Graduation

TeeJay · 12 May 08 :: 23:25

Yeah, I think our server load is really gonna suffer if we end up having the whole world on our message board. Just imagine...

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-TeeJay

TheCentralScrutinizer · 12 May 08 :: 23:27

I love it! Someday, we will see those numbers.

BiggestChrisMarquetteFan · 13 May 08 :: 04:13

Wow those are some huge numbers there!! Hopefully someday it will really come true. = ]

domesticelefant · 13 May 08 :: 20:39

This is too much for me. I'm scared now.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 14 May 08 :: 01:15

OK, I gotta go watch a movie now...

justme · 14 May 08 :: 09:56

Well, it was really good!:P My amazon copy won't get here until Thursday and I couldn't wait. So I rented it. Really fun movie. I liked it a lot!

TheCentralScrutinizer · 14 May 08 :: 22:56

This is cool, check it out. Wish I lived near Pittsburgh!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475286/boa … /106079001

magicalturkey · 14 May 08 :: 23:02

I'd go, if I could. But Diesel's 21 and over

BiggestChrisMarquetteFan · 14 May 08 :: 23:06

I wish I lived near Pittsburgh, too. It would be beyond cool if any Chris fan on this board could go.

magicalturkey · 14 May 08 :: 23:22

If I thought I could pass off a fake ID, I'd probably try, but I can barely pass for a 19 year old... hell, sometimes I barely pass for a 16 year old. And clubs like Diesel aren't really my thing anyway, so chances are if anyone interesting showed up I'd be in a horrible mood meeting them.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 14 May 08 :: 23:25

No one "interesting" is gonna show up. The interesting guy is shooting a movie in LA right now. That's not the point. It'd be really fun to see the movie with an audience. That's why I'd love to go.

magicalturkey · 14 May 08 :: 23:29

I didn't really think he would be there, I was just saying if he would have been that's one of the only reasons I'd go.

TeeJay · 17 May 08 :: 19:49

410 new opportunities to drool: :drool:

http://www.chris-marquette.com/gallery/ … 129&page=1

-TeeJay

TeeJay · 17 May 08 :: 20:27

New videos too:

::: Blooper reel
::: The only deleted scene on the DVD that features Chris

-TeeJay

TheCentralScrutinizer · 17 May 08 :: 20:53

Can't wait to linger over the caps! But I've got a lot of housework to do this weekend so it'll take some time to get through them all. No way that's a bad thing though. It'll be nice to roll through some when I have to take breaks. Steph's coming to visit next weekend and this place is a mess! In fact, I shouldn't be sitting here right now.

TeeJay · 19 May 08 :: 13:23

I have a question that I hope someone can answer. During the movie Polly finds out she will be valedictorian, thus she will have to hold the speech at graduation. Doesn't valedictorian mean she is the highest ranking student in her graduation class? But what I don't get is that when Carl, Jackson, Chauncey and her have the fight at the prom, she says something like, "It was an essay test. I wrote a bad essay." Is it only me, or does that not really make sense? Why did she end up valedictorian if her essay got bad marks? Or is there something I'm not getting?

-TeeJay

TheCentralScrutinizer · 19 May 08 :: 15:26

I think she thinks she wrote a bad essay, but being and obvious over-achiever she's not really capable of writing a truly bad essay. Or maybe even a bad Polly Dealy essay is still better than anything else anyone handed in. That's what I assumed.

TeeJay · 19 May 08 :: 19:19

This is my attempt at a relatively spoiler-free review. I uploaded it to Chris's Filmography on the website too:

