Hacker Cinema
Garden State
2004 · Film · 102 min
Directed by Zach Braff
Andrew returns to his hometown for his mother’s funeral, a journey that reconnects him with old friends. The trip coincides with his decision to stop taking his powerful antidepressants. A chance meeting with Sam—a girl also struggling with various maladies—opens up the possibility of rekindling emotional connections, confronting his psychologist father, and perhaps beginning a new life.
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22 comments on Hacker News
Movies I think I truly great I usually only watch once, sometimes twice. If a movie ends and I just sit there thinking to myself… “wow”… I will probably never watch it again.
Movies I watch over and over again are movies that I relate to in some way or find comforting. These are ones I’ve watched at least 5 times, and some I’d bet more than 30 times.
- Back to the Future
- Home Alone
- What About Bob?
- It Could Happen to You
- Matilda
- As Good as It Gets
- Office Space
- Cruel Intentions
- Boiler Room
- Finding Forrester
- Training Day
- Super Troopers
- 8 Mile
- The Transporter
- Elf
- Bad Santa
- Mean Girls
- Saved!
- Garden State
- V for Vendetta
- Thank You for Smoking
- Stick It
- Little Miss Sunshine
- Idiocracy
- Hot Rod
- Run Fatboy Run
- The Other Guys
- Wreck-It Ralph
To name a few.
> A pessimistic corollary to this is that intervention is often followed by social punishment if it impinges on anyone else's interests or even just makes the bystanders look bad.
You're not pessimistic, you have depressive realism[1]
Real life is not a movie or television show. Much like women complain they don't like the "manic pixie dream girl"[1] trope of films like Garden State[2]... men don't like, or need the "sullen cherub dream boy" trope you see in movies like Perks of Being a Wallflower.
To be a dissident is a forever decision and if you stray from the narrow, socially acceptable path of back and forth that brought forth our present... global situation... you will wake up one day trying to remind yourself that while your name is not in Wikipedia or IMDB, at least you had an effect on society, that there are people you cannot name or describe, situations you've been in that... moved the needle in the sense you saved a life, or many of them, in ways hard to articulate or prove.
There's an essay I'm struggling to track down that years later, an... let's call her "ex-girlfriend" showed me during my summer in San Francisco post Snowden about the hit Showtime series "Californication"... it talks about how despite being Bukowksi-esque it was actually incredibly feminist, in as much as a sex heavy Showtime series can be...
And rather than actually discuss my life, I'll do the autistic thing and give an example from tv/film... on the show, Hank repeatedly connects with "Trixie" -- she doesn't just "do porn -- she's a full on prostitute, and they have... a banter.
Much like my ex and I... they keep meeting at parties. Hank, the main character... is in love, and even if he wasn't, he doesn't pay for it... and Trixie is forever being "saved" by Hank -- sometimes from rudeness, sometimes from much worse things.
Anyways, when you're autistic, you often meet people who want... a relationship minus the sex. They want to BE the manic pixie dream girl, to embrace life with a dark, brooding intellectual sidekick who can protect them if things go astray. They tend to treat folks like us like a prop, to be discarded when they've gotten their fill (or simply when the summer ends and their "primary" returns), and when they notice this pattern is tipping you towards extremism, they often choose to medicalize the response and blame the victim rather than... call a metaphorical time out and get you out of the cycle of proving oneself smart enough for the good leads.
If you're autistic, and not a jerk... you'll wonder if it's worth the predicaments it got you into, worth the gaslights and gunshots and all the things folks have said, running through my head on nights like these, if you don't have some nest egg to fall back on if the shitstorm your not standing by generates lasts too long.
Anyways, I apologize for the wall of text but... it's true. We're less likely to stand by, and we're more likely to be ostracized for it. I know I felt unwelcome in many infosec spaces because I did not hide the fact that I wasn't a fair weather feminist, and I didn't like how they would treat folks.
People oft conflate autistic and pendantic for a reason -- because they want certain dynamics to persist.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism
[1] Film critic Nathan Rabin coined the term in 2007... talking about [redacted]'s character, he said "[redacted] embodies a character type I like to call The Manic Pixie Dream Girl. [This character] exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures."
Also MICROSOFT MOVIES?? AHAHAHA
I would like to sit in my office chair for two hours and view Garden State on a 22’.
All I can think of is some home theater scenario
The exceptions to the rule are where the writer/star/director is aware of their own ridiculousness - see also Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I haven't seen The Room, but the ne plus ultra of that kind of self-indulgence for me is Garden State. 90 minutes of Zach Braff's daddy issues and romantic wish fulfilment - I've had better afternoons. (It amazes me that it picked up an audience more or less on the basis of having The Shins on the soundtrack.)
The Star Wars prequels fall into that category, even if Lucas isn't in them. Proves very well that he should be shot on sight if ever he approaches a typewriter again. Not a fanboy of the first films by any measure, but at least Lawrence Kasdan or whoever can string a couple of lines together. Left to his own devices, Lucas is capable only of bloated, soulless tech demos.
