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Forum namePass The Popcorn Archives
Topic subjectGHOST WORLD
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=23&topic_id=18471&mesg_id=18471
18471, GHOST WORLD
Posted by REDeye, Fri Jul-20-01 06:40 AM
Okay, here is something everyone here should be able to relate to: nerds are cool.

Sure, few people here (I hope) would gladly admit to seeing themselves in the characters of GHOST WORLD, the movie from the Daniel Clowes comic series. But we are there, all of us. The hating. The negativity. The anonymous pot-shot taking at the true losers, avoiding the issue of our own patheticness. This is the ultimate Okayplayer movie.

GHOST WORLD stars plumped-up Thora Birch (American Beauty) and the little-seen Scarlet Johansson as Enid and Rebecca, two graduating seniors about to venture forth into society. Up to this point, their lives have been made up of running commentary on how uncool it is to be cool, and how pathetic is where it's at. They get a kick out of watching unfunny comedians. Enid listens to Indian rock music from the 60s (I didn’t even know there was such a thing). But high school is over, and the two best friends are growing apart as Rebecca decides she is ready to join the world she's ridiculed so mercilessly, while Enid can't let it go.

The movie revolves around a practical joke they play on Seymour, played to the pathetic hilt by Steve Buscemi. He's the über-loser, such a sad sack that Enid takes a special interest in helping him turn his life around. The result is a relationship incredibly weird and creepy, yet somehow haunting and touching.

There's no surpise in that realizing the theme of the movie is the loneliness of human existence. What is suprising is how easily that loneliness of these creeps translates into something so universally recognizable. Also, what is surprising is just how easily one can laugh and hurt at the same time.

Directed by Terry Zwigoff of Crumb fame, GHOST WORLD gives a touch of humanity to the fringe players of society. While some things carry over from the source material, Zwigoff and Clowes only used the comic as a jumping off point. Steve Buscemi's character is based very much on Zwigoff, a tiny, shell of a specimen very much like Robert Crumb, the odd comic icon who somehow managed to be the sane one in his family. (If you haven't seen CRUMB, you have missed one of the true gems of documentary filmmaking.)

GHOST WORLD is dark, biting, very depressing and outright hilarious. A lot like Okayplayer.

(this review is lame. there, I said it.)

RED
Never confuse having a career with having a life.