Art School Confidential (2006)

So much average

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Jerome (Max Minghella) is a geeky self-important Art nerd. He's always drawing and always being bullied. His great hope is Strathmore College where he could start a new life. Only Strathmore is a rundown crumbling institution with disinterested teachers. He's enamored with beautiful nude model Audrey (Sophia Myles). Oh and there is a serial killer.I love the skewering of the art world and art education. It has a dark edge. Max Minghella is not the most compelling actor but he masters the feel of a pompous art nerd. John Malkovich is great as a professor. Sophia Myles is beautiful. I could see her as an object of desire. The only problem is that I don't think Jim Broadbent is the right actor for the role. Overall, this is a good black comedy.

One of the greatest questions ever asked by mankind is "What is Art?" "Art School Confidential", directed Terry Zwigoff and based on the graphic novel by Daniel Clowes, takes a satirical look at the art world through the students at the fictitious Strathmore college.Jerome (played by Max Mighella) is a freshman at Strathmore who has dreams of being one of the worlds greatest artists. His roommates are a fanatical film director, and a yet to come out the closet fashion designer. The movie plays up all of the typical art school stereotypes in a very self referential way. Jerome forms a sort of friendship with Bardo (Joel David Moore) and he points out all of these clichéd students. Bardo himself is the guy who has been there for seven years and changes his major each year. There is also the crazy suicidal girl, the pseudo-intellectual guy, the hippies, the teachers pet. Also the failed arrogant artist who decides to become a teacher in a desperate attempt to hold on to something that was never really there. This is played by the always intense (and this time funny) John Malkovich as Professor Sandiford. Art school is a also the magical place where there is always two super hot uninhibited girls for every geeky guy.Jerome is a regular guy and falls for the lure of the "glamorous" artist life. He decides to go to Strathmore because he wants to meet Audrey (Sophia Myles) the beautiful nude figure model from the college's brochure. To further fill out the full roster of interesting characters we have Broadway Bob (Steve Buscemi) who once a year gives one of the students a one person show at his café. Their is Jimmy the old alcoholic reclusive former artist who Bardo brings Jerome to for advice on life and art. All in all this is a great ensemble cast with interesting characters that you wish you could know more about. As Jimmy tells Jerome one night "to be a great artist you just need to take lessons in sucking cock and licking ass" Well put Jimmy! So Jerome eventually meets Audrey and after he paints her portrait in a class they become friends. Audrey plays the part of the Muse to all of the popular up and coming young artists. Everything they are doing in school builds up to the final showing and one and only grade. So many things have been said about art over the centuries its impossible to nail down what makes good art. Is it just a popularity contest? Is it the artist themselves and not necessarily the art? And on and on. Jerome really does have some talent but how will he turn it into a career? As Professor Sandiford states in class "only about 1 in 100 of you will ever make a living as an artist" I think he is being rather conservative.The movie also has a side plot of a murder mystery involving the Strathmore Strangler which is a little more than strange, but it does involve a detective going under cover an becoming the most popular painter at the school. Do you really need talent to be a great artist? So many questions. "Art School Confidential" is must see for anybody that asks these questions. It doesn't offer any answers but its a pretty fun experience.

A movie that tries too hard to be "dark' and ends up inadvertently just an imitation of dark comedies; littered with clichés, and absent any of the insight or wit that turns a movie dark and comedic. Plus, with a cast as theatrical as john malkovich, angelica huston, jim braodbent and the son of anthony minghella - certainly no strangers to a fine arts degree - this is a movie built from experience. In that respect, easy for zwigoff...but also lazy. He's not taking us underground so much as simply ripping it off! Art school is no doubt a strange bag of idiosyncrasies and distractions, but you'd hope the writing would reflect the sort of grace gained from having come and gone, something more to show than a mere caricature? This movie regurgitates some true-enough details in place of the depth, or the real confidentiality, that likely underlies what is surely outrageous about art school personalities. For zwigoff, these personalities remain a sad hypocritcal joke and the whole of art school remains just a setting, not a subject. The story is trite. The characters are one-dimensional. And the ending is a classic film student blunder... ironically.

Art School Confidential, the movie, is a sort of self-parody. This is a beautiful movie cleverly disguised as a movie that can't pull off the necessary airs to pass itself off as high art.The key to understanding the movie lies in your being able to home in on the most important factor: That Jerome just might be a great and true artist, bizarrely ensconced in an environment in which everyone is a poseur--and that includes the professors.It's like other Zwigoff movies; like "Bad Santa", for instance. Bad Santa may just be the greatest Christmas movie ever made; the one movie that really succeeds in delivering the truth of Christmas. And, satiric romp though it may be, Art School Confidential may be a window into the odyssey of a born artist, stuck in a nightmarish universe in which he is the only person who understands what beauty is, and therefore why it is truly important that he study it, learn it, and create it. When we understand this, *then* we can truly feel it when Jerome is subjected to indignities, and when he looks out a window and sees something so beautiful that it transports him.IMDb commenter/raters generally short-shrifted it. I suspect we need more Jerome-hearted people to watch it; it could turn the tide.