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Talking with Stephen Silha and Eric Slade of BIG JOY: THE ADVENTURES OF JAMES BROUGHTON

by Posted in Interviews

 


Stephen Sihla and Eric Slade’s Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton is a close exploration of a man who embodied the tenants of free expression. Living under the mantra of ‘Follow Your Weird,’ Broughton was both a poet and a filmmaker, an avante garde champion of artist expression who refused to play by the rules of his time. As a contemporary of and grandfather to the beatnik generation, Broughton made artist waves within a population striving to break away from the norm and has left a lasting impact for poets, filmmakers and countless people. Sihla and Slade’s film charters the course of Broughton as a man and an artist as he bravely pioneers that frontier of queer entertainment.

I had a chance to speak with the duo as they shed some light on their personal experiences knowing James and making this filmic epitaph of his life.

 

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There are many big players in the beatnik scene that are more well known than James Broughton, and honestly I had never heard of Broughton before this film. Were you  guys always aware of him or was there a moment where each of you discovered him for yourselves?

Stephen Silha: Good question. I guess I discovered him in 1979 when I stumbled into a little auditorium at the Museum of Modern Art in New York where they were showing his films. I kind of uncharacteristically sat down and sat there for about an hour watching these really interesting films from the 50’s and 60’s and I was kind of taken by their subtle homoeroticism as well as their spiritual quality. That was my first encounter with James’ work and then 10 years later, he and Joel were in the same cabin as me at a Radical Faerie gathering at a hot springs in Oregon.

Eric Slade: My first big exposure, and Steve and I are both from the Radical Faerie background which is sort of an alternative queer culture, I don’t know what you’d call it, and I think somewhere in the early 1980’s, I was at a Radical Faerie event at someone’s house and they showed ‘The Bed’ which is probably James’ most celebrated film and it totally captivated me. I’d never seen anything like it. It really stuck with me. Later in the 80’s, I met James a couple of times at Radical Faerie gatherings in southern Oregon but we never became close but Steve and him became very close.

I didn’t know that you guys had actually met him while he was living.

SS: Yeah, I was so inspired by him. When I met him, he was 75 and I was like, “I want to be that lively when I’m 75 and want to be surrounded by interesting young people.” It was just a good fortune that we were assigned to the same cabin and then he and Joel invited me for dinner and we ended up becoming friends and he certainly was a mentor for me.

What was it that made you choose Broughton as your subject for you film? Was it this friendship that you developed or a fascination with his work of a combination of both?

SS: I think it was both. I found that his books were out of print. When I went to bookstores, I couldn’t find his work. The only place you could see his films were at the Anthology Film Archives in New York or occasionally at a retrospective at the San Francisco Cinemateque. Originally I was thinking of a book but I realized it had to be a film to try and bring his work back because I think it’s incredibly relevant for the 21st century.

ES: One of the things that you were saying earlier is he wasn’t as famous as Ginsberg or Ferlinghetti or Kerouac or those guys and  I think one of the reasons is he and his friends in the 40’s and very early 50’s were creating this thing called the San Francisco renaissance which is sort of the soil that the beat movement grew out of. It was really their group that started live poetry readings. That hadn’t been done before and wasn’t popular before they started doing it. They laid all the groundwork for this and then these guys like Ginsberg came in who were incredibly talented but were also good at publicity so it was their group who got on the cover of Life magazine so James and a bunch of the people from his group in the San Francisco renaissance kind of got overlooked so James’ work, as incredible as it is, started getting buried in history. Part of Stephen and my intention was to bring that back and make sure that people didn’t lose sight of it. We’ve heard from a number of film and poetry scholars and historians that they are so grateful that this incredible work is coming back to the world.

SS: We were surprised that no-one had done a documentary about that San Francisco Renaissance period.

Because Broughton work was prominent in the beatnik subcultures from the 50’s to his death in 1999 and probable even lesser so then, why choose to make the documentary now?

SS: Again, I felt like since he died in ’99, and I was present at his death and it had a huge impact on me because my father died 5 months later and I felt like it was preparing me in a way, and it just felt like the right time to do it. In fact, I said to myself, “If I don’t do it now, it’s never gonna get done.” For me, it was a big step jumping out of print journalism which is something that I’ve been doing most of my life into filmmaking. I honestly couldn’t have done it without the partnership with Eric.

ES: It was a good partnership. We both brought really different things to the table for this. The film that we created is unlike most films out there because of what we each brought to it.

