Ghost World

It's no surprise that one of the best films so far this year was written by Dan Clowes, whose Eightball contains some of the finest writing in America today. In fact, when he announced that he was teaming up with director Terry Zwigoff (Crumb) to make a movie of his story Ghost World, a collective "huzzah" went up from the legions of bearded, virginal, 38-year-old males who adore his work. Strangely, he's made a film that will appeal to a much broader audience: namely, all the cynical, hyper-intelligent hipster-haters of the world. Enid (Thora Birch) and Becca (Scarlett Johansson) are two girls who are too cool for the too-cool kids. They cavort around a mythical mid-sized city engaging in ennui, sarcasm and petty acts of evil designed to stave off the overwhelming sense of disappointment they have in the world. Of course, this can't work, since they're so jaded by their obvious superiority to the beer-commercial culture of their peers that the closest they can come to approving of anything is to deem it the opposite of everything they hate. Ghost World is probably the most accurate, witty and incisive portrait of disaffected teen life ever made. If you're the kind of cynical, hate-filled despiser of virtually everything that passes for culture in the U.S. of A., then you really shouldn't miss Ghost World. Also, call me; we should talk.