Here's a question - is there a name or subgenre for slacker type movies? You know the kind - they narrate everything, they state the obvious with undercurrents of irony, they have great soundtracks and characters wearing hoodies and tshirts with movie slogans or 80s video game characters on them. I'm just going to call them Slacker Flicks, and as Slacker Flicks go, Scott Pilgrim vs The World is mind-blowingly awesome.
Based on graphic novel by the same name, the general gist is that Scott Pilgrim - unemployed, plays in a band, kind of an arsehole when it comes to girls - meets a girl at a party and must have her. But as soon as he begins to make a move, the League of Evil Exes, an organisation made of all her previous boyfriends and a girlfriend, challenge him to duels and feats of strength.
It's excellent, really excellent. The dialogue is funny and intelligent, the plot moves quickly without losing you or suffering from endless amounts of exposition. The League of Evil Exes is brilliantly crafted.
The beauty of this movie, and probably why I enjoyed it so much, is that it's structured like a classic platform video game. Scott has to move through all the levels until he final meets the Big Baddie, who he must defeat. This opens it up for tons of little visual gags - all the bad guys turn into a shower of Super Mario coins when Scott dispatches them, the little 1up button appears when he collects enough coins.
Between that, the funny dialogue, the soundtrack and the wonderful characters, I can't stress enough how awesome this movie is.
But seriously, is there a name for this genre? There really should be.
3 comments:
At this point, I think you could almost call it the Michael Cera genre. Although I suppose the original example was probably Wayne's World, back in the day - especially if the surrealness is part of the genre. (Surrealness? Surreality? Surrealitude?)
Saw Scott Pilgrim last night and ADORED it. I didn't know it was possible to fit that much wonderful deadpan snarking inside a single movie.
Hmmm...Wayne's World could have been the harbinger of SlackerFlicks. Maybe Bill and Ted as well? And I guess Kevin Smith comes in as well. But Michael Cera raises slacker to a whole new level of slacking.
I seriously might go and see this movie again - I just loved it so much.
I'm well tempted to go see it now. Although I really don't want to see it in French :-(
I've got Clerks on video! hehe
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