Friday, August 23, 2013

Three sentence movie reviews: the Spectacular Now

What was spectacular about the Spectacular Now was the acting and the actors.  Both sank into their roles in a way that I don't often see in a movie with teenagers and for that alone this movie is worth seeing.*  I had problems with the ending--it felt revised and tacked on in an unsatisfying way--and I didn't feel a tremendous depth, a problem I solved by reading the novel, which was quite good.**

Cost:  $7.00
Where watched:  Living Room Theaters with S. North.


*There were a lot of interesting non-standard teen movie things to like about this movie.
**In novel/book comparisons, I observed that it is very difficult to bring to the movie screen a book character like Aimee, the female protagonist/lead.  I think the problem is that everything is shiny in the movies, making it difficult to project the inherent awkwardness/uncool persona that easily comes across on the page. Nerds live in books, easily.  They don't really exist well on the silver screen.

3 comments:

  1. I saw this movie with a bunch of women in their 40s and 50s and most of them expressed frustration/unhappiness with Aimee's character. While I agreed with them on one level, I felt that her actions were extremely realistic nonetheless. Most girls that age are desperate to hold on to their first love no matter what he/she does. I felt like these women had forgotten what uncertainty and low self-esteem felt like (or perhaps they're amongst the lucky few who never felt it). I really enjoyed the acting of both young actors.

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  2. Oh my god, yes! She was just so relieved that someone liked her--and someone as charming as Sutter was that much more of an unbelievable amazing thing. Of course she would do whatever to keep him around. I thought she was a great character, both strong and weak wrapped up together. And Sutter brought out some of the strength.

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  3. I just watched the trailer. I think we need to see this. It is still showing in our local theater just down the street.

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