Don't tease me about my hobbies, I don't tease you about being an asshole.

Somehow I didn't really watch Scrubs for it's first few seasons, but I started watching it off and on this year and found I really enjoy it. Enjoying Zack Braff on the show, and hearing good things about his first movie effort, I was excited to go see Garden State.

And I wasn't disappointed. Garden State was a fun movie, although I must caution you that the trailers don't really capture the true mood of the film. The trailers just make it look quirky and funny, when in reality it's much more quirky and darkly serious. It's funny, but more as a way to take the edge off the seriousness. And I think it's only funny if you enjoy quirkiness and randomness, which is prevalent here.

There are times when it's a little over the top, sort of reveling in it's quirkiness. Overall I think it says that Zack Braff has a great career ahead of him in front and behind the camera. Making a movie this good on a tight budget on your first outing is rare. I look forward to his future efforts, where they'll perhaps be more polished.

This movie also adds to my frustration about the Star Wars prequels. Every time I see one of the actors from Star Wars in another movie actually doing a good job acting, it reminds me that all the main characters in Star Wars are excellent actors (there is abundant evidence for this, I might do a write up some time) they just get hamstrung by Lucas' total inability to direct actors and his crappy scripts. This rant came from Natalie Portman doing an excellent acting job in Garden State - I suspect as Episode three approaches in the next year rants like this will appear more and more.

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