Art School Confidential
( 2006, Terry Zwigoff)
Love, Murder, Art and a bunch of Art School Cliches is what you get in Terry Zwigoff's dark comedy Art School Confidential. I'm not sure if I liked this movie because I went to art school and it poked fun at all the art school cliches and stereotypes or if it was actually a funny good movie. The movie follows Jerome Platz, played by Max Minghella as an artist who wants to become the greatest artist of the 21st century, so what does he do to do that, why he goes to art school of course. While at art school he falls for the nude model in his drawing class Audrey Baumgarten, played by Sophia Myles. I don't know about you guys but if I had a nude model who looked like her when I was in art school I think I might of paid more attention in class. Well needless to say the movie revolves around Jerome trying to win the affections of Sophia and also gain recognition for his art. But the question is to what lengths will he go to do that...oh wait did I mention that there is a serial strangler on the loose.
Also in the film are appearances by John Malkovich, Anjelica Huston and Ethan Suplee(who can now be seen playing Jason Lee's brother in the tv show ED).
As my parting words I will leave you with this. If you've never seen a Terry Zwigoff film before, Art School Confidential is not what you should judge this filmmaker by. I would recommend seeing Crumb (1994) a documentary about cartoonist R. Crumb and also see Ghost World (2001). He also directed Bad Santa (2003) but I have yet to see it. If you have seen one of his films before then Art School Confidential will give you a few good laughs but overall it might leave you feeling a bit empty inside.
Art School Confidential website and trailer.
5 comments:
Yes, Crumb and Ghost World are both very good, although I wouldn't necessarily recommend the former to anyone who doesn't have any interest in Robert Crumb or underground comics in general.
Bad Santa is excellent, by the way.
yeah I guess I wouldn't recommend any one to see Crumb unless they have an interest in Art and comic books. I really like dCrumb and also one of my art teachers was actually one of Crumbs many girlfriends and was in the movie.
On a similar theme (Crumb, underground comix, etc), have you seen American Splendor? I thought that was even better than Crumb or Ghost World.
yeah American Splendor was really good.
Terry Zwigoff spoofed art school a little bit in Ghost World as well and he was spot on (I went to art school too). If I was making a movie about art school I think I'd be a little bit mean spirited as well.
Bad Santa is exceptional.
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