Review: 'Knock Knock'
Are scary movies at their scariest when they force audiences to confront what morality-bending temptations they may be capable of succumbing to, and what cruelties they may be capable of inflicting onto others? Eli Roth asks this question in his latest hostage-torture movie, Knock Knock, starring Keanu Reeves, Lorenza Izzo, and Ana De Armas.
Hot off of the director's other most recent release, the Amazon jungle-set prisoner-torture movie The Green Inferno, Roth exchanges dismembering human bodies for the intricacies of dissecting human psychology, and the devastating, pain-inducing, consequences of acting upon seduction. Roth sexes up this midnight flick to a very smoldering degree with his pair of mysterious femme fetales, and while it attempts to provoke with interesting thoughts on the subjects of faithfulness and temptation, the result is a dull time on a lifeless effort.
Keanu Reeves plays Evan Webber, a work-from-home architect and family man whose wife and kids jaunt out of town to mom's latest art showing (of all days, on Father's Day weekend). Reeves as Evan lends his trademark calm, cool, and comically collected self to the role, even when we see his faintest frustrations of having last been intimate with his exhaustively busy wife. Reeves offers some so-bad-they're-good line readings, including the use of a monster voice to scare off his children when interrupting "adult time," perhaps hinting at the monster that lies in him (and all men?). All of this sets up the family leaving him alone with the family dog, a glass of wine, and rock music vinyl from his earlier DJ years, and the fateful pair of knocks that come from the door on a night of torrential rain.
'Knock Knock', like 'Funny Games' before it, offers the uneasy thrills of home invasion hostage, with the added attempt of a morally compelling story line to keep the thing moving forward.
Here, Evan is the placeholder for all of us, a surrogate character of a mildly unfulfilled person, who seems to hit a karmic jackpot in the arrival of two rain-soaked and scantily clad sexy strangers, Genesis (Lorenza Izzo) and Bel (Ana de Armas). Their cliche helplessness, lost on their way to a party with dead phones and sopping wet clothes, only trigger Evan's nice-guy nature to bring them in and call them an Uber, en route from 45 minutes away. What follows is a cat and mouse effort led by the two bubbly young gals, poking, prodding, and all the while flirting with an ever-more uncomfortable Evan, who remains diligent and disciplined in not accepting their obvious advances–until, that is–he discovers the young ladies bare in his bathtub. Try as hard as he might, self-control loses out, and Evan and his new friends indulge in the unexpected but ultimately much-welcomed fantasy.
This is about as far as the titillation and urgency goes, until this first climax, of sorts. Even in Knock Knock's reveal, how Genesis and Bel turn out to be more than something of an inconvenience–at first only overstaying their welcome with fixing an absurd amount of breakfast, to which a regretful Evan drives them back to their supposed house in the harsh light of day–then returning the next night to invade his home, tie him up, and hold him hostage while they choose to torture a man who had innocently enough, fallen right into their trap of luring married men to their fates.
Knock Knock, like Funny Games before it, offers the uneasy thrills of home invasion hostage, with the added attempt of a morally compelling story line to keep the thing moving forward. Unfortunately, the result falls flat, as the second and third acts feel like mostly retread territory of the ground that had been laid before it. Keanu as Evan takes an interesting turn as the victim role, but his parody-ready acting here makes the whole thing an even more eye-rolling endeavor. Oddly enough, this seems to make Knock Knock more enjoyable–and for a movie that feels almost insufferable to stand, it is much-needed relief.
Knock Knock opens in theaters today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vGZWY5MFY0
Review: 'The Green Inferno'
If simple "political correctness" counts among the things that offend you, then director Eli Roth's latest midnight horror flick, The Green Inferno, a highly graphic gross-out side-show depicting a savage tribe dismemberment and cannibalism of youthful American high school students, may not be for you.
Set largely in the Amazonian jungle (which the film shoots impressively on location), The Green Inferno follows a group of collegiate activists aimed to protest human rights infractions by faceless, "evil," oil companies. Among them is beautiful and recently inspired Justine (Lorenza Izzo), an undergrad whose father serves as a United Nations heavy-weight, and who joins a protest group that shortly embarks on a third-world protest mission to bring awareness to human-rights violations. What is seen as a first act victory to their cause, successfully capturing video footage of chaining themselves to mechanical equipment amongst a bulldozed jungle terrain, leads to the real unexpected inciting incident to this film – a crash-land in the heart of unfamiliar and unsafe territory, amongst a very native and very dangerous tribe of Aboriginal people.
With special effects work from The Walking Dead's Gregory Nicotero, there is no shortage of or exploitation of queasy moments that will deter most and thrill others.
As expressed earlier, those that find offense with the subject matter of native tribal members being depicted as a very "other" sort of uncivilized people will certainly take issue with the depictions of this movie. Other audiences, those who may count themselves as Roth's most vociferous scare-savvy fans and ready for gut-spilling fun, will indeed take greater enjoyment here, through sickened groans and watching through fingers. With special effects work from The Walking Dead's Gregory Nicotero, there is no shortage of or exploitation of queasy moments that will deter most and thrill others.
Rounding out the rest of the story and cast are mysterious lead activist Alejandro (Ariel Levy), typical hot blonde Amy (Kirby Bliss Blanton), and pot-smoking comedic relief Lars (Daryl Sabara), who each play equally dull and familiar characters to this simple set-up; although they at least fill out each component of the story as is required to a humorous, watchable degree.
For a movie that makes its many unapologetic depictions of un-modernized cultures, gory and grotesque sequences depicting native tribe (who, in all painted skin, piercings, and features, evoke the authenticity of what one could believe to actually be), those looking for some small sliver of redemption will barely find it in it's final message – that industrialized capitalistic efforts are still responsible for encroaching on the land and living of these people.
The thing that makes The Green Inferno hard to pin down is its curious insight into what being kidnapped and helpless to another's total will-subjugating is as any person could be. While the impressively made The Green Inferno is a stirringly scary gross-out film, it's dumb and unstirring story should be one that is stepped to with caution.
The Green Inferno is in theaters Friday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGGPTlrX_PE
Review: 'Digging For Fire'
Marriage, they say, takes work. Not the sort of literal, physically demanding work akin to back-breaking manual labor, but that of the emotionally demanding type; the resilient and persevering diligence that partners must work at to connect with their significant other. In indie-vet Joe Swanberg's latest film, Digging For Fire, however, both types of efforts are exhausted by a younger couple, ultimately revealing honest realizations that modern day marriage forces those involved to confront in an impressive and intimate exploration.
The young couple here consists of Lee (Rosemarie DeWitt) and Tim (Jake Johnson) – they, along with their young son Jude (in real life, Swanberg's own son), move in to the home of Lee's yoga student while on away on vacation. The home is big, complete with pool, tennis court, and Tim's discovery of a rusty revolver and bone (human?), stirring a wild fascination of what may be buried on the property.
Those familiar with Swanberg's work will know full-well going into this that the most rewarding offering in his work is the sharp level of insight into these specific sliced of Gen-Y life.
This curiosity only reveals a larger baggage that was also brought along – a checkbook that needs balancing, and further frustrations, which serves to splinter the couple even further, with Lee taking Jude to her parents' to enjoy a girls' weekend out, while Tim is left to complete the taxes, which turns into a call to his antics-driven friends, including the anarchic Ray (Sam Rockwell), best friend Phil (Mike Birbiglia) and the alluring Max (Brie Larson).
