Garden State

c.layne · Post by **c.layne** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 11:17 pm

holy shit, i thought this was a good movie. lots of really beautiful scenes. ADDED BONUS: Natalie Portman.

Poor June · Post by **Poor June** » Sat Oct 23, 2004 11:21 pm

antonymic wrote:holy shit, i thought this was a good movie. lots of really beautiful scenes. ADDED BONUS: Natalie Portman.

added bonus... might it be natalie portman naked? O_o cause that would be really cool

Post by jb » Sun Oct 24, 2004 12:03 am

no. but she's still awful cute.

A- from me. I liked Garden State a lot.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 8:02 am

Hey, finally a movie I've seen.
I wasn't sure through the first parts if I would like the movie at all, but I really did, I found myself liking it more and more as it went on.
I recommend it.
-bill

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 8:21 am

Poor June wrote:naked?

Natalie Portman: Look, we're not going to make out or anything, okay?

Zach Braff: Errr, okay.

Natalie Portman: Cuz I skip all that foreplay shit and jump straight to the good stuff. And by that I mean sex.

HOLY CRAP I RENTED HARDENED STATE BY "MISTAKE"

c.layne · Post by **c.layne** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 5:51 pm

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

c.layne · Post by **c.layne** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 8:32 pm

came out on dvd today, and i still love it.

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:43 pm

Yeah, my brother got it for me as a gift. Only, I hadn't seen it before. Not sure what I think about it. I loved the two main characters, but everyone else were stereotypes from teen movies. The guy's twenty-five, and he comes home to find that all his old friends are still high schoolers?

Post by jb » Tue Dec 28, 2004 10:17 pm

Generic wrote:Yeah, my brother got it for me as a gift. Only, I hadn't seen it before. Not sure what I think about it. I loved the two main characters, but everyone else were stereotypes from teen movies. The guy's twenty-five, and he comes home to find that all his old friends are still high schoolers?

Dude, wait until it happens to you. Some people never move on.

"That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."

j$ · Post by j$ » Tue Dec 28, 2004 10:40 pm

jb wrote:"That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."

Best. Film. Ever.

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 12:09 am

I'll agree on the Dazed and Confused part, but I'm still a bit torn on Garden State. Even if it's true some people never move on, most of the characters in the film were still handled really badly, except for Largeman, Sam, and maybe the father. Which is a shame, becuase I really really really wanted to like this movie.

Post by jb » Wed Dec 29, 2004 12:12 am

Generic wrote:I'll agree on the Dazed and Confused part, but I'm still a bit torn on Garden State. Even if it's true some people never move on, most of the characters in the film were still handled really badly, except for Largeman, Sam, and maybe the father. Which is a shame, becuase I really really really wanted to like this movie.

I disagree. I thought Sarsgaard's character was totally on the mark.

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Dec 29, 2004 12:34 am

Sarsgaard was great. Jean Smart was good. The father character was underwritten, until that final scene, when it was overwritten and awful.

Post by jb » Wed Dec 29, 2004 12:49 am

I totally bought the last scene at the airport though.

mkilly · Post by **mkilly** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 3:11 am

I dug Sarsgaard, generally, I guess.

I found the writing to be really weak, and the direction pretty weak. My friend Ty really really hates A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (which I thought was good--please, if you want to discuss it, start a new thread) and laments that it's mostly just a robot boy looking to the distance at things, and I found a lot of Garden State to be Zach Braff looking to the distance at things. It tried to be a movie about a childhood tragedy and how it still affected the protagonist's life (like, say, Mystic River), a story about coming home after being gone several years (like, say, The Best Years of Our Lives... or a better example...), and a movie about finding love in the unlikeliest of places (like, say, most romantic comedies). But I found it was C-grade at best on all counts. Good soundtrack, though. I sure love The Shins.

I didn't like the characters, and I'll fault Zach Braff for that. I never was moved to empathize with anyone. I don't know why people jizz over the movie so much.

c.layne · Post by **c.layne** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 7:04 am

i jizz over everything.

JonPorobil · Post by **JonPorobil** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:22 pm

I gave a little more thought to it, and I figured out what bugged me. The whole thing moved way too slow. Which is difficult to say for a movie where nothing much happens, but that entire college-party-like scene where they play Spin the Bottle at the beginning... It was gorgeous, and the best handling of that type of party scene I've ever seen in a film, but that scene had no reason to be there, and it only made us wait a little longer for him to meet Natalie Portman.

