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SXSW Review: WILD HORSES

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The proof-of-concept for Wild Horses is in the pudding: Robert Duvall in front of and behind the camera, festival “it” boy James Franco and once teenage heart-throb Josh Hartnett saddled at his side. Even though Duvall hasn’t directed a film since 2003’s widely panned Assassin Tango (what. a. terrible. name.) there is promise in the idea of the diverse trio hidden beneath cowboy brims mugging through difficult family dynamics. Duvall, Franco and Hartnet aptly square off but there is just so much wrong with Wild Horses that it’s hard to overlook its bumbling, clueless ways.

In the opening moments of the film, Duvall discovers his youngest son (Franco) in the arms of the Spanish stable boy and threatens them both at gunpoint. There’s mumbling and grumbling to such a degree that I wasn’t sure whether Duvall’s character was supposed to be senile – he’s not – and soon he fires two shots from his handgun – the fire time, the barrel doesn’t even register a visible flare but a shooting noise rattles through the room. Inattention to detail like this abounds in Wild Horses. In a real d-bag, deep-Texas, sternly backwards move, Duvall threatens his son at gunpoint, effectively booting his candy ass from the ranch once and for all.  

The film picks up 15 years later when a “lady sheriff” (Luciana Duvall) is assigned a cold case involving the disappearance of the aforementioned stable boy. Turns out that he was wiped from the face of the earth following Duvall’s barnyard discovery. How coincidental. Before long, Ms. Lady Sheriff comes sniffing ’round ol’ man Duvall’s ranch asking nosy questions like, “Do you know what happened to that boy that was buggering your son that you banished?” Rather than sift through a convincingly maze-like web of mystery, Wild Horses keeps the “who killed the stable boy?” card in its back pocket until the final scene of the movie. It’s excruciating getting to the end because by the time we’re only quarter of the way there, we think we know that Duvall did it and don’t really care either way.

Admittedly, there are some fine performances from Duvall and Franco, particularly when the two face each other down and attempt to reconcile their broken relationship, but the script is so poorly written that you are left wondering why Franco even signed on in the first place. I’m nearly convinced he only took the role so he would play a gay character.

In my interview with him, Robert Duvall admitted that the first draft of the script was “fucking terrible”. I don’t know what happened between that iteration and this but it’s hard to imagine something even more messy, poorly written and almost entirely fake feeling than Duvall’s final edit of the material. To make matters worse, Duvall cast his younger, much more Argentinian wife in the lead role of “Lady Sheriff” and she is all but incompetent in the part. She can barely hack her way through her lines but tasked with taking on a Texan accent, she flubs and fumbles her way into a full-blown cinematic safety. She chokes worse than the Seahawks on the one-yard line.

From a directing standpoint, Duvall is almost incapable of framing an interesting shot. It feels more like he planted the camera in an arbitrary position, yelled “Action”, did the scene and rolled the print. There is no indication of forethought, visual complexity or composition. When mounted on a horse looking down on the outcast son, Duvall doesn’t even take advantage of the natural opportunity to frame himself looming large in the corner of our line of sight, lording over his once rejected offspring, meant to look small and unfocused.

No, every shot is the product of a camera somewhere for no reason telling a story that does need to be told, but not by the people assembled here. The tale of a father and son – particularly a conservative, Texan one – trying to sort through what it means to have a gay son/have a father that believes that being gay is “evil” is one rich with dramatic potential. To see it so egregiously executed and sufficiently botched as it is here is borderline painful.

D

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SXSW Review: MANSON FAMILY VACATION

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From Lina Phillips’ ticks – his quick-burst nervous laughter after nearly everything he mutters, the awkward, uncomfortable way he holds himself, his unsettling obsession with Charles Manson – we know something’s off. The journey is uncovering what and the platform is J. DavisManson Family Vacation – a dark family drama that knots itself up in misunderstandings and a trembling desire to be accepted. It’s eerily funny, smartly performed and more twisty than you would expect for an independent film.