The easy metaphor and connection here, and what the title gets right at, in Digging For Fire, is that unwanted things can be discovered when the intention is to unearth to the bottom. Joe Johnson, credited as co-writer along with Swanberg, is obsessed in the digging up of the mountains, a sort of nervous tic to his real-world marriage anxieties, that ends up revealing more – a men's shoe, and ultimately, his own insecurities and acceptances, which proven poignant and thoughtful on the subject of marriage and with it, identity lost.
Those familiar with Swanberg's work will know full-well going into this that the most rewarding offering in his work is the sharp level of insight into these specific sliced of Gen-Y life. For this reviewer, a warmly woven and starkly honest look, comprising in a dually-affecting climax with arresting imagery, earns the film its praise alone. Digging For Fire is patient viewing, but mines a very endearing message that its lovely cast charms you into watching and reflecting on.
Digging For Fire is now playing in select theaters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9OgBzdzEsY
Review: 'Mistress America'
Noah Baumbach's third latest film may also serve as the cap to a distinguishable trilogy of modernly romantic, lushly New York City pictures. Following 2012's Frances Ha and last year's While We're Young, the director returns to a familiar head-space to once again explore, praise, and ponder the peculiar aimless intellectual wanderers of Generation Y, in Mistress America.
Mistress America feels more like the sister film to Frances Ha than others, not particularly because the film is actually about a girl who becomes step-sisters with a very "Frances Halloway-like" character. Considering America was co-written by Baumbach and real-life girlfriend Greta Gerwig (who also co-wrote Frances Ha), the film circles back to a continued interest in the young, spirited, art type–this time, investigating the mind of a young undergrad coming to age identity in the internet age, so creative and cultured, and yet so incompetent and existentially clumsy.
'Mistress America' contains whip-smart intellectual musings and dialogue, further enhanced by a deft use of quick-cut editing to mine real laughs and poignancy.
Two characters share these qualities, but come at it from opposite sides. Relative newcomer Lola Kirke plays Tracy, an incoming Freshman Lit major with a fashionably off-beat beret and more creative writing ideas than friends. Her introduction to school is a lonely (yet hilarious) one, prompting her recently engaged mother to encourage her to meet up with her fiance's daughter, a whimsical near thirty-something New Yorker. Spontaneous Brooke (Gerwig) opens Tracy's eyes to a world of adventure, immediately embracing her new step-sister and taking her on a whirlwind of the city, backstage at a rock show and the trendiest of bars and parties, spurring the fascination and awe of Tracy, and inspiring her creative writing self to
What makes Mistress America so fun–and it really is, with a script whose dialogue shows how clearly Baumbach and Gerwig have their finger on this culture's hipster-pulsed zeitgeist–is how much fun the film wishes to have. As While We're Young similarly explored the self-aware character study of hipsters, America's Tracy, being all perceiving in her own right, the former film took a third act dive into blowing up the very identity hipsters. Tracey looks at Brooke with empathy. Brooke's intentions of opening a restaurant excite an encourage-able Tracy in in-present moments, yet is ultimately filtered through her own inspiration for creative writing, empathizing a person who's tragic romance is at both times invigorating and unsustainable.
Mistress America contains whip-smart intellectual musings and dialogue, further enhanced by a deft use of quick-cut editing to mine real laughs and poignancy.
84 minutes. 'Mistress America' is now playing in select cities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z8MCW16uZY
Review: 'The Diary of a Teenage Girl'
Although the 70s' set The Diary of a Teenage Girl is adapted from a young adult novel, parents and children alike won't find commonalities with similar genre books-turned-big screen films, such books as The Perks of Being a Wallflower or The Fault in Our Stars, to the box office. A point which must pride screenwriter and director Marielle Heller, who has infused great maturity and artistically adventurous exploration into this coming-of-age story revolving around a young girl's growth through her first sexual exploration (with her mother's boyfriend), which any audience goer would assume stays true to what is definitely a more mature, stark look at embarking on adult life through a youth's eyes.
If the initial thought of this title is of simply watching rote catalogued stories of high school age deviousness, it's a wild departure from that, both in terms of subject matter and emotional depth, which makes for a heartfelt story that audiences connect early on to and stay with through the end, a credit to the successful writing/directing combo of Heller and her creative team.
This youth-set, but still R-rated, story follows Minnie (Bel Powley), a young Robert Crumb-like cartoonist who uses her wide eyes to observe all of the pathetic disappointments of her party-heavy family and adults in her life, including her casually drug-taking mother Charlotte (Kristen Wiig) and her mother's somewhat younger dumb hunk of a boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård). Strolling down a groovy-cool San Francisco City of decades past in the film's opening scene, Minnie's clever-beyond-her-years inner voice, captured in voice-over narration, speaks to her proud victory speech of "finally" losing her virginity. Girl, with a breakout performance from Powley as Minnie, successfully conveys the inevitable and ironic conflict of relative intelligence, smart in her inner circle, but wildly unprepared for the real world that waits before her.
Harkening visual spirit, the film's whimsicality largely channels the artistic flairs of the charming 500 Days of Summer.
Winnie conveys reasoned recollection of the inner-workings of her decision through narration that is revealed to be recorded on an old microphone to an old tape recorder, the "diary" that contains boxes of tapes (whether the original diary of the source novel was a tape recorder or just a standard pen and paper journal, Girl makes the best use out of Winnie's voice and spunky language). Her decision to sleep with Monroe, whose playboy-ish nature comes with a heart of innocence itself, reasons out all of Monroe's doofusness. Although the relations between the two would amount to certain legal action in this and this film's era, the decision and power is put in Winnie's court, and she "objectively" looks past his grosser behaviors to decide that he is to be the one. Monroe, with only a moment of hesitation, commits to bed her.
What makes Girl such a win is its full-bodied emotional journey beyond this rising action, tracking wonderfully with Minnie's own. Along the way of the film's first through second acts, those of Winnie and Monroe's consensual sexual relationship growing deeper feelings, Minnie still takes reflective pauses in her own world, captured through her cartoonist wonderment of Robert Crumb-like sketches that come to life in the film itself. The film's whimsicality largely channels the artistic flairs of the charming 500 Days of Summer harkening the same artistic spirits.
Girl moves through the spurts of her and Monroe's relationship, but when that comes to bore her, the film moves to stark and harsh realities, leading to homeless living and hard-drug world flirtations. It's in this third act that the film collects all of its earned lessons that Winnie, ever the headstrong girl who thought she knew how to handle her interpretation of life, comes crashing down. As The Diary of a Teenage Girl ultimately shows, it's the story of how naive decisions serve to teach the most important life lessons.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl opens limited today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9LNsSjnqBM
Director Ross Katz on 'Adult Beginners'
New on Blu-Ray and DVD this Tuesday, is the adult comedy Adult Beginners, starring Nick Kroll, Rose Byrne, and Bobby Cannavale. Directed by Ross Katz from an original story by Kroll, the result is a joyous look at growing up and into adulthood that is this generation's existential conflict. Speaking exclusively with the director by phone, Katz shared stories of his time making Adult Beginners, as well as his entire experience making many different types of movies, doing many types of jobs, and working with many different legends of the craft (his first job in film was as a grip on Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, and worked his way to producing the Academy-Award nominated Lost in Translation). A jovial spirit with enthusiasm and an obvious love for film, we talked about his auditioning for the job for Kroll and Mark Duplass, working with legendary filmmakers, and a strive to keep working, while not getting "boxed in." We begin:
Adult Beginners played earlier this year at Toronto International Film Festival and South by Southwest, and here we are re-visiting it ahead of its Blu-Ray and DVD release. What are some of your fondest memories that you remember about making the film?
