Is the Movie Kicking Screaming Funny
Funny, resonant and worth checking out
Warning: Spoilers
This is simply the best "Big Chill" movie since, well, "The Big Chill." The cast is terrific; the writing is even better. I've seen Josh Hamilton in several other films, but somehow he never has caught my eye except in this role (interestingly monnikered Grover, by the by). What makes this film work above the usual rabble of 20-something angst films is that you genuinely understand, can relate to, and feel for the characters. And the bits of business that have nothing to do with the "main" storyline, Grover's, are every bit as amusing and resonant. Highlights: Eric Stoltz and Carlos Jacott's "book club." Chris Eigeman ducking the "cookie guy." Carlos Jacott trying to remember the last "Friday the 13th" film. Any scene involving Parker Posey. I think I've watched this film about 10 times in completion. The ending, I've watched about 30 times. It's that good. I don't think I've ever seen a more tender, memorable, perfect scene than the parting one between Hamilton and Olivia D'Abo, where she takes out her retainer, smiles shyly at him and then there's a fabulous music cue that leads us into...the unknown. Of course, we know the ending, because Jane and Grover's fate has basically been the subject of the whole film, but the way Baumbach ties all of this together is truly inspired. Grover's speech at the airline ticket counter may be the best monologue in the history of cinema. Am I gushing irrationally here? Perhaps a little. But this film needs to be seen and recognized as the little gem (that's often better than anything else in the same genre done by a major studio/director) that it is.
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rare film
Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming is one of those rare films that actually gets it right when it comes to understanding the angst of being a young adult right out of college. Baumbach's dialogue matches each of the feelings that newly graduated students go through, but doesn't stoop to the level of condescending. We all identify with the characters of Kicking and Screaming whether it is Skippy and his wanting to further his education because there might be something he missed out on or if Skippy doesn't subconsciously want to become his friends Max, Grover, or Otis. We might identify with Max who blatantly doesn't know what to do now. Max's only hellbent on not looking back on his college years, "I'm nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I've begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I'm reminiscing this right now. I can't go to the bar because I've already looked back on it in my memory... and I didn't have a good time." Kicking and Screaming is a film deserving to be recognize as a journey through the minds of graduates and self-discovery of oneself.
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Talk-heavy indie is fresh and witty but boring
Apparently, I watched "Kicking and Screaming" at the perfect time -- not even a month after graduating college. Still, I don't find myself identifying with its characters or empathizing with their struggles other than the basic "I wish I didn't have to leave." Granted graduating college is different now than it was in the 1990s, but if this film were truly very good, it would resonate with college graduates of all generations. The problem is that as sharp, witty and original as the dialogue is, it's unnatural and it pushes us toward nothing.
Fans of dialogue in film, particularly the avant garde approach, will probably be quick to love this film debut from writer/director Noah Baumbach. He manages to write a lot of dialogue that we all think but never actually speak aloud (admirable), it's all quite clever (funny or at least amusing) but his characters like to talk a lot about what they do, which in this movie is nothing (boring). College graduates and friends Grover, Max, Skippy and Otis, all played by no-name actors basically decide to spend their first year post-graduation back at school because they are to afraid to leave. Skippy's girlfriend Miami is still a student so he stays, Otis is scared of moving to Milwaukee, Grover's girlfriend went to Prague, thus dumping him and backing out of their plans to live in Brooklyn together, etc. It's a very indie take on a coming of age story.
If it hasn't been made apparent, there's a lot of talking. You'll like a lot of what you hear and you'll be bored by a lot of it. People just generally don't talk this way, which helps the movie avoid cliché, making it fresh and funny, but also alienates the audience at times. At times I told myself I kind of liked it, at others I wondered what the point was. There is some definite intention behind everything Baumbach does, but he communicates this intention in ways most people won't grasp and it all comes across pointless. Plus, either Baumbach never communicates the reason for the title or I missed it because I wasn't totally paying attention. With so much dialogue, everything Baumbach really wants the audience to understand he must have spoken aloud and so rather than discovering meaning, it comes in the form of explanation.
"Kicking and Screaming" is an experiment, an artsy film that some will love just for being artsy and others will find boring for being exactly that way. Baumbach's writing shows promise, but it also has the potential to fail miserably.
