It was a bit too precious and self-aware for me.
The wife liked it.
And I like Zach Braff on Scrubs (one of my favorite shows on TV).
But this struck me like a movie that was TRYING to be "Indie" and quirky.

I love Natalie Portman, but her character was just about the most irritating thing I've seen on screen since the days of Ernest Goes to Hell.

Remember when I said that I didn't know why Napoleon Dynamite elicited such strong reactions? (Which by the way, I am liking more as I think about it.).... Well, I can see why so many around here reviled this movie.

Although the soundtrack WAS good.

which means she did a hell of a job playing that role.

The thing about the movie for me is that I know girls like that. They act and talk and think the same way as here. I don't find it to be annoying, but maybe thats because I have been around them enough. That's why the whole "The Shins will change your life" comment didn't bother me at all." Girls talk like that, but they aren't being literal. Its like "Here, have some rocky road ice cream. It's so good, it will change your life."

That's good, because BMG sent it to me after I forgot to decline my monthly pick.

i'm not female, but when i say "The Libertines will change your life", i'm mean it in the most literal of senses!

see, i took her character as very obviously being written by a 20 year old boy who was imagining what he thought a girl like that should act like. i thought that her character was very vapid and simple. sarsgaard had the best conceived character in the flick and he could play it in his sleep.

sums it up for me as well.

I liked thuis movie for waht it was. A light snack. Had this movie. Of course as more suburbanite cultral voids pick up on it I will probably grow to loathe it.

I've known a few people like those in this movie. But most of the people I grew up with are like the characters in Scotland, PA. Or maybe The Hanging Garden. Or Lawrence from Office Space. Or everybody from Trailer Park Boys. Or Maybe Stephen King's Storm Of The Century. Etc.

i'm from new jersey, and that is how jersey girls act, i think he nailed it!

I thought the movie was good. It wasn't as great as what everyone around me said it would be, but it wasn't terrible either. It was just good. Now Eternal Sunshine and Before Sunset were great.

I thought Natalie Portman did a bad job because she's a bad actress, but generally I liked the movie.

Non-sequitur: Todd, are you a Ted Leo fan yet? Because I really feel like you should be.

I liked the movie a lot more then Napolean Dynamite. See, take that "tried too hard to be quirky comment" and that's EXACTLY how I felt about Napolean.

I didn't find Natalie's character bad because I was concentrating more on Zach Braff's character and to me she was just along for the ride.

The thing that got me early on in the film was when Zach's character was talking about having been on these drugs ever since he was a kid and how he was to a point where he didn't know what would happen once he was off of them. Who would he be? Something then struck familiar with me(mainly because I have a son who will have to be on a drug combo for many years to keep some problems under wraps) and I found his character endearing. With his dalliance with Natalies' character, everything he set out to do while home, it was him trying to feel for some sort of normalcy.


That's why I liked it.

Ted Leo is on my list of "Bands to Hear and Become Obsessive About", mright next to The Fall.

By the way, did you see the thread where I mentioned that my cousin just had a baby and named him Theodore Leonard? They have no idea about TL & the Pharmacists, which makes it cooler. I was gonna buy them a disc.

Saw both Garden State and Napolen Dynamite in the theatre over the summer, and my wife recently bought me both DVD's as a birthday present. We watched them both and I found myself really bored with Garden State the second time through, but was laughing out loud at Napoleon on the second watch.

It was self consciously quirky and had some really bad moments, but overall I think the good parts redeemed it. The whole going back home and running into/partying with high school friends thing was pretty good especially when he got pulled over by the cop. I've had a kinda similar experience. The scavenger hunt part was cool, too, mainly just for how the whole thing felt.

I don't know why, but Natalie Portman's character didn't really bother me.

As far as this movie vs. Napoleon Dynamite, I'd have to pick Garden State. Maybe because it wasn't trying so hard to be an offbeat comedy, it didn't have as many chances to fall flat, IMO. GS seemed to be going for an overall gauzy, warm, semi-nostalgic feeling for most of the movie which it easily succeeded in. The "cathartic" scream scene and the ending were both pretty bad, but somehow they didn't manage to ruin the whole thing.

Is the reason people feel this movie was trying too hard to be indie because it was made by Braff? Had some comepletely new and unknown person made it, would you be more willing to accept it as an indie movie?

Just wondering.

I thought the soundtrack tried to hard to be indie. Two Shins songs? C'mon!

visually it was a very interesting and original movie. it was well edited and shot terrificly. the story could've used some work, though.

Portman's character wears a fucking HELMET for chrissakes! Her family has 62,000 pets and an adopted black brother. The dude drives around on a motorcycle with a sidecar...if that ain't precious I don't know what is, and it does distract from a great character (The Braff character) and his journey towards...something.

With the general plot of the movie, it would be hard not to fall into some cliches and Garden State did, but I think it took interesting (and entertaining) paths along the way. I also liked its simple symbolism. It wasn't a spectacular movie, but I still love it.

I hate the reaction people seem to be having to this film, and most of the people who swear by it are not the people from whom I'd trust their opinion on a movie like this one. I'm not a fan of it's "hipness", and not in a backlash kind of way too.

I'm avoiding this one until I "have" to see it (a.k.a. forced by a ladyfriend at some point down the road) - Although my unluckiness with the ladies has allowed me to forego ever having viewed "Titanic", I have a feeling that Garden State will be thrust upon me at some point. I guess it's a win-lose situation....

Yeah, I did see that - that's pretty funny. You should still get them the disk (I'll recommend "Shake the Sheets" as the most accessible, although it's also my favorite, although I've never heard anything but that and "Hearts of Oak.") I think you'd like "Hearts of Oak," like, a lot.

Go for "Tyrrany". Avoid all EPs. Godspeed...