SS: I think another thing about the timing of it is we got an interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti who is in his 90’s now so there’s a group of people who aren’t gonna be around to tell this story soon so it was timely in that way because we wanted to make sure that the story got out before it was too late.

And had you two collaborated before?

SS: No it was our first thing together. We knew each other from Radical Faerie gatherings before but had never worked together.

What was the experience like of reaching out to his former friends and lovers considering how much of a bond he seemed to have fostered with all these people. All of them seemed to have such loving memories of him, even his ex-wife who seemed in love with him to this day. Were they glad to see Broughton getting his day in the lime light again or was their any hesitancy to speak with guys about it?

SS: We did 37 interviews and none of those people were unwilling or hesitant at all to speak about Broughton. It was amazing.

ES: Almost everybody who we talked to, especially people who knew him more recently, said being around James was just this amazing pleasurable thing. He would almost always take your hand and hold onto it during your conversation and he just had this sparkle and this life to him that people liked being around. You hear that even with Suzanna and the time they spent together that having James in your life was a good thing for most people.

Was there a particular interview that you did that touched you in any way or made you see him in a new light?

SS: So many of them because we were piecing together [his life]. We didn’t really have a script for the film when we started interviewing, we just kind of used my journalistic bent to interview these people while we can and see what story emerges. In a way, it was James’ own journals, he journaled from the age he was 13 until he died, that was the most profound interview of the whole thing. We were getting his inner thoughts. It was interesting because a lot of people had sort of forgotten about him like Alex Gildzen, the guy who organized the Broughton archives at Kent state who tells a lot of the story in the film, he got so excited remembering James’ story and then he also remembered how painful it was to read some of the personal letters in James’ journals. The road to Big Joy is not all polished bliss.

ES: I think that in interviews with his former wife Suzanna and his son Orion, those were really poignant. You can see the really positive impact that he had on their lives but you can see that he wasn’t a great husband and he wasn’t a great father. There was difficulty to it too with those relationships. If you follow your true path, there can be damage along the way. Not everyone goes along with that path and I think Suzanna expresses that well, that she was really hurt by it.

In the film, Broughton says that film saved his life. How has film had a significant impact on you?

SS: It’s definitely given me a new life. It’s so different from print journalism to try and coordinate the six or seven dimensions of film. You’re trying to tell a good story and show a good story and I had no idea how important sound is to make a good film. I just feel like it’s given me a whole new area to play in for self expression as well as documentation.

ES: I originally embarked on this as a career path because I wanted to do, and I still see it as social activism. At some point early in my life, I wanted to make an impact on the world and it seemed like [I] made some impact but I wanted mass impact. It’s really gratifying that films I’ve worked on have been seen by tens of thousands, millions of people and I know that at least some percentage of them have their lives impacted or effected by it. This film has been especially gratifying in that way because people coming out of the theater who have seen the film want to live a more creative life. They want to find their inner spark and live more fully. That’s a great success if people are inspired to live bigger lives.

SS: We really do want to start a movement here. Given the fact that that’s the reaction that people are having, which is what we hoped, we’re really pushing people to figure out what is their weird and how can they best follow it. To that end, we’re encouraging people to have salons and have special events around the country for the film in the coming months leading up to Broughton’s 100th birthday on November 10th.

You just mentioned his saying to “Follow your weird”, did you guys take this as some kind of personal calling to make this movie?

SS: Definitely. We discovered that everytime we did an interview or an editing session, we would read Broughton poetry and talk about what each of our weird is. What the film shows the weird of a number of creative people melding together.

ES: One of the things we said earlier on when we were making the film is that we have to be willing to fail and fall on our face and have it not be [what we wanted.] I think that’s part of the creative process. Part of following your weird is being open to not working because otherwise you’re limiting yourself to things that you know are gonna work and that’s a pretty limited palette. That was part of our credo and we wanted to film not just to be something you watch but something you live through – an experiential prayer that you go to and come out transformed. We had big goals and very high standards. We also said very early on that we weren’t trying to make an experimental film. We weren’t trying to make a Broughton film but we did want to be inspired by the style of his work. For me, it was daunting and a little scary to follow in his footsteps to try and make a film that honored his work and followed his spirit but I feel like we did a good job. We didn’t made an experimental film but we made a film that embodied some of that.

