Article: Portrait of the artist as a young poseur; "Art School Confidential" takes on love, hipsters and crime.(SCENE)(Movie review)

Byline: Colin Covert; Staff Writer

If "Art School Confidential" were an exhibition piece, it would be a collage of contrasting, clashing styles and tones. It begins as a rambunctious college comedy in the vein of "Animal House," digresses into a sharp-fanged satire of paint-smeared dilettantes, meanders into straight romance and winds up a murder mystery. It's a ruckus, veering from one picaresque episode to the next in its eagerness to debunk Hollywood cliches and art world stereotypes, but I prefer untidy novelty to paint-by-numbers storytelling any day. Bless this mess.

The characters are bitingly funny caricatures. The foreground figure is Jerome ...

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