Bill Simmons plugged this movie in one of his espn2 columns, so I checked it out. Having just graduated college myself, I found very easy to relate to. Excellent film, I'm really suprised this is more well known a film. Glad to see Noah's career is taking off though, which hopefully will lead to mroe people discovering this.
shareBill Simmons plugged this movie in one of his espn2 columns, so I checked it out. Having just graduated college myself, I found very easy to relate to. Excellent film, I'm really suprised this is more well known a film. Glad to see Noah's career is taking off though, which hopefully will lead to mroe people discovering this.
I'm not pretending that this is an all-time great film, but I have never related more to a movie. My friends and I pretty much went through the exact same situation when we graduated from college.
well if you went through the same situation... i'm sure at least you did it with life-like dialogue and without a thick air of unneeded pretentiousness like the film.
shareI think the film is more relatable if you have gone to an Ivy-League or similarly stuffy school (I believe Baumbach went to Vasser). It is definitely in the same vein as Whit Stillman's Metropolitan & the urban haute bourgeoisie (UHB)characters portrayed in the film, although I think K&B is a bit more down to earth. The character of Skippy, for instance, is just a normal guy fresh out of college who has no idea what to do with the rest of his life, and his dialogue speaks to this. Eigeman's character probably does sound pretentious, but he is the rich guy so it makes sense. So I don't think the pretentiousness is "unneeded," actually I think it is an asset to the film.
shareI may have to see this now, because I'm a bit of a Noah Baumbach fan.
Egon: I'd like to run some gynecological tests on the mother.
Peter: Who wouldn't?
I just saw it as well and loved it. I'm suprised I really had never heard of it, being in college its the ultimate college movie. Its a film that very true to any college student who's made to face reality. Its a good one!
shareI just saw it as well and loved it. I'm suprised I really had never heard of it, being in college its the ultimate college movie. Its a film that very true to any college student who's made to face reality. Its a good one!
I agree. But I don't think you can truly appreciate it until after you graduate.
I'm right on the verge of graduation and I totally feel what these guys are going through. It's like your whole life there's always a next step already planned out, and once you finish college-where do you go?
I have no job lined up and a worthless film degree from a state university. I can see different parts of all of these guys in me, especially Grover. It's nice to see a film that shows the reality of this period of life: the great unknown.
I still go to my local bar with my friends from high school and college. I even tried leaving the state once too, just like Otis, and failed at it. Actually I left the state for a year to attend a different college but ended up coming back for my last couple of years..
This film has actually inspired me to get off my ass and start making things happen in my life, because I don't want to end up like these guys. I can't wait to see Highball...If only netflix would pick up a few copies...
are you me, or what?
"Don't ever listen to anyone on IMDb except ChimpCadet."
I really liked Squid and the whale, and waited for a while for this to come out on Dvd. I loved it. Being 22, I really connected to it.
----------------------------------------
www.andrewquinnmovie.com
im in 2nd year University, and I cant wait to see this film.
share[deleted]
This movie is not great. It is an accurate portrayal, nothing more. All the characters are the cliched 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 boundries or parents, and it isn't art, or even interesting once the inicial 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 neccesary 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.
shareOld Man River
share[deleted]
This movie is not great. It is an accurate portrayal, nothing more. All the characters are the cliched 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 boundries or parents, and it isn't art, or even interesting once the inicial 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 neccesary 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.
shareThat's the whole point of the movie. The fact that they can't move on. It's supposed to be a portrayal of the feelings after graduation with a little humor thrown in. It seeems like that's exactly how you describe it but for some reason you hate the fictional characters. You say "this movie is the people I hate" and I say you have some personal issues if you hate people for such foolish reasons. That's my psych 101 analysis, I dated a girl who took it. I respect that you didn't like the movie, I'm just a little confused by your resoning, and I have a question: which "craft" have you "mastered"?
shareLooking back, its not as bad of a film as all that. I was just annoyed at the time. But I will stand by the statement and further explain why it is not the characters that created the disdain, because a film does not need to have sympathetic or even relatable characters to succeed as a cohesive piece of art. So here goes nothing:
The reason i truly dislike the characters and ulitimately the film in its entirety is because they are a mirror of their creator. They obtain knowlegde without purpose or intention. Their only volition is to be able to appear of more worth than the next pretentious, knowledge whore. It is solely self-gratifying, and they care nothing for what the knowledge is actually used, for they do not care to pass it to any others in a completely selfish manner.
And this is how I see the director. He makes fun of cliches and at all the people who he went to school with but for what purpose? Any interview or public appearance has shown this to be true of him, a self-promoting bastard who only cares about what he wants to say and what he feels and pays no mind to what he could, in his position and with his talent, provide for others. This is further proven with his lastest piece, and self-reflexsive rant about how bad his life has been and why everyone else is a fake and has nothing of worth to say.
But that's just how I feel.
I believe in knowledge and the responsibility to pass it on, and thereby respecting what you have been given.
I am in the proccess of "mastering" my ability to teach. And not just spout my opinions and how i feel.
Obviously I have some work to do!
I really enjoyed the PSY 101/girlfriend bit. One of the funniest andmost honest things I've read on this site
All the characters are the cliched prototypes of college life...
I completely disagree with this comment. This film obviously avoids most cliches of obnoxious drunken college kids.
Maybe I'm too old but I don't think so, I think this movie just sucked!
The dialogue seemed forced and unnatural. It just seemed like they were trying to hard to be cute. There didn't seem to be much chemistry especially between the girl going to Prague and her dumb a$$ boyfriend.
I also can't believe someone would write "the famous bookclub scene" which by the way wasn't funny at all and has been done to death even prior to '95.
Anyway thats my two cents.
"kicking and screaming" is one of my favorite films of all time, but it is also one of those movies that i think needs to be watched at a certain time by a certain person. i remember watching it ten years ago when i was graduating from college, and feeling an almost painful uncomfortable awareness that my life was indeed very similar...i hung out with a bunch of overly educated hipster types who played pop culture games and ignored the fact that one day we would all have to sell out and work for a living.
if i were to have waited and watched it for the first time as a full-fledged 30something, i don't think it would have had the same impact. also, my husband thought this movie was terrible, but he did not have the traditional 4-year, going away to college experience...he lived at home while going to school and eventually dropped out and spent most of his 20s in a drug-induced haze...but that's a different story. ;-)
Excellent film. Great fun, intelligent, well acted and written, and very funny in places.
share if i were to have waited and watched it for the first time as a full-fledged 30something, i don't think it would have had the same impact.
I completely agree, the further you get away from college the less likeable this movie becomes. When you grow out of that time in your life I think you quickly forget what it was really like.
This is a mediocre "replica" (clone? inspiration?) of the much wittier and original Whit Stillman film METROPOLITAN (1990)
.. however, that films moves better, has more sparkling and creative dialogue, and has a bittersweet mood that this film fails to establish.. Stillman's film is like a memory of youth, K & S is like a journal entry of the same, kinda dry and lifeless by comparison - it needs more passion
My only regret in life is that I'm not someone else - Woody Allen