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Hilarious, fantastic portrayal of disaffected college grads
If I had to pick one movie that I was forced to watch again and again, it may be this one. Not that this is Citizen Kane or The Godfather, it's just that it speaks to me. Never has anyone dealt with disaffection in such a witty manner. Every character has something to say on the subject, and it's hysterical. I really GET all of the characters, even if I can't identify with some of them. None of the actors appear to be TRYING, which most seem to do in films of this genre. Josh Hamilton's portrayal of Grover is subtle but outstanding. Olivia d'Abo is radiant, and (retainer and all), I can't take my eyes off of her. Chris Eigeman steals every scene he's in, as usual, and missed his calling as a stand-up comedian - he's that funny. Baumbach's use of flashbacks is one of the most effective I've ever seen, and the transitions to flashbacks look amazing. And finally, this movie is infinitely quotable. "Cookie Man, go away", "I gotta go - I gotta sleep with a freshman", "Jane 2: Electric Boogaloo?", and "Oh, I've been to Prague" still crack me up after 20 or 30 viewings of this film (need the DVD to come out before my tape wears out).
So I can't say enough about this film. If you haven't seen it, go buy it.
P.S. What happened to Noah Baumbach? Sophomore and Junior jinxes with his two follow-ups. Bad movies. Oh well, "Kicking and Screaming" more than makes up for them.
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A self-conscious film that almost manages to be profound
"Kicking and Screaming" shows a considerable degree of self-awareness for a film about college graduation directed by a 25-year-old, but it is still an awkward, self-conscious film that is no more confident than its insecure characters.
It was fortunate that in 1995, there were producers out there who believed a movie about depressed upper-middle class white boys had commercial potential, because those producers launched the career of Noah Baumbach, who would go on to make superior films in the next decade. As in his later films, Baumbach seems to take pity on pretentious and tremendously insecure characters while simultaneously taking delight in exposing their weaknesses to the world. But in "Kicking and Screaming," unlike, say, "The Squid and the Whale," Baumbach seems to identify just a little too closely with his young characters and seems to believe that they are less obnoxious than they are.
"Kicking and Screaming"'s greatest strength and weakness is how well it captures an aspect of growing up not often captured on film: the resistance to change. Many films deal with characters who gradually change as they come of age, but "Kicking and Screaming" deals with characters who desire on some level to move on past their current selves but are hesitant to do anything about that desire. This also hurts the film, however, since very little changes from beginning to end, and when characters do change at all, they change less than they (or the film) believe.
The stagnation would not be a problem if the film were a comedy, but, while the film is full of quirky characters and occasionally funny jokes, it deals with the dullness and depression too honestly to really work as a comedy. When wealthy Max, perhaps the most stagnant of all the characters, puts a "broken glass" sign over a pile of shattered glass rather than cleaning it up, it is good for a laugh, but as the film goes on, we get to know Max well enough that it almost stops being funny.
"Kicking and Screaming" is certainly worth seeing for any fans of college-related movies and should probably be required viewing for anyone in their junior or senior years, since it could work as an effective warning against the perils that await graduates without plans. But the film, like its characters, has both too much self-consciousness and too little self-awareness to achieve the levels of comedic or dramatic potential that it hints at.
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The best of its kind
Kicking and Screaming is easily my favorite film. It is a funny and intelligent look at the identity crisis that follows graduation. A brilliant script lifts the film out of gen-x romantic comedy hell. First time director Noah Baumbach does the impossible by keeping such a talky film constantly moving. With more insight and heart than most movies, Baumbach has created something timeless. A must see for all who are scared about taking that next big step.
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a hidden treat
KICKING AND SCREAMING is one of the few indie talkathon pictures worth seeing. It is extremely funny, well-written, and perfectly executed by its cast. It also displays the magical talent of a man who goes by the name of Stoltz. Yes, all the perfect ingredients. And only one way to see it--after graduation.
Ted's Grade: A-
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A Wry Gen-X Word Painting
Like the subsequent work of Noah Baumbach, there's ample wittiness on the face of this debut, but the grief of lethargy prevails, piercing and lucid. Having spent six years at a stunningly insulated school, I could and still can see ample grounds to relate to the four despairing rapscallions of this brittle slice of life, who graduate from college then go on to spend the next several months on or around campus, doing things as trivial as possible.
