On the Horizon: The Wackness

Sony Pictures Classics presents The Wackness, a new comedy by writer/director Jonathan Levine.

The Wackness brings us all the way back to...1994, to a New York City undergoing an identity change with the arrival of street-sweeping mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Writer/Director Jonathan Levine, who graduated from high school that summer, frames his story around 18 year-old Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck), a dope-dealing dreamer whose closest confidant is a shrink, Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley), who's not only Luke's most loyal customer, but also the father of Luke's crush, Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby). The film is a dark coming-of-age comedy with one of the hottest soundtracks we've heard in recent years, featuring A Tribe Called Quest, The Notorious B.I.G., Method Man, Raekwon, KRS-One, and more.

Writes Levine on the official website for The Wackness: "Rap music, like New York itself, was at a very different place in '94. For me, that's what is so interesting about setting the movie 13 short years ago assessing those similarities and differences. When we take stock of this recent past, we have a more fully-realized understanding of the present."

Uh...yeah, whatever. Maybe I missed the philosophical underpinnings of the film, but I nonetheless understand why The Wackness won the Audience Award at Sundance 2008 earlier this year.

Pictured here with Peck, Thirlby (Snow Angels, Juno) and Kingsley are Mary-Kate Olsen, Method Man, and Aaron Yoo (recently in 21). Yes, this is the film in which Olsen and Kingsley infamously make out, and yes, this is the same Josh Peck who used to play characters called "Fat Boy" earlier in his career.

Check back here for my full review of The Wackness when it opens July 3rd.