance, and the piano theme that plays at the White house (currently on the playlist on my front page radio thing), most particularly when Carrie falls down the stairs. That music cue just feels completely like death – or rather, the draining of life.

Piper Laurie and Sissy Spacek were deservedly (if bizarrely – would it happen today, one wonders?) nominated for Oscars for their roles. I’m always just as taken by other performances, though: Amy Irving and Betty Buckley are particularly noteworthy. I love the way Buckley imbues Miss Collins with this real bug up her ass – I forget if her backstory is detailed in the novel, and I know she tells the story toward the end about taking the leader of the basketball team to her prom but I’m always torn between whether she was the Sue Snell of her time – a reluctant “popular girl” who sympathised with the Carrie Whites – or even worse the Carrie White of her time. There’s a real sense of triumph as she watches Carrie crowned as prom queen; of hope when she talks to Carrie about Tommy’s invitation; an instant confrontational attitude when she talks to the “popular” girls; instant doubt when asking Tommy and Sue about the illfated invitation. Intended or not, she does the all-grown-up bullied girl very well.

Then there’s the music. Pino Donaggio’s themes (far-too-obvious Psycho references notwithstanding, lol) – in addition to the two beautiful songs at the prom (“I Never Dreamed Someone Like You Could Love Someone Like Me” probably the best love song ever) are almost if not more than half the movie for me here. They carry you with Carrie to the depths with her mother at home and the horror of school to the tentative acceptance of the dream of having that final prom dance – and then the nightmare aftermath of even that seemingly impervious dream being shattered like all the rest.

BTW, the DVD of this is much better than I originally thought whenever it first came out. There are no commentaries or anything and the features list reads like just a bunch of promotional featurettes – but the “Acting Carrie” thing combined with “Visualising Carrie: From Words to Images” is really more like a decent behind-the-scenes documentary. Unfortunately it doesn’t actually contain the screentests they talk about … but it’s still really good hearing from most of the cast members years later.

Tags: high school, horror, nudity, Seventies, soundtrack, teen, top 250
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Bratz

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

“These are the jokes, people!”

Oh the warning bells. 2.35:1? Comic sans opening credits? Yes – Comic sans opening credits ROFL! No wait. I’m gonna say it again. Comic Sans opening credits. LOL!

I wanted this to be, like, the new Josie and the Pussycats or something. I’ve said it before, that I have no problem whatsoever with the Bratz brand – I love all those products and if I had the money I’d probably have a room full of them. There are far worse things going on in children’s lives and it angers me when people waste time whining about a toy as though each doll not only contains a mine of crack in its big bubble head but also somehow doubles as some kind of infant dildo. For the first time in this review: they’re not that bad.

At the same time, however, I also think it could’ve been incredible for them to use this movie to make a really scathing statement about the materialism, the beauty worship, y’know, stuff like that. That combined with Paula Abdul doing all the stuff she was originally meant to be doing on the movie could’ve resulted in a new masterpiece of bubblegum.

All that said, I also kind of dreaded it being such a wonderful thing – I love being honest, but I really didn’t want to be the person who followed a one-star review of one of the biggest, most popular movies of the year with a five star review of, erm, *Bratz*, lol. So I guess this movie made me happy by being … not quite that good? But, erm … I have to be honest, and it reached a point where I just started laughing and smiling and couldn’t stop … and I actually quite liked it. In fact the only part I’d agree is close to worthy of the IMDb bottom 100 is the point when they realise, “ooh, Bratz! good name” lol. But by then I was pretty much ready to forgive anything (even, incidentally, that the end credits are also in Comic Sans lol, and actually contain the words “Apple Computers” in that font ).

Ultimately, it is basically the High School Musical movies (particularly number 2) without the diagetic songs (till the end, I guess, but even then they’re just concert numbers and music videos). As such, I really don’t think it’s deserving of the hate that’s been levelled at it, in same way I think the hate for the dolls is a little overcooked. There’s nary a nod to the existence of sex (though there’s one line that really jars when a jock suggests “We could do a lab experiment – without the bunsen burner, y’know what I’m saying?”) and the meanest putdown is “Delete my number from your cellphone!” (that’s the moment you can actually pinpoint where the movie becomes so bad it’s good, lol – my face creased up so bad I worried it might stay that way, lol).

It doesn’t surprise me that very young kids love it. The tiny sister of the “mean” girl is like their representative in this world and she comes out of the movie looking like she controls everything. In particular for non-American kids, I think it has that “ohmygosh, American highschool is so cool” thing about it that I remember being so taken with by shows like “Saved by the Bell” back in the yonder. It’s also very colourful – blindingly so, with barely a second passing without a cut or something new and shiny entering the frame. There’s even a food fight. It really does check all the boxes, I think. It’s certainly hard to get bored here, though you might get slightly annoyed.

