Chris, Jen and I went out last night to see Garden State. It was written, directed and stars Zach Braff whom you may recognize from Scrubs, and Natalie Portman, whom you will recognize from the latest Star Was flicks. Jen, Chris and I all really enjoyed the movie. I think if you enjoy "Eternal Sunshine of the Endless Mind", "Being John Malkovitch", or "O Brother, where art thou?", you will probably enjoy Garden State. If your tastes tend to run more to Alien vs. Predator, wait for the DVD.
The plot is pretty simple. A guy from LA whose been on some form of drug all his life to control his "psychotic" tendancies goes home to New Jersey for his Mom's funeral. While he's there he catches up with old friends, his family, and meets a girl. It doesn't sound like much, but it's quite a funny film in a funny way. I found often you weren't sure if you should be laughing or not. I often heard Chris laughing out loud, and then the rest of the audience laughing after him, like they were using him as a judge as to whether or not it was appropriate to be laughing at a given scene. Either way, it's a funny deep movie without being too full of itself, and I found it extremely easy to relate with even the quirkiest of characters. Also after years of spewing out George Lucas' brutal scripts, Natalie Portman actually gets a chance to show us what a phenominal actress she really is. All in all, I'd say that Garden State was one of the better movies I've seen this year.
Zach Braff has posted a blog here which is a pretty good read.
As a side note, Jen used to ski with Sarah Chalke from Scrubs up at Whistler...I guess that gives me 3 degrees of separation from Zach. Lucky him :)
1 comment:
I often heard Chris laughing out loud, and then the rest of the audience laughing after him, like they were using him as a judge as to whether or not it was appropriate to be laughing at a given scene.
You know there's a lot of irony in people using me as a barometer of appropriateness. :-)
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