Kicking and Screaming (1995)

Memorable, crazy movie

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This came out on DVD finally as my college life was winding down, and I still love it. Having seen it many times, I have a Ferris Club theory about it, so indulge me if you're bored.The film's main character is ostensibly Grover, but it all revolves around Otis. Portrayed as the most comic and least serious of the characters, he is in fact a graduate in Engineering and is kept in the group's orbit out of a fear of flying. While Grover struggles with Jane's departure and Max devolves to the point of dating a high school girl and going to the prom (while being portrayed as the actual brain of the group) it is Otis who doesn't change or advance, even though he has the best job prospects thanks to his degree.Grover is infantalized by traits like wearing pajama tops as shirt and (huh?) eyeliner, but it's clear that he's the smartest among them. The only time his braininess is given short shrift is when he partakes in the book club with Chet but neglects to actually read the Cormac McCarthy novel agreed upon. Max mocks the book club, Grover ignores it and Skippy is the classic faux intellectual, but Chet's draw to Max and vice-versa indicates an attraction of the minds, one grounded by Chet's unapologetic love of being a student and Otis's fear of being anything else.This isn't intended as revisionism, simply a different way to look at the film. If you view it through the eyes of Otis, you see that of the core group - Skippy, Max, Otis, Grover - Max and Grover are meant to be the smart ones, but it's Otis who's clearly the brain of the bunch, conflicted and confused by social interaction, basic fashion and a desire to fit in. When you see it through the eyes of Otis, you see how utterly normal and bland the other three are.I love this movie.

i rented this movie because it was in the criterion collection section of the video rental store, and i was very disappointed. my boyfriend and i literally got up and walked around and did other stuff while it was on. to me it seemed like total undergraduate pseudo-intellectual masturbation on baumbach's part. we watched the special features to see what these guys had to say for themselves, there it was revealed that they went to VASSAR (where apparently everyone wears sport coats ALL THE TIME). maybe i just had a totally different college experience, but this movie was completely unrelatable except for the fact that everyone in college seems to think they're smarter than they actually are. in that sense, it was nostalgic in a bad way. i guess maybe the movie didn't appeal to me because i watched it in a vacuum (it's not 1995 anymore, i'm not 22 anymore, and i'd never heard of it). i'd say most of us would probably think the flaming lips' first album sucked if we didn't know about everything they'd done since then. so, all i can say is, renter beware. for me, this movie just never quite clicked. (also, we all know parker posey is hilarious, but totally diluted in this film.)

OK, granted, I thought it a well done film. I'm not going to dispute any of that. I'm sure there are a million reasons why. I especially liked the way the flashbacks were done. . .HOWEVER being a college student about to graduate, being as I am--sick of pseudo-intellectual BS and academia in f-ing general--I found it incredibly depressing. Towards the end it got better for me, when I was yelling "just go to Prague you moron!" Seriously though, interesting, yes. But I wouldn't say judge your friends based upon whether or not they like this film. Certainly it's good--but I'd say I'm glad I now own this movie, yet I doubt I'll ever want to watch it again. Perhaps it hit too home for me. Perhaps I just hate all the brown suits. Perhaps I just can't stand they way they all talk the same! Yeah, I know, this is supposed to be the critique or humor or whatever. . . STILL, just made me groan and groan and groan. . .

This movie is not great. It is an accurate portrayal, nothing more. All the characters are the clichéd prototypes of college life, all those who are interesting for the first part of school but get gradually more and more annoying as semesters plug on. And eventually, you no longer really want to spend time with them, because they are going no where and doing nothing, and haven't their entire "career" as students. Its just a bunch of high schoolers without boundaries or parents, and it isn't art, or even interesting once the initial humor and novelty wears off and the realization comes: this movie is the people I hate. Because they are pretentious posers unwilling to put forth the dedication necessary to become masters of any craft, much like the director at the time when he made this. Hopefully he will at some point, The Squid and the Whale is at least moving in the right direction.