Big Screen Little Screen

When a documentary crew asks its teen subjects to share their text messages and emails so they can be graphically recreated, can you reasonably expect that the high schoolers won’t begin to craft those messages for public consumption? If the director handpicks participants according to storylines and how snugly they fit into Breakfast Club like archetypes, intentionally leaves footage of drug use on the cutting room floor, and takes an active role in guiding their favorite participant towards their own filmmaking career, does the end product still resemble a documentary, or is it something else altogether?

American Teen opens this weekend. My June 4th review.

[The following is an orphaned mini-review that I dug up from my draft archives. I thought it was relevant considering the recent changes in the film’s distribution plan.]

At first glance director Lance Hammer’s debut film Ballast can easily be dismissed as a poverty level dirge of depression and bad luck for a lonely group of people who live on the Mississippi Delta. That would be a mistake. It’s more like a slow burn meditation on what it takes to survive when all life has given you is nothing in return for a life of suffering. It is the story of a fragmented family of three who try to figure out what will happen next after another member commits suicide. Immediate and pulsing with a Southern Gothic bloodline, the film deliberately ramps up into the desperate but dignified circumstances of this small collection of characters. The flat tone resembles the flat landscape but is never dull. Post-screening Hammer described his editing technique for this film as “using the moments in between” but he could have easily been speaking about his characters lives who seem to all too easily slip through the cracks.

Recent film news reveals that Hammer will look to go it alone when it comes to distribution and film rights.

Hammer says conventional distribution advances for a small film like “Ballast” range between $25,000-$50,000. “If you made a $50,000 project, that makes sense,” Hammer said. “If you happen to spend more money than that, it becomes difficult to justify giving up creative control.

After reading the news of the coming apocalypse for independent films it’s good to see an example of a filmmaker controlling his own destiny.

Related: For more inspiration read the interview with Lance Hammer at The Filmlot.

[…]

Ballast screened Sunday, March 30th at the 2008 New Directors/New Films series for the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

There is certainly a dearth of romantic movies involving the elderly; that is, if you don’t count being forced to watch incredulously as Jack Nicholson romances Helen Hunt. Elsa & Fred, opening today, is a refreshing change in that department. The romance between the off-kilter Elsa (veteran Argentinean actress China Zorrilla) and the staid, recently-widowed Alfredo (Manuel Alexandre) certainly has its share of clichés. And we’ve seen better films where scenes of reckless driving underscore an aging character’s zest for life. But China Zorilla’s performance is so engaging that it’s hard not to be moved when she completes her Bucket List and takes a dip in the Trevi Fountain à la Anita Eckberg. You can watch the trailer here.

Alexa Frangos is an artist and recovering lawyer who collages her daily inspirations from film and culture at Pop Elegantiarum.

Hello all, tis Marie here from Write on Film dropping off my blog post whilst Ted is off having fun in Japan.

This weekend I was off on a whirlwind trip to the Edinburgh Film Festival to run up and down the city’s hills in the rain for my distribution day job. It was a weekend of firts, it being my first time up at the festival, and also the festivals first year in its spanking new June slot.

Having time to squish 1 film into my 36hr mad dash, the more than general consensus was to catch new British horror Mum & Dad- and the accompanying rumours of Perry Benson ‘enjoying’ himself a bit too much with a lump of raw flesh left me disturbed but compelled.

Our damsel in distress Lena, is a young Polish girl working as an airport cleaner. After missing her last ride home from work she accompanies colleague Birdie back to her family house but soon finds herself held prisoner by Birdie’s torture happy family, headed up by the depraved Mum & Dad of the title.

Thankfully this is not another gentle British ‘comedy horror’ riding the coat tails of Shaun of the Dead, and is keen to go quite far out with the shock factor. I think the best way to describe the film is to imagine dropping The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a few Mike Leigh Films and a couple of Martin Parr photos into a blender and inspeting the grusome, twee and very Britsh outcome.

Sadly after the first 30 minutes Mum and Dad has already packed its biggest punch. The following shocks, blood and severed limbs begin to randomly fall all over the place and it becomes hard to care for Lena’s plight, or feel any sense of tension. I would have loved the film to have been not so continually heavy handed and instead build on the fleeting sinister moments of ‘normal’ family life.

In all though it was good to see a British horror putting its own spin on the recent flurry of torture porn, and it does have a great concept albeit one that gets lost on its way.

