Goat

 

Title: Goat

Director: Andrew Neel

Released: 2016

Starring: Nick Jonas, Ben Schnetzer, Gus Halper, Danny Flaherty, Jake Picking, Virginia Gardener, Austin Lyon, James Franco

 

Plot: Still struggling to deal with his assault over the summer break Brad (Schnetzer) is hoping that college will mark a new start for him, while at the same time he is lured into pledging for his brother Brett (Jonas) fraternity Phi Sigma Mu not knowing what awaits him as him and the other pledges are put through the hazing of “Hell Week”

Review: Opening to the so called brothers of Phi Sigma Mu shirtless chanting and jeering in slow motion at some event we can’t see as the camera remains fixed on their grotesque and monstrous expressions, though knowing what lies ahead we can pretty much guarantee by the end of the film that it was something horrible being inflicted on one of the pledges. Like with “Spring Breakers” this is the latest dark project taken on by a former house of mouse member in this case Nick Jonas. Jonas for those not into top 40 pop music, especially that backed by Disney was formerly part of a pop trio with his two older brothers imaginatively titled “The Jonas Brothers” who peddled that non offensive, Christian tinged pop rock that Disney loves to churn out. As with all the former House of Mouse members there of course reaches a time when they become to old (read replaced) and its normally around this time we get to see them taking on the more darker project as we saw with Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez taking on “Spring Breakers” and this film could essentially be viewed as the same kind of career move for Jonas.

Based on the memoir of the same name by Brad Land of his experiences as a Fraternity pledge the film paints a grim portrait of the often very real hazing which happens during the so called “Hell Week” which Fraternities and Sororities put their potential new members or pledges through a week of continuous humiliation and abuse to weed out the weaker pledges in the hope that they’d quit. Its this week that forms the main focus for the film with Brad and the other potential pledges refered to here as “Goats” are thrown unwittingly into the process spearheaded by the intimidating pledge master Dixon (Picking) whose role seems solely to find ever more disguising and humiliating trials to put these Goats through all the while being fully backed up by his frat brothers who often join in with the taunting and general celebration of the misery being inflicted on these potential new members.

The fact that hazing is outlawed by the student handbook seems to do little to faze the members as shown by Dixon reciting the passage to the pledges while at the same time openly mocking the text as “pussy shit” while his inspiration for this torture he’s inflicting on the group seems to be largely steemed from a desire to make up for his own Hell Week which is hinted at by him mentioning a former brother putting out a cigarette on his ass. At the same time its clear that the saftey and mental well being is of little concern to any of the members as seen with some of the trials which often are more based on the general amusement of the brothers than any of them stopping to think for a moment if they should be doing any of these things, while hiding behind ideals of masculinity and brotherhood.

The hazing scenes are especially rough to watch right from the start as the goats are herded (no pun intended) into the basement of the frat house where they are stripped, tied up and forced to drink until they throw up, while another is locked in a cage where he is urinated on and taunted by the brothers who once they have tired of the goats force them out of the basement by beating and slapping them leaving the goats to collect their clothes from the paddling pool they have been tossed into…..and this is day one. From here things only get progressively more grim and disgusting with the climax of these coming from the group being forced to mud wrestle for the brothers, before being forced to drink a whole keg between them or risk being forced to have sex with an actual goat. The scenes which follow being far from the most pleasant I’ve had to sit through as the group struggle to empty the keg leaving us with an aftermath of them essentially broken by the ordeal, covered in a mixture of mud and vomit while one member vainly tries to complete the task. Its really just a matter or when rather than if when all of this will go horribly wrong.

So what inspires someone to put themselves through this? Well seemingly the promise of popularity, sex and an open invitation to parties wrapped up in the illusion of brotherhood is all it takes for someone to put themselves through this ordeal as the dangerous allure of popularity once more makes itself known here. Many of this group of pledge are self confessed nerdy kids who never fit in at school and now see the fraternity life as a way to finally find the popularity many of them so badly crave with Brad’s room mate gleefully rejoicing that he had sex for the first time because he was associated with the frat when Brad attempts to get him to quit.

