Thursday, June 1, 2017

My Entire High School Sinking Into The Sea

Last night I met my new movie friends for dinner and a movie and it was such a fun night.  We saw My Entire High School Sinking Into The Sea, a quirky movie that all three of us really liked.  Dash (Jason Schwartzman) is a nerdy high school sophomore who writes for the school newspaper with his best friend Assaf (Reggie Watts) and Verti (Maya Rudolph), the editor.  He decides to write a story about the new addition of an auditorium and finds evidence that the school did not pass a safety inspection because it is located directly on a fault line.  No one listens to his warning but when the school actually begins to sink, he tries to evacuate everyone.  Only Assaf, Verti, a popular girl named Mary (Lena Dunham), and the lunch lady Lorraine (Susan Sarandon) join him in climbing to the top floor to be rescued.  As they climb each floor, which amusingly correspond to each grade level, they encounter new obstacles to their survival.  There is a great message about unlikely friendships and teamwork but what I loved most about this movie is that it is a spoof of the usual teen high school movie, with the requisite stereotypical characters such as the stoner and the jock (I loved the scene where the sports hero is sitting on a throne with the other athletes and cheerleaders paying homage to him), combined with a disaster movie with all of those usual tropes (my friend described it as if Napoleon Dynamite and The Poseidon Adventure had a baby).  The animation is innovative and psychedelic.  The characters look like they have been drawn with a sharpie but there are lots of wild and trippy colors swirling around everywhere.  This movie is what might happen if Wes Anderson were to drop acid and get his 64 pack of Crayola crayons out (Dash reminds me of Max Fischer and the school is an almost exact copy of the Grand Budapest Hotel).  It is out there but I highly recommend it!

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