Josh Hamilton, seen recently in Louis C.K.'s show playing an obnoxious stoner, here expecting to live in Brooklyn with girlfriend Olivia d'Abo, is so agape and livid when she takes a scholarship to Prague that he won't return any of her calls and can only wonder about their past in five deliberately placed scenes, each signaled by a black-and-white snap of her. Otis finds himself unable to fly to grad school in Milwaukee, just one time zone away, and returns to living with his mother. Max, who prefers marking broken glass as such on the floor over sweeping it up, finds nothing better to do than harass Otis, do crosswords and have sex with Parker Posey Any better suggestions? Didn't think so. And Skippy, Posey's actual boyfriend, actually returns to school but can't bring himself to do any of the work. As Miami and Kate, a 16-year-old to whom Max turns next, both highlight on individual occasions that this foursome talks and acts alike, making up dumb quizzes while drinking lots of scotch and beer and overall embracing something similar to a four-man frat house.
The synchronicity of drollness and disturbance has grown even more obvious in Baumbach's work since this folksy film. The muttered witticisms that sound designed to restrain, suspend or else displace various cries and screams ultimately seizes the limelight in the great The Squid and the Whale, already unmistakably standing by in his first feature. The polished teasing and shattered nerves of teenagers and young adults appear too close to call, so that clamming up and sounding off, the two things that Baumbach's four male postgraduates do so nimbly, are little more than a traditionalist East Coast upper-class guise of kicking and screaming, meant to bottle up the discharge.
The dangers of being refined beyond one's power to handle it are a persistent Baumbach predicament. In the first comprehensive interchange of this Generation X relic, Hamilton exemplifies this pattern by attempting to hold forth expertly about Prague when all he can do is make cursory, lighthearted references to Kundera and Kafka. And in the even more self-critical Squid and the Whale, Jesse Eisenberg's academic pretense is even more prominent, because, like one of these four, he frequently hasn't read the books he pontificates about.
Stoltz appears in this filmed chain of thought as a long-standing philosophy major and bartender who's stayed on campus for a decade, by some means a more forward-looking instance of the trouble shaping the four principals but in other ways more practical and focused, since by now he's a father and gladly acknowledges the distinctiveness of being a career student as something more than an evasive standing. Stoltz brings to the movie a sort of slack, theoretical insight that's greatly needed by the foursome. All the women, including, apparently, Hamilton's unseen mother, and even the teenage Kate, seem more even-tempered than the guys, notwithstanding that d'Abo's in psychoanalysis and compulsively plays with her retainer.
Baumbach is often footnoted by Wes Anderson. But if Anderson in his prime, as in 1998's Rushmore, has the high-brow egalitarian sharpness of an Ernst Lubitsch, Baumbach's most significant impact is the more lax and investigational Jean Renoir. His predilection for long takes, where he occasionally lets his camera meander while following his actors from a distance, is already remarkably palpable in the very first shot of this dry celluloid soliloquy. Even more pertinent, his strong suits as a director are associated with an ability to entice unforeseen and superb things from his actors, which is no less plain in the final shot. It's a catch-unawares kind of moment suggesting some impression of hopefulness, albeit Baumbach is amply restrained in keeping it in the past.
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Respectable, but easily forgettable.
When I came across this film, I initially had no idea it was directed by Noah Baumbach. At first is rather difficult to immerse yourself in what is going on inside the screen, because there is no context whatsoever, only dialogue coming from obnoxious pseudo-intellectual grad students. It is definitely a low start, but Baumbach takes the steer and lets his characters breathe a little, with interaction in small doses among only a few other characters. Their relationships start growing and we finally get a sense of their context, not just time and place but also how everyone relates to one another and how do they feel specifically about youth, growing up, responsibilities and the future. It is only at the middle where things actually get interesting; the handling of dialogue is not great by any sort, but moderate, although not that interesting to begin with.
The characters overall are not very likeable, they all have their issues but it's hard to sympathize with any of them, because they are selfish and self-centered among other disruptive qualities. So, two of this films most important elements such as the writing and the characters try to sustain the film that ultimately fails to deliver a satisfying product.
Nevertheless, it's an acceptable effort from Noah Baumbach, but he has many better outlets than this.
