Garden State

I bought this movie a while ago. It's been sitting on my table for weeks waiting for me to watch it. Tonight with the Katrina Aid on every channel, I decided to watch it.

The movie is about a guy who has been overmedicated, by his father who is a psychiatrist, for something he did when he was nine. The drugs have kept him numb his entire adult life. On returning home he visits all his old friends, makes a new one, and realizes what's important in life. Overall, the plot was somewhat lacking, but there was much detail in the plot there was. I need to name a genre for this along with several other films I've seen as of late that are very realistic and yet not realistic at all. Surreal kind of, but not precisely.

The cinematography and camera work was pretty good actually. There was one scene in Sam's back yard where the camera flies outward into the sky, which was reminiscent of the final scene in the version of 'Much Ado about Nothing' which features Keanu Reaves.

My one major complaint about the movie, this is probably just me though, is that throughout the entire thing Zach Braff appeared to be wearing large amounts of eye shadow. It was distracting. Also, from a scene where he goes to have a talk with his father until the end of the movie he seems to act overly effeminate, especially when he's saying goodbye to Sam.

Probably my favorite part of the film was the sound track. It was almost as though they took what I was listening to at the time the film came out and used it all in the movie. The Shins, Frou Frou, Iron and Wine all featured.