Broughton was married for a number of years to Suzanna but he says that it was because it was just the status quo. It was the thing to do. His generation was characterized by this expressive freedom and yet these rigid sexual barriers and even Broughton saw his sexuality as a specter to  be overcome. How do you guys think Broughton would respond to the ongoing marriage equality movement  that has really emerged and flourished in the last decade?

SS: I think he’d be happy with the social justice aspect of it but I remember him saying that there was something about the 50’s that even though they were horrible in some ways, it was refreshing in that people didn’t have to be categorized as gay or straight of any one thing.

ES: It’s a good question and I don’t know what he would think. The thing about the equality movement is it’s pushing the boundaries in a great way but I also think that marriage itself is such a restrictive [thing]. I don’t think it’s following your own weird necessarily. The boundaries are pretty rigid around that so I don’t know how he would embrace marriage as a goal. Although he and Joel got married three times.

Juxtaposing this generation to the 1950’s, how much of his work was a result of being in his particular time and place especially considering that it’s a time with these intense social stigmas around sexuality and how much of his work do you thing was a result of that and struggling with his own duality?

SS: Oh I think a lot of it. That was central to his work throughout his writing and filmmaking career. He was really struggling with his own contradictions and it enabled him to see the contradictions in the world. He never really accepted any own religion. He said things like, “Jesus, Pan and Buddha are my sidekicks and we like to sit by Lao Tzu’s river.” 

ES: I think that the era, because the oppression was so tough, through those questions right in his face. You didn’t have a choice whether you were gonna grapple with those issues because you see them every day, and I think it’s still true today, but if he hadn’t been living in that era, that was what he was interested in anyway – our own contradictions. We all have a male and a female inside of us and he was fascinated by that. As much as he was struggling through it, he just loved diving deep into that question because its so central to the human experience.

Speaking about the male and the female, there’s definitely no shortage of male or female genitalia in the film. Were you worried that that might make it more difficult to get a rating from the MPAA and it get into wide circulation?

SS: Yes but we decided early on that that didn’t matter. That if we were being true to Broughton, we had to do that. Our trailer was pulled down from YouTube within a day of putting it up because of scenes from his film ‘The Bed’. At the moment, the film is not rated. If we do go theatrical, we will have to go through that system to see what they say.

ES: We’d early on said that PBS is not our goal but they actually said, when we talked to them, that as long as they can blur, they’d be happy to give it a try. But we didn’t want any restriction on that. To make the human body not part of the film would just not work.

SS: We did restrain ourselves however from showing the ‘Hermes Bird’ film which is an 11-minute erection.

Yeah, that would make it all the more difficult. So Broughton in his last moments seemed to adopt an almost breezy towards his own death, seeing it as an invitation to something new and weird without having some sort of morbid fascination that you see with a lot of sickly or elderly people. And Stephen, you were there with his for his passing, what was that experience like on a spiritual level and how has that effected you going forward from that experience?

SS: Yeah, I don’t think he took a breezy attitude towards it at all. His comfort with it came from his having really grappled and dealt with it for years. He wrote poetry about death all the time and he was able to take that attitude of the adventure of it, after doing lots of deep, inner work. The process of making the film has had a similar effect on me in that I’ve had to look at my own mortality differently and tried to bring that sense of humor that he brought to it. I’ve lost a lot of close people even since the film has been made and it’s been helpful to have Broughton’s voice in my consciousness.

Finally, what’s next for the both of you? Are you planning on collaborating again and continuing down the documentary road or are you thinking of exploring the feature film route?

SS: Or a Broadway musical?

ES: Who would play James? Right now, it’s all about getting this film out in the world but who knows? We could collaborate again.

SS: We still like each other.

Are you planning on continuing on the film road? Is this a more suiting avenue for getting your voice heard than print journalism?

SS: I think I may have the documentary bug. I’ve also become interested in experimental film but I’m giving myself another couple years to just recover from the intense process of making ‘Big Joy’ and trying to get this film out in the world in a good way. I see a lot of good films that don’t get out partly because the filmmaker is already onto the next thing.

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Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton has no official US or international release date but it will be making the festival rounds in the upcoming months. For those in Seattle, be sure to check it out at the Seattle International Film Festival at the SIFF Uptown- Fri, May 31 at 6 PM or Pacific Place Sat – June 1, 1:30PM.