::: The Plot
The future is theirs, if they don't get caught.
That's the tagline of the movie, but I'm not sure it really captures the essence of the film. The tagline might imply the movie is mainly about the heist and the four friends' desire not to get caught, but there is much more to it than that. Let's take a look at the story first.
Polly, Chauncey, Jackson (whose first name is actually Tom) and Carl have known each other forever, went to school together and would walk through thick and thin together. At the same time, their personalities couldn't be different. Polly is a straight-A student with a ticket to Harvard and her family's pride and joy. Her boyfriend Chauncey's forte is wrestling, which got him into State College; he isn't very big on showing his feelings. Jackson is pretty much a mystery, a dreamer who doesn't really know what he wants in life, and Carl is a renegade rocker on the outside but has his heart in the right place and occasionally wears it very much on his sleeve.
When Carl's mother's cancer takes a turn for the worse, the expensive hospital treatment cannot be reimbursed by her maxed-out medical insurance and Carl is left with the task of coming up with $100,000--and fast. Polly's father manages a bank in town, and when he refuses to give Carl a loan, Polly's idea is to rob her father's bank since the money is insured in case of robbery or fire. What starts out as an absurd idea turns into a plan that soon becomes reality.
The four friends plot the heist for the morning of their high school graduation when everyone will be at the graduation ceremony and the bank will run on a skeleton crew. It helps that Polly used to work at the bank the last few summers, and soon everything is place and no obstacles seem to be left in their path. Except that some things don't quite work out the way they planned. Getting access to the money isn't as easy as it looked, and Carl's date, Suzy gets him and everyone else in a very precarious situation.
At the same time, things come to a head with Chauncey, Polly and Jackson. Chauncey's expectations for how their future should look don't quite match Polly's, who is drawn ever closer to Jackson and the subdued mysteriousness that surrounds him. This is not lost to Chauncey, he feels Polly slipping away further with every day that passes. Jackson, the smart and charming underachiever, steers through life without much of a master plan, isn't sure what or who he wants to be. As graduation nears, he realizes that he needs to make a decision about what he wants to do with his life.
And no matter what personal struggles the four friends are going through, ultimately they have one common goal: To come up with the $100,000 to help Carl's mom. It wouldn't be fair to tell you if they succeed, to find out you will have to watch the movie yourself.
My overall impression of the movie? It's not a cinematical or storytelling masterpiece, but I still loved it. Definitely a movie I can watch multiple times, not only because it has a great cast who all did a great job. It is never boring. The story is clever in its own way, it's not your absolutely predictable and shallow crime caper. It has a big emotional aspect to it, it's as much character-driven as plot-driven.
What I love most about it is the nuances. There are little things interspersed that you notice if you pay attention, nuances that add such a lot to the heart and soul of the movie and its characters. And I'm talking about really little things that maybe you don't even notice. Like the way Carl pretends to kiss Jackson in the school hallway. Like the way Carl is sitting on the stretcher and Jackson has to pull him off of it when the nurse comes and takes it away. Like the way Suzy is holding on to Carl's bloody t-shirt like it's a precious treasure. I bet some of it wasn't even scripted. And I daresay the kudos for most of these little nuances goes out to the actors who breathed life into these characters.
However, if you look a little more closely, there are plot holes that you can't help but notice. It's one of those movies where you better not ask too many questions that shouldn't be asked, questions about details that don't quite add up. If you're someone who can't overlook such details, then this might ruin the movie a little for you.
When I say the movie wasn't too predictable, I don't mean in an overall storyline kind of way. There were little things about the bank robbery that I found refreshing. The characters don't always behave the way you expect them to, which makes for a few welcome twists here and there.
In summary I can say is that I really like the movie a lot for what it is. And Chris is absolutely adorable in it! And the best thing: He gets ample screen time. A must-see for any Chris fan (and I'm talking about either Chris for a change).

::: The Character
Carl Jenkins. An adorable sleepyhead with a big heart that he wears on his sleeve when it comes to his mom, and yet on the outside he's trying to be a bit of a renegade rocker. Not to mention a total sweetie when it comes to courting the woman he falls for.