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The best male bonding comedy since "Diner"
KICKING AND SCREAMING (1995) **** Josh Hamilton, Olivia d' Abo, Chris Eigeman, Parker Posey, Eric Stoltz, Jason Wiles, Carlos Jacott, Cara Buono. To label this the perfect Generation X film so far would do an injustice to this exceptionally brilliant and dead accurate depiction of twentysomethings embarking upon The Real World and grasping futilely to remain in their comfortable existence at college. More like an update of "Diner" with five college pals griping, searching and dealing with their recent shift of reality with some truly biting dialogue and wholly believeable sequences. Written and directed by Noah Baumbach (who has a cameo in the "cow f***er" exchange). Perfect.
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I'm reminiscing this right now...
Warning: Spoilers
I saw this film when it first came out on VHS because it had Eric Stoltz on the cover and, I thought, anything with Eric Stoltz must be good. It was the mid-1990s, after all, and I had first become acquainted with the man through Pulp Fiction--he was so cool! He was also everywhere, even in some particularly banal films (Killing Zoe, anyone?), and, at the time, I grouped this flick with those.
Having sat down and watched Kicking and Screaming (in the wake of absolutely adoring the Squid and the Whale), I am sorry I relegated this movie to a "lesser Eric Stoltz film." It should be in the category of stellar post-collegiate ennui films. The wit and insightfulness, as well as an unwavering decision to present people as they really are and not idealized versions of themselves, are here, as they were in the Squid and the Whale.
Kicking and Screaming is not quite so acerbic as the later film (rightly so, says I, the subject matter doesn't warrant it), nor is it as slick a production. Baumbach was clearly learning what it meant to be a director, so while his writing is, as always, top-notch, visually speaking, there's something lacking. I don't find that to be too much of a detriment to the film, though, because, sometimes, we go to the movies to listen to characters talk. Baumbach has a great ear for intricate, though slightly unrealistic, dialogue. The writing in this movie owes a lot to Whit Stillman's Metropolitan and Barcelona (and Chris Eigeman's presence only makes this connection more apparent), but rather than a drawing room comedy for the UHB crowd, Kicking and Screaming is determinedly middle-class (upper-middle class, probably).
The narrative arc of this film is inessential. Basically, four guys refuse to move on after their college graduation. Nothing momentous happens in their lives; they simply live like, gulp, I have in the few years since finishing my bachelors. I mean, I don't work in a video store (thank you very much, I have a respectable office job), but the concept of dragging your feet into adulthood is a feeling I, and a lot of my friends, often feel. Watching a movie like this, then, as much as it makes you laugh, can also make you wince knowingly.
It's that knowledge that I now have that I think made it possible for me to see the wonderful nature of this film. I have lived this life, so now I see the humor.
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Not good
Armond White was right! Noah Baumbach's mother should have had him aborted! Nah, that's more than a little too harsh, but his debut film isn't very good. It shows a bit of promise, since some of the dialogue is okay here, but, overall, this is a talky, indie bore. A bunch of college students graduate but don't know where to go from there. Most of them just hang around campus, drinking and smoking and trying to bed students. The main story surrounds Josh Hamilton and his girlfriend, Olivia d'Abo, who doesn't even tell Hamilton she's going to Prague after graduation. This story is never at all compelling because Hamilton is such an unlikeable little douchebag. D'Abo probably isn't much better, but she's so attractive you can't want her to hang around Hamilton. Eric Stolz and Parker Posey are the most famous actors in the cast. Chris Eigeman has little to do but remind us how much better a director Whit Stillman is. Baumbach made a couple of other indie failures before hitting upon The Squid and the Whale. That and his subsequent two films, Margot at the Wedding and Greenberg, have been very good, so he did finally find his footing.
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preppie angst fest
K8-2 4 November 1998
There's a lot of angsting and whining in this movie that I didn't relate to when I was an optimistic college student, but now that I too am joining the ranks of the confused and unemployed post-graduate, I look upon its memory more fondly.
Eric Stoltz is very amusing as the eternal student/bartender. A friend of mine is particularly fond of the Otis character, the clown of the film and a master of deflated monosyllabic responses (check the same actor out in Mr. Jealousy - he has wonderful mastery of the trapped upperclass dork). Josh Hamilton does a great job expressing idealized romantic yearning, especially in the last scene of the film, which I won't give away but which is familiarly and achingly bittersweet.
If you're a stickler for realism you might say to yourself, "Yeah right, like these people just graduated from college, they're all in their 30s." If you're the type that can look past the fact that Olivia D'Abo played an 18 year old 10 years ago on The Wonder Years then you'll be OK.
