I was leaving a screening of Arctic Tale with one of my buddies (also a film reviewer) on Saturday morning when we noticed a poster for a movie titled Charlie Bartlett. It’s funny because I’ve never heard next to nothing about the film, yet something drew us over to the one-sheet. May-be it was the cast list which included Robert Downey Jr and Hope Davis. Nope, it was probably the fact that we had heard nothing about the film. And for someone that writes about movies for a living to come across a film that I didn’t know was approaching is rare. And it’s not like the poster was teasing a way off release date, Bartlett hits theaters in exactly one month (August 3rd).
But what really got me curious was a review I read tonight from someone who saw the film at the Los Angeles Film Festival.
“All I can say is SEE THIS MOVIE. If you’ve been waiting to see a real teen movie since 1985 when the credits to The Breakfast Club stopped rolling, the genie has granted your wish. This is a rated-R honest to god funny, real, touching teen flick. And if you want more of them, I implore that you support this one,” Duke wrote. “If you like the works of Wes Anderson, John Hughes, Hal Ashby or just have a penchant for dramedies and teen flicks this one is for you. The most comparable movie in recent years is probably Igby Goes Down, but this is less jaded.”
Wow, what a pretty bold statement. So I decided to seek out the film’s theatrical trailer. And one does exist, although you probably wouldn’t know it. MGM is doing a horrible job promoting this film (in complete fairness, the release is smaller and the promotion will probably ramp up in the next few weeks), especially if it’s even half as good as the reviewer claims. The trailer shows a lot of promise. Check it out after the jump.
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:41 am
This is one of the Knocked Up trailers and it does look promising!
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Igby Goes Down…The Chumscrubber…and The Thumbsucker all come to mind…but this does look very promising.
July 3rd, 2007 at 2:34 pm
So either I am completely detached from the rest of my generation or the studio completely re-edited this movie and possibly even reshot scenes… Cause I saw this at a test screening (with some rough cuts and temp music) back in December, and it was horrible. My film buddy and I both agreed that they’d either have to edit it to make it an edgy adult film and cut the stereotype-teen-movie side plots, or cut out the drugs and excessive expletives and give this movie to a pre-teen audience… but here was my review from then:
Saw this at a screening tonight, great disappointment. Knew nothing about it other than it starred Hope Davis and Robert Downey Jr, and it still managed to be well below my meager expectations.
Charlie is 17, lives with his pill-popping mother in a multi-million dollar estate, while his dad is in prison for tax evasion. His by-the-book character gets kicked out of boarding school after boarding school for various enterprises such as creating fake IDs for students.
The movie begins with him attending a public school (for the first time), and explores his endeavors to “become popular in high school, because - what’s more important?” - a question he genuinely (yeah, seriously) asks his principals, mother, and other authority figures at least 3 or 4 times in the movie.
He is extremely bright, but ends up getting prescribed Ritalin for his “reckless” behavior, and ends up selling it to kids at school (since apparently all high schoolers know it’s the drug of choice for getting high). He begins his own psychiatric practice in the boys restroom stalls, listening to problems and “prescribing drugs” to his classmates. The movie precedes to show how Charlie is able to help others with their issues, from campaigning against video cameras in the student lounge, to helping the bully start his own crime syndicate, yet at the same time has serious daddy issues.
Ultimately, the school scenes had little more realism or interest than a recycled 80’s “Saved by the Bell” episode, and the utter lack of effort in originality and dimension to any character other than our mildly developed Charlie, gave me the same queasy feeling I get from watching old public service ads.
Hope Davis had great delivery for her 10 or 15 lines, and the episode-like trials that Charlie goes through shows off some serious promise for Yelchin - even if many of his best scenes are so out of place they feel like a compilation of demo tapes. Downey Jr is immediately forgettable, as is the remainder of the cast.
Would make a great cheezy Hallmark movie or testament to some casting director who can notice Yelchin’s promise, depite being buried in such a terrible mess of a movie.
July 6th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Assholes? Sendahole.com.
July 21st, 2007 at 11:16 am
The writers of this movie clearly took their premise from the winner of the “Best Short Film” from the San Fernando Valley Film Festival last year. “Christopher Brennan Saves the World” google it. All I’m saying is that as with most films there will a law suit with this one and I wouldn’t want to be the studio who is backing this as their own material. God bless the copywrite.