★ 6 / 10
**_The misadventures of upper-class teens at a prep
Wuchak
**_The misadventures of upper-class teens at a prep school in Manhattan_** The focus is on 17 years-old Cat (Dominique Swain) striving for the attention of…
**_The misadventures of upper-class teens at a prep school in Manhattan_**
The focus is on 17 years-old Cat (Dominique Swain) striving for the attention of some boy (Brad Renfro), dealing with her friends and struggling parents, as well as persecution for her secret heritage. It gives you a world you probably didn't know about being a mixed-up ‘rich’ kid in Manhattan and the shores of East Hampton in 1984.
I was interested in it because it struck me as a girls’ school version of “Dead Poets Society.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the heart and is more tedious than compelling with emphasis on recreational drugs, relationship troubles and even crime. Parts of it reminded me of “Swimming” with Lauren Ambrose, which came out the year prior, but it’s not as all-around palatable.
It’s worth seeing just for Dominique, who was 19 during shooting. On the other end of the gender spectrum, Brad Renfro was 17 during filming and smacks of a teenage Brando. Regrettably, drug addiction hampered his career, and he died of a heroin overdose eight years later.
It runs about 1h 32m and was shot in Nov-Dec 1999 in Manhattan with some good sequences involving Central Park, as well as Toronto (probably mostly interiors and the East Hampton sequence).
GRADE: B-
★ 4 / 10
Review of Tart by NeCRo of Movierealm
Anticriticdotnet
Movie Title - Tart Date of review - 5/26/02 Year of movie - 2001 Stars - Dominique Swain, Brad Renfro, Bijou Phillips (barely), Melanie Griffith (barely)…
Movie Title - Tart
Date of review - 5/26/02
Year of movie - 2001
Stars - Dominique Swain, Brad Renfro, Bijou Phillips (barely), Melanie Griffith (barely)
NeCRo's Rating - 4 skulls out of 10
May Contain spoilers
Plot
An "outcast" Dominique Swain wants to be with the "in" group and so she abandons her real friends and joins them.......much annoying rich people talk occurs. Acting
ugh, I guess I got what I wanted in that Dominique was ok, but man, the rest of the cast besides maybe Brad Renfro were bad or at least not interesting or likable at all. I know some could say that the others were good because they made me hate them....trust me....I like unlikable chars but this group is unlikable because they can't convincingly be bad people.
It figures that the only other people I got this for were barely even in it and that is Melanie Griffith and Bijou Phillips, but the little time they had they were ok. Melanie spoke maybe 2 lines, but at least Bijou had a good character although small.
Violence and Gore
My mind was constantly under attack from horrid dialogue and very very annoying characters, that's violence enough!! ok there was one bludgeoning with a rock which was ok.
T&A Nudity Factor
hahaha, they couldn't even add in any nudity to help spice up this movie, probably because no one would want to bear their body for this crap. If they are going to expose themselves they should do it in a movie where they will be remembered as their character and not for "oh hey I heard she gets naked in this one."
Overall View of the movie (review)
ok ok I know I pride myself on being the person who can like most if not almost all movies or at least find some good in it. Well this movie is one of the few I really struggled to find anything worth while in. The problem with this movie is that it is so damn annoying. I already have a deep hatred for snobby rich people attitudes and that didn't help either. All this movie really is, is just a bunch of rich people sitting around acting depressed and stupid. I can't stress the annoyance factor enough. This movie tries to rehash the tried and true "In group" plotline which can usually be done ok with little difficulty.
Why do I not have a pic from the movie or the box cover? Well I felt this movie didn't deserve that glory so I decided to put a pic of the reason I rented this, and that reason is none other than Dominique Swain. Yes I too was wooed by her in Lolita and thought she was so good that I decided from then on to check her out in any movie in which she acts. At least I keep my promises and yes I have seen the majority of her movies, minus a few hard to find ones. She herself is a great actress and I would defend her actively, but man she chooses some of the crappiest movies to star in. This movie and Smokers are both in the same boat of crappiness, but at least Smokers had a cool idea for a story and even some real good scenes.
Also the dvd box tries to fool you into thinking that this movie has stars as well in it by putting Melanie Griffith and Bijou Phillips names on the front of the box. If there's one thing that P****S me off it's a movie that plasters the names of stars on a box to make you think "wow it has ____ I wonder how good ___is in this one I saw ___ in that movie and thought she was great!" only to have the big names in the movie for a total of maybe 10 minutes between the 2. Bijou actually had a part that semi-meant something. Melanie on the other hand, only has 2 lines about.... Granted I don't like Melanie that much, but this is about ethics and not star acting.
Out of all this mess though props must go to Brad Renfro for turning in an ok performance along with Dominique. Brad may be one very messed up kid in real life, but at least he can act. So the only reason this movie gets any skulls is because I got what I basically wanted which was Dominique Swain and Brad Renfro. Also I had the added pleasure of seeing underrated actress Bijou Phillips make me like her even more. So even though I was annoyed throughout I still came out with some positives, although this was pretty hard this time.
I recommend you to ONLY see this if you've seen Lolita and know how good Dominique is or if you are some offbeat fan of Brad or Bijou. Uber Melanie fans will be sorely depressed. Also if you're a fan of crappy movies like me, please do not assume this be a guilty pleasure because you will feel guilty alright, for the money spent on buying or renting.
Some movies are "so bad that they are good" as the saying goes. What they forgot to add was "so bad that they are good (to pass up)."
NeCRo
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AUDIENCE
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