SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Kenyae Kofi I just finished watching the Wackness and I did enjoy the movie to a certain extent. It was basically a movie I could watch and sit through because of the plot points, but the movie basically should have been a porno with all the sex scenes it has. Josh Peck did a very good job on his acting skills and it was very different to see Josh Peck play a serious character. I want to see Josh Peck in more movies where he plays the serious character instead of the clumsy loser character he used to play on Drake and Josh. I think that the character of Luke was very intense and shows a lot about the life of a drug dealer suffering to make a change in his own life, and it was actually kind of surprising his own therapist bought drugs from his client. I thought it was a tear jerker on certain parts of the movie. I laughed a lot in this movie and really think this movie has nothing but drugs and sex. Basically Sex, Drugs, Eat, Repeat on this movie.

Movie_Muse_Reviews Coming-of-age stories come in all forms, though one would expect a New York City drug dealer at the height of hip-hop in the mid '90s to have already experienced a loss of innocence. For Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck), however, dealing pot is just a summer job, and for all his street cred, he's a lonely dude unexperienced in the ways of love.Jonathan Levine's "The Wackness" tells that typical story of a last summer before college, but clichés don't run wild thanks to a re-calibrated the moral compass. Something's off with each of his three main characters; they're not the most likable or at the least morally sound, which provides a challenge for the actors in terms of generating sympathy.Sir Ben Kingsley seems to really enjoy that challenge. He plays Dr. Squires, Luke's shrink whom Luke pays in pot. Unconventional doesn't quite describe Squires; everything about Kingsley's performance feels unpredictable and spontaneous, but deeply rooted in a mid-life crisis. He projects a desire to be in Luke's place in the way he offers advice, which sometimes is misguided and sometimes spot-on. Both, however, share loneliness at different stages in life and therefore become friends.As much as Dr. Squires urges Luke to sow his oats, however, he also wants Luke to stay away from his step daughter Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby) for unclear but certainly hypocritical reasons. A popular girl with inattentive parents, Stephanie's well-versed in many things, including boys, but she takes interest in Luke's charms. Their relationship doesn't necessarily feel right in the fairy tale sense, but it does feel true-to-life because more often than not, there's a discrepancy in the amount of life experience two people have, especially at 18.This dictates the essence of Levine's message, though one wrapped in a complicated shell built of excessive drug use and morally misguided activities. For Levine, coming of age is about accumulating experience, both positive and negative, the "dopeness" and the "wackness" as Stephanie tells Luke. The challenge is finding the right perspective, not unlike the perspective with which we need to view some of the characters and their questionable activities in order to appreciate the film.~Steven CVisit my site at http://moviemusereviews.com

Steve Pulaski The Wackness is anything but wack. Our protagonist is the coolest kid on the block, as he deals enough weed to supply a month's Woodstock and becomes attached to his psychiatrist whom is also a customer of his. This is a very artsy indie film that can be listed under drama, melodrama, comedy, quirky, witty, and even coming of age.Josh Peck, the once chubby Drake & Josh star, has now evened out and is all grown up as he drops frequent f-bombs and drifted from his Nickelodeon character as far as possible. He plays Luke Shapiro, an outcast in 1994 New York City, who sells marijuana to the town to support his financially challenged family. His counselor he frequents named Dr. Jeffery Squires (Kingsley) is a soft-spoken pothead who gives Luke the oddball advice, and doesn't follow the counselor handbook very well. Luke becomes attracted to Stephanie (Thrilby) who he learns is Dr. Squires' stepdaughter. The two start hanging out, sharing secrets, and well, connecting.Luke enjoys making mixtapes on the outdated, but retro audio cassettes for his counselor and Stephanie. The music, which is composed of mainly Nas, Notorious B.I.G., and Wu Tang Clan hip hop songs, is a huge part of The Wackness. The music sort of parallels with the film because many of the songs "speak" to the film and explain what it doesn't, if that makes any sense.Ben Kingsley and Josh Peck could very well be one of the best duos in any film released in 2008. Their chemistry is formed from drugs and each other's unique way of giving advice. Luke's sense of love and compassion for others is formed from Stephanie's way of broadening his horizons to the world of attraction.Right off the bat, Luke acts like the "everythings-cool-don't-mind-me-homeboy" kind of kid, when really, he is shy and just as scared as we all are of the world. Still, he never comes off as ignorant or heartless in the film. He is one of the few protagonists I really rooted for by the end of the film. And I doubt it was because I was a fan of the Nickelodeon show Josh Peck was apart of.The Wackness is definitely an art-house film, but it shouldn't have been. It should've been released way more mainstream. It is one of the most important coming of age films next to 2010's Flipped. It's like a sponge-cake where the cake is made up of serious drama, and the icing is made up of quirkiness. Word.Starring: Ben Kingsley, Josh Peck, Olivia Thrilby, Famke Janssen, Method Man, and Mary-Kate Olsen. Directed by: Jonathan Levine.

jimmy-256 I watched this movie because I needed to get my mind off my painful hemorrhoids. Sure enough, I forgot about my roids because I was too busy trying to put my eyeballs back in their sockets after gouging them out with a Big Gulp straw. That's how bad this movie is. I am not kidding. I looked around the theater (after managing to pop my peepers back in) and saw that no less than 64 people were also struggling with their gouged eyeballs. The other 12 had hung themselves with twizzlers. One kid seemed to be enjoying the movie, but he also seemed to be enjoying his booger collection, so maybe the question you must ask yourselves before paying to see this movie is, do you enjoy booger collections? Well, do you?