thirteen

[Lord of The Curry 0]

I am now officially scared of thirteen year old girls. I may be a bit out of touch with teens today but sweet merciful Stan Hansen, is this what kids today are like? Or at least California teens?

 

Having said that, damn fine movie. Holly Hunter's Oscar nod is well deserved as the mother who's trying to keep her daughter from falling into a trap she knows all too well. Nikki Reed plays the decieving slut very well but the star of the movie by far is Evan Rachel Wood. I rented Whale Rider to see what this Keisha Castle-Hughes gal is all about but damn, if there was ever a performance by a young female that deserved an Oscar nod, this is it. Wood has great facial expressions and conveys the nervousness, awkwardness and excitement of a teen who's finally fallen into the In Crowd.

 

The camera work in particular is very well done, as not every shot is perfectly in sync with the actors movements and the frames are sometimes out of focus, which work very well in conveying Wood's characters confusement and bewilderment at this new world of sex and drugs.

 

Anybody else check it?

[HollywoodSpikeJenkins 0]

I've been wanting too. I hear it's really good.

[Insane Bump Machine 0]

I dl'd it after hearing great things, but haven't watched it yet. I'm a big fan of Holly Hunter and I'll try to watch it sometime this week.

[Mole 0]

I'll see eventually.

[NoCalMike 0]

I will see it sometime, heard it's good.

[Placebo Effect 0]

Just came from Netflix today. I'll watch it before going to bed tonight.

[Vyce 0]

Well, it's about hot young 13 year old girls having sex and dong drugs, so of COURSE I'm going to watch it.

[Matt Young 0]

Well, it's about hot young 13 year old girls having sex and dong drugs, so of COURSE I'm going to watch it.

Same here. If California girls really are like that, especially here in the Los Angeles/Long Beach/Anaheim area, I swear to God I'll never have a reason to leave. I like 'em young, too... Although generally not that young, but I can make exceptions.

[Guest red_file]

I am now officially scared of thirteen year old girls. I may be a bit out of touch with teens today but sweet merciful Stan Hansen, is this what kids today are like? Or at least California teens?

Certainly some are, but it's not as though that's anything new. The early teens have always been an age where some kids grow up really fast and start dabbling in sex and drugs. I remember girls similar to the ones portrayed in the film in my middle school, and that was over a decade ago. They were, and still are, in the minority, but they've always been there.

 

The film is quite good. I don't think it's quite the revelation that some reviewers have made it out to be, but it's well acted and, as was mentioned, the interesting cinematic choices seemed to fit very well. Most of my quibbles with the film stem from the ending, which seemed a little too neat for the story that was told, but that might just be me.

 

I do agree that Evan Rachel Wood is wonderful in this; probably the best reason to see it is her. She's certainly an actress whose future projects I'm going to follow.

 

Supposedly there was a sex scene shot between Wood and Reed that had to be cut for rating reasons. I was under the impression that you weren't allowed to show minors simulating sex. Odd.

[Guest El Satanico]

As long as they aren't nude i don't believe there's a problem.

[Placebo Effect 0]

Very fucking cool movie, though I did feel that they were intentionally going overboard at points. Maybe the deleted scenes explained it better, but the "Cruel Intentions" vibe seemed to have just been thrown out there.

 

The commentary track reveals a lot of great information, such as the fact that when they're snorting up pills, it's on top of a children's book, and with a stolen credit card.

[Guest hhheld_down]

holy crap i almost forgot all about this movie coming out this week, it wasnt till i saw the thread that i remembered it was out and I had really wanted to see it. Now that I saw it, i think i may go out and buy it, i have to agree that it is an excellent film, probably not one I would watch all the time but. Gotta say that 13 year old girls who pull this shit are definetly scary. I wasnt really in shock by anything in the movie, but just seeing all that unfold in the few months it did is just frightening. I felt like giving Evan Rachel Wood a standing ovation as she was just eXcellent in this movie. The rest of the cast worked really well too. Definetly worth at least a rental.

[DMann2003 0]

I just finished watching it too, I don't know how good the other Supporting Actress Nominations are, but Holly was the center and core of that film. You expect her to snap, but she can't because she's so offgaurd when she says "I didn't know it went THIS far!" it sent chills up my spine.

