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Art School Confidential (2006)

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All Critics
Top Critics

Average Rating: 5.4/10
Reviews Counted: 134
Fresh: 48 | Rotten: 86

Art School's misanthropy is too sour, its targets too flat and cliched, and Clowes and Zwigoff stumble when trying to build a story around the premise.

Average Rating: 5.5/10
Critic Reviews: 34
Fresh: 14 | Rotten: 20

Art School's misanthropy is too sour, its targets too flat and cliched, and Clowes and Zwigoff stumble when trying to build a story around the premise.

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Movie Info

Filmmaker Terry Zwigoff and comic artist and screenwriter Daniel Clowes, who collaborated for the acclaimed 2001 comedy-drama Ghost World, team up once again for this offbeat satire. Jerome (Max Minghella) is an aspiring artist who arrives at a prestigious East Coast art institute to study. While Jerome enjoys daydreams of becoming the best-respected painter on Earth and winning the hearts of his female classmates, he soon learns the sad truth -- his "cool artist" act is old hat in the big city,

R, 1 hr. 42 min.

Drama, Comedy

Directed By: Terry Zwigoff

Written By: Daniel Clowes

In Theaters: May 5, 2006 Limited

On DVD: Oct 10, 2006

Box Office:$3.2M

Sony Pictures Classics

Art School Confidential Trailer & Photos

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Cast

John Malkovich
Professor Sandford
Anjelica Huston
Sophie
Max Minghella
Jerome Platz
Sophia Myles
Audrey
Jim Broadbent
Jimmy
Matt Keeslar
Jonah
Ethan Suplee
Vince
Joel David Moore
Bardo
Nick Swardson
Matthew
Adam Scott
Marvin Bushmiller
Jack Ong
Professor Okamura
Michael Lerner
Art Dealer
Katherine Moennig
Candace
Lauren Lee Smith
Beat Girl
Jeremy Guskin
Eno
Jeanette Brox
Shilo
Monika Ramnath
Flower
Isaac Laskin
Kiss-Ass
Scoot McNairy
Army Jacket
Finneus Egan
Vegan
Shelly Cole
Filthy-Haired Girl
Jean St. James
Mom
Cristen Coppen
Preppy Girl
Michael Shamus Wiles
Donald Baumgarten
Paul Collins
Professor David Zipkin
Ezra Buzzington
Leslie (Male Model)
Kimi Reichenberg
Suburban Girl
Alexander Ryan
Nympho
Travis Walck
Richard Natwick
Roxanne Hart
Mom Platz
Osman Soykut
Dad Platz
Katija Pevec
Cynthia Platz
Brian Turk
Cliffy (Cousin)
Edith Jefferson
Doddering Aunt
Roxanne Day
Marie (Jonah's Wife)
Marshall Bell
Lonny
Marc Vann
Kevin
Chris L. McKenna
Mikey
Zach Maurer
Young Jerome
Charlie Talbert
Vince's Editor
John Bliss
Vince's Grandpa

Critic Reviews for Art School Confidential

All Critics (134) | Top Critics (34) | Fresh (50) | Rotten (89) | DVD (12)

Curiously, this relentlessly cynical tone turns out sounding refreshingly original compared to the usual pieties in the genre.

July 12, 2006 Full Review Source: New York Observer

| Comment

Andrew Sarris

New York Observer

Top Critic

The film loses its way with multiple subplots, becoming a hodgepodge that isn't particularly hard to follow, but, far worse, provides no compelling reason to bother.

May 12, 2006 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle

| Comment

Ruthe Stein

San Francisco Chronicle

Top Critic

A movie with the odd, tired joke about art and artists, a college romance that isn't romantic, and a plot twist that doesn't twist at all.

May 12, 2006 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel

| Comment

Roger Moore

Orlando Sentinel

Top Critic

Zwigoff's angry expos� of this intense, tiny subculture isn't fair to anyone in the art world, but if you can stomach the overstatement, it's often scathingly funny. And it's sometimes scathingly smart.

May 12, 2006 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle

| Comment

Amy Biancolli

Houston Chronicle

Top Critic

What keeps the film from being altogether snide and smug are the well-intentioned performances.

May 12, 2006 Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press

| Comment

Terry Lawson

Detroit Free Press

Top Critic

By the end, it feels as if Zwigoff and Clowes skimmed through a sketchbook without figuring out how to make a fully realized painting, a task that might have mattered less had the movie been either thematically more ambitious or more consistently funny.