(And if you like Josh Hamilton and Parker Posey, check out House of Yes)
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Pseudo Intellectualism
Warning: Spoilers
For an "indy" film it is good, but every scene is too long. I'm sure there are a lot of people that can "get" this film, but I'm glad I do not have friends like any of these characters. The characters are very boring and intellectual, or at least they think they are, intellectual that is. If you like to pretend you're smarter than everyone else, and enjoy Kaffka references you'll love it. There is one good joke in the movie, and I'm sure it is not original to the movie but it goes: How do you make God laugh? Make a plan. By the end of the movie I was just glad it finally ended, if this was on TV I would have turned it off early.
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Devastating look at disaffected college grads
"Kicking and Screaming" really depressed me. I'm not sure what I was expecting, having seen only "The Life Aquatic" as an example of notable writer-director Noah Baumbach's work (and of course that film was written with Wes Anderson, and directed by Anderson, so I wasn't sure how much of it was Baumbach's), but nothing I read specifically about "Kicking and Screaming" lead me to expect what I got: one of the most devastating films ever made, and one which while not on par with stuff like "The Graduate" formally, remains one of the very best 'where-is-my-life-going-after-college' movies ever made. It also boasts perhaps the smartest use of flashbacks in a recent American film.
I was thinking this would be sort of like a Wes Anderson film but it's really more what Kevin Smith would have written circa 1994-1997 if his parents were critical thinkers instead of lower-middle-class Catholics, and if he'd been writing about students and recent college grads instead of deadbeats lounging about convenience stores and malls and comics writers involved in bizarre love triangles. Perhaps that's selling this short because as much as I am drawn to some of Smith's work he could never come close to capturing the sort of melancholy Baumbach absolutely nails with this film.
The film isn't really brilliant, mostly because it is really plot-less (which wouldn't be a problem usually but read on) and especially since outside of Eric Stoltz's philosophizing bartender I found nothing particularly interesting about any of the supporting cast. The main emotional pull for me was with Grover (Josh Hamilton) and Jane (Olivia d'Abo)'s story. Jane is pretty much the ideal realization of all the odd, quirky, lovely, bizarre, pretentious, disaffected, writers I had crushes on in university and even before and after that time, and the few I was fortunate enough to date. Ideal really because she's a deeply flawed character. Outside of this core story "Kicking and Screaming" relies primarily on Baumbach's witty banter. The trouble is that I found few of the characters to be all that interesting outside of Grover, Jane, and Chet.
Baumbach's direction initially seems primitive but every so often he surprises with a genuinely sophisticated shot. I assume he got better as he went on and that stuff like "The Squid and the Whale" is entirely sophisticated but he already showed a lot of promise with this film. While again I didn't find the film perfect, I connected so much with Grover and with the place in their lives that all these people are that I found the film genuinely devastating at time. When focusing on Jane and Grover it is absolutely phenomenal, and the final scene, I admit, almost made me cry.
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esoterica
Warning: Spoilers
This is an all-time favorite. Not just for the nuanced performances and witty banter, but because my particular group of friends my senior year of college bore striking resemblances to the "hawks" (or "cougars" or whatever the hell Skippy wants to call the group). One of our girlfriends actually made the comment, "you guys all talk the same."
So I can understand why some may pass this film over, but since the action and dialogue hit so close to home, I have to love this movie. It gets better with repeated viewings and the writing, acting, and chemistry are spotless. At times I felt like this movie was made just for me. And that's a comforting feeling. I can tell that Baumbach felt a lot of the same things I did in college - Max's speech at the Hole comes to mind, as well as the writing class scene, and especially, "I'm Max Belmont, I do nothing."
Fortunately, it's SUCH a well-made film. So much goes on in the corners - the renaissance festival guys, the conversations on top of conversations, Grover's dad on the phone talking about Riley's marriage.
It's a great movie that deserves to be seen. Even if you're not a hopeless postgrad loser.
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Good for young college grads, but not for others!!
I could hardly stand this movie at all, because I saw it when I was too old - 33. I think if I had seen it between 22-25, I would have loved it.
If you can relate to the 'still idealistic', 'hopes fading', 'aimless direction to where you want your life to be' problems of young adulthood, then see this. If you're so over those feelings (like I am) and would just think "Just grow up!" about people like that, then AVOID this movie.
