Rating: 
Summary: A Rare Treasure
Review: Ghost World drew me into it's characters and quirky situations like no film has done since Rushmore. About the middle of the film I found myself saying in my head, "I am LOVING this movie!" Thorah Brich plays Enid, a young girl, fresh out of high school, who just can't find her place in the world. She approaches almost every situation with a certain detachment which reflects this. She is pretty much torturous to others, though she never intends on HURTING anyone, she is just, detached. She has only one friend, Melora, played by Debra Azar, though through the film, they begin to drift appart. This is set in motion when they play a cruel and thoughtless trick on the pitiful Seymor, played by Steve Buscemi (Yay!) Enid becomes fond of Seymore, at first out of pitty, but it grows to something more. The film leads to a phenomenal and surrealistic ending, which brought me to tears. The film has many moments when it is both amusing, and sad and the same time. It also takes some risks I was VERY pleased to see a movie tackle, and acomplish. I loved every ounce of this delicious film. I wanted to walk right back in the theater and watch it again. Please, see this movie, support it's makers, it is a very special treasure. Yay.
Rating:
Summary: C-H-I-C-K-E-N spells chicken!
Review: If you are looking for an intelligent,hilarious film, this is the one. Steve Bucemi is his regular quirky self and Thora Birch is as good if not better than her role in American Beauty. It is worth seeing for the mini-mart scenes with acid washed jean man. Stay til after the credits...you won't be disappointed. the movie is set to an amazing soundtrack (think Oh brother where out thou) and there are glimspes of some very fun artistic pieces. Can't wait to own on DVD!
Rating: 
Summary: fun, but it falters
Review: Ghost World disappointed me. I love the comic, and I couldn't believe all of the fantastic stuff Clowes left out when transferring his work to the screen. The deadpan tone that works so well in the book falls flat on the screen, it makes the girls, who in the book are anything but, seem numb and cardboard. The set design was fantastic! What a wonderful use of color! The world evoked on the screen looked so much like the world in the comic book. I was impressed. I'm not sure I recommend this film, although I wholeheartedly recommend reading the comic book... if you like it, then I say go see the film, it's always pretty cool to see the printed page unfurling on the big screen, even if you're not thrilled by the way it turns out!
Rating:
Summary: Ghost World is Amazing
Review: Amazing. This movie represents Indy films at their best. After seeing Memento and this film mainstream movies are no longer on my list of movies to be seen. Everyone who loves a great teenager angry at the world movie needs to run to your local theater to see this movie. No words justify this movie. See it now.
Rating: 
Summary: Ghost Script
Review: Ok, I should say right up front that I went to high school with Dan Clowes who scripted Ghost World. I sat in the same art class that he based scenes from this movie on, so it was kind of neat to see a piece of my life up there on the screen. But the fun stopped there. While all of the actors in this film where good, the characters they portrayed were hateful, and their story was a complete bore. Clowes' misanthrope characters may carry an issue or two of Eightball, but much like the comic, they become tiresome in their perpetual cynicism and outright hopelessness. Twenty minutes into the film, people started voting with their feet. Out of loyalty to Mr. Clowes, I white-knuckled it to the bitter end as his story of teenage angst hopelessly unraveled.
Rating:
Summary: Oh yea! Another movie glorifying slacking at it's fullest!
Review: What a horrible, horrible movie. Here we have the sory of Enid, a girl who everyone is calling a "counter culture rebel" but should be labeled "lazy, worthless slacker". Enid's problem is that she doesnt fit into todays society so she believes that she is better than them because she listens to lesser known music, dresses like a euro-teen prostitute and dyes her hair on a whim. Enid has just graduated.. ermmm strike that... has almost graduated (art class conflicted with slacking but since slacking comes first, she failed the class) and has unleashed herself upon the world! Whoops! Enid failed to realize that her slacking powers only work in school where others may label her "cool" and "rebellious". In the real world, Enid has the skills of a drunken lab rat and her powers are not effective because she has failed to persue her obvious life-long career track as a part-time record store employee. Somehow Enid has made a friend in a girl named Rebecca and they have had a dream of moving out and getting an apartment after graduation. Rebecca wishes she could be like Enid but fails when she realizes that in order to reach her dream of moving out, she has to get a job, which she gets... at Starbucks. Enid wants to get a job but it interferes with her tasks of following strange people and potential Satanists and since she is so clever and witty she cannot keep the simplest of jobs because "its not her". One day she decides that she wants to meet someone thats a bigger loser than herself so Enid jokingly responds to a personal ad placed by a man named Seymore. Enid has Seymore show up at a diner so that Rebecca and herself can see what kind of person can place that sort of ad. Needless to say Enid, Rebecca and Josh (a boy who Enid likes but cant tell him that in fear of invoking the mighty wrath of her best friend) follow Seymore home, root through his mail and eventually stalk him until he unwittingly lets Enid into his life. Let the hijinks ensue!!! Enid believes she can set Seymore up with a date but then wonders why he never takes her out... I dont know... maybe the fourty year age difference. She gives school a second chance but when the teacher turns out to be an idiot, she decides to bring herself to that level and not only ends up turning Seymore's life into hell but also sparks the entire town's rage. Could of been avoided if she showed up on time to speak to the mob like she was supposed to be but hey, slacking requires you to be two hours late to any social event. Oh yeah, she eventually dumps on Rebecca as well (who has somehow gotten an apartment in a nice neighborhood with no credit history and on part-time Starbuck's pay! I'm applying there tomorrow. I'd do it today, but I'm slacking.) Dont worry, in the end Enid realizes that she's a big turd, comes to her senses and makes everything right for herself and her friends. Oh wait, that would make sense and potentially be the right thing to do so no. Enid runs away looking for somewhere thats exactly like her. A place that would embrace her slackerness, wittiness and inability to think of other people's feelings. Wait, dont they kick you out of high school after a certain age? Everybody is sporting a 3/4 chub because Terry Zwigoff directed this steamer. Thats right, Terry Zwigoff. Terry Zwigoff. You know, the guy who directed the documentary "Crumb". "Crumb". What? You havent heard of that? Well it's about this centuries Marquis de Sade who instead of writes his naughty tales, he draws them in comic book form. I'm not knocking Robert Crumb, but come on. One documentary does not make Terry Zwigoff a good movie director, as seen in this film.... many times over.