Outside of the frat drama we have the subplot about Brad getting over his assault we witness at the start of the film, which soon boils down to him looking at the selfie of his bruised and bloody face at various points in the film while never being fully resolved despite being called to identify his attackers in a line up it just all feels very undeveloped much like the ending which itself just film like the film had just stopped than reaching any kind of conclusion.

While the cast are all good in their various roles the acting is still nothing remarkable and while the material might be dark for someone like Nick Jonas to be associated with but at the same time his character while participating at first soon becomes the sole voice of reason in this storm of madness and testosterone. Yes its admirable seeing what some of the actors put themselves through in the film but that alone does not make for a good performance.

A grim viewing experience made only the more shocking to know that these kinds of things are actually taking place, let alone that some bozo is going to see the film as some kind of endorsement of the hazing tradition the same way that they missed that “Animal House” was making fun of the Frats rather than celebrating them as often misconstrued. This is the sort of film to file alongside Larry Clarke’s “Bully” or Catherine Hardwicke’s “Thirteen” especially as its unlikely your be rushing back for a second viewing.

Spring Breakers

Title: Spring Breakers

Director: Harmony Korine

Released: 2012

Starring: Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine

Plot: When Candy (Hudgens), Brit (Benson) and Cotty (Korine) decide to rob a restaurant in order to fund their spring break vacation to Florida it only marks the beginning of their downward spiral into a life of crime that the group soon find themselves in and one which devout Christian Faith (Gomez) soon also finds herself drawn into as she overlooks her friends actions and joins them on their trip to Florida. It is while in Florida though that the girls soon find themselves drawn into the crime ring of Russian rapper and wannabe gangster Alien (James Franco).

 

Review: What happens when a  former Disney Princess decide to break away from the house of mouse for good? Apparently they thrown themselves into a hedonistic mix of sex, drugs, crime spree’s and pink balaclava’s, or so it would seem with this latest offering from indie maverick Harmony Korine, which see's Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical 1-3) and Selena Gomez (Wizards of Waverly Place) Trashing their prom dresses to join Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine as a group of party loving college girls and lifelong friends who fall for the allure of crime and easy money.

Released under an onslaught of publicity stills of the female cast members in their bikini’s, this film seemingly had a blink and you miss it cinema release, meaning that it has taken an art society (yes they seemingly want to see young girls in bikini’s too) screening for me to eventually see this film*, which far from generated the kind of buzz I think the studio was expecting judging by the amount of publicity it was given ahead of its release. At the same time it is hard to place exactly what this film should be classed as seeing how at its heart it’s a crime thriller, yet director Korine still refuses to give up on his indie and experimental film making roots, as with the amount of bare flesh and drunken debauchery on show it would seem as if he has chosen to cross the film with a “Girls Gone Wild” video, while frequently shooting from the hip or like a stretched out and overly glossy music video. Korine though at this point in his career clearly knows films appeal to the few rather than the mainstream, even though this is miles closer to the mainstream than any of his previous films, it will no doubt still have all the feelings of a celluloid migraine for most movie goers.

Essentially re-rooting his breakout script for “Kids” (memorably directed by cinema’s l’enfant terrible Larry Clarke) from the poverty and grime of New York to the luminous bright lights and sun soaked beaches of Florida.  Like “Kids” the script feels largely improv, especially with Franco’s hip hop caricature Alien, who seems to embody the gangsta rap life style complete with glittering grill and cornrows in what is certainly an interesting look for Franco who is white as the driven snow and whom here continues his on going mission to rack to appear in as many surprising rolls as possible. Still here he certainly seems to be having a blast largely improving such a random character, who when not making his continual brags about money, guns or even having Scarface on repeat can be found frequently snarling out the words “Spring Breakkkk” and “Bitches” every other word. The girls meanwhile suffer from paper thin character development  to say the least, with Faith perhaps being the most developed of the foursome as we see her frequently being conflicted by the lure of the party life style and the desire to be a good Christian, with the film opening to her taking part in a youth Christian group (led by former TNA wrestler and founder Jeff Jarrett in a fun cameo appearance), while here she seems to be already questioning the mean of her faith, something which only further challenged when she arrives in Florida and finds herself amerced in the party lifestyle, especially as her friends are seemingly on a quest to keep the party going at no matter what cost.