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Out in Theaters: STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

by Posted in Out in Theaters

“Star Trek into Darkness”
Directed by J.J. Abrams
Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood and Alice Eve
Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure
132 Mins
PG-13

I’d be lying if I said that J.J. Abram‘s Star Trek into Darkness isn’t a bit of a misfire. Beleaguered with sky-high expectations, anything short of true greatness was destined to drag this sequel down and, sadly enough, Abram let this film flutter into darkness. Between the numerous character reveals, the big action set pieces, and the bounty of threats to the USS Enterprise, there’s just too much going on. So much, in fact, that Abrams never lets it settle into one thread for long enough to really generate our interest and our sympathy. Instead, it charges ahead at light speed, from plot point to plot point, forgetting to make the pit stops along the way that we would remember for years to come. 

Following the events of the first film, Star Trek into Darkness opens on a mission that is an obvious tip of the hat to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Bones (Karl Urban) are fleeing a white-plastered, spear-chucking horde of aborigines after stealing an artifact the aborigines were in the midst of worshiping. It quickly becomes clear that Kirk and Co.’s intent is to get these aborigines out of harms way as Spock (Zachary Quinto) is pulling some dangerous maneuvers of his own trying to disarm a nearby massive volcano on the brink of eruption.

After the cable securing Spock snaps and he plummets towards certain doom (only to land on a convenient patch of non-lava), Spock insists that the crew leave without him, effectively sacrificing himself for the sake of their mission. Ignoring Spock’s request, Kirk risks the success of the assignment (in which they were explicitly told not to make their presence known) in order to save Spock’s life.

In the aftermath, Spock is not only ungrateful but goes on to report the incident and lose Kirk his captain’s seat. This ongoing thread of logic pitted against emotion, that was already thoroughly explored in its predecessor, goes on to become a main foil for the film ignoring the fact that this was satisfyingly resolved in the first installment.

This copycatting of dramaturgical issues are early evidence that Abram has less in the gas tank than he did the first time around and has resorted to retreading relationship beats already proven to be juicy and effective. Yes, Kirk and Spock’s relationship is the centerpiece of the series but it feels like a step backwards to deprive them of their hard-earned respect and understanding of one another established in the first film. Backpedaling like this strikes easy dings into the veracity and authenticity of the storytelling at play here.

In the midst of the tepid (and quickly dismissed) political maneuvering that follow Kirk’s insolence and stripping of rank, a new villain emerges in the form of John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). As a fan of Cumberbatch’s work on BBC‘s Sherlock, the bar was already set high for John Harrison. Unfortunately, his character is a bit of a mess and Cumberbatch comes across as a rather stilted and wooden character rather than one to be respected, feared or even liked.

From our very first glimpse of Harrison standing across the street in a black trench coat and frowny-faced glare, he seems like kind of a joke. His whole getup screams fashionista rather than terrorista. While I don’t have a problem with cheeky or even campy villains, it’s hard to bat off the disappointment of a character who’s built up to be taken seriously but who you can’t help but chuckle at. Even as this antagonist progresses, his strength is all in what he does, often achieved through competent wirework, and not in who he is or the complexity of his character. In order to talk more at length about my disappointment with his character, I’m going to switch on a rare…

SPOILER ALERT

So Harrison turns out to be the iconic Star Trek villain Kahn. Yeah, you know, Khan. He’s super bad and super mean…. right? Ok, so I didn’t know him either except that he was the villain of what is often called the greatest film in the Star Trek canon, The Wrath of Kahn. My problem here is that this reveal is supposed to be some massive, jaw-dropping revelation whereas in reality, it actually played out as more of a “So what?”

I have no inherent investment in the Star Trek series and was only won over by Abram’s revisionary 2009 reboot. Without a standing history with the franchise, the resurrection of familiar characters has no weight. We weren’t dying to see Khan. With Abram’s gambling so much on the “John Harrison is actually Kahn?! Oh may gawd!!” revelation, the payoff is soured by it not really mattering. Calling him Kahn from the get-go would have changed nothing and relieved us of the ridiculous and embarrassing announcement from Cumberbatch: “My name is Kahn.”

SPOILERS END.

Gutting of the film aside, it is a visually spectacular work with a more realized sense of the world at large than before. Lens flares are at an all time low (although not entirely in absentia) and the FX work is piping hot. And while most of the action sequences are only minorly upgrade on been-there-done-that wire-work, it’s got steady-handed flair from Abrams, who is proving more and more to be an accomplished action director. A mid-space ship transfer in the third act is particularly cool and original but uniqueness is a rarity here rather than the standard. The race from set piece to set piece will give comfort to the casual movie-goer but will no doubt let down those with higher expectations.