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A film that speaks to millennials by talking their language
Noah Baumbach does a similar thing with Kicking and Screaming that Amy Heckerling did with her film Clueless of the same year, and that provide the people from high school/college that we loathed seeing every day with some semblance of identification and humanity to make them into people. The people in Kicking and Screaming may indeed be satirized and heavily romanticized versions of people you'd encounter on a liberal arts campus on any given day - and for me, currently attending a liberal arts school, this one hit a bit too close to home - but their commonalities with their real life counterparts that you can't deny the satirical dial isn't turned up all the way past human recognition.
The people in Kicking and Screaming are the type of people to put a sign on a pile of broken glass in their apartment identifying it as such rather than sweeping it up. They are the type of people who fear that their whole schedule will be thrown off irreparably when they move to Milwaukee, which poses a one hour time difference from their current location. They are the type of people to play impromptu games involving how many films involving monkeys they can name on the dime, as well as being the person to name all the Friday the 13th films the fastest with no assistance. Finally, they are the kind of people who think they're the only people going through the kind of quarter-life/millennial identity crisis they are currently experiencing, and as such, feel better holding long conversations about living at home, getting drunk, masturbating, and repeating said events day-in and day-out until an opportunity's knocks are deafening or ambition hits them like a good buzz.
We focus on four college pals: Grover (Josh Hamilton), who breaks up with his girlfriend in the opening scene of the film when she reveals that she'll be bound for Prague in a few days, Max (Chris Eigeman), who often insights the ridiculous, aforementioned games, Otis (Carlos Jacott), who proclaims to only have two emotions, antsy and testy, and Skippy (Jason Wiles), who finds himself in that awkward stage with Miami (Parker Posey) between hooking up and going steady. After graduating, instead of moving on to bigger and better things, as many college graduates do, the four comrades remain on campus, happily indulging in the same food they condemned having to eat for the past four years and slumming around campus through endless nights of drinking and conversing about everything and nothing.
The rapid-fire wit in Kicking and Screaming is probably the film's most laudable feature. Noah Baumbach has predicated a film, not so much on realistic conversation being that characters can often expunge a paragraph worth of ideas and ramblings without even breaking a sweat or stammering over their words, but on humorous and eminently quotable film that releases the confusing and often unorthodox mind of a young adult. Misery loves company and the reason Kicking and Screaming seems to resonate is its ability to speak the language most millennials understand and speak themselves - it's the language of anti-jokes and endless quirkiness in a manner that, initially seems condescending to outsiders, but is part of the broader comedy/joke culture instilled in the youth of today.
While we can reflect on the time when many of us didn't know where or what the hell we'd be, despite everyone, from friends to family, asking us that same question and our parents asking us when all that hard-earned money they spent was going to pay off, Kicking and Screaming plays it largely for laughs and the situational absurdity it deservedly earns. Despite this momentary bout of disillusionment and listlessness on part of a few wealthy, privileged white kids - who have spent their entire lives learning how to take and pass tests and quizzes and filling in bubbles on a Scantron - who are realizing their real world skills are crippled by a lack of know-how and ambition. As a result, when every option you can conjure seems either frighteningly far out of your comfort zone, irrational, or downright implausible, what else is there to do besides sit, drink, and contemplate.
Kicking and Screaming is a film that pretty much showcases everything wrong, right, obtuse, and special about millennials in a way that uses all the devices they respond to - patronizing humor, sarcasm, and long conversations about absolutely nothing. While it can satirize them, it is not derogatory or mean-spirited towards them. The concluding monologue by Grover in front of an airport customs official has our main character stating how he wanted to do something daring with his life when he was young, while he still could and not be bound to family, finances, and immediate commitments. Those same words were probably coming out of the mouth of Noah Baumbach, who was twenty-five at the time of directing and co-writing (with Oliver Berkman) Kicking and Screaming. The encompassing moral is to leave them with doubt and keep surprising them - or, at the very least, keep talking.
Starring: John Hamilton, Chris Eigeman, Carlos Jacott, Jason Wiles, and Parker Posey. Directed by: Noah Baumbach.
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Watch it twice, laugh twice as hard.
Upon writing, deleting, and re-writing comments, one thing has become clear to me. The movie is funny. It twist sharp wit with comical character mannerisms. The first time, watch it to appreciate a well written and acted film. The second time, watch it to catch all the subtle passing background humor.
