Paranoid Park is not that bad of a movie. "Not that bad" is a relative term, of course, and I use it mostly in comparison to Gus Van Sant's Elephant, which is god-awful. Both movies are dumb, but Paranoid Park has these moments where it becomes a skate video, almost, contextualizing it's stupidity. The dumbest moments of Elephant were where it pretended to be somehow insightful, whether in patronizing satire or in scenes of future school shooters making out in a shower. This isn't to say that Paranoid Park is good, just that the subject matter is chosen well enough for what the director cares about to not be really egregious and ill-chosen.

Did I ever blog about how The Great Silence is a pretty good film? The spaghetti western starring Klaus Kinski, directed by Sergio Corbucci in 1968? It was recommended to me, on a message board, ages ago by someone who I tended to argue with over film but who I gave credit to for being intellectually engaged. He was on the money about The Great Silence though.