Teenage Cocktail (2016)

Annie Fenton (Nichole Bloom) is a new student at school. She gets into trouble with the other girls and is befriended by dancer Jules Rae (Fabianne Therese). They begin a relationship. Jules introduces Annie into the world of cam girl.This is basically a Lifetime cautionary movie of the week troubled teens movie. The two leads are great although they're probably not teens. That's not a big deal. The tension is never that high. The drama is running at a lower gear which is not a good thing for this movie. There is one scene where I have real problems. I don't know who Tom is to Annie. He's either a step-dad or dad-dad. It makes a difference. I don't understand his action and he needs to be set up better. It's lazy story telling. There is a bit of that in this movie. Outside of the girls and Annie's mom, the other characters are nebulous and they aren't set up well. Then there is the crazy ending which doesn't fit the rest of the movie. A shootout in this type of movie seems to be a cop-out.

I understand it's a low budget film and I have NO issue with that, but the audio editing is GOD AWFUL and almost unbearable. I don't need to hear people chewing and munching and crunching non stop throughout the film. And there are MANY of these scenes. Why are the chewing and clinging sounds of spoons on plates at the dinner table ENHANCED to the same level as the dialogue, music etc? There is one note of audio through-out the film. From every creak of furniture to gulping of water, sniffing, scratching of pants, breathing, and just all types of unpleasant everyday audibles that DO NOT need to be enhanced on film...unless there is a purpose to it. This just felt like lazy audio editing.When it got to a scene where she was eating chips, i literally had to fast forward it a bit which was frustrating to do. I was seriously getting aggravated, I don't usually have such low tolerance for many films, but this one triggered me. This might seem like I'm making a LOT out of nothing, but these details are important and can make or break a film in many ways. The lead girl was also extremely agitating in her mannerisms and passive aggressive stupidity and naivety. She was not likeable in any way shape or form. I felt NO sympathy for her. That in and of itself does not make a film bad because that could (and I'm assuming was) done intentionally, but the overall combination of unlikable and downright irritating characters topped off with the infuriating sound effects made this a crappy film experience for me.

I try to give some independent films a chance, but 99% of the time they are just bad. This is no exception. The acting is bad. The writing is bad and the direction is bad.First, the actress playing the lead's mother is actually only 10 years older than the lead actress. What on earth were the director thinking? Actor playing the dad is 14 years older. Really? And the problem is, they look those ages and the director made zero attempt to age them in any way.Can we stop having 30 year old actresses play 16-18 year old? it is a frequent occurrence in too many films.Actors tend to overdo everything so it is up to the director to bring them down a few notches. There was no real initial reason for Annie's fascination with Jules. Seeing her dance for 5 seconds? Going to New York, why? Because the local waitress used to go to their high school...Stealing mints? What? Are there any films left based in reality? the money looked so fake and why do they have cash if it's online payments? Made ZERO sense.The writing is unimaginative and wooden. Didn't keep my interest for more than 40 minutes. It was painful. Please don't let the director make any more films...

Nichole Bloom and Fabianne Therese play two high school students who fall in love with each other and decide to run away to NYC to escape their extremely horrible lives (i.e. they live in nice houses in nice, safe neighborhoods; have parents who provide for them and care for them (for the most part); go to school where the only bad thing that is shown is a shoving match between Bloom and a bully; and they are given the freedom to go out and stay out late). Given these horrors that these two girls experience every day, it's no wonder they seek the comforts of a big city.Not being completely stupid, Bloom and Therese realize they need money to make their big escape come true. And that's where webcam sex comes in. The money comes in slow but steady, but not fast enough for the teens. So they decide to prostitute themselves for one really horny guy who can afford it. And that's where things go really bad really fast. **SPOILER ALERT**The surprising thing is — and kudos to the screenwriters on this one specific thing — it's mostly the girls' fault that their situation quickly spirals out of control.My most memorable, movie moment of "Teenage Cocktail" is the scene when the father of Bloom's character finds out that his daughter does webcam sex for money. He is shocked, of course; but when he has a chance to confront his daughter, he just shuts up and quietly goes out of his daughter's room. This dude needs to go out in the ocean and swim with the jellyfish, because he's as spineless as they are."Teenage Cocktail" has the basic elements that could have turned the movie into a very compelling commentary on some of the dangerous situations teens can get themselves in. But the script — which felt like it needed a few more drafts to get all the stupidity out — is the weak link of this project, bringing the movie down to the level of mediocrity.Mannysmemorablemoviemoments