From the last days of college to whatever waits ahead, anyone who has had anxiety about getting older and finding a... job, career, wife, anything. I disagree with the previous poster, who said its only for the graduating and recently graduated. I first saw this movie when I was 16, and loved it. I'm 20, and I still love it, my friends love it, even the ones that said "indy-film? no thanks." If you like wit, cleverly developed characters, and well written scripts, you can't go wrong.
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A personal favorite, from the outside looking in.
Warning: Spoilers
Kicking and Screaming has suffered many setbacks on it's way to being considered somewhat of a cult film. The fact that another film exists with it's same title starring the well-liked Will Ferrel does it's own damage, but still many complain about the content of the film itself.
Starting first with the characters that the film depicts. Many complain about them being boring and uninspired. Why couldn't Noah Baumbach pick a group of interesting people and have things happen to them? Mainly because this film is a realistic depiction of types of people you meet and may befriend despite their faults. Baumbach paints each person carefully onto the page from obvious personal experience in college life. Typically, events take place that could happen to any of us; a break up, a divorce, someone moves away, someone stays when they shouldn't, we all make bad decisions which effect our lives in ways we don't realize until it's too late.
A good example of the type of slight an artist such as Baumbach faces in his own work is a flashback scene which takes place in Jane and Grover's writing class. Jane makes a comment regarding Grover's piece regarding the hollow nature of his subjects and how they never discuss anything important and tend to discuss the little things with more anxiety than anything else. This rings true to many things I have personally heard regarding "Kicking and Screaming", that everyone could be interesting if they put all of the jokes and snide comments aside and talked about how they really felt. The problem with this is how often do those situations of pure honesty and intimacy arise in the common person's life? It is rare to be able to pull your deepest feelings out for all of your friends to see in every conversation you have, and it usually comes out in a fight or when a situation is deteriorating - such examples are Skippy and Miami/Max and Skippy, which are some of the most honest moments in the film combated with the development of the persons themselves throughout the film.
Baumbach tends to overkill the stress on aspiring (as well as accomplished) writers in his best-drawn films, which are this and "The Squid & The Whale. Where as the two parents on the edge of divorce in the latter film are writers, in Kicking and Screaming, the two young people in the outs of their love are aspiring writers and the main's parents are going through divorce. You can see many pieces of Baumbach's latter work in Kicking and Screaming, as he went back to the basics with The Squid & The Whale after suffering many disappointments in the 1990's.
It is clear that Baumbach is a different type of film maker than his auteur counterparts such as Wes Anderson. His films feel and look realistic, rather than coming from another world inspired by the many worlds within our own. He has an interesting voice, and a knack for dialog. Kicking and Screaming is a piece of romantic comedy history, and more people should go out of their way to watch it with perspective and an open mind, rather than looking at the faults in the subjects which we all have ourselves.
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Good fun dialog
A group of college friends graduate. Jane (Olivia d'Abo) tells her boyfriend Grover (Josh Hamilton) that she moving to Prague to study rather than joining him in Brooklyn. Chet (Eric Stoltz) has been in school for 10 years. Three months later, Otis (Carlos Jacott)'s worst fear comes true and he moving to Milwaukee. Grover is staying with Max (Chris Eigeman) who is just as aimless but then Otis returns having changed his mind. Clueless Skippy (Jason Wiles) is moving in with Miami (Parker Posey).
These people are a little too aimless to be completely compelling. There are some fun dialog. The friendships are interesting. They just need something bigger to deal with. Even artificially, it needs something central to hold these characters together. I keep wondering why these guys don't go off on their own. They need to deal with something or anything. For so many character being so aimless but being aimless together, it would make more sense that this is one night or a few days instead of months and months. Let them be aimless after the graduation party but they have to leave sometimes. Apparently not.
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Effortlessly breathtaking.
This film is amazing, in my humble opinion.
When I first discovered it, it cost 2 quid in an ex rental knock off shop. I don't know what supreme being possessed me to purchase it, I'd never been aware of its existence before, but it really was lucky.
I think that it is very subjective. This film was very suited to me, especially at that time of my life. It captures a moment in the characters' lives so well, so effortlessly, that it really is very familiar, you almost feel like they're your mates up on screen. It is one of the better and more original 'coming-of-age' flicks out there. I was blown away by it. Forget Dazed and Confused or American Graffiti (both of which I like), this one is more intelligent, more engaging and really interesting. The story is good, the script is good, the acting is good too, it's an all-rounder.