 

Oh and having seen Whale Rider is well, I'm equally impressed by both young Miss Wood and young Miss Hughes. I think the academy reasoned between 2 great performances between teenage girls, give it to the uplifting role.

[Insane Bump Machine 0]

I watched it and liked it quite a bit. A bit too much happening in the span of four months, and her father should have had a couple more scenes.

 

Holly Hunter was amazing and should get some awards for her performance.

[C Dubya 04 0]

Hmm, I didn't like it that much. I thought it was a bit slow to develop and the characters weren't very captizing. It seemed like Kids Lite to me.

 

The camera work was superb though.

[Damaramu 0]

What the hell is this movie about!?

 

Oh and.......reading what little tidbits I've read it sounds like it'd piss me off. Little bitches(guys and girls) that act all hardcore and act like they're hot shit and nothing can touch them piss me off. That's why I laugh when I see a movie about a teen acting all hardcore and then they get killed. Serves the biatches right.

[Damaramu 0]

I still want to know.......

[C Dubya 04 0]

What the hell is this movie about!?

Quick recap....

 

A girl who lives with her mom (who had drug problems in the past) and her brother wants to be popular. To hang with the most popular girl in school she starts stealing & doing drugs & whoring it up. Things spiral downhill from there. Mom's worried, lots of fights, problems with the new friends, etc....

 

That's the general gist of it.

[Damaramu 0]

What the hell is this movie about!?

Quick recap....

 

A girl who lives with her mom (who had drug problems in the past) and her brother wants to be popular. To hang with the most popular girl in school she starts stealing & doing drugs & whoring it up. Things spiral downhill from there. Mom's worried, lots of fights, problems with the new friends, etc....

 

That's the general gist of it.

Does she turn into an annoying bitch that thinks she knows everything?

[Mole 0]

Yup.

 

But the movie is excellent.

[HarleyQuinn 0]

Rented the film and saw it today and all I gotta say is, that was seriously fucked up. What amazed and scared me the most was that these girls were 13 years old! I mean damn, being 18 I'd be a little shocked if kids were doing that much, that quickly at my age or even a year younger but at 13!?!

 

Very unique story told through great camera work and at the end was a fun, entertaining yet very dark movie.

[Nighthawk 0]

Well, it's about hot young 13 year old girls having sex and dong drugs, so of COURSE I'm going to watch it.

That's what I said, and then I heard it really was good, so it's natural for me now. It does seem like kind of a rip off of some other things though... like, all Larry Clark movies.

[NoCalMike 0]

usually the image of the most popular girl in school though to me is not one that does drugs/whoring it up/stealing, that is more like the school's rebel girl. My gf's little sister is 13, and she has legit gone from good girl to this, in not 4 months, maybe more like 10 months. She has not had the best example from her two older brothers as they went through grade school, but they are older enough to where they weren't in school at the same time or anything. One is 18 and the other is 21. And when I say she went to "this" I don't mean quite as bad as the girls in the movie. She isn't sleeping around(or at all with any boys), but she is showing signs of rebellion like purposely breaking curfew, smoking cigs from time to time, "just to do it", also she participates in what I guess they call these days, "car parties" where a group just gets in the car and hot boxes. Bwahaha. I mean yeah I did it back in my day, but I believe I was 15 when I started, and I think I had a better head on my shoulders then her very impressionable little sister does. Oh well....

[Guest Dynamite Kido]

Excellent film. This one will stick with you because of the graphic nature. Great acting and good directing as well.

[notJames 0]

...It does seem like kind of a rip off of some other things though... like, all Larry Clark movies.

That's what I thought after watching it. It just seemed like the writers were trying a little too hard to be as shocking as possible without getting down to crafting a unique or believable tale. Throughout the entire viewing of the film, my mind kept going back to this thought:

 

Lock Gregg Araki and Vince Russo in a room. Give Araki some crystal meth. Give Russo a box of doughnuts. Give them both a Cliffs Notes version of Larry Clark's Kids and a checklist of "bad things that teen girls do" (e.g. shoplifting, smoking, cutting, going out with "bad boys", gateway drugs). Instruct them to write a script hitting all points on the checklist, and make sure that the videography is "edgy". Tell Araki to omit any of his trademark B-level black humour. Tell Russo if he can write 200 pages by morning, he'll get a part in the movie.

