Review of Smiley Face (2007) by Louiseg. — 04 Jan 2008

Now, I love Anna Faris, hence the rating of 2 and not 0. She was fabulous in "Just Friends" with Ryan Reynolds and I support her 100%. Indeed, the movie may have been made to showcase her talents, as one of the critics muses, but the problem is that Greg Araki is a flub who seems to mysteriously string along collaboration from big names; tricking everyone into thinking the project is worthwhile.

Call it mass psycho-delusionism... THAT, my friends, is Greg Araki's true talent. WE can't forget that movies are these huge, incredibly complicated collaborative efforts, how is it possible that he can convince investors with such a poor script?? How talented people can willingly agree to participate in a collaborative effort of this magnitude is beyond me.

Maybe Greg Araki is unbelievably good looking, maybe his movies are a way for producers and publicists to punish stars that have been naughty somehow, maybe he threatens with violence.... regardless, the surrealism of all his projects (I have seen them all, out of sheer curiosity.

...) always gives me major loser syndrome; translation: I feel ashamed to be watching. This script in particular is so poorly adapted to the screen that it leaves you wondering if you've gone mad.

His abstract concepts and useless dialogue are filler for an endless barrage of gimmicky filmamking that is always a step or 2 behind the true rookie scriptwriters. The last 10 minutes in particular are so grating and incomprehensible, I think my IQ dropped a few points, and I now have wrinkles from furrowing my brow.

I can never get those back.