Art School Confidential (2006)
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: 36
Fresh: 15 | Rotten: 21
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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Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 44,181
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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,
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Cast
-
Max Minghella
Jerome Platz -
Sophia Myles
Audrey -
John Malkovich
Professor Sandford -
Jim Broadbent
Jimmy -
Matt Keeslar
Jonah -
Ethan Suplee
Vince -
Joel David Moore
Bardo -
Nick Swardson
Matthew -
Anjelica Huston
Sophie -
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
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All Critics (134) | Top Critics (36) | Fresh (50) | Rotten (89) | DVD (12)
Curiously, this relentlessly cynical tone turns out sounding refreshingly original compared to the usual pieties in the genre.
Top CriticNo matter which is the real imitator, life or art, Art School Confidential does its own fine job skewering both.
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.
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.
Zwigoff's angry exposé 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.
What keeps the film from being altogether snide and smug are the well-intentioned performances.
Cynical and raunchy comedy for adults only.
It's a shame that the film's main impetus turns out to be focused on such a pedestrian and predictable plot.
Messy, squalidly funny
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.
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.
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.
It's too crass to be a plausible satire, and not funny enough to be a dumb comedy.
(...) Podría haber sido una mirada inteligente a la pretensión del artista, o al menos a una manera de acercarse a la maduración a través del arte (o a pesar de él).
It's the work of two misanthropes in an even worse mood than usual.
Simultaneously champions creative desire while calling out the artistic realm's share of pretentious blowhards.
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.
Making fun of art students is like shooting Darwin fish in a barrel.
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.
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.
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.
...generally comes off as nothing less than a substantial disappointment.
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.
Art School Confidential is to the academic art world what Wonder Boys was to the academic literary world.
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Latest News on Art School Confidential
September 14, 2007:
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