So Gerry is just about the only film Van Sant has made that I really like, but I really wanna see this. :o

I should be seeing this sometime this weekend.

Very excited.

So I think this was the most Gus Van Sant-y Gus Van Sant film I've seen. Running time is barely 80 minutes, but that's all the time the plot could sustain. Even the trailer made the plot seem larger and more relevant than it actually was. What is relevant is Van Sant's study of an insecure yet defiant teenager, with moral character beyond his age but with only a fickle ability to act on those beliefs in a society he does not understand. He falls into a situation that challenges him, yet the outcome isn't quite a "coming of age" story. It's a film dominated by angst, frustration and longing, marvelously never becoming cliche in the endeavors. Van Sant understands teenagers more than any other director, and as someone who is only emerging out of those years, I only felt that one brief moment was false (inconsequential, really). The cinematography is small in scale yet stunning, and the use of sound and soundtrack are eerily superb. Worth seeing for those elements alone, actually. The story is (we think) told through Alex's (the kid, I forgot to name him earlier) perspective, and it's interesting to note which details he remembers so well, and see what had so much impact on him.
This film is short, but not quick. Not a second is wasted, despite many characterizations and close-ups that the average Joe (or our Joe, for that matter) would find boring. There were moments of mastery her. It might not end up in my Top 10 of 2008, but it certainly has some of the most brilliant elements. It's less pretentious and more accessible than Elephant, but also less powerful (although that can be attributed to the subject matter).
Anyways, I think I'd classify this as Modern Neo-realism. It's funny...what makes this most real is the repetition of events (used in very good, clever but uncontrived taste). What lingers in Alex's life is not the course of events, but the moments of horrible realization which he recalls again and again.
A-/B+

Some the moments of brilliance I spoke of: (stuff to look out for)
-Repetition of Shower scene (actually, it might have been the first time this scene showed)
-When we see Alex's dad. Very revealing moment.
-closing shot
-Paranoid Park tracking shots

I was a bit disappointed by this, but since I love Elephant way too much, that was probably inevitable. I think I expected it to be more like Mean Creek, which it wasn't at all. And the acting was so much less convincing than the amateurs in Elephant (who I thought were really good). The cinematography was gorgeous as one would expect with Christopher Doyle. The movie had amazing potential, and it's not like the story or characters were unbelievable (they were, but if they were better actors that would have helped), it just didn't shock or amaze me like. I knew what was going to happen the whole time, which isn't a good thing.

I'll give it a B, but considering it was my #2 most anticipated for the year, that's not the grade I had hoped to give it.

Gus Van Sant has quickly ascended to one of my favorite modern, currently active filmmakers, which is pretty striking considering his career trajectory in the mid-90s.

Paranoid Park is a companion piece of sorts with Van Sant's "trilogy of Death" (Gerry, Last Days, Elephant), but it's less clinical and detached than those, more immediate and raw. It's an entirely subjective experience. The narrative is fractured and disjointed because we are seeing it the way Alex remembers it as he writes his confessional-like letter to a friend, and the aesthetics are perfect visual representations of the inner-workings of Alex's mind and his conscience. I think the film's biggest accomplishment is the way it completely captures the essence of being an adolescent - how you kind of float through life (beautifully represented in both the slow motion and the bodies of the skateboarders literally floating in the air). Alex is jolted out of this by the shockingly gruesome death of the security guard, and his life starts to take on more definition, and the things happening around him (his relationship with his girlfriend, his parents divorce) start to realize themselves faster. It's like he has been shocked out of his malaise, which causes the apathy encompassing him to wake up, too. Like I said, it's a subjective tour-de-force.

I don't particularly like to default to critics, but I really think Manohla Dargis of the NY Times really hit it out of the park.

So I guess there's quite a bit of a mini-uprising going on inside the film community because this is being displayed in an improper aspect ratio at most theaters. I'm lucky to have seen it in Portland - since we do whatever Gus tells us here - but apparently most audiences are seeing a nasty, brutally cropped 1:85:1 version (with missing heads and the whole shebang) when they should be seeing the stunning (and proper) 1:33:1 version.

So I'm curious... for the few of you that have seen it - what aspect ratio was it in, and did you notice?

Mine was in the 1:33, and I noticed right away. I expected it to be, as van Sant seems to be the only person in the industry who shoots in fullscreen.

Yeah, I couldn't imagine seeing it any other way. The vast amounts of space on the top of the frame really enhances the dream-like quality of the movie.

I've also read that the sound mix is being fucked up, too. Mostly due to shitty theater speakers. How unfortunate that a movie as aesthetically sublime as this (and aesthetically subjective, as well!), is getting mishandled so egregiously.

Mine was definitely in 1:33 as well.

It's a great little gem of a movie.

The movie works best in the dialogue-less long, tracking shots, both in the gracefully captured skateboarders in Paranoid Park, and then in seemingly ordinary acts Alex does, like walking through the field or through the school halls. The whole thing just has this great lucid atmosphere... the editing and usage of sound is absolutely perfect, it really compliments the overlapping feel of these memories coming together.