While it might seem like stunt casting by using both Gomez and Hudgen’s here they prove themselves not afraid to act out of their comfort zone, especially in the case of Hudgen’s who continues on to break away from her clean cut image, having previously shown her feisty side in Zack Snyder’s cult favourite “Sucker Punch”, only kicks it up another notch here as one of the main instigators in the girls downward spiral. Sadly while all the girls might give adequate performances, there is still a sense of shallowness to the film, similar to how it ultimately portrays the so called Gangsta lifestyle and is only added to by the lack of development for any of their characters and essentially leaving them more often than not to play of their womanly charms than anything close to flexing their acting muscles.

The soundtrack is largely a mixture of electro / dance music by Skrillex with the occasional dash of gangster rap and while I can’t say that it really did much for me, it still worked well with the film, especially when Korine seems to be actively editing the film around the soundtrack, often giving it a glossy music video feel as a result, alas a music video featuring copious bouncing naked breasts and obscene alcohol consumption being shot in slow motion, but then isn’t this essentially what spring break is about…or so I gather coming from a English (and hence spring breakless) perspective.

While it might be easy to write this film off as being a lot of style and very little substance, Korine has still somehow managed to craft a film which is none the less engrossing, as he pulls a trick non to dismilar to the one Sofia Coppola did with “Lost in Translation”, although his execution is perhaps done with a more sleazier edge to it but this film like Coppola’s is one were essentially nothing really happens as Korine seems frequently to be just stringing together random scenes of improv and stylised violence alongside those of partying youths. However it is amongst these random scenes of excess and partying that we also get a number of memorable scenes including Alien playing a stripped down version of Brittany Spears’s “Everytime” on his poolside piano while Candy, Brit and Cotty dance around while welding shotguns and dressed in their trademark pink balaclavas which at the same time make this far from an unsatisfying viewing experience if ultimately a hollow one.

*This is an archive piece originally published at "Diamonds In Da Sky", apologies for confusion this might have caused,

Perfect Blue

Title: Perfect Blue

Director: Satoshi Kon

Released: 1997

Starring: Junko Iwao, Rica Matsumoto, Shinpachi Tsuji, Masaaki Okura, Yosuke Akimoto, Yoku Shioya, Hideyuki Hori, Emi Shinohara, Masashi Ebara, Kiyoyuki Yanada, Toru Furukawa, Akio Suyama

Plot: Mima , a member of a J-pop group “CHAM!” decides to pursue a career as an actress, displeasing her fans especially her stalker Me-Mania (Okura). Now finding herself the target of threatening fax’s and mail bombs, things only get stranger when she discovers a website call “Mima’s Room” documenting her life if she was still with the band, as Mima finds her world being turned upside down as she is pushed to the brink of her own sanity.

Review: One of the great masters of Japanese animation, the career of Satoshi Kon would be tragically cut short when he lost his battle with pancreatic cancer, but it would be a stunning body of work he would leave us with, if perhaps sadly also one of the most overlooked.

Here he makes his directorial debut with a Hitchcock-esq thriller and which I frequently like to use as reference point when it comes to arguing the fact that anime is more than cutsy characters, tentacle porn and schoolgirl fan service which frequently seems to the opinion shared by those not familiar with the genre outside of the parts which regularly gain mainstream exposure. True this film is not without its shocking moments with several bloody murders and a scene were Mima is forced to act out a nightclub group rape. However this is more than shock value as it also serves to mark out a snapping point for Mima and her already fragile psyche, as she soon starts questioning what is real and what is fantasy, while Kon leaves the audience to question the same things for themselves, yet resisting the urge to take the audience down a Lynch style rabbit hole.   

Based on the novel of the same name by Yoshikazu Takeuchi, who also wrote the original screenplay, which Kon was unhappy with and ultimately would have the script reworked by Sadayuki Murai with Takeuchi’s permission providing that the three elements of Idol, Horror and Stalker were kept Takeuchi was happy for Kon to make any changes he liked. Interestingly this film was originally intended to be filmed as live action adaptation only for the film to be turned into a OVA when the production studio was damaged during the 95 Kobe earthquake. A live action version directed by renown pink film director Toshiki Sato  would be finally released in 2002, which reportedly is a lot closer to the source novel than this film.

