Mean Creek (2004). Mean kids suck, action is taken, things go awry.
Mean Creek is suprisingly deft at portraying the emotions and lives of its adolescent characters in a rural Oregon town. While the constraints of each character sometime chafe (troubled bad-boy, sensitive Aryan girl, misunderstood bully), the film, for the most part, details with perfect accuracy the discomforts of a child desperately trying to fit in. It roils along, flirting with poignancy at times and buoyed by its beautiful scenery and cinematography. Unfortunately, after its climax (a scene that veers a little too close to parody. YO DADDY'S BRAINS), the film seems to sag under the weight of the plot. It struggles to keep close to reality which is a credible boon, but the execution unfortunately shows the director's relative inexperience. The script blindly feels its way through to a resolution, disoriented by the events, and never really regains its confident portrayal from the previous half.
However, kudos to its (mostly) uncondescending look at adolescence and its excellent, excellent young cast. Hopefully a sign of great things to come.
Solaris (1972).
Gorgeously and meticulously filmed, with careful attention to detail and bulging with a surprising number of petty but horrific visual details. However, fundamentally flawed in that it attempts to plumb the depth of the human soul with a cast of underdeveloped, borderline inhuman automatons of philosophy and metaphyics.
Lyrics Royale
Invitation to an iron cage death-match for the heartbreaking ballad, the smoking diss, and the loopy genius. Lil Jon need not apply.
No.1 3030, Deltron 3030
"Del, I'm feeling like a ghost in a shell
Deltron 3030's blazing verbal boomerang. The Good Twin of Take No Prisoners English, bursting at the seams with malevolent free-wheeling verbal pyrotechnics and sneering, machine-gun delivery.
I wrote this in jail playing host to a cell
For the pure verbal, they said my sentence was equivalent to murder."
