Sara Vilkomerson’s Guide to This Week’s Movies: It’s Teen Week!
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The Third Stringer
Do you ever get the feeling that a good majority of the country would line up just to watch Will Ferrell eat beef jerky and read the phone book (probably in his underpants)? Semi-Pro took the No. 1 spot this past weekend—though with only $15 million in sales; we’re wondering if people are choosing to stay home and catch up on Lost (which is currently short-circuiting our brain) or watching movies on demand. And speaking of ... Now for a public service announcement: If you, for any reason at all, think you should rent Good Luck Chuck, please heed our warning and set yourself on fire instead. (Dane Cook, no más! That goes double for you, Alba.) O.K.!
THIS WEEKEND, PARANOID Park, the latest from Gus Van Sant—moody auteur behind My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting and Elephant—hits theaters. Adapted from the Blake Nelson novel of the same name, the Portland, Ore.-set film is about a high school skateboarder who accidentally kills a man and decides to say nothing. What follows is a Dostoevsky-esque meditation on guilt and consequences … through the eyes of a teenage boy, which means not a lot is said and one has to trust visual evidence. And what visuals! As in his past films, Mr. Van Sant plays with his story’s narrative, and employs dreamy, beautifully long shots, lavishing attention on his young stars. He cast many of his actors through MySpace, and with their awkward limbs, bad skin and fidgety feet, these kids feel almost uncomfortably authentic (except Taylor Momsen—little Jenny Humphrey from Gossip Girl—who shows up in a supporting role). Like in Good Will Hunting, Mr. Van Sant puts singer-songwriter Elliot Smith’s music to great use, with the shadow of Mr. Smith’s suicide five years ago adding an extra layer of poignancy.
Paranoid Park opens Friday at Angelika Film Center.
THERE ARE MANY things in this life we have no desire to do. Right up at the top would be to climb Mount Everest. We’re not sure what drives people to undertake the journey, and we really, really don’t understand why someone blind would attempt it. In the documentary Blindsight, six sightless Tibetan teenagers set out to get up the 23,000-foot peek on the north side of that big-ass mountain, guided by famous blind Everest climber Erik Weihenmayer. The hardest thing about this movie was trying to resist the urge to scream “Don’t do it! Turn back!” at the screen. However, in addition to the suspense of possibly seeing a blind Tibetan child fall to his death (we’re not telling!), director Lucy Walker does an excellent job of making each member of the expedition team a fully drawn character, and the children and their individual stories are all respectfully presented. (There’s also a hot American “seeing” doctor who goes along to help. Hellooo, doctor!) Still, we feel the need to ask again, why, why, why?!
Blindsight opens today at IFC Film Center.
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