the audience applauded

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Afterschool is an ingenious voyeur's study on voyeurism. Kids today devour video toxic waste unguided and with no way to digest the daily dose of random clips that are void of any meaning or purpose, but are still irresistibly taboo.With its overstimulated emotional shut down and pathetic sentiment throughout, the film is confusing and has no cohesive story, all by design. The amateur documentary effects suck. And are also intentional. Afterschool does make a statement. With multi-dimensional accuracy.But as much as I admire its genius, I didn't like watching this movie. I would only recommend it to parenting intellectuals.

This film scares me. Not that there is anything scary in the film, it is far too boring and slow to be scary. It's pace leaves you wondering who is retarded.It is about two bored uninspired, possibly demented high-school underclass students making a documentary. The film is shot as if it is also their documentary, and it's overall quality reflects this. Maybe this is the films only achievement to me. Not the quality of the filming but the overall quality.Now what scares me? That some people found a level of inspiration or quality to rate it so highly, my three is a sympathy vote.My recommendation?, unless you are really into slow, boring, weird stuff, look further.

"...but I can safely say that's probably the worst thing I've ever seen. You didn't even have music!"Well, I AM an editor, and I couldn't agree more about this whole mess. Honestly, they really should teach film school kids not to sum up their worst critiques by themselves, and then stop them when they want to put said review in their s*****y film, making sure to underline it in case we forgot.It boggles my mind how smart, sensitive people who claim to love cinema can love (I mean really love, not just begrudgingly respect) Stanley Kubrick. But to start orally fellating a 24 year-old kid who is so overtly ripping off an overused - and frankly highly questionable - aesthetic to no apparent end, is really beyond me."Afterschool" takes a brilliant title and (unfortunately) a barely engaging or interesting concept (at best), and then goes to great pains to make you not care. "We're all becoming more and more disconnected from each other, our feelings, and our humanity in this new digital age." No f***ing s**t, Sherlock. Fortune cookies have more insight.Campos obviously loves what he's doing (and by that I mean he loves pointing out that life is a hollow, static, arid, poorly-framed affair). And while I applaud a filmmaker who cares more about a visual experience than he does a (in this case almost non-existent) script (what with that terribly embarrassing thesis and all), any artist still has to maintain a modicum of humanity - especially when he's decrying the zeitgeist for lacking the very same. Not to mention that most of the visuals in this piece have (it's been pointed out) been done many times before, by people far more with-it.This dreary, pedantic tripe needs to be ridiculed, for Campos' sake, if not for our own. For shame.

I am going to take you to "Afterschool"!!! OK, maybe after reading my pun-infested movie review, you might think of it more as puntention (I mean detention), and think that I have no class. But please just swim with these school of puns for a little while. "Afterschool" is a dark, quirky and semi-interesting film about an isolated prep-school teen named Rob who witnesses fatal drug overdoses of preppie female twins while working on an audio/visual school club project. Therefore, he is able to gather video footage of the twins' deaths. Rob is traumatized from the experience, and has difficulty coping with it. Rob's roommate is Dave, a cocky & arrogant bully who manipulates Rob on a daily basis and may or may not had a hand in the cause of the twin overdoses. Mr. Burke is the school director who is more concerned about the image of the school and its funders then of the ordeals and stress that teenagers go through. Amy is Rob's student partner in the audio-visual club and this Amy might be aiming for some Roboco**. Writer-Director Antonio Campos did develop an intriguing narrative on teenage angst, trauma, and insecurity; however, the immensely slow pace was more of an afterschool exercise of futility. Hey, I am down with slow pacing films, but Campos was too much of a "campesino" on the doldrums that hamper a slow-paced movie. His scribe was not a screenplayer valedictorian classic, but it did warrant a passing grade. I would not say it is Hollywood Miller Time yet for this young actor, but Ezra Miller's starring performance as Rob was a credible one even though it was a bit too monotone for my taste. Michael Stuhlbarg, of "A Serious Man", was superb as the self-centered school director Mr. Burke; Stuhlbarg is one seriously good actor that will probably garner a few Oscar nominations in his future. The rest of the supporting acting of "Afterschool", primarily comprised of teen actors, is not really worth mentioning, it's a D=Needs Improvement in my gradebook. "Afterschool" does barely make the grade, but it does not graduate itself to teenage movie genre superiority. *** Average