A griping film throughout, the film though is a lot deeper than your usual psychological thriller, as while most thrillers would be content to just play off the mystery of “Mima’s Room”, here Kon’s focus on the changing personality from Virginal pop idol to driven actress willing to do more and more to ensure that she makes it as an actress, even if it means shattering the image her fans have on her, with her agreement to film the aforementioned rape scene only being the start of the slow reveal of her much darker side.

At the same time Kon shows equal attention to the supporting characters who all provide their own piece of the puzzle, from Mima’s office Manger Tadokoro (Tsuji) who pushes Mima into increasingly risque situations which he convinces is for the good of her career regardless of the pressure it puts on her already fragile psyche through to the obsessed  and grotesque stalker Me-Mania who plasters his walls with images of Mima’s pop idol form which in one memorable scene even speak to him. Kon though is equally mindful of the smaller details which often prove as a result to be just as memorable, such as an actor involved in filming the rape scene apologising to Mima during a break between takes.

The animation is crisp and clean throughout, with Kon choosing to avoid the more traditional large eyed anime style, instead for a more realistic style as seen with the wide range of character designs and while it might not have the wow factor that many have come to expect thanks to the releases of Studio Ghibli this is still visually a nice anime to look at, with the movement of the characters being especially spot on as especially highlighted during the ice pick murder sequence involving a length chase around the victims apartment.

Unquestionably this would be a memorable debut film from Kon and one which he would continue to build on even if he would choose to explore other genres with the films which followed, he would thankfully return to explore the themes here further with the series “Paranoia Agent”.  On its own merits though this film really is a benchmark in Japanese animation aswell as also providing the inspiration for Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan”, making it only the more of a shame that it hasn’t been given the same recognition as the likes of the legendry “Akira” or “Ghost In The Shell” and like “Wings of Honneamise” has resulted it in being missed out by the more casual anime viewers which is something of a shame, especially when it is the sort of film which serves to highlight the range of styles which Anime covers.  

Easy A

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Easy A

Director: Will Cluck

Released: 2010

Starring: Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes, Dan Byrd, Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Cam Gigandet, Lisa Kudrow, Malcolm McDowell, Aly Michlka

Plot: Clean cut student Olive (Stone) lies to her best friend Rhiannon (Michalka) about going on a date to get out of a camping trip, which soon escalates to her lying aswell about losing her virginity to a college guy. However when her lie is overheard by the strictly religious Marianne (Bynes), it soon starts to spread around the school while also leading to a surprising new business for Olive

Review: Okay it’s safe to say that when I was working out what to watch this for my review, things weren’t going so great seeing how I been drenched by two jerks driving through puddles beside me on the way home, as well as the stupid blinds falling down again….needless to say it wasn’t the best of times. So hence I decided to finally watching while angry punching the buttons on the Sky+ in hopes of finding something fun and carefree. It is only all the more of a bonus that it also happened to feature Emma Stone

Following in the footsteps of Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You and Cruel Intentions, this film sees Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlett Letter” also getting the high school remake treatment in what was originally intended to be the first part of an interlinking trilogy of films and one which would have seen both “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” also being given a similar treatment. As of the time of writing this is still to happen and sadly currently seems unlikely to either. Still as a standalone film this still stands well on its own as Olive not so much reworks the story of Hester Prynne, but instead draws comparison between Hester’s life and her own as their situation especially as both are thrown into turmoil by the rumour of sexual promiscuity.

One big difference here though is that Olive unlike Hester refuses to let her new found reputation as the school tramp persecute her, as she not only starts playing up her fake reputation by dressing more provocatively and proudly displaying a red A (the old symbol adulaters as well as the symbol Hester was branded with) on her clothes as she works it for the added popularity and increase social status it gives her, especially when she helps her gay friend Brandon (Byrd) convince the rest of the school is straight by pretending to sleep with him, an event which soon has her offering a similar service to boys at her school that are hopeless in love to help improve their own social status’s in exchange for money and gifts though while this starts well with her friend Brandon the quality of gifts soon sharply decline in quality, which only makes it all the more amusing to see Olive working her own pricing structure in regards to what a hardware gift card gets someone.
 

