Tag Archive
Bullet in the Head
A filmmaker like Larry Clark puts a viewer in a tough spot. When watching a movie like Kids, Bully, or Wassup Rockers, are we to believe that Clark has perfectly portrayed the aimlessness and idiocy of bored, wayward teenagers in search of a good time? Or is Clark just lazy himself, and he simply hasn’t […]
A podcast with Daniel Franzese, star of Bully, Mean Girls, The Missing Person, and the upcoming remake of I Spit on Your Grave
Here’s an audio interview I conducted with character actor Daniel Franzese, star of Bully, Mean Girls, The Missing Person, and the upcoming remake of I Spit on Your Grave. In the course of an hour, Daniel told many detailed stories about how he was cast in Bully, despite Larry Clark’s intense dislike of him, how […]
Shank
Opening with a coke-filled clandestine Internet hook-up in the woods, quickly followed up with a painful headbutt, Simon Pearce’s Shank successfully treads the line between sweet romance, gay soft-core porn, gang violence, and aimless exploitation. The combination of all of these elements is the only way the movie is unique; otherwise, it’s just a coming-out […]
The Informers
I’ve never had a pony. I’ve never seen one do tricks. And yet, I somehow know what a one-trick pony is. I think the pony’s name is Bret Easton Ellis. Ellis, a showoffy, limited writer, revels in the shallowness of early-to-mid 1980’s Los Angelinos, had been adapted for the screen three times previous to The […]
Better Luck Tomorrow
Hover to read the Context Just because your movie gets picked up MTV, who bragged about its first independent film acquisition, doesn’t mean you have to throw in distracting MTVish style into your story because you don’t believe you have original material. It was a shame about this, because I liked a few of the […]
Ken Park
Ken Park tries so hard to shock that it ceases to be anything but strained and obvious. This isn’t a surprise coming from director/photographer/borderline pedophile Larry Clark, considering he made the quite similar Bully, which also featured hateful, inarticulate, stupid teenagers engaging in self-destructive behavior, all of it leading to acts of horrifying violence. But […]