Wasted

I saw this at the Waterfront Film Festival in Saugatuck, Michigan.

This was a pretty good movie. Like many of the other films I saw at the festival, it's about old friends reuniting after having been away from each other for a while. But this time, it's because one of the friends died. I guess it wasn't really what I was expecting. I thought it was gonna be about a bunch of friends reminiscing about their pal with some laughs and tears involved, but instead there wasn't much mention about the friend and his death. Instead it was about college guys returning to their hometown hoping to have some of their good times, but in the end realizing that they've grown up.

Each of the characters didn't really have a distinct storyline, there wasn't a goofy friend or a tough guy friend or a nerdy friend, they were just regular guys, so I guess it was pretty true to life. The actors did a good job, Eddie Kaye Thomas (Finch from American Pie) does a nice job with his character, as does Kip Pardue (Victor from The Rules of Attraction0. Newcomer Josh Cooke also did a great job playing the friend who is hiding his emotions.

In the end, it was a good movie, I liked that there weren't a bunch of scenes where the characters each tell why they miss their friend and blaming themselves for his death, we've already seen that in countless movies. But, as I mentioned before, the characters don't have a lot of distinct characteristics, so they don't come off as very memorable. But then again, that's how most people are in real life, so it's not much of a flaw.

So, the film is honest and real and worth seeing.

This movie is derivative in that we've seen this crowd of kids and type of movie before ala "Big Chill", "American Graffiti" and even a little "Donny Darko" and "River's Edge" too. Here are some high school buddies from a middle class suburban California town who went to the same lame middle class suburban Catholic jock high school, the home of the "Crusaders" the team the destructive jock of the trio played on. One of their mates dies in some silly drunken swimming accident and they all re-unite to relive their aimless cruising, partying and soft core punkish ways for a long weekend.

i won't bore you with another synopsis but what I liked about it was that there was no real big arc. It avoided melodrama like extreme violence or major drug overdose, but we watched the jock who is now a stoner drunk provoke a fist fight over nothing. The sensitive one gets dumped but he meets up again with the school beauty, natch named Kelly, and they seem to be going somewhere. The golden boy college lady's man hooks up with a senior in the aforementioned high school for cheap car sex while she snorts coke and tells him how she had a crush on him when she was a freshman. They all have some darker issues that we get introduced too but they are handled in a low key way. Of course, the audience will relate to the suburban cruising, wasting and meeting the girls stuff, but that is not the focus of it either. There is some FM AOR DJ who provides the mood over the weekend too, but not like the Wolfman. There is a quiet desperation about it that gets expressed appropriately since none of these guys are suffering too much nor act like it, but they are unhappy for various reasons.

The best part is that there is no magic or tragic ending to it, come Monday when they all go their separate ways, their lives haven't magically or tragically changed but they did have some fun and get some insight into their conditions a bit more. It aimed about chest level and that is where it stuck. Nothing really special but a good solid movie about aimless grads re-uniting.

I saw this movie at the Waterfront Film Festival, and I loved it! The story is set in 1995, with an incredible soundtrack from all the "alternative rock" bands of that year, and the characters are well-developed and believable. The story centers around three friends who are brought together to attend the funeral of a friend from high school. Kip Pardue and Eddie Kaye Thomas are both very good, but the surprise performance for me was given by Josh Cooke. He gives an amazing performance as a self-destructive rebel in this film, and I hope to see more of his performances in the future. See this movie as soon as possible.

I just got back from the first official screening of the movie. Wow, it is really great! I mean, the characters are so real. I went with my friend who actually worked on the film and is friends with the director and producer. The director in fact went to my college (for 2 years then he dropped out). But yeah, I really can relate to this film so much. It's not some lame teen movie with a predictable storyline and cheep humor, it's a real life look at a few guy's lives. The director said actually that a lot of the things did happen to him and his friends, and that carries through. Anyways, once this movie comes out, (hopefully it will play in many places) everyone should go see it. If you are a college or just out of college student, see this film.