I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009)
★
This review may contain spoilers.
there are some cool ideas here that I wish were fleshed out a bit more.
the stunt team did such a great job, standing out of the entire film each stunt was executed pretty dang well in this film, from the shadow fight to the climbing down the house / getting pushed off the house to the closing window scenes this stuff takes a lot of coordination and practice so it looks pretty cool.
the makeup and costume team did a stellar job, all the wounds look real and plausible, all the costumes make sense for the characters, the acne and braces, and hair look great as well, it all looks great and very convincing.
the cinematography isn't dynamic every single time but some great shots look amazing, the car campout scenes, the sunrise scene, and how it moved in the speech scene are all great examples of some pretty stellar camera movement so that was pretty cool.
the story is where this thing kind of starts to fall apart for me, there are some genuinely good ideas presented in this film like Beth Cooper for example while fulfilling the classic archetype of the misunderstood popular girl from high school who believes that she will peak here, it's the moments where you learn about her brother but more specifically the guilt that she feels because she can't remember what her brother looked like in the hospital that sells the character a bit more than other's of same kind of character archetype, every character is pretty basic but if they did more to characterize like this it would change pretty much everything, give some much-needed depth to the characters for a film like this, one last thing about Dennis that I wanted to say is that I wish we would have explored the idea of him finding out that she isn't the Beth Cooper that he had dreamed of it feels like a pretty big moment but we don't spend all that much time on it, it gets a passing mention then a few moments later she brings it up again and it is expanded upon a bit but not much more, this should have been a bigger moment.
one last thing about the acting that I wanted to note while most everyone is doing a pretty over the top zany wacky performance which fits this perfectly Hayden is kind of doing a bit of that but there is one subtle more emotional cue that I picked up on like when the Beth song cames on I loved that it wasn't highlighted but was just a subtle moment that you could notice if you were paying attention.
also, the convenience store guy should have shrugged when he looked at us
notes below
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- sidenote -- I don't know why this is on my list of movies, I think someone recommended it to me. or maybe they said something else?
- I do like how we are straight into it when the movie starts.
- I do like the camera direction in this opening scene, how it's pushing in and sliding.
- sidenote -- why did the trailer play this much more sincerely than it appears in the movie -- also THAT poster is amazing.
- The makeup and costume are doing pretty great with the flashback scenes, the makeup always looks on point.
- liked the musical sting on him saying there are condoms on his bedside table, like how long it played out.
- I do like the choreography of this scene where he is shutting the windows.
- I like the over-zany and over-acted stunts here, it's pretty cool.
- did he just fourth wall break?
- I like this wide shot of them next to the fire, very pleasant to look at.
- I liked the acting that Beth did when the song came on, that was very subtle but very nice, the smile, the closing eyes, she remembers a better time.
- I liked the sound design of the music being muffled right before Greg grabbed him.
- the stunt team did a good job.
- it feels like the film is so close to having the quiet moments that it needs to make the film work however it falls a bit short -- this scene where Rich tells Dennis to seize the day is a great example, it has small amounts of build-up but it needs more.
- however, the film does give us quite a bit of time with the characters, the journey does feel long, and we do get to see the crew together for a while.
- this shadow fight, was pretty cool.
- I love how wide we are watching them sit on the lake, wish we stayed wider.
- I do think this final line and that push in are pretty significant, thank you for loving me.
