GOING DOWN: Snowed in on Presidents' Day, I watched the recent movie "Igby Goes Down." Very good, I thought; 'Igby' is the latest in the burgeoning neo-Salinger film genre ("Rushmore," "Ghost World," "Donnie Darko," etc.) about teenagers battling the phoniness of the world Holden-like; picture "The Catcher in the Rye" with about three times the cynicism, and then you've got 'Igby.'
Great cast too- Kieran Culkin in what was then the best performance ever by a Culkin brother (soon surpassed by his brother Rory in "Signs"); Susan Sarandon in raving-sick-addicted-older-woman mode (showing once again that for many screenwriters, Karen from "Will & Grace" has become the default setting for older woman characters); Ryan Phillippe reprising his "Cruel Intentions" character; Jeff Goldblum as an impersonal tycoon; and Amanda Peet in her usual turn as both impossibly thin and impossibly slutty. But perhaps most impressive was Claire Danes, in probably her first good performance since her own neo-Caulfield showcase, "My So-Called Life," was canceled eight years ago.
Danes' character has one of the great recent movie character names (Sookie Saperstein); I would love to date a woman named "Sookie," if only just to sing her to bed each night with a rendition of "Freak Me" by Silk ("Sookie, Sookie").
Though perhaps the funniest moment of the movie (or, really, of any movie last year) is a total throwaway- Culkin and Danes are sitting in Central Park together, and in the background of the scene we see two teenaged Catholic school girls playing lacrosse- and by scene's end they're screaming obsenities at each other ("F-ck you, c-ntface!") and brawling. It's little touches like that that make director Burr Steers' screenplay a winner.
One more thing: "Igby Goes Down" is not to be confused with "Ari Goes Down," a blog by my fellow NYC blogger Ari, who I met at the recent Blogger Bash. Ari makes perfectly clear that her blog preceded "Igby Goes Down" by many months and the similarity in names is a mere coincidence; she can also be thankful that no one snagged the "Ari Goes Down" name for a fetish site dedicated to the current White House press secretary.