Drugstore Cowboy (Gus Van Sant,1989)-The thing about people on the streets-meaning prostitutes,addicts,thieves and the like-they all have their troubles which brought them spiraling down to where and who they are-complex personalities,psyches-it's difficult to replicate that.On top of my head,few people who did pull off playing those difficult types-Charlize Theron in Monster,Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone,Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting,Evan Rachel Wood in Thirteen.What this movie offers instead,are two good-looking Hollywood stars in the form of Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch who talk tough and shoot drugs,they wear leather and drive fast cars,rob pharmacies and really want us to think they're keeping it real.The film's occasionally funny,but the rest is a wildly indecisive tale about a bunch of pretty people flee cops and get into more trouble,and all that very predictable shit including life is monologues and the random appearance of an old drug addicted former priest towards the end to deliver the film's cheap philosophies.
Art School Confidential (Terry Zwigoff,2003)-The last 20 minutes is when the film becomes implausible,characters get lost in favor of concluding the movie with a lazy,rushed boy-girl affair and there's enough I-stare-you-stare-we-stare moments to make your head explode.But aside from that,the humor's fresh and sharp although jokes are repeated at times and the many oddball characters on the side (even the smallest ones who barely have lines but make more than one appearance) are extremely fun to watch.
Elephant (Gus Van Sant,2003)-Another GVS movie,miles better than Drugstore Cowboys but also strongly flawed in its own way.The atmosphere-tense,quiet,sinister,when minutes go by with little being said but you can feel the trouble brewing right under the surface-it's not just the music,but how he uses light and motion so damn expertly-kids walking along a hallway,at times darkened over shadows and sometimes things go slo-mo right in the middle of something casual,he captures that intensity and emotion in mere seconds.That said,it has a unsatisfying "ending" which I won't go into-but,the bigger problem is that the story pushes it way too far more times than I can count.When it's not enough to show something and explain it,but also to rub it twice more in your face-the story insists on covering every high school stereotype,and the film sorta glances over the big picture and takes too many rash shortcuts.Take for instance,three girls discuss shopping,drink packets of juice of lunch and have a silly argument over why best friends matter more than boyfriends-fast forward,they enter a toilet,each taking their own cubicle and start puking out food.Another!-the two shooters,first one's playing the piano angrily and the other plays some people-killing computer game,then they're shown glued to the boob tube with some show about Hitler on and later seen showering together and sucking face.Those two big examples, generally speaks to how crass and shallow the story is,it has zero respect for the victims/people who are affected by a high school shooting and is more interested getting you to know a couple kids,before killing them off.And anyone who says that's the point of the story,how brutal and merciless high school killings can be-because if that's the case,any idiot off the street can make a film about it and call it spectacular.
+No Aussie release for Funny Games?Fuck that.
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