Thirteen

[Pedro]

*maybe a spoiler*
my only problem was with the end.  im glad that they didn't take an easy way out...but i felt it defenitely ended too soon...like,all of the sudden it was over...althought the scene up to the end was phonomenal, the film didn't know how to put a resolution on something as big as that.  so, it didn't.  im not sure how i would have ended it, but it defenitely would not have been that abruptly.

EDIT - Oh, P.  There's no actual nipple factor in this...but there's a few scenes i think you'll quite enjoy.

[Chest Rockwell]

I just watched this for the first time last night. I thought it was really good if not really depressing (not necessarily the end, but it in itself). And no, P....no nipple factor except for Holly Hunter...but there's some tonguing between the two girls, if that's what really matters.

[Gold Trumpet]

While watching this, I was reminded of the first time I saw Varsity Blues in theatres. Hardly the film goer then, I was intrigued by the serious issues the film was talking about, but I still knew most of it was for show only. Issue after issue, controversy after controversy, the film was promoting itself at the same time because it made the controversy appeal as entertainment  to a soundtrack that made the film "hip". Fast forward 5 years and you get "Thirteen", a film that hides its showmanship of sex and drugs with indepedent filmmaking techniques. The same problems remain and even though this is based off a true story, the writers admit they used more controversies than what really happened and there lies my point. I will admit the dramatic punch at the end of this film is more honest than the other, but the same feeling of opportunism for every taboo teenage problem and vice is still present.

[grand theft sparrow]

While watching this, I was reminded of the first time I saw Varsity Blues in theatres. Hardly the film goer then, I was intrigued by the serious issues the film was talking about, but I still knew most of it was for show only. Issue after issue, controversy after controversy, the film was promoting itself at the same time because it made the controversy appeal as entertainment  to a soundtrack that made the film "hip". Fast forward 5 years and you get "Thirteen", a film that hides its showmanship of sex and drugs with indepedent filmmaking techniques. The same problems remain and even though this is based off a true story, the writers admit they used more controversies than what really happened and there lies my point. I will admit the dramatic punch at the end of this film is more honest than the other, but the same feeling of opportunism for every taboo teenage problem and vice is still present.

I don't think I could disagree more.  I just finished watching Thirteen and it's not a perfect film but an effective one.  I feel almost like Tracy was my child, meaning that the film was so personal that I felt involved somehow.

It's all about perception.  If you thought that Thirteen was glamorizing sex and drugs, then that's what you brought into it.  There was nothing in the film that was enticing whatsoever.

Yes, it was a bit "afterschool special" at times and I have issues with the subtext that "only slutty white girls would ever hang out with black and Latino guys," but it's no less potent a film for it.  

This film was entertainment only because it's a film.  By writing it off as a teen exploitation exercise undercuts the reason for the film's existence.  I say "reason" because the film didn't have much of a specific point other than to say, "This happens and it's fucked up."  It doesn't offer any solutions to the problem, it doesn't sugarcoat anything (if anything, it comes off as a "greatest hits" of teen problems all rolled into one movie) and it definitely doesn't glorify any of the behavior in the film.  

The only problem with the practicality of Thirteen is that the audience that should be learning a lesson from this movie is too young to be freaked out by it.  But many a parent will shit themselves with fear because of it.

[Gold Trumpet]

I don't think I could disagree more.  I just finished watching Thirteen and it's not a perfect film but an effective one.  I feel almost like Tracy was my child, meaning that the film was so personal that I felt involved somehow.

It's all about perception.  If you thought that Thirteen was glamorizing sex and drugs, then that's what you brought into it.  There was nothing in the film that was enticing whatsoever.

Yes, it was a bit "afterschool special" at times and I have issues with the subtext that "only slutty white girls would ever hang out with black and Latino guys," but it's no less potent a film for it.  

This film was entertainment only because it's a film.  By writing it off as a teen exploitation exercise undercuts the reason for the film's existence.  I say "reason" because the film didn't have much of a specific point other than to say, "This happens and it's fucked up."  It doesn't offer any solutions to the problem, it doesn't sugarcoat anything (if anything, it comes off as a "greatest hits" of teen problems all rolled into one movie) and it definitely doesn't glorify any of the behavior in the film.  

The only problem with the practicality of Thirteen is that the audience that should be learning a lesson from this movie is too young to be freaked out by it.  But many a parent will shit themselves with fear because of it.

Kids is a movie that really scares someone about the youth of the world. The context is everything and comparing this film to that, its Hollywood esque in the purest sense. In the middle of the girls running around doing wild things to a hip soundtrack, the scariest of the problem (the girl cutting herself) is quietly alluded to and shied away from only to come full circle as a dramatic turn that shows just the aftermath. If Kids took on that problem, it'd make it an effort to show every detail of the girl cutting herself. In what Thirteen is trying to accomplish, it adds nothing grotesque or new that hasn't already been detailed by a movie like Kids. Its level of rawness (or lack of) makes the film very exploitive. I never got the feeling of being punched in the gut the way Kids did to me. This film is actually a breeze compared to that.

Dramatically, looking at both films, they strive to accomplish very little. Kids does scare the shit out of you, but its still trying to throw every taboo at the audience to make their heads turn. Both films look at problems that could be given 100 other films of screen time to be given sincere investigation into the complexity and weight of their problems. These films just run the mill on every taboo they can find.

[ono]

For a long time i didnt even know what the age of the girls were

...okay.

[El Duderino]

For a long time i didnt even know what the age of the girls were

...okay.

dude....they were all 18

[modage]

i'm going to have to disagree with you md.  your problems with the film seem to stem from you finding the situations to be unrealistic, but i dont think thats true at all.  my friend who grew up in a broken home found the movie to be incredibly truthful and realistic as he had gone throught a lot of those same situations with his younger sister as he stood by like the helpless brother.  the movie doesnt say THIS IS HOW ALL GIRLS ACT.  but it doesnt mean that the story the movie tells COULDNT happen.

[cine]

dude....they were all 18

I don't know where you guessed that but the two leads are under 18.

[Stefen]

dude....they were all 18

I don't know where you guessed that but the two leads are under 18.

Come on. You don't have to say it.

[Thrindle]

In terms of relationships, and reality, none of this could have ever happened....well it could happen and it does happen, they just were lazy in both the writing and directing.  Im sorry but no 13 year old girl, who is so goody two shoes and smart 4 months prior, is really going to blow prescriptions drugs, drop acid and do whatever whatever, especially when there parents are in the next room, i mean how dumb did they want us to think that these girls were.  I could understand if they were 18 but not 13.

The pressures that young teen girls go through are very real.  And yes this does happen.  By the time I was 18 years old... I had already had my share of teen hell.  The spiral downward, especially for teen girls entering highschool, is extremely quick and contagious.  Within 1 month of highschool, I had started smoking pot and cigarettes and drinking.

I am a well adjusted young woman.  But I was insecure enough to spiral downwards too.  I'm lucky I caught myself.  Not everyone can.  

Because you have kids (or a kid) I suggest you take this movie as a cautionary warning.  Denial just perpetuates this behavoir.

[Stefen]

I always took advantage of those kinds of girls. I guess that could go into the thread about what we did as a kids we regret.

[El Duderino]

dude....they were all 18

I don't know where you guessed that but the two leads are under 18.

i was kidding  

[Pedro]

i know too many people that crazy to think it wasn't accurate.

[grand theft sparrow]

if this was a black family....itd be a whole differant story

If you didn't say that just to piss people off, then I'd like to know why you think it would be a different story. And no, I'm not sharpening my "PC" claws in anticipation of your answer; I genuinely want to know why.