Oh Josh...

Mean Creek(dir. Jacob Aaron Estes)
I was reading Roger Ebert's review on this movie and he was talking about how the MPAA shouldn't have rated it R so people the characters' age could watch this movie and be educated on what peer pressure can do. I thought that seemed rather silly cuz it would basically write this movie off as some after-school special similar to Thirteen, which I still to this day utterly despise. This movie has moments of peer pressure that seem kind of preachy in some way with Josh Peck's character, but seem natural enough. It kind of explains why this movie got only *** from him if he's viewing it in that light and probably why he gave Thirteen ***1/2 because it definately tries to preach something, but the problem with Thirteen was just how it treated its audience and expected the audience to feel bad for this idiotic girl that did things that she didn't want to just out of peer pressure. The peer pressure is different and more believable. Probably my biggest complaint about this film was Josh Peck's character. He probably did as good of a job I could imagine an actor from Drake & Josh doing and I was probably most impressed with his performance because he was able to be an asshole and sympathetic, but the problem was that he felt like some kind of split-personality. For me, I couldn't feel sympathy for him when he was trying to piss off Marty about his father commiting suicide. Sure, kids can be decent and cruel, but that seems over the line. His shifts seemed natural, but somethings just felt off about his character. Everything after the "incident" was pretty much perfect. Rory Culkin isn't the greatest actor and everybody else pretty much steal the show especially the girl. I can't help being reminded of George Washington because it has a similar tone, treats its young characters as practically adults, and had a similar situation, but George Washington is a much more haunting and poetic because nobody ever reports the incident in the film and it just lingers in the audience's minds afterwards. Also, the character that died in that film was likeable and it just seemed to come out of nowhere when it happened. Other than my complaints, I liked this movie alot.
**** out of ****