Produced by the Duplass Brothers, Manson Family Vacation stars Jay Duplass (the skinny, dark-haired older sibling of indie prince Mark) as Nick, a man who believes he has it all figured out. He’s got the white picket fence, the loving, supportive wife (Leonora Pitts) and a child with a recent penchant for off-colored drawings. When Nick’s shleppy artist brother Conrad (Phillips) arrives on his doorstep – or rather under his bed, bearing a knife – Nick is confronted with the harsh reality that maybe he and his recently deceased pops weren’t always the gentlest of family members to the adopted, eccentric Connie.

Well into his 40s, Conrad is a black sheep, still struggling with the weight of “childhood stuff.” Having just quit his job and sold all his belongings, he asks Nick to take him on a tour of the Manson hot spots (a distressingly comic bit plays out at the LaBianca house) because he thought it would be a “nice thing for them to do together.” When I’m out with my brother, we usually get some oysters and local brews but the dynamic between Conrad and Nick is one of deep-seated discomfort.

Nick is visibly shaken by his brother’s recent predilections of all things Manson while Conrad fails to see just why his older brother – he who is supposed to protect and shepherd him – won’t even attempt to get outside of his comfort zone to appease this one particular ask. The chemistry between Phillips’ and Duplass is an icy hot pack – at one moment, they’re on the same page playing the buddy-buddy role and another, they’re at each other’s throats so diametrically opposed that they can’t even grasp how in the hell the other one could think the way that they do.

A larger theme of open-mindedness and acceptance comes into play when Nick agrees to drive Conrad to his new “job” at an “environmental organization” and things begin to trend sketchy. When Tobin Bell enters the picture, the unease escalates palpably. As the film barrels towards a totally unexpected conclusion, Davis succeeds at winning our investment and our empathy, brewing up a sense of understanding that challenges the rational human mind.

Davis drafted the script from seeds of his own life. At a young age, he found a copy of “Helter Skelter” – his grandfather was a police chief and had snatched it up quick – and grew a mounting fascination with everything Manson. Real life friend Jay Duplass had trouble understanding and accepting Davis’ unusual fixation and much of the character dispositions was born of their true-to-life failure to see eye-to-eye on the matter. As the underlying notions of nature vs. nuture and genetics come to head in the third act, Davis makes way for a surprisngly tender examination of family. Who we are and where we come from acutely informs character motivations in Manson in such a way that you might not anticipate as you’re going through it but will be able to make sense of once it’s all said and done.

For a low-fi indie movie, there are some great things at play – strong performances, an enticing script, mounting suspense, a huge payoff – even though some of the trappings of small budgets features don’t escape Manson Family Vacation‘s grasp. Cinematography from Sean McElwee seems sloppily lit – some indoors shots are especially second-rate – giving the film a kind of home video look at times. Infrequent, scuzzy technical issues aside, J. Davis’ film is a product of an era and a fascination that rings true to the outcast mentality. The only problem is now I have an undying wish to watch Charles Manson watch this movie.

B

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SXSW Review: SPY

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Like Funyuns, Melissa McCarthy is an acquired taste. In her least delicate projects, she vaults around the frame, sharting and cursing to the apparent delight of squealing audiences that I just don’t relate to. Even in Paul Feig‘s Spy – a film that affords her at least an attempt at a three-dimensional character – a wide margin of the comedy is rooted in McCarthy’s heft and just how riotous it is to see a fat lady try to do normal lady things. Tee-hee.

As with McCarthy projects past, Spy projects a cipher of reality in which fantastical things transpire in the name of “comedy.” McCarthy attempts to mount a European motorbike but it flops over. In footage showing her spy academy training, she flips and rolls with the best of them before punching nuts like a cracked-up monkey. She even fails to glide over the roof of an automobile in a scene literally aped from Feig’s The Heat. It’s funny because she’s fat and little more. I wish there were more to it than that, but there’s not.

