It's Just Movies

— by RACHEL COYNE —

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but there are good reasons why some movies never make it any further than film festivals and wind up languishing, unwatched, on a studio’s shelf. Case in point: “Turning Green.”

The movie first premiered at the Cinevegas Film Festival in 2005. Then, for the next four years, it appeared at a few other festivals and was released on DVD in a couple select countries. And now, by the grace of New Films International, it’s getting a limited theatrical release in the U.S. So why the long and winding road to the theater? Well, I’m no expert, but my educated guess based on the trailer is that it’s just not a very good movie.

“Turning Green” is an Irish film that tells the story of an American-born morose and moody teenage boy who is sent to live with relatives in Ireland after the death of his mother. Hating Ireland and longing for a way to get back to the States, he starts a get-rich-quick scheme that involves covertly selling pornographic magazines to his classmates. Hilarity and growing pains, presumably, ensue.

While there are certainly worse moves in existence, what turns me off of “Turning Green” is that it doesn’t seem to offer any new spin on the overdone “brooding teen longs for a sense of home” genre. Plus the trailer is a whopping five minutes long. Any movie that feels it needs to take five minutes to entice an audience is definitely doing something wrong.

“Turning Green” invites you out for a pint (in select cities) on Oct. 30.

Follow Rachel Coyne on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TheOpinionatedB.