Palo Alto (2013)

Nothing original, a very dull movie about teenagers. Had next to no good moments, and really the characters are very unoriginal and not interesting. The movie very poorly shows backgrounds of the characters, even the main ones. Literally a movie without a plot, there is no goal of the movie, no action...

The only thing that was heavily accented in this movie, was that most men are jerks and douche bags, who just want to use women for sex and nothing else, women just need to wait for their white knight to rescue them from the countless jerks they have gone through and be with them. Feminists would love the essence of this movie, for sure.

Emma Roberts playing her usual role, nothing different from all the other movies she is in a leading role, but in this movie, it really felt like it doesn't revolve around here as much.

Fmovies: As aimless as the teens it portrays, Palo Alto see's yet another Coppola enter into the movie making business, this time Gia, Francis's (The Godfather) granddaughter and Sophia's (Lost in Translation) niece who in adapting James Franco's collection of short stories of the same name has created an at brief times realistic and insightful look into modern day teenage hood yet stumbles in actually saying anything of merit in a tale that starts depressing and ends there to.

Palo Alto clearly wants to be a showcase for the Los Angeles brackets of teenagers, the type that party first and study later and the type that have fun by chopping down trees with chainsaws late at night. Palo Alto actually feels like more of a fever dream of a cautionary tale or look into this life as to be honest it never really connects on a level that feels wholly realistic. There type of films work best when scenarios and characters feel real or relatable and while Palo Alto can for brief moments do this, a majority of situations and players either do things that feel utterly ridiculous (like a lot of teens do, just not to this level) or downright unbelievable. This would largely stem from the source novel from Franco, who seems to make his business in being weird/alternate but Coppola shows enough here to suggest that he could've done more to make the material better.

What Coppola does succeed in is in her direction of her young cast, while supports Nat Wolff and Zoe Levin don't do a lot to suggest they've got a career ahead, with Wolff in particular an incredibly annoying presence (how his been cast in so many movies since this effort is beyond me), young leads Emma Roberts and son of Val, Jack Kilmer show a real talent in their field. Roberts has long been a talent to watch (and much more bearable than her relative Julia) and her portrayal of confused April is a great piece of work while Kilmer as similarly wondering Teddy suggests he may one day to achieve the success of his father, with hopefully his father's weight gaining fall. Author of the novel himself Mr. James Franco also makes an appearance in what is on face value an on screen version of himself as creepy older guy looking to gain a much younger girlfriend.

There are some nice touches to this film by Coppola, a keen eye for a nice shot makes you think she has a career ahead of her and some great lead turns by Roberts and Kilmer, but nothing could help such a cold and un-relatable piece of work ever become anything more than acceptable. We've been blessed over the years to have countless and memorable entries into the young teen/coming of age drama catalogue and with Palo Alto you're much better off to find one of these, instead of watching this instantly disposable offering.

2 Grand Theft Auto playing Val Kilmer's out of 5

Gia Coppola's first film is a winner. I'll admit I made the mistake of reading a few reviews before heading to the theater, all rather shallow and seeming to miss what was important, but they influenced me to the point that I planned to switch films after an hour. But when that hour came, I couldn't leave. I was thoroughly engrossed and invested in the characters. I wanted to know how things worked out for them, and I wasn't disappointed.

Several reviewers have said that it's a good first effort, but it meanders. That it doesn't have much substance. That it has no plot. All wrong, in my opinion. I haven't read James Franco's short stories, upon which this film is based, but I can say that Ms. Coppola has done an excellent job of writing a cohesive screenplay with a good story arc and enough plotting to clearly show that 3 of the main characters -- April, Teddy, and Emily -- learn something important enough from their experiences to change for the better by the end of the film. And the 4th, Fred, is heading for an epiphany, if he can survive long enough to have it. What many have missed is that Ms. Coppola has gotten to the truth here.

Palo Alto accurately captures the teen angst, how hard it is to figure things out, how adults can disappoint/mislead/manipulate us, how we make bad choices, but always with the feeling that we're propelled to do exactly that thing at that moment. High school is not fun. It's something we endure. And it can be an achievement just to get out alive and be heading in a better direction.

It's been ages since I was in high school, and even though this generation is very different than mine, human nature hasn't changed, and the problems haven't changed. I recognized every character, every situation, every bad choice, every consequence. I especially related to "not knowing what to say, so saying nothing." But most important, and I credit Ms. Coppola for this, I really cared about these characters. I even had empathy for one unlikeable character.

