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| Project X (2012) |
Storyline
3 high school seniors throw a birthday party to make a name for themselves. As the night progresses, things spiral out of control as word of the party spreads.
Project X is a 2012 comedy film directed by Nima Nourizadeh in his feature film debut, written by Michael Bacall and Matt Drake based on a story by Bacall, and produced by The Hangover director Todd Phillips. The plot follows Thomas (Thomas Mann), Costa (Oliver Cooper) and J.B. (Jonathan Daniel Brown), three friends who plan to gain popularity by throwing a party, a plan which quickly escalates out of their control.
The title Project X was initially a placeholder for a final title, but interest generated by the secretive title resulted in it being kept. The film was cast through a nationwide open casting call to find people who never acted before or who had limited acting experience. The majority of the cast were sourced from this casting call, but a few with prior acting credits, such as Mann, were accepted after multiple auditions. Filming took place on sets entirely in Los Angeles, California over five weeks on a $12 million budget. The film is presented as a home video from the perspective of an attendee using a camera to document the night's events.
Project X was released in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom on March 2, 2012.
The film begins with a disclaimer from Warner Bros. "apologizing" to the citizens of North Pasadena.
Thomas (Thomas Mann) is turning seventeen, and his friends Costa (Oliver Cooper) and J.B. (Jonathan Daniel Brown) are planning to throw a huge birthday bash at Thomas' house, and to increase their popularity among their schoolmates. As Thomas' parents are going away for the weekend for their anniversary, Thomas' father lays down the rules, which include having a max of five people at their house, not to drive his expensive Mercedes, and no one is allowed in his office. Thomas is first reluctant to have the party at his house because of these rules, but Costa encourages him to have the party. Costa even hires AV-student Dax (Dax Flame), to record the events. Throughout their day at school, Costa and J.B. remind everyone about the party using text messaging and spreading it by word of mouth. Thomas also decides to invite Alexis (Alexis Knapp), the hottest girl at school. Thomas also talks to his best female friend Kirby (Kirby Bliss Blanton), whom he has a crush on.
As the trio plan for the party, Costa lures Thomas and J.B. to buy marijuana for the party from Trick (Rick Shapiro), a former soldier living in a dilapidated house. As T-Rick goes to get the weed for them, Costa steals a gnome displaying the middle finger and gives it to Dax to put in the car. As the three leave Trick's home, Trick discovers his gnome stolen, and chases them relentlessly as they escape in Thomas' mini van which he received as a gift from his parents, destroying the windshield in the process.
The party starts and only Thomas, Costa, J.B. and Kirby are at the house. Thomas worries that no one will come until suddenly, cars start pulling up in the neighborhood. The party becomes an instant hit as many people begin to show up. Thomas intended to limit the party to the backyard and the poolhouse, with the doors to the house locked, leaving the house accessible only to Thomas, Costa and J.B. The house was supposed to be guarded by two child security guards (Brady Hender and Nick Nervies). But as more and more people show up, the party gets moved into the house, which infuriates Thomas. Thomas begins questioning others at the party as to how they heard about the party, which leads to Costa revealing that he put out ads on Craigslist and on a local radio station to attract more people.
This is more or less when things go out of control. First, the gnome is smashed, and it contains large amounts of ecstasy, which everyone (including Thomas, Costa and J.B.) takes. The police show up, after a neighbor complains about the noise, but later leave as the party guests are quiet in the backyard, making them believe the party is over. Thomas makes out with Kirby, and reveals that he loves her. Later on, Alexis shows up to the party, and flirts with Thomas throughout the night, until she brings Thomas to his room to have sex. Kirby stops them, then runs off from the party. The noise and scope of the party causes televised news coverage; news helicopters fly over the house. In addition, a dwarf guest (Martin Klebba) drives Thomas' dad's Mercedes into the pool, after being put into an oven by other partygoers.
