Hollywood doesn't want to be hollywood.
Published 14 October 2004
Hi! You've stumbled upon a blog post by a guy named Ryan. I'm not that guy anymore, but I've left his posts around because cool URIs don't change and to remind me how much I've learned and grown over time.
Ryan was a well-meaning but naïve and priviledged person. His views don't necessarily represent the views of anyone.
Hoodwinked. Hornswaggled. Flamboozled. They're the only words that could describe my action to The Girl Next Door. Elisha Cuthbert (Oldschool) plays a young adult-film actress trying to get out of the industry and enjoy the rest of her teenage life. Previews showed clips of Cuthbert's agonizingly slow changing scene, porn stars as prom dates, and the most tantalizing quote I've seen on a commercial: I'm all wet, can I come in?
The acting was adequate, the end result predictable—the usual to-hot-to-be-high-school actresses bouncing around for an hour and a half, but instead of American Pie, these scenes were spliced with faux porn stars. Relax and enjoy, right? Wrong.
Cuthbert's character turns out to be a magical, charismatic, albeit two-dimensional character. As a villain, Jonny Rotten-esque Kelly (Timothy Olyphant) is shockingly robust, simultaneously endearing and frightening. Even the tension created by the contrast of gritty reality and the suburban high school fantasy is actually compelling.
The best part of this movie, however, is not what's in it, but what is not. Director Luke Greenfield navigates the deleted scenes, remaking for many of them, I loved this scene, but it was cut for timing.
Others, while providing more depth and development, were too intense for Hollywood, and cut. Listening to the director describe the power of these scenes (usually less than a minute long), made me lament that the film had to be sold. What could Hollywood be if it didn't have to make good movies?