Beleza Ordinária

I graduated in 1998 and high school was nothing like this. This movie is highly dramatized and different groups of people would never party together. Unfunny, boring, slow, and has way too many Dazed and Confused vibes.

I'm probably in the minority for saying this, but this movie sucks. The movie jumps from character to character and it gets confusing after a while. The cheerleader character seemed enjoyable in the beginning, but I started to hate her after she was so whiny about wanting to get wasted. The only reason I saw this movie is because Amber Heard is in it, but not even she could save this movie. Watching Never Back Down (another Amber Heard movie) will erase the torture I went through with watching this movie. This movie makes Can't Hardly Wait look like Avatar and I hate Can't Hardly Wait. I am baffled at all the positive reviews this movie has gotten. Don't let the skewed numbers fool you. Pass on this or you'll be in a "daze" after seeing this horrible movie!

So there was this woman who went to film school and saw "Dazed and Confused" and decided that she could make a movie just like it. And she tried. And she failed. But you can learn something about what makes a real film if you watch them one right after another. Oh wait IMDb thinks all movies deserve at least ten lines of text. This one doesn't but here goes.

The music was almost interesting. The young actors tried their best but unfortunately when there is no plot it is hard for the characters to develop. Many have gone on to act in real movies so I guess this was some kind of learning experience for them. Actually, the most impressive thing about this movie was the ability of the filmmaker to get so many talented and pretty young people to be in the film to begin with. Perhaps she has a future as a producer. She would be much better off if she let someone else write the script, direct the movie and come up with an better idea then let's rip off a mediocre Linkletter movie.

Remember the Daze is an authentic look at high school students on the brink of graduation. It reveals the trepidations and excitement that students feel at this very important juncture in their life. The middle class life style will connect to a large segment of the population, but some will see it as how the "rich" live, especially because they all seem to be driving cars. However, the class distinctions are minor in the film much as they were in "American Graffiti." One of the biggest differences in "Graffiti" was that the most daring thing a kid could do then was to get an adult to buy whiskey for him in a liquor store. Some parents may be shocked and horrified to see the promiscuous use of mind altering drugs. On the other hand, it might be healthy for them to get an authentic look at what's going on.

This movie was phenomenal for the audience who can understand it on a deeper level (Think "The Fountain"). Yes, on the surface it seems like another "Dazed and Confused", but its very accurate to its 1999 time period, and the sex and drugs are a key element to what the movie's about, because the sexual desires and drugs are what bring everybody's different social groups together. The reason why some people might hate this movie is because it isn't plot driven. It's instead character driven, and the interesting thing about it is that it doesn't really have lead characters, it just has an outstanding ensemble cast of some rising stars like Khleo Thomas, Melonie Diaz, Lyndsy Fonseca, Amber Heard, Alexa Vega and Chris Marquette, and some newcomers like Charles Chen, Shahine Ezell, and Katrina Begin. I agree with the other commenter that they did an excellent job with the casting, which is very important in a character-driven film. I disagree however, with the comments that Jess Manafort's script tries too hard to be filled with "funny" stoner jokes. There's so much going on in this film, there's so many different characters leading different lifestyles that end up colliding, that for each thing you may hate about the film there will always be something you love. Amber Heard and Melonie Diaz stole the show for the female casting, and Chris Marquette and Charles Chen had to be my favorite male characters. Like I said in the beginning, if you watch this movie on the surface it may seem stupid and old. If you watch it with more concentration to find a deeper meaning, it becomes an excellent teenager film about the key to blending the high school cliques so everybody fits in. I highly recommend it.