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Mr. Beaks Relives the Summer of '94 with Jonathan Levine's THE WACKNESS
SPOILER ALERT !!
Where were you in the summer of 1994? Who were you in the summer of 1994?
If you were a New York City kid in your late teens or early twenties listening to Wu-Tang, smoking mad weed and getting your heart broken, chances are you'll bond with Jonathan Levine's THE WACKNESS. The evocation of time-and-place in this earnest coming-of-age drama feels as powerfully spot-on as the Modesto, California of AMERICAN GRAFFITI or the small-town Texas milieu of DAZED AND CONFUSED; it's so right, you half expect Josh Peck's pot-dealing protagonist to stumble across a smallish film crew shooting some zero-budget movie called KIDS. Given that the picture spends a good deal of its first act fetishizing the early 90s, it's kind of surprising Levine didn't attempt a reference that precious.
But THE WACKNESS is so internalized and so relentlessly fixated on capturing the city in its nascent stages of Giuliani-fication that the movie slowly goes from evoking the era to becoming a part of it - which is to say it starts to feel like one of those scrappy little indie flicks that played the Angelika for a couple of weeks before getting lost amid the crap-cluttered shelves at Blockbuster. To Levine's credit, he has a much better eye than most of the unpolished filmmakers to emerge (and promptly disappear) from that movement; truth be told, he has a much better eye than many so-called "professional" directors working today. Still, the human drama at the heart of THE WACKNESS is either too solipsistic or too conventional to be of much consequence. True, getting your heart broken at the age of eighteen can feel like the end of the world, but you need to have a greater sense of the crumbling world around the character for their personal tragedy to connect.
Seeing as how Peck's Luke Shapiro spends most of his hours as an on-call weed dealer, you'd think there'd be plenty of world to go around; unfortunately, Luke is a socially awkward doofus who can't relate to people beyond a simple cash transaction. The only people he seems to enjoy spending time with are Percy (Method Man), his Jamaican supplier, and Dr. Jeffrey Squires (Sir Ben Kingsley), the bong-toting psychiatrist father of Luke's longtime crush, Stephanie (Oilvia Thirlby). Sensing that Luke is harboring great sadness and resentment, Squires offers up a little therapy in return for a steady influx of that sticky; Luke balks at first, but quickly gives in when his father cripples the family's finances through a lousy business deal (thus necessitating a likely move from the Upper East Side to Jersey). He needs to talk things through.
What should be a mutually beneficial relationship, however, quickly turns one-sided when Dr. Squires clumsily tries to relive his childhood through Luke's. Though he's ostensibly giving Luke a lesson in l-i-v-i-n, he's mostly escaping the doldrums of his dead-ended marriage to Stephanie's mother (Famke Janssen). Squires's lack of compassion for Luke becomes apparent when he objects to the young man's romantic interest in his step-daughter; suddenly, his exhortations of "go get your heart broken" are hypocritically rescinded because, as he bluntly informs Luke, "She is not for you". Why? Squires knows that she'll use him and discard him. In other words, she'll break his heart. Isn't this your prescribed path to maturity, Doc? Sure you're not, like, jealous?(Knowing that Levine cut close to an hour out of the movie, I'm wondering if there's more to the Squires/Stephanie relationship than we're getting. The late night scene on the couch suggests a sexual attraction between the two; Thirlby's sending off crazy nymphette signals the way she's posed with the bowl of ice cream and the cigarette.)
In any event, Luke shrugs off Squires's warnings and continues hanging out with Stephanie; after a few walk-and-talks around the island, their friendship heats up into a summer romance. Rather than be all gauche and do it in the city, Stephanie whisks Luke out to her family's getaway on Fire Island, where she takes his virginity. Being a neophyte in the fuckin' game, Luke predictably mistakes carnal knowledge for a lasting emotional connection and unwisely professes his love to Stephanie. Big mistake, as she slams on the breaks and drops out of Luke's life the minute they return home.
Interestingly, the film doesn't evince much of a soul until the Fire Island interlude, and, once it's over, Levine lets the narrative fall back into its overly familiar rhythm. The third act is a real disappointment: there's a stock near-drowning incident, and, worst of all, the old in-person-confrontation-with-your-ex-flame-who's-currently-entertaining-another-lover (holenyohead) device. Essentially, we're killing time waiting for a pair of epiphanies (via Luke and Squires), but when the finally arrive, they're handled in too shopworn a manner to land with much of an impact. (While I love the idea of playing Luke out to "All the Young Dudes", flinging a joint into the camera isn't rebellion; it's douchebag behavior. Worse, it reminds me of this.)