Ross Katz: I was lucky to have Nick Kroll, Rose Byrne, and Bobby Cannavale as the anchors of the film. We shot last winter, a year ago, and it was the worst winter in twenty years I believe, with sixty inches of snow. I guess my overall fondest memory is what champs the cast and crew were. I mean, it was freezing! It was brutal wind, and brutal snow. And they are so lovely and hardworking. Every day, our feet were freezing, we had sixteen layers on... but it was like, being around these incredible people just made me happy.
The story is credited to Nick Kroll. How did you become the director for the film?
This was a very lucky one for me, because my first movie as a writer and director was an HBO film called Taking Chance with Kevin Bacon. And it's a very, I'm very proud of it, but it's a very heavy movie. And Nick Kroll's agent called me and said, "Would you ever want to do something really different?" And I said, "Yeah!" That's kind of the point for me. I don't want to be put into a box, I don't want to be "drama guy," or... hold on just one second.
(Pause)
I'm finishing my new movie now, they're texting me like five hundred times and I said, "You guys, I told you I had a phone interview!
(Laughter)
So anyways, there's an incredible producer named Anthony Bregman, he's extraordinary. He's a mentor and friend, and he knows Nick, and Nick said they were looking for a director on Adult Beginners, and Anthony said, "Ross is really funny. You wouldn't believe it, but he's really funny. You wouldn't believe it from Taking Chance, which is not funny."
My favorite story about that is that Bobby Canavale called me and said, "Dude. I liked your movie Taking Chance, but uh... it's not funny." And I said, "I know Bobby, but I am." So basically, Nick's agent sent me the script, I fell madly in love with it, written by Liz Flahive and Jeff Cox, and I said, "I want to do this," and I basically auditioned for Nick and for Mark Duplass. And I said, "Guys, I swear I'm funny." And thankfully, they picked me.
My favorite story about that is that Bobby Canavale called me and said, "Dude. I liked your movie Taking Chance, but uh... it's not funny." And I said, "I know Bobby, but I am."
Adult Beginners toes that line of comedy and drama that seems to encapsulate this younger generation's style of storytelling. Did having that balance of those elements excite you for this project?
Well what I really loved about Liz and Jeff's script, and Nick's original idea, was that it felt very real to me, and you know – life is funny. I have an older brother, who is two and a half years older, and he was the "good" kid who went to Stanford and Yale, and became a lawyer, and I was the black sheep who dropped out of school and moved to Hollywood to make movies, and got my first job as a grip on Reservoir Dogs for fifty dollars a week. And we could not be more different, but we support each other. And there has been a lot of comedy in my family, and a lot of drama, and I really connected to it on that level.
I also, I really didn't want to be pigeon-holed as a director, after having done a serious drama. I was very lucky, I worked for three spectacular directors. I worked for Quentin Tarantino, I worked for Sydney Pollack, and I worked for Ang Lee. And, Ang makes Brokeback Mountain but also makes Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Sydney, my god, Sydney made this grand love story, The Way We Were, made a great comedy Tootsie, but also made Three Days of the Condor.
And I just, I don't want to be put in a box. And this movie really helped to allow me to express a different side of myself, from Taking Chance. And I think there is a grounded quality to Adult Beginners. We really wanted it to feel real, we really wanted it to feel relatable. And I think, that it does, is a credit to Nick Kroll, Rose Byrne, and Bobby Cannavale, and all these incredible actors, that they brought the comedy, they brought the drama, and they brought the grounded realness to it.
And I just, I don't want to be put in a box. And this movie really helped to allow me to express a different side of myself, from Taking Chance.
Do you consider yourself to be an independent filmmaker?
To be completely honest... I made a radical career change about eight years ago. I was a producer, I produced In the Bedroom and Lost in Translation, a number of films, The Laramie Project, and I had a burning desire to direct. I don't consider myself an independent filmmaker, I consider myself just a director. I'm making a studio film now, it's been a completely joyous experience. And it's, I sort of feel like filmmaking is filmmaking, and, I'm getting to tell a story, this one is a love story, on a different scale and a different level, but I love all the experiences of directing movies because these are three very different movies and so each one has been very different to make.
First of all, I learned from these incredible directors that I was producing. I mean, Sofia Coppola is extraordinary. Todd Field, who directed In the Bedroom and Little Children, taught me things that I will never ever forget. If you're going to go to Tokyo, I recommend bringing Bill Murray with you.
(Laughter)
Making Lost in Translation, we didn't know that it was going to become what it became. But it was such a joyous, crazy experience. I mean, twenty-seven days, four million dollars, in the most expensive city in the world. But, I saw that Sofia has such a clear vision. She was so specific on her direction. She knew the shots she wanted, she knew the tone, the feel, the wardrobe, the color palette, everything. And I thought, some day, when I direct, I'm going to remember that.
Bill Murray was an absolute joy, and a total team player. There was a night where the crew was just exhausted, and Bill started wrapping equipment with them, he went over and started loading equipment onto a truck! And I said, "Bill, what are you doing?" And he said, "I want to get these guys home." It was that kind of spirit that got the film made
As a person who has worked in all areas of film production, what, in your opinion, is the state of filmmaking, as a working director today?
Well for me, I see, a lot of people sort of lament, "Film is dead," with Video On Demand and iTunes... I don't. I think filmmaking has really become democratized. I mean, I was a blue-collar kid, I didn't have the money to buy 16mm film, I didn't have the money to rent a 16mm camera, and make a short film. I just didn't have the money! And now, you can be a poor kid with a phone and make a movie. You can tell your story with a Canon 5d.
I think, the democratization of storytelling is such a healthy thing. That you can express yourself on YouTube, and somebody will see it. You can tell your story whether you're from the Bronx or whether you're from Iowa, or wherever you're from – you can tell your story, and you don't have to be wealthy, you don't have to be connected. I think it's wonderful.
Adult Beginners is on Blu-Ray and DVD Tuesday, August 2nd.
Review: 'Irrational Man'
It's no surprise that a Woody Allen picture, while adding to the auteur's critically acclaimed filmography, also effectively serves as the writer/director's own version of self-therapy. Wrapped up in the comic absurdities of his largely light-hearted fare are still the obsessions of primal, and darker nature.
In his latest picture, Irrational Man, Allen chews over the theme of murder, but more so of the self-fulfillment found when acting on our impulses that make us all-too-human. However, as has trended in his recent films, this outing is a one-note exercise that is an unfortunate mix of what can make a Woody Allen film so bad: a boring dud that reveals an obvious perverseness to the whole show.
With Irrational Man, Allen is yet again out to stew on a subject of familiar curiosity–philosophy, and here, of the existential enlightenment and happiness fulfillment that can reawaken even the most cynical of intellectuals, as acted out by a simple measure of following your darkest "id" desires (while it's not entirely relevant, it wouldn't take a professional to perform an arguably sound psychoanalysis that tracks along his divisive more media-storied personal life).
Irrational Man stars Joaquin Phoenix as Abe Lucas, a tormented philosophy professor whose arrival to teach at a small east coast university excites everyone–except his spiritually and emotionally bankrupt self. That is, until a random coincidence presents itself (I'll refrain from explaining further, in what serves as the story's central plot), to which the broody cynic finds newfound happiness and purpose in acting upon.
If the writing, which feels like a first pass of a script at best, is the clunkiest thing here, then the casting of Phoenix is next in line as to understanding what doesn't work.