Also onboard the USS Enterprise is a whole slew of others. The original supporting crew is back but are pigeonholed into doing things just for the sake of their being there and getting in their requisite screen time. Whereas its predecessor gave each of these people a reason to exist, here they stagnate. Except for Simon Pegg – he can make all the throwaway jokes he wants and I’ll still be smiling. These pieces were more interesting as the board was being set up and the game that followed just wasn’t all that compelling.

As a film that tries to climax too many times, the ultimate payoff ends up leaving us flat and asking, “That’s it?” Sidestepping the issue of blaring plot-holes staring the audience in the face is fine so long as it leads to something good. But to overlook these holes for no elevation of story is both lazy and stupid. The “epic” showdown is a prime example of an unforgivable plot-hole totally unexplained and conveniently truncated for no reason whatsoever. Instead, we’re left with a wholly unsatisfying cursory summation of what went down.

I wanted to like it. I wanted to love it. But I didn’t love it and I only kind of liked it. It didn’t boldly go anywhere, it just…went. On the heels of a massively successful franchise relaunch, Star Trek into Darkness lets itself down with too much of a familiar thing.

C

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Apparently The RIDDICK Franchise Lives on and Here's a Trailer to Prove it

by Posted in Trailers

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It’s been nearly ten years seen the last iteration of the Riddick character has “graced” the silver screen but it appears that Vin Diesel will fill the shoes of the anti-hero once again with the simply named Riddick. I don’t think many people imagined that a third entry into the canon would arrive so far after the last one especially considering that it was considered a box-office flop. There is no doubt that the people footing the bill on this one are banking on Diesel’s resurging popularity following the recent success of the Fast and the Furious franchise.

The trailer offers nothing new or ground breaking and if anything it just goes to show exactly why the franchise had the plug pulled on it in the first place. I guess the studio has to be hoping to capture audiences of similar fare like Underworld and Resident Evil. Take a look at the trailer and weigh in on whether this was worth digging up or if it should have been left to rot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDxDEjDMreA

 Riddick is directed by David Twohy and stars Vin Diesel, Karl Urban, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff, Jordi Molla, Bokeem Woodbine, and Keri Hilson. It hits theaters September 6, 2013.

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Red Band Trailer for V/H/S 2

by Posted in Trailers

Last year’s V/H/S was a delightfully spooky affair. Working within the same found footage compilation framework, V/H/S 2 offers up seven different visions from emerging filmmakers Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard, Edúardo Sanchez, Gregg Hale, Timo Tjahjanto, Gareth Huw Evans and Jason Eisener. I’ll be seeing the premiere next week so I’m gonna pass on the trailer though I’d encourage any horror fans to take a peek and see if this is up their alley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmUfP3Dupbo

V/H/S/2 will be on iTunes/On Demand June 6 and in theaters July 12.

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James Franco Did a Faulker Adaptation Of AS I LAY DYING. This is the Trailer.

by Posted in Trailers

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James Franco is something of an enigma. On one side of the coin, he’s definitely an intelligent. He’s taught courses at NYU, USC and UCLA where he is also an adjunct professor of English and is pursuing a PhD at Yale. He is a prominent actor and a celebrated multimedia artist. He was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar at the Academy Awards for his performance in Danny Boyle‘s 127 Hours. And yet somehow, anytime the guy gives an interview, or even more notable when he hosted the Academy Awards, he kind of seems like a stoned goof.

This year, Franco has tried his hand at yet another project: adapting William Faulkner‘s As I Lay Dying. Considering the literary prowess of the source material, its status as a Cannes Selected Feature and this promising trailer, the result may just be quiet good. I typically have a hard time being won over by films about the early 20th century as they seem to rotate around accuracy rather than a hard pressing story so we’ll see where this one lands for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO68Kd2yQsE

As I Lay Dying is directed by James Franco and stars Franco, Jim Parrack, Tim Blake Nelson, Richard Jenkins, Danny McBride, Logan Marshall-Green,and Ahna O’Reilly. It is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 20.