However, there are major problems with it. The script is sometimes a little too....scripty? It's far too contrived and although the actors do their best, at times it does wonder into what we all know now as The Dawson's Creek Syndrome - writing a script with a Thessaurus in one hand, wearing a beret and looking at yourself in the mirror. But for the most part it's completely natural. It does also take a lot of concentration to recognise who's who and what's going on and keep up with the dialogue. However it is worth it. It's also not a film you can drift in and out of, it requires undivided attention to 'get it', and for a film where 'nothing happens', that is a lot to ask of most people.
Despite all this it is one of the best character films (you know, those movies you watch just for the characters and their little interactions on screen) that I know of and well worth a viewing, even if you do have to pull out the phone, disconnect the doorbell, displace your housemates/loved ones and black out the windows.
A very good, well made and very underrated/underexposed film.
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Refusing to grow up or just being one self?
The 90s ... movies about growing up and a lot of talking ... ah those were the days. Quite literally - and while you may argue there have been better outputs (fair enough), I would argue that this is a fine enough effort.
I would have loved to be in a group like this. Talking life, talking movies, having fun hanging out with like minded people ... it may not be a philosophy lessons for some, but for others this can be (or was) the meaning of life. I'm not going to tell anyone what mature is or what isn't. What holding onto things is ... the dialog is as fast paced as anything ... and you'll either love and cherish it or you won't.
Really good actors too. Not just superficially but also seemingly encapsulating the essence of the movie and the being in the moment ... move on? There's time for that surely ...
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The Impending Doom of Adulthood
"Kicking and Screaming" was Noah Baumach's first film. He wrote and directed it at age 25, which is a real accomplishment because the film's very compelling. Riding the wave of the independent cinema in US in the early 90s, Baumbach created a tragicomedy of a tightly-wound group of friends grappling with the reality of life after graduation. Basically, their anxiety is borne out of accepting the responsibility of, finally, you know, growing up and joining the adult-force. As actor Chris Egieman (the articulate Max in the film) has pointed out in a recent interview, these guys are forced to accept that they must now take their lives seriously. Decisions and choices are optional no longer. The question of 'what next?' would need to be answered now. Bummer, right? Of course these early-20 white kids bicker and groan; someone of them delay the inevitable and slack around on the college campus, and at least one of them returns to school and retakes the same classes just so that "he can be a student again." The guys amuse themselves on dreary afternoons: they ask each other if they beat off; they do each others' girlfriends; they crowd around the beer bottles and cigarettes to play trivia games ("Name all 7 Jason Voorhees movies"). Mostly, they just hang out. And they talk; a lot. They philosophise the little things, every little small inconsequential detail that makes up their special universe.
Baumbach has confessed of his love for improv comedy, and he imbues the comedy of the film with some of that. Not all of it works (the Cookie Man scene is a little cringe-inducing) but it's cute at least. But the dialogue is pointed, always witty and full of incisive detail. Although Baumbach and regular collaborator Wes Andresen have been compared with the great JD Salinger, I think Richard Linklater could use some love too.
"Kicking and Screaming" will appeal to a certain type of audience: the pseudo-intellectuals who take, say, their hobbies a bit too seriously. These hobbies or interests could be movies or even crossword puzzles. But this is how the film's characters want to spend their days. They want the world, their parents and their lovers to understand that they are normal for thinking that life before jobs or marriage or kids is as good as it gets. It will make the viewer feel 'OK' about belonging to a certain tribe, a community of like-minded individuals that others accuse, "you all speak the same way." This film implies that it's not lame even if the successful moneymaking pricks on the outside may snigger and chuckle. "Kicking and Screaming" is a wonderful, uplifting, funny, poignant film about the impending doom of adulthood.
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Don't bother
This film is fine if you're a college student who hasn't declared a major and enjoys sitting around stoned and discussing trivial ironies and popular culture.
The writing is definitely a little more intelligent than "Clerks," and the acting is certainly better. But it's a film that has very little to say about having very little to say.
It seemed more like an ego trip for writer/director Baughman which is too bad because he really did assemble a great cast and then forgot to develop the characters.
I wish I could recommend a film like this I like better. It's in the realm of Clerks/Dazed & Confused/Slackers, which are cult hits at best. But the whining of Generation X is getting old for this GenXer.
If you're a Parker Posey fan like I am, rent "Daytrippers" instead.
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Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113537/reviews