From the Seattle International Film Festival:

As a documentary trailing four teens over a 10-month span of their senior year in Warsaw, Indiana, Nanette Burnstein’s American Teen feels handled. The narration points out that Warsaw is a predominately conservative, Christian community, though from the viewer’s perspective it’s somehow stripped of almost all signs of red-blooded values or religion. You wouldn’t know you were in the Midwest if you weren’t told. Two of the more socially unconnected students repeatedly point out their desire to get the hell out of Warsaw, but you never find out what’s so bad about Warsaw. The high school and the four, all white teens (and a plus one, evidently made a fixture of the film after he became a love interest of a participant) were chosen by the director for their compelling stories. They fall into classic archetypes - geek, rebel, jock, and princess. The Breakfast Club parallels should be self-evident, but any smart marketer would no doubt demand that it be circled with multicolored highlighters. The most recent one-sheet for American Teen makes this point.

What is learned about Warsaw and its teens comes within the context of their goals and priorities for senior year. Jake, the pimpled band nerd, is singularly focused on finding a girlfriend. Student council leader and overall Queen Bee, Megan - who has said after the film’s release that she “really was a bitch,” needs to be accepted into Notre Dame to follow family tradition. Basketball star Colin shoulders the burden of making big shots for his team, as the only way he’ll make it into state college is through a scholarship. Hannah, an aspiring filmmaker that Burnstein has obviously taken a rooting interest in, sees no future in Midwest living, and intends to dash to California at the earliest possible opportunity.

We see their clique navigation, dating failures, and missteps. The Warsaw teens throw small parties with some drinking, but no drug use. At the screening of the film for SIFF, Burnstein was asked if that was by design or coincidence; she admitted that it was intentionally omitted, in part because she felt a sense of loyalty to her subjects and an obligation to keep them out of trouble, but also because she felt everything that she and her crew witnessed was on par with what she experienced in her own high school years. There are allusions to sex, though not to any anecdotal evidence of early dropouts, pregnancies, abuse, or serious financial hardships among the four central teens and their circle of friends. In the worst case, one acts on rage stemming from a family suicide years earlier, but as a whole, most obstacles are ordinary. Their onscreen dilemmas are timeless, and part and parcel with the high school experience - parental expectations. breakups, ostracism, rage, and shame.

Not to imply that this is a disingenuous Middle America take on The Hills - this is their senior year, more or less, as it happened. The question is not whether elements of American Teen have been treated, but rather what influence the filmmaker’s presence had on each story, and which moments documented over close to a year’s time were left on the cutting room floor.

What is the intended audience for American Teen? The PG-13 rating lends to the idea of a documentary, or non-fiction film about young adults, for young adults. What it lacks in hard-edgedness is compensated for by inspirational material. Early on the central characters were asked to provide a monologue, spoken over four animated sequences (another unfortunate, detracting factor), outlining their immediate and post-high school aspirations. By graduation, they all hit their goals or are within spitting distance of achieving the plans they had laid out. Everyone feels good. You can liken it to Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul.

Not every high school story needs to be of a jarring, scared straight variety, and in watching the film, teens, and maybe even their parents can walk away with the feeling that things aren’t so bad out there. That may be an accurate reflection of their own situation. It might not. As a documentary in the traditional sense, American Teen is not fully fleshed out. But, whether steered there from inception or in the editing room, it is a family-accessible crowd pleaser, and will succeed as such.

Scheduled release: July 25, 2008. Trailer

Cannes lead up images: Rope of Silicon shows off Benicio Del Toro in Steven Soderbergh’s doubled-up Che Guevara biopics, Philip Seymour Hoffman in Synecdoche, New York, and Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, and Gael García Bernal in Blindness.

– Slashfilm, with first images from Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Toyko!, the triptych project from Michel Gondry, Bong Joon Ho (The Host), and Leos Carax (Bad Blood).

– More images and details from the whole Cannes lineup at the official site.

The filmmaker blog Stream has an interview with Brent Hoff, the former Daily Show and Best Week Ever writer, who along with Dave Eggers, created and curates the McSweeney’s DVD magazine, Wholphin. Having featured short films from Spike Jonze, David Russell, Miranda July, and Alexander Payne, in addition to countless videos from up and coming filmmakers, Wholphin compiles rare and unseen works: dead pilots, documentaries, and rescued videos - in the case of the the current issue, “a short film about Darfuri rebels literally smuggled out of Sudan in the back of a horse cart.”

Hoff talks about the beginning of the magazine, the selection process, and what’s in store for the future of the magazine, like working towards full, downloadable issues.

– Read the interview

– Watch a trailer for House Hunting, based on a short story by Michael Chabon, starring Paul Rudd and Zooey Deschanel. Directed by Amy Lippman. Part of the Winter 2008 issue.

