Does New Jersey stink this much?

Rating: 2/10 (17 March 2006)

There is some risk naming your quirky little film after a State. I actually took some time out last night from the NCAA playoffs (it is the early rounds) to watch a movie that has been in my queue for a while. I don't know how it got in there. It certainly wasn't because of New Jersey native Zack Braff. He is a main character on Scrubs, and this movie certainly validates my choice not to watch that show.
Garden State is in the same category as Napoleon Dynamite, another film released in 2004. Did he play in that one, too? There are a lot of people that think these quirky films are cool and that you shouldn't criticize them. Well, I actually made it all the way through Napoleon Dynamite on the second try. What a waste of time! I decided that 20 minutes was all I could give Garden State. When you bill yourself as a comedy, that is plenty of time for a laugh. It didn't happen, and I doubt if it would happen if I stayed the whole way through. I went back to basketball.
Maybe it was Natalie Portman that got me to try this film. If so, her appearance on Letterman this week in a clip of her early years as a singer with the World Patrol Kids was a whole lot more interesting. Yes, she is as cute as a button, but not cute enough to sit through Garden State.