I love a good coming of age story, even when it's shot through with cliche, but THE WACKNESS never mounts much of a case for itself. Despite a couple of solid performances (from Kingsley and, shockingly, Method Man) and a phenomenal soundtrack (Nas, the Wu, Biggie, etc.) it's neither funny enough nor insightful enough to stick out of the crowd. I actually much prefer Levine's debut feature, ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE, which, despite some very rough technical edges, demonstrates a mastery of theme that's lacking here. If we're lucky, it'll get released before Levine's third feature is completed.
Faithfully submitted,
Mr. Beaks
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Drake... or josh, which ever one he was. Now he is trying to hard to be the shitty Heroes main star pussyboy.
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First movie will be released on the DVD's when?
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You guys should check out my battle pit.
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Just saw a preview for the new X-Files movie! Don't know if you guys saw this, X-Files is starting to make direct to video movies! I wonder if its an attempt to bring back the series?
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were some great years for me, living out on Long Island. I'll try to catch this on video.
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paragraph 6 is just... recap. including some presumably big emotional stuff. WTF Beaks? it seems a bit like you don't expect any of us to see it.
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I keep forgetting that spoiler flag option is there for a very good reason.
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You nailed what my issues were with the third act. I'm still a modest fan of the film just based on the intoxicating atmosphere, particularly the very unorthodox faded-polaroid style cinematography (it almost seems like the actor's faces were underexposed by about 2 stops or more for most of the film).
But in terms of plot (and ultimately theme itself), very familiar territory. -
Ok, I didn't see HOW HIGH, but I have yet to see Method Man, a.k.a. Cheese Wagstaff, give a bad performance.
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is this more of an attempt by the media to resurrect some not-too-long-gone decade so they can just repackage and resell everything to you again so the kids can pretend they weren't 5 when it was all going down and the adults who lived through it can pretend that they never felt embarrassed about the dumb fashions and the dumb music and the dumb culture that always seems to prevail in a retro-fad instead of the good stuff which was overlooked when it was all happening. If everyone starts wearing flannel and jnco jeans again like it doesn't look stupid, I'm going to vomit in disgust. Screw this B.S. movie. If you have a "getaway" on Fire Island your privileged life and your spoiled fits of whining means nothing to anyone but your shallow vacuous self.
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We have very, very different ideas on what constitutes a phenomenal soundtrack, Mr Beaks. A bunch of twits shouting over the top of a piece of someone else's music is not something that should be encouraged, even for use in a piece of unmitigated shit such as this movie.
Then again, I may be unfairly viewing all this. Let's face it, the world was crying out for a movie about a complete loser from a period that is best forgotten by anyone with more than a gym teacher's I.Q size. And it's always great to watch Sir Ben try and recapture the glory of his original Academy Award(tm) winning period, especially when it involves young women.
Seriously though, I am so glad someone is carrying on the Larry Clarke tradition of making movies about people who - and let's be fair - are a stain on the toilet seat of modern life.
Speaking of Kingsley, anybody else find his acting in War Inc. some of the worst he's ever shat up onto the silver screen? My God, that was like being immersed in a vat of Hurry Sundown Bad Accent Juice.
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this movie just doesn't resonate. it' like the definition of, "meh". i will say that i liked pecks performance in spite of the rest of the movie. i'm interested to see what they're going to do with this one. i've seen some advertising in some surprising places, so i wonder how big they're thinking with this release...
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were lame annoying douchebags. this movie looks like it's getting much more praise than it should.
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I think of Weezer, Portishead, Sonic Youth and a bunch of other alterna-bands. THAT was real fuckin' music!!! Anyway, I gotta get back to the nursing home.
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You assume I'm a white homosexual because I think that "Nas, the Wu" etc are twits? Nice. Keep that sparkling wit coming.
Incidentally, posts like yours fall into "you can't make this stuff up" category. Amazing. I almost felt the cap pop in my ass.
What do I listen to (as best I can make out the question from your post)? Things with melodies and lyrics that sound like they're written by someone who once read at least one book, and harmony.
Or if I am going to listen to something in the hip-hop area, then something pre 90s. Before the mysogynist "gansta" big-noting twits moved in. Something like that. -
Dude, the character's name is LUKE Shapiro, not Josh.
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One of the best films of the year, up there with Cloverfield, Dark Knight and Pineapple Express. Beaks has got it all wrong. Sir Ben is Supporting Actor-nod worthy and his relationship with Peck is great. This is a great film with a quiet power that will sneak up on you. Beaks missed the boat here.
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... oops. Thanks, Jeff.
