Purely Joyful Movie!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Oh, that cold old new movie THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. All excited about it, people flock to see. What for? What's so great about it? It's dark and stark and Rooney Mara had to cut off her hair for the part. An ugly, unattractive part. So, it brought her success. But it's a crappy movie. Well, to each their own, if it lights up your life, I'll try to be happy for you.But I prefer my birds to be bright and chirpy and flying about fluttering like cute little angels. Which is not exactly the character Rooney portrays, but you get my drift. I mean, just look at lovely, lovely Rooney in the opening sequence as she gets driven to school by her mother, chewing a piece of gum, much to Mom's chagrin. She looks like a cuter version of Elisha Dushku. She has a cheekbone structure to die for. Has got to be one of the prettiest actresses on film. Hell, people, if I looked like that, and they offered me like gazillion bucks to appear in a hit movie, I'd think about what I'd miss every time I passed a mirror. And, on top of that, the even better part that would have come her way anyway, so scrooo your dragon tattoo offer...! That scene with Rooney with the guy and the car amidst the autumn leaves, makes me think of an ad campaign with the slogan 'it doesn't get any better than this.' This is a small movie, with a bad girl that really isn't well-defined, as the Georgia King portrayal turns out to be ultimately toothless. The more well-defined bad girl, the naughty one, the Brie Larson portrayal, as Kate, is more the one that does something awful. She gets banished from the script, unsatisfactorily so. Roller-skating in place, an untimely dismissal...There are some laughable performances. Amy Sidaris and her weakling hubby should have been recast. What were they thinking, those two were a wrecking crew. Georgia King was a storm-in-a-teacup kind of adversary. She should have upped her game play at least tenfold. Brie Larson was excellent. Anybody who could come to class (barely-)dressed up for the plum female part of A Midsummer Night's Dream looking like that, wow! But apart from her obvious beauty, she was also entirely convincing.Plot has its weak points, but for a dedicated girl-watcher, lots to cheer about. Loads more fun than TGWTDT.The decaying, crumbling castle was an excellent choice of location. Does it really exist? No such place found on Google.I forgot the actress's name, but the woman who played the mean mom, at the time of watching, I thought she'd have made a perfect Alexis Carrington had they done a DYNASTY remake.

As a young lad, I often fantasized about attending an all-girl boarding school in New England, or maybe someplace in Europe. However, there was always one obvious obstacle to my dream. One minor character in this movie has overcome this obstacle--he gets to attend the titular all-female institution because he is the head-mistress' son. The MAIN characters in the film though are four girls--three long-time school chums and a childhood friend of one of them, who transfers to the school and serves as kind of a catalyst for all the melodrama that follows.There IS a goodly amount of melodrama--two of the girls get involved with older men. One (Brie Larson) flirts with her English teacher (Chris Kattan) mostly just for her own amusement, but ends up inadvertently causing great problems between him and his sexually frustrated fellow teacher/wife (Amy Sidaris). The other girl, the main protagonist (Rooney Mara) embarks on a much more serious affair with an expectant father (Tom Everett Scott), who happens to be married to her mother's best friend. A third girl has questions about her sexual identity. But perhaps the most troubled girl is the newcomer (Georgia King) whose obsession with cutting herself and history of suicide attempts are the result of childhood trauma that is alluded to early on, but not revealed until the end.Let me say first off that if the very many high-school age girls looked like Rooney Mara and Brie Larson, pretty much all adult heterosexual men would be in jail right now. But this movie was directed by two women, so it never really veers too much into exploitation territory. This would not necessarily be a liability if it worked better as a straight drama, but all the characters remain undeveloped as individuals and never really gel as a group. The movie also really tries to cover too much in 90 minutes, going into the lives of all four girls AND several of the adults (particularly the two teachers played Kattan and Sedaris). It's hard to fault any of the actors here though. Rooney Mara, for instance, would go on to play another sexy schoolgirl in "Youth in Revolt" before hitting the big-time with the US version of "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo". She's achingly lovely in this movie, but--like everyone else--not a fully developed character you can care much about. Her character is kind of indicative of the whole movie--very pretty, but somehow not very substantial.

