AFI FEST Los Angeles International Film Festival 2009

In an unnamed city as deliberately banal as the action is outrageous, a loose circle—a cult, perhaps?—carries on with all sorts of crazed, indescribable games and antics. All but the youngest in this strange family wear rubber masks that both conceal their identity and transform them into theatrical creatures, frequently singing and chanting in a way that makes your bones rattle and give you nightmares. While the movies have always contained a powerful means to tap into the id, Harmony Korine’s TRASH HUMPERS does more than tap. Using an aging videotape camera, he drills down until there seems to be no bottom, no limit to the madness. Wait until the end, when one of the “creatures” expounds on their “superiority” to their faceless neighbors, and it becomes clear that Korine has made his most indelible film yet exploring the outskirts of American life. –Robert Koehler

This coming-of-age comedy puts a fresh and outrageous stamp on a tale of adolescent obsession and rebellion. Starring Michael Cera (SUPERBAD, the Oscar-winning JUNO) and based on the acclaimed novel by C.D. Payne, YOUTH IN REVOLT is the story of Nick Twisp—a distinctively affable teen with a taste for the finer things in life, including Sinatra and Fellini—who falls hopelessly in love with the beautiful, free-spirited Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday) while on a family vacation. But family, geography and jealous ex-lovers conspire to keep these two apart. Encouraged by Sheeni, Nick abandons his dull, predictable life and develops a rebellious alter ego: Francois. With his ascot, his moustache and his cigarette, Francois will stop at nothing to be with Sheeni, which leads Nick Twisp on a path of destruction with unpredictable and uproarious consequences.