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Searched and search for an existing category for Catherine Hardwicke. Either I don’t know how to use this seemingly simple search engine or no one has taken her up or dissed her lean but (for me) competent oeuvre yet.

One might tend to off handedly call her "the heterosexual Gus Van Sant" but that is rather unfair because her sexual inclinations are not public the way Van Sant's are and her films are very, very different from Mr. Van Sant (other than the fact that both directors seem inordinately interested in teenagers). This is said only in passing and without judgment. Van Sant has certainly been in the biz for a long time and dabbled in other areas than Hardwicke. However, I find in Hardwick an ease and seemingly genuine pleasure working and telling teenager’s stories in an interesting, truthful and refreshing way.

I am somewhat surprised (if I am correct in assuming she is not a director of much import here) that someone hasn't at least had something to say about "Twilight" (2008) being as it was successful moneywise and mixed critically in a year that brought the new young sympathetic vampire up for much discussion in the media.

Her first two films, "Thirteen" (2003) and "Lords of Dogtown" (2005), showed what I thought to be a very realistic portrayal of kids (at least when I see them on buses, walking down the street or just hanging out). The ease with which she handles her films and her young charges seems unusual in today's American cinema. The fact that she co wrote "Thirteen" with one of the juvenile actresses in the film is something I doubt many directors would have the guts to do. The rambling way she handles her work, particularly in this film and "Lords of Dogtown" has a casualness and naturalness to it that I cannot remember seeing in teen movies. She certainly has an almost cinema vérité style that Hollywood never seems to get right (I guess I am thinking of the last director I can remember who made his mark in this field – John Hughes – and that seemed a pretty insignificant mark). There aren’t many American directors who work well with a whole troop of kids. She does seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

Not only does she get superior performances from just the leads but if one watches carefully all the uncredited kids in the background (whether in school or hanging out) are all busy clowning around in a very real in an unaffected way. I was quite blown away by "Thirteen" despite its messy but frequently on the mark script and I would say the same for "The Lords of Dogtown"

She hit the big time last year when she somehow snagged the first of the "Twilight" franchise and seemed handle the difficultly sweet story when not having to stage special effects extravaganzas. Granted, she seemed too boxed into the author’s very specific view of her book. Has the woman seen Hardwick's work? I am surprised Hardwicke got the gig when the author seems so bent on the chaste characters she has created. Hardwicke hadn’t been one to deal with that type of character before. Still, in spite of what I read elsewhere "Twilight" was an adequate American movie that was aimed at a very specific crowd.

My fear now is that there are rumors that Miss Hardwicke is getting herself into yet another franchise, "Maximum Ride", from a book where children fly. That's getting into some weird territory for a woman who seems to do much better sticking to small films that go meandering off with no real resolution (a favorite for some of us).

Go watch some Larry Clark and cool off.

I've argued elsewhere that Thirteen may well be the worst film of the last 25 years. There isn't a moment in the entire film that is not utterly contrived, calculated, and forced - from the oh-so-edgy handheld camera to the faux-transcendence of its laughable finale. It rises above passive, forgettable mediocrity and becomes forcefully offensive in an aesthetic sense, complete cinematic cardboard, hollow to its nonexistent core.

Nothing wrote:Go watch some Larry Clark and cool off.

I have watched Larry Clark's "Kids" and found his teenagers have the the false ennui of twenty-somethings rather than the remnants of a lust and recklessness for life that Hardwicke's teens present. And no need for me to cool off either. Neither age group causes me to have inappropriate interest over another. Hardwick is hardly a passion with me, only a director with a few interesting films that just might develop into something more intriguing. On the other hand, with her fascination for franchises I could see her falling into the hopeless pit that "Memento" director Christopher Nolan dropped into once money and Batman landed in his lap.

In reply to "Nothing" I can only say that I lived next door to a family of sorts. "Thirteen" was not only a few months of their lives, but their entire adolescence up to and including two of the girls workin' hard for the money as hookers and one of the boys ending up featured on "America's Most Wanted". It rang too brutally true for me to watch the once semi-together unit fall so far, so quickly.