I thought the characters, Marcus, were supposed to make bad first impressions, and then as you learn more about them, you begin to rethink your feelings towards them and, ultimately, sympathize with them. It worked better for some characters than for others.

I also didn't like the use of music. THe songs themselves were pretty good (except for the one that plays as Braff climbs onto that machine towards the end, which was a good song, but it clashed with the mood, IMO), but the way they started and stopped, and the places it came in seemed inopportune.

I think I've played with this one in my head long enough. I give it a B-, but I'm really looking forward to more material from Braff.

nicegeoff · Post by **nicegeoff** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 12:41 am

Generic wrote:
I also didn't like the use of music. THe songs themselves were pretty good (except for the one that plays as Braff climbs onto that machine towards the end, which was a good song, but it clashed with the mood, IMO), but the way they started and stopped, and the places it came in seemed inopportune.

Yes. The music and its use, just seemed to say "hey, indie kids: like and relate to this movie!". worst moment (SPOILERS):

zach "what are you listening to?"
natalie "the SHINS! listen to this song, it'll change your life!"
(natalie puts headphones on zach, and "new slang" plays for a couple of seconds". how shameless!

i was reminded of the scene in "vanilla sky" where tom cruise is looking for music to play in his car and he's like, "what do you want to listen to...I got some...uh...RADIOHEAD?"

I don't know...there were alot more hatable moments than likable. i didn't enjoy zach's character. the best part was when natalie's brother was dusting for fingerprints, trying to figure out who was 'pissing on his gamecube'. ha.

mkilly · Post by **mkilly** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 1:52 am

nicegeoff wrote:i was reminded of the scene in "vanilla sky" where tom cruise is looking for music to play in his car and he's like, "what do you want to listen to...I got some...uh...RADIOHEAD?"

I don't remember that bit. Vanilla Sky's director, though, is Cameron Crowe, who does excellently with music, I find. He also did Almost Famous. AF was kind of autobiographical. He was a reviewer for Rolling Stone. So.. cut him some slack.

nicegeoff · Post by **nicegeoff** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 9:59 am

mkilly wrote:
nicegeoff wrote:i was reminded of the scene in "vanilla sky" where tom cruise is looking for music to play in his car and he's like, "what do you want to listen to...I got some...uh...RADIOHEAD?"
Vanilla Sky's director, though, is Cameron Crowe[...]. He also did Almost Famous. AF was kind of autobiographical. He was a reviewer for Rolling Stone.[...].

I have no reason to cut Cameron Crowe slack. I found his music choice and placement distracting (in vanilla sky, at least). I mean, there was some sort of climax during the end of it and all of a sudden "Good Vibrations" came on and totally took me out of the movie. That scene, along with the other carefully placed musical references just seemed to say "Hey! I'm Cameron Crowe! I like classic music from the 60s like the Beach Boys and Bob Dylan, but, you know, I'm into that hipper stuff like Radiohead and sigur ros! Hey, did you know I used to write for Rolling Stone? I'm cool, right?"...I don't know...Maybe it's my fault for thinking that, but I think he's partially responsible...And really, why is the title of the film both a (fictional) Monet panting and a Paul McCartney song? The title of 'Brazil' makes more sense. It just seems like Crowe is taking pieces of culture that he likes and inserting them into his films, regardless of the meaning or effect they have.

Post by jb » Sun Jan 02, 2005 2:06 pm

I like Cameron Crowe a lot. He made Say Anything and Singles, two of my top ten.

But I'm ambivalent towards Almost Famous (Zooey notwithstanding) and Vanilla Sky was pretty terrible.

I can see Geoff's point here. It can be a little aggravating to have the author so present in a film. Like Fincher's Famous Fancy Camera Moves. We like to go "ooooh Fincher!" whenever he pulls off a particularly cool/obnoxious swoop into the nostril of a flea or something.

mkilly · Post by **mkilly** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 3:36 pm

Yeah, hmm. Take note that McCartney wrote the song for the film. It's a remake of a Spanish film, "Abre los ojos," which I found very excellent. Really I found Vanilla Sky pretty enjoyable too. The director of "Abre," Alejandro Amenabar, also directed Los otres/The Others.

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