Best movie of this year hands down!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Man this movie. I think it's the movie I watched more last year. I know it by heart.Nat's character is insanely well written and he's an exceptional new talent that interpreted it very well beginning to end. Everyone else was also very good, I didn't find any flows in any of the characters. The whole movie is smooth AF is you ask me. I loved many of the shots, very creative and different and the soundtrack is ace. Some of the lines are memorable. I like to remember them.It's a very interesting indie movie, I wish there were more around like this.Love for Palo Alto.

Being that this is from a book of short stories (though inter-connected I believe) from James Franco, it's interesting that Palo Alto works as well as it does. At first I wasn't quite sure, and the first half of the movie appears like it'll be just a lot of aimless partying and following 'oh, whatever' teen angst and mishaps; as one girl (Emma Roberts) navigates her own feelings for the boys around her, another guy (Jack Kilmer) gets into car-crash trouble and has to serve community service. Meanwhile, Nat Wolf is like De Niro in Mean Streets transposed into sunny suburban California: a don't-give-a-f*** guy full of crazy - or just a little attention perhaps - and is very likely a sociopath at best.A lot of this is character stuff, and one could accuse Gia Coppola (daughter of the late Gian-Carlo, grand-daughter of Francis, the latter does a voice of the judge by the way), of doing some of the same middle-upper class navel-gazing as her Aunt Sofia has done in work like the Virgin Suicides or Somewhere. But the good news with Palo Alto is that, after kind of a rocky, ho-hum start, the characters gain some interest, some perspective. It helps that Robert's story involves her soccer coach with a romantic link and played by Franco himself and, whether it's due to his own material or not, he's really good here, subtle, damaged, creepy but not in an overt way, perfectly suburban. And Jack Kilmer's character - as does his performance - grows and deepens over the course of the movie through his work as an artist and in community service.Palo Alto edges out to be a satisfying experience, though it's more cumulative; you may wonder where this is going after the first half hour and if these self-important teenage-wasteland-ers will be worth following. But I think the creativity in Frano and Coppola's writing is that, meeting them halfway, there's more depth and heartbreak and genuine empathy you get for them as they experience more and more. The most original stuff? Maybe not. At the least it keeps things relatively low-key, and is a revelation for Nat Wolf as the live-wire of the group. It's less about 'oh, don't you feel bad for these well-off people, they have feelings too' than 'these are just people, they're pained, they're growing, give them time before they self-destruct.'Oh, and Val Kilmer's in it too as an off-in-his-world stoner step-dad. Which is awesome.

OK, I get it. James Franco is a man of many artistic talents, which now include publishing short stories and having a film based on that book and starring in this movie. Also anytime a Coppola directs a film, you pay attention. Honestly the highlight of this film was that there were some very nice visuals. It was filmed like photographs being taken, which reinforced memories and nostalgia of youth. They had a good cast to work with Emma, Franco, and even Val Kilmer, but the characters were flat as was the plot and the story. It was boring. I felt like I was reliving some parts of my high school years- like the boring parts. I'd like to read the book of short stories- I bet they are very descriptive and poetic. But I bet there's not much plot, which is why I think it was a tall order to make a decent film out of Franco's first book using a first time director. Again, kudos for the cinematography. Maybe one day I'll try to sit down again and finish it but for now it was way too long and I couldn't get past an hour. Sorry Franco.

Although the characters are in high school, this is not a typical "coming of age" movie. Each of the character's are struggling with their own personal demons, less tangible than the typical class bully or the hard to get cheerleader. They are filling their boredom or the lack of love Coppola alludes to by the parents who constantly talk on the phone, or play video games, and generally seem distracted, if well meaning. They are plagued with eruptions of emotion and no outlet, causing characters like Nat Wolff's to act recklessly, driving towards traffic on the left side of the road, in order to keep from feeling numb. There is a paradox of emotional numbness and simultaneous intense emotional turmoil that exists in adolescence- when Jack Kilmer's character accuses Emma Robert's character of not caring about anything, she responds by asserting that she cares too much about everything. These conflicting feelings of caring for nothing and everything at the same time cause the characters to act without purpose. They have sex without love. They smoke cigarettes. They self destruct.