“You just have this really shitty way of looking at things, you know.  I don’t have that problem, I just look at the dopeness.  But you it’s like just you look at the wackness.”

It’s rare when you find a film that you know will become a part of you for the rest of your life.  The Wackness is one such film.  I was lucky enough to see this in CineVegas and I am already proclaiming it as “The Greatest Movie Of 2008.”

There are no “bears” in the film, and Josh Peck did not grow up to become a chubby bear or anything; in fact, he has gotten slimmer and now possesses an almost Edward Norton-handsomeness to him.  So why am I posting about it?

You’ll notice that I tend to reminisce a lot in this blog.  I talk about the mid-’80s to mid-’90s a lot because that was the most influential time of my life.  Everything in this film spoke to me in levels that I’m still trying to sort out.  Sometimes, a specific line from a film can pretty much tell you if it will interest you or not:

“I got mad love for you, shorty.  That’s on the real.  I like — I wanna like listen to Boyz II Men when I’m with you.”

Even the trailers don’t do the film justice.  I’m just hoping that this gem of a film doesn’t get lost in this summer of blockbuster movies.

Just trust me on this, it’s an honest-to-goodness heartwrenching yet uplifting coming-of-age story that you will never forget.  Check out CHUD’s Devin Faraci’s review of it when he saw it at Sundance.