[Screwston]

Anyone seen this?

Quote:

Set against the bright lights of Manhattan, a tale which takes a comic, urbane look at the modern male ego at war in the singles scene trenches. Roger Swanson is a hopelessly cynical advertising copywriter with a razor-sharp wit who believes he has mastered the art of manipulating women. But Roger's seemingly foolproof world of smooth talk and casual sex begins to unravel when he is paid a surprise visit by his teenager nephew, Nick. Hoping to settle, once and for all, the issue of his virginity, Nick begs Roger to school him in the art of seducing women. Welcoming the challenge, Roger guides Nick through the city's wild nightlife for an all-night crash course, only to realize that he--the adult--still has something to learn about what women, and men, really want.

[renotime]

Saw it a few years back. From what I recall the main character was hung up on some old hag and fairly self loathing.

It's sort of a poor man's Shame. It's also fairly slow.


I'd rate it 3 out of 4 stars.

[Drazen]

I only watch until the bar scene.

[Blackhawk]

Poorly edited, poorly shot, everything's too dark, acting levels varied widely. I suppose the Uncle is brave for playing a thoroughly unlikeable character, but he was so successful at being unlikeable, I abandoned it from boredom. I also found it more concerned with reassuring its (prole, suburban) audience that PUAs are soulless unlikeable assholes who can only trick women into liking them for a few moments by hiding who they are, than dispensing game advice.

If you want to learn how to do a cheap-ass budget film at the expense of being watchable or likeable, the director's track is useful. If you want to learn game, look elsewhere. You'll spend too much time filtering out the crap for too few wisdom nuggets, with the work far outweighing the results obtained.

[LeBeau]

I watched it once, didn't see any need to watch it again. Definitely better at the beginning, but gets absurd at times.

I actually just posted about it with a relevant clip in this thread:

http://www.rooshvforum.network/thread-23758.html

[Basil Ransom]

I enjoyed it. Some would say Campbell Scot's character is unlikable. He's a misanthropic truth-teller with a dark, caustic sense of humor. And some of the dialogue is very sharp - I love talky movies with great dialogue, and this one has its moments. It's more a movie of social commentary than one about game.

Here's a favorite clip of mine. Sounds a little like Roissy without the cocky smirk.

Quote:

Saw it a few years back. From what I recall the main character was hung up on some old hag and fairly self loathing.

Kinda forgot about that part. Yeah, that detracted from the movie.

[Days of Broken Arrows]

I just watched it. The main thing I took away from it is that by 2002, when this film was made, the idea of a pick-up artist/mentor had become overwhelmingly dark and negative to Hollywood.

Back in the 1980s, there were similar films like "Hardbodies," "The Malibu Bikini Shop," "The Pick-Up Artist" and to a lesser degree "Can't Buy Me Love." In these films, the idea of picking up women was shown as fun and positive for both men and women. They had a jovial, sunshine-y feel.

So it says something that in 15 years the tone of such films would change and a male mentor would be shown as inherently disturbed and negative. What happened? The 1990s happened. Second wave feminism happened. The film shows the PUA as being markedly different from the ones in the '80s films who were out for young hotties. In "Roger Dodger," the main character is instead hung up on his older boss and obsessed with thinking about human biodiversity and male-female relations.

The upside is that people weren't buying it. The film was a flop (although it was a hit with critics, who love anything that shames maleness).

But I do see a bright side here. If a high school kid chances onto this film, odds are he'll get something positive out of it, despite the filmmaker's intent. Unwittingly, this film tells younger guys that the there is an alternative world out there when it comes to women than the usual romcom/soap opera BS.

Here is why, but a spoiler alert follows:

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Older people will see the larger issues in this film, but a teenager will see the following: a nerdy high school kid visits his uncle, gets to drink in bars, gets to hang with hot women, gets kissed by one of them and almost gets laid. By the end, he's found a mentor who has his back and gets the high school hottie to finally talk to him. Sure, the mentor might be screwed up, but without him, the kid would have still been alone building his grandfather's computer, completely unaware that he had options. Which is the better scenario?

[Acute Angle]

I saw this film years back and liked Roger's character, but I seem to remember that the two women resisted his game ('cos they're strong, independent women, ya see?). And the kid was told by them just to be himself. Didn't he nearly lose his v-card to a hooker, arranged by Roger? Anyway, it presented a negative image of game, as far as I recall.

[EasyMoney]

I liked this movie when I saw it years ago mainly for the dialogue. I remember watching it with a female spinster friend of my family and she went on a diatribe about how much the lead actors character hates women and blah blah blah. I know she was getting gina tingles though.