Rating:
Summary: Invasion of the Body Snatchers Grows Up
Review: In the mid seventies, I believe, some people made a remake of the horror classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, my psychiatrist told me that the movie was made as a protest against Est and other conformist social movements. Ghost World deals with the theme of what happens if you are 18 or 40 something and you're still real alive, creative and you're in a world of Body Snatchers. I deal with the world of Body Snatchers all the time, I know a person, like Enid (the main character) who I worked with (I am a social worker in my 40's, she is in her early twenties and a clerk and alive, passionate, friendly), which she paid a high price for with her boss and some coworkers. She was easy for me to talk with, much more so than the people body snatchers. She took the bus! She quit and went to Spain, because she always wanted to see what Spain was like, she'll take the low cost route. Ghost World is what's going on! Open your eyes Body Snatcher Types.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing stranger than the real world, huh?
Review: This adaptation of a comic by the same name follows two unconventional teens as they graduate high school and embark on an adult life. The friendship between Rebecca and Enid (the latter played to perfection by Thora Birch) changes as Rebecca gets a job and Enid doesn't. We follow Enid as she sketches strangers in diners, follows people around, and becomes strangely drawn to one misfit whom she plays a prank on, pities, and then admires. The middle-aged misfit she befriends, Seymour (with a really wonderful performance by Steve Buscemi), collects old 78's and can talk your ear off about the blues. Their complicated, lonely relationship is beautifully written and acted with its unstable mix of friendship, mutual affection, and confused sexual tension. Here is a really truthful coming-of-age movie about ordinary people. People with blemishes and obsessions, who bear no resemblance to the humanoid creatures we see in most Hollywood pictures! Ordinary folks dwelling in an urban world of commercial banalities and packaged foods. It is such a relief, and this is such a witty, smart, sensitive film with a sweet side that is NOT sentimental or phoney.
Rating:
Summary: Angst and cruelty in modern youth
Review: On a recent trip to NYC I was able to watch this unique piece of modern art. Staring the confuse,lonely and angry Enid and (Thora Birch from American Beauty) Rebeca (Scarlett Johansson from the Horse Whisper) as a relatively more "normal" girl. Both of them are living the last days of High School and in all honesty they are uncertain about their future, having wished only for a dead end job and an apartment they soon realize things are really not that easy in the so called "real world". We then have this cool, strange and average guy named Seymour (Steve Buscemi from Fargo) who collects odd things, has no social live and lives with a fat guy and spends weekends selling used things on a garage sale outside his house. The three of them met thanks to a cruel joke that the girls thought and got it done, Enid has no idea of the further impact that Seymour would have in her own life. So slowly we see how their existence changes as Enid summer course moves on.
The movie delivers a strong message as you can see how terrible, sad, funny and bizarre growing old is really all about.
You get the idea of the despair, and emptyness that can be, searching for a place you can called your own.
Ghost World is that movie that resumes the feeling of a particular day of you life when you feel or behave in some way, and there really is no explanation on why you are doing anything
As other guys out there put itÂ's not a movie for everyone, not that is was meant to be a huge sucess, I think that the makers must be quite happy because they were able to develop this project and show it to the rest of the world. The team of writer- director manages to create really funny moments without losing any sense of the drama it was intended. I would love to see another colaboration between this two original artists
I feel I can relate a lot to Enid feelings and attitudes.
I really loved been able to seen some similarities of my own existence on screen.
Rating:
Summary: One of this years best-easily!
Review: I had read Daniel Clowes comic prior to watching the film and I was very much looking forward to it. I was a bit concerned that the movie would be just like the comic(which would be great, of course) and that nothing would surprise me. I couldn't have been more wrong. Clowes and Zwigoff's screenplay was perfect. It incorporated some of the stuff from the comic, but had all these new and interesting expansions(Steve Buscemi's character being a fantastic addition). Thora Birch was excellent and hers is one of the best performances of the year(better than her turn in AMERICAN BEAUTY). All in all a fantastic film and one that will rank among my favorites of recent memory.
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