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4 comments
Rank This Matchup or Comment/Reply Below
on 4/25/2012
OK, so the fact that everyone in Bad Teacher, with a few exceptions, were ridiculously square kind of bugged me. Everybody was a set up for a punchline. Fortunately, Cameron Diaz was the one making the jokes and she had the skills. Young Adult was kind of like that, too. The whole town Charlize Theron came from were boring folks. So she made fun of them a lot. The difference between these movies is that Young Adult is kind of serious. Diaz and Theron were similar characters, but Theron's dysfunction was more realistic, I guess. Yet, I didn't much relate to Young Adult. It got on my nerves. Maybe because the Diablo Cody dialogue, though toned down from the obnoxious Juno, was still thick enough to pollute the atmosphere.
Really? I thought the Juno lingo was pretty much wiped out in Young Adult, to the point where there was little or no humour left. Maybe that's just because I find the film quite painfully poignant.
on 4/26/2012
I think the moral of these movies is that if you're hotter and cooler than the people around you, then screw 'em. These really are the same movie. The two main characters are even after guys that are wrong for them based on their warped sense of reality. Well, Diaz is out for the money, but that's not really a morally sound reason to marry someone. Something bugged me about Young Adult. Maybe not the dialogue so much as the Cody-esque world. It's hard to say. Did you find it poignant because you related to it personally? (Also, both Diaz and Theron had a fixation on their bosom. Same movies.)
I was not a fan of Juno, but I thought Young Adult delivered more than Bad Teacher. At least Oswalt just killed it in YA, while Bad Teacher was enjoyable, but did not stick out by any means...
I agree that the movies are similar in many regards. In fact, these are the only two movies in recent memory (maybe even ever) where I feel I can say I related to female leads. That obviously doesn't happen often and think it's down to the characters transcending their gender. I related to Diaz because she almost espouses that "fuck it" mentality. You know that feeling of caution that prevents you from doing questionable things that may come back and bite you in the ass? And then you say "fuck it" and do them anyway? Diaz was like that, and I thought she was funny. Plus I admire that approach to social relationships where you feel liberated enough to tell it like it is without sugar-coating. It tends to work well in comedies (though in other genres I guess these characters could maybe, possibly, perhaps come off as dicks). Young Adult, I relate to even more, and even more personally. The reason I watched the movie is because I read a particular review on EaC. Here are some excerpts that sum it all up: "What is it about high school that haunts some lives? After it, some people stall and settle into the anonymity of cookie-cutter America and see high school as the last time they saw hope on the horizon." And: "...compactly written portrait of the mental instability of living in the past." And: "Reitman's direction has just the right measure of dark cynicism - a rom-com laced with arsenic - and Diablo Cody's script is halfway between comic caricature and painful embarrassment." The review was spot on (especially the words "haunt" and "anonymity"), and sadly, I relate to all of it. In the movie Mavis says something like "I like him because he knew me when I was at my best." She doesn't give a fuck about the guy, she just finds the memory comforting. I agree with her. A lot. She even says it to a guy who worships her and, at least partially, wonders why it is that she's disappointed with herself. By his standards Mavis is still gold, but by her standards (the ones based on an exaggerated memory of a time when she was 'it') she is anything but. Then there's also the stuff about Mavis' writing; the way she Mary Sue's the absolute fuck out of her narratives. I do the same thing. Whenever I've written fiction, the lead is always some version (glorified or not) of the high school me. A lot of people have a tough time processing the notion that anyone could've been 'better' in high school. Most people advance after it. Mavis didn't, and that feeling is very close to home. Just to exemplify, I was actually a better writer in high school too (which is why I gave up on my hopes to be some fashion of writer). But it's not just about actually being better, it's about the perceptions of others too. I wrote on flickchart that Superhero Movies and High School movies are much more similar than most people think. Where/when else but high school can your reputation precede you as if you were an actual superhero? High School is a world unto itself, and one so insular that your strengths, weaknesses and reputation are compounded, and compounded more. Maybe Diablo Cody didn't draw the movie from her own experience, but I wonder if she based Mavis on herself or someone she knows.
The only thing that I disliked in Young Adult was that crap about Mavis's miscarriage/inability to bear children or whatever it was. The Mavis character doesn't need something that weighty (something that everybody can feel a profound sense of sadness for) to yearn for her past. There's a Michael Douglas film called 'Solitary Man' which is basically Young Adult, but told from the perspective of a much older dude. Maybe in 20 years time I'll click with that film the way I click with YA.
on 4/27/2012
I think since I never knew what I wanted to do in high school, and still don't, I don't think of those as my best years. Maybe my "testing the waters" years. I dabbled in theater, and won a few art awards, but never enjoyed doing anything enough to pursue it. Then I moved on and dabbled in some other things just for the heck of it. Tried working in law library. Tried getting an education degree. Tried getting married. I never successfully settled down because I didn't want to, in all truth. Even when I could've succeeded, I didn't really want to. So, I don't live in the past at all, as far as thinking those were better times. I guess I admired Diaz's character in a weird way. I agree about the miscarriage thing, though. I liked Theron's character more when she just wanted to rescue the guy from his family restraints. I could never conceive of having a family. I know some people are good at it, and happy, but I never could've dealt with a wife and kids and stability. So, what I can say for myself is that I never settled. I don't have a lot to show for it, but that's the one constant in my life that I am happy with. I 'd like to be more like a Diaz than a Theron. But with slightly nobler goals.
Theater and art awards? Sick! What kind of awards? Agreed on the settling down stuff (as you're no doubt aware). Kids are kinda cool in small doses (ditto with women I guess), but, like they say, the best thing about other people's kids is that they're other people's kids. Interesting that you picked up on the guy and his family restraints. I never really noticed that (never thought from anyone's perspective but Mavis'). I pretty much thought/think that Mavis had no interest in the guy, just what he represents. So she wasn't saving him 'from' anyone, just bringing him 'to' her. That's what I got anyway.
on 4/29/2012
I was in drama the last two years of high school and made a name for myself by taking a minor part and milking it for all it was worth. I used to draw a lot back in the day, when I was into comic books. I pretty much stopped back in the 90s. Anyway, I didn't think so much that she wanted to save him for non-selfish reasons, I just liked that joke she made about his liberty or whatever. At that point in the movie, she was crazy but not saddled with the inability to bear children. She was a good kind of crazy, as opposed to those rotting in that town, which was depressing crazy. I realize that some of those folks might've been happy, but I can't really conceive of how. I know my stance isn't normal. I must be missing the domesticity portion of my brain. The other people's kids thing is oh so true. I remember my ex-wife saying all the time "You seem to get along well with children, so why don't you want to have any?" Because those kids weren't mine. The best I can handle is a cat, and only if it's not too needy.
on 3/3/2016
Bad Teacher promised sleaze, and delivered mere innuendo. Young Adult is a "you can't go home again" movie about a girl who implausibly thinks she can steal the past. But it's the more honest movie, and doesn't promise what it won't deliver.
