Word: ghosts
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Ghost World," the movie, keeps the same premise as the book. Two best-friends, Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson), just graduated from high school, share a private universe of weirdness. Unfunny comedians, Indian rock and roll music of the sixties, abandoned pants on a sidewalk: anything uncoopted by the corporate American monoculture becomes an object of worship. They gripe about having no sex because all the boys are intolerably interested in sports or guitars and amuse themselves by obsessively following weirdoes around their homogenous, suburban neighborhood. But slowly the relationship becomes strained as Enid befriends Seymour (Steve Buscemi...
...Enid and Rebecca in the original 'Ghost World...
...Likewise, Zwigoff has changed the look of "Ghost World" from a slate-blue monochrome to full color. While this sacrifices the melancholy, "ghostly" tone of the comic, it also allows for sharper contrasts between the garish, fluorescent world of fake fifties diners and multiplexes vs. the velvety tones of Enid and Seymour's cluttered bedrooms. Director of photography Affonso Beato makes the most of highlighting how ghastly America's commercial spaces and their inhabitants have become. "Look at all these creeps," Enid squeals with delight as she enters the sunless world of an "adult" videostore...
...possible and who write "comix" review columns on "the web." Some may even wonder if by making a film the creators are implicitly entering the very universe of mass-cult they rail against in the picture. Fear not. Unlike those shrill, hard-sell teen comedies on the other screens, "Ghost World" never becomes the kind of empty, defensive snark-fest that it targets. Clowes and Zwigoff keep the organic pace of the original, and its empathic exploration of painfully changing relationships...
...those unfamiliar with Clowes, watching "Ghost World" will be as divisive as reading the book. Some will "get it," falling in love with a picture that has alienation and savage cultural ridicule wrapped around a sincere emotional center. Others will exit the theater feeling mystified and vaguely insulted, thinking something like, "Were they making fun of Blockbuster Video...