Box Elder

This would be it. Saw this flick in Austin and absolutely loved it. It was like a semblance of all my favorite memories from college, but executed a lot better than when it's you and five of your friends sitting around drinking and telling stories.

The comedy is dead on, and once it starts rolling, the laughter doesn't stop. But there's still enough story there to make you care. And the acting is sensational. I think I recognized one guy from TV, but other than that, it's all unknowns, and they are good. Especially the bit roles. Some of the funniest jokes belong to characters who are only in it for a few minutes, but that totally matches what college is like.

The first 10 minutes were a little slow, and are primarily comprised of introducing and establishing the main characters, but the film itself is better off because of that, and it kind of builds in pace in a very organic way that lends itself to the storytelling, whereas a lot of comedies (especially ones set in college) are more uneven and sort of go back and forth between the funnies and the serious stuff.

It's got the heart and the character of Bottle Rocket or Rushmore, but within the context and subject matter of Superbad or Swingers. And yet, it's completely original. And completely funny. The guys who made it were on tour with it driving around the country when we saw it, and hopefully they continue to take it around, cause this is a good little movie, and one that warrants a few watches (you'll wanna watch it at least twice).

If it comes to your town, GO SEE THIS MOVIE. I promise you'll laugh your ass off and then call all of your best friends and catch up while reminiscing some of the best years of your life.

The guy that is heading up this tour, this is a film he made, when he was in college, for less than 70 grand. It's really honest, kind of like a Kicking and Screaming for the mumble-core generation. but A LOT funnier. As funny as Swingers, and close content-wise too. Like Swingers in college sort of. While the film definitely has it's ups and downs, the real reason to see it is for a performance by someone who I can easily see being the next Bill Murray. This actor's name is Alexander Rennie, and mark my words, this guy is the real deal.

The film has a ton of improv in it, and he is just so quick and deadpan and pretty much steals the show. There's this one scene at a Halloween party where he's so drunk he starts drinking a lit candle - it's absolutely hilarious.

All in all, it's a simple college take of four guy friends, going through their senior year, and trying to figure out what to do with their lives. It's not super dramatic or super sappy, but really just an honest portrait of the director and his real life friends. If you're a fan of films like Funny Ha Ha or Hannah Takes The Stairs, it's well worth checking out. This is way funnier than those films though.

Seriously? This movie rocked. Hard. I saw it in Austin and felt like the boys from the cast had some real comedic talent. They portrayed "slacker-esque" to the max and line delivery was very smart. These guys have some real talent, it's hard to believe they are so young! I wish I could say I produced a movie like this as a twenty-something. I predict Box Elder will gain more exposure because I can see this movie being passed around and spread like wildfire between frat houses and college kids around the country. More than a coming of age story, it portrayed a group of dudes who are pretty confident in their lack of motivation and would rather involve themselves in shenanigans and frivolous fun than follow the rules and settle down. I also enjoyed the entire awkward "relationship" between the main female and the main guy. This is the reality of a college romance...that it's a pretty painful thing to experience but hilarity will definitely ensue. Grrrreat work.

This film is funny. No doubt. But it also sort've lacks focus at times, which I personally dug, and feel that it's done intentionally to fit the storyline. It also goes hand in hand with the heavy emphasis on naturalism in this film. Life isn't focused the way that many film plots are. That's the trouble with a lot of coming of age movies; you have to fit all of the salient information into a package that doesn't lose the forest for the trees. The typical solution is to gloss over details and highlight key elements that should be easily recalled later. This movie had more of a "stream of consciousness" style, which I thought was refreshing. It felt like a "concept album" of sketches, and I liked that various subplots occurred just to add to the idea of the film rather than a preconceived chain of plot twists at the end that you could only have discovered had you found waldo or his walking stick in each shot.

The opening few scenes do a good job of drawing the viewer into the setting. And the opening steadicam shot really places you back at college. And it is indeed a maverick shot. Then we plunge into getting to know these characters, and I felt like I had a good handle on who each of the four main dudes were supposed to be by 10 minutes in. I also liked that we already begin to meet a ton of the peripheral characters, who end up only being around a scene or two, but make their time count with tons of laughs. As far as a reflection of college life, that makes sense. There were many people who seemed important at the time whose names I'll never recall. But I remember the time they drank a candle, or the time they climbed the dean's roof on acid and thought they were in the CIA.

