Art School Confidential (2006)

Starting from childhood attempts at illustration, the protagonist pursues his true obsession to art school. But as he learns how the art world really works, he finds that he must adapt his vision to the reality that confronts him.

Director:

Terry Zwigoff

Writers:

Daniel Clowes (screenplay), Daniel Clowes (comic story) (as Dan Clowes)

Stars:

Max Minghella, Sophia Myles, John Malkovich

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Max Minghella	...	Jerome
Sophia Myles	...	Audrey
John Malkovich	...	Professor Sandiford
Jim Broadbent	...	Jimmy
Matt Keeslar	...	Jonah
Ethan Suplee	...	Vince
Joel David Moore	...	Bardo
Nick Swardson	...	Matthew
Anjelica Huston	...	Art History Teacher
Adam Scott	...	Marvin Bushmiller
Jack Ong	...	Professor Okamura
Scoot McNairy	...	Army-Jacket
Jeremy Guskin	...	Eno
Monika Ramnath	...	Flower
Isaac Laskin	...	Kiss-Ass

Storyline

Jerome, a kid from the suburbs who loves to draw, goes to New York City's Strathmore College for his freshman year as a drawing major. Competition and petty jealousy consume faculty and students, with an end-of-first-semester best-student award held out as a grand plum. Worse, a strangler is on the loose, killing people on or next to campus. The idealistic Jerome falls in love with Audrey, a student who models for life-drawing classes and who responds to his sweetness. But he has a rival: the clean-cut, manly Jonah, also a first-year drawing student, whose primitive work draws raves and Audrey's attention. As cynicism seems to corrode everything, Jerome is desperate to win.

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Plot Keywords:

art school | breasts | nude modeling | scantily clad female | cleavage | 

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Taglines:

Who said anything about talent?

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language including sexual references, nudity and a scene of violence

Details

Official Sites:

Sony Classics [United States]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

12 May 2006 (USA)

Also Known As:

Akademia tajemniczych sztuk pieknych

Filming Locations:

Communications Center, Los Angeles City College - 855 North Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$135,733, 7 May 2006, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$3,296,916, 13 August 2006

Company Credits

Production Co:

United Artists, Sony Pictures Classics, Mr. Mudd

Technical Specs

Runtime:

102 min 102 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film was released the same year as Doctor Who: The Girl in the Fireplace (2006), which Sophia Myles guest starred as Madame De Pompadour.

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Goofs

When Jerome's roommate, the fashion designer, is sewing on his machine, it wasn't threaded correctly. The spool was on the bobbin loader, not the spool pin where it should be.

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Quotes

Audrey: [Introducing herself to Jerome while at Shiloh's photo exhibit] Oh, hi. I'm Audrey, by the way.
Bardo: [Butting in] So is that your real name, or are you just obsessed with Audrey Hepburn like every other art school chick?
Audrey: [Unperturbed, holding up her necklace pendant] Actually, I was named after an old cartoon.
Bardo: Oh, wow! Another ironic pop-culture reference. She's a keeper!
[Goes off to help himself to more free refreshments]

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Crazy Credits

The "Facts of Life" theme song plays during the final part of the end credits.

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Connections

References Apocalypse Now (1979)

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Soundtracks

Hungarian Dance No. 5
by Johannes Brahms
Performed by Wiener Symphoniker (as Vienna Symphony Orchestra), Yuri Ahronovitch
Courtesy of Delta Entertainment Corporation

User Reviews

Exactly what you would expect from Zwigoff - which is also its weakness

Terry Zwigoff made one of my favorite movies - Ghost World. This one can be considered a sequel of sorts. Except, it's backwards: instead of commiserating with the young adult "misfits" in the world of "normal" people, it now laughs and satirizes them in a setting where their greatest concentration can be found - an art school in New York. In a farce-like setup it goes from student to student and ridicules them for all the "non-conformity" clichés that they are, while staying fully aware of being one big cliché itself - and landing the mandatory slaps on the "suburbia" and the "normal world" as well.

But this is where it fails: it lacks any subtlety. What was great about Ghost World, what was its main superiority over Art School Confidential, is that it had enough subtlety to stay an engaging, deep movie, while this comes off more like a flick-for-fun. It's as if Zwigoff decided to do exactly what's expected of him and serve it in a transparent glass box for people like me - who would enjoy the movie tremendously nonetheless, but regret everything it's so obviously missing. Oh - and unfortunately for me, I felt like much of the "art-school" topic has already been depicted very well very recently, in the HBO's Six Feet Under.