Displaying items by tag: Noah Beck

SIDELINED 2: INTERCEPTION

US, 2024, 100 minutes, Colour.

Sienna Agudong, Noah Beck, Drew Ray Tanner, Charlie Gillespie, James van der Beek, Asia Lizardo, Jason Fernandes.

Directed by Justin Wu.

The screenplay is based on a Wattpad novel, the site where one can read and publish original material. This is a sequel to the original Sidelined: The QB and Me. And, for non-American or non-football fans, QB stands for Quarterback!

The films are aimed at young audiences in their mid to late teens, both male and female. It may not appeal to younger audiences for whom all this is to come. The first film was set in high school – and now the mood is to first year at college, the target audience still late teens. And, for those over high school and college age, they may feel they have got over this phase of their life. And, many times during the film, they may well be wanting to shout out at the characters that it’s time to grow up! (Actually, eventually, they even have to admit this themselves.)

This film presupposes the audience liking and understanding the two central characters, Drayton and Dallas. The two actors established themselves persuasively in the first film. However, this film spends a lot of time showing Drayton with his football team, the coach and his demands, practice, an injury, the young female medico who helps him recover – and suggestions of a possible romantic attraction. And, his football hero severe father, James van der Beek, is also present.

And the film spends a lot of time with Dallas and her dancing, possibilities, encouragement, memories of her dancing mother, the possibility of scholarships but the need to take on the job to raise money – and at a diner, a very pleasant character, Skylar (Charlie Gillespie) who employs her, is a singer, encourages her, more or less falls in love with her but her not noticing, especially at a party where he sings a song for her birthday and she goes on the phone with her boyfriend.

The issue is distance. The other issue is focusing on specialisations, football and dancing, the absences, the emotional demands, breaking off, good advice from friends and elders, and reconciliation as well as great success in both football and dancing and the fans who have been praising of the first film and this one, will be expecting the next instalment.

SIDELINED: THE QB AND ME

US, 2024, 99 minutes, Colour.

Sienna Agudong, Noah Beck, Drew Ray Tanner, James van der Beek, Deborah Cox, Asia Lizardo, Jason Fernandes.

Directed by Justin Wu.

The screenplay is based on a Wattpad novel, the site where one can read and publish original material. And, for non-American or non-football fans, caps QB stands for Quarterback!

This is a film aimed at young audiences in their mid to late teens, both male and female. It may not appeal to younger audiences for whom all this is to come. And, for those over high school age, they may feel they have got over this phase of their life.

The film is quite a pleasant experience for the target audience. The setting is High School, a young student, Dallas (Siena Agudong is in her final school year, needing points and a good report to go for a dancing audition for the California arts institution. Her mother, a talented dancer, and her father have been killed in an accident. She lives with her brother who is in a assistant coach at the school. She is very close to her best friend, Gabby.

The other central character is the high school jock, talented football player, Drayton (Noah Beck), attractive to all the girls, plenty of friends, from a very rich family, James van der Beek playing his father who insists on his carrying on the high school tradition of the family going to Waco to play football. Later it is revealed there is a family tragedy, Drayton’s twin sister, aged eight, wandering off at a picnic, never seen again. There are issues, of course, of responsibility and feelings of guilt.

In the first class, the conversations about Romeo and Juliet and its being tragic – but, any Shakespeare comparison with this film would be Much Ado about nothing, the clash between the two central characters, situations in which they find themselves, she keeping to herself and resenting him, he attracted to her…

The situations are predictable enough. Her dance teacher tells her she is in her head not experiencing feelings, there is an episode where Dallas and Drayton are urged by the coach to spontaneously respond to each other in dance and movement. She agrees to go to a party with Gabby, drinks, is caught in the situation at Creighton’s house. And they are suspended by the principal for misbehaviour in going to the party.

Drayton comes to the rescue by inviting Dallas to go to California with him during the suspension, she is in admiration of the dancers, he has an interview with the local football coaches.

At a birthday party, a blowup, severity from Drayton’s father, leading to some kind of frank talk and reconciliation, Dallas, on the other hand, secluded, preoccupied with the dance, snapping Gabby, but going to the audition and succeeding.

Final reconciliation is all round, Dallas going to California to dance, and, Drayton not telling her, turning up because of his contract with USC.

All the ingredients for mid and later teenagers to respond to.