Sadly while the film plays out it’s Scarlett Letter inspired plot well, it sadly throws it away in the last quarter with an unneeded romance between Olive and the school mascot “Woodchuck” Todd played here with grating smugness by Penn Badgley, who I can only guess director Cluck felt came across more hip than he does. It is equally frustrating that the film in places descends into an John Hughes homage, especially with the ending which goes for the grand crescendo of combining elements of The Breakfast Club, Say Anything and Can’t Buy Me Love to nauseating effect and the overwhelming feeling that Cluck couldn’t think of any other way to end it, especially when it doesn’t flow as well as an earlier nod to “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. Still these references only continue to baffle further when you consider that she is supposed to be a current 17 year old and honestly I don’t know many kids born in the 90’s / 00’s who really care about these movies held in such high regard by the kids of my own generation who mostly grew up with them, while those playing catch up like myself usually struggle to see what the fuss is about. True Olive is played as being mature for her age, especially as she confidently references the key points of the “The Scarlett Letter” something I doubt most students her age could, let alone will have watched both film versions, even if her comparison and dismissal of the Demi Moore version is great.

Of course the real strength of this film lies with the confident lead performance by Emma Stone, who is every bit the feisty redhead with an equally sharp and witty tongue, which only makes Olive more fun to be around. It is also equally an advantage that Stone is more than capable of providing a frequently humorous narration (something deceptively harder than it seems as Keira Knightly proved as she snarled her way through “Domino”) as she regales the tale of her current situation via webcast complete with handwritten title cards. Equally fun is the support from the more established actors like Thomas Haden Church who appears as a cliché spouting teacher, while Lisa Kudrow takes a break from playing her usual dumb blondes and psycho bitches to instead give us a more neurotic and frantic character as the school guidance councillor who also seems to be frequently justifying her role within the school, as she references one after school session for a student who brought a butter knife to school as she proclaims “It’s a gateway knife”. Both are so much fun here it makes me wonder why they are not seen more.
 

Sadly such strong support doesn’t extend to her fellow students who are a mixed bag to say the least with Bynes’s fanatical Christian being so over the top that it regularly becomes farcial, but considering how Bynes’s suffered a breakdown which saw her retire from acting after this film it is hard to tell with this knowledge how much of this was planned. Equally unbelievable is Michalka as Olive’s supposive best friend Rhiannon, but never at one point does their friendship seem believable which is only made the more worrying when they are supposed to be best friends which never seems to come across at any point, as instead we are left with a feeling that Rhiannon is someone who has just claimed friendship with Olive rather than anything closer.

It is purely on the strength of Stone’s abilities as an actress that this film is as strong as it is, especially with its artistic licence regarding students and patching supporting cast, let alone the fact she pretty much carries it on her own performance which ultimately makes this a fun and breezy watch and certainly put me in better mood, but then considering how fun Olive is to be around its hardly surprising and the type of role we will see Stone playing more in the future, especially as who doesn’t love a feisty redhead?

Alpha Dog

Title: Alpha Dog
Director: Nick Cassavetes
Released: 2006
Staring: Emile Hirsch, Justin Timberlake, Dominique Swain, Bruce Willis, Shawn Hatosy, Olivia Wilde, Sharon Stone, Ben Foster, Amanda Seyfried, Anton Yelchin

Plot: Johnny Truelove (Hirsch) a young drug dealer and son of underworld figure Sonny Truelove (Willis) orchestrates an impulsive kidnapping of Zach Mazursky (Yelchin), hoping that it will force his older brother Jake (Foster) to pay up his debts, but things soon things begin to spiral quickly out of control.



Review: Based on the events in August 2000 which lead to the murder of Nicholas Markowitz, with the film changing the names of those involved, as well as being set a year earlier, which puts the setting for the film on November 1999, which is an unusual move for a biopic but certainly not unheard of especially after “Domino” (2005), which so proudly proclaimed that it was based “on the truth and the lies” and it’s seemingly expected that the decision to make such changes to allow for the more fictional elements of the film to help link together the events which lead to Markowitz’s murder, without receiving criticism for fabrication of the facts. Still what director Cassavetes has unwittingly also created is possibly the most raw and and realistic portrayal of youth culture since Larry Clarke’s highly controversial debut “Kids” (1995) while also being equally comparable to Clarke’s own stab at the same genre with his equally controversial “Bully” (2001) a film which it is essentially the easiest to compare to, as both feature over sexed, drug fuelled suburban teens, making rash criminal choices and being forced to face the consequences of such actions.

