Barnes & Noble

Director Terry Zwigoff's second collaboration with graphic novelist Daniel Clowes isn't quite as magical as their earlier Ghost World, but the decidedly cynical Art School Confidential offers a surfeit of biting observations about the contemporary art scene. Max Minghella portrays Jerome Platz, a somewhat timid student whose has parlayed modest drawing ability into an admission to a distinguished, trendy art school. His enthusiasm is quickly tempered by a series of encounters with frustrated teachers, highly competitive classmates, and arrogant graduates. Of course, his real problem is that he's hopefully smitten with the notoriously fickle Audrey (Sophia Myles), a nude model who poses in his life-drawing class. Zwigoff ruthlessly skewers the art world's poseurs, whose chief representatives in this film are the pompous but marginally talented teacher played by John Malkovich and Adam Scott’s arrogant sell-out. The film's comedic tone recedes in the third act, but that's a welcome development in that it presages a totally unexpected denouement. No stranger to the eccentricities of artists and their loyal acolytes -- after all, he directed the documentary Crumb, which focused on the oddball icon of the underground-comics scene -- Zwigoff is the perfect director to take on an inflated subject practically begging to be popped. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

Filmmaker Terry Zwigoff and comic artist and screenwriter Daniel Clowes, who collaborated for the acclaimed 2001 comedy-drama Ghost World, team up once again for this offbeat satire. Jerome (Max Minghella) is an aspiring artist who arrives at a prestigious East Coast art institute to study. While Jerome enjoys daydreams of becoming the best-respected painter on Earth and winning the hearts of his female classmates, he soon learns the sad truth -- his "cool artist" act is old hat in the big city, and as he's surrounded by every art school cliché on Earth, practically nothing about him stands out. Determined to be recognized whatever the consequences, Jerome maps out a bizarre plan to become famous that has some unexpected consequences. Loosely adapted from a story in Clowes' comic book Eightball, Art School Confidential also stars John Malkovich, Jim Broadbent, Anjelica Huston, and Sophia Myles. Mark Deming

Product Details

• UPC: 043396158849
• Source: SONY PICTURES
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby AC-3 Surround Sound
• Editions: Subtitled, Dubbed
• Time: 1:42:00
• Sales Rank: 32,547

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