The acting by the main dudes is solid. The preppier of the four (Nick) struck a good balance against the main two (Scott & Rennie). I liked his constant girlfriend drama, especially since she doesn't really even come into the film until quite a way through. We've all known that guy. He has the long term relationship, but it's really just out of comfort and complacency. I felt like he did a good job of fleshing out that role while remaining believable as one of the dudes. That's not easy to do in real life, nor can I imagine it to be that easy in a film. I enjoyed the maturation from obsession to casual flings as far as dating went. It reminded me of the way that many view relationships in general. In high school and shortly thereafter, people need confirmation of relationship status with hand holding or consistent verbal praise, but eventually move from that to relationships that are what they are.

For whatever reason, Rennie felt more like a pet than a person. And that's a good thing. He was so confident in front of the camera. He was so confident, I don't think he knew he was being filmed. He did a great job of putting wacky where it belonged. The cop bit was priceless. The constant moochery was only slightly outdone by the way that it was constantly enabled. This was a sharp picture of that guy we all lived with who managed to live with us for a year without paying a dime of his parents' money for anything but duraflame logs and sticky hands, but we would definitely take a bullet for him cause he's THAT guy. He's like a puppy that was just too cute to discipline when he was small, but now is too big to know any better. I'm also glad that his character didn't change much throughout the film, as it provided a fixed point to measure how the others did.

There were some good thematics towards the end that served to punctuate and then accentuate the loose wackiness of the bulk of the piece. And I really liked when that professor was smoking next to the no smoking sign. And I liked the Opus shirt under a sports jacket too. I viewed this as partially a critique of the plain vanilla "hollywood professor". And his words of wisdom, so true. That scene stayed with me. I also really liked that that the characters spoke over each other from time to time. It may be due to improv, but regardless, it makes the characters seem more human and real. Big thumbs up to the Random road trips too, those are an essential part of any college career.

All in all, this was a fun movie, and it really struck a chord with me because of how true to form it was. Makes me very nostalgic for college.

I've known about this movie for awhile, it was shot at my school when I went there and I even met the director in a film class I was in. But I never found myself shelling out the money to watch it or finding anyone else who had. Well thanks to Netflix I've finally had the opportunity to watch it. Sadly, I was greatly disappointed.

The script is very very very lazy. It skips around in different points in a approximate 2 year period. Never connecting the dots, Never telling a story really. So what you find is you have make up whats going on. Oh its a party now? Cool, what happened before this point in the movie? Doesn't matter you say? Oh... OK. Who the hell is this character? Why are they talking to him? If its supposed to make you ask this many questions then congrats, but i thought the story was suppose to take care of that. Its not that hard to establish a plot, introduce characters at the right time, and create a story that actually strings together.

After about 1 hour of jumping around different times of the year, I started to realize something. I don't care about these characters. How could I? I don't know anything about them except the character class placed on them(slacker, goofy, romantic stoner?), they seem like douches half the time, they don't seem to be striving or trying to go anywhere. This characters seems like a car set in neutral. Yah its cool to rev the engine and make some loud noises, but what's really cool, is when the car goes somewhere.

Here's an example of what i'm talking about. Around 1 hour into the movie, it is revealed that the main(?) characters long time girl friend slept with someone else. They only mentioned this girlfriend a couple times. The character confronts this girlfriend and its suppose to be serious. But it can't be because 1) This is the first time actually seeing this girlfriend, even though she lives close 2) You have no idea the feelings that they have, only the fact that "Hey this is my girlfriend" 3) Its never mentioned again. It could have never happened and the "story" could have gone on without a hitch.

The talking scenes are sometimes funny, which is a shame because thats all this movie is. Seems like the pacing and timing is never quite what the movie is going for.

The ending is as pointless as the rest of the movie and I only mention it because is seems like they tried to do something with it and have a serious moment. But in the end, they don't make a single point and it comes off irrelevant.

I don't understand what other people are saying about this movie. It has the emotion of a vegetable and the depth of a plastic kiddie pool. If it was going for an irrelevant take on college life, it succeeded in being irrelevant.