Opening with Truelove and his crew working out while tossing about gangsta style slang and tough guy bravado, it would be hard believe that these characters have not escaped from one of Clarke’s films, especially as these are the sort of characters he tends to favour, especially with every other word seeming being a dererative of the word f**k or some other curse word, but then these are young men in their early twenties and it’s allot more realistic than the smart ass, pop culture reference heavy dialogue which usually accompanies most movie teens these days. Still these are rich kids with nothing better to do than, further their gangster fantasies as they pop pills and snort their away through adolescence, with Truelove playing ringleader to this circus of fools, all buying into the lifestyle that Truelove and his followers are trying to emulate, with Truelove in particular seemingly trying to follow in the criminal footsteps of his father, while hiding his own cowardly ways behind his tough guy bravado, a fact known all to well by the short fused Jake, whose own conflict with Truelove leads to Truelove grabbing Jake’s younger and more naive brother Zack. Interestingly this portrayal of Truelove is almost the opposite of his real life counter part, who was not only the youngest man to ever make the FBI's most wanted list, but also demonstrated high levels of intelligence which helped him elude the FBI for a number of years after the murder.

It’s once the group have grabbed Zack that things take very “Kids” esq turn, for Zack isn’t taped up to a chair for the duration of the film while being continuously tormented by his kidnappers, but instead left in the care of Frankie (Timberlake), who in turn brings him inside the groups inner circle, soon seeing Zack being caught up in the faux glamour of their world, while happily drinking, smoking weed and engaging in swimming pool threesome’s, all things his mother has seemingly worked so hard to shelter him from, especially with his older brother being now deemed a loss cause. It’s Zack's journey into faux adulthood that makes the film distinctly different from most crime dramas and did make me forget what sort of film I was watching which in a way makes the actual murder all the more shocking when it happens, especially after being lead on this hedonistic journey only for it too all come suddenly crashing to a close. Still it was these scenes which took me the most by surprise, especially having put off watching the film, expecting another teens making very bad choices movie and really not wanting to see another film trying to emulate Larry Clarke’s work, something which the British film industry has been frequently responsible for adding to and a cinematic crime that Noel Clarke has been especially guilty of adding to with trash like “Kidulthood” and it’s much unwanted sequel “Adulthood”, but here director Cassavetes has certainly managed to find his own unique voice for his characters, so that they are all individual even if they frequently seem to share the same voice.

Despite upon the films release the critics were keen to comment on the fact that Timberlake could actually act, especially as this film added to his then radical attempts to move away from his teenie bobber status and true he is very good in this film, as he was also in the much underrated “Southland Tales” (2006), here providing the moral voice of the group, as he frequently questions the situation the group have found them in, to the point were he even offers Zack an open invitation to escape, while later accepting Zack as part of the group which makes Zack’s eventual demise all the more wrenching to watch, knowing that his protector has ultimately betrayed them. Still the true standout performance here is an honour that instead belongs to Foster, who is best remembered as the nerdy love interest of Claire Fisher on “Six Feet Under” a role he is truly a polar opposite of here, were he is a 100% badass while demonstrating fighting skills I never knew he had, as demonstrated by a house party beat down, were he single handily batters numerous opponents with ease.

In terms of star power amongst the cast it is limited to Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone, with the cast at the time being comprised of largely unknown actors, despite many going on to larger roles, but both of these established actors put in strong performances, while being limited to strictly supporting with role, with Stone later donning a fat suit for her characters current day appearance as a woman truly broken by the death of her sun, while putting in a performance which is certainly one of her best in a long time, as woman who has truly lost everything, especially during the final scenes which prove to be the most emotionally powerful.

While some might grumble that the film takes liberties with the fact, with the case notes frequently being pushed into the background and largely limited to on screen notes highlighting and numbering witnesses to the case, while certainly not playing as fast and loose with the facts as “Domino” (2005) as memorably did to help cram in another shoot out and thankfully not the case here with director Cassavetes, not trading in the focus to work in more teenage flesh. Still viewed as either a youth in revolt movie or as a crime biopic, it's still a great film and one that dares to look at the darker side of popularity.