#9

Paranoid Park
Gus Van Sant

Like Steven Soderbergh, Gus Van Sant has adopted a one for me one for you strategy. But while Soderbergh's for you films have been the uber-successful Ocean's # films, Gus Van Sant sells out to studios in the form of biopics of gay activists (he also directed Milk this year). What's frustrating about GVS is that you'd wish he add more experiment into straight narratives.

Conversely, what I've always wanted was a little more narrative in his experiments. Paranoid Park is Van Sant's most accessible of experimental projects. Van Sant's avant garde tendencies have always manifested themselves in a sort of filmmaking by slacker style, which suits Paranoid Park's skateboarder coming of age tale nicely. Alex, our protagonist, accidentally finds himself in more trouble than anyone could handle. How he deals with it, largely through internal turmoil veiled by slacker indifference is poignant - more so than most films in this genre. Like I wrote when the movie was first released, this is a movie that simultaneously bores you to death while gripping you with a clenched fist, and I meant that as a compliment.

Bonus points for the GVS entourage cameo, where at a backyard bbq in Queens, everyone knew what "a new Gus Van Sant movie" is and was really excited by it.