Art School Confidential:アートスクールコンフィデンシャル: シネマコンプレックス[シネコン]: CineMa Complex[CineCom] @ シネコム

/ 2006-06-01 1) Did you go to art school and now are embittered by your career as a book store employee who's only artistic outlet is positioning stickers with a price gun?
2) Do you enjoy sitting with friends at the coffee house surveying strangers and breaking them down into hyphenated stereotypes that lack insight or creativity?
3) Did you *LOVE* Ghost World and insist that those people who found it dull and grating just didn't get it?
4) Do you gleefully describe yourself as alienated from society and spend an inordinate amount of time cutting yourself and wondering why people haven't left comments on that poetry you posted on Livejournal?
5) Does a film lacking in everything other than a schizophrenic desire to sloppily hit all of the bases ultimately resulting in a watered-down genre-collision appeal to you?
6) Does nothing make you happier then when you watch a film and can pat yourself on the back for "getting a joke", perhaps having the opportunity to whisper to your companion, "that's so true."

If you answered yes to these questions, then Art School Confidential will certainly meet all of your expectations and confirm that you were right all along and aren't alone in this world.

For everyone else, while you'll get the requisite number of chuckles (using a sliding scale, probably 4 or 5 more than you would get from a Dana Carvey film) and leave the theater with the stink of wasted opportunities following you home.

Art School Confidential isn't a *bad* movie. In fact, compared to most Hollywood comedies, it's relatively sharp and insightful. However, it's also unfocused, cluttered, cheap, and just feels rushed. If anything, the script could have used one or two more passes. The characters are bland and one-dimensional. Max Minghella, while an attractive young man with idealism written all over his expressive face, can't quite pull it off as a leading man. John Malkovich, spectacularly underplaying a jaded, defeated, teacher and wannabe "Celebrity Artist" never has any moments in which he is allowed to do anything with the character. The same can be said of Jim Broadbent and Steve Buscemi, both capable actors stuck in roles that lock them into uninteresting and stereotypical characters of no depth.
It seemed, on some level, that the filmmakers knew their audience (i.e. those of us who have attended art school, or taken our share of art/film/theater classes) and decided that they had the option of scaling back the effort, since our memories would fill in the blanks. The result is a film where the scenes play out like short vignettes, meant to evoke laughter rather than building character or advancing the paper-thin plot. While not a problem in more accomplished comedies, here the "bits" are often unfunny, more observational than comical, and they end up signaling the audience to the missed potential for a really spectacular comedic moment.
As an example, early on a student returns to the school, now a celebrity artist, and is interviewed by a pompous, long-winded, James Lipton-esque teacher in front of an auditorium of students. The alum then insults the teacher, and the attending students in an unremarkable, certainly unmemorable way, and the scene ends. It was in this moment that I realized what was happening. I wanted to laugh with this film. I wanted it to be funny. I wanted to recognize my younger self and those I attended art school with, and laugh at my own expense and naivetﾃδｩ. More than anything, I wanted to like the movie. But it didn't happen. The stereotypes were far from amusing, and lacked insight. I.e. The student who kisses up to professors, or the film school student who has all of the accoutrement of and acts like someone who's already working in the industry. These stereotypes aren't localized to the world of the art school. You run into the same thing in medical school, law school, and really any school. I mean, I'm sure that there's a guy at some forestry school in the Northwest who always follows the professor after class telling him about the time he went on an expedition to tag bears in the Alaskan wilderness. Broad stereotypes and bland characters don't mix for good comedy.
In the end, the film falls flat with a murder-mystery element that seems tacked on and a mixed message that seems to say "Stay true to yourself and idealistic and your dreams can come true. Oh, but they won't so you're just wasting your time, ha ha." But considering the rest of the clutter here, it probably won't matter.

If you're under the age of 23 and you really haven't experienced much beyond the sheltered world of college and parentally subsidized "emergency" credit cards, then this film will likely reaffirm everything you think you know about the "art school experience." For everyone else, you'll probably find this film to be as useful as a bachelor's degree in sculpture.