GHOST WORLD (2001)

Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) have just graduated from high school. Enid discovers that her diploma is only awarded on the condition that she attends a remedial art class. She is a talented artist, but her teacher - Roberta - believes art must be socially meaningful and Enid's sketches are dismissed by her as, ‘light entertainment’.

While in a diner, the girls see a personal ad in which a lonely man named Seymour (Steve Buscemi - Mr Pink in RESERVOIR DOGS) asks a woman he met recently to contact him. For a prank, Enid phones up Seymour, pretending to be the woman and invites him to meet her at the diner - and when he goes there, the two girls secretly watch and make fun of him.

Enid, however, begins to feel sorry for him, so a few days later they follow him to where he lives - where they find him selling old vinyl records in a garage sale. Enid buys an old blues album from him.

She and Seymour become friends, and Enid tries to find women for him to date, she becomes interested in blues music (because of the record - which she plays constantly, especially one track in particular). She also at one point, for no apparent reason, becomes a punk rocker and dyes her hair green and pogoes around her bedroom to the Buzzcocks!

Meanwhile, she attends her art class. In order to please Roberta, Enid persuades Seymour to lend her an old poster depicting a grotesque caricature of a black man, which was once used as a promotion by a fried-chicken franchise - where Seymour works. In class, she presents the poster as a social comment on racism, and Roberta is so impressed with the concept that she later offers Enid a scholarship to an art college.

So Enid spends more time with Seymour, until he becomes involved with Dana - who is the woman he had written to in the personal ad - which Enid has encouraged him with, but then she becomes jealous when he spends more time with Dana and doesn’t want to spend as much time with her.

The rest of the film is these characters dealing with all this and what happens to their relationships and friendships as a result.

Thora Birch, who is always good to watch - see her also in AMERICAN BEAUTY and in the UK film, THE HOLE - is great in this, and there are some very funny moments due to her quirky character.  Steve Buscemi is also good as the shy, awkward record collector. 

GARDEN STATE (2004)

What better place to start than this, which was on CH4 on TV recently, which has “Cult” written all over it and not “Balls” on its forehead as the main character Large (played by Zack Braff - he of Scrubs fame - who also wrote and directed it) has the morning after a party in the film! Haha.

Andrew “Large” Largeman (Zack Braff) returns home to New Jersey an actor famous for his portrayal of a retarded quarterback - it transpires - after recieveing a telephone message from his father (Ian Holm) informing him that his mother has just died.

At the funeral the gravediggers turn out to be old friends of his, Mark and Dave. They invite him to a party that night, where he meets another old friend, Jesse, who has apparently has just earned a fortune after creating silent Velcro!

The morning after the party, Large attends an appointment at a doctor's for headaches he’s been having. While in the waiting room he meets a girl named Sam (Natalie Portman - she of BLACK SWAN fame, just recently) who turns out to be a pathological liar.

In Large's meeting with his doctor we discover that he has been on lithium and as well as antidepressants for his entire adult life, and has recently stopped taking them, and that his father, who is also his shrink is the one who put him on these medications.

After his appointment Large offers Sam a ride home in his sidecar, but she won’t get in the sidecar she has to be on the back of his bike. She invites him into her house, and Large meets her mother, and her black “brother”. Large tells Sam of his mother's death, as her hamster as just died also, and Sam becomes tearful and when questioned says it’s just so sad.

A relationship develops between Large and Sam, and there are some good comic moments and moving moments, but I won’t go into them all, save to tell you watch out for Large’s embarrassing encounter with a masturbating dog! Now, you just have to see it , don’t you? I mean, everyone loves a masturbating dog!