– April 29th: preview screening of issue 6 in Los Angeles

It’s like the wet-dream team that only a male, twentysomething indie blogger could have envisioned: Chloe Sevigny and Zooey Deschanel have signed on for Divorce Ranch, a post World War II indie comedy written and directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg - who has been directing, primarily in television, since the early sixties. His last project was the 2001 film adaptation of the Samuel Beckett play, Waiting for Godot. Sevigny will play a young starlet/mom who treks to a Nevada ranch where divorces come nearly as quick and easy as marriages. Deschanel will play her assistant. (Variety)

S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock, creators of Johnny 5, have been hired for a remake job by Dimension. (Variety)

I try to understand because I’m people too
And playing games is part of human nature
My heart’s in overdrive
It’s great to be alive

“Who’s Johnny?” she said
And smiled in her special way
“Johnny” she said
“You know I love you”
“Who’s Johnny?” she said
And tried to look the other way
Her eyes gave her away

For those who’ve slept through Sundance and it’s 125 entries this year, or would rather the wheat be separated from the chaff, so to speak - check the winners list and then proceed at your leisure, from the executive summary material, to the day by day minutiae.

– Karina Longworth offers three overlooked gems, and five films most likely to hit your local theater. Bonus: a video exit poll of moviegoers that had just watched Dakota Fanning in Hounddog, on whether the rape scene controversy was much ado about nothing. Keep in mind though, those Sundance cats are largely NPR listening flag-burners anyway

– A mixed bag it was, but the Sundance Channel on YouTube provided the most comprehensive video coverage within the festival, with over 80 selections to choose from. And Zoom In’s video dispatches were nothing to sneeze at either.

– Not enough? IndieWire set up camp for the duration of Sundance, and compiled over 90 interviews, reviews, and features.

– Finally, David Hudson’s tireless coverage of the coverage, over at GreenCine Daily. If you can’t find your Sundance news there, it never happened.

With his name attached to Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, plus a screenwriting Oscar for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it seems that penning well-received scripts for Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry has created some film-casting capitol for Charlie Kaufman, trying his hand as a first time director.According to The Hollywood Reporter, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton and Tilda Swinton are all in negotiations to join Philip Seymour Hoffman and Michelle Williams (Production Weekly) for Synecdoche, New York - with Kaufman serving as a triple-threat screenwriter, director, and producer. Spike Jonze is co-producing the film, set to begin filming this spring in NYC.

Production company head Anthony Bregman said of Kaufman’s concept for Synecdoche: “We were kind of hoping that Charlie would write a small, contained film set in a kitchen with a couple of easy-going characters. Instead, he came up with a massive undertaking of visually elaborate worlds and stunningly complex characters and ideas.” With Keener and Williams casted as his first and second wives - respectively, and Morton as his girlfriend on the side, Hoffman plays a theater director under the belief that he’s living on borrowed time, who “ambitiously attempts to put on a play by creating a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse”. Questions of unproven director’s chair abilities aside, one only needs to refer back to any of Kaufman’s former scripts, full of Malkovich head-trippers and regretful memory-lapsers, to have faith that the man can make the size and scope of such abstract concepts seem so immanently doable, and most likely - memorable.

See also: Gushing praise for an early iteration of Synecdoche, back in September, from Sciptland.

Dispensing first with the standard among the year’s top-10 lists - The Departed, with a cast-list that amounts to an embarrassment of riches, and a return to familiar, brutal territory, you would expect Scorsese to better his source material (Infernal Affairs) at almost every turn, and that he did - save for the closing act, which was quite literally, brainless.

Largely ignored in most year-end lists, was Steven Soderbergh’s Bubble released too early in the year? Or is it notable only for it’s simultaneous release to theaters and DVD? On a budget that probably couldn’t sustain The Good German’s craft services, Soderbergh makes quiet statements about the nobility of work, while handling the all-amateur cast and rural locale with a far-less patronizing touch than another recent release that traced some of the same lines, Phil Morrison’s critically celebrated Junebug (2005).

A Scanner Darkly, The Fountain, and critical lightning rod Marie Antoinette all scored points for their grandiose visual charm, only to fail to provide proper plot development and substance with equal measure. The three are worth at least a cursory viewing, if only for a general road map for where the current class of taste makers are heading. I can’t help but fault Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep with suffering from the same woes, but the cardboard and crocheted dream sequences in the director’s post-Charlie Kaufman era stick as the high mark of invention this year, as far as eye-candy for eye-candy’s sake.

