Garden State

So, as you would know if you were reading this, which I am sure no one is, I love movies. Though recently I've come to the conclusion that I REALLY love independent films and movies that no one I know has seen. There is this channel called IFC (Independent Film Channel) and every time I turn on my TV, it's waiting for me. I recently saw a Zach Braff (written, directed, and starring) movie called Garden State. I had seen it before at a friends house but I hardly watched it. I was far more interested in kicking her ass at foosball. I won.

So I caught it on IFC and I thought it was pretty good. Except the ending. Yeah, that shit would never happen. EVER.

The rest of the movie was kind of a typical “finding yourself” story, just with a few twists and differences that made it more interesting than most of the stories like that. Like every single movie put out there these days, there is someone falling in love and there is some comedy and some tragedy and a sprinkling of everything. It’s really quite typical, but different enough to be good.

Once again, the plot is right below, and the link to watch the video is at the bottom of the page. Don't like spoilers? Me neither. Go ahead and skip to the bottom.

Basically it starts off with a scene of a horrific plane crash. All of the passengers are screaming and crying and it is all in slow motion. The film moves across the dismal crowd onto Andrew Largeman (Braff) who, despite the situation, is stony-faced and calm. With a small flash the scene changes to Largeman in bed and the phone ringing. He doesn't bother answering it and the answering machine picks it up. It's his father telling him that his mother died and that he needs to come home for the funeral. He leaves Los Angeles and heads to his old home in New Jersey. During the funeral he stands away from a crying crowd just as calm as he was in his dream. He looks around during the funeral and sees a couple of gravediggers in the distance. He walks over there and recognizes them as friends from his past. He talks with them and they make plans to hang out. He leaves and goes back to his old home, where he has a short talk with his father where he tells him about these sudden headaches and they make an appointment for him to see a specialist. That night he finds his old motorcycle in the garage and drives it to the party that the gravediggers are throwing. There are lots of drugs being passed around and he is given a pill with a smilyface on it and after he swallows it the scene goes into a blurry mess. He wakes up the next morning with BALLS written across his forehead. He washes his face and heads to his appointment. In the waiting room he meets a girl named Sam (Natalie Portman) and she tells him that she is only there waiting for a friend. When he is called in to see the doctor the nurse says that she will be with Sam in a minute and Sam shrinks in her chair out of embarrassment for being caught in a lie.

After the appointment he sees Sam outside and he offers her a ride. During the ride they talk and it is revealed that Sam is a compulsive liar.

The next few days are a ride of parties, emotions, and weird places that I really hope don’t exist, especially the hotel scene. That bit made me hate hotels even more than I did before. And I LOATHE hotels. That’s why, whenever I stay there, I keep out of my room until I’m so tired that I am about to crash, and I leave right after I’m dressed in the morning.

It was decent in my opinion. But you have to decide for yourself. I could only find it in five parts, I hope you don’t mind. If I were you I would load them all in different windows because they take quite a bit of time before they are fully loaded. If you have them all set up then the flow will go a lot smoother and it will seem more like a real movie.

Here it is.

Part 1:

http://static.youku.com/v1.0.0235/v/swf/qplayer.swf?VideoIDS=

cc00XMzY5OTk2MA&embedid=-&showAd=0

Part 2:

http://static.youku.com/v1.0.0235/v/swf/qplayer.swf?VideoIDS=

cc00XMzcwMDA2MA&embedid=-&showAd=0

Part 3:

http://static.youku.com/v1.0.0235/v/swf/qplayer.swf?VideoIDS=

cc00XMzcwMDE2NA&embedid=-&showAd=0

Part 4:

http://static.youku.com/v1.0.0235/v/swf/qplayer.swf?VideoIDS=

cc00XMzcwMDI4NA&embedid=-&showAd=0

Part 5:

http://static.youku.com/v1.0.0235/v/swf/qplayer.swf?VideoIDS=

cc00XMzcwMDM3Mg&embedid=-&showAd=0

And don’t worry about the beginning. For some reason the first minute of the movie has delayed audio and it will catch up. Don’t refresh it or anything. That won’t do anything.

ENJOY!