Perks of Being a Wallflower/Trouble With the Curve

I did a double header this morning and really was charmed by Perks of Being a Wallflower. Save for a few barf-worthy lines it was very sweet and I got misty a couple times.

The whole movie was a nostalgia trip- the music, dress, even the font of the opening credits brought me back. It felt like an episode of My So-Called Life at times, and that's a very high compliment.

Ezra Miller almost steals the film away from everyone else, and what a turnaround from his role in Kevin. Now I'm ready to follow his career. Logan Lerman is a real find as the main character Charlie, and if Emma Watson keeps giving performances like this she won't have trouble getting post-Harry Potter work.

I was nervous that Stephen Chbosky directed and adapted his own novel for the screen, but it wasn't a vanity production mess.

My friend and I then hopped to Trouble With the Curve. This is no Million Dollar Baby. It was cliched, but respectable, except for the one outstanding element: Amy Adams. She was so, so, so good that it worked against the film because when she wasn't on screen it became deathly boring. After back to back weeks of brilliant performances Adams is my early favorite for award season.

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I'm surprised by the target audience. I would think it would be perfect for gay men in their late 20's/early 30's. Wasn't the target audience for the book those gay men in there early teens?

I think my friend and I were the only two who laughed at all the mixed tape stuff, or at lines like, "Wow, they're playing good music," when Come On Eileen was played at the dance.

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The previews weren't really clear to people who did not read the book but it does take place in the 90s. I guess some reviewers were surprised they were showing teens listening to Morrissey and The Smiths and it did not occur to them the time of the film fit with their music sensibilities. Was the movie not clear about that?

Updated On: 9/24/12 at 01:11 AM

True about that and it has only gotten bigger imo. I knew many kids in HS who were into Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Cure, Black Sabbath, Bob Dylan and a bunch of other 'artists from a different era'. I was definitely not the only person into The Clash at my HS circa the GWB presidency. The internet explosion with youtube and creation of iTunes caused a rise in availability for people to not just get songs/albums but also an unprecedented amount of information available about those artists and bands. Chuck Klosterman talked about this in how nostalgia of a time and place is available to people who were not even there because of the internet.

To be fair, while Chbosky's Rent script did the adaptation no favours, I still place most of the blame on Chris Columbus. Despite tons of nostalgic affection for Adventures in Babysitting and his scripts for filmns like Gremlins and The Goonies, (as well as a gruging acceptance of his completely uninspired job with his Harry Potter films), he's just become such a perfect example of a Hollywood hack to me...

It makes sense that you say it's to the film's benefit that they don't over-fetishize the 90s (ugh, man do I feel old), or play that up. I also remember desperately trying to catch songs on the radio to tape, often missing the beginning, and making mixed tapes for my friends and crushes (our group started to focus more on making "ironic/cool" tiny little covers for the tapes made up of collages from magazines and ads, than on the actual music it seemed...).

I look forward to the movie, and the reviews have been largely very good, but I have to admit the hatred the writer from Slate has for the movie (he calls it revolting, among other things), amused me. http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-perks-of-being-a-wallflower/critic-reviews Then again, I remember some similar reaction to the book a decade ago. (As well as Chbosky's indie slacker film from the 90s, The Four Corners of Nowhere which used to always be on TV it seemed, but has been held up from any sort of home media release for nearly two decades now).

I really loved Perks of Being a Wallflower. It's in my top 5 this year and it's too bad it hasn't garnered more attention this awards season. Really sweet film (the book is great, too)

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Nice to see some attention. It didn't make much of a box office impact, but I can see it becoming a fave with teens on DVD especially with the book still apparently selling very well.