Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Fantastic Fest 2011 movie review- NEW KIDS TURBO- He said/She said




NEW KIDS TURBO
Directed by: Steffen Haars and Flip Van der Kuil
Written by: Steffen Haars and Flip Van der Kuil
Starring: Antoine Kamerling, Steffen Haars, Flip Van der Kuil, Huub Smit, and Tim Haars 
Synopsis: Five friends are fed up with not having jobs and being cut off from welfare, so they decide not to pay...for anything...anymore.


Javi: So NEW KIDS TURBO, according to @noaphex, is a Danish/Dutch web series, turned TV show, turned movie.  It follows a bunch of dudes with names that I cannot pronounce in the 90's. They're basically the white trash ENTOURAGE crew with more personality. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it; they're complete tools, but they're fun to watch, and you seemed to like the movie more than I did.  I enjoyed the absurdest plot lines.  There would be times when I would think, "Oh shit, are they really doing that? Is this where they're going? OK , awesome!"  My big problem was that a lot of the humorous situations happen a million times during the movie.  I get it; they're super clumsy and  idiots.  But overall, I laughed, there was a lot of messed up stuff going on.  Going off of @Devincf 's idea that genre movies are more metaphorical, I would say that these guys are just pure, unfiltered male id, you know? 

Jonesy: That's so deep.

Javi: But look at them! There's nothing else to them! They always want this or that, and they don't care about the consequences.

Jonesy: When I went into this movie, I heard there was a lot of dumb humor, and for me dumb humor is very usually very hit-or-miss, but with this, it was one of the most enjoyable movies of the festival, just due to the insane shit that goes on in the movie.  It's funny because you really shouldn't be laughing at half of the crap going on, but I was almost shrieking with laughter, which I usually don't do.  This  crew of guys were very unlikeable.  You wanted to punch them in the face.  But they have each other, and everyone has to have friends that understand them, so I guess that's what kept those guys going.  It was just a fun, fun movie. 

Javi: Ok so let's go deeper in the story. I talked to @noahpex about this, but it really felt too much like a TV show turned into a movie because we spent most of the first part of the movie fucking up the status quo of the TV show.  They all got fired from their jobs, and they stop paying for things.  Then things escalate to the point where, after thinking about it more, I'm not sure how we got there.

Jonesy: Well, you can't over think the story either.

Javi: I just think the huge jump is pretty hilarious. What did you think of the story?

Jonesy: I bought into the ridiculousness of a bunch of guys saying they'll stop paying for things, and I enjoyed how it snowballed, and other people grabbed onto this idea.  It's a fun scenario, even though it might be a little dumb.

Javi: It's true, and we have to re-state that these guys are from the 90's, but I'm not sure what part of the 90's these guys are from.  To me, they sure look like late-80's-early-90's-Metallica derivatives combined with Vanilla Ice fashion.  Either way, I found it really interesting how, regardless of the setting, there was still a crisis that felt very relevant today.  And not to get too political, but I felt that maybe they were trying to say something about how stupid the welfare system is, and how easy it is to cheat it. "Oh, we have money!  Let's get beer and cigarettes and shit." I thought that mentality was interesting. Then again, I thought those guys were just completely insane.  I am really interested to see where in the Netherlands these people came from.

Jonesy: I want to research the white trash culture of the Netherlands now.

Javi: Thing is though, these types of people usually come from a very poor place. 

Jonesy: Yet they seem to be lower-middle class at least because they're not homeless. 

Javi: My point is they're either poor or spoiled trust fund kids that take everything for granted and end up being poor Portland hipsters.  And in reality, they're nothing but caricatures. 

Jonesy: They're pretty much just defined by adjectives: there was one with a girlfriend; the one that everyone makes fun of; the leader with the dog; the guy with the tattoo; and the creepy dude with the black hair.

Javi: He freaked me out; he looked like he has raped someone.  But that's all there was to them.  They're just there to react and drive the plot along, and going along with what's going on with the story, I felt like there were a few plot lines that were especially dumb that could have been cut out.   


Jonesy: Like they never touched on those plots again?

Javi: Yea, and they're never resolved their issues.  They were either dropped or just came out of nowhere. 

Jonesy: This would be a fun movie that would be on midnight during Comedy Central or Adult Swim. And like you said, it's an interesting look at the male id, social statuses, and the welfare system and how it affects people. 

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