Tanner Hall"Tanner Hall" directed by Francesca Gregorini, and Tatiana Von Furstenberg is one of the most dramatically intense movies of this generation. It uses extreme situations to show more about teen life. As a teenager I loved it. I also liked that "up and coming" actress Rooney Mara was in it.Even though some of the events may never happen in real life it still is extremely intriguing. It shows a different area then what I'd been used to. There were some scenes I could relate to and others I couldn't but that made it highly interesting to see life from a different perspective. For example, a quote from the movie is "Lose your way. Find yourself." In the movie, the characters are constantly evolving; becoming more mature.Truthfully, what I really enjoyed about this movie was how different it is from my life there were some similarities, but it was quite enjoyable to see how other teens act. You saw them grow up some experimented with drugs, others with boy's. It was also interesting seeing Boarding school from a students perspective because I have been to regular school all my life. One part in the movie, they sneak out to go to a fair, this reminds me of a time when I was staying at a friends house and her, and a few other people, and me snook out and went to an abandoned house.On the other hand, certain individuals (one's who do not appreciate amazing movies) might not like it because the climax doesn't happen until the end and there is a lot of character building. These "certain individuals" also might like to connect to the movie more, or to have more in common with the characters. Some of the characters may have been a little common.Honestly, it interested me that they put Rooney Mara who is now famous for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". I thought she was perfect for this role the characters personality seemed to be very similar to her own. I loved seeing her in this movie and then seeing her in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" because it was amazing to see the difference in how she looked.Overall, it was an amazing movie, especially with a 3,000,000 dollar budget. I was a little worried when it didn't come out until a year after it was finished, but I definitely enjoyed it. Now go and watch it, and prepare to be amazed!

"Tanner Hall" was a film I heard nothing about before seeing it listed on the Gen Arts website. After seeing it listed on their website, I decided to research and see who was in it and the basic premise. After reading the plot, seeing who was in the film, and then hearing it was premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, it peaked my interest enough to want to see it. I decided to attend the east coast premiere of "Tanner Hall" at the Gen Art Film Festival in NYC on Monday April 12, 2010 and this is my thoughts on the film.The basic plot of "Tanner Hall" focuses on four girls at a private boarding school in New England. Two of these girls have been friends since childhood and the other two are just friends from the school. Together they share their feelings and emotions in a coming of age tale that you will soon forget as soon as you leave the theater...I really wish I didn't have to be so harsh on this film especially since I saw it at a festival with most of the cast sitting around me but truth be told I really did not like this film at all. In a world where coming of age films are a dime a dozen, a writer or director need to make a film that really stands out from the others. That's where "Tanner Hall's" problem begins as there is nothing even remotely new or interesting about this film. When watching independent coming of age story you are expecting something deeper and more powerful. We do not get that at all. What the audience gets is such a lackluster story with a lot of one-dimensional characters and lack of emotion.I think the main problem lies on the writing, which is just awful. The characters in this film are all stereotypical and one dimensional. You have the horny teacher, the cheating husband, the slutty school girl, the depressed school girl, the love confused school girl, and of course the sexually confused school girl. None of these characters are written with much depth. I feel bad saying it since it was written and directed by two friends Francesca Gregorini and Tatiana Von Furstenberg who seemed extremely passionate about the film. To me everything from the story to the stereotypical characters to the lack of character development is what really hurt this film. I felt maybe if these two passionate ladies didn't write the film but direct it or maybe vice versa it would have been a lot better.The other issue I had was some of the actors...I don't know who's idea it was to put Chris Kattan in this film but man was he awful. This guy can barely pull off a comedy routine and this is coming from someone who somewhat enjoyed "Corky Romano" (yes I know it's a bad film...but I laughed for some reason) and they put him in a movie like this as the subtle comic relief. It just doesn't work. Also, why is Amy Sedaris in this film? What a useless role for her? She is such a gifted funny woman and in this film I just can't wait for her scene to end. Maybe it's just that the comedy aspect the directors/writers were trying to convey didn't fit the tone of the film.As for the rest the primary cast, they all did "alright" in their roles based on what the script had to offer. Brie Larson plays basically the same role she plays on "The United States of Tara" but as I said its all the script asked of her. Rooney Mara does alright as well although I think she has more potential than this movie let on. She was really good in "Youth in Revolt," which was a good coming of age story. Georgia King should just be deemed the queen of boarding school films because if you look at her resume, she has done so many. I don't really think she did much in her role nor did I find much effort was needed to play the character. Amy Ferguson did an OK job as the sexual confused girl. And lastly, Tom Everett Scott also known as "that guy" does not offer anything at all to the film. His character is not only dull and poorly written but probably the least developed out of all the characters.Bottom Line: "Tanner Hall" felt uninspired, long, boring and most importantly it did nothing to capture the audiences attention. I know I am just one person and it's only my opinion but being a film lover I have to say I seen better and by better I mean a lot better. I usually enjoy coming of age films and can name several good ones including "Thirteen," "Lost & Delirious," and "Emperor's Club" just to name a few. This genre especially ones that focus on boarding schools are not normally the subject to much appeal, not even in the independent film world. I hate to say it but there really isn't anything that made this film even remotely memorable. I do however feel both Francesca Gregorini and Tatiana Von Furstenberg are very passionate people and I really wish them much success in the future. I hope "Tanner Hall" is just the speed bump in their careers because it's just a coming of age snooze fest from start to finish.MovieManMenzel's final rating for "Tanner Hall" is a 3 out of 10.