"I'd like to think there's more to a person than just one thing."

Last week, the Austin Film Society screened The Spectacular Now at the Marchesa Hall & Theatre followed by a Q&A with Director James Ponsoldt and I was lucky enough to attend.

Based on the book by Tim Tharp, this film is about a troubled, hard-partying high school senior named Sutter that gets dumped by his girlfriend and starts hanging out with Aimee, a quiet, "nice girl" from school. He keeps telling himself that she is just his rebound, but eventually they fall in love and she changes the way he looks at his life and his other relationships. 

While the relationship between Sutter and Aimee is the main focus of the story, it is really about a young man who is not happy and uses alcohol to block his pain. As someone who often projects a happier persona and uses movies and television, as opposed to alcohol, to distract me from my life, I definitely identified with Sutter. In one of my favorite scenes, Sutter is talking to his teacher and he says, "I don't see what's so great about being an adult. Are you happy?" and the teacher has no response. Sutter would rather live in the moment than have to think about his future. He pushes away the people that love him and care about him because he does not want them to see that he is miserable.

"This country was built on bandanas!"

None of the new movies out this weekend was particularly appealing to me. I think I will eventually see The Mighty Macs, but it is not on the top of my list. There are few other movies that have been out for a while that I would like to see first. One of those movies was the Footloose remake, which I saw yesterday.

For those of you born after the 80's or for some unknown reason have never seen the original, this movie is about Ren McCormick, who moves from Boston, Massachusetts to Bomont, Georgia to live with his aunt and uncle after his mother dies. When he gets to Bomont he learns that dancing in public and playing loud music are illegal. Ren challenges the law and in-turn makes an enemy of the local pastor, Reverend Shaw Moore, while simultaneously falling for the pastor's daughter, Ariel.

It has been a while since I have seen the original starring Kevin Bacon, but I really enjoyed the new version. It was a lot of fun. They really tried to reinvent the moments you love from the first movie without trying too hard to copy them exactly. While the dialogue was a little corny at times, I think they really captured the spirit of the original movie.