Eagle v Shark

It's a lovely movie, best word I can think of to describe it - whimsical.

Geek love is usually pretty painful to watch, and this movie is no exception. But the leads are convincing, particularly Lauren (Shark) - her's is a wonderful performance. Jermaine (of Flight of the Conchords fame) is Eagle, a geekboy set on revenge against a high school nemesis. Love doesn't so much blossum, as well, stagger.

Now NZ movies do tend to have a large level of insecurity (we ain't good enough to compete) - although thats kinda disappeared since LotR, and generally are disturbing (good example: In My Fathers Den). Cultural cringe pops up too. This movie has none of those. These definitely geek cringe, but I didn't notice any cultural cringe.

Most reviews I've seen have compared it to Napolean dynamite. That's doing Eagle v Shark a disservice. EvS is a love story, ND wasn't. EvS is character driven and focussed, ND is largely situation based. I also got the vibe that there was far more caring of each other by the characters in EvS. All of which makes it an entirely different movie. there's also some nice quirks, the revenge scene itself is a good example.

The Blonde didn't like ND but liked EvS, and Suz (with whom I went) thoroughly enjoyed EvS as well. It has to be said she's a movie slut too...
Nice quirky soundtrack by The Phoenix Foundation and many of their various offshoots. Worth a spin, but would have been better if they'd used a few *other* bits from the album!

Summary: go see it. Good date movie that won't make you want to scream...

Love, B