Paranoia Park was the film yesterday.  With all these movies I’m renting for Club Columbia DVD, I’m beginning to look into a movie DVD club to see if it’s a cheaper option- I like the idea, because I’ve had a lot of experiences with Blockbuster and scratches and wrong disks etc.  If you know of any, feel free to leave a comment.

Anyway, I saw Paranoia Park yesterday.  First off, the main guy looks exactly like a friend of mine.  He has a great band called The Kahoos.  He probably skateboards too.  It doesn’t matter too much.  Honestly the main guy looks like every 13-16 year old boy I’ve ever seen with hat hair.  Maybe that’s the point.

I wasn’t expecting anything from this movie, which is usually the best way to watch.  Hamlet 2 wasn’t as good as I thought it would be- because I thought it would be the funniest thing ever made.  (For the record one of the funniest things ever made is Tropic Thunder which I’ll review in a bit.)

What I thought would be a cheap, slasher skateboard-movie turned into an astonishing dark psychological look at adolescence.  Other blogs will write longer words about the theory behind it, but I won’t go into that- the point is this film is definitely a film and not a movie.

The camera work is excellent.  Whatever you think of Gus Van Sant, in this film he captures some kind of profound beauty.  His camera glides along with the skateboard and you see why these kids are drawn to it- a culture of escape from the numbing existence in real suburbia.  

The film is based around the death of a security guard on a railroad by a skatepark.  We follow Alex and live his predictable existence until he goes to Paranoid Park one evening.  The film reveals little bits of the story over time, and it comes together at the end perfectly- this is a beautiful story, well-told.  Here’s a good trailer:



The music is wonderful.  It’s like flicking through Alex’s iPod- it has a variety of music that adds nothing but value to the emotional charge of the film.

Barnes and Noble has it for $25, but you’ll be better off just renting it from Blockbuster.  If you know of any a movie dvd club that carries it already, feel free to leave a comment.  It’s not the kind of film you’ll watch over again, but it’s a unique experience in film- whose atmosphere will stay with you forever.

 

Technorati Tags: , , ,