Braff pitched "Wish I Was Here" as a spiritual successor to Garden State:
> I was about to sign a typical financing deal in order to get the money to make "Wish I Was Here," my follow up to “Garden State.” It would have involved making a lot of sacrifices I think would have ultimately hurt the film.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1869987317/wish-i-was-here-1
Spike Lee isn't pitching the latest project as a continuation of Malcolm X
That's a fair point on VM's loyal fanbase that was lingering since 2007. But Braff's project leveraged Garden State as much as Lee's Leveraged Malcolm X and others of his past films. Your argument is biting its own tail: You're saying Lee's project was entirely driven by his name, but that's because Lee made it so. He could have made a more convincing video or written a better text giving more info (just like Braff did) but he didn't. My point is that he could have been more successful if he had put in more effort.
That's the whole point: Spike Lee's past films should outweigh Braff's effort with Garden State when it comes to convincing people about their respective ability to make good films, but it didn't.
I see a pattern - it is the level of quirkiness. I think the more quirky a show the more likely it is to generate major fan loyalty. The show has to be good as a baseline.
Veronica Mars fans are legion, there is even a slight overlap with Joss Whedon (of Buffy, etc fame) as he had a very rare bit-part in one episode. Braff is known for somewhat quirky stuff too, Garden State was offbeat. Spike Lee is very mainstream hollywood nowadays, working with a-list actors and directing some very profitable movies.
So from the perspective that good-quality quirkiness generates fan enthusiasm it makes sense that these three particular projects would draw interest and dollars in the proportions that they did.
This is a terrible analysis that fails to understand why veronica mars was so successful.
As discussed here when the VM kickstarter succeeded, there was a very loyal fanbase to the series and there hadn't been a new show or movie in years (since 2007). There was a ton of latent demand for a product.
If I were doing this analysis, I'd try to separate established brands from new concepts. Bell's project to a great extent was driven by the brand and Braff's project leveraged Garden State. Since Spike Lee's project was entirely driven by his name, I'd look at his with a different lens
The best part of this article is the quote "Judging a trend from 3 data points isn’t the wisest thing to do"
Braff owns all rights to this movie. He is the studio.
I never said he got $2/ticket from Garden State.
This article was written by someone who has no understanding of basic accounting, let alone movie industry or television industry accounting.
For example: There’s a HUGE amount of upside here. That’s why Garden State grossed $35 million at the box office. Or, put another way: if 350,000 people see this movie in theaters, at $10 a ticket, that’s $3.5 million — 10% of what Garden State made. If Braff gets $2 per ticket, that’s $700,000 right to him. Wow! ↩
There is no way that Braff got $2 a ticket. At $10/ticket, that represents 20% of the top-line grosses (i.e., before expenses and the theater's take), and would represent almost 50% or more of the studio's receipts on the film at today's prices. (When Garden State came out, ticket prices were $2-$3 less, so the alleged $2/ticket amount would be even more obscene. ) Theaters typically receive 1/2 of the ticket amount in the first week or two, and an increasing amount each week thereafter to incentivize theatrical longevity.
Studios then divy up the remainder, taking their share and expenses first out of such earnings. (Actors and directors are generally paid their salaries at the onset of the project and would normally be treated as an expense for the studio to recoup).
Some actors are able to negotiate a portion of the net proceeds, and receive those in the unlikely and rare event that the movie company with which they contracted shows a profit. More preferable, but infinitely more unlikely, is for a star to negotiate a portion of the gross proceeds (i.e., before the Hollywood accounting kicks in). Zach Braff has never been a big enough star to get that sort of arrangement--that's the sort of deal that even Tom Cruise and Will Smith would be hard-pressed to achieve without serious salary concessions--most actors only ever achieve a portion of the gross if they forgo their salary and participate in principal financing.
More importantly, I think the assumption is that the kickstarter is the only funding for the project, though Braff has also stated publicly that he is kicking in a lot of his own personal funds.
Bear in mind that there's also a signaling mechanism at work here. Lots of people on Internet forums will say, "I want to see Garden State II or Season 3 of popular TV show X" or whatever. But talk is cheap.
Kickstarter, however, lets people put their money where their mouths are: instead of saying, "I want to see or read X," you can say, "I want to see or read X so bad that I'm willing to pay $10 to make it happen." That $10 is much louder than 10,000 posts on the Internet.
Garden State was not a perfect movie. But it was a very good one, and I didn't find it as self-conscious as you did.
Meanwhile, I think your read on the rewards is wrong—-they are meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek. There are less personal rewards he could have offered, with less work involved. I think it would be more off-putting for him to not interact with his fans and supporters.
In the end, that's the power of Kickstarter. Neither you nor I are in charge of greenlighting this film.
Zach Braff and Garden State are pretty well known. I didn't even know Garden State was an indi movie until now.
"Garden State was a pretty big hit."
Yeah that's exactly what I mean by narrowcasting. Wikipedia claims $26.7 million north American box office, if you estimate $10 per ticket that big hit equals 2.67 million north americans watched it. Google's quick guess of population of north america in 2008 five years ago was 528 million. That means movies are so incredibly narrowcasted that if 99.5% of the population can't be bothered to watch, its a big hit.
