It seems people either love Daydream Nation or hate it. I personally love it and will buy it on dvd. I think because of Kat Dennings getting bigger in Hollywood more people will start to see this movie and it will gain a cult following.
Who's the cutest little ghostie this side of the Mississippi? It's Tate!
Hmmm, I doubt it. This film had some good cinematography and some interesting characters, but mostly it felt like it was trying too hard to be different and quirky just for the sake of being different and quirky. I kept thinking I'd seen this all before somewhere...Donnie Darko anyone?
Too derivative. 5/10.
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"I'm sorry, but.." is a self-contained lie.
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nah, this movie was just all over the place. disjointed. the first hour or so made me question the very state of humanity, why young people would be so attracted to such an empty, shallow existence, anyway? such generic high school drama; drugs, sex, being misunderstood, (kat dennings must be 2010's answer to rose mcgowen) and throw in a serial killer to boot.
then the final third had me question why the filmmaker would choose to so blatantly and conveniently tie up loose ends in such an unbelievably unrealistic way.
the whole film seemed very pre-9/11 in its writing and its character development. slightly reminiscent of 'the craft,' 'election,' 'clueless' and countless other feelgood teen movies from the nineties. but maybe that's its appeal, as many of this movie's biggest fans probably are too young to even remember 9/11.
this movie doesn't deal with any of the typical post-9/11 issues like bullying, media influence, or consequences of peer pressure like teen pregnancy or suicide, even though these issues are clearly ready to be explored here. when caroline says "you don't know anything about me" this is very true. we don't know much about her, because the filmmakers neglected to fully develop her character or any of the other characters too deeply for that matter. all we know about her is her sexuality and her apparent intellect. we have to fill in the blanks ourselves.
the father, who is supposedly dying of cancer, moves to this small town from 'the city' for some reason, and kat immediately starts banging her english teacher, for some reason, we don't know her attraction to him except for what we can assume (her mature sexuality and intellect, perhaps) and we don't really know why he decides to risk his career for some random trollop, either. then the teacher turns out to be a psycho man-child (what is it about writers being portrayed as 'nuts' in movies anyway?)
& then all hell breaks loose.
great soundtrack, though!
I enjoyed it, but it was very thin. In no way did it have the tight, darkly comedic writing of Clueless or Election, neither of which I would describe as "feel good" - they're both much sharper than that (though Clueless is pretty upbeat).
The main problem was the way the serial killer was so tangential to the plot. In reality that would have DEVASTATED a small community, even a large city - at least three(?) young females found murdered in a short space of time.
Unless the point was to show how wrapped up they were in their own lives that they didn't really notice/care about the killer.
Having the killer turn out to be Scary Mr X made it even more pointless. Had it been someone they knew, that could have subverted the whole story and perceptions and made it more interesting. But as I mentioned, it just wasn't that deep. Not particularly funny, or sad, or unusual. Nothing got developed very far. Things were skimmed over very quickly.
I actually thought the teacher was written fairly consistently. We saw his early vanity. His weakness. The way he lapsed so quickly and so easily (he arranged the tutorial remember, specifically to seduce her/take her up on her offer). Then he very quickly realised he couldn't cope with the pressure and deception, or her dating another guy, and he disintegrated. His novel was just more evidence of his egocentrism and immaturity.
Kat Dennings carried the whole thing beautifully, but she deserved better material. I liked it, but it didn't wow me.