MOVIE REVIEW: BEWARE THE GONZO

There have been plenty of movies made about the power of newspapers, but the new indie comedy Beware the Gonzo isn't the next Newsies or Citizen Kane...and that's a good thing.

Instead, this film (which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival this winter) is a fresh 21st-century take on the power of print and the ways in which a simple news story (or in many cases, a blog post), can go seriously wrong at the click of a mouse.

Ezra Miller is Eddie "Gonzo" Gilman, an ambitious wannabe journalist who gets fired from his highschool paper by the douchey editor Gavin Riley (played by Jesse McCartney) for his do-gooder stories. Instead of just sucking it up, Gonzo recruits his band of outsiders, including the gorgeous Evie (Zoe Kravitz) and takes matters into his own hands with a DIY underground paper and website. Part gossip tabloid and pursuer of justice, the paper starts out as an outlet for the underdogs, but quickly morphs out of anyone's control.

The plot may contain those typical teen movie cliches, like when Gonzo (shocker!) develops a crush on Evie, or with recurring themes such as social pressure and college drama.

But don't worry, it's not total deja-vu. Beware the Gonzo stands out with witty dialogue and characters that allude to other high school classics like Rushmore, Election, and The Breakfast Club, making it a little bit old, a little bit new, a whole lot of fun.

Watch it on iTunes, Amazon, or VOD starting August 25.