4.39 - THE PERFECT SCORE (2004) & Aspiration

Our penultimate heist film is the 2004 teen movie THE PERFECT SCORE. We talk about how this film doesn’t take itself too seriously, and doesn’t deserve the panning it got from the critics, as well as the idea that this is a mash-up of the heist film genre with teen films about progress of various kinds.

Next Time The last movie in our heist season is the 2018 film WIDOWS.

Recent Media THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (2018): Mike Flanagan, Shirley Jackson, Michiel Huisman
THE NIGHT OF THE HOWLING BEAST (1975): Miguel Iglesias, Paul Naschy, Mercedes Molina

Recommendations
KNIVES OUT (2019): Rian Johnson, Daniel Craig, Chris Evans
THE BIG SHORT (2016): Adam McKay, Christian Bale, Steve Carell
CHEATS (2002): Andrew Gurland, Trevor Fehrman, Matthew Lawrence
SHE’S ALL THAT (1999): Robert Iscove, Freddie Prinze Jr., Rachel Leigh Cook
WESTWORLD (2016–): Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan, Evan Rachel Wood

Footnotes
Firstly, here’s the Rotten Tomatoes page of pretty harsh reviews! https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/perfect_score Rob talks early on about the ‘competency porn’ involved in many heist films; there’s more on that, here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CompetencePorn. In discussing Francesca’s novel at the end, and the character of Desmond throughout, metafiction comes up again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafiction. The ‘Hero’s Journey’ is something we’ve discussed before, but it deserves another mention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey. Finally, as we mention both films in the course of our discussion, here are links to our episodes on THE MATRIX and THE BREAKFAST CLUB: https://www.kaiju.fm/prestige/the-matrix-and-spectacle and https://www.kaiju.fm/prestige/4-21-the-breakfast-club-1985-and-endings-or-not.

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