Lately, I've noticed that randomly, there is a lot of bashing of Mystic River and a lot of praising of Ghost World going on.
Oh, no.
Oh, no no.
Mystic River is, so far, Clint Eastwood's masterpiece. I think I'm a big sucker for Boston movies, for whatever reason. Maybe because I love the city, that horrendous baseball team aside ;) Eastwood keeps the direction very subtle but effective, which makes the movie not hysterical, histrionic, or overbearing, all of which it could have been. The screenplay is just great, fully developing characters and their arcs while confronting difficult issues. The ensemble cast is one of the best in years and there isn't a false note among the performances. People say "Tim Robbins sucks in that;" how? He reveals layers upon layers of bottled-up emotion. It's an obvious moment, but that vampires and werewolves monologue's a killer. Sean Penn gets a ton of criticism for being "over-the-top"; why? He's a man, proven to be unstable, that just lost his daughter. Of course he's going to scream and cry. Maybe all the film snobs would prefer that he just sort of stoically nod his head, but that wouldn't be natural for the character at all. Kevin Bacon is also simply spectacular, but he's got the smaller and far less showy part than the other two. People say that Laura Linney's character comes "out of nowhere," but I didn't think that was true at all. It's true, her monologue does come at sort of a strange point in the film. But I wasn't at all like "WHO ARE YOU????" when she was doing it, probably because La Linney can do anything. So you've got a really mature film made for adults, with good direction, and a great screenplay and performances. I don't see what everyone's complaining about.
Ghost World, though. Ugh. For me, Ghost World is the movie for which most of the criticism lobbed at Lost in Translation applies - slight, boring, unfunny, so broad everyone simply projects their own feelings onto it, uninterestingly acted by its lead (though Buscemi is awesome and Johansson is quite good, Birch is just like a giant blank of charisma accompanied by bored-looking acting). The characters that Enid makes fun of are ludicrously one-dimensional with nothing that would justify them being such, and Enid herself is preachy and annoying. Like most people, I always feel like the "cool loner" in high school (yes, that part of the sentence was supposed to be paradoxical/ironic because people are dumb - as seen by the fact that they're praising Ghost World) but if that's what I or anyone I know was like in high school, smack me/them in the fuckin' face, please. Having unsympathetic characters isn't a bad thing, usually, but when she's supposed to be at least sort of sympathetic and when the supporting characters are way more sympathetic, it's a flaw. Ghost World is not a good "coming-of-age" movie because Enid doesn't grow at all. Nothing about the movie is exemplary or even interesting enough to necesitate or encourage viewing. For a comedy, there's one funny line ("we graduated high school. how totally amazing."). High school angst was done by Daria much better. And, yes, the ending is tacked-on and terrible.
I hope you have all seen the light now ;)
