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DVD Thirteen
A gut-wrenching portrait of adolescence, Thirteen is made all the more powerful because it was co-written by a genuine teenage girl, Nikki Reed, who also co-stars in the movie. Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood), a serious good student, finds herself needing to express her anger and resentment at her fractured family life. To rebel, she pursues a friendship with the reckless, alluring Evie (Reed), who seems to have all the cocksure freedom that Tracy desires. What follows is both harrowing and compelling: Tracy becomes enmeshed in a relationship with Evie that empowers Tracy and drags her deeper into the misery she wants to escape--and terrifies her mother (Holly Hunter), who struggles desperately to hold on to her daughter's love. Thirteen makes every step on this path utterly convincing, due to the vivid script, energized direction, and astonishingly alive performances from Hunter, Reed, and especially Wood. Jolting, sad, and mesmerizing. --Bret Fetzer
First off I would like to say that I bought this movie BEFORE actually seeing it myself. I was just crossing my fingers hoping that it wouldn't be completely ridiculous. Much to my suprise, the movie is extremely moving and a perfect example of how a life can go so horribly wrong. Some of the scenarios I though were a little far fetched. Such as a scene where the the girls drop acid. I thought that was a little "hardcore" for a couple of 13 year olds. But other than that, I recommend this movie for all!
Thirteen is a wake up call for parents
This film deals with adolescent girls living in a lower middle class milieu where the fathers are absent. Are we talking about dysfunctional families? Indeed, we most certainly are. Evie (Nikki Reed) is a hardened manipulator who may even be a remorseless sociopath. She is already more than a bit slutty and a loser going nowhere fast. The very concept of delayed gratification is utterly alien to her. Getting high and shop lifting are preferable to acquiring an education. The opposite is true for Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood), a shy girl who earns good grades. Her mother Melanie (Holly Hunter) is divorced from a man who has opted for a solidly middle class life. He has little time for either Tracy or her brother, Brady. Evie is considered to be the most popular girl at school, and Tracy wants to join her inner circle. Sadly, this goal is achieved and Tracy's life begins to rapidly fall apart. The audience is in for a rough ride. Many of the scenes in Thirteen are not for the squeamish. Watching a young girl cut into her arm with various sharp objects almost made me turn my head away from the screen. Thirteen is highly recommended for all parents, teenagers, and anyone involved in helping teenagers grow into mature adults.
Why did it get an R rating? This may be due to Holly Hunter's totally unnecessary and gratuitous nude scene. What was director Catherine Hardwicke thinking? Did the producers, for some bizarre reason, demand that this be done? Oh well, Hardwicke still directed a first rate production. She easily earns five stars for her efforts. Nikki Reed is also credited with co-authoring the script. One can only hope that this young lady never directly experienced the trial and tribulations she so admirably writes about.
It will stay with you
When I first caught this movie on cable I was flipping channels and the ambience immediately attracted me. The use of dark colors is beautiful and gives you the feel of watching a home movie almost. The underlying emotion and attitude was so strong that I could tell right away that it was going to have a profound message. I was compelled to watch it.
It was astonishing in its honesty. So many things about both of the girls struck a chord with me. I felt like I could relate completely in my own teenage experiences.
After a while I stopped relating and was suddenly terrified. I'm not a teenager anymore. These things are not ok. They're dangerous and it scares the heck out of me that not only did I do some of these things, but as a parent, my own children could be doing these things... and they might not be as lucky or as smart as I was to get away from them.
What scares me even more about this film is that if I had seen it as a teenager I would have thought it was cool. I might even have tried some of the things I hadn't already or been encouraged to do more of what I had. I would not have the experience I have now to realize the severe emotional and physical reprecussions that engaging in these types of activity can cause.
All in all I strongly recommend you see it, espeically if you are a parent. I think it would be a really good idea to watch and discuss it with your kids. Obviously not every kid is susceptible to these ideas, but when did quality time ever hurt?
A love letter to movies (and the French new wave of the 1960s in particular), Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers starts with a 1968 riot outside of a Parisian movie palace then burrows into an insular love triangle. Matthew (Michael Pitt, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), an expatriate American student, bonds with a twin brother and sister, Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel), over their mutual love of film--they not only quote lines of dialogue, they act out small bits and challenge each other to name the cinematic source. Matthew suspects the twins of incest, but that doesn't stop him from falling into his own intimacies with Isabelle. As the threesome becomes threatened, Paris succumbs to student riots. The Dreamers aspires to be kinky, but the results are more... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Bernardo Bertolucci DVD Release Date: Released the 13 July 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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In terms of alluring female nudity, Swimming Pool shows a lot, but it's what remains concealed that gives this erotic thriller a potent, voyeuristic charge. With his Hitchcockian handling of secrets and lies, prolific French director François Ozon reunites with his Under the Sand star, Charlotte Rampling, to tell a seductive tale of murder and complicity, beginning when British mystery novelist Sarah Morton (Rampling) seeks peace and relaxation at her publisher's French villa, only to find his brash, sexually liberated daughter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) arriving shortly thereafter to disrupt her solitary reverie. What begins as mutual annoyance turns into something more sinister and duplicitous, alternating between Julie's predatory sex with men and Sarah's observant,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Charlotte Rampling - Ludivine Sagnier - Charles Dance Director(s): François Ozon DVD Release Date: Released the 23 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Larry Clark's controversial film about New York City adolescents walking the AIDS tightrope is also an unblinking look at the dehumanizing rituals of growing up. But it really doesn't add up to more than the sum of its various shocks--virgin busting, skinny-dipping, male callousness--overlayed with middle-class disapproval. Clark is hectoring us for cutting kids loose at a terrible time in modern American history, but so are a lot of other people, who also offer alternatives and ideas. The film does nothing to push us toward new thoughts, new solutions, new dreams. It is more like a window onto our worst fantasies about what our children are doing out there on the streets. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Leo Fitzpatrick - Justin Pierce - Chloë Sevigny Director(s): Larry Clark DVD Release Date: Released the 07 November 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This unclassifiable but stunningly original film obliterates the walls between teen comedy, science fiction, family drama, horror, and cultural satire--and remains wildly entertaining throughout. Jake Gyllenhaal (October Sky) stars as Donnie, a borderline-schizophrenic adolescent for whom there is no difference between the signs and wonders of reality (a plane crash that decimates his house) and hallucination (a man-sized, reptilian rabbit who talks to him). Obsessed with the science of time travel and acutely aware of the world around him, Donnie is isolated by his powers of analysis and the apocalyptic visions that no one else seems to share. The debut feature of writer-director Richard Kelly, Donnie Darko is a shattering, hypnotic work that sets its own terms and... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Richard Kelly (II) DVD Release Date: Released the 04 February 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Employing shock techniques and sound design in a relentless sensory assault, Requiem for a Dream is about nothing less than the systematic destruction of hope. Based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jr., and adapted by Selby and director Darren Aronofsky, this is undoubtedly one of the most effective films ever made about the experience of drug addiction (both euphoric and nightmarish), and few would deny that Aronofsky, in following his breakthrough film Pi, has pushed the medium to a disturbing extreme, thrusting conventional narrative into a panic zone of traumatized psyches and bodies pushed to the furthest boundaries of chemical tolerance. It's too easy to call this a cautionary tale; it's a guided tour through hell, with Aronofsky as our bold and ruthless host.
The... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 14 August 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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