Tag: Kay Panabaker

I didn’t plan on watching Little Birds, it was right next to the movie I wanted in the store. But that movie was gone, so fuck it, why not. Could be good.

I will admit, I had a huge brain fart when I picked it though. I saw that it had Juno Temple as an actress in the movie, so I of course went, “Ohh, I love Ellen Page!”. Damn that movie Juno confusing me every time.

Come on Juno. You are on the back of a bicycle. Smile like you fucking mean it! The story is mainly about two girls living in Salton Sea, California and they are poor as fuck. Well, decently poor. Lily (Juno Temple) is shown with cut marks around her vagina, clearly there from some attempted suicide. Which her dad totally did. Her mother (Leslie Mann) is doing the best she can, and pretty dang caring, but Lily is super angsty at 15, so she doesn’t care.

Alison (Kay Panabaker) is living with her dad, who is a super alcoholic. She also lost her mom, but to the Cancer. She and Lily are great friends, except Alison actually has a positive enough outlook in life. Because she isn’t a cunt.

Eventually they meet some skater boys, and said see you later town, it wasn’t good enough for them.

Yep, they decided to leave the area, steal Alison’s uncle’s truck, and drive to LA a few hours away to meet the boys. Lily is totally into Jesse (Kyle Gallner), where Alison doesn’t really care for any of them, but gives into peer pressure. The leader of the boys is David (Chris Coy), who is a no good, do nothing. They all are runaways too, living in a not so very safe abandoned apartment.

So why not get into shenanigans? Outside of normal crime and skateboarding. Like setting up dates for Lily with middle aged men to steal their shit when they get back home. Yeah, that can’t go wrong.

It was pretty great living for the boys before Lily/Ali joined them. Well, this is an indie coming of age movie. It turns out most of these are all the same. We have unlikable characters, doing unlikeable things, leading me to not liking the movie. Crazy how that works out.

I wouldn’t say that the acting was bad, just I was incredibly bored by all of it. It took a long long time for the girls to meet the boys and go to LA, where any excitement started to happen. It was a chore to watch Lily bitch the whole film about her life and hate her mom, for no reason at all.

But then when we got to LA, it took awhile still to get exciting. The ending was a bit exciting, but I hate out they ultimately decided to go with the scene. Sure, it was unpredictable, but the predictable ending would have been a lot better and make more sense.

Kay Panabaker was the best part of this movie, although she has yet to be in any movie that I have rated decently. Come on woman, I liked you (ish) in No Ordinary Family. Make your sister proud.

1 out of 4.

I love the summer. It lets me watch all the things I missed, and all the things I didn’t even know existed. Did you know there was a remake of Fame? No, not that TV show, like 2009 a new Fame movie. Hooray?

Yeah, I never saw the original. Or the show. Or the Broadway version. But I know this one is classified as a musical, and I like musicals, so fuck it.

The potential seems high for dance punching and fighting! Classic West Side Story. Just like the original Fame, I have been told, this story is told in a similar style. It is just a small group of friends in learning how to perform high school. No, it is a few different people who might not share social groups. It is split into 5 parts, of which are nicely labeled, I think. Audition, Freshman Year, Sophomore Year, Junior Year, Senior Year.

We get to see a few students over their careers in the high school, and what makes them tick. Like Jenny Garrison (Kay Panabaker, who you may remember from No Ordinary Family and younger sister of Danielle Panabaker). She is some sort of actor who can’t less lose. This Marco kid (Asher Book) tried to date her for two years and she finally relents. When she takes a card from a big time actor, who might give her a part, Marco is jealous. But she goes to him anyways, basically gets sexually harassed, and Marco can’t stand that commitment and leaves her.

Wait what? Way to be a douche Marco.

Or Kevin (Paul McGill). He came from bumfuck Iowa to be a dancer. He isn’t that good, yet somehow still accepted into the program. People make fun of him. Alice (Kherington Payne) outshines him. His senior year, his teacher won’t give him a recommendation because he is that bad, so he tries that suicide thing. What? How the hell could you be in a dance school for four years if you aren’t good enough?

Let’s try again. Denise (Naturi Naughton) and Malik (Collins Pennie) are both lying to their parents. Denise’s thinks the school is so much more uptight and she’d practice cello 24/7. Malik’s mom thinks he goes to a regular school (what?). Turns out Denise can sing, so Malik and Victor (Walter Perez) put her vocals on a track they are making, which gets played at a club. Alright! But when local producers hear it, they only like her vocals, not their work. Whoops.

Neil (Paul Iacono) wants to be a director, makes documentaries, gets a job to make an indie short film! But really, he just got scammed out of his money. Fuck.

These are all kind of depressing. I don’t want to go on anymore. But hey. Charles S. Dutton is in this movie as random teacher guy. That’s something?

Kay is the most famous actress in this, yet I couldn’t find her doing artsy things.
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Oh hey, yeah, I gave reckless spoilers in that review, because no one is going to watch it. No one. If you planned on it, stop right now. It is a jumbled mess. The music is bad. The dancing is whatever. I cared nothing about any of the characters, and just waited for it to be over.

None of the plot lines were particularly good, but they had no chance with so little being told about each person over a four year period. Even if I wanted to care, I couldn’t. Most of them got shit on throughout the years too, in various ways. But because so little time is on every single person, plot lines also get forget about and just ignored for the end of the movie.

How the hell are all these non talented kids getting into a program like this? That is a stupid plot line. Bad movie. Bad.

0 out of 4.