Kids wielding words like weapons and brandishing ideas like axes

I went and saw Rocket Science with the Film Club yesterday, and I realized that I had forgotten what I love about movies. Watching Reece Thompson as Hal Hefner reminded me, all too painfully at times, what it was like to be an adolescent. The movie will defy your expectations of where you think it should go (or where, in your cliched heart of hearts, you hope it does go). The movie is also musically brilliant, but in a manner very unlike a Wes Anderon movie. Rocket Science, with its bizarre, Violent Femmes-laden soundtrack and an odd, Mangum-esque cover Battle Hymn of the Republic by Eef Barzelay, captures the bizarre and soul-rending angst of adolescence perfectly. Getting back to what I love about movies, this film reminded me what it felt like to be a teenager again. After watching Hal and his dad talk about how life changes from adolescence to adulthood, I realized that sometimes I don’t feel like I’m any surer of anything than I was when I was 15.

This is the next movie I want to see. I guess I can identify with obsessive, tortured misanthropists a bit.