All the Real Girls
all the real girls
oh, I had a couple lines written already for this review, but they sucked, so I'm gonna start over.
(me starting over)
out of all the things in the world I could be doing, I am writing this review. (by "all the things" I mean watching Henry V, but don't mind that. it's supposed to be a good movie, but I started watching it, and young kenneth branaugh started to getting me a little perturbed. "Grow a Beard you Kid!!")
ok, back to the review. Instead of making fun of prepubescent shakespearean actors, I'm going to tell you about All the Real Girls. wait, let me turn off my fan first, it's on high and I'm freezing....
ok. let me get this out of the way. All the Real Girls is one of the best movies I've ever seen. Watching it was like a breath of fresh air for a san fransisco sewage worker. I'm talking Hills are Alive fresh air, not ten dollar* air-in-a-can "fresh".
It's like the movie distills moments and life down to a flowing pace, and just lets it trickle and splash. Maybe I'm a bit too crappy poetic about it, but it's hard not to get all girly after this movie.
Summary, which I don't mind giving: ex-bad boy (Paul Schneider) and virgin girl (Zooey Deschanel*) have strong feelings for each other, but she's the sister of Boy's Best Friend. Small town life and interpersonal conflicts ebb and flow. That's it. Fairly simple story.
The story is told sequentially, but not in a series of disjointed narrative pieces. A scene will fade in, and then voices will be heard, but lips won't move. Sometimes the aftereffect of a conversation is shown while the audience is still listening to it. Whole scenes sometimes last the length of a sentence, and then a new scene begins.
I'm not doing a very good job giving a sense of what's going on, but that doesn't matter. The movie must be seen to understand what people call the "poetic" nature of it. Whitman is probably dancing in his grave after that sentence*. Maybe if I confuse you enough, you'll see the movie, thinking it is a new Tony Scott thriller.
What is it not? Cliched. Sure, it's not the newest story ever, but that's ok. The conversations do not rely on beginnings and endings, and thus have the ability to consist only of the important matters. It's like drinking twenty Dialogue Lights instead of ten Dialogues. Still has all the info, but it doesn't get bogged down in convention. Entrances and exits are almost completely eliminated. Arrivals and departures are generally assumed, unlike most shows which either ignore the difficulties of exiting, or use it as a filler device.
The score was wonderfully subdued. It wasn't a manipulation device, and for that I respect it beyond its normal merits.
Let me tell you something, I had to change clothes at my car before the wedding [ed. note: I had went to a friend's wedding earlier]. So, I started walking to the chapel area, and saw this moving black spot on my white t-shirt. Turns out I got dressed in an ant pile, so there were a couple loose critters on my attire. Heck, one got into my pants and bit my butt halfway through the night, leaving me to have to crush the bugger from on top of my clothes, because reaching into my pants in the middle of the event was not an option. The moral of the story: I've got a good bit of bug bites, and I'm still writing this review, if that tells you anything about my enjoyment of the movie.
The movie exists now in my head like memories do, rather than a normal movie rememberance. Sure, I don't confuse the memories with my normal ones, but when I look back at the story, I flash in-and-out of the events that unfolded, rather than glancing the highlights. strange, 'tis all.
The actors did well, I'd say. I've liked Zooey since I saw her in Almost Famous (and Big Trouble*), and Paul held his own, but they both were presented with fairly potent moments and they handled them with aplomb*.
Really, I have too much good feeling about this movie to write a really good review. It won't be everyone's piece of pie, but I think it'll get noticed if rented among the normal Friday night popcorn fare. Maybe I'm just glad to see a movie searching for answers, cause I've got a lot of questions. Now I'm definitely going to give George Washington (Greene's first movie) a rent.
I give it 3.5 out of 4. It's currently topping my list for the year.
NOTES:
* - waay overpriced
* - this name is copied directly from IMDB.com, because I gave up trying to spell it
* - When I heard the learned astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.
Walt Whitman
* - Big Trouble was a sorely underrated movie. It was funny as hell
* - aplomb: self-confidence, control and calmness. in German: das Selbstbewusstsein |