The police return, and are quickly overwhelmed by the party guests. They are forced to retreat and return with a SWAT team, which decides to let the party burn out before moving in. This goes well, until it is interrupted by Trick, who arrives with a flamethrower in an attempt to reclaim his already smashed gnome. Trick begins torching up trees around the neighborhood and cars parked on the road, ending the party. He is stopped by police who shoot his flamethrower pack. Trick takes cover inside a mobile home, which is destroyed by the exploding flamethrower. The trio (with no other option left since the house is destroyed), along with Dax, the two security guards and Milo, Thomas' dog, run away from the scene as many of the party attendees flee from the cops. The neighborhood is left in flames until fire department helicopters extinguish it.
They wake up on the bleachers of their high school, as the police and fire department helicopters continue to hover over the neighborhood. Costa lets the security guards go, but does not pay them because they did a "shit job" of watching the house. Knowing that he will have to take the blame for the party and the destruction to the neighborhood, Thomas lets Costa, J.B. and Dax leave. When his parents do come home, his father commends him for the party because he thought he was a loser, until hearing about how many people showed up to the party and what happened. His father punishes him by using Thomas' college funds to pay for the damages and making it Thomas' responsibility to pay for the rest of the damages.
The next day at school, Thomas, Costa and J.B. are cheered on by students for throwing an awesome party. Thomas is also able to rekindle his relationship with Kirby. In the epilogue, it is revealed that Thomas was convicted on six different charges, Costa was able to get an indictment on his charges because of his expensive lawyer, and J.B. got his charges dropped because his parents pleaded that he is a special needs person, which would make it difficult for the court to charge him. But because of this, he is forced to take the short bus every day to and from school. The film ends with Costa being interviewed by Jillian Reynolds, when he cordially invites everyone to his next party, which he promises will be better than his last.iew list of Most Popular Movies and Best Movies now. Subscribe & get Most Popular and Best Movies online. Most Popular Movies.
Cast
Thomas Mann as Thomas.
Mann had prior acting experience in the feature film It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010), and was told he could not audition for Project X because the producers wished to cast only people without acting credits. Mann ultimately had to audition seven times before he was given the role.
Oliver Cooper as Costa.
The film is Cooper's feature film debut. Costa's confident nature and backstory of being unwillingly moved to the film's setting of North Pasadena from Queens, New York was developed based on Cooper's auditions, where it was felt he gave the impression of being from New York City, despite originating from Ohio.
Jonathan Daniel Brown as J.B.
The film is the feature film debut of Brown, who was cast as part of a nationwide open casting call.Kirby Bliss Blanton as Kirby
Thomas' friend, who has an unrequited crush on Thomas.
Alexis Knapp as Alexis.A popular high school girl.Knapp's character required nudity, something with which she was initially uncomfortable, stating "I just had a lot of moral issues with it but I got over it and I heard that it’s not that revealing. So I’m relieved." Knapp described her character as a tomboy, and was given the opportunity to add to the role beyond the requirements of the script to move the character away from the usual "hot chick" archetype
Dax Flame as Dax.A friend of Costa's hired to chronicle the party.Flame came to the attention of the producers through his personal Youtube video blog.Describing his character, Flame stated "Because he’s holding the camera, my character doesn’t have a lot of screen time, but when he does, it’s very impactful."
The cast is rounded out by Miles Teller as college jock Miles; Martin Klebba as Angry Little Person, a party guest; Rick Shapiro as drug dealer TRick; Rob Evors as Rob, Thomas' neighbor; and Caitlin Dulany and Peter MacKenzie as Thomas' Mom and Dad respectively.Additional cast includes Nichole Bloom as J.B.'s girl; Brady Hender and Nick Nervies as Costa's party security; and Jesse Marco as the party DJ.Top Movie List, top movies of all time, most popular movies of all time. Shows top 100 movies as compiled by member ratings and movie lists.Most Popular Movies, also known as TimesPulse, calculates the most popular movies among NYTimes.com readers, based on the cumulative number of reviews read, movie details pages viewed and trailers accessed.
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