Quality comedies seemed to be in short supply, though Fernando Eimbcke’s Duck Season stands out as a Mexican coming-of-age import that manages to keep the sugar-sweet cuteness in check. Not that anyone ever walked out of Talladega Nights feeling any smarter, but you will see John C. Reilly more than hold his own in tandem with Will Farrell, matching his improvisational bursts blow for blow. Doing more with less was the other “road-trip in a bus gone awry” comedy The Puffy Chair, warts and all, worthy of a second viewing over big brother - Little Miss Sunshine, whose caricatures seemed to be assembled using indie-quirk mad-libs.

Todd Field’s Little Children offers one of the best takes on suburban ennui since American Beauty, while flying somewhere below the Oscar radar. Former Bad News Bears child star Jackie Earle Haley returns to the screen after a thirteen year absence to deliver one of the year’s genuine creep-out performances.

Best foreign offerings (that were available to Northwest audiences): Clean, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Volver, plus Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Three Times, recommended for any In the Mood for Love era Wong Kar-Wai fans.

In what essentially is an escort mission from point a to point b, the “sci-fi” film tag on Children of Men is unwarranted for a “world is fucked” scenario so simple and unfortunately, plausible. An eye-rolling lapse in the final few seconds is fair trade-off for the surprisingly funny moments (most often provided by the brilliantly cast Michael Caine), the breadcrumbs of hope, and a one-take battle sequence, fifteen or so minutes long, that would cause Spielberg to shake his fist jealously in Alfonso Cuarón’s general direction. With the impression still fresh in my mind, if I had to point to any one film for best-of distinctions, this is it.

Also notable: 49 Up, Babel, Cavite, Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, For Your Consideration, Inside Man, Scoop, Stranger Than Fiction, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Not yet seen: L’enfant, The Queen, Mutual Appreciation, Old Joy

Update/Correction: The video below was the first to surface, but hot on its heels are hi-res versions that should be here to stay (via Ropes of Sillicon). Original Source: WorstPreviews

Director Craig Brewer (Hustle and Flow) on shifting the release of the Samuel L. Jackson/Christina Ricci vehicle from September to February 23rd:

“They do this thing out there called running the numbers, where they want to know if there are other movies out there like yours so they can gauge how to market it. There just haven’t been many buddy movies that have my premise of a black bluesman trying to chase the demons out of a white sex addict.”

More from Brewer, previously: Craig Brewer Talks Black Snake Moan, Hustle and Flow sequels

Easily the most memorable scene in Stranger Than Fiction (reviews - via metacritic) involves a timidly strummed Will Farrell rendition of the 1977 Wreckless Eric classic - “Whole Wide World”. Covered by at least 18 acts, if this isn’t one of the best pop songs ever, I don’t know what is.

Listen - via Paul Newman’s Eyes

Get the soundtrack from the usual suspects. Buy more from Wreckless Eric, direct from the artist.

More: Whole Wide World, performed live. 1977.

Tags: whole wide world, stranger than fiction

You know, I’ve seen enough of Sacha Baron Coen’s The Ali G Show to know exactly what I’d be missing if I excluded myself from this weekend’s festivities, with the film pulling in great numbers (a reported 26.4 million) for a limited release - on about 800 screens. I enjoy Sacha’s antics in short stints, but can’t be bothered to sit though Borat’s 84 minutes. Maybe if I would have felt more compelled to join the hordes if the film hadn’t been rammed down my throat over the past two months.

Not that my tirade last week about the over aggressive marketing of the film was intended to change anyone’s mind, or that I’m foolish enough to believe it would, but I’ll take small comfort in the minuscule contingent of contrarians out there that haven’t been fully bowled over by the Borat effect. Take this article for instance, which documents the less spontaneous side of Coen, who “asked print reporters to submit questions to Borat via e-mail, even went so far as to read from a Teleprompter at his TV press junket ‘interviews’”. Perhaps it’s just a bi-product of the non-stop hard-sell that sapped the improvisational spirit from the comedian.

Former Cinematical editor Karina Longworth (video review below) is also less than enamoured, claiming, “as comedy and social commentary, Borat fails more than it succeeds”. She also points out that most of Borat’s schtick has been worn out over the course of the promotion - “If you’ve seen Borat on Conan or The Today Show, or if you’ve ever been on Myspace or YouTube, or if you like, live in the world, you’ve seen 75 percent of this movie.” But hey, she also says the other 25 percent is worth the price of admission.

