Teen Critic Enjoyed Hanging with Nick and Norah

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (Columbia)

By Rachel Landrum

In the new film Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (opening October 3 throughout San Diego), Michael Cera plays Nick and Kat Dennings is Norah. A month after his big break up with Tris, Nick has to go and play a show with his friends and their band The JerkOffs. At the show he sees his ex Tris with her new boy toy. While debating whether or not he should go and talk to her, Nora -- in an act of desperation -- asks him to pretend to be her boyfriend for five minutes. This is the start of one crazy night filled with music, drunken antics, and one really gross piece of gum.

I found the movie very funny, cute and rather enjoyable. I really liked the friends how they care about Nick and want to help him get over Tris, his ex. It really captured the whole teen view of how we can sometimes get caught up in one thing or one person until they become all we see. As a teen I find we tend to do things in an all or nothing manner, with no real in between. The actors portraying the characters in this film did a really good job of showing this and how they went through a lot just to find where a band was playing and to have a good time.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is rated PG-13 for mature thematic material including teen drinking, sexuality, language and crude behavior.

--Rachel Landrum is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. She loves movies and thought being a KPBS Teen Critic would be a good learning experience. She's always eager for a good ghost story or period film. Among her favorite movies are Across the Universe, Pan's Labyrinth, and House of Flying Daggers.

Hamlet 2 / Interview with Steve Coogan

When a high school threatens to cut drama from the curriculum, a teacher puts on a show to save the department. Unfortunately, the play involves Shakespeare and a Jesus who dances like Elvis. If that sounds politically incorrect, it is in the new comedy Hamlet 2 (opening August 22 in select San Diego theaters). You can listen to my interview with British comedian Steve Coogan and director Andrew Fleming about pushing the envelope in comedy. I spoke with them right after they presented a panel on the film at Comic-Con.

American Teen

The 1985 poster for The Breakfast Club and the initial poster designed for American Teen (Paramount Vantage)

The new documentary American Teen (opening August 8 at select theaters) is something of a real life Breakfast Club (you remember that John Hughes film about "a brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel, and a recluse..."). American Teen focuses on five teens representing such school cliques as jocks, geeks, and the popular set. I spoke with director Nanette Burstein about capturing contemporary teen life for her film. You can listen to my radio feature or read the extended interview.

Teen Critic Interviews American Teen Filmmaker

We all remember that iconic and epic film The Breakfast Club. Either you were born watching it or your parents got you into it or even the latest fad of being retro required you to have a large knowledge of whether you were a princess, a brain, a criminal, etc. So when you walked down the theatre aisle and saw this new movie poster for the latest documentary directed by Nanette Burstein, American Teen, you probably had to take a second look, to make sure that it isn't a remake. This documentary has been compared to the most famous 80s movie, but this film is most definitely not a remake. This movie, being a documentary, takes a world that has been displayed in fiction, and in over-dramatic television "reality" shows, and it offers a more in depth and sincere look at the lives of the modern high school teen. The film includes the cliques, struggling to graduate, and teen heartbreak. Overall this film is a great model of what preteens have to look forward to, what teenagers have to live through, and what adults have successfully survived. After I had seen this film I had the great opportunity of meeting and interviewing the director, Nanette Burstein. In the way she spoke of her subjects, I saw the love she had for them and it assured me that this director only had the truest intentions in what that life is like, and I was grateful that this woman chose to deliver this message.

-- Candace Kavanagh just graduated from Mount Miguel High School. She spends her life absorbing celluloid images. She loves every type of film from so-called "chick flicks" such as My Fair Lady and Legally Blonde, to mind bending thrillers like Mulholland Drive and Hard Candy -- with every zombie movie, action flick, musical, and comedy in between.

The Wackness

Drugs for therapy... The Wackness (Sony Pictures Classics)

It's 1994, and Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) is spending his summer before college listening to hip-hop and selling drugs from an ice cream cart in New York City. His shrink, Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley), lets him trade dope for therapy, but Luke's more interested in the doc's sexy step-daughter than any psychobabble. Writer-director Jonathan Levine serves up a funny, sharp, and ultimately compassionate coming of age tale with his sophomore feature The Wackness (opening July 11 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas). Liste to the KPBS Film Club of the Air Discussion of The Wackness.

The Life Before Her Eyes

Uma Thurman in The Life Before Her Eyes (Magnolia)

Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood play a character named Diana at two different times in life in the film The Life Before Her Eyes (opening April 25 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas). Based on Laura Kasischke's novel, the story uses a high school shooting as the pivotal moment of Diana's life. The film is directed by Vadim Perelman who previously won acclaim for House of Sand and Fog, another literary adaptation in which violence impacts the lives of the characters.