 

This may seem like an overly simplified, cynical and sarcastic view, and it's probably not even totally consistent with my opinion of the film, but I couldn't help feeling like something about the story rang a little too false, contrived, derivative.. something. Maybe Tracy went bad a little too quickly for my liking. Maybe Evie was a little too slick for a thirteen-year-old. Maybe all the "adults" were either too conveniently dysfunctional (parents) or didn't care enough (teachers) for this transformation to have happened under their collective watch. Maybe I just can't stand teenagers and their giggly, cocksure egocentricisms. I'm not sure. All I do know is that toward the end of the film, I was praying for Tracy to kill herself.

 

Don't get me wrong; I thought the acting was great. I just don't think the material they were given was all that good. One glaring example was when Tracy uttered "I can't even remember how to spell 'photographer'." WTF?!? Was that her "moment of clarity"? Was that the eye of the storm where she started to see the maelstrom her life had spiralled into? Was that a hint of humour to cleanse the palate of the previous hour's horrific scenes? I just can help but feel that this revelation would have played out better if some vestige of the old, real Tracy had been in the sleek, tricked-out model throughout the film. That would have made her hitting rock bottom all the more believable.

 

So sue me.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

This movie fucking sucked. It really did. Maybe it's the fact that I couldn't relate to the characters, although I know people just like Tracey and Evie (and even dated a few of them). Maybe it's because I'm not 13, but I used to be, and that was just 5 years ago. Or maybe it's just because this movie is nothing but poor attempts at shock value with some good acting and some good direction.

 

The story sucked. It had no real ending, only a poor attempt at being metaphorical (with Tracey on the merry-go-round, and then screaming). The only actual relation I could feel with the characters is that Tracey was an insecure bitch trying to be cool, and Evie was a lying cunt. That's IT.

 

How anybody can really think this movie is anything more than an after-school special is beyond me. I give it ** for effort (on a 5* scale), and I give the writers of the movie (supposedly it was a teenage girl and her mother) the hope that they'll learn how to end a fucking story.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

...It does seem like kind of a rip off of some other things though... like, all Larry Clark movies.

That's what I thought after watching it. It just seemed like the writers were trying a little too hard to be as shocking as possible without getting down to crafting a unique or believable tale.

Or, perhaps just trying to be cool. The script was written by a fifteen-year old, and it shows.

 

I agree with Corey; Thirteen is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad film. It aestheticizes teen delinquency (which in and of itself I don't necessarily have a problem with), while seeming to condemn it (as several reactions in this thread and in mass media have confirmed, it's a scare film all right), which is a killer contradiction. When the script degrades into brain-dead teen "drama", it's just the final nail in the coffin.

[Exslade ZX 0]

Meh..was flipping last night, and watched for about 10-15 minutes because I hate not seeing movies from the beginning. From what I saw, the movie looked pretty interesting.

 

The thing that mainly caught my eye though was that this Nikki Reed chick looks a lot like Jojo...the singer, and with the 'Thirteen' name...it had me sitting there like the whole time watching..trying to figure out if that was her or not.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

This movie fucking sucked. It really did. Maybe it's the fact that I couldn't relate to the characters, although I know people just like Tracey and Evie (and even dated a few of them). Maybe it's because I'm not 13, but I used to be, and that was just 5 years ago. Or maybe it's just because this movie is nothing but poor attempts at shock value with some good acting and some good direction.

 

The story sucked. It had no real ending, only a poor attempt at being metaphorical (with Tracey on the merry-go-round, and then screaming). The only actual relation I could feel with the characters is that Tracey was an insecure bitch trying to be cool, and Evie was a lying cunt. That's IT.

 

How anybody can really think this movie is anything more than an after-school special is beyond me. I give it ** for effort (on a 5* scale), and I give the writers of the movie (supposedly it was a teenage girl and her mother) the hope that they'll learn how to end a fucking story.

The story quite obviously had an ending, you just didn't catch it. The "ending" in question was Tracey breaking away from Evie and coming into her own as a young woman. Not exactly a barnburner but an ending none the less and one that fit in pretty well with the story.

[Guest ShootingStylesPress]

13 year olds having sex and doing drugs?

 

Sounds like everything I hear from my more popular friends. Being 15, I knmow this stuff happened, complete with bad mom.