Not even bad in a good way

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

I just watched Ghost World again, after a gap of about 5 years. This time around I'd just read the complete Ghost World which collected all the strips, and also had additional stuff including the original script of the film. And I found it a very difficult film to watch.The pacing seemed extremely slow and with it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion (especially the version I watched which was 137 minutes over the theatrical release of 111 minutes). Rebecca gets demoted to a supporting character (and seems very dull) and Seymour, I think perhaps Seymour (who was barely in the comic) should have been a main character, but in a different film. Of course the comic was episodic in nature rather than a continuous story, so they did well to adapt this at all. Perhaps though that's why Josh was demoted to a minor character and Seymour replaces him and Rebecca in many scenes.The film (much more than the comics) is about that period between being a teenager and becoming an adult. It's funny thinking about where the two main actors after the film. Scarlett Johansson's (Rebecca) career took off after this with over 30 films to her credit (think Black Widow) but Thora Birch (Enid) has only done 12 films since. Steve Buscemi (Seymour) being a character actor has done 50+ films. Not that the number of films counts for everything, but to me it shows an interesting balance and a period of transition for them, much like the characters in the film.

I'm not that good at expressing my thoughts into words but this movie is simply amazing. It's vastly underrated and it stars two amazing actresses. Thora Birch, from American Beauty, my all time favorite movie and Scarlett Johansson from Lost in Translation, my second favorite movie.If you haven't seen this movie, go out, see it. It's so worth it. It's about making your way through life after high school, finding yourself, the feeling of not fitting in. Something we've all been through. It really expresses the feelings of every teenager who's ever been depressed.

It's a spiritual quest masquerading as a romantic drama masquerading as a teen comedy about two girl just out of high school.The girls are Scarlett Johansson with stunning features, a voice that occasionally croaks, and a mammoth bosom; and Thora Birch, a pudgy Jewish girl with glasses that define her as a loser. The two friends wander about the boulevards and empty residential areas of Los Angeles, making vulgar wisecracks to the weirdos they run into. There is, for instance, an old man sitting at a bus stop, waiting for a bus whose route was canceled years ago. "That's what you think," he replies.The girls are very close, as only two people who hate everyone around them can be close. But their interests diverge when they run into a weirdo whose weirdness awakes a dormant thirst for something beautiful and entirely different in Birch, but not in Johansson, who prefers disgust.The catalyst is Steve Buscemi. The girls play a rather nasty prank on him. He's a pathetic loner with an eccentric obsession -- traditional jazz records. He sells them on Saturdays in a kid of front-yard souk. The girls twit him, asking if he has any Hindi rock music. Birch prefers heavy metal but she buys an old record from him anyway, out of curiosity, and finds herself moved by an old blues song.We see less of Johansson and her bosom as the movie follows Birch's blossoming attraction to Buscemi, who lives in a room that resembles a museum of hundred-year-old vernacular art. If self esteem could be measured, Buscemi's would register in the negative range. As Birch's home life become less tolerable, she plans to move in with Buscemi but changes her mind. Buscemi, almost against his will, takes up with a woman his own age, Stacy Travis, who is enough to disentangle any man from his affair with a portly teen ager.I don't think I'll describe the ending. Well, maybe I will. That old man sitting at the bus stop, waiting for the bus that will never come? It comes. And he gets on it and goes. Having lost everything, Thora Birch watches another bus come. She gets on it and goes.I'm sure the arrival and departure of the bus was symbolic but I don't know of what. After bouncing like a pinball between life at home, the dissolution of a warm friendship, and her affair with Buscemi, she hasn't really found anything. Rather, she's lost it. She hasn't developed a taste for blues. There really isn't anything left but disappointment and despair.All the performances are fine. No one is better than anyone else, although Bob Balaban, as Birch's indulgent father, has the best comic lines. The story is full of color and repulsion. I wish the writer, Daniel Clowes, had imagined a less allegorical end to it because that final scene just doesn't fit.At any rate, this is several steps above the expected trash about teens, sex, love, ambition, etc. I mean, it isn't, say, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."

An austere, gripping character piece about the future. Highlights include an excellent scene in a club that nails the American outlook on life; and it being a gritty, hard movie about gritty hard people, but it's also intelligent. The acting is very effective. From an artistic standpoint, there were some plot elements and character developments I didn't think were totally needed. They do however drive the story, which seemed to be their purpose, so I can accept them. Buscemi was unfairly overlooked at awards time. The film is unrelentingly dark, both in camera action and in storyline. The cinematography is stark and bare, with only the soundtrack adding some effect.