Third Annual San Diego Student Shakespeare Festival

High Tech High performers at the first San Diego Student Shakespeare Festival (Beth Accomando)

Technically this is not a film event but I have to highlight the Third Annual San Diego Student Shakespeare Festival that takes place this Saturday April 26 in Balboa Park. I have been helping with this event since its inception because it combines two things I'm passionate about: Shakespeare and young people. Now in its third year, this is the dream project of the San Diego Shakespeare Society, a group of fabulous volunteers who work long and hard to bring the Bard to schools, young people, and San Diego in general. The Festival brings together kids from elementary through high school and even some home schools to perform Shakespeare in the park. There will be four stages this year along the Prado with the Festival kicking off at 12:30 pm in the Organ Pavillion. Performances run until about 3:30pm. And it's all free. The event is an absolute delight and I guarantee that you will be impressed by the student performers, many of whom are too young to be afraid of Shakespeare so they dive in with a gusto that is truly amazing. The energy level is high and it's a wonderful way to celebrate the Bard. But the Society is quick to point out that this event also provides a great educational experience for the students involved, and with so many schools reducing their focus on arts and literature, this proves how valuable both can be to a child's education. So come and join the celebration and enjoy some fine performances as well.

For more information visit the Festival website.

Drillbit Taylor

The terrors of high school in Drillbit Taylor (Paramount)

I was going to leave Drillbit Taylor (opened March 21 throughour San Diego) to the Teen Critics, who did a fine job dismissing the film as "more stupid than funny" and not "completely horrible." But then I came across this item in Variety: "Thanks to the prolific Judd Apatow, the reclusive John Hughes has made an under-the-radar return to the movie business." The article went on to reveal that one of the people credited with conceiving the film's story, Edmond Dantes, is none other than John Hughes. That's right, John Hughes, the king of teen comedies from the 1980s who slipped into oblivion before the new millennium. But Hughes had written a treatment years ago for Paramount that was given to Apatow and developed into Drillbit Taylor, a film about a trio of high school freshmen targeted by a bully and forced to hire a bodyguard for protection. In his heyday, Hughes created such popular teen comedies as Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. His films also gave birth to the Brat Pack of young Hollywood stars and influenced people like Apatow and Juno’s Diablo Cody who grew up loving his comedies. So in an odd way this proves somehow appropriate but it may also explain why I didn’t like Drillbit Taylor as much as Apatow’s other films.

Paranoid Park

Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park (IFC Films)

Gus Van Sant has ceased making narrative movies. Instead he now creates cinematic tone poems in which there is only a thread of a narrative. This will prove frustrating to those wishing to see a movie with a clearly defined beginning, middle and an end (not an unreasonable expectation) but it may prove refreshing to those who enjoy something more experimental. Van Sant's latest film, Paranoid Park (opening March 21 at Landmark's Ken Cinema), concerns a young skater in Portland. The film's adapted from Blake Nelson's novel of the same name.

Teen Critics 2; Drillbit Taylor 0

Drillbit Taylor takes it on the chin from another Teen Critic. (Paramount)

By Alexander Bennett

Drillbit Taylor (opening March 21 throughout San Diego) opens as Ryan, Wade and Emmit embark on their high school careers. They immediately come into contact with the local school bully, Filkins. Filkins marks them out as his targets for the rest of the year and to make their high school experience a torturous one. The boys seek out hired protection to keep Filkins off their backs and teach him a lesson, but they get stuck with Drillbit played by Owen Wilson. Drillbit is a bum living on the street looking for some cash so he can skip to Canada to hopefully start a new life. Drillbit hopes to milk the kids for the cash and "teach" them the defend themselves. As things go on he begins to grow more attached to the kids and tries to genuinely help them out and save them from the terror known as Filkins.

I found Drillbit Taylor to be more stupid than funny. Watching this movie wasn't entertaining as much as just something to do. I don't find Owen Wilson to be a talented actor and this movie didn't make me change my mind. Since I don't particularly like Wilson as an actor, I came into this movie not really expecting much from him. He tries to be funny and add humor, but he just comes off as goofy and awkward with misplaced jokes and adult humor. He's just a guy I can't take seriously.

For trying to be a funny teen movie, Drillbit Taylor fails. Other than a small rap battle scene there weren't many memorable funny moments. Through most of the film I found my thoughts drifting to the rest of the day ahead and getting lunch with my friends. I wasn't at all entranced by this film. I felt more like I was just wasting time and this is what happened to be on.

If you're looking for something to watch just for the sake of getting out more then go see Drillbit Taylor. But if you're looking to be entertained then this isn't it. This movie isn't really worth paying to see in theaters, maybe not worth even renting.

--Alexander Bennett is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. As an aspiring artist in graphic and web design, he hopes to be able to attend the Art Institute of California and major in web design and interactive media. He loves watching movies and sharing his thoughts on them with others, so this seemed like a great opportunity for him to do just that. He enjoys sci-fi and fantasy films such as Star Wars and The Matrix, but also hopes to expand taste in films.