Art School Confidential (2006)

Such a frustrating disappointment

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Loved the irony of this movie. And the main actor has enough gaucherie to carry the whole thing off. The comedy of the class characters is really funny. Jim Broadbent's character has the cynicism to balance the movie. Perhaps the murder theme and all those involved in it goes overboard but what the heck?! I stayed with it to the end not knowing where it would lead. Unpredictable. Be prepared for surprises in this movie, that's all I can say! And Beethoven's Emperor Concerto is used to perfection.

There's something that makes me keep coming back to this film, just like Ghost World. And I keep noticing new details. There's a lot of mature observations in it that are sometimes borderline misogynist but too realistic to be called cynical.At it's worst, it spews cliché but at it's best it provides a red pill to put your feet on the ground while being funny, satirical, quick, quirky and spot on.I disagree with the criticism that it unsuccessfully attempts to mix crude college humor with a murder mystery. The crude humor is there but not to make you laugh necessarily, but to reveal vacuousness and ulterior sex-driven motives in the art world. The murder mystery serves to ultimately bring a profound message on how the world works, how much being a great artist has to do with being successful and how real love and happiness can be just out of reach. I also think Max Minghella is great with his brooding eyes. The hatred for his character is unjustified, he has a great talent for drawing, is ambitious and understandably despises the second-handers and freeloaders around him.Nice little soundtrack, sparsely dosed, finishes it. Why aren't there more Clowes/Zwigoff movies?

Lets figure it's cast and shooting has started so we are stuck with the existing characters and actors. No way to edit out of this mess; it will take re-shoots. So the male lead is a bumbling passive insecure weasel, so he is now the antagonist. The fluff babe might carry the film but that is a risk, so that leaves the jock/cop. So lets go Hitchcock and let the audience know he is a cop right at the start. The snarky art-school send-up is no Zoolander and snark is boring and sophomoric. So lets stick with serial killer plot. Stick with Hitchcock too, so we know it is the art bum right from the beginning.So the flick starts out with the murder...no, two murders a few months apart. The jock/cop goes in to investigate undercover. The fluff babe starts to get suckered in by the whiny sensitive cockroach, until she sees how his art looks like the dogs you are supposed to copy to "win" entry in the comic book and matchbook cover art schools. Later she will see how needy and clingy he is, and then when the dweeb claims he wants to be the greatest artist in history, she can fleck him with spit as she laughs in his face and run to the arms of the jock/cop.They were nice enough to have the jock/cop's art get better, and we should make sure it gets way better so he is a decent artist by the end. The dweeb will tease and ridicule the jock/cop so we will be glad to see the dweeb lose.And let the dweeb lose big. Just as the jock/cop figures its the art bum that killed the students, the dweeb steals the bum's art and maybe burns the place down by accident and maybe on purpose to cover his plagiarism. The jock/cop can't prove the arson, so he frames the dweeb for the murders. Lets have some convicts break the dweeb's fingers as a welcome to prison, before marrying him to the man with the most cigarettes.Meanwhile the jock/cop is getting fed up with his bitch wife and jerk cop co-workers, so he gives into temptation and makes love to the fluff babe with the rich daddy. Then his art gets way better, he divorces his wife, and quits his job as a cop. We end the film with the dweeb in prison, his hands in casts, and walking bow-legged. He turns and sees the fluff babe and gets all excited until the jock/cop comes into frame and gives her a big wet kiss while roughly fondling her left breast. He laughs and says "Hey, enjoy life in prison you dork, and remember its illegal to make any money off your crime, loser." The fluff babe laughs with delight, sticks out her tongue at the dweeb, and grabs the jock/cop's butt as they skip out the door. The jock/cop looks over his shoulder and says, "Thanks for giving me a beautiful life." Eighty-five million domestic gross and the action figures and watercolor art set merchandising will clear a few million more.Oh, and lets not have a film about art students make fun of homosexuals and documentary film makers. Talk about stupid and self-destructive. I knew they were in trouble when they made out the scribble face portrait to be crap and it was the best thing in the whole movie. We can have the cop draw that as a portrait of the fluff babe at the end. He can unveil it at his gallery opening, explaining, "This is how she makes me feel."

A movie that tries too hard to be "dark' and ends up inadvertently just an imitation of dark comedies; littered with clichés, and absent any of the insight or wit that turns a movie dark and comedic. Plus, with a cast as theatrical as john malkovich, angelica huston, jim braodbent and the son of anthony minghella - certainly no strangers to a fine arts degree - this is a movie built from experience. In that respect, easy for zwigoff...but also lazy. He's not taking us underground so much as simply ripping it off! Art school is no doubt a strange bag of idiosyncrasies and distractions, but you'd hope the writing would reflect the sort of grace gained from having come and gone, something more to show than a mere caricature? This movie regurgitates some true-enough details in place of the depth, or the real confidentiality, that likely underlies what is surely outrageous about art school personalities. For zwigoff, these personalities remain a sad hypocritcal joke and the whole of art school remains just a setting, not a subject. The story is trite. The characters are one-dimensional. And the ending is a classic film student blunder... ironically.