For the second time … it’s really not so bad – I found it far less offensive than certain other recent movies and there’s definitely a tweenage girl in me somewhere that was really fooled by the colour and the pretty people etc – and I didn’t spend the whole movie thinking, “umm – these aren’t Bratz,” like I thought I would, lol. In actual fact, I’m kind of surprised it isn’t already a cult movie to some degree. I don’t know, maybe it is.

I say, definitely double bill with Josie and the Pussycats. Add Sleepover for good measure. As a teen movie it doesn’t touch Heathers and Mean Girls and the John Hughes classics – but I’ve gotta say, this is one of those cases where I just feel I have to say, for the third time: it’s not that bad. There’s none of the scathing satire that could’ve been – but there is some semblance of a message that will be good for kids and even teens to hear. I have to say, though, 2.35:1 was kinda asking for dissent in the viewership, lol.

Hey, nominate it for Razzies at my pleasure – it certainly deserves to win something lol. I’d personally put it up for costume and Jon Voight (who is as surprising as I found Michael Ironside last night in Guncrazy) in the real awards, though.

Altogether … B.F.F!

(btw, yes, I’ve still rated it higher than that other movie … I promise, it’s a low 3 …)

Tags: cheese, cuties, doll, high school, teen
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Guncrazy

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

I am not having a good movie week, lol. But at least this one makes me feel better for any upset caused by my Pirates 3 review. Because this is a Drew Barrymore movie, which is usually worth about 2 stars by default before I even push play. But wow – this one is embarrassingly, cringingly bad, and it only gets worse as it runs. The set-up begins with penpals …

Yes, yes. Guns bad. But if you’re a sexy young movie star, you look mighty sexier holding one. I love how many of these old “just say no” type movies actually end up making the bad no-no thing look unbelievably, irresistibly, cool, lol. Drew Barrymore is always great to look at, but this is one of those movies from the time where you find yourself watching her very basic, any teen will do, style of acting, and thinking: how the hell did she ever get as good as she is now? lol. It doesn’t help that it’s yet another one of her “Amy Fisher” type roles – like, again … how did she ever escape that typecasting, it seemed like an indelible curse.

Personally, I’d rather watch any given other Drew movie – literally, I think any of them – the old movie of the same title from the 50s (no relation in story – they put a space in between the words too, presumably because it was the 50s and they were cool enough without spelling aids – I think it was called “Deadly is the Female” in some places), and that episode from “Blossom” that dealt with guns and teens (if I remember correctly, lol: I could’ve dreamt it, I don’t know, but it was very good I think).

Is there anything I liked except for the aesthetics of Drew? Well I loved the credit at the beginning, “And Michael Ironside as Mr. Kincaid” LOL … sorry, I have no idea why that makes me laugh so much, it just seems so much like the early-90s in a nutshell somehow to me or something. Billy Drago’s quite fantastically scary as the fire and brimstone preacher who makes the genius decision of marrying Drew, his ward, to an ex-con, even 2 minutes after berating them for laying together half-naked outside surrounded by guns.

But the moment this dangerous couple’s reign of terror begins, it becomes one of the most unintentionally funny movies I have ever seen – from the double accidental shooting that starts the whole thing, to a cop-killing, to the crashing into the mailbox to avoid the essential doggy, to their abysmal bar robbery (“That’s my whole paycheck! If you take that, I won’t be able to eat, pay rent …” “I can’t take the money, Howard!” “Well don’t use my name!” ROFL), and the OH-so-subtle foreshadowing of the line, “Cross my heart and hope to die!” … I don’t think I’ve ever shaken my head in disbelief so much at a movie, lol.

But Ironside is good – in fact, really good in a role quite far removed ultimately from his usual hardness – Drago is good, Barrymore is cute enough, and there’s at least one really nice shot, a POV of a victim being buried, through which we witness one of the couple’s romantic interludes. But none of this brings it even close even to the usual default Drewsome twosome of stars. And I’m not just being nice to the Pirates. This one really sucks too. It’s frankly amazing things like True Romance and Natural Born Killers ever got made with stuff like this leading the way, lol. This movie actually made me want to shoot something.

Tags: cuties, guns, Nineties, teen
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Fucking Åmål (aka Show Me Love)

Wednesday, August 17th, 2005

I guess I’m watching this now to try and get the foul taste of Moodysson’s latest Hole in My Heart out of my mind. This one has a happy ending, I recall, it will therefore make me happy. Weird thing is, coming back to it after Hole and the similarly shattering Lilya 4-Ever, in addition to the very disturbing short movie, “Talk,” included as an extra on this new Region 2 DVD (annoyingly only available in the Lukas Moodysson box set), I couldn’t help focusing in on the more negative aspects of this movie now. Gee, thanks, Lukas.

It’s still a lot more fun to watch, though. For better or worse, it probably paints the most realistic portrait of teenagers ever seen in the movies: at once beautiful, pathetic, and inconsequential. The soundtrack is excellent and the two leads are perfect for each other.

Tags: lesbian, romance, teen, top 250
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