In a multiplex front-loaded with cheap jolts (
Vantage Point) and cheaper jokes (how psyched are you to see
College Road Trip?), filmmaker Gus Van Sant gives us a haunting tone poem laced with violent death. The setting is Portland, Oregon, where Van Sant lives and where Paranoid Park attracts the city's riskier skateboarders. Enter Alex, a teen boarder played with bruised innocence, and a face with dew still on it, by Gabe Nevins. At the park, Alex skates in a hypnotic, vaguely homoerotic haze