Tweet
It being excruciatingly overrated, I do not understand the fascination with this film. For the longest time I had heard of it in the context of a very deserving cult film. People, including grown, seemingly film-savvy men wearing "Ghost World" t-shirts... people bringing it up nonchalantly in a serious film-oriented discussion...
I saw it eventually. It was very boring, unoriginal, predictable and did not draw the depth from the characters that one would expect from an outskirts-of-Hollywood film. The only reason I watched the movie from beginning to end is because it was late and nothing else was on (I viewed it on a film channel). The characters were forced and uninteresting with the "lets make a movie about jaded, pseudo-intellectual teenagers" mentality, only to end up with characters that are essentially goth, minus the ridiculous subcultural manifestations. A little "Daria" with elements from Liman films. Zwigoff tried to make up for the lack of depth in characters and his inability to formulate screenplay wit by either having the protagonists point fingers and say "That sucks", have other stereotypical antagonists pop up and make stupid remarks that should only be used to spoof 80's highschool comedy movies or have characters make racial remarks that have absolutely no place in the story whatsoever. Having a pair of characters who's collective purpose is to point out stereotypes is not a substitute for wit or depth. Also, the whole bus nonsense was very predictable; at the point where the old man was introduced in the story, I new how the entire film was going to play out. Unfortunately, dialogue about rare music or casting Steve Buscemi will not save a movie.
This movie does nothing to deserve even a small bit of the credit it has been given, but I'll throw a five-out-of-ten at it for its effort.
I saw it eventually. It was very boring, unoriginal, predictable and did not draw the depth from the characters that one would expect from an outskirts-of-Hollywood film. The only reason I watched the movie from beginning to end is because it was late and nothing else was on (I viewed it on a film channel). The characters were forced and uninteresting with the "lets make a movie about jaded, pseudo-intellectual teenagers" mentality, only to end up with characters that are essentially goth, minus the ridiculous subcultural manifestations. A little "Daria" with elements from Liman films. Zwigoff tried to make up for the lack of depth in characters and his inability to formulate screenplay wit by either having the protagonists point fingers and say "That sucks", have other stereotypical antagonists pop up and make stupid remarks that should only be used to spoof 80's highschool comedy movies or have characters make racial remarks that have absolutely no place in the story whatsoever. Having a pair of characters who's collective purpose is to point out stereotypes is not a substitute for wit or depth. Also, the whole bus nonsense was very predictable; at the point where the old man was introduced in the story, I new how the entire film was going to play out. Unfortunately, dialogue about rare music or casting Steve Buscemi will not save a movie.
This movie does nothing to deserve even a small bit of the credit it has been given, but I'll throw a five-out-of-ten at it for its effort.
Comment