Charlie Bartlett

There's a Blockbuster a block away from my apartment and about once a month they do a four for $20 DVD sale. I am unable to pass this up even though the inevitable time crunch happens and I have stacks of unwatched DVD's sitting around (a good portion of which are some random titles that I picked up to fill up my four). This is one step in a continual effort to get through the monstrosity.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!! I really don't know how much energy I feel like devoting to this film. Right from the beginning I felt as if I was watching a pale imitation of a thousand other films. It bends over backwards trying to be quirky (ooh look at me I"m Robert Downey Jr., I compulsively drive model boats around my pool, aren't I crazy), and its not that I dislike quirky per se (I mean I'm a huge fan of the works of Wes Anderson) but when its quirkiness for its own sake I just get annoyed. The plot centers around a bored high school student who really wants to be liked who's just transferred to a public school. Of course he's initially an outcast but he's able to be become beloved by acting as the school psychologist and getting prescription medication to help them. Halfway through we have an attempted suicide that makes him try make a more prodigious use of his talents, and blah blah blah. There's lesson's learned, grand speeches, kids acting more mature than adults, and really every other indie film cliche that would theoreticaly make every Shins loving hipster pass out from joy. Oh and of course the climax revolves around a student produced play where everybody sees what's really important and learns an important life lesson. Yeah.

Look, this is definitely not the worst film ever, its just fallen into the trap of trying to be hip and quirky that it ends up becomming tiresome and boring. Still better than Pearl Harbor.