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SIFF Review: FRANCES HA

by Posted in Festival Reviews 2 Comments

“Frances Ha”
Directed by Noah Baumbach
Starring Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Adam Driver, Michael Zegen and Patrick Heusinger
Comedy
86 Mins
R 

Noah Baumbach is at his least caustic with Frances Ha, an idiosyncratic and delightful black-and-white mumblecore film about a New York City girl coming to terms with herself in the haze of her post-collegiate days. Newcomer Greta Gerwig offers up a performance in the vein of Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin from The Graduate as she mumbles and bumbles her way through the purgatory of her mid-twenties. To continue the comparison with The Graduate, Frances Ha is an equally quirky, if less lovable, film that thrives on silly banter and whimsy spirit.

Frances and Sophie (Mickey Sumner) are best friends. They do everything together. They eat together, smoke together, they even sleep (platonically) together — so long as Frances takes her socks off. But as Frances breaks off her relationship right when Sophie starts a new one, their lives head on different trajectories and their seemingly unbreakable friendship starts to show cracks.

 

Without Sophie in her life, Frances focuses on her middling career as a dancer but ends up spiraling downward, a fact that is illustrated by her progressively less-impressive living situations as she moves from small apartment to smaller apartment to cramped dorm room. As she ostensibly devolves backwards, she reaches her own little whit’s end and resorts to packing in tidbits of a life she feels she should have.

As she begins to live out these snippets of a fantasy life, there is a nagging sense of Frances fighting to feel relevant and keep up the fantasy of herself that she has woven. She sees a rich life, full of fun and meaningful work in store but can’t quite seem to hop off the lilly pad. This feeling is one that most of our generation can sympathize with. A feeling of obligation to accomplish X and Y and see A and B before you transform into the insignificant party guest without a story. A pre-30 quasi-bucket list that hangs above our heads.

 

Luckily, the dour notes are kept to a minimum even when the film is exploring the more difficult sides in realizing, and overcoming, the random and trivial nature of self-progress. No matter how down on her luck, Frances refuses to abandon her goofy smile and veneer of perfect success and satisfaction and that happy-go-lucky attitude is what keeps the film so cheery. The sense of levity may come from Frances’ dancing but it lingers on in her spirit.

Even though Baumbach has clearly had a vast contribution to the film, Gewrig is sure to gain some praise for her double-headed role as star and writer as this is very clearly her show. Frances Ha appears to be more her vision than Baumbach’s, who has a much more acrid and seasoned voice. The film clearly comes from the perspective of a young woman struggling to be someone in this stunted US economy.

 

However much of a captain Gerwig may be, her and Baumbach seem like the perfect marriage of talent as Gerwig’s cheery attitude keeps Baumbach’s sour edge from spoiling the fun. Meanwhile Baumbach injects a mature and sensitive directorial hand that gives the film a learned crispness and tautness that an amateur like Gerwig would most likely not be able to achieve by herself. Neither get the better of each other and the combination allows Frances Ha to transcend a story about the 2010’s, 2000’s or the 1990’s, as this is a film for all generations.

The topic at hand seems to be a popular one of late: a recently graduated twentysomething chick,  struggling to pay monthly rent and find her place in the world.Gerwig’s Frances is a much more palatable presence than Lena Dunham‘s entitled persona on Girls. Her vision of modern-girl-lost tackles the zeitgeist of generation-unnamed without any of the preachy faux-wisdom that dominates that popular show. Even though I would hardly call this a film intended for girls, any twentysomething chick with a taste for Dunham’s particular flavor will be sure to eat this one up.

 

The comedy is easy and the drama meaningful in Baumbach and Gerwig’s Frances Ha, making it a perfect storm of societal commentary that doesn’t wield its satire like a knife’s edge but rather picks and jabs in a playful manner.It’s gleeful revelry in quirk and fancy-free nature make the film a delightful little retreat from the troubles which haunt and pester us in our own lives. Frances Ha is filled with a bubbly sense of life and an effervescent lead character that smooths out some of the more melancholic moments and makes the whole thing go down as easy as a Sunday mimosa.

A-

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Weekly Review 25: RUST AND BONE, JOHN DIES AT THE END, SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN

by Posted in Weekly Review


In theaters this week, I caught The Great Gatsby as well as a number of films over at the Seattle International Film Festival. While I already wrote up reviews for What Maisie Knew, which is arguably the best movie of the year so far, and Mistaken for Strangers, the quasi-documentary on The National, I also caught Frances Ha and We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks although they are still embargoed so you’ll have to wait a little longer for reviews on those ones. Other than those, here’s a trio from 2012 that have been lingering on my to-watch list.