With Bridesmaids, The Heat and now Spy behind them and Ghostbusters on the horizon, Feig and McCarthy have cooked up some kind of unbreakable collaborative bond. Their partnership is odd to say the least – being betwixt an aged, three-piece wearing gentleman and a scuzzy, willing-to-do-anything plumpette – but like other talented individuals who have failed to see their way out of a faltering relationship (ahem, Johnny Depp and Tim Burton), Feig and McCarthy continue to be just the bee’s knees to one another. Feig’s gushing introduction of McCarthy at the SXSW premiere (“My favorite person in the world”) left little to doubt as to the kinship shared between the two. It’s all good to be BFFs but maybe a skosh of constructive criticism wouldn’t hurt.

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Consider the face-palming failure that was McCarthy’s long-gestated dream project (Tammy). With that in mind, I for one have serious doubts for McCarthy’s comic sensibilities and with what I’ve seen of her – from Identity Theft to Tammy – I just don’t see the comic star that some envision her as. It’s true that Feig once lead her to a (totally undeserved) Oscar nomination but maybe it’s time for this red sea to part ways. Because underneath the failures of Spy is evidence that both McCarthy and Feig have the ability to thrive, if only they could get out of each other’s way.

The film opens with an extremely on-the-nose James Bond tip-of-the-hat with agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law) tossing a well-populated mansion in search of a nuclear weapon. From a distance, McCarthy’s Susan Cooper provides tech support – altering Fine of incoming henchmen and advising him which rooms to duck into for cover. When Fine uncovers the big bad, he pulls a Vince Vega and accidentally turns the man’s brains to crimson mashed potatoes. For what it’s worth, the sequence is disarmingly cutesy and sinfully hilarious and it reminds one why Law was once considered to play James Bond.

Throughout the film, Feig’s actions sequences are surprisingly strong in their glossy execution but, unlike celebrated contemporary Edgar Wright, Feig doesn’t know really know how to pull off physical comedy on camera. Rather, his shots supposedly attain comedic effect because McCarthy’s too big to be pulling off the stunt or she pukes after she does them. While Wright uses clever visual cues, camera movements and framing to deliver a rare form of in-camera comedy, Feig’s films just throw in the kitchen sink, crams his camera in the space and lets it roll without a taste for subtlety or a mastery of his craft.

You likely wouldn’t believe me if I told you but the comic king of Spy comes in the shape of Jason Statham – an agent who talks a big game but lacks almost entirely in follow through. His lofty opinion of himself has him showering us with a list of prior accomplishments – “I was dead for five minutes one time,” “I once had my arm ripped completely off…and reattached it with my other arm,” etc. – and, surprising though it may be, he pulls off the deadpan bit with hearty aplomb.

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Miranda Hart, Allison Janney and Bobby Cannavale all bounce in and out of the picture at one point of another, providing very little in terms of actual comedy while Rose Byrne as an ice-cold vixen with an atom-bomb up for sale actually packs in a few nice laughs. A brief interlude with Zach Woods make me grin and showed that Feig was maybe even willing to challenge his status quo with a little gore but it’s a promise that stands unfulfilled. Over and over again, Feig returns to McCarthy and how she looks like a lonely cat lady, or a mini-van driving mom, or a coupon-clipper and ha, ha, look she’s trying to do something not totally lame! Let’s point the camera and laugh at her. Were I McCarthy, the oft mocking material would slice a chink in the ol’ self esteem armor and, personally, it’s hard to watch her knocked down again and again even if we know redemption is surely in the cards.