The movie opens, after the auteur's signature black title card opening credits, with our meeting of Abe, but through the campus buzz and chatter of giddy students and faculty alike waxing adorations over his undeniably alluring mystery and dangerous and romantic intelligence. Clearly, we are supposed to like this mysteriously tortured artist character before we even meet him. This, as we learn soon enough, reveals the empty logic that makes up this rather irritatingly unmotivated exercise, and will make Irrational Man another recent Woody whiff.
Much needed cinematic support comes in the form of the new women in Abe's life, and it mostly takes advantage of those pieces, however eye-rolling they may be. Emma Stone makes her sophomore appearance in an Allen film, after her turn as an alluring young medium in last year's Magic in the Moonlight, and who once again channels her beam of sunshine radiance into making googly-eyes at another older male love interest. Stone as undergraduate Jill, whose early crush on the intellectual celebrity turns into a rather more consuming attraction, and much to the dismay of undergrad boyfriend Roy (Jamie Blackley), is always a joy onscreen, and her Jill ultimately becomes the hero of another story altogether.
The sexy basket-case and fellow professor Rita (Parker Posey) serves as the more dominating damsel in Abe's life, whose equal interest in the newly brought aboard professor illicit casual affairs. With hardly enough good writing here to substantiate the desirability of "Abe Lucas" for these lovelorn women, the whole show feels emptier and more vapid than it possibly even should.
And then there's the self-tortured artist himself, whose own self-important frustrations serve as the gravitational center to this universe. If the writing, which feels like a first pass of a script at best, is the clunkiest thing here, then the casting of Phoenix is next in line as to understanding what doesn't work.
Abe, as played by a rather dull Joaquin Phoenix, appears to be a character cut more directly from Allen's own bank of canonical Woody-types that are his characters, but his lock-jawed delivery and overall burnout moroseness fail to create anything besides a sense of dangerous mystery to the character, and especially not a whiff of a comedic sell which may have saved the film in most ways. The fact that Abe is so un-funnily depressed in the film's first half, and then so un-funnily not depressed after the inciting incident in the film's second half, is what may stand as the biggest problem from what makes this movie work.
It may go to reason that, of the writer/director's entire filmography, of which he makes and releases a film a year, not every one of the seventy-nine year-old neurotic's projects are going to be hits. And while no parties here will carry these demerits with them (including Allen himself), Irrational Man may serve as the most unexpected entry into lazier storytelling, revealing more perverse discomfort and acknowledgment in a Woody Allen movie than we may be used to.
Irrational Man opens this Friday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvOnxL2pKbI
Review: 'Tangerine'
Amidst the bountiful boom of this summer's screen-stuffed blockbusters, there is a micro-indie that surges energy and pulses with electricity at every turn and around every corner of its L.A. backdrop. It also happens to be shot entirely on the iPhone 5s. That film is Tangerine, in theaters this Friday.
Like its off-beat shooting style, this summer flick is all attitude, all brash, and all defiant in its film making, which takes just one moment to learn after meeting our main characters in the film's opening scene: two Transgender prostitutes, Alexandra (Mya Taylor) and Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), who serve as a colorful cast of characters in this seedy, yellow and green colored L.A. circus world.
An official selection of this year's Sundance Film Festival, Tangerine succeeds as a youthful, energetic, and vibrant experience that should be expected to make the coveted "year's end" lists of indie stand-outs. There's little to no real structure here story-wise, just a day-in-the-life type vibe of Larry Clark's Kids, or Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, though less politically speaking than it is party and sex-crazed madness.
Tangerine stands out as more than just an "iPhone" movie, and if you're looking to get swept up in a fresh new movie, look no further than here.
We begin in the real L.A. corner brick and mortar, Donut Time, on one Christmas Eve day, as newly released working girl Sin-Dee, fierce and sassy and with an obvious motor for a mouth, is seen reconnecting with her best friend and fellow call girl Alexandra, a less abrasive figure whose own intentions are to star as a singer. It's all good and fun, until Sin-Dee learns that her pimp boyfriend, Chester (James Ransone), had been with a biological female or as Sin-Dee so eloquently puts it, a real "fish.". It's enough to set the already blazing Sin-Dee afire, and we're off on a rousing, rip-roaring journey over the city that remains fun and new throughout the whole film.
Tangerine is as much a breakthrough calling card to director Sean Baker (Starlet), as it is for its two lead actors and entire film making team. Tangerine stands out as more than just an "iPhone" movie, and if you're looking to get swept up in a fresh new film that's unique as it is entertaining, look no further than here.
Tangerine opens this Friday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALSwWTb88ZU
Review: 'Infinitely Polar Bear'
Mark Ruffalo has had to keep a whole lot of impulsively manic emotions in check this year.
Last seen reprising his role as Dr. Bruce Banner in this year's currently second highest-grossing film, Avengers: Age of Ultron, his comic book character scientist was once again faced with having to contain his radioactively raging impulses that, if left alone, would transform him into the destructively green smashing machine, the Hulk.
Yet where Ultron explored these self-checks in existentially self-confronting nature (in however contrived and momentary washes they be), Ruffalo's newest film, Infinitely Polar Bear, in which he stars as a family man with manic depressive disorder who also struggles to to keep his manic mood swinging impulses in check, seems to counter in character dramatics by instead breezing through life with a celebratory, happy-go-lucky nature, which unfortunately makes for a much more hollow and less-affecting experience on the topic.
Written and directed by Maya Forbes, the film is more or less a loving tribute to this well-intentioned family man and his wife and two little girls, who love him endlessly through his quirky, socially oblivious self. The film's roots are clearly seen in the director's own life and experiences, as Forbes' own father suffered from the affliction, and to whom the film is dedicated to in the end credits.
In Infinitely, Forbes seems to have successfully crafted the movie she wished to make – a heart-warming tribute to this character, and to the honorable strides he makes to be there for his family. Although, what is sacrificed is any deeper pain or hardship at the heart of this story, which is left relatively unacknowledged. Forbes' intentions to sand off but all of the movie's rough edges, then, leave us feeling emotionally short-changed, and left wondering what truer power and bigger heights it could have reached, if only it allowed itself to go there.
Like the character itself, who fails to see the harsher or more inconveniencing reality that surrounds him and seeing through rose-tinted glasses of life's manic optimism, Infinitely is guilty of braving ahead with the same undisturbed positive persistance that doesn't hit at the harder truth at its core.
Those looking for a piece of feel-good cinema, with all its funny anecdotal life-affirming happenings and cute-kid performances, will be met with satisfaction here, as Infinitely delivers in spades in this respect. In this '70s-set piece, cigarette-lipped Cameron (an always wonderful Ruffalo) is introduced as who he will continue to be for the remainder of the movie – a highly energetic outcast who serves as Most Embarrassing Father of the Year to his two young girls, Amelia (Imogene Wolodarsky) and Faith (Ashley Aufderheide), and lovable headache to his sympathizing yet committed wife Maggie (Zoe Saldana).
In the earliest scene, a briefs and robe-outfitted Cameron turns from charmingly goofy to scaring his family, moving him to sadness, which is followed by his leaving a check-in facility, drugged up and dulled out. It's about as much as the film wishes to hang around in the not-so fun aspects of living with a bipolar person, as it then brushes itself off and re-starts to the beat of his spirited drum.
The driving plot of the film begins when Maggie, the family's main bread-winner, accepts admission to graduate school in New York, with the hopes that doing so will open the door to better paying jobs where she can support her struggling family, who lives in a poverty-stricken neighborhood (her parental devotion is evidenced in her willingness to work a loophole of sending her kids to a better public school in a jurisdiction they technically don't live in). However, she also accepts that it will leave her unable to take care of their children, and so Maggie negotiates with Cameron, instantly anxiety-ridden at the thought of it, to take care of them for the summer. Although Maggie is pained to go, Cameron agrees with his trademark acceptance, and his upbeat self spurs the action and story forward with clear eyes and hearts.
What follows is a chronicle of the year to come, cataloged by each season and its passing, and with them, new follies and fumbles that are wrapped up nicely after each learning moment. Cameron struggling to keep order to the apartment earns continual laughs, as he pushes through each anxiety with fervent energy and overly positive attitude, at once manically cleaning and building knick-knack conveniences, and just as suddenly living in a junkyard of even more hoarded garbage. His Mr. Brightside gung-ho attitude is also played for laughs in his blindness to the jalopy of a car used to transport the girls. The fact that the rusted out floor leaves a gaping whole underneath their feet is seen as the lovable intentions of a guy who sees the best in life, seemingly forever unburdened.
More honest moments are given a short treatment though, seen when an overwhelmed Cameron slips out for the night, leaving his sleeping children to drink at a bar (a mild flair of alcoholism is attributed to him), or spurts of confrontations between he and Maggie. Additionally, peripheral messages that the film half-throws in involve the character of Maggie, struggling to gain employment and the respect of the banking world as not only a woman, with children, but as a woman of color. While wholly personal and felt, these moments are tacked on to an already folksy-free form film that confuse the movie further to what its larger story even is.
Like Cameron himself, whose happy-go-lucky and manically optimistic nature disallows him to see the more painful, more inconveniencing realities that surround him, Infinitely Polar Bear is guilty of braving ahead with the same undisturbed positive persistence that denies a harder truth at its core. Those looking for a warm movie with heartfelt performances and tender makings, will find an infinite amount of it here.
Infinitely Polar Bear is now playing in theaters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvjS7rN8HT0
Review: 'The Little Death'
Whereas the mega-fantasy phenomenon 50 Shades of Grey satiated willing audiences with ties and whips, a new little Australian sex comedy dominates from mining the humor out of the hilarious messiness that are the real-life repercussions of newly explored fetishes and fantasies within the relationships of struggling-to-remain-stable couples, in the ensemble-driven joy of a film, The Little Death.
Further proving that audiences were ready to embrace and enjoy the more kinky side of sex in relationships, Death was honored as the Audience Award Winner of the Narrative Spotlight at this year's SXSW. And there is certainly a whole lot to love here, as writer and director Josh Lawson's (Showtime's House of Lies) directorial debut is a truly crowd-pleasing comedy, that wins audiences over by both appeasing naughty natures with adult language and appealing to heart-felt adult curiosities and confusions about the taboo topics.
The film takes its cheeky title from the French "la petite mort," an idiom for orgasm. The varied sorts of foreplays and climaxes here are investigated by way of five suburban Aussie couples, each dealing with a particular fetish that pushes and pulls the partners together – emotionally and, yes, physically.
What works in Death is its winning combination of raunch in relation to its real relationship-building. We see each couple more or less starting things off with admittances and realizations of their being unsatisfied within their relationships in a multitude of ways, confessing to their partners before sleep, to their therapists, and with their friends. It's a premise that sets the stage for its more adult-felt and aimed enjoyment, not interested in taking the low-hanging fruit of making an all-out raunch-fest, but using the edge to substantiate these earnest couples deeper desires – to just make things work between them.
It's a premise that sets the stage for its more adult-felt and aimed enjoyment, not interested in taking the low-hanging fruit of making an all-out raunch-fest, but using the edge to substantiate these earnest couples deeper desires – to just make things work between them.
It's a joy then, to see the comic riches that come from the performances of all parties. Among them are uninspired couple Evie (Kate Mulvany) and Dan (Damon Herriman), who attempt to save their relationship after their their couples' therapist suggests introducing role-play to their life. The laughs in this couple's story come in the comic turn that spurs Dan to realize a sudden desire to become an actor, and the over-commitment that comes in each attempt at role play to follow. In one such inspired scene, a terrifically funny Herriman as Dan, with dorky self-dedication similar to Arrested Development's Tobias-Funke, puts his method performance in action in a "doctor and sexy patient" set-up, yielding a hilarious overly-professional diagnosis: "I'm afraid it's bad news." "Well, I have been a very bad girl..." "– You have hepatitis."
The more calculative and manipulative side of human fetish is explored in wholesome Rowena's (Kate Box) re-awakened arousal for her longtime boyfriend Richard (Patrick Brammall), discovered when a shocking loss suddenly brings him to tears. "Dacryphilia," as we learn, "the sexual arousal from tears," (and as the film defines in dictionary-style pop-up to aid in explaining each of the couples' more esoteric turn-ons) prompts Rowena to take advantage of the situation by proceeding to (after quickly jumping his bones) calculate more comic strings of pain to get Richard sobbing, from "losing" his dog or preparing select meals ("Onions again?"). Here again, the initial set-up of this couple, unsuccessful after many years of trying to get pregnant (which spurs Rowena to act on her more guilty impulses to achieve orgasm and therefore conception), allows the hijinks that follow to feel completely earned and has us rooting for all everyone involved along the way.
It's with these equally funny and poignant set-ups that Death succeeds, displayed perfectly in the single third act vignette pairing Monica (Erin James), a video-conferencing signer who translates the signing from deaf callers to recipients via telephone, and hearing-impaired Sam (T.J. Power), who asks her to connect a call to a sex phone hotline. Of course, the funny comes in Monica's windswept-ness, and hesitant proceeding to serve as the world's most awkward middle-man between relaying the erotic dirty talk between both parties. And with this rolling, funny scene, comes that familiar thread of humanity that runs throughout the entirety of the film, in the chemistry found between normal, nice guy Sam, and Monica, who develop their own personal connection while laughing through the absurdly awkward situation.
There is so much to like in The Little Death, and first-time director Lawson (who also stars in the film, as a boyfriend whose girlfriend stuns him in admitting to having a "rape fantasy" that he stumbles through trying to fulfill) succeeds in managing to give the whole thing a thoughtful treatment to the taboo subject, which could have otherwise been a canned series of one-note bro-jokes in "National Lampoon"-style send-up. The Little Death is wholly engaging entertainment and would be a wonderful selection for couples and audiences that feel so inclined to have their adult-aimed excitements and curiosities titillated.
The Little Death is now playing at Sundance Cinemas Sunset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnnhesQ8Rxc
Review: 'Too Late'
Having its World Premiere at the LACMA as part of this year's Los Angeles Film Festival, first time feature film director Dennis Hauck, along with a full cast that included lead actor John Hawkes, presented Too Late, a modern day LA-set noir on a grainy, lovely, 35mm print.
Hauck, who introduced the film with his shaggy hair and bearded scruff, looked every part the fictional companion to the film's lead Dick, Private Investigator Mel Sampson (Hawkes), with a stringy, greased mop similar to that of Sampson's solo-riding sleuth self.
Hauck's lax groovy-self is clue enough to serve as a reference point in for any audience to see how the director, who also wrote the script, free-wheeled his own sensibilities into this shoot-from-the-hip noir number, which unfortunately, only supplants limitations into it. While oozing with dutiful detective homage to the likes of Raymond Chandler stories and those smoke-filled pulp noir dime-store novels, tin-thin dialogue and storytelling stands as the dividing line between audiences' being dazzled or dismissive of this midnight flick.