Rust and Bone (2012)

 

Rust and Bone is a difficult film that’s something of an emotional endurance test. While the themes and approach couldn’t be more European, there’s universality to the complexity of people on screen here and both Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts give stirring performances.

Director Jacques Audiard deals exclusively in shades of grey and even when the audience is led to be down on someone, Audiard never abandons them to the wolves and pulls them by the bootstraps out of their own emotional mires. Without revealing any of the critical plot points, Rust and Bone deals not only with loss but with recovery proposing that maybe it’s not the fall that matters but how we choose to pick ourselves up afterwards.

A-

 

John Dies at the End (2012)

Is ita spoiler if I tell you that John doesn’t die at the end? He dies pretty early on…but not really because he comes back to life…or maybe he didn’t die at all. It’s all very confusing, as is the entirety of this mindfuck of a film. Between talking on bratwurst cellphone, fighting meat demons and a driving dog, John Dies at the End is all about independence from the norm and breaking out of traditional elements of narrative…and time…and space. The gooey puppet-driven effects are amiably reminiscent of 80’s David Cronenberg and as a huge Cronenberg fan, you can definitely say it worked for me.

As as absurdist low-budg genre-bender in spirit and execution, John Dies at the End is also crassly comic, endlessly strange and downright fun. Like when you try to make a milkshake and forget to put the lid on, stuff goes just about everywhere and results in one hell of a mess but, hey, it’s still kinda tasty. This is the final product that is JDatE. In time, this daring original film could be something of an underground favorite as it has all the makings of a cult film but cult classic or not, it’s still super weird.

 

C+

Searching for Sugarman (2012)

 

In the process of discovering Sixto Rodriquez, who here is given the moniker of Sugarman, a fascinating tale of ill-conceived serendipity in the era of rock rebellion emerges. As an artist, Rodriguez is a mystery, never afforded any semblance of fandom or commercial popularity in the US even though his records were a surging anti-establishment force for the whole of South Africa. Somehow though, Rodriguez never heard tell of his international fame nor did he see one penny of the profit. Thus begins the story of a man who seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet.

Filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul does an acceptable job of tracking the history of Rodriguez, both in historical terms and accompanying rumors, but when it comes to the hard-hitting questions, he’s happy playing softball. He leaves the corporate corruption and music industry undercuts alone and instead focuses solely on this man of mystery. But when all is said and done, the film presents a fascinating man’s mind-blowing experience of rock’n’roll over four decades and the true story is interesting enough to make the film more than worthwhile. What sticks with you most of all though is Rodriguez’s fantastic songs off of his album ‘Cold Fact’ that are amiably peppered throughout.

B+

 

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You're Gonna Get Hop-Ons With First Trailer for ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT Season 4

by Posted in Trailers

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As if the stream of posters wasn’t enough, we can finally watch the Bluths back in action as the first trailer for the ten-years-in-the-making fourth season of Arrested Development has hit the web. Featuring Michael, George Michael, Maebe, Lindsay, Tobias, George Sr, Gob, Buster and Lucille as well as a slew of supporting bit characters, this trailer offers a bounty of references to the first three seasons, giving off the impression that they will continue the tradition of long running jokes. Let’s hope that show-runner Mitchell Hurwitz didn’t prematurely shoot his wad on a dry run so Netflix doesn’t have something of a mess on their hands.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfU2Td_MMf0

Arrested Development stars Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Portia De Rossi, Michael Cera, Will Arnett, Tony Hale, Alia Shawkat, Jessica Walter and David Cross and will air exclusively on Netflix with all 15 episodes on Sunday, May 26.

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Out in Theaters: TURBO

by Posted in Out in Theaters 1 Comment
“Turbo”
Directed by David Soren
Starring Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Michael Peña, Luis Guzmán, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, Richard Jenkins, Ken Jeong, Michelle Rodriquez, Snoop Dogg, Samuel L. Jackson
Animation, Family
96 Mins
PG

Turbo may be vanilla, formulaic animation but it’s an underdog story with undeniable heart – afforded buckets of charm by its talented voice cast. With more and more animated features leaning on quickly fading cultural references, risqué winks aimed at parents, and goofball low blows, Turbo is happy as a clam (er snail) to just be an earnest family movie with a heart of gold. It isn’t formula-changing nor is it distinctly original – and it is certainly easy to foresee the end of the racetrack from miles ahead – but it’s a film that’s almost impossible to dislike and will most likely charm your pants off.   

