Nate Beaty's Brainfag

You know, I keep wanting to set up a movie review section.. Jeremy voted it down for Shrike.. and it doesn't seem to really fit in here on Brainfag.. but I always forget what I thought of a movie -- or even what movie's I've seen.

Lucky for you, I very *recently* saw this movie, and can say, yes, it was worth seeing (which surprised me -- I was expecting crap.) Holly Hunter is great, as usual. I just read that the screenplay was co-written by a 13-year-old, who also plays one of the leads, which explains her convincing delivery.

My biggest complaint is the overused & unnecessarily distracting jittery & tilted, "reality-like" camera work. I can't stand that shit. It works at times, pulling you into the scene, as it's intended to do. But too often it's used at points where it has the opposite effect, attracting attention to the camera angle instead of the scene.

But what the movie aims to do, it does well. It follows a frightening descent a teenage girl takes to be cool & sexy like the media & society & her peers say she should be.

Another complaint I have is the last fifteen seconds, which leaves you with a quick & disconnected image, right after a perfectly good ending. I don't understand why so many directors completely flub the ending of their otherwise good movies. Can't they see how a few finishing edits could let the viewer leave in peace? I seem to see this a lot. "Oh, this is end. No, wait, it's still going. Why? Oh, end it here. No? OK, now this has to be end. Uhm, still going. Etc."

It's also pretty disturbing, though not nearly as feel-crappy as, say, Kids or Requiem for a Dream. I'll shut up now before I give anything away. Yes, it's worth seeing.

thanks. i like how the red & blue fighting with each other even hurts the eyes onscreen.

So, do you pronounce Beaty as "bee-tee" or "bay-tee" ?