6. The Rules of Attraction (2002)

If college was this bad, in this way, I just might revisit collegeboard.com and give the whole thing another go.

Sorry about the several day hiatus. Long story short, I blacked out, took a piss in the middle of a living room, got my head shaved while crying like a toddler on my knees on a bathroom floor, and now I'm back in the comfort of Yardley, alternating between chips (cheddar sun chips to be exact) and cookies (the kind the grocery store makes and sells in those see-through plastic containers -- so irresistible, so exciting, because they are slightly different every time, like mom's meatloaf... how does she do that?)

But I'm back. Parked on the couch, my head's cold, and I'm watching Erin Brokovich, starring Julia Roberts, for the kabillionth time. She's gorgeous, yet older than young, and taking on the man himself, using whatever means she has. Erin Brokovich is the Norma Ray of our generation. Hot, working, uneducated chick with children and a busy life takes on the muilti-million dollar company who has ruined the lives of all her friends.

The Rules of Attraction is what I would categorize as a "teen movie." I love teen movies. (Breakfast Club, 16 Candles, Say Anything... the list could go on forever and ever, thank God.) You know a movie is a teen movie when you would feel uncomfortable watching it around your own parents, or you grandmother -- in this case because the movie resembles your life a little bit too much. Or at least mine, or at least what I wish my life was, was I to be a bit less caring, or a bit more caring. (The last time I put this movie on in front of my parents I said "I love this movie" and within 10 minutes the movie showed flirting gay men jumping on a bed, cocaine use -- nosebleeds included -- naked titties, and James Vaderbeek fucking a gorgeous girl as he trips on mushrooms. Talk about great timing.)

But that's why this movie is so good. It's the type of movie you would watch when you were 12 years old at 11:45 pm on a school night with that great feeling that you were not supposed to see this. That feeling alone makes a Playboy magazine seem like sand in your crotch on a Monday. The movie reminds me of that show that used to be on MTV called Undressed, a show about very good-looking college teens having sex but never showing any actual sex... What could turn on a 12 year old more? Remember how there's nothing scarier than a monster you never see? Well there's nothing more sexually pleasing than sex involving the best looking teens in our world that you aren't aloud to see. Except this movie shows it all -- every drug, every condom, every secret. We are the generation that must see. (Thank god for CGI special effects! Some of the tittes in this film are too nice to be real!!)

The Rules of Attraction is the ultimate stylized teen movie. The way it's filmed and the way it all unfolds is amazing. You are immersed in a world of drugs, sex and style in a college setting like never before. College is depicted as both a place I'd love to be and a place I never ever want to see again. It's very real, though. It's very unreal, though.

It follows James Vanderbeek (Dawson's Creek) -- an angry, shroom-eating, laughingly suicidal college student who starts really not giving a fuck about anything. I dont think there is one scene in this movie where anyone is in class. But that's what's great. This movie is everything about college that is idealized and perfect and beautiful and wrong and isolated, but that doesn't necessarily mean it shines a happy light on the whole ordeal -- in fact, quite the contrary.

It's as if the movie decided to show us what we all thought of when we pictured that perfect college life-style, but then turned it around on us to show us how truly horrible that perfect image could be.

The women in this movie are gorgeous and slutty, the drugs grow on trees, the parties are epic, the confusion is massive. The men have incredible abs and expensive clothing. You can smell their expensive, to-each-his-own cologne. It does a great job of showing the viewer how small you feel in college; how alone, how angry , how depressed... and yet you still want nothing more than to have that one great connection with that one girl you've been seeing around lately, where you talk about how much it all just sucks, or ignore how much it all sucks for the first time ever. You want to kill yourself in this world, so you try to, you fail, and yet its funny... even though you really wanted to die. You couldn't even succeed at suicide in this world. You crave attention and even that won't give you any. You are invisible. Nothing matters. It's all just meant to look right, to satisfy our every vain and child-like desire.

Every scene taps into ideas that are key to properly satirizing the college life-style :: a women waits for her lover to come back from his semester abroad, and when he gets back he has no idea who she is, and the part which sums up his time in Europe is one of my favorite parts of the film; "I came on her tits even though I was wearing a condom..."

The plot is about a love-triangle. Everyone thinks someone else is in love with them and the confusion will not end well :: During one scene in which a girl commits suicide, my father stood up, anounced he'd "seen enough" and went to up to bed... I continued watching for the 6 kabillionth time. The film, like many great ones of our recent/short time, shows everything. Every detail :: from slitting of the wrists with a razor-blade to the very faces the kids make as they orgasm while tripping on mushrooms. It's a bold movie visually. You will want to watch it in HD, with the lights off, without any old people around.

And it's a hilarious one, especially with the innocent James Vanderbeek of Dawson's Creek (a show in which saying the word "shit" is like butt-fucking a nun during church on easter sunday, launching semen across several pews, nailing a crying old widow in the head...) who does nothing but drugs, make drug deals, have sex, and generally try to satisfy every one of his hedonistic desires before each day is out. It's a great contrast to Dawson and he pulls it off with flying colors. (And thank GOD he changes his hair cut as well.)

Visually stimulating, never boring, hilarious, and stylized to a point of beauty, The Rules of Attraction is a must see for those of our prescription drug, close to suicide, attention loving, attention deficit, bored, lonely, beautiful, stylish generation of "kids for kollege!" with a kapital K.

Leave your parents at home.

Bring out your presciption drugs and combat boots.

love,

ALEC "blacks-out-and-pisses-wherever" Gaybin