As a Ryan Reynolds skeptic, early doubts are cast with him in the position of voicing Theo – the lead snail (later re-named Turbo). Reassuringly though, Reynolds has checked his snarky pomp at the door, taking up a tone far more sincere than what we’ve come to expect. This is the Reynolds we met in the fantastic Buried, not the Green Lantern blockhead.

Instead of zinging jokes off left and right, Reynolds voices Turbo with restrained honesty. Turbo’s wide-eyed view of the world is childlike; his goals, ambitions and Reynolds’s take manages to nail the awing bent of his little snail counterpart. Like many animated characters before him, he’s a dreamer – a character caught in a limited community with no escape and sky high aspirations. He’s in need of a talent that just doesn’t come naturally to him.

In Turbo’s case, he’s a snail and he wants to go fast. When he’s not watching for tomatoes to fall from the branches of his humble little garden he and his snail troupe occupy, Turbo watches Formula One racing on television, idolizing international French super-racer Guy Gagné (Bill Hader). Like Ratatouille‘s Gusteau, Gagné (French for “wins”) props up a similar idea that no dream is too big and no dreamer too small. But unlike Gusteau, Gagné’s act may be just that.

Back in the garden, Turbo’s daily grind is pretty dull. Aside from lawn mower threats and the occasional crow nabbing up one of the community members for a tasty treat, life is slow moving, or dare I say, sluggish. Like the great outcasts and dreamers of the past, no one quite understands Turbo and take to openly mocking his speedy ambitions. Turbo’s toughest critic is also his only surviving family member – his cautious brother, Chet (Paul Giamatti).

When Turbo’s excessive self-confidence puts the community at risk, him and his brother are exiled and Turbo goes for a head-hanging, slime-trailed crawl to the highway overpass. At this point, adults in the audience are much more aware of the suicidal undertones – with the somber mood similarly informing that interpretation – but this is a kids movie…right?! Whether or not this little garden snail was about to off himself or not, something magical happens as Turbo gets knocked from the bridge and sucked into a drag-racing car’s engine at the exact moment that it’s being flooded with NOS. For those readers who have yet to see the Fast and Furious franchise – NOS is short for Nitrous Oxide, a chemical accelerant that can be installed in your car for an instant boost of several hundred horsepower. Naturally, the NOS attaches to Turbo’s DNA gene sequencing in much the same way that Peter Parker became Spiderman and just like that, Turbo isn’t slow anymore. In fact, he can rip up past speeds of 200 mph.

However absurd the premise is, it’s endearingly executed so when Turbo does gear up his powers, you’re cheering for him rather than guffawing the flapdoodle logic. Alongside his super speed, Turbo is also equipped with other car-like gadgetry like reverse beeping when he’s moving backwards, high beams and a ghetto-blaster – none of which really come into play other than as quick gags to gather up the kiddie laughs.

 

With his newly acquired skills, Turbo, with brother Chet in tow, unexpectedly join the ranks of a snail racing crew. It’s here that the film flaunts it’s Fast and Furious-esque aspects as each snail character has their own little personality quirks and the cast, like that franchise, is noticeably multiracial. The crew is led by Samuel L. Jackson voicing Whiplash, the cocky but amiable leader of the snail trail dashers. I don’t need to tell you that Turbo is faster than the other snails so when frightfully obese but fatally loveable Tito (Michael Peña) sees just how speedy little Turbo is, his own dreams of grandeur propel him to enter Turbo in the Indie 500.


Just writing up these little plot details make the whole project seem like a menial exercise in disposable family-friendly material churning but you have to take the overwhelming genial nature of the project into mind. Like all animated film, you have to accept a degree of suspended disbelief. Whether it comes in the form of a sentient robot, talking toys, or a cooking rat, these characters are likeable and memorable not because of their dummy descriptions but because of their overwhelming heart, the amount of perky escapism they allow and the moral lessons they impart.

While it doesn’t quite possess the unmitigated originality of Pixar‘s golden age, it does carry a similar heart-on-its-sleeve air to it that is immensely breathable. Rather than capriciously turning on itself and trying to be something greater than it is, Turbo maintains a benevolent sweetness that wins over our smiles and goodwill. There isn’t a bad bone in Turbo‘s body and even though the result is somewhat akin to easy listening, it’s easy listening that you don’t mind slowly nodding along to.

B-

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