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Reviews Counted:109
Fresh:82
Rotten:27
Average Rating:6.8/10
Consensus: Director Gus Van Sant once again superbly captures the ins and outs of teenage life in Paranoid Park, a quietly devastating portrait of a young man living with guilt and anxiety.
Gus Van Sant's interest in teenage angst continues here (for more, see Last Days and Elephant), but with an even greater sense of artistic abandon. He's no David Lynch, though, and the result of the abandon just seems silly
Top CriticI embraced what Van Sant achieved with his earlier three films, I just can’t feel quite that same enthusiasm for this one, even though it’s an extremely well-made film.
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This less-than-involving, skateboarding-culture thriller is still not likely to go over well with any audiences outside of the already receptive, art-house crowd.
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Van Sant's ... adoration of uncommunicative kids with limited vocabularies and awesome hair is beginning to wear a little thin.
Regarding Paranoid Park as an elongated short rather than a feature helps a bit, because it's a miniature in spirit -- a small-format portrait of psychic malaise that just happens to last 84 minutes.
This isn't mallrat Crime and Punishment; it's Accident and Inertia, structured by Alex's attempt to capture his feelings in a journal.(He's more verbose than introspective.)
Van Sant wants his brief, deadpan, underpopulated scenes to feel more like real teen existence than the clichés of mainstream cinema. It's a worthy goal, but I'm afraid the actual effect is the opposite.
Filming in his characteristically dreamy, dislocated fashion, Van Sant seems as interested in the innocently beautiful face of his young star as he is in the docu-style story-telling.
Just when it looked like Van Sant was finally ready to present a movie real people might want to watch, Paranoid Park abandons universality and fetishizes the generality of skater boys.
I would say that there is a really good 50 minute movie tucked away inside here, but Van Sant insists on padding it with material that doesn't belong.
Paranoid Park confirms that Gus Van Sant is so far up his own artistic anus, it's impossible to take anything he makes seriously anymore...a crisp, white hanky doused with cinematic chloroform pressed tightly across the face.
"Paranoid Park" may be the best of the director's last four films, but that isn't saying much.
Dreary with a capital D.
...few concessions have been made for neophytes to his particular brand of filmmaking.
If this film really epitomizes the way that teens talk and act ... then I seriously fear for the future of this country.
Passes by in a haze of amateurish acting and skateboarding montages. Just one more wearisome representation of aimless teenage life.
The ugly fact is that Van Sant's recent modus operandi has crossed the line from 'groove' to 'rut.'
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December 14, 2008:
Boston Film Critics Honor Slumdog, WALL-E
The hardware won't be handed out until February 8, but the winners of this year's Boston Society of Film Critics Awards have been announced -- and they're all listed right here. More...
April 07, 2008:
Paranoid Park: Re-shaping the skater soundtrack 
In the past few weeks, I'm seeing skaters with a new glow in my eyes - a kind of sparkle of the special - as they slalom down Sunset sidewalks, click-clacking over cracks and... More...
March 06, 2008:
Critics Consensus: 10,000 B.C. is Primitive; Bank Gets the Job Done
This week at the movies, we've got prehistoric passion (10,000 B.C., starring Steven Strait and Camilla Belle), travel travails (College Road Trip, starring Maritn Lawrence and... More...
January 26, 2008:
Trailer & Poster review
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Last week, Moviefone offered us their worst films of the 2000s. Now see their 40 best!
We're giving away copies of Judd Apatow's latest.
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