[John Moschella]

Just got through watching my rental of this film. I sent it back right away because I'm going to buy it. I thought it was a thoroughly enjoyable film which is oddly enough based on a comic book. Must be an off-beat comic becuase there is no action or anthing you would typically associate with a comic book. There are two really great characters in this film played by Thora Birch as a just graduated high-schooler and Steve Buscemi as a dorky 78 record collector freak. They are drawn to each other primarily because they cannot relate to anyone else. The film develops very intelligently with so nice comic moments particularly by Illeana Douglas as a touchy/feely art teacher, Bob Balaban as Birch's wimpy dad, and Brad Renfro who is the object of torment. I also loved the way they ended this film. If you like indies its worth a rental at least.


John Moschella

 

[Dean Roddey]

There's another big thread on this. Its not terribly close to the original comic book, which is either good or bad according to your point of view. I liked it a lot also, but I'd never read the comic, so I had nothing to compare it to for better or worse.

 

[TEW]

Well, I guess this one was over my head. I just watched it, largely in part to this post and some other favorable reviews.

What the hell was this movie about? And what was the ending suppose to imply? The entire thing seemed totally random with very little plot or story.

I admit it kept my interest enough to keep me from turning it off, but not by much.

Can someone explain what made this a good film?

 

[Chris Williams]

Quote:

Originally posted by jeroen Judging by your post you and i think it's bad for different reasons, but it doesn't really matter because it's bad bad bad either way and dan clowes should be ashamed of himself for letting terry zwigoff rape his brilliant comic.

Actually, it appears to me that TEW disliked most what you love most about the comics.


I fear that other people expressing their admiration of the film is polarizing your view of it. I have too much respect for your opinion to not feel some guilt about this. It's one thing to love the comic and dislike the film, but to call it "rape"? Clowes and Zwigoff wrote the film together - on Clowes' part, it couldn't be any worse than self-abuse.


Sorry, but I'm a bit touchy about people abusing the word rape - women I love have been raped. Making the film not exactly the same as the comic is not, in any sense, comparable.


Honestly, it's like when Attenborough was making "Gandhi", some insisted that such a great man couldn't possibly be played by a man - they wanted him to be shown only as a glowing light. Attenborough replied to them "I'm making a film about a man, not bloody Tinkerbell!"


BTW, I tried to buy the comic, but both stores I've tried didn't have it in stock. I'll try another here in Chicago.

 

[TEW]

" Not gonna spoil it for you but think about it and it makes sense. Of course, it makes more sense in the comic because it's much more sad overall"


Sorry jeroen, but it didn't interest me enough to ponder the ending. And you're not going to spoil anything because I've watched it already. I'm just curious as to what people see in certain films.


My short review would have been something like this:


Slow, uneventful, and depressing, with medicore performances from the films two main characters, Thora Birch and umm,,, that other girl. Steve Buscemi delivers a more believable performance and puts some life into this otherwise dead end story.


Bottom line - I liked the lead character more the first time I saw her, as MTV's "Daria"