May 12, 2006 Comment

Robert Denerstein

Denver Rocky Mountain News

Top Critic

Cynical and raunchy comedy for adults only.

December 18, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media

| Comment

Heather Boerner

Common Sense Media

It's a shame that the film's main impetus turns out to be focused on such a pedestrian and predictable plot.

July 16, 2010 Full Review Source: Film4

| Comment

Film4

Messy, squalidly funny

August 30, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion

| Comment

Fernando F. Croce

CinePassion

Director Terry Zwigoff presents a scathing satire of art school student existence but derails the movie, about a talented young artist (well-played by Max Minghella), with an artificial sub-plot about a campus serial killer.

April 19, 2009 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com

| Comment

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

Unfortunately, the tender observations Zwigoff and Clowes specialize in are largely missing from Art School Confidential, which spends its energy on the zany people who'd usually pepper the edges of their films.

June 8, 2008 Full Review Source: Paste Magazine

| Comment

Robert Davis

Paste Magazine

A stilted satire of teenage passion and apathy, sex and death and crime...so concerned with aping style that it never bothers to consider its characters as people.

February 1, 2008 Full Review Source: Cinematical

| Comment

Karina Longworth

Cinematical

It's too crass to be a plausible satire, and not funny enough to be a dumb comedy.

December 7, 2007 Full Review Source: Eye for Film

| Comment

Keith H. Brown

Eye for Film

(...) Podr�a haber sido una mirada inteligente a la pretensi�n del artista, o al menos a una manera de acercarse a la maduraci�n a trav�s del arte (o a pesar de �l).

August 27, 2007 Full Review Source: Uruguay Total

| Comment

Enrique Buchichio

Uruguay Total

It's the work of two misanthropes in an even worse mood than usual.

July 23, 2007 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com

| Comment

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

Simultaneously champions creative desire while calling out the artistic realm's share of pretentious blowhards.

July 3, 2007 Full Review Source: Projection Booth

| Comment

Rob Humanick

Projection Booth

An ingenious satire of the pretentious mindset of the elitist art world from the perspective of a rapidly-disillusioned kid who had no idea what he was getting into.

May 20, 2007 Full Review Source: DallasBlack.com

| Comment

Kam Williams

DallasBlack.com

Making fun of art students is like shooting Darwin fish in a barrel.

March 24, 2007 Full Review Source: UGO

| Comment

Brian Tallerico

UGO

Suffers from snail-like pacing, an underwhelming central character and the "shooting fish in a barrel" syndrome: The film's targets are all too obvious.

March 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Journal International

| Comment

Lewis Beale

Film Journal International

Emulating the class butt-kisser, the featurettes are self-promotional. The deleted scenes are forgettable and the bloopers unfunny, which leaves the trailers: There's 16 of them, and they're unexpectedly choice.

November 21, 2006 Full Review Source: Premiere Magazine

| Comment

Aaron Hillis

Premiere Magazine

Maybe this material isn't entirely fresh, but Zwigoff delivers it with the snap of a quick punch to the face -- which is, in fact, the first image in the film, and a model for innumerable excellent sight gags to follow.

November 11, 2006 Full Review Source: Nation

| Comment

Stuart Klawans

Nation

...generally comes off as nothing less than a substantial disappointment.

October 13, 2006 Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews

| Comment

David Nusair

Reel Film Reviews

Given the nature of the film, the image and audio is almost too good, but the film's laughs still resonate through the spic-and-span treatment.

October 5, 2006 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine

| Comment

Ed Gonzalez

Slant Magazine

Art School Confidential is to the academic art world what Wonder Boys was to the academic literary world.

September 28, 2006 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis

| Comment

James Plath

Movie Metropolis

More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Art School Confidential

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An art student pursues a beautiful woman while a killer stalks the student body.I liked the film's almost oppressively cynical air. Multiple characters remark how the human species should be wiped off the planet, and the art teachers/successful artists pillory the art establishment at will. At the center of the film

August 28, 2011

Jim Hunter

Super Reviewer

Who said anything about talent? I thought this movie was good and different. It's suppose to be a comedy/drama kinda film, you can see it as you want. The story was actually pretty good and it's what really carried this film. The screenplay at times dwindle far from the main storyline but it wasn't that important. It's

January 7, 2010

Manu Gino

Super Reviewer

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Latest News for Art School Confidential

September 14, 2007:

Zwigoff, Clowes to Assemble $40,000 Man
The creative duo responsible for Ghost World and Art School Confidential has found its next project.

August 27, 2007:

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