10/18/06 Art School Confidential

Art School Confidential (2006), directed by Terry Zwigoff

watched solo; DVD rental (Netflix) @ home

After garnering much fame for his eccentric and geeky style of filmmaking (centering largely around oddball characters, underground comic book lore and soulful blues music), Zwigoff hit a major speedbump in enjoyable films with his last one ("Bad Santa") in my opinion. Probably his most well-known feature to date, it was more crass and surly than quirky and funny to me. I loved his other two takes on offbeat counter-culture comics, "Crumb" (a man who seems to be his mentor of sorts) and "Ghost World." Zwigoff spurns major Hollywood fare in order to re-create these vignettes of eclecticism, and does so wonderfully again here in this venture into art school obsession. What is perhaps the funniest part of the film is the tongue-in-cheek "we're not taking ourselves too seriously" approach to the filmmaking and art critiques. The protagonist, Jerome (Max Minghella...son of director Anthony) goes to extremes in his words & actions to shake up the artistic rhetoric and eventually land the girl of his dreams (who just so happens upon him not in a dream, but as a nude model in his figure drawing class...nice). Wanting nothing more than to break through the cliche boundaries that every artist falls into when creating and thereby discussing art, Jerome seeks solitude in his own disillusions, the voice of (un)reason in friend Bardo (clever geek extraordinaire Joel Moore), and the visions of pin-up hottie Audrey (Sophia Myles). Every labeled stereotype exists in the art school classroom world, whether it be the hippie, the tortured soul, the feminist activist, the bored housewife, or the misunderstood jock...and they are painfully pointed out with their ridiculous idiosyncrasies here. A great supporting cast, as usual, helps the dark comedy along its way...with the likes of washed-up professor Sandiford (John Malkovich), vulgar film auteur-wanna-be Vince (Ethan Suplee), regal art history prof Sophie (Anjelica Huston), and failed alcoholic artist Jimmy (Jim Broadbent). The story becomes one of isolation and longing found on the artist as he searches for meaning and importance with the medium of art. Will his final act of rebellion and trust create the art he is searching for, or will be the trust of the woman he loves he needs to regain to make something beautiful? I don't know what the hell that last part meant, but suffice it to say it's pretty cool. Perhaps I had too much pizza & beer at the hippie stone-baked pizza joint tonight. I feel like anyone who went through art schooling (or architecture for that matter) can definitely relate to the pretentiousness.

4 out of 5 stars