Radio Rebel (2012)/Teen Spirit (2011/Image/ABC Family DVDs)/Tomboy (2011/Wolfe DVD)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+/C/C+     Extras: C-/D/C     Main Programs: C-/C-/C

 

 

Young female identity is always an issue in anything Hollywood or any other country’s film or TV work represents, especially since it is still mostly men who control production.  The Hollywood product is safer and in the hyper-commercial hands of ABC/Disney, it own literal Disneyland.  Then you have releases that can challenge this, even when they do not work.

 

 

First, we have two telefilms from ABC Family, very slightly, lightly amusing Peter Howitt’s Radio Rebel (2012) and even Gil Junger’s even more blatantly goofy and silly Teen Spirit (2011), which are fluff and typical of the formulaic ABC/Disney product.  In this world, adults act like young adults and young adults act like children, while children tend to be precocious, but even when there is a gay character (or gay-oriented), it is a world of people who have money.

 

This does not mean success, yet it is still a place where gender identity is defined as male and female with little in between and money is the answer to everything.  This is always phony, so when any of these cable telefilm productions are even tolerable, it is surprising.  Debby Ryan is the title character in Rebel, the safest rebel in TV movie history, though it is amusing that radio in the internet age could still be played as a threat, but that might be the point of doing this and conformists not worrying about it.

 

Her character Tara is “secretly” so as if we could not identify her voice, which is so bubbly and distinct that it would not take an FBI analyst to find out whom she really is.  I was not impressed otherwise, but found it to be a strange novelty and odd all around.  Young lady-safe enough, it is also a bore when it is not unintentionally amusing.  Skip it unless you are raising female children.

 

Extras include five featurettes, a (surprise.) Music Video, Blooper Reel (at least they were having fun) and Deleted Scenes.

 

 

Reality TV star Tim Gunn of Project Runway narrates as a guardian angel, Spirit, about as young lady (Cassie Scerbo) dying to be a Prom Queen, but she has competition and people who do not like her, popular and not so popular.  This is so phony and hokey that it is chock-full of clichés and is bad, but it is also a novelty release and sometimes bizarre, compounded that Chris Zylka of the new 3D Amazing Spider-Man film and many a teen TV project also shows up, cementing the vague curio interest of this telefilm.  However, nothing original is tried and it is a dud otherwise.  There are no extras.

 

 

That brings is to Céline Sciamma’s Tomboy (2011), also shot in HD but meant for the indie theatrical circuit, made in France about a young lady (Zoé Heran) who pretends to be a boy (ala Yentl, et al) when she moves to a suburb and to make it easier to fit in, but another young lady thinking she is a he starts to have puppy love for her and some chaos ensues.  This is the smartest of the three, the least pretentious and yet, it only says and does so much in its 82 minutes (tying Teen for the shortest of the three releases here) and should say and do much more.

 

I guess it is supposed to be a mood piece or make sensitive observations about human nature, but despite having some interesting ideas including if Laura will hide in her male identity and if and how this will affect her sexuality later, if at all, this does not go far or do much.  Even with a female director, I expected more and it just never seems to finish anything it starts.  You can see it for yourself, but this breaks no new ground and is just not as thorough or as interesting as it should have been for the ideas and possibilities here.  Now you can see for yourself.  A trailer and Behind The Scenes featurette are the only extras.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on all three releases are soft and have motion blur, though Spirit seems to be softer beyond style choices and despite having more money than Tomboy to work with.  The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on all three DVDs are about even and really are pushing what sounds like stereo recordings in all cases beyond what they should, further proven by Tomboy offering a lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix that is about on par with its 5.1 mix.  The Image/ABC DVDs also have their dialogue more in the center channel than I would have liked.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo