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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

67
$9.99
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66
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48
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56
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Beaches of Agnes, The
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Easy Virtue
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End of the Line, The
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Examined Life
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Girl from Monaco, The
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Girlfriend Experience, The
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89
Goodbye Solo
63
Great Buck Howard, The
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Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
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Julia
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Lemon Tree
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40
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Little Ashes
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Merry Gentleman, The
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New York
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Paris 36
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Rudo y Cursi
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Seraphine
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Sex Positive
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Sin Nombre
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Song of Sparrows, The
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Under Our Skin
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Unmistaken Child
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Valentino: The Last Emperor
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What Goes Up
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Whatever Works
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Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Art School Confidential
Sony Pictures Classics / United Artists
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for language including sexual references, nudity and a scene of violence
Starring
Max Minghella,
Sophia Myles,
Matt Keeslar,
John Malkovich,
Jim Broadbent,
Anjelica Huston,
Joel Moore,
and
Scoot McNairy
Art School Confidential follows talented young artist Jerome Platz (Minghella) as he escapes from high school to a tiny East Coast art school. Here the boyish freshman's ambition is to become the world's greatest artist. (Sony Pictures Classics)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Daniel Clowes (also comic story)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Terry Zwigoff
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: October 10, 2006
Theatrical: May 5, 2006
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
102 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
This is as dark as Zwigoff has gotten - arguably even darker than "Bad Santa." And, while it's legitimate to label Art School Confidential as a "comedy," the movie is more clever than it is funny.

75
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
The movie sputters in its later, darker passages, which by design are less audience-friendly than the earlier, satirically secure ones.

75
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
There is a wise and understanding teacher on the faculty, played by Anjelica Huston. Defending the work of Dead White Males, she sensibly observes that when they did their best work "they weren't dead yet."

75
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Intelligent and robust contempt has become so rare in movies that the first half of Art School Confidential is intermittently exhilarating.

70
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Enjoyable and reprises the same dyspeptic attitude that infused "Ghost World," but ultimately it lacks its predecessor's originality and humanity.

70
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
It's far more ambitious than its predecessor and suffers from too many ideas rather than too few, making it an inspired, fascinating, and revealing mess.

70
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Art School Confidential is replete with humorous detail--in that respect, the student art projects are particularly fine--but it's the attitude that rules.

70
Los Angeles Times
Carina Chocano
If a more elegant and succinct explanation of what compels some people to go to art school has ever been filmed, I haven't seen it.

70
LA Weekly
Scott Foundas
Art School Confidential reaches its dementedly brilliant peak in the company of Jim Broadbent.

67
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
Art School Confidential mostly just makes you feel bad - period. It puts you in a foul mood and leaves you there.

67
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
Zwigoff has a rich comic gallery of pretentious boobs to lampoon. But his satirical target just seems too easy this time around: It's hard to spoof institutions that already veer so close to self-parody.

67
Austin Chronicle
Marrit Ingman
When it's on, it's really, really on. But when it's not, it feels like it's struggling to find its style, just as Jerome is.

63
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
As the film devolved from satire to slapstick horror, I didn't believe in it at all. But in his beetle-browed intensity and tremulousness, I completely believed in Minghella's Jerome.

58
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
Succeeds only in fits and starts.

58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
There's simply nobody beneath the derisive attitude worth caring about.

50
Slate
Josh Levin
Misanthropy can be incredibly entertaining, so long as that hatred draws blood. But that extra percentage point of venom has skewed Clowes and Zwigoff's aim.

50
TV Guide
Ken Fox
This failure is especially surprising because Zwigoff not only reunited with "Ghost World's" writer, ingenious graphic artist Dan Clowes, but he aimed to satirize a rarefied sphere both know all too well: the art world.

50
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
It doesn't help that the central character, Jerome - earnestly played by Max Minghella of "Bee Season" - is essentially a passive observer.

50
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
There are two movies vying to occupy the same space here: a teen comedy about artistic pretension and academic double standards, and a darker, nastier movie about a serial killer. They share Zwigoff's trademark misanthropy, but it doesn't delight as it did in the perversely sweet "Bad Santa." Now it just feels mean.

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
Like a smart-ass student clever enough to see through everyone but himself, Art School Confidential falls victim to the very clichés it wants to puncture.

50
Dallas Observer
Robert Wilonsky
It works for a good while--probably half of the movie.

50
The Hollywood Reporter
Duane Byrge
With an "Animal House"-ish deportment, Art School likely will entertain a sophomoric audience and etch some winning college-kid figures, but art house audiences will be disappointed by its paint-by-numbers storytelling.

50
Variety
David Rooney
Despite a soulful leading performance from Max Minghella, pic feels insubstantial, echoing without equaling both the coolly ironic edge and heart of "Ghost World" and the incisive art-world outsider portrait of the director's docu feature, "Crumb."

50
San Francisco Chronicle
Ruthe Stein
Art School Confidential exudes confidence as long as it is satirizing a questionable, at least according to Clowes, institution of higher learning. But 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.

40
Film Threat
Eric Campos
We still love you, Terry. Happens to the best of us. But, man, what a stinky load. Someone get the hose.

40
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
In spite of some acute observations and a few interesting performances (most notably from John Malkovich as Jerome's drawing teacher and the ever-reliable Jim Broadbent as Strathmore's least illustrious alumnus), Art School Confidential is a dull and dyspeptic exercise in self-pity and hostility.

38
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Zwigoff's overdue for a turkey, in other words. Art School Confidential is it.

38
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Art School Confidential, the first disappointment from director Terry Zwigoff, is all glum, dour cynicism.

33
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Insistently sullen, nihilistic, and successful to the point of smugness at transmitting buzzkill, Art School Confidential is the second collaboration between art-house cartoonist Daniel Clowes and director Terry Zwigoff.

30
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
Zwigoff doesn't get the tone right, and the picture goes from reasonably amusing (if crude) to puzzling to boring to (when a campus strangler enters the picture) hateful.


The average user rating for this movie is 6.6 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
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