Perks of Being a WallFlower (2012): review: 3/10

A young man with literary interests starts high school where, after a humiliating start, he makes some friends and begins his first romantic relationship with a bossy girl, despite a strong attraction to a more charming female member of his set who, alas, seems more interested in men who maltreat her- much like his sister.

The film begins sympathetically enough, but rapidly turns routinous with  stock characters, such as a standard issue flamboyant homosexual and various jocks. The direction is unimaginative and the soundtrack is obvious.

It compares badly to Donnie Darko.

Nackt (Naked) (2002): review: 7.5/10

Three discontented young German couples meet at a dinner party where they engage in a peculiar bet.

Imaginatively shot and fast-scripted film about romantic, sexual, and occasionally financial tensions between young Germans, who treat each other with gratuitous unkindness, behaving with distinct shrillness, in accordance with cultural stereotypes.

Full Frontal (2002): review 1/10

Actors playing actors in Hollywood, including improvised sections. They are all very full of themselves.

Charmless, pretentious film which confirms that films about actors and film-making are generally to be avoided.

The Rules of Attraction (2002): review: 1.5/10

Various characters, most notably a sensitive girl, a drug dealer and a homosexual cross paths at college.

A mean-spirited and shallow depiction of mostly mean spirited and shallow college students, which is not saved by tricksy editing and camerawork, and which becomes very boring to watch.

A film that fails, primarily, for moral reasons: this is quite unusual.

Ken Park (2002): review- 1.5/10

Adolescents in Visalia CA and their relations with their parents.

Features visceral scenes showing masturbation, oral sex, group sex, masturbatory-asphyxiation, bondage, suicide, murder, scateboards and pustules.

All this might make the film reasonably amusing, but it isn't. It rambles, the characters hardly develop and the relationships between them are rarely interesting .

Sadly, moreover, the actors are too ugly and uncouth for the film to succeed as pornography.

Punch-Drunk Love (2002): review- 7.5/10

A shy, internally frustrated businessman meets a beautiful girl, falls in love and defeats the sex-phoneline sharks who sought to oppress him.

Intriguing- even bizarre- with beautiful camera-work and a fine score.

Igby Goes Down (2002): review- 6.5/10

Wealthy brat Igby flunks Millitary college, escaping to New York where he stays at the art studio of his father's mistress.

This is a well observed, Salinger-esque film, featuring strong performances. However, it is is too smug and mean-spirited to maintain viewer sympathies and ultimately fails both as comedy and tragedy.

People I Know (2002): review- 6.5/10

The last days of a publicist, played by Al Pacino.

This is an lumbering description of ageing and N.Y. politics which lacks the lightness of touch to really succeed, despite Kim Basinger's charming appearances.

Nonetheless, it's fairly entertaining.

The Adjuster (1992): review-2/10

Interminable drama that suffers from a mistaken sense of its own profundity.

Noah is an insurance inspector while his wife works as a censor for the Canadian board of films, classifying pornography. They live in an uncompleted suburban development. She has warts on the soles of her feet. He helps people assessing their insurace claims, putting them up in a motel.

Meandering, obscure and plotless, it's hard to see who this film is intended for.

Life or Something Like It (2002): review- 1/10

Even Angelina Jolie's pretty laugh cannot save this dismal, overlong film.

A vagabond predicts the death of a Seattle t.v. reporter in 10 days, prompting her to re-evaluates her life priorities.