[3] Robert Altman made his directorial debut with this inauspicious teenaged rebellion romp. Tom Laughlin stars as Scotty, a young guy who just wants to hang with his girlfriend (Rosemary Howard), but her parents intervene to keep them apart. So poor old Scotty does what all grown-ups in 1950s America thought teenagers did: he joins a gang of hoodlums. The girlfriend gets caught up in …
[7] Move over, Lindsay Lohan (or at least flail further down the gutter.) There’s a new mean girl in town, and her name is Emma Stone. Easy A is the perfect vehicle for Stone, who shows natural charm and considerable range as a highschooler who decides to lie about losing her virginity. Before she realizes what she’s done, she’s created a whole whorish persona for …
[6] In this period piece set in 1950s New England, Brendan Fraser stars as a high school quarterback who gets recruited to a prestigious preparatory school where he must hide the fact that he’s Jewish. School Ties feels desperate to cash in on the unexpected success of Dead Poets Society (they even hired the same composer), but it’s earnest enough to stand on its own, even if …
[10] In picturesque Italy, 1983, a seventeen-year-old boy falls in love with an older man who is working as his father’s research assistant. That’s it. That’s all Call Me By Your Name is about. And it’s marvelous. So many other coming-of-age, coming out, and gay-centered love stories focus on outside forces exerting pressure on the characters. But James Ivory’s (Maurice, The Remains of the Day) …
[8] Hailee Steinfeld (Oscar nominee for the Coen Brothers’ True Grit remake) stars as a high school girl on the edge of a nervous breakdown when she discovers her best and only friend has begun dating her brother. Writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig beautifully captures the isolation, anxiety, desperation, and pervasive helplessness of adolescence here, and without letting the film get too dark and dreary. Supporting player …
[8] Writer Alan Ormsby and director Tony Bill create a compelling coming-of-age story that avoids two of the greatest pitfalls of the genre: it doesn’t talk down to its subjects and it doesn’t wallow in sentimentality. Chris Makepeace and Adam Baldwin give fine performances as the ‘new kid’ and the ‘mysterious loaner,’ respectively. Their unlikely friendship develops believably and becomes the heart of the movie. …
[4] Richard Linklater writes and directs Everybody Wants Some!! as sort of a follow-up to his own Dazed and Confused. It’s the early ’80s and a group of college baseball players live together in a couple of houses off-campus. The movie has absolutely no over-arching narrative. The guys just party and hang out, practice their ball, and try to pick up chicks. It’s just a …
[6] Walter Huston and Jimmy Stewart star as a father and son at odds with one another in the years preceding The Civil War. Huston’s a preacher and Stewart’s character wants to pursue the earthly profession of medicine. Beulah Bondi earned an Oscar nomination playing the mother torn between the two of them. And I’m somewhat torn about the movie. I love Huston, Stewart, and …
[6] An prep school teacher tries to set his students on a righteous path in The Emperor’s Club. More like Goodbye, Mr Chips than Dead Poets Society, this flick focuses more on the importance of moral character than inspiration or motivation. (Don’t just seize the day; seize it well?) It’s a low-stakes morality tale, but you find yourself caring because Kevin Kline does. His performance is …
[7] Across the Universe follows a group of young people who come of age against the turbulent backdrop of the 1960s. The film is set to a constant stream of rejiggered Beatles tunes, which allows director Julie Taymor (Broadway’s The Lion King, Titus, Frida) to cut loose with her trademark visual splendor and poetic license in a wide variety of music video sequences. When the …
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