I watched Elephant last night. I would say I watched at least a third of the movie in fast forward. It sucked.

Near as I can tell, Gus Van Sant made this movie in order to be around very, very cute high school boys. Fine. I'm cool with that. But the least he could have done was take a page out of Victor Salva's book and actually hired one or two people who could act.

Very little dialogue, I would guess that all of it was improvised. The kids couldn't act and certainly shouldn't have been allowed to try improv. They had an annoying habit of looking at the camera. Special effects blew (usually when someone gets shot, there are entry and exit wounds. Not in this movie). Glacial pacing. Long, drawn out 'mood setting' shots of people walking down hallways or of clouds (after the third or fourth one, I started using the fast forward button). A gay shower scene that comes out of nowhere. Very little actual emotion.

This is the only Van Sant movie I've seen. I would like to rent a couple of his other ones (ones that he wrote and directed as well as ones that he only directed) to see if I hate him as a director or as a writer, or perhaps as both.