Sunday, September 28, 2008

Smiley Face

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Anna Faris, to me, is an immensely funny and likable actress who mostly shows up in crap. I keep waiting for her to finally show up in a good comedy, instead of making a lot of bad comedies more watchable. And so far, Smiley Face is the closest we've gotten to a strong Anna Faris vehicle. But it's still problematic.

I thought after Mysterious Skin, Gregg Araki was going to be doing more serious, mature work, but here he is back to his old, silly, slipshod tricks. This much more akin to The Doom Generation and Nowhere, albiet much less violent. And like those movies, it's kinda fun but also very hit and miss. It's a stoner movie, and it does have a lot of fun trying to depict the mindset of it's stoned lead, especially the paranoia. But too many scenes drag and don't seem to have much of a point (which may actually be part of the point, I guess). A lot of it depends on Faris's charms, which are considerable, but not always enough. I laughed enough to enjoy this one, but it feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity.

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