The standout scene to me is the train sequence, which is done absolutely perfectly. It's really just a beautiful, haunting couple minutes, it really lingers in your mind, and there's really no point explaining it in words, it's all about the feeling and image of it. The extended undressing and shower scene after also compliments it beautifully.

I had some problems with the scenes after the train/shower sequence... It's noteable that the film loses a lot of its lucid-ness, because as it gets closer to present day, Alex's memories become more clear and chronologically fitting. But despite this awesome thought process by Van Sant, I'd be lieing if I said the last third wasn't a letdown compared to the first 2/3s, where the strongest parts were those beautiful tracking shots of the field, the park and boarders, the school hallway, the rails... the strength of the movie was telling these memories without words, only in film vocabulary. When the movie takes more of a straight forward narrative to dissolve the Jennifer relationship and make the character move on to Miya, and the focus becomes more on the sort of crummy high school dialog instead of images, the movie just feels a lot more ordinary. I get what Van Sant's trying to do with the girlfriend character, that Alex maturing with this guilt means moving past superficial things like Jennifer and having an awakening from this event, and that the film is supposed to wander as Alex does, however, I still couldn't help that the scenes did nothing for me. Also I'm not sure I actually bought all those themes of maturity and change on screen, he sort of seems like the same kid, just bored with his girlfriend. Dunno, maybe I need to watch that part again.

The acting... it's decent enough. Most of the bit roles act pretty close to the bit impressions of people you meet in real life. The guy playing Jarred felt legitimate... the father and Jennifer I had more issues with, but whatever. Alex... he did a good job showing the droopy wandering feeling that his words and memories created, but I wasn't really that type of teenager so I couldn't relate a tremendous amount.

It's a hard film to pin down... really, Van Sant's cinematography, editing, sound, is all a brilliant exercise in filmmaking, he really is in control of the medium and uses all his guns. There was something that didn't quite sit with me to truly embrace it, maybe it was the third act, maybe I didn't get as much meat out of it thematically as I wanted, but as a whole, it's a very worthwhile watch for its depiction of memory on screen and again, those long shots. It's in my current top 5 of the year.

4/5

might be the best film of the year.

Hells yeah. Glad you liked it. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it.

Hm. A lot of my thoughts overlap with those of snack, Shack and yourself. But here's some random things that stuck with me.

• I'm pretty sure Paranoid Park was used in an old Tony Hawk game. Dunno which one, but one of my favorite levels from some skateboarding type of game looked almost exactly like that place.
• It is as beautiful, pure and true as Elephant is forced and farcical.
• No film this year has better blended image and sound. Both are great on their own, but some of the visuals I cant imagine working with any other soundtrack.
• Speaking of which, I loved when voices and other ambient sounds took over the music. I've never had anything of this scale happen to me, but I still feel like there are times when yer just so in your head that the tv or a crowded room or whatever totally amplify as if they're blasted outta some unseen speakers.
• The characterization of the kids is about as perfect as can be expected. Alex, especially, was among the most believable kids I can remember. Not only does it capture the day-to-day "teen stuff", but his coping with the tragedy couldn't have been better.
• It also really does nail down the visual depiction of "memory" pretty well.
• Which brings me to the voice-over. It will go down with Days of Heaven and George Washington as some of the best, most effective narration for me. It's as if he writes this confession, probably the deepest and toughest thing he's ever had to write, and then reads it out loud to the audience, with the actual "film" all there just as filler, backup.
• The non-girlfriend girl friend kinda bugged me. She just didn't come off as natural like most others. I dunno.
• I kinda liked that this tragic event is used (to a degree) to "shock [Alex] out of his malaise," but at the same time I feel like it just fast-tracked what was coming. Probably to the actors credit, dumping the girlfriend and spending time with the other girl and facing the divorce, all felt like his natural progression. I dont think this relationship, for example, was going to last much longer with or without the death.

The girlfriend plot line was the only reason prevents me from giving this full five stars. Besides that, it was brilliant.

This film hasn't left me one bit, despite seeing it about 7 months ago. Should end up one of the best films of the year.

Not my favourite Van Sant (I think his Death Trilogy is much more accomplished), but still an suitable addition to his oeuvre.

I think my main problem with it is that, as makeshift said, it's an entirely subjective piece, and as such I couldn't really objectively view it. I kept getting annoyed by the characters, or the dialogue, or the home movie footage, and it really took away from the rest of the film. I just couldn't bring myself to care about a poor beleaguered skateboarder, for whatever reason.

And it feels a lot lighter than his previous work, as if a stiff breeze could blow it over. Sue me, but I prefer films with a bit of weight to them, as long as they're still effective as a whole. This film, while effective, felt too inconsequential for me to think too deeply about.

Still, it's a great representation of the subjectivity of memory, with maybe the best combination of sound and image so far this year. It's almost too bad, in a way, that Van Sant felt the need to attach himself to a narrative this time around.

7/10 -> B-

Even though i's purely poetic, it's too light on everything else. If you take out the guilt of the main protagonist you're left with tabula rasa in terms of a fleshed out character.