Too Late has all the cool, dress-up, and homage of those delicious noir movies we love so much, even if the biggest crime committed is that it's a little too guilty of knowing it.
If Tarantino-ringing words fill the entirety of what is spoken onscreen, than Too Late's non-linear storytelling cements it as a drive-in style flick that Pulp Fiction fans can readily wheel around to. However, there's a fine line between archetypal and artificial, and Hauck, with a story centered on the disappearance of a young stripper with a heart of gold, such as the one here named Dorothy (Crystal Reed) who disappears in this seedy Angeleno world filled with equal parts high-powered murderous men, such as dirty-handed crime boss Gordy (Robert Forster) and their always scantily-clad subservients, such as icy stripper Jill (Dichen Lachman), makes this a skirting stroll around the outside edges of what might have been an even juicier crime job, if it wished to be.
And yet, the string of surrounding interstitial characters (including Rider Strong as a comic drug dealer) only exist in relation to our main PI Sampson. Hawkes, a marvel in his character work and character-fleshing, slips into Hauck's sandbox to create a slippery yet cooly collected center of the film. Sampson dodges all of the offered and whizzing pieces that fly by, except there aren't really a ton of flying pieces here for him to really do so, forcing Hawkes to drum up his own inner-cool on his own, which fortunately is a task that his fine actor can do in spades. Hawkes entertains even further in a moment of the film's musical inspiration, as Sampson is urged to pick up an acoustic guitar in a closing nightclub and dilly up an impromptu cowboy-blues ballad, and at the end of a twenty minute long single-take spanning multiple mini-scenes and locations no less.
On this point: most impressive, or at least certainly most defining, is that Too Late is composed of five single-take scenes, assembled in clever order that coyly unearths more of its story with each new moment and scene. The groovy fluidity of craning and gliding cameras moves here and there, settling for a chunk of whip smart banter, and then gliding and tracking to the next composed arrangement and chunk of banter, and so-on and so forth, to give a sense of foreboding fate; as if each new in-scene movement only highlights the inevitability of what is to be revealed next, comic and tragic allike. It's absolutely some of the finest execution in this regard, and as a result, a sense of forward-leaning audience intrigue is felt and creates the needed sense of continually rolling anticipation in its smoky facade of chilled out present-ness.
Too Late is stylishly spun in this real Southern California LA world, on Hollywood Hills cliff-hanging homes, neon-lit strip clubs, and a third act drive-in theater with a ton of visual impress. Too Late has all the cool, dress-up and homage of those delicious noir movies we love so much, even if the biggest crime committed is that it's a little too guilty of knowing and showing it.
Too Late will have its final festival screening at LAFF on Wednesday, June 17th at 7:30pm at Regal Cinemas L.A. Live 13. Tickets here.
[youtube height="360"width="640"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_nOqkF_yHA[/youtube]
Review: 'Results'
The idea of opposites, of two diametrically opposing, frictional forces creating a third, synergistic meaning, seems like the type of humor that excites writer and director Andrew Bujalski. His other most recent film, Computer Chess, became one of the most buzzed-about films to come out of Sundance 2013 for its unique blend of diametrically opposed styles – '80s home video docu-style shooting, and a more modern sense of paranoid and deadpan hilariousness, to create a genre-leaping indie nugget of a crowd-pleasing film.
In the case of his most recent film, Results, Bujalski playfully (and, like all his films, not too seriously) combines further opposing elements; this time, full-hearted gym trainers encounter a pudgy, recently divorced millionaire, who exposes, through them, a cultural obsession with fitness, and the expectation of success to come. The humor here comes from angling these overly-stimulated gym trainers, more attentive to their bodies than to their hearts, with the easy-come-easy-go, sometimes-drinking, sometimes-pot smoking, bachelor millionaire, who's self-aware shortcomings expose the deeper shortcomings in "results-driven," externally focused self-improvement.
Read our exclusive interview with Andrew Bujalski on Results.
Fans of Bujalski, and those who've only sat through a half-confusing watch of Chess, will see a carryover in style in this follow-up feature. While assuming a more "conventional" storyline here than in his past films, the experience is still akin to Cassavetes-style watching, of finding the natural humor in observed human interaction that reveals a more than cultural, human-based ineptness, in our desire to connect with each other. While not outright self-parody, the comedy feels ingrained in the DNA of this film, requiring a subtle eye to take in.
It's slacker, laissez-faire attitude maintains refreshing returns throughout, resulting in a dialed in humor that Bujalski appears to only grow more comfortable with in each film.
Corrigan, as pot-bellied Danny, notes about finding the humor on a second read: "I read (the script) it again, and it occurred to me that it was a satire. I didn’t notice that on the first reading. When I expressed this to Andrew, he was reluctant to agree with me, that it was a satire, and I understood his hesitancy..."
Read our exclusive interview with Kevin Corrigan on Results.
Results is a relationship comedy, centering around three characters: the aforementioned Danny, Trevor (Guy Pearce), a fitness fanatic with eyes on expanding his gym, and Kat (Cobie Smulders), equally energetic and high-strung to the point of agitation over client's half-workouts. When Danny half-signs up at "Power For Life," Kat's fervor to train Danny at his home visit – a mansion with but a flat screen TV and some vintage electric guitars – sparks an interest in Danny to court Kat, who, being the self-actualized drill sergeant she is, of course, shoots down.
This brings out Trevor, who sometimes sleeps with Kat, to force himself to realize deeper feelings for his long-time employee – this coming at a time when his gym is looking to hit the big time and go-commercial. A sprinkling of scenes of Danny's fantasies, seeing an open lease space materializing with workout equipment right before his eyes, including a spiritual meditation center and juice bar, add even more welcomed relief to the film.
At 105 minutes, Results continuously trades off between progressing its conventional storyline, and tangential side steps, involving Danny Craiglist searching for someone to hook up his cable box, and another, humorous meeting and befriending with business lawyer Paul (Giovanni Ribisi), who is as good and welcome as ever in the small handful of scenes he's in.
Results won't provide huge payoffs in presenting big ideas, but it also doesn't intend to. It's slacker, laissez-faire attitude maintains refreshing returns throughout, resulting in a dialed in humor that Bujalski appears to only grow more comfortable within each film. As Danny's laid-back self might say, and as Corrigan actually and humbly voices: "I’d say go into it with an open mind."
Results is in theaters Friday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoM_dM7tQvI
Kevin Corrigan on 'Results'
Even though his trademark melancholy demeanor suggests that he carries the weight of the world on his back on an almost daily basis, Kevin Corrigan doesn't work out all that much. In his newest film, Results (in theaters this weekend), Corrigan stars as Danny, a recently divorced millionaire with money (and pounds) to burn, which half-motivates him to get in shape from a pair of gung-ho gym trainers (Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders). Corrigan's laissez-faire persona lends perfectly to Danny, who doesn't mind pouring a drink and smoking a little pot after his barely-earned workouts, clashing wonderfully with his overly-enthusiastic trainers disciplined attitudes and exposing their over-attention to their body and not their hearts, which director Andrew Bujalski (Computer Chess) expertly tells in this relationships-driven comedy (Don't call it a satire.) Speaking with Corrigan by phone, we found out more about the Indie veteran, including favorite comedies (among them, Taxi Driver), if he thinks about where his characters end up after the movie ends (he doesn't), and resentment after seeing in-shape people leaving the gym ("Are you doing this just to make everyone else feel bad?"). We begin:
When did you shoot Results?
