Slash

A film that showed me slash fiction and the whole nerd course teen women take to find "acceptable" ways of exploring sexual feelings whether producing or consuming it, and how it is important that parents should fully provide a beneficial support; whereas many male teens are able to explore their feelings from mainstream to Victoria's Secret catalogues without penalty. The film also inserts scenes of popular notions of what the majority thinks of teen culture and exploring sexuality from Julia's sex-obsessed friends and Neil's oddly normal parents. At least his older sister challenges gender assumptions and social ideas about masculinity and femininity. Very good performance from Teen Wolf alum Michael Johnston and Hannah Marks from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. This is a smart, compassionate coming of age story, as LA Times writer Katie Walsh says "The nerd-sexy tale the Internet age so desperately needs." Its a delightful feature from writer-director Clay Liford (Earthling) with a oft-misunderstood high school student who thinks he's the only one to pen online homoerotic vignettes that center on his favorite character from a sci-fi series and a titillating classmate who treats him with enthusiasm that's so infectious. Also, Michael Ian Black in a memorable cameo graciously defending Neil at the Houston Comic Con's Rabbit Hole when he's exposed as under-age while reading an excerpt. It grabs me in my gut occasionally but it's infectious with much-needed counterpoint to the view that fanficcers are nothing but talentless deviants.

I saw Slash at BAM Cinemafest 2016 last night. It was certainly a crowd-pleaser. The story starts as "innocent, studious, repressed 15-year-old boy meets wild, unruly, sassy girl" and goes from there. It could take many directions, but it chooses a realistic, rather unsure and zigzaggy route, which reflects perfectly the confusion and indecision of the coming-of-age state. I expected the highlights to be the bad fan fic being read out loud awkwardly and the imagined sexual encounters of the burly sci-fi hero, Vanguard, but though these were all extremely hilarious and entertaining, I was surprised to find the emotional scenes about belonging, friendship, love, betrayal also vibrant and smart. The leads are great. Jessie Ennis rocks!

I saw this movie, with friends, at the 2016 Cucalourus Film Festival. The movie's name was interesting enough to make me want to see it, as well as the premise of fan fiction (PS I didn't know what Slash fiction was before seeing this movie). So, I entered the screening not even knowing what to expect (which sometimes works, and sometimes not so much) and I was pleasantly surprised. I thought the film was funny and sweet. I also thought the two leads had chemistry. I recommend this movie

"I don't want to wake up in a year and stab my parents to death with a kitchen knife."

"Well that makes one of us." (dialog, Michael Johnston talking to Hannah Marks at the 1:01 timestamp.)

Despite the relatively low IMDb score, Slash 2016 is a joy.

If you read the third-party reviews, you will note a tug of war between critics who think it is some form of uber-social commentary, and those who look at it as a sweet and engaging love story or rom-com.

The answer is probably somewhere in the middle, but this reviewer was more engaged by the teen rom-com.

For two reasons.

One, because the "classic" age of the teen rom-com seems to have passed -- remember Freddie Prinze? -- and this genre is neither as popular as it once was, nor as well done. Two, because that aspect of the film does not merely work, it actually spreads its wings and soars.

Credit writer/director Clay Liford for getting this recipe right. As I have noted in other reviews, a lot of what used to considered movie fare is now being done on TV, and a lot of the more personal creative work we used to see on some TV shows is migrating to film.

The dialog at the top of this review is typical of the film -- sharp, funny, and oddly reminiscent of the old Woody Allen rom-coms (with Johnston doing the neurotic Woody character, and Marks doing a wonderful collage of Diane Keaton liberally mixed with early Angelina Jolie.)

Marks is the revelation in the film. For these rom-coms to work (and this one does) she has to go beyond merely playing a character, she has to be (for the male viewer) every idiosyncratic girl in high-school that you wanted to get to know better -- but didn't.

Marks engages, holds the attention, and carries the film. An actress to watch down the road.

Recommended.

Paid for this on demand. I liked the premise, liked the lead characters and the actors that played them. Michael Ian Black was good as well. Couldn't get into the characters motives. Weak screenplay or direction or both. Wait for this to come to Netflix and judge for yourself. It's like a movie anyone could basically make on their iPhone. The question is should they. There's much better teen comedies out there than this wannabe. I really wanted to like this and the redeeming parts are because of the genuine warmth and chemistry of the two leads. Felt like the slash part was written in for the sake of being different. It was irrelevant and almost upstaged the characters and story. If it was just another element of story it could've been something better and maybe an actual teen comedy.