And life was would have been easier when visiting with a handheld, at least I could have dodged the plates thrown through windows easier than with the large camaras used to photograph in those days had I wanted to document the very real hopelessness that was not at all cardboard, hollow or nonexistant.

Can we add to the FAQ for new users: "Attempting to shock the board by defending the indefensible rarely if ever generates the response you'd like" ?

MOTW-level Teenage Outrage pics rarely work as well as milder films that succeed by painting the bigger strokes of what being a teen entails. You want to see a movie that "gets" being a teenager? Watch Fucking Åmål. Watch Rebel Without a Cause. Watch Me Without You. Thirteen only "gets" simplistic (and prurient) provocation of adult viewers-- a methodology that in the interim has been better served in another medium on the highly entertaining but ultimately disposable TV program Law and Order: SVU.

domino harvey wrote: Watch Fucking Åmål. Watch Rebel Without a Cause. Watch Me Without You.

Films like the French "Entre les murs" succeed on a far more interesting levels to me than Miss Hardwicke in that besides including just the teens and their separate world of troubles and joys, it gives a foreign viewer an insight into the French school system, the very particular brand of French racism and a little more insight into the adult characters than Hardwicke's or even Nick Ray's highly mannered "Rebel" (although his highly unusual characters and performances are just what makes me return repeatedly to "Rebel" and his other truly and strangely great films frequently).

Even George Steven's "A Place In the Sun", while having a slightly older set, deals with similar problems Ray hit at in "Rebel". While he might not be as highly regarded, this film, especially with the fine performances of Taylor and Montgomery, has that odd feeling of uneasiness mixed with a certain exuberance for life that this broad age group exhibits. These oddly off kilter performances make this film interesting in the same way Ray does. You mistake me if you think I feel Hardwick's work will ever edge up to this level of filmmaking although more surprising things have happened.

Perhaps I am a more promiscuous and undiscriminating viewer that most, but I can find even small parts of film so totally exacting that I never forget them and re-watch them for just for those small pearls.

I think my enjoyment and worry for Hardwicke was merely that I think she has some promise in her very small niche in the gigantic world of cinema. Nothing more. Nothing less.

visuallyimpaired wrote:In reply to "Nothing" I can only say that I lived next door to a family of sorts. "Thirteen" was not only a few months of their lives, but their entire adolescence up to and including two of the girls workin' hard for the money as hookers and one of the boys ending up featured on "America's Most Wanted". It rang too brutally true for me to watch the once semi-together unit fall so far, so quickly.

What you describe sounds like a much more compelling movie than Hardwicke's. Based on the film, I would have to say Hardwicke never even met a teenager. Either that, or they took the title literally and let a thirteen year old girl direct it. If memory serves, the brightest moment in that contrived mess involved a chicken and lasted maybe fifteen seconds. Domino is correct w/r/t the defensibility of Thirteen around these parts.

The most nauseating scenes in Thirteen involve driving home the point that the girls are engaging in interracial intercourse, with forced lines about mixing races and creating a colorless society while they ruminate on the black guy's dick they just sucked. These sorts of scenes are only inserted into a film to make middle class white parents gasp in horror that their daughters may also be joining in on the new sinful teenage fad of interracial fellatio! Give me a break. And all the focus on the way the girls dress, etc... give me a break. Just because you wear thong underwear in high school doesn't mean you're letting it drop to your ankles for some guy every other day. The movie seemed to find all the wrong ways of showing "warning signs" for the kind of over-the-top behavior that the girls in the film were involved in, and it plays out like it was written by the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Suffice it to say, I've never seen another Hardwicke film since - and I can still safely say that comparing her to Van Sant is a ridiculous thing to do.

I remember we watched Thirteen in my high school health class, I don't know why though. I've always thought that it would make a good double bill with Reefer Madness; two films so wildly over-the-top in their depiction of teenage angst that they destroy any chance that people will respond positively to their "message." Although based on the imdb and rotten tomatoes ratings it seems the film has its fair share of proponents.