| this week's TRIBUNE reviews : 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging'; 'Dance Party, USA'; 'Quiet City' |
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| Friday, 25 July 2008 | |
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging [5/10] USA 2008 Starring : Georgia Groome, Aaron Johnson Director : Gurinder Chadha ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dance Party, USA [7/10] USA 2006 Starring : Anna Kavan, Cole Pennsinger Director : Aaron Katz ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Quiet City [6/10] USA 2007 Starring : Erin Fisher, Chris Lankenau Director : Aaron Katz ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ IF the title Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging makes you smile, by all means go and see the film itself - otherwise, it's probably best to steer clear. This is a comedy - sometimes breezy, sometimes clunky - made for (and, it sometimes feels, by) young-teenage girls, most of whom will already be familiar with Louise Rennison's best-selling Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series chronicling the adventures of a bright, boy-obsessed schoolgirl in an unspecified British city. Based on the first two novels, the movie is set in sunny Eastbourne - where Georgia (Groome) lusts after hunky new-boy-in-town Robbie (Johnson) with embarrassing/amusing results. The books' fans have already expressed outrage at the script's divergences from Rennison's text - including the eponymous Angus (Georgia's moggy) changing from "ginger Scottish wildcat" into "fluffy grey Persian" (though inexplicably retaining his tell-tale Caledonian moniker.) There are other indications that the material has been 'tamed' on the way from page to screen (the title of Rennison's tome refers to "Full-Frontal" rather than "Perfect" snogging) showing once again that cinema is more conservative than youth-oriented literature, especially when the lucrative but prudish U.S. market is a consideration. Because while the blandly bouncy Angus, Thongs looks, sounds and feels like yet another by-the-numbers, depressingly unambitious Brit-com - complete with blaring, near-incessant score and over-lit, TV-style visuals - it's actually an American production from Paramount Pictures and the Nickelodeon channel. This is presumably why two pairs of hands worked (separately) on the adaptation: director Chadha & her husband/frequent-collaborator Paul Mayeda Berges; and American duo Will McRobb & Chris Viscardi (small-screen veterans also responsible for the recent Alvin and the Chipmunks movie.) While the results strain hard to replicate the jaunty/savvy charm of Chadha's hit Bend It Like Beckham - at one nudge-nudge point, Georgia's lissom-blonde best-pal Jas (Eleanor Tomlinson) is (accurately) described as looking "very Keira Knightley" - Angus, Thongs is a rather tinny, overworked sort of confection whose blizzard of 'kraaazy' teen-speak ("You make me laugh like a loon on loon-tablets!") rapidly becomes tiresome. Broome is, however, a consistently engaging presence, confirming the promise of her debut in tough-as-nails thriller London To Brighton - a rather different tale of south-coast high-jinks. THERE'S some commendably original and adventurous programming going on at London's ICA at the moment - just a pity that so few of its selections make it any further than The Mall. They're currently spotlighting one of the more talented and intriguing of the American independent film-makers grouped under the 'Mumblecore' umbrella - low-budget, lo-fi dramas, almost invariably about the romantic travails of young people, almost invariably set in or near to New York, using non-professional or semi-pro performers and digital-video equipment. As with the Danish 'dogme' movement, this is more an example of non-mainstream branding than anything which could be considered a school, wave or trend - the chief beneficiary so far being Boston's Andrew Bujalski, whose first two films Funny Ha Ha (2002) and Mutual Appreciation (2005) received belated, limited UK distribution last year, and whom some over-excited critics have compared with John Cassavetes and Eric Rohmer. While Bujalski remains an embryonic talent of promise rather than achievement, the name to watch from this 'scene' is Aaron Katz, a 26-year-old from Gus Van Sant's home town of Portland, Oregon - a locale which provides the setting for his debut, Dance Party, USA, named after the cable TV show which ran from 1986-1992 and was a latter-day variant of the American Bandstand-type programmes so lovingly spoofed in John Waters' Hairspray. The "party" around which writer-director Aaron Katz has structured his debut isn't quite such a terpsichorean extravaganza: it's instead a 4th-of-July bash in which various teens and post-teens from the suburbs drink, talk, argue and engage in various sorts of fumbling intimacy. We gradually focus in on Gus (Pennsinger) and Jessica (Kavan) - the former a self-confessed 'creep,' the latter by contrast startlingly mature for her years - whose early exchanges are anything but friendly or romantically promising. And when Gus blunderingly confesses a dark deed from his past, Jessica's instinct is to quickly withdraw. But that isn't the end of the story by any means... Shot for a reported budget of around $2,500, Dance Party, USA is a fresh and likeably straightforward take on that oldest of chestnuts, young love. Katz seems to be feeling his way into his material, his focus gradually shifting from the wider ensemble onto Gus and Jessica, and proves a wise decision as both Pennsinger and Kavan find all manner of nuances to explore within their characterisations - Kavan in particular coming into her own during the second half of the picture's skimpy 65-minute running-time. This unorthodox duration meant Dance Party, USA was always going to be more of a calling-card than a commercial proposition, and the ICA is showing it as a double-bill with Katz's follow-up, the 78-minute Quiet City. It's another minutely-observed portrait of young people and their tentative relationships - one whose lyrical, poetic sensibility is such that the Austin Chronicle (generously) labelled it "a Terrence Malick film for the new lost generation". The story couldn't be much simpler: twentyish Jamie (Fisher) arrives in New York to discover that, due to a mix-up, her friend isn't there to meet her at the station. She asks directions from a mop-haired passer-by, Charlie (Lankenau) - and this chance encounter leads to them "hanging out" with each other for a couple of days. It might even lead to something else - and it isn't giving anything away to compare Quiet City with Richard Linklater's tale of romantic serendipity, Before Sunrise. Though longer than Dance Party, Quiet City paradoxically feels slighter and smaller - at times you may wonder why we should care very much about the protagonists, whether there's really enough here to sustain interest and attention. Stick with it, however, and rewards do arrive: the closing scene is particularly (and unashamedly) 'nice,' while cinematographer Andrew Reed works wonders with what must have been the most rudimentary of tools, presenting some decidedly un-romantic corners of New York's outer boroughs in an alluringly burnished light. Neil Young 15th July, 2008  ANGUS, THONGS AND PERFECT SNOGGING : [5/10] : US 2008 : Gurinder CHADHA : 100m (BBFC timing) : seen CineWorld cinema, Great Park, Birmingham : 5th June 2008 (press show - CinemaDays event) DANCE PARTY, USA : [7/10] : US 2006 : Aaron KATZ : 65m (ICA timing) : seen on DVD in Sunderland, 3rd December 2006 QUIET CITY : [6/10] : US 2007 : Aaron KATZ : 78m (ICA timing) : seen on DVD in Sunderland, 1st January 2008 |
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