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PARANOID PARK (2008)
OUR REVIEW
by Dave White
Who's in It: Gabe Nevins, Taylor Momsen, Jake Miller, Lauren McKinney, Daniel Liu
The Basics: In Gus Van Sant's ongoing exploration of modern youth as it's experienced by sullen jailbait, this Crime and Punishment-meets-Dogtown and Z-Boys features a quiet, inarticulate teenage skateboarder who finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation.
What's the Deal? This isn't the Good Will Hunting Van Sant. This is more like Gerry and Elephant. Not much happens, and that's as it should be. The kid lives in his own head, after all. And you get to try to figure out what he's got on his mind via Christopher Doyle's and Rain Kathy Li's cinematography and Van Sant's direction which, as always, mixes a detached, scientific air of pure investigation with what is clearly the filmmaker's personal obsession with teenage boys. Somehow he manages to create intimacy, mystery and an air of mournful confusion this way. I don't know how he does that, but he almost always nails it.
Sometimes Imitation Isn't Flattery: In the least poetic but definitely the funniest scene, the main character's little brother impersonates Jon Heder in Napoleon Dynamite, a false movie about teenagers that young kids can't seem to get enough of. First-time actor Nevins listens to his brother like his voice is a fly buzzing around his head that he can't see to swat yet.
Where You've Seen Our Hero's Virginity-Loss-Obsessed Cheerleader Girlfriend Before: Momsen is on Gossip Girl, but she's so far still most known as Cindy Lou Who in the live-action How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Movie's Best Trick: Making you think it might be about nothing.
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