In large part due to smarmy secondary characters the likes of Law, Statham and Bryne, Spy does slip in some low laughs, sometimes even at the hands of McCarthy. And though I get the sense that this is supposed to be empowering – as if McCarthy score one for the girls when she doesn’t inevitably f*ck everything up – but, if we’re being honest, I don’t know if I buy it. As Melissa McCarthy and Miranda Hart celebrate their victory with a “girl’s night out”, the intention to pander towards female audiences is grossly obvious in what is essentially a reheated formula of the Feig/McCarthy machine that we’ve seen before. Having digested Spy, I feel as if I can forecast exactly what is in store for the all-female Ghostbusters; fat jokes, slightly funny improv comedy and female failures turned female success stories. And maybe a kitten sweatshirts or two for good measure.

C-

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SXSW Review: TRAINWRECK

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Take it from the effervescently crass mouth of Amy Schumer, “The title was always Trainwreck. Trainwreck or Cum Dumpster.” Oh Amy, you are such just so…you. From talk radio appearances to gross-out Twitter posts, the Schum has crafted her image on being unapologetically, oh-so-adorably crude and in the context of Trainwreck, it’s miraculous to take in. At last night’s premiere, when an audience member inundated her with compliments, she barked, “Stop trying to fuck me.” She has swiftly become the epitome of 21st century feminism-as-middle finger; the crème de la crème of vagina jokes and reverse slut shaming that will melt the lipstick off housewives and zap the calories off your finger sandwiches with her gloriously nasty one-liners and hysterically sexual non-sequiturs. Read More

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SXSW Review: FURIOUS 7

At the bedside of crisped brother Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), older, meaner Deckard (Jason Statham) vows revenge on the crew that turned his sibling into a pin cushion. The camera pulls back to reveal a high security hospital-turned-war zone and Statham slowly saunters past gunned-down guards, ravaged rooms and fizzling tech. The world pisses itself in the presence of Deckard – your appropriately chewy badass action movie baddie at the center of the latest Fast film. It’s a rightfully outrageous moment that aptly sums up Furious 7 in its complete and stupid glory; it’s so dumb, it’s so good. Read More

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SXSW Review: A WONDERFUL CLOUD

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Eugene Kotlyarenko
sets the cinematic stove to a low-broil in semi-autobiographical A Wonderful Cloud, a lackadaisical, off-kilter romp through a broken relationship in Los Angeles. The events – like the comedy – are low-key and faintly directional, though are predominantly characterized by an overwhelming essence of a half-committed shrug. The fact that Kotlyarenko and co-star Kate Lyn Sheil (The Heart Machine) both play versions of themselves – a semi-successful up-and-comer in the fashion world and a foot-dragging, clothes-flipping couch potato – and were actually former lovers gives an intriguing edge to Kotlyarenko’s mostly hands-off approach but it’s unfortunately rarely enough to light up the screen.

A Wonderful Cloud begins with the notably lo-fi footage of a now outdated iPhone crammed in the personal space of a noticeably younger Kotlyarenko and Sheil. Says Kotlyarenko, “It seemed like a perfect way to show the audience that we were once truly young and in love, before introducing them to our present day selves. By kicking it off in this way, we set the foundation that we’re not just random actors going through the motions of being a former couple, but actually have this real history, baggage, chemistry, etc.”

Sheil’s got some more light in her eyes and Kotlyarenko has about an extra Chia Pet’s worth of hair. They bicker about nothings. The gaze into space. It’s your average, uneventful but nonetheless preserved ex-GF video. The raw realism intends to cue us into the unprocessed approach Kotlyarenko pursues but, like watching someone else’s home videos, fails to engage us in their relationship nor communicate any great degree of specificity into their affairs. It could be anyone, anywhere. And here on the big screen, its inclusion seems borderline self-absorbed.

This won’t be the last time that Kotlyarenko reverts to long-lost footage of his and Sheil’s once fling and aside from providing proof that the two in fact copulated years ago, it distracts from the narrative in the here and now. Memories of yesteryear may hold value to those having experienced it, but for us uninitiated in the audience, it fails to muster up much excitement.