That's good writing (credit Franco and Coppola). And it's very good directing, considering the main characters played by Emma Roberts (a standout), Jack Kilmer, Zoe Levin, and Nat Wolff don't have a lot of experience. I like to follow directors whose works say something meaningful about life and honestly earn our emotions. I'll be following Ms. Gia Coppola's work. This is a fine film.

Palo Alto fmovies. Gia Coppola's Palo Alto feels like a film of Larry Clark's set in a wealthier neighborhood that wants to show that the kind of crime and moral vacuousness that exist in certain impoverished, but the issue at hand is that the film doesn't seem to want to fully commit. While by no means mediocre or not worth seeing, Palo Alto finds itself in the quandary of not always finding a clear balance between its subjects, cycling back and forth, optimistically trying to devote equal time to each characters, but sort of getting lost in a sea of transitions. Even the ending, when it should be finding a way to tie these stories together, it only seems to try to rush and wrap them up in a clean manner without giving us much in the way of connective tissue.

Yet, with that being Palo Alto's biggest issue, I think I can go on happily. The film finds a new concept to explore other than teenage nihilism and debauchery, but the idea that just because teenagers or youths reside in a wealthy community doesn't mean they have lives as vividly-planned out as some may assume. Wealth doesn't equal direction, or even morality, is what I took from the film, and just because the idea of money at ones disposal is instilled at a young age, a clear pathway to success isn't. To build off of the famous saying "the grass isn't always greener on the other side," the grass explored in Palo Alto is the kind hyped to be beautiful because of new lawn-care application but winds up showing a few dry patches and weeds.

The film follows a gaggle of characters living in the wealthy, upper class community of Palo Alto, California, and centers on the day-to- day lives of listless and directionless high school kids. One of the characters we find is April (Emma Roberts), a shy virgin, who finds herself torn between her flirtatious soccer coach Mr. B (James Franco) and a deceptively deep stoner named Teddy (Jack Kilmer). Another soul is Emily (Zoe Levin), a sexually promiscuous girl of the same age, who has sex with both Teddy and his close friend Fred (Nat Wolff), an unpredictable time-bomb of a teenager. The film follows April's relationship with the two key men in her life along with Fred's descent into complete chaos and madness, as well as following numerous high school parties around the neighborhood.

The directress at hand, Gia Coppola, another member of the Coppola dynasty headlined by patriarch Francis Ford, actually shares a lot of the thematic similarities as her filmmaker aunt, Sofia Coppola. Sofia, for years, has made films with the overarching theme of wealth, fame, and alienation, focusing on characters, predominately female, growing up in extremely well-off parts of the world but having unfulfilled tendencies that money cannot buy. This is arguably related to her father being one of the most famous and renowned directors of his time, and a family that found ways to make news in Hollywood, one of the most known cities in the world. This kind of ubiquity and outside hunger for the next big thing from the family like prompted Sofia to frequently feel alone, which lead to films like Somewhere, Marie Antoinette, The Bling Ring, and Lost in Translation, all of which about an outsider's (or outsiders) desire to fit into society.

Gia feels like she's elaborating on this idea by focusing on several teenagers, already tumultuous characters, bombarded by hormones and stimuli they have no idea how to respond to or control, and looking for the basic routes of human gratification through al

April (Emma Roberts) is a sweet girl with a crush on her soccer coach Mr. B (James Franco). He's a single dad and she babysits his kid sometimes. She also likes Teddy. They flirt at a party but end up with different people. He's drunk and high, gets a blow job from Emily, hit-and-runs another car, gets caught and is sentenced to 12 months probation community service. Teddy's friend Fred is a talkative jerk. Fred hooks up with Emily and enables Teddy's destructive behavior. April starts a relationship with Mr. B which isolates her from her friends Chrissy and Shauna.

It's a rambling teenage high school romance. Emma Roberts is so tiny that she can still pass for a teenager. She's quite good in this role. Franco is flirting with super creepy. Jack Kilmer is a slacker teen. He should have the acting gene considering who his parents are. There is an immaturity in his acting especially compared to Emma Roberts. April and Teddy are kept apart for almost the entire movie. They need screen time together to develop more chemistry. The style gives a dreamy suggestive feel. However it's disjointed with April and Teddy basically in their own separate movie.

This film is about several suburban teenagers who live hedonistic lifestyles, and slowly their lives spirals out of control.

"Palo Alto" shows the teenagers getting up to all kinds of trouble, but there is not really a focused plot. We get shown various events that happen to various individuals, but it is all superficial and we don't get to see any real meanings behind their actions. The plot meanders but never seems to get anywhere, with no central message to get across. I thought it was as if I watched a bunch of events happening, and that was it. It did not leave me feeling satisfied, touched or entertained. In fact, I felt a little bored by it.