Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Teen Angst vs TEEN ANGST Molo at the movies - Kick ass and All That I Love



Last week I saw two teen angsty films with completely different takes on the ever-popular subject.  And I mean COMPLETELY different takes.  The first, the serious, dramatic, life is hard and full of Soviet repression film comes from Poland and is called All That I Love or A.T.I.L, which is also the name of the punk band that the main character fronts in high school.  Poland, Punk Rock, 1981, rebellious youth, first loves, this will be an energetic, fun, dramatic but inspiring film, right?  WRONG.  It's a bore.  The Polish landscape is made ever the more drab by washed out colors (how original - when will someone make a film set in Poland that actually makes it look like a nice place to go?) and the film was boggled down with heavy handed cinematography and slow pacing.  The best parts were the few scenes that the director actually let us hear the music and see the band play.  Could have used a lot more of that.  2 Molos I caught the film at SIFF, likely it wont get much distribution so you probably wont ever come across it...instead may I suggest:


KICK-ASS

Okay, by now you've probably seen this if you were interested, but if not, then by all means, check it out!  Kick Ass was a fun romp, and yes full of teen angst!  More so than I expected, actually, and darker, but in this case, that  made to bring a certain reality to the film, which was unexpected.  The entire story is just almost plausible, other than the 11-year-old girl just destroying bad guys with those infamous vulgar one-liners and some other shenanigans towards the end.  But otherwise it's just a movie about a geeky kid trying to win the love a girl and also daring to dream.  Sweet, romantic, and totally a bloody absurd action movie!  3.5 Molos

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