The Age of Commercialism

Sorry, this movie sucks

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Agnes 'Apple' Bailey (Vanessa Hudgens) has another fight with her drug-addicted mother June Bailey (Rosario Dawson). She tries to see her absent biological father Tom Fitzpatrick (Brendan Fraser) and gets arrested. He is a wealthy broker with a young upper class family. The troubled Apple wants him to get her out of the foster system. She stays with them until they find out that she's pregnant. She gets arrested for stealing and crashing a creep's car. Priest Father McCarthy (James Earl Jones) sends her to a shelter run by Kathy (Ann Dowd) with other girls like Cassie (Emily Meade).This is not a subtle movie. Vanessa Hudgens is obviously trying to stretch beyond her pretty looks. I'm of two minds about the effectiveness. While I admire her attempt, she may be trying too hard. The same can be said about Dawson. There are big swings here and I appreciate them. There is a need to structure the drama. It comes off as a rambling narrative. The reveal of the real inspiration helps a little but doesn't fix this central problem. This is a flawed indie with some intriguing swings by the two actresses.

Right after my weekend watching High School Musical, and surf the channels to watch this film really surprises me. Vanessa has always been the actress with sweet smile and sweet character, I was always thought that with her face expression, there is no way for her to step out from that kind of image from the audience. You may think of Spring Break, I know, but her acting and outstanding performance in Gimme Shelter, is totally shocking me. This time, she puts out all of her acting skills and live with this character "Apple". If you are well aware of her works, you will see a different eye in "Apple". Those desire and desperate of her feelings, is something that you can't see in her previous works. (Not to mention her famous HSL, that was total immature) I gave this film a 10 stars ranking, not only because of V's excellent work, I do enjoy the story. Good movies can inspire people to be better and to be kind to other people, I hope you will fell that same.

disappointing b/c i had originally thought this was an actual movie & not some sort of religious film w/ the typical set of 1-dimensional troubled minority stock characters & annoying Christian undertone.first off, let's talk acting. vanessa's performance was annoying. sure, she transformed into apple & looked nothing like she's ever had in any other movies (both appearance & mannerism wise), but the way the she talked was just irritating beyond belief. in her defense, the way her character was written was overly dramatic (either mumbling things like 'i don't need your help', 'where was god when -insert traumatic event here-', 'i don't know', etc., or screaming a monologue w/ tons of irrelevant ((to the conversation she is having)) details since the writers didn't feel like taking the time to give us background info about apple in a more...subtle, less rushed way).let's just say apple does a lot of screaming and hitting things... and it's... annoying. she's just so annoying. her fake accent that comes and goes is annoying. the way she literally RUNS away from her problems is annoying. it's very hard to find sympathy for this character. i know that people react differently to different things, but all the overreaction she was doing throughout the film seemed really forced. to be honest her difficult character wouldn't have been so hard to watch if it didn't seem so put on.and oh god it was all so cliché. she would never accept help w/o running away and screaming and her white-savior (deadbeat) father was always like :O whenever she would act up. what the hell is that. who wrote this? this is one of the best examples of people calling a less than average film good b/c of the ~message~. the cinematography was very nice, but i just wish the overall film would have been better.

Having taught needs category including the following: detention center and alternative schools for juveniles convicted of assault with weapons; homeless dumpster divers; learning & behavioral disorders; severe & profound, I found our girl to be an exaggerated compilation of many problems all made into one person for dramatic effect that I never saw in real life. The overwhelming majority (95+%) of my ss were actually intelligent and for the most part respectful and willing to make some attempts at improvement (yes, a few, at times, would lose it briefly). The movie showcases the help as being Christian without equal acknowledgement to other beliefs or that none should be promoted as part of help. Helping a person does not mean imposing my value system as an underlying subterfuge within that help. The basics of compassion, respect, tolerance, responsibility are not the province of my religion alone. Evangelizing a specific creed is being dishonest towards that person be they Native Peoples, Jew, Buddhist, Hindi, Muslim, atheist or Christian.