Without a paddle
Added 10/4/2009
This is a poignant tale of lost innocence and destroyed lives; of hapless youths - mostly white trash - inexorably following a path that's beyond their control. A rather desolate fatality pervades the movie, and this is emphasised by the uniformly fine, measured performances from the young cast. But herein lies the problem: although the film succeeded in moving this viewer there is too much predictability to the plot and it's clear from very early on what's going to happen. This in itself isn't a huge flaw but coupled with the fact that this is pretty familiar territory means that the film only really works on one level: that of the fine performances. The first time writer/director Jacob Aaron Estes clearly shows promise but he'll need to be more original if he's to have a truly notable career.
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Really drops the ball.
Added 6/1/2009
Mean Creek (Jacob Aaron Estes, 2005)
There are some movies that get almost no push from their studios, despite said studios having spent mountains on starpower, etc. Sometimes these movies spread through word of mouth after screening at festivals or getting a rave review from a popular critic, and end up as cult favorites. I have found, over the years, that these are something of a mixed batch. Every once in a while you happen on a real gem like The Woodsman, but for every gem, there are a dozen like Mean Creek that simply don't live up to the hype.
Plot: Sam (Rory Culkin) is your typical schoolkid; nerdy, shy, and bullied by the school's lunkhead, George (Josh Peck, from TV's Drake and Josh). He's got a few friends, and something that might possibly be a romantic relationship with Millie (Lizzie McGuire regular Carly Schroeder) if Sam would grow enough of a spine to ask her out. One day, George's bullying goes way too far, and when Sam tells his brother Rocky (Trevor Morgan, recently of The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio) about it, Rocky hatches a plan to get even with George that involves inviting him on a fishing trip and scaring him senseless. (And as I'm already halfway through the movie, I'll stop here, even though it's not really a stopping point; we're getting dangerously close to spoiler territory.)
The first problem with the movie is that while Macaulay Culkin is a pretty darned good actor (and has remained so while growing up, viz. Saved!), I have yet to see any evidence that his brothers are anywhere near as good. The second, and far more perplexing, problem is that once the climax of the movie hits, the script entirely falls apart. If the movie had ended right there, it might have been worthwhile, but instead we get the final scene, which drags on endlessly. Of course, I'm sure someone somewhere thought the movie wouldn't have nearly as much power if we didn't give these kids time to emote. Therapeutic value, or something. Problem is, no one gave them a script to do it with. (I don't mean this literally--I don't know for sure--but honestly, it wouldn't surprise me.)
Had potential, but very little of it was realized. One to avoid. * ½
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"Deliverance" meets "Stand By Me"...
Added 5/27/2009
I've read other reviews, and I'm compelled to add my opinion. Without blabbing away the plot, a bunch of kids go on a river trip to teach a lesson to a "bully". Jacob Aaron Estes has put together a beautifully shot film, with a terrific cast (winner at the Indies). The idea was to make the viewer uncomfortable. Bullies will be bullies. Sometimes they're your own friends. George (Josh Peck) is a developmentally disabled kid who lashes out and is considered a "bully". The local "cool" guys figure this out too late, and the REAL bully is Marty (Scott Melchowicz, a great performance), who convinces the rest to do dumb things. The whole cast is terrific, and the young Carly Schroeder and Rory Culkin are especially intuitive and sensible. It's unsettling, and somewhat implausible that the whole event would even take place, but it's great insight into the ideas of young, smart people...until they fall under the spell of Marty. The ending has a sense of redemption; why they allowed themselves to be bullied by Marty in the first place makes no sense to me. Still, it's an Indie darling, and a well made and acted film.
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3 stars out of 4
Added 1/19/2009
The Bottom Line:
Though a bit slow-moving at times, Mean Creek benefits from taking its time to develop characters--we get to see real people reacting to terrible situations--and emerges as a movie that is quite powerful and memorable.
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Well made (I don't give away the ending)
Added 12/3/2008
I just watched this movie about an hour ago, and it's amazing. It's very well made, and you will recognize the four or five leads from more popular movies like one main kid is the second oldest son in the patriot (he's also in Barney great adventure), another main kid is the lead from Eurotrip (SCOTTY!!!), another main character is the boy from signs (kid with azma) and the main girl is from Dickie Roberts. And so it was cool for me to be able to point them out and figure out where I saw them before as I watched.
This movie focuses on a kid with "asburgers" (which asuming it's spelt right is a severe emotional condition) who (because of his condition) viciously attacks a boy after he touched his camera. However, when the caring older brother sees what has happenned, he gets his older friends together (two of them) and plots with his little brother how to get him back. They're plan was to strip him of his clothes in the middle of a river and make him swim back naked. The thing about this movie that makes it good is that you start having sympathy for the bully, because you start realizing it's not his fault, and the worse part is it's not, it's a condition. This condition makes him very hard to like, and everytime he angers someone you think he deserves it, like at the start you wanted nothing more than for him to be beat up. And it keeps twisting your mind, because some points your find the trick to be cruel while other times you wouldn't be able to stand him yourself. This movie scared me because I know someone who used to go to my school with the same condition, and he just wouldn't stop and I punched him hard, and luckily after that he stoppped because I don't know if I would have stopped. Mean Creek is real, and it's amazing. Well made, good acting, 5 stars.