::: The DVD
Let me say a few words about the DVD. It has some really nice extras, including deleted scenes (only one of which features Chris), a feature commentary by the director and the writer, a blooper reel, an alternate opening, a behind the scenes slideshow (about the statue in front of the bank) and storyboard comparisons.
It's a shame the deleted scene with Chris M. and Chris L. had to be cut, it was really cute. But at least Mike admitted that it was the one scene he would like to have kept in the movie the most. He said sometimes you "have to kill your babies", and this was one of them.
The blooper reel is hilarious, but there's not a lot of Chris in it. The alternate opening isn't very different from the actual opening and doesn't have any scenes that didn't end up in the final cut. The storyboard comparisons are interesting, but not a must-see.
If you listen to the feature commentary on the DVD (which I thoroughly enjoyed), you will notice that Mike Mayer and Cory Turner really seem to have liked Chris and his performance. They mention him quite a lot, and always sing praise:
Mike: "Chris Marquette, we haven't said anything good about Chris Marquette yet. And I don't hink I can say enough good things about Chris Marquette."
Cory: "He's amazing."
One of Mike's favorite scenes is the one where Carl takes the glasses off his sleeping mom and puts them on himself. He said that it was hard to pull off so it wouldn't look cheesy or cliché, and Chris apparently did it.
Mike: "Carl was always where my heart was. Carl was the soft one."
Mike also told this really cute story that I think I've read about in an interview somewhere too, where he did a lot of improvs with them in the hotel and then went out with them to Burger King, telling them to act in character. And Chris started bugging people and being really open and peppy, but Mike also said that it was great to watch because "Chris Marquette's a quite shy person in real life."
We learn that Chris got the real eyebrow piercing just for the movie. And that it got infected (and kinda gross) about three weeks into the shoot. Mike or Cory (I don't remember) said that Chris showed true dedication. Chris was really proud of the fake Iggy tattoo he had for one scene, he ran up to Mike especially to show him the day they did it.
They had to re-dye Chris's hair every two days. The make-up people asked Mike to change it to blue because there is permanent blue dye but not green. But Mike said for some reason it just needed to be green.
One of the guys mentioned that Chris and Aimee (Garcia) completely stole the show. They also said Chris was amazing at his spontaneity. He was always surprising in a beautiful way.
Cory said one of his favorite scenes was Carl's little dance outside the bank. It wasn't scripted what he was supposed to do, they just told Chris that Carl was really excited and triumphant about having landed a date with Suzy, and they told Chris to do what he thought would work. And it worked. It was really cute.
Interesting little tidbit: The movie was shot in just 26 days.
Another interesting tidbit: The cow you see walking through the school was called Grace and did a dump in the kitchen. (Ew?)

-TeeJay

TheCentralScrutinizer · 19 May 08 :: 19:40

OK, I guess this really should've been beta'd.

Polly, Chauncey, Jackson (whose first name is actually Tom) and Carl have known each other forever, grew up on the same street and would walk through thick and thin together. At the same time, their personalities couldn't be different. --- where'd you get that? Same neighborhood, yes, same street, no. Chauncey has to drive to Polly's house and Carl doesn't seem to live anywhere near the others. Polly and Jackson are next-door neighbors and that's all.

Chauncey's forte is wrestling, which got him into community college; - it was State College

Jackson is much a mystery, - not sure that grammatically makes sense. What were you trying to say?

Polly's father owns a bank in town - he doesn't own it, he manages it. Private individuals don't generally own banks.

and Carl's date Suzy gets him - huh?

it's as much plot-driven as it is character-driven. - I think it would make your point better if if you said it's as much character-driven as plot-driven. Just reverse the order.

about having scored with Suzy - scored generally means slept with, not landed a date with.

Otherwise, it's great.

TeeJay · 19 May 08 :: 19:52

Gee, I wasn't really paying attention when I wrote this, was I? Thanks, I'll make the edits.

-TeeJay

TeeJay · 19 May 08 :: 19:54

Polly, Chauncey, Jackson (whose first name is actually Tom) and Carl have known each other forever, grew up on the same street and would walk through thick and thin together. At the same time, their personalities couldn't be different. --- where'd you get that? Same neighborhood, yes, same street, no. Chauncey has to drive to Polly's house and Carl doesn't seem to live anywhere near the others. Polly and Jackson are next-door neighbors and that's all.

I think Mike and Cory said something along those lines in the commentary, but maybe I misunderstood... I guess I need to rephrase that bit.

I think I wanted to say: Jackson is pretty much a mystery. Does that make more sense?

The sentence reads: ... and Carl's date Suzy gets him and everyone else in a very precarious situation. What about it is wrong?

-TeeJay

TheCentralScrutinizer · 19 May 08 :: 20:05

Carl's date Suzy --- that doesn't make any sense. Should it be Carl's date WITH Suzy?

TeeJay · 19 May 08 :: 20:07

No, I meant to say Suzy was his date, as in "woman he went out with". Don't you say that? Is that a Germanism? We say that over here... I'll find a way to rephrase it. How about... Carl's friend Suzy?

-TeeJay

domesticelefant · 19 May 08 :: 20:07

I think I understand that, but I would never call a person a "date", I'd rather say I have a date with that person, too.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 19 May 08 :: 20:09

Put a comma in there. As it stands, it sounds like the word "with" is missing. Maybe if you say, "Carl's date, Suzy", it'll be OK.

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