DONT FORGET TO UPDATE YOUR LINKS!!!  MY NEW HOME IS TOM BRADY IS MY BABY DADDY

You can only imagine my excitement when I actually sat down for the screening to this it.  Aside from personal reasons for seeing this movie, I was thrilled to catch the hype that has been surrounding the movie in the last couple of weeks. It lived up to everything that I’ve heard.  For the last year, I’ve been hearing about this movie.  To watch it come alive was surreal and was the best 90 minutes that I’ve had in a while (insert joke here).  The Wackness won the Audience Award back at Sundance this year and on Sunday night won the top award at the Los Angeles Film Festival and its critical acclaims just keep getting better so hopefully mine will give it justice.

“The Wackness” will bring you back to the summer of 1994 in New York City where Giuliani was just elected mayor, OJ was in the tabloids, Forrest Gump ads were on a bus, and the city still maintained a grimy feel to it. The story is about the unlikely friendship between weed dealing, just graduated from high school Manhattan teen Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) and his psychiatrist Dr. Jeff Squires (Ben Kingsley). The film follows them through the life changing summer.  Luke's the pot dealer with no friends, still a virgin (but not by the end of the film), whose parents are at constant odds and have financial woes and Luke is a self-proclaimed loser and Dr. Squires is the therapist with more issues than his patients, his home problems include his much younger wife (the delicious Famke Janssen) who emotionally/physically checked out of their marriage years ago and he feels a mid-life crisis is slowly creeping upon him.  Together, they're a perfect match.  Since Luke and his family are strapped for cash (Luke is dealing to save his parents apartment from being evicted) he sells drugs to Dr. Squires in exchange for therapy sessions.  Once they come together it becomes clear that they share an affinity for getting stoned, a desire for good sex and their sub-par home lives.  Through their unique bond and they both learn the lessons that Squires preaches, to experience each moment to the very fullest, to not sweep heartache and pain under the rug, to not cope with superficial methods but to accept them as natural, vital parts of life and Dr. Squires refuses to prescribe anything to Luke and tells him that what they both need is just to get laid.  The rest of the film you see Luke’s life played out with Dr. Squires by his side.

To make matters even more interesting Luke has been falling for Dr. Squires step-daughter the ever popular Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby).  You see their somewhat of a courtship where you can see them together and he throws out one of his best lines  “I got mad love for you shorty, I wanna like listen to Boyz II Men when I’m with you”.  You see this boy fall for a girl and it’s beyond endearing and Luke even feels compelled to go as far as leaving those desperate (and possibly pathetic) and heartfelt messages to Stephanie, the guy I was with leaned over and said “Now what guy hasn’t done/felt like that”.  A cameo treat in the film is Luke’s good-humored relationship with his Jamaican dealer Percy (Method Man), to top it off his cameo goes together with the sound of his "The What" duet with Biggie, very smooth also there is Union (Mary Kate Olsen) as the stoner hippie chick who has a heavy make out session with Sir Ben…very interesting.  Another minor cameo was Dj Jus Ske's (whose link you must click, because he has an awesome web layout) clothing line danucht, Luke was wearing a couple of items from his line. 

New York and the 90’s play out as other characters in the film and they get almost as much attention as the characters and plot.  The great cinematography  and its washed out palette, slow-mo sequences set to pervasive hip-hop tracks and a nostalgic storyline reminds me of the days of when movies actually had an independent feeling.  The boy that I went to see this with said that it would be hard to be objective about this movie because it rang so true to him.  He said he felt that the writer/director tailor-made the movie for people like him it made him review his childhood at that age, he was a guy who grew up in New York City and graduated high school in 1995, used the same lingo, "Yo that was mad good" and "He's got mad skillz kid”, loved and listened to the same music, places in the movie looked familiar, hung out with the same type of kids, even blew into his NES to make it work (as Luke does in the movie).

The soundtrack is anything but wack.  1994 was a brilliant year for hip hop, it featured debut albums from Nas, Notorious B.I.G., Outkast and Method Man so you wonder if Jonathan Levine decided to set the movie at 1994 on purpose.  The music speaks to the movie without a doubt.  Audiences in their late twenties and early thirties will especially enjoy all the '90s hip hop and R&B tracks that the movie has from B.I.G., Tribe Called Quest, Wu Tang “Tearz” (a personal fave), De La Soul, Nas “The World is Yours” and even R. Kelly’s “Bump and Grind”, keeps you involved in the movie.  They were able to get clearance for every single song they wanted and went to B.I.G.’s estate to get the rights to it.  When was the last time that you saw Wu Tang or Nas in a movie, I’m not talking about new stuff, I’m talking about their old stuff when it was just ripe and raw…never.  Levine knew what he was doing and knew that the music was more than just an important part in the film it was absolutely necessary.  Go out and pick up the soundtrack…you must.

After the soundtrack, the real treat is the 21 year old Amber Alert Hottie Josh Peck (seriously, I’m not just saying that because of…well never mind).  He embodies Luke’s awkward, disaffected persona so perfect, that it’s really hard to believe he could be anyone else he really brings this character to life.  He gives the character a face of youth, devoid of cynicism and his delivery is cool beyond his years.  He moves with the smoothness that only a young New Yorker in the 90's can have, even if at times he can come off like a vulnerable kid.  I'm all over it. 

Even though the title might deter some folks from seeing the movie, they will miss the endearing sentimental (even I shed a tear) coming-of-age tale made worthwhile by its well-written, superbly acted leads. Director Jonathan Levine has said the film is semi-autobiographical, with his own adolescence for inspiration.  The end result is a nostalgic, deep and meaningful delectable coming of age story in the typical “growing-up” material (feeling unpopular at school, getting your heart broken by a girl, issues with parents, yourself, etc).  The guy I saw it with said it’s a cultural event for all guys and girls in this age group to go check out, ESPECIALLY if they lived in New York.  Check out the red band trailer below.