Sheil’s trip to Los Angeles is meant to be all business but when she reunites with Kotlyarenko, he desperately tries to impress her with prodigious taco trucks and chic after-hours clubs. They interact through and with technology, shooting selfies, skyping half-naked and disappearing into their online identities. What follows is a dry, irreverent dose of laid back comedy and a has-been romance that transforms into a fairly compelling platform for Kotlyarenko and Sheil’s back-and-forths.

Nothing involved is necessarily laugh out loud nor is A Wonderful Cloud a film that will necessarily get you thinking but Kotlyarenko undeniably succeeds in his ability to bear himself – with all his ugly parts, including his unceremonious weiner. Jealousy and childish rage populates his mind and he isn’t ashamed to let it all hang out. Though nothing resembling a must-see, A Wonderful Cloud is a exactly the kind of down-the-middle mumblecore fare that gave birth to the subgenre in the first place.

C-

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SXSW Review: LAMB

Director, screenwriter and star Ross Partridge unearths a ripe splintering of soul in the fragile, complex love story that is Lamb. Adapted from Bonnie Nadzam‘s sage but harrowing novel of redemption and temptation, Patridge repurposes the byzantine dynamic of Nadzam’s words to co-exist in the cinematic crossroads of nail-ruining suspense and earnest, didactic sentiments of humanity, all the while subtly wedging in thematic elements of Vladimir Nabokov’s will-they-or-won’t-they statutory misgivings. Read More

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SXSW Review: PETTING ZOO

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Petting Zoo exists in the crossroads between Texas-sized conservative values and an emerging genus of first-generation aspirations as 17-year-old Layla finds herself simultaneously presented with a college scholarship and a bun in the oven. Writer, director Micah Magee‘s tale of unexpected pregnancy is one that cuts close to home, having been a pregnant teen herself.

States Magee, “I wanted to tell this story from a place of empathy and experience instead of a political angle.” By in large, her dramatic tale of difficult choices at a ripe young age does linger in the emotional corner of the room though some of the most interesting aspects of the film – her fundamental ideological differences with her birth parents – those that might just be political after all, feel skimped on.

Acting as Magee’s stand-in is Devon Keller (Layla). Her fawn-like eyes and meek frame wrangle in an underlying glow of intelligence and an cerebral hearth of cunning. The most defining feature of Layla though, like all hormone-laded teenage girls, is her fragile emotional epicenter. Not one to be bucked off balance by a philandering beau, unsupportive parents or her blue collar roots, Layla faces constant trials to her psychological health in dance halls and doctor’s offices alike.

Keller, a non-actor, surfaced for the role in a doozy of a casting call anecdote. At the same school where casting was taking place, Keller won a Taco Bell burrito at a fashion show (oh Texas) and awkwardly accepted her bean and cheesy prize. Though initially hesitant to sign on for the role, Keller provides Layla layers of honesty and plain-faced charm that would have otherwise been altered by the presence of a more “actory” performance.

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Debuting at Berlin Film Festival to dull roars of approval – Variety’s Peter Debruge called Petting Zoo his “favorite film” at the festival – Magee’s film aims to distinguish itself by way of an overwhelming sense of stern-faced seriousness. Last year, Jenny Slate transformed her pregnancy in a feminist laugh riot, crafting a bonafide hilarious abortion comedy. In 2007, Juno snarked a way through her knocked up interim with acerbic zingers in a borderline romanticized, nonchalant fashion wholly uncharacteristic of your average accidental teenage pregnancy. Here, Layla takes the fetus feeding inside her deadly serious and so does Magee. The result, though honest, revealing and emotionally forthright, is kind of a drag.

Growing pains and relationship strife bucks up against strict family values and the ensuing dichotomy of a lower-class preggo schoolgirl hoping against hope to populate her mind with collegiate knowledge is an emotional wrestling match in itself. And far be to it for me to say that all pregnancy dramas should come with a hearty scoop of a self-deprecating female jester, all that pain and suffering becomes a hefty dose without the sweet release of an occasional levity.

