MOVIES: I couldn't have one conversation if it wasn't for the lies, lies, lies

Since I already wrote about the movie I saw over the weekend on Saturday, I thought I'd delve into my TiVo saved programs for today's movie entry. And I'm going with one of my favorite films ever, and one most people have never even heard of: Kicking and Screaming.

It features the King and Queen of Indie, Eric Stoltz and Parker Posey, in supporting roles, but it's Chris Eigeman who really owns the film. As a recent graduate, aimless and adrift, he's hilarious (chastising himself in the mirror: "Hello, my friend, my little friend... you do nothing! Max Beaumont does nothing! 'Oh, Max, what do you do?' 'Oh... I do nothing.'"), and his character rings painfully true. He's never been better, and I've liked him in many, many things, including Whit Stillman's Metropolitan and Barcelona (which were an obvious influence on Noah Baumbach, writer/director of Kicking), and the TV shows Malcolm in the Middle and It's Like, You Know. (On Gilmore Girls -- not so much.)

Kicking and Screaming is definitely a comedy (Max to his new girlfriend, who is turning 17: "Wow, now you can read Seventeen magazine and get all the references"), but it creates such a poignant, nostalgic, regretful picture of college days -- all the missed opportunities you can't stop thinking about, your classes, your major, your romances -- as well as the time immediately following graduation, in which you realize your life has really just begun, and you're still not prepared for it, that it's tough for me to watch it very often. It's funny, but it's also filled with heartbreak, both romantic and otherwise. It's very similar to Fandango in that way for me. (There's another great but overlooked film you should all see, by the way.)

Also, like Fandango, I can't listen to the film's closing song in the same way anymore. In Fandango, it's Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home" that plays over the credits; in Kicking, it's Freedy Johnston's "Bad Reputation." It's impossible for me to hear those songs without thinking of their respective films, and feeling a little of the sadness that came at the end of each.

Noah Baumbach definitely peaked with this, his first film. It's been years since his last project (which, frankly, was awful); his next one, The Squid and the Whale, is scheduled for production this year, and I sincerely hope it's better than his last couple. But he really hit it out of the park on Kicking and Screaming. Check it out if you remember college, if you remember your first love, if you remember what it's like being "romantically self-destructive," as two characters decide to be in this film. For whatever reason -- even if it's only so that I know one more person who's seen the damn film -- check it out.