Uptown Girls

The early 2000s were weird. I'm just going to say that now. Remember Suddenly 30? What in hell was that? This is one of the few so-called eras I've been alive for and I understand it less than any other. Why is everything glittery? Why are grown women wearing butterfly designs? I conclude that society wasn't ready for a new millennium. Which is why we dashed to glitter and butterflies and Brittany Murphy as fast as our feet would take us.

The concept of Uptown Girls is okay, sure. Wealthy, orphaned and 22, our heroine loses all her money for some reason and has to get a job. Then she buys some sheets for her deadbeat boyfriend. I don't know, honestly, because this film gives me a headache. Anyway, she winds up nannying the sharply intelligent (read: pain in the arse) daughter of a music executive and a vegetable and teaching her a few lessons about the perils of classical music, dashing around New York in heels and giggling inanely.

I'm with the uptight kid all the way here.

What's most confusing about this film are the dead ends. Hollywood has a way it likes to lead us and I don't like it when it varies from that for no reason. So, when the best friend winds up being shallow, the best guy friend is comforting and ace and not gay, and the love interest turns out to be shallow and rubbish, why don't they part ways/fall in love/part ways also? Uptown Girls offers no explanation for setting these cliches up and then taking them nowhere. If the entire film presented an equal challenge then I'd understand. But the rest — the “gaining of mutual respect” trope I love and hate in near equal measures — is textbook. I just don't get it, and I don't like to be confused. Although the fact that the director wrote Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights explains so much.

That's 2003's Uptown Girls, directed by Boaz Yakin and starring Brittany Murphy, Dakota Fanning, Heather Locklear and Jesse Spencer.

 

Detention

Wish I could tell you what happened in Detention. It's a deliberately scatty piece but I still had to ask other people who the murderer was. It was revealed to us and I still couldn't figure it out. Genres are joyfully blurred; just when you're settling into a sort of teen drama you realise you're in a high school slasher, sure, but then it's the drama again but they're time travelling and aliens and —

Despite being impossible to follow it's actually just really good fun. I was a little skeptical about the pretty-girl-that's-unpopular-for-no-reason trope but the writers actually end up making her believably pathetic, good enough to even circumvent her shiny hair. The dialogue is sharp and the editing is crisp; the clever thing is that Detention doesn't give you time to think about how confused you are. It whisks you along, exhausting you with no expectation that you'll keep up. I have a lot of respect for that.

It's funny because this is another Josh Hutcherson film I've accidentally watched. I just seem to happen across his films since I always forget his name, but I remember his face (mostly because we actually share a vague resemblance, which I've always found unsettling). I mean, I struggle to forgive him for Motocross Kids, which is too awful to even write about. Look at the DVD cover.

I don't mean to be dramatic but their graphic designer deserves to be lynched. But I digress, and anyway he was good in The Kids Are Alright so it's nice to see him again.

That's 2012's Detention, directed by Jospeh Kahn and starring Josh Hutcherson, Spencer Locke, Shanley Caswell and Dane Cook.

 

Rushmore

Honestly, I flush in shame to think how behind on Wes Anderson I am. I only got started with Fantastic Mr. Fox, but I want points for that being my first date. I think the boy told me he wanted a gun license. I don't know if this is more or less alarming in NRA-free Australia. In any case we didn't see each other again.

Rushmore ticks a lot of boxes and leaves me a little biased. Jason Schwartzman, for one, and Bill Murray, and Mr. Anderson and berets. The story focuses around the character of the former, a teenage scholarship student of that most prestigious Rushmore Academy, whose enthusiasm for calligraphy and bee-keeping and joining in keeps him from achieving academically. But he persistently means well, even when he befriends the pretty young widowed first grade teacher, although he does fall in love with her and end up ruining his own life, as well as hers and Bill Murray's, at least for a bit. Rushmore falls very certainly and comfortably into the coming-of-age genre and doesn't attempt to press any envelopes, but charms its way into individuality instead in a very Wes Andersonish sort of way.

I challenge you to dislike this film. It's quite possible to be unenthusiastic about it, especially when you compare it to the director's recent offerings. (Can we talk about Moonrise Kingdom? Is this an excuse to bring up Moonrise Kingdom again? Oh please!) But that indescribable, disarming sweetness, the hazy, stylised believability of it all, gives it that edge typical of most all of Wes Anderson films. It feels so close to being possible, so very nearly perfectly relatable, that you could almost assimilate it into your own life and not feel the bump. It's not a parallel universe; it's a teenage kid on his bike, a teenage kid having abuse hurled at him by a wounded Scot in a tree, a teenage kid being attacked by youngsters in Halloween dress on a cloudy day. This is the film you see shivering at the bus stop and offer the space underneath your umbrella to.

That's 1998's Rushmore, directed by Wes Anderson and starring Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams and Seymour Casse.

 

This Is Us

I admit that alcohol may have been involved in the decision to see One Direction's latest cash cow production, but we'll soldier on with a thing on it because I found my wallet £15 lighter today and something positive has to come from that.

As a confirmed Beatlemaniac I can't resent this band in good faith. A secret: the 14 year-old version of your author cried herself to sleep many times over Paul and, later, dreamy dreamy dreamy George. I have empathy for the girls in This Is Us sobbing their poor hearts out over these boys next door. And as One Direction they're nice normal guys, which This Is Us hammers brutally into your skull the moment you sit down. Aren't they fun! Isn't this sweet! How cheeky! Not set-up! Natural boys! Good boys! Pretty boys!

I am not immune to prettiness.

As a documentary it follows the clan on tour, a mixture of fun 3D concert excerpts, well-edited montage, happy tomfoolery and talking heads. A lot of money has been poured in and you can tell; the picture is lurid and neon, constructed as carefully as the giant flashing sets they perform on. The kids slot in well; they camp in a Swedish forest and relax in the sun, chatting as if they weren't in a fortress of cameras. As a PR piece it's well done, and my God does it know its target market.

I am not immune to thighs.

From a critical, sociological standpoint This Is Us is a fascinating watermark of the times, and in itself analyses (albeit clumsily) the role of fan-generated social media in the making and breaking of the modern celebrity. From a cynical standpoint it underlines everything fundamentally wrong with the 21st century. I can't tell you what it's like from a fan's standpoint, but Tumblr can — and from a boozed-up standpoint Teenage Kicks sounds amaaaazing through cinema speakers and must be sung at high volume.

But you know, like crochet sweaters and blue food, I know it's bad for me but I had it anyway, enjoyed it immensely and felt immediately sick afterwards. It's too sugary and peppy to not be entertaining. Their fandom sucks you into its swirling abyss; even researching this piece has seen my Google search morph from “Harry Styles” to “Harry Styles cute”, “Harry Styles hot” and, finally, humiliatingly, “Harry Styles shirtless”.

I admit I need help.

But honestly, like you don't sing along to their songs on the radio yourself.

That's 2013's This Is Us, directed by Morgan Spurlock and starring One Direction, who have names aside from Harry Styles but I don't think I care.

 

Radio silence

I have no money to go to the pictures and no Wifi to watch whatever the cat drags up on YouTube. I'll be around when I do (not if, must remain positive, must not die in ditch somewhere clutching last packet of instant soup) but until then let's all take some job-hunting inspiration from my girls Romy and Michele.