Art School Confidential

[Gold Trumpet]

This is a really good film. Much to my own surprise, its a better film than Ghost World and nearly as funny as Bad Santa. Like Ghost World, its a sneer comedy toward an establishment. Ghost World took aim at suburbia and Art School Confidential goes after the academic art world. But, Art School Confidential is more within the scathing criticism realm than Ghost World was. The jokes in Ghost World felt distanced between a story of two friends. The focus on the friends was fine, but the comedic element of Ghost World is what made it relevent and good.

The jokes in Art School Confidential are non stop for the first half hour. There is little characterization to be spoken for. Many of the characters are completely unrealistic even for most comedies these days. When other comedies beat around the bush of having their characters be the reduction of a character-to-a-stereotype, Art School Confidential is shameless for giving us the stereotype. A great scene is when a visiting artist speaks on campus and happily berates the audience and calls out the faculty for being failures and then opines on the question, "Why are you an asshole?" as being a really good question. Its a scene that cuts straight to the truth on five issues in the matter of a few minutes. The majority of the film plays out this way. The best part of the film is not the intersection of characters amongst other characters, but the absolute non stop destruction of the vanity of art schools.

Very few people ever opine on the greatness of the film 'How I Won the War' from the 1960s. It was a comedy set during World War II that set every character as their stereotype re-incarnation and looked at World War II (and war in general) from the point of view of its absurdities. It accomplished what people rationalized that the novel Catch-22 did in that war can be best understood from the realm of absurdist comedy. How I Won the War set the stage by trying to make sense of the bigger picture of war instead of looking at war from an individual basis the way other dramas and comedies do. It ended up becoming one of the great anti war films and also adaquately tied the insanity of World War II to the horror situation of the Nuclear Age afterword. Art School Confidential is not as ambitious, but its focus on the storytelling being about broad stereotypes give it a similar objective to How I Won the War that is sorely under used in comedy today. I don't think a serious film or a different type of comedy could have encompassed so much of what art schools stand for than this film. Some jokes fly off radar and have more semblance with bad comedy, but for the most part the entire film is on track to what its critical of.

But, Art School Confidential only goes half the length that How I Won the War went. The general public deplored How I Won the War when it was originally released for being "unfunny". The film's unfunniness was a conscious decision by the director to remove any easy entertainment and force the audience to look at the specific objectification the film had for war. Art School Confidential in the end is an entertainment piece. I am happy to praise it for a unique outlook but it could have been more. Its still worth a recommendation though.

Finally, while watching the film, I did not know what to make of the strangler subplot. The tone it had felt like it was going to unravel in a very godardian way and be referential to the cliches of genre and such but it did not end up doing so. Without giving anything away, it unraveled more to the parallels of a Tom Wolfe book. In the end the hero wins but in a way thats more telling about society. Its more appropriate than Godard, but the film focused on the subplot so much at the end it did lose some steam on its critical edge.

[SiliasRuby]

  Really happy I saw this. It really nailed it as far as how Art School and Art Students go. A very sweet and smart movie. Really enjoyed it.

[RegularKarate]

GT, you and Silias should go see movies together!

[Gold Trumpet]

GT, you and Silias should go see movies together!

What, we're not good enough buddies to go together?

[RegularKarate]

GT, you and Silias should go see movies together!

What, we're not good enough buddies to go together?

Next time Die Hard is showing at the Paramount, we'll rock that shit.

[SiliasRuby]

GT, you and Silias should go see movies together!

What, we're not good enough buddies to go together?

Next time Die Hard is showing at the Paramount, we'll rock that shit.

Hell ya.

[RegularKarate]

No Silias, just me and GT.

[Pubrick]

don't worry silias, they'll give you a call if they need Random Capitalized Words.

[samsong]

absolutely loved it, and everything about it.  fantastic performances, the satire is fucking dead on, and like Crumb and Ghost World, it's as sad as it is funny--zwigoff finds the perfect combination between the two that i find "profound" (dun dun dun).  Pickpocket parallels abound, especially in the end, somehow managing to emulate the transcendence of Pickpocket's ending and using it for the film's own, twisted intentions.  it's a great film, subtle and full of nuance.  great way to get the taste of x-men and m:i 3 out of my mouth. 

sometimes, i really love movies.

[MacGuffin]

I thought it was hilarious. It was like the art class scenes of Ghost World turned into a feature. The parody of 'artists' was spot on. In the words of Homer, "It's funny 'cause it's true."


And then the film took a VERY serious turn. I understand what the film was trying to say about how he arrived at being taken as a serious artist after his spot with fame, but, unlike samsong, the tone for me felt like a completely other film. I think using more black comedy would have balanced it with the first hour.

[modage]

yeah i'm torn on this one but i think my thumb is generally leaning downward.  i liked all the art school bits and how many things i remember going through, "i had a roomate like that!", "thats exactly what it's like!" etc. but yeah the strangler stuff seemed like an unneccesary place to take the film.  or maybe just not where i wanted it to go, but i almost have to wonder if it was an Adaptation-y comment on having that in the film because its what people expect?  i dont know.  i would've liked this better when i was actually in art school but its disappointing because Ghost World was so perfect and this was so not.

[Stefen]

Maybe one of the worst movies Ive seen ever. Terry Jerkoff needs a handjob. Get a storyline and stick to it. And stop fondling your main actor you pervert. What are you? A republican? Go back to docs. It's like he was like "haha those kids like artsy farsty BS, they also like shit like saw. I'm gonna make both"

No wonder his last name starts with a Z. He stands in the back of the line when it comes to good shit. If Almodovar wasn't such a priss he'd of punched you in the face like is name was Boll.