I think it was June, of 2014. So, not quite a year ago.
How did you become attached to the film?
How did I find the script... It came to me through Andrew (Bujalski). Andrew and I have been, associated for, a half dozen years or so, through another Austin-based filmmaker, Bob Byington (7 Chinese Brothers). We talked about working together... I'm a fan of Andrew's. Anyways, that's how it came to me. It sort of grew, organically, through my natural association with Andrew, through our social lives.
Andrew Bujalski writes his movies with such a singular, deadpan kind of humor- what films do you draw comedic inspiration from?
I'll try not to give you a long-winded answer, I'm capable of that, I'll try not to do that now.
I like "National Lampoon" comedies, from the classic era. But I also am a Cassavettes guy and Actor's Studio School of "Accidental Comedy." To the degree that Taxi Driver is a comedy, which, I never really looked at it that way until DeNiro decided to be a comedy star and said, "Well you know, Taxi Driver was a pretty funny movie." And that's true.
You might say that Cassavetes' movies are comedies if you decide to look at them that way. But the thing that I always loved about those films was the humanity, or the "humanism" of those films, and when I read this script, the first time I read it, I thought it was a very straight-forward piece. A very accurate portrayal of people as they are, in real life.
I guess a couple of months went by, right before we were about to shoot it, I read it again, and it occurred to me that it was a satire. I didn't notice that on the first reading. When I expressed this to Andrew, he was reluctant to agree with me, that it was a satire, and I understood his hesitancy, and I kept it to myself, that I thought it was a satire. I never played it for laughs. But I didn't go into it without this perception that it was, funny.
Had you ever worked with, or met, your scene partners Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders before making Results?
I had never worked with them, or even met them.
What was it like working with them?
Although Cobie and I never really talked about the sit-come genre, which, she had been on How I Met Your Mother, multi-camera, "situation" comedy...I've done a few of those. And I was aware of her experience with that stuff, and it never really figured into how we worked together. To my knowledge, she wasn't approaching this movie, Results, with that in mind. We were playing it straight, pretty much.
Just as far as working with them, there was never a false note or a moment where I thought "This really isn't working." I just thought they were really good actors and we all kind of fell in with each other pretty naturally from the get-go, and we were just in character, and just played it the way it was written. And it worked.
I'd say Guy, I knew Guy's work, a little bit more than Cobie's work. I know I liked him a lot in the movie, The King's Speech, he had a supporting role in that, he's had lead roles in other films, but I know that I really liked him a lot in that. And, it was more or less a "wait and see" type thing. We'll rehearse these scenes, we'll work together, and we'll see what happens. Guy and I did talk sometimes about acting, it turns out he's a fan of DeNiro and Pacino, we had that in common. But again, it was, once we established all those things, they really had no bearing on what we did together. We just tried to honor the material we were given to do.
I walk down the street, and nine out of ten people, that I notice, as I walk down the street, are in way more shape than I am, and in way more shape than I’ll ever be. And I don’t know how they do it, or why they do it, and I start to think, “Why is it so important to them?”
Do you ever think about where the characters you play in films, such as Danny, end up after the movie ends?
(Thinking) I... I don't really.
Laughter
Hopefully Danny continues on his "Power For Life" fitness regimen, and purges himself of all of his "ills," he really seems to want to get back together with his ex...maybe it doesn't...maybe he just opens a vintage guitar store. I don't know.
Your character doesn't seem to enjoy working out- what's your own relationship with fitness?
Yeah, I guess, in that regard, I have something in common with the character–
Laughter
I'm sporadically interested in physical fitness. It's always hard to, even when I feel like I'm vaguely serious about getting in shape, it's still vague and I'm still non-committal. It's of supreme effort to get up every day and try to achieve those goals. I guess the more specific the goal is, and the more help or motivation you have to do it, the more likely it is to get done.
But I just feel, I walk down the street, and nine out of ten people, that I notice, as I walk down the street, are in way more shape than I am, and in way more shape than I'll ever be. And I don't know how they do it, or why they do it, and I start to think, "Why is it so important to them?" People have memberships at gyms, and, you can always tell when someone's coming from the gym...
Laughter
And there is kind of a, minor sense of, resentment, like, "Are you doing this just to make everyone else feel bad?" It just seems to me like... you know, acting is a very vain profession, or it can be. That's the nature of it. But I think that would apply to any profession.
Where I live, in New York, there's a lot of people in finance, and I gather it's very important in that field to be competitive, to look better than the other people they're in the mix with. It's values, you have to do what you can to increase your own personal value if you want to stay afloat in whatever business you're in.
And I think it's possible to go overboard with that stuff. I don't think it's possible to overemphasize personal health, that's certainly important. But when it comes to one-ups-manship, and "being better" than everyone else, that's when I feel like... I like the line that Danny has about being pudgy and mellow and you know, that's good enough for me. I'm not looking to beat anyone.
It is important to be healthy, and it's also important to be nice. Nice to look nice, it's more important to be nice. That's my philosophy at the end of the day.
You have a busy year ahead of you, with Results and [Terrence Malick's] Knight of Cups coming out later this year. What else can we expect to see you in?
I can tell you, there's a show coming out, I guess in August, it's called Public Morals, and it's from, Edward Burns created the show, Steven Spielberg is the Executive Producer, and it's a period piece set in New York about the Public Morals division of the NYPD in the late sixties, mid to late sixties, and I played a part in that. It's cops and robbers, basically. Sort of loosely based on, if not real people, the real sort of scene in Manhattan, in New York at the time, regarding the Irish mob. So I ended up in that production on the Irish mob side of things.
I must say, I had fun working on that, I was proud of what I did on it, I had a really good part to play, and I can say that I have that coming out.
Any last words that you'd like people to know about Results before checking it out?
Well, a lot of people have seen it already, and, it is what it is. I don't know... it's a comedy. It's about relationships. Someone made a comparison to Broadcast News, just as far as the relationship side of it, the three people...
I'd say go into it with an open mind.
Director Andrew Bujalski on 'Results'
Just watch one of writer/director Andrew Bujalsk's films, and you'll see that not only does he welcome unconventionality in his filmmaking – but goes so far as to define himself by it. "There is that part of me that's never going to go away that is proud when somebody points at me and calls me a weirdo," the five-time feature film director notes over the phone while promoting his most recent film, Results (in theaters tomorrow). We had the chance to learn more about Bujalski, by way of talking about the success of his other most recent film, 2013's '80s docu-style festival hit Computer Chess, working with "professional" actors, and keeping it new in every film ("It’s not really worth doing if there isn’t some level of experimentation involved"). We begin:
When did you start shooting Results?
In June and July of last year, which is by far the fastest (turnaround). The fact that we're talking about the movie on the eve of its release and we weren't even shooting it a year ago, is mind-boggling to me.
What was it about Results that made the filmmaking process quicker than your previous films?
Well, necessity, in part.
The first movie (Funny Ha Ha, 2002) was finished relatively quickly, but the middle three I edited myself and really took my time, about a year and a half, which is the way I like working. It's certainly not a very pragmatic way of doing things. This time around we were dealing with a little more money from slightly more conventional financiers – conventional in the sense that they were hoping for a return on their investment sooner rather than later. So there were business reasons to go a little bit faster.
