Pickwick12

Teen Star Academy definitely is a movie that someone made, and it has music in it that is definitely music.

Oh, who am I kidding? This is an absolute classic, neck and neck with Manos: The Hands of Fate in its sheer presumptuous incompetence.

There is nothing this movie will not try (and fail) at doing, no film convention it will not blithely destroy.

There's a weird, mesmerizing poetry in the unrealistic dialogue and stilted interactions, as if you're watching something that isn't failing to be realistic in human terms but is instead absolutely succeeding for the Martian audience it's meant for.

Endless showcases of vaguely talented to blatantly untalented children, nonsensical subplots, and a flatulent dog. This is as enjoyable as The Room or a Neil Breen film. It's submlinr absurdity, so totally and completely a failure that it becomes high art. I definitely do recommend it. Highly.

It's obvious a lot of reviewers of this film had no idea what to expect because of having no idea what is in the book it's based on. I'm not criticizing; there's certainly an argument for the fact that an adaptation should work on its own, even if you're unfamiliar. I'm not objective because I've read the book, and I thought it was pretty stunning. As an adaptation, the movie replicated the experience I had reading it-which is what I wanted and expected.

I expected stylized dialogue and characters, with wildly surreal, satirical plot points united by theme rather than subject. If you don't understand what exactly unites the movie's acts and their progression, I struggle to explain it without getting overly spoilery but would suggest deeper investigation and checking out the novel, which is superb. To me, it makes sense. The interaction of the intensely personal with the broadly circumstantial creates a framework to discuss the capital I "Issue" that every human must deal with-and the ways we choose to cope, together and separately.

What I applaud Noah and his actors for is making me care. The book has a brilliant writing style, but its surreality failed to give me some of the visceral sucker punches managed by Adam and Greta in particular.

This film is not going to be for everyone, and I suspect its cast and crew was well aware of this. It's self-consciously extremely intellectual, long, and strange, with humor as dry as a desert. And it's purposefully unsettling. I would argue that it very much should be. It's making us look at something we all face daily-whether we like it or not.

This series is one of the most baffling I have ever watched. I have literally no idea how the same team crafted something with the incredible, subtle, moving and intriguing highs of this show, but at the same time lows that would barely make it onto a weekly CW superhero standard in its twilight years.

It's simply wildly uneven-in tone, in acting, and in writing.

The other thing I don't understand is the demographic target. The worst moments of this show are weak enough that only children wouldn't be annoyed by them, but there's so much truly tense/gory/frightening content that I can't believe the target is kids. Even for preteens, it's very dark.

All that said, there's something about this. The premise is fascinating, and some of the well-directed scenes are near-masterpieces. It's a pity the same quality wasn't maintained throughout.

For me, there's enough here to keep me through a miniseries, and I'll probably tune in again if there's more. If it had a longer slate of episodes, I doubt I would make it.