Memorable, crazy movie

How sad is this?

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Alex is skateboarding kid in Portland. His parents are separated and getting divorced. His girlfriend is Jennifer (Taylor Momsen). He and his friend Jared start hanging out at Paranoid Park, a skate park set up by street kids. There is a death at the rail tracks. A security guard is possibly murdered and a skateboard is found. Detective Richard Lu is at the school interviewing the kids.Gus Van Sant delivers another quiet film of youth disenfranchisement. The actors are almost entirely unknown amateurs. The story is fairly basic. The central mystery is pretty straight forward. The dialog is casual. Visually, it looks beautiful. There are long uncut scenes with music. My problem with some of those scenes is the music. It is often old soft music. It takes away from the intensity and it doesn't fit the kids in the movie. Maybe Gus is trying to make a fanciful fable with the music. I don't think the music selection works.

Gus Van Sant once again shows his interest in adolescent angst and solitude in Paranoid Park, a film about a skater kid who accidentally kills a security guard near one of his skate parks, and must then live with the guilt. It's an observation of one teenagers quiet and moody life as it spirals out of control in a haunting dream like state that tries to capture the audience in a trance, but I'm not sure that it succeeded in doing so.There's a very specific style to Paranoid Park that is full of eerily calm and dreamy cinematography. This style tries very hard to work how Van Sant wants it to, but for me it really didn't translate to much more than blank stares and meaningless long shots. I can clearly see what the filmmakers were going for here but it ended up being more obnoxious than captivating. There's obvious talent at work here, but what sounded good on paper or felt great in the minds eye didn't transfer to celluloid quite as well.One thing I can commend Paranoid Park on is it's overall story and the unique narrative style in which it is all presented. The film is narrated by our protagonist, Alex, whose narration is actually part of a letter that he is writing throughout the movie. Because Alex isn't a writer his letter is a little out of order, as is the story and the events that play out in the film. We see certain events multiple times as Alex tells them in his own scatter brained fashion and this way of telling the story makes it more enthralling and much more personal. Throughout the plot there is some silly logic and pretty dumb moments, but as a story it is told very well.But there are many things holding the film back. The overly stylistic cinematography gets in the way and the overly subdued, practically catatonic acting detracts from everything else that is decent about the film. Paranoid Park isn't a disaster by any means, but it has it's fair share of issues that keep it from being that great of a film.

Often when directors become big and famous, they'll lament about having to sacrifice personal projects for the 'big blockbuster,' as if that was some excuse for selling out (*cough*GeorgeLucas*cough*). That's why I have a lot of respect for Gus van Sant, a guy who struck a chord with audiences and critics alike in the late 90s, but flew completely under the radar afterward, writing and directing films that he felt were significant to him. "Paranoid Park" is a perfect example of that - a sort of skater-crime-drama about a kid who is accidentally responsible for the death of a cop. Fortunately the movie doesn't hinge on plot twists, but focuses on the kid, Alex, and how his life is affected before and after. The film is spliced with what looks to be home videos of skateboard footage and is topped off with new and young actors, giving the whole movie an amateur vibe. This turns out to be an advantage - there's nothing that complements the confusion that comes with being a teenager as well as a sense of authenticity. Overall, the movie doesn't pack as much of a punch as "Elephant," or isn't as absorbing as "Gerry," but is likely to stay with you and keep you wondering, "what if that was me?"

I bought the movie after reading the book that the movie is based off of the book which I have read tons of times, each time appreciating it more and more. Sadly, however, this movie disappointed me drastically. It says it is rated R for sexual content, but in the only scene where there is sex going on, it is pretty much just a PG-13 scene. Nothing real exciting. You see the main actor and his "girlfriend" getting ready to have sex, and then the next scene is after they have done the deed. Also, the "disturbing images" might be disturbing to children, but in today's society, the people who watch this movie would see more disturbing images on TV, and on movies with lower MPAA ratings. I will admit the language is pretty bad, but nothing I didn't hear on a day-to-day basis in high school. Overall, in my honest opinion, this movie failed at doing justice to the amazing book Paranoid Park.