C+

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SXSW Review: SWEATY BETTY

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Idiosyncratic Sweaty Betty is a documentary-cum-nonfiction of odd variety. Consisting of six scenes and six cuts and using a cast composed entirely of non-actors, it represents a new-age, inner city twist on the undiluted realism of Richard Linklater or Curtis Snow’s disconcertingly realistic Snow on Tha Bluff. Tactically less intellectual than Linklater and yet more restrained and tender than Snow, Sweaty Betty shows the 21st century promise of plopping a camera in a foreign landscape to eye-opening effect, even if said landscape is on American soil.

The two dueling narratives of Sweaty Betty frame a somewhat askew relationship between man and beast. Issues of domestication, profitability and, gasp, love swirl into and out of the pocket of Joe Frank and Zack Reed‘s film but there’s never an attempt to pinpoint exactly what it is they’re attempting to communicate beyond slamming the camera in the middle of the action and letting it roll. 

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Events play out as a series of fast-talking closed captioned conversations and thank the gods for that. The characters, particularly the loquacious Scobby, are such hasty-gabbing windbags that they make Seinfeld‘s Jackie Chiles look like a traveling orator for senior centers. Without the visual aid of superimposed text, their Maryland motormouths might be garbled streaks of sound. Assisted by phonetic subtitles, their slang is hypnotic and strangely exciting – some of Scooby’s colorful verbiage is the equivalent of ghetto Shakespeare –  and since directing duo Frank and Reed are themselves products of this Cheverly community, their spotlighting of this particular lexicon couldn’t feel less exploitative. Rather, the product itself boils down to the direcor’s intention to put their experience on the screen as it might play out in real life, “From a directing and editing standpoint, we wanted to show life in real time. We wanted to show two great real-life stories unfold, but just as important, we wanted to show the pace at which these real-life stories unfold.”

One of said story lines features best friends and young single dads Rico and Scooby as they come into owning a “cocaine white” pit bull puppy whose adorable levels are squeal-worthy. The other thread drops in on the Rich family and their 1000-pound pig as they half-assedly attempt to transform their beloved porker Mrs. Charlotte (whether the name choice is intentionally ironic or not is never certain) into the official mascot for the Washington Redskins. How perfectly suitable for a NFL brand that has largely associated itself with pigheadedness.

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But where another film might be intentionally making this association, this is not the least bit the goal of Reed and Frank, nor the true-to-life Rich family. Rather, the Rich clan are of preternaturally earnest stock. The genuine purpose that patriarch Floyd and his folk garnish from their possession and neighborhood propagation of said swine is their soul’s foodstuffs. It’s bacon to feed their dreams. Their quiet aspirations to have their over-sized pig represent an NFL franchise is borderline heartbreaking. When legal interests interject to alter the pig’s status within the Rich family, there is an immeasurable sense of loss, as if all they had to live for has been snatched with the scoop of a greedy carnival claw.

Told that they could not just pick up a camera and start filming, directing team Frank and Reed did exactly that. Their Best Buy Nikon d5100 came out of its packaging and immediately turned its gaze into the midst of this pair of real-life events. The narrative itself isn’t meant to shake the earth, nor is it in itself a sensational mountain of intrigue,  but their feature is nonetheless massively effective at dropping us into a place swirling with low-key issues symbolically representative of the specific cultural zeitgeist at large.

A few horrid musical cues – Luther Vandross’ melodramatic “Dance With My Father” overstays its welcome within seconds – arrive aggressively on the nose. But even with such shameless grabs at our heartstrings, the sentiment behind such ideas are pure, even though obviously emotionally manipulative. It’s their ability to succeed even in the face of commonplace platitudes that make Frank and Reed such a promising duo and Sweaty Betty such an unexpected accomplishment. See it for Scooby’s delectable diatribes alone, yung. 

B-

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