New Jersey: Because Hell is Full

Rating: 7/10 (12 October 2013)

I just thought that I'd give the review a funny title because I live in New Jersey, and I just thought that I'd be slightly more down-to-earth than I see the film as being. (It's like some indie guy went all like-- this is down-to-earth for me. Compared to Star Wars.)
Because if I see one malus in this movie, it's that I think it tries a little too hard to be a little weird and softcore disturbing. I feel like that's the vibe that it wanted to feed off of.
I also feel like it's one of these indie films that has an overblown sense of its own importance-- although this could have been far, far worse. After all, they weren't too stuck up to put Coldplay on the soundtrack-- a Britpop act that I much prefer to the weeping-and- gnashing-of-teeth you get from the average alt rock group. So the grandiosity was definitely downplayed, but I still felt that there were times when (or there was an undercurrent that made) the subtle work that they were trying to do interfered with by this desire to just be weird for the hell of it, if that makes sense.
After all, there's a difference between simply holding life up to the lens-- like Linda McCartney, who took these great second-in-the-life photos-- and sorta sitting around the coffee table, saying, 'Okay, how weird would it be if....'. If that makes sense.
(Also, this blends into another issue, a character issue-- the fact that a lot of the characters are very immature, e.g., I don't want to grow up and get a steady job; I want to smoke pot and be a Trekkie because I don't want to grow up.... That's less of a technical issue, but in a broader sense it speaks to what much of the movie is about, and for me it's just not that interesting to watch.)
But it could have been way more *exaggerated*, than it is, which is something. (Although it does tend towards exaggeration, but it could have been worse.)
And there's no gore and blood-splattering, which is more or less my prerequisite to even watch a film these days.
So it's not explode-y; that's good. It has that.
And it's not a *bad* movie. Overall it's decent. It's just that it leaves you with the impression that it thinks of itself as being far better (and more important!) than it really is.
It's not one of these wonderful movies (Greenberg, Juno, come to mind) that makes you jump up and down, saying, 'Yes, that's exactly how it is'.
Because that's not exactly how it is, I think. Although it has some resemblance, I think.
(Although it would be easy to use the word immature.)
............
Still, it's vaguely irritating, because it's just not quite right.
(7/10)