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I typed this post while using Internet Explorer 7. You betcha.Firefox 3 is pissing me off. Anybody else having problems with FF3 eating up memory and running slow as hell?
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Jul 09, 2008 2:32:55 AM CDT
New York early to mid nineties, so the soundtrack is Stricly Ryt
by wowsah156
If you were a New york kid early 20 something then the music you would be listening to would be all House music (Todd Terry , DJ Pierre,the best produced Garage tracks ever etc) released by the New York record lable Strictly Rythym. also mid nineties there was an off shoot called Strictly Rythym Blue Label that dealt with the more mainstream housey chart music. Hip Hop at the time would have been crap like "Onyx" and all the "grimeY2 stuff that devolved into all the gangsta rap filth we have to day. 94 was about the house music and the clubbing.
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...and not in the "loony-ass, sudden-turn-to-the-right-wing" sense, but more in that half of what he says, I'm not sure if I fully "get." But when I do get what he's talking about, I give myself a nice pat on the back that I caught the reference.
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50 points for tossing in a reference to one of my all-time favorite Prince songs (and I'm a HUGE Prince fan.)
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You think Rap music sucked in the 90's... holy shit, I hope you never listen to urban-format radio these days. I'm a DJ at a bar that is known for mainly playing hip hop, and it kills a little part of me anytime I eventually play shit by Lil Wayne or Webbie or Soulja Boy or any of that kind of horse crap. When I play Biggie or 2pac songs I breathe a friggin' sigh of relief... those guys actually crafted their lyrics, they showed an honest-to-God grasp of rhyme and poetry in what they did and I actually regret hating on hip hop back in those days because so much of it is what gets me through the night now without hanging myself by the cord on my headphones.
And yeah, Wowsah, the Strictly Rhythm / Armand Van Helden genre was great, and I still like the house stuff, mostly from the 90's, but I don't hate any of the new stuff. Still... don't underestimate the ubiquity of hip hop during that era. It was more common - the club stuff was primarily underground or just out of the mainstream. At least moreso than the hip hop. -
Jul 09, 2008 4:04:55 AM CDT
the early 90's, I'm talking 90-96. Best era of Hip-Hop.
by the guy who slept through everything.
The RZA, The GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Raekwon The Chef, Ghostface Killah, M.E.TH.O.D. Man, Inspectah Deck, Masta Killa and U-God = best Hip-Hop group ever. oh and 1994, probably the best year in Hip-Hop history. The bashing for Hip-Hop is lame and uncalled for. Cause I was listening to Weezer, Radiohead and Sonic Youth too assholes!
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In the context of the movie, from 94 if you were a 20 21 year old guy in New york who partied you were morel ikely to listen to Garage/house music moreso because of the clubbing scene in New york (The Tunnel etc) Hip hop at that time was getting eaten up by the big reocrd labels and Def Jam sold its soul bro. First record i bought as a kid was BDP's Criminal Minded so i am not dissing Hip Hop , but this movie if it wants to show what it was like for a yonug man chasing pussy in New york in 1994 he will be clubbing and listening to Strictly Rythym type house music. And if he chills maybe some Third Base (remember them?!) or Master Ace
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I was working at a Mexican food restaurant. And it sucked.
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Is a fucktard.
Void of intelligence or integrity, but he has retarded sarcasm. -
I can't decide if that title is brilliance or retarded.
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He's the antidote to a lot of the gushing groupthink bandwaggonry that infects most of the regulars on this site. Wasn't this flick being praised to high heavens in AICN's Sundance coverage?
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Saw this at the philly film fest. The entire audience was laughing hysterically. Its great. No, not perfect but really fun. All the actors are great. And yes the soundtrack does rock. NAS, Biggie, but also A Tribe Called Quest, KRS-One, and a great raggae song by the Pioneers - Long Shot Kick de Bucket. Plus It uses Summertime by Fresh Prince and All the Young Dudes as the ender to the film on Squire's mixtape to Luke. Loved it. My brother nad I can't wait to take some friends to see this. Plus it has the line "You make me want to listen to Boyz II Men". I quote that to him all the time now since he's the only one I know that would get it.
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I agree man. Most rap sucks now, but just hating rap cause of the terrible trite crap is like hating rock cause of Creed. Its one example. I can listen to rap, rock, and even the occasional country. Just have to find the quality. I have about 7,000 songs on my ipod from all kinds of styles. Why? Cause I love music. Can I kick it? Yes I can.
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Which is probably why it was better than this shit. But he is writing his next movie so you can be sure it will be terrible. Sundance has not discovered a good movie in ages.
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...is how they say "slams on the brakes" in J-school.
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