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Created Jun 15, 2013 03:04PM PST • Edited Jun 16, 2013 05:46AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Every once in a while you can get surprised in a movie theater and escape to times and places you don’t regularly access. This little effort does that and more, turning in one of the best performances of the year so far. Coming of age movies run the risk of becoming cookie-cutter and if this one was released forty years ago, it might have been also. But this is the 21st century and The Kings of Summer carves a new niche on forgotten ground. This movie is a prize for its timeliness, mainly allowing us to remember in the era of the female that boys, even those of European descent, become men.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   The cast as a whole turns in a surprisingly strong effort. They all become believable at some point even in their extremes, passing off as quirky. And it is refreshing to see a wave of new, young actors all inconspicuously assembled to extend a script that could have easily been declined by even the experienced actor. This movie has a Stand By Me feel to it with, in the era of ascendant women, a female in the fourth role.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

   We may look back and say this movie was Nick Robinson’s debut as a star in this role as Joe. He is 18 years old and has elements of greatness in him that should carry him a long way if the booze and the broads don’t slow him down. We all have been in the golf cart with the girl we desire, we all have a moment when we recognize what its like to hold that girl, and we all have a moment when you know who you are becoming. I don’t know if anyone among the great ones could have played this role as a 9th grader any better for those moments. A new destiny is born in Hollywood and it will materialize when young Nick pairs with Jennifer Lawrence repeatedly in the future.

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

   Erin Moriarty was that girl, to a tee. High School hallways have been flooded with Kelly for decades and we finally see one in the 21st century.

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

   Megan Mullally, Alison Brie and Mary Lynn Rajskub all turn in strong performances with Megan’s unspoken performance through body language and facial expressions especially in the elevator as a highlight. Similarly, Alison as Heather, Joe’s sister and Frank’s daughter has her moment getting into her car describing her father to her father.

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

   Gabriel Basso, Moises Arias, and Nick Offerman did well and Nick as Frank the Dad uttered some scripture of romance that has been forgotten in all our efforts of purpose and social justice for alternative lifestyles, “…she didn’t make me nervous, and she was supposed to…” Man that is rich these days. Gabriel as Patrick executes the classic betrayal and forgiveness behavior as well as it could play out, and simply wails as the son of annoying parents.

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    This movie is rewarded for the risks it takes and the details it includes. Hammers thrown at the door is an act that teenage boys are likely to do, seldom seen and rarely executed . The scenes in the field were a risk, most other directors would have stuck with spears and facial paint. And the inside of the refreshment golf cart looked as if one from a real country club was used. Little things like that not significant in and of themselves add up to paint some fine strokes to a unique but old story.

11. Direction Good 3.0

12. Play Good 3.0

13. Music Great 4.0

    Strangely, I may start listening to the radio again. The music of today is weird but not as superficial as we think our kids are.

14. Visuals Good 3.0

    Lousy snake, lousy house in the woods, but Joe’s house is a museum of the 99% and what’s left of their families.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.0

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

    as it should be

18. Violence Gentle 1.0

    I mean seriously, if it was anything other than what you would expect from 9th grade then bring in Spike Lee or Francis Ford Coppola to direct it.

19. Rudeness Polite 1.0

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0