(An extremely similiar movie if your willing to watch sex scenes, excessive drug use and more severe bullying, is "bully" however that movie isn't as real, or well acted as this one)
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Dark, absurdist satire
Added 11/5/2009
This quirky, dark, send-up of a dysfunctional surburban American neighborhood has been unfavorably compared to "Donnie Darko" and to "American Beauty." It's also been criticized for being too realistic on the one hand, and not realistic enough on the other. LOL (How is a director to win? :-) But it's actually a somewhat different idea; the best way to describe this movie is as if someone transferred the bizarre and nihilistic mid-20th century European theater of the absurd to new-millenium America. Donnie Darko had more sci-fi elements and one of the major themes of the movie--the existence of random evil and forces beyond our control in the world and what, if anything, can be done about it--isn't really an issue here.
Whatever interpretation you happen to prefer, though, there's no doubt that all is not well beneath the highly polished surface of this otherwise prosperous, toney new neighborhood. The big, expensive homes and the trophy wives all signal that these people are the socio-economic winners in our society, but they are spectacular failures as people in every other sense.
Most of the characters (whether the kids or the adults) seem to go thru life in a drug-induced haze, and the kids are running wild since there is no adult supervision. The adults are too busy with their sometimes delusional and usually narcissistic pursuits to bother with the kids, who basically concoct one wild escapade after another, from tracking down the local teenage drug dealer's stash when he dies to kidnapping one of the younger kids basically for sport. The whole story devolves into an orgy of narcissistic and self-indulgent excess by the end of the movie as each character spirals downward into his own personal 21st century, suburban hell.
It's a little too pat, weird, and wacked out a movie to completely succeed as a vicious satire of contemporary America, but it is entertaining to watch, and the score is one of the most eerily and hauntingly beautiful I've ever heard, creating exactly the right mood and atmosphere throughout the film. The best way I can think to describe the music is a combination of sinister premonition and playfulness or dark humor, which suits the movie perfectly. It's a little hard to describe but you'll see what I mean when you hear it. I give it a solid four stars. I note a lot of people here didn't like it though, but would just say that if it's not your sort of movie, you'll know within 15 minutes of the opening scene if it's for you and you can turn it off at that point if it doesn't appeal to you.
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Sucker punch
Added 10/23/2009
There are so many things wrong with this movie that it's hard to know where to begin. First off, it has nothing to do with fishing other than there's a mayor who wants to run with the dolphins like John C. Lilly -- that or he just has a wet sock fetish, which doesn't happen often in fishing because most fishermen don't wear socks or even shoes (maybe they're just in denial).
Secondly, the whole thing is basically just a trailer for a video game where some superhero zombie slays bad-guy zombies while wearing Lite-Brite sneakers and carrying his head -- it somehow got cut off after he hung himself, which he did because he had poor taste in music. For some reason, at least according to Arie Posin (who went on from "Chumscrubber" to direct absolutely squat) when you talk with a cut-off head, you sound like the bunny from "Donnie Darko". Go figure. And how many zombies do you think you would slay while carrying your head around? It's all pretty stupid in a "pass the bong" kind of way.
Thirdly, who cries at their drug dealer's funeral? I understand that this film was supposed to be an exercise in aggro-dysfunctionalism, but the part at the end where our protagonist (patterned after Cameron from "Ferris Bueller" in full wuss mode) gets all misty-eyed over the pusher man was the one scene that was meant to be realistic. Well, if it's all one big joke, I'm still waiting for the punchline, and I got a fist sandwich all ready to go when it shows up.
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May the VeggieForce be with you
Added 10/17/2009
Dean is a withdrawn teen living in a wealthy suburb where his only friend is Troy, the drug dealer. When Troy dies, a school bully kidnaps Dean's little brother to force him to find Troy's stash.
What a terrific movie! I loved it and I think I could see it again and again and still see new things. Although the "rich, alienated teens with self-absorbed parents" plot has been done before, there was nothing cliché about this script. The story constantly surprised me and was quite intense and exciting. The cast is full of big stars: Glenn Close plays Troy's shell-shocked mother, Ralph Fiennes is a spaced-out groom, John Heard plays a tough cop, Allison Janney is Dean's mother obsessed with selling VeggieForce, Jason Isaacs is another parent oblivious to his child and the list goes on. Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) is the star, however, and he's quite wonderful as the pill-popping, long-suffering Dean.
The movie is a dark comedy/tragedy with a fresh look at the emptiness behind the picture-perfect homes of suburbia. Highly recommended.
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