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The Movie: "Loser" is a rare movie. I went from laughing with it, to laughing at it, to hating it, to enjoying it and cringing at it. I had a whole range of emotions with this film, which changed every few minutes. I liked it, I hated it, and back again. There's a good movie buried deep with the mess that's on-screen here, and possibly a really good movie. But the final product is a different story. Jason Biggs("American Pie") plays Paul, a nice, small-town guy who gets a scholarship to a school in New York City. He arrives in the big city to find that well, no one seems to like him. His roommates are excessively mean to him (one even tells Paul that nobody likes him) and take advantage of his kindness. He meets Dora (Mena Suvari, from "American Beauty") in his first class, and falls for her quickly. The only problem is that she's dating the professor, who, like most people in this movie, is a real jerk. Things get worse for both characters as Paul moves into the back room of an animal hospital and Dora loses her job as a strip-club waitress. The two are supposed to go to a concert together(more on that in a moment), but he ends up saving her when she's drugged.(wait, wasn't this a comedy?). The film shows a particular band and not only gives them a product placement, but a mini-infomercial. In director Amy Heckerling's "Clueless", she used the Mighty Mighty Bosstones perfectly in a party scene. Here, the film stops a couple of times to practically promote the band in question. The film uses music not because it's right for the film, but because it's popular. This is certainly not the first teen film to do that, though. There is a good movie buried here. Biggs and Suvari are cute together. Get rid of all of the crap(sorry, but that's literally what this is). Get rid of the roommates, get rid of the professor(lamely played by Greg Kinnear), get rid of the soundtrack. Keep the college setting(make it realistic) and set these two out in New York City. There's certainly enough there to fill the running time with things that the two could see and do. Heckerling scored with "Clueless", but "Loser" is just a fair effort. The funniest thing in the movie is not from the leads, but from a David Spade cameo midway through. Spade walks on as a video store clerk who describes "Simon Birch" as the perfect date movie. But anyways, there could have been re-working to "Loser" to make it better; they could also have reworked the entire film from the base to make it possibly great. |