If you try to appeal to only a tiny 5% fraction of the general population, you get 10 times as many paying viewers than if you get a pretty big hit solely within the tiny moviegoing crowd. Thats the power of broadcasting or mass media vs narrowcasting.
Many people have commented that its a cool movie, I'll add "Garden State" to my list.
Here's what I think is missing from this kickstarter (and was a huge part of the Veronica Mars kickstarter success) -- you can't pay a reasonable amount of money and get the final product.
I realize he probably can't sell advance tickets (beyond special cases like opening night) but how about, say, the DVD/Bluray/iTunes/Amazon version when it becomes available. I'm not a huge Zach Braff fan, but I liked Scrubs a lot, and I enjoyed Garden State. I would totally pay $20 to get the production diary + digital version when it becomes available.
Personally, I think the "pay me to make this movie/tv series and if I get the money I will deliver it to you" model is the future for a lot of entertainment (especially for known quantities like -- say -- the people who produced Stargate SG-1). The inefficiency of paying a network to speculatively create and back TV shows based on guesstimated potential advertising revenue and a tiny chance of a massive payoff if the show is a hit is horrendous.
Garden State resonated with me in a way few movies do. I was in a similar emotional state at the time, so that helps, of course. You can read a plot synopsis elsewhere, but what hooked me, and has stayed with me, was the emotional honesty in most of the scenes.
It was kind of a Big Deal. I've been part of or party to this conversation many times (details vary, this is the gist of it tho):
"blah blah blah Zach Braff blah blah"
"Who's Zach Braff?"
"The guy from Scrubs, he also did some movies."
"Oh yeah, Garden State right? That had a great sound track."
Garden State was one of the most enjoyable movies I've ever watched. Kind of amazing it was made on a shoe-string budget.
Backed. Hope there's more like it.
Garden State is one of my favorite movies, and even I'll admit it's a pretty formulaic bildungsroman, very much in the vein of Cameron Crowe. The strengths of the movie are less in the overarching plot and with the details, such as the soundtrack, cinematography, and excellent script.
At first blush, this new script looks remarkably original. That being said, everything's relative: there's the old cliche that every possible story has already been told, and I think the trick is less to put forward something new and more to put forward something great.
In terms of the strategy behind the campaign: it seems very much in the vein of the Veronica Mars kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project), in the sense that its appealing more to the fans of the original work (I'd imagine the cult of Veronica Mars fans and the cult of Garden State fans has some significant overlap.)
Celebrity is more or less orthogonal, I think.
Obviously being well-known is important, but it's about reputation more than anything. Zach has a reputation for have a strong creative hand in film and tv projects which have had a very strong connection with fans, as his work on Garden State has demonstrated. The same goes with the Veronica Mars team. Had Rob Thomas or Kristen Bell tried to use Kickstarter for some non-Veronica Mars related project they may not have received as much enthusiasm, because Veronica Mars as a project and as an entity on its own definitely has fans and definitely engenders a significant amount of trust that they'll deliver a product that is worth the investment.
Also, I don't think you have any concept of Zach Braff's reputation or following, and I suspect this project will probably exceed its goal faster than the Veronica Mars project did.
His "Garden State" movie and the plan for the new one don't look very formulaic. I stopped going to movies when I didn't need to find a place to make out with my girlfriend anymore and I stopped watching fiction movies when I got bored of seeing the same old stuff over and over.
He should list this in his discussion of risks, in that he never quite explains why its bad to put the financiers in editorial control of his movie, although they clearly do a good job of narrowcasting typical formulaic movies (to the small fraction of the population who likes that kinda stuff and therefore might not like his stuff). Also as per the narrowcasting comment his movies now sound interesting to me although I got bored with movies and stopped watching a long time ago (like most people, looking at percentages). So his risks section also needs a better plan to reach outside the usual movie going public than a kickstarter and maybe the Sundance festival.
He may get more money from the general public if he writes to a general public audience who has no idea who he is, rather than what appears to be indie movie fans. I'm not asking for a major editorial content change, just add another 10% length explaining why would the average dude off the street who doesn't do the movie thing since he was a kid, care, much less send him some dough?
Note that I've personally sent/kickstarted Jason Scott the nonfiction documentary producer enough to buy a plane ticket or two over the years, this isn't a new idea.
Now this is assuming what I got out of imdb and kickstarter has any relation to reality. Maybe Garden State is just another boring romantic comedy or teen fart joke formula movie. Can anyone who's actually seen his movies, comment?
It's not just celebrity. Melissa Joan Hart's project just doesn't seem like it has much thought to it. "Oh they can do it for Veronica Mars, so let me do it too." The project video wasn't great. Plus the premise isn't known at all -- not saying a movie about "Clarissa Explains It All" would be successful, but it would have been more successful.
Someone at my work jumped out of her seat when I mentioned the Veronica Mars project to her. Zach Braff might not have the cult following, but at least he has the Reddit community and Scrubs/Garden State fans to at least get him to reach his goal. Many of the perks for the Veronica Mars project were filled quickly, which slowed down the funding after the big spike, so we'll see what happens with Zach Braff's movie.