In general, a lot of this movie was me experimenting with different ways of working. First and foremost, Can I survive working in a more "professional" mode? Part of that means turning the thing around faster. I did work with an editor this time (Robin Schwartz), which I had never done before. Also, my wife had our second child right at the end of our shoot, and I'm a slow enough editor as it is, but with an infant in the house, I would have been extremely slower.
This is you fifth film, and I think it's interesting that you say you're "still experimenting." Is doing so part of your style as a director?
Every film is always a different experience. For me, it's not really worth doing if there isn't some level of experimentation involved, whatever that is. You can come at that a million different ways. That's the scary part and the exciting part. Every time I get through one of these and survive it, and I think, "OK, maybe I got away with that, sort of," I think about the crutch – the thing I was leaning on in that movie that made it OK and let me get away with the things I did...and what if I kick out that crutch, what's left?
On this movie, I kicked out a lot of crutches. I am very comfortable working with non-professional actors, small crews, shooting on film, and all these things that may have been "bad for my career" were my comfort zone, and to go into this more "conventional" mode was like learning a new language for me.
Can you talk about the success of your previous film, Computer Chess?
I couldn't have been more gratified at the reception that Computer Chess got. Going into that one, I had no idea what we were going to come out with and if anybody, anywhere, would be willing to screen it. For it to be as well received as it was was a great thrill.
What was the initial starting point with Results? Was there anything in particular that you wanted to explore in writing the film?
The first spark of it came from just sitting down and trying to get my head around what it would be like to work with professional actors. I figured if I was going to do something with more recognizable folks, then I had to build it differently. I first just started thinking of who I would want to work with, and obviously there are tons of great people out there, but the first two people that came to mind were Kevin Corrigan and Guy Pearce. I thought (Pearce) was such an interesting dude, and thinking about having Corrigan and Guy in the same movie was making me chuckle.
Ultimately, it was just throwing a lot of ideas at the wall and seeing what stuck, which is how I work on anything.
On this movie I kicked out a lot of crutches. I am very comfortable working with non-professional actors, small crews, shooting on film, and all these things that may have been "bad for my career" were my comfort zone and to go into this more conventional mode was like learning a new language for me.
I think it's fantastic that you got both Corrigan and Pearce, whose characters clash so wonderfully onscreen. What did you learn from working with them?
Working with both professionals and non-professionals alike, you know they are not puppets, you can't control them. You don't want to control them. You want to sit back and be surprised by them, and that's what makes it worth the headache of directing a movie.
I will say, the closest thing to an epiphany for me working with professionals is that I might have gone into it thinking they'll be so on top of it there will be no insecurities. Then you realize the whole process of acting is all about insecurity. The whole process of directing is about communicating with people about their insecurities and yours. Insecurity is like the language of acting, and that was an interesting reveal for me.
Your directing style feels so unique, and I don't say that lightly. It feels so specific to one person's vision and comedic sensibilities. Where do you draw your comedic inspiration from?
That's a great question. With specific regard to pop culture, it's hard for me to say, because I feel so isolated from it. The funny thing is, it's always a surprise to me every time. Every time I make something I get (caught up) in thinking everybody has my sense of humor. And then I read reviews.
Laughter
I feel like one of my earliest memories is being on the playground in elementary school and somebody called me weird, and I felt great pride – like I had accomplished something, and this was great news. I look back to that and think that pretty much explains everything since. Even though it gets harder as you get older, especially now, where it'd be great for me to make something that everybody did understand and love and made a billion dollars – I could use the billion dollars now with two kids, a mortgage, and all of these responsibilities – but there is that part of me that's never going to go away that is proud when somebody points at me and calls me a weirdo.
Any last words that you'd like people to know about Results before checking it out?
We'll see man, jury's out. I'm so curious to see what the life of this movie is, not just opening weekend growth, but what it continues to be for me and people who see it and worked on it. It's been a crazy ride for me, it did go really fast, but look– I'm still trying to figure out what my first film meant.
Review: 'Aloft'
There is great expanse in Aloft, a contemplative, magical-surrealist drama from first-time feature film director Claudia Llosa, which comes in the form of the film's snow-blanketed great white North setting, as well as its sweeping and far-reaching themes of faith and forgiveness. Unfortunately, this also extends to its slow-trudging pace and heavy-handed storytelling, making for a passionately made film that may appease patient viewers willing to join the emotional tale, but makes for an overly-saturated, lofty, experience.
At its core, Aloft is a film about a devoted mother's absence from her young children's lives (with a supernatural element being part of that reason) and a now grown son traveling to reconnect with her. Visually, (and despite the film's ice and chill in every shot), each frame is wonderfully filled with warm and lovely performances and cinematography that is obvious of this director's heartfelt intention to drive home a fully realized artistic intention, which also comes with overly-inflated emotional scenes.
Jennifer Connelly returns to the big screen as Nana, seen in the beginning of the film as a single mother bringing her children to a sort of spiritual gathering held in the snowy outdoor terrain. Winter-dressed attendees, we see anxious hopefulness in the gathered families, with the sickly wishing to be seen by a shaman (William Shimell), who brings a randomly chosen member into a stick-built hut resembling a bird's nest to perform mystic rituals to attempt to cure one of these wishful's.
Connelly as Nana displays an assured and quiet strength while keeping hope for her children and herself, even after her young son, Ivan's (Zen McGrath) pet falcon enters the shaman's hut during a curing in process, leading her into the private ritual. Her accidental presence ultimately reveals that perhaps she, a struggling single mother, has mystic curing gifts as well, that challenge the shaman's himself.
While it may put off select audiences unwilling to stay along for its slow-paced and heavy-handed viewing, there is a reward in its intimacy and commitment from all parties to tell this strangely beautiful story.
Cut to many years later, a reporter, Jannia, (Mélanie Laurent) visits the home of an adult Ivan (Cillian Murphy) to interview him about his mother, who we learn may or may not have real healing powers, depending on who you ask. Ivan's reluctance to speak with her suggests tension since the aforementioned days of his childhood though it's not initially expressed. Ivan, with a wife and baby of his own, is all mood and sharp edges, and we learn that his reservations come from ill feelings towards his mother, which the reporter presses Ivan over. Her persistence and seriousness convinces a still stingy Ivan to travel with her, to see his mother for the first time in a long time.
That "long time" is shown in alternating timelines, with the current day travels of Jannia and the older Ivan (and his falcon) as well as with the young Ivan and Nana, picking up after the stirring introduction. Connelly is our singular lead here, as we see her exasperated, but persevering character learn of her involvement with inadvertently curing a sickly person on that fateful day, which overwhelms not only her but her son Ivan as well.
Claudia Llosa manages the effort of balancing these stories out well, especially since we, as the audience, are unsure of what childhood event caused the older Ivan to hold wounded scorn towards his mother. The revelation ties together a blame against his mother for acting on her supernatural belief, which comes at a price for their youngest family member.
The film's climax comes at the point where we see, after a traumatic family event, Nana's confrontation with young Ivan about plunging into the abyss of what may be divinity or superstition. Murphy holds onto his emotionally retreating guard until reconnecting with his mother, now gray-haired and committed to herself as a self-realized shaman and media-skirting question mark, which reveals Jannia's ulterior motives in finding Nana and an emotionally cathartic ending for all involved.
Aloft holds a peculiar and heartfelt story with Llosa's strongly held artistically-yearning bend. While it may put off select audiences unwilling to stay along for its slow-paced and heavy-handed viewing, there is a reward in its intimacy and commitment from all parties to tell this strangely beautiful story.
Aloft opens at the Laemmle Royal this weekend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ2LIDwQ49U