Previously: Borat: Let’s get it over with

“I know it’s not for everyone. It has been mixed. People either seem to get really get into it or not like it. But I’d rather make something that has people talking and different opinions rather than just a mediocre response.” - Sofia Coppola

In the five months since a handful of boos (”four people…Maybe it was six” claims the director) rained down at the premiere at Cannes, it seems as if Sofia and team Antoinette has spent as much time justifying, as promoting a biopic not necessarily concerned with, or constrained by historical perspective. Essentially, those who prefer their style/substance ratio skewed in favor of the former will find plenty to love. The other camp will find true schadenfreude in the knowledge that there is a line forming for critics in contempt of a vision that runs precariously parallel to the director’s own golden-spooned upbringing. Something for everyone - rather than solely summarizing the polarized reviews (see Metacritic), we offer you the critics, director, and cast in quotes:

The swooning apologists

“To say that this movie is historically irresponsible or politically suspect is both to state the obvious and to miss the point…a thoroughly modern confection, blending insouciance and sophistication, heartfelt longing and self-conscious posing with the guileless self-assurance of a great pop song. What to do for pleasure? Go see this movie, for starters” - The New York Times

“You get a clever, visually gorgeous theme that’s both emblematic of an unfathomable life and somehow weirdly familiar…a startlingly original and beautiful pop reverie that comes very close to being transcendent. - Los Angeles Times

“The work of a mature filmmaker who has identified and developed a new cinematic vocabulary to describe a new breed of post-post-post-feminist woman. And that contemporary creature is also of the artist’s own invention.” - Entertainment Weekly

The frothing dissenters

“It is not enough to merely hate Marie-Antoinette. One needs to organize against it, storm its gates, demand that certain parties lose their heads.” - Hollywood Elsewhere

“Historians can’t say for certain if Marie…actually said “Let them eat cake.’…I kept picturing Sofia Coppola offering up a big plate of icing — not even cake — for audiences: Pink, creamy costumes and music and sumptuous visuals with nothing under it to give the sugar-shock-esque, immediate buzz of the movie any real weight.” - Cinematical

“Like licorice, Marie Antoinette is a confection you either love or hate, and both affects seem tied to your feeling about the director herself and her apparent identification with Louis XVI’s bride. For my part, I can definitely say that I love licorice and hate Marie Antoinette. But I’m still wrestling with the enigma of Sofia Coppola.” - Slate

A director, in steadfast defense

On the boo-birds at Cannes - “It’s very French…there was a standing ovation, too. I think the booing was not really that loud. It was picked upon and reported because, you know, it’s a better story than a standing ovation.”

“Well, um, when I was growing up, it was Godard, Truffaut, the French New Wave. The style was so cool to me.”

So, your own aesthetic is essentially about style rather than, say, story or drama?

“Um, I guess. I mean, I’ve always been drawn to individuals really, people with their own distinctive but identifiable style that no one else has. That’s all I try to do, find my own distinctive way of doing things.” - Sofia Coppola, The Guardian

On keeping the much-discussed pink Converse sneakers, shot by brother Roman Coppola (second unit director) as a joke, in the film: “We decided to leave it in, just, you know, to have a playful element - it’s a teenage world…and uh, for fun…because I could. - Video, NYFF press conference

Schwartzman - happy to be working

“I only had about 13 lines in the whole movie, and it got to the point where I’d be like. ‘Oh, fuck! I can’t do it!’ I swear I couldn’t have done it all without the costumes. Because Sofia told me not to use an accent, so I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m just going to be me, and I’m going to look stupid. But you put on the costumes and you just transform - the clothes totally change the way you hold yourself.” - Jason Schwartzman, Nylon Magazine (print only), Oct 06′

The infinitely quotable star - Kirsten Dunst

“For me, it became a very sensory experience because there weren’t a lot of words, so I concentrated on things like the touch of fabric, or the taste of a cookie.” - Nylon

“It’s kind of like a history of feelings rather than a history of facts” - Hollywood.com

“I’m not going to sound like a crazy woman. I have no idea. There are moments when you’re like, ‘I hope she’s okay with me playing her.’…I think it all became about like a little kid would. ‘I want to play with this; I want to watch this movie. Now I want to eat sugar.’ That was kind of my way of navigating and making her a sympathetic person.” - About.com

“Sofia lets things breathe. I like the fact that there wasn’t a lot of dialogue, and not so much explaining things all the time. I like working like that. Now I’m reading scripts and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, they talk so much!”’ - Entertainment Weekly

Marie Antoinette opens today

Tags: marie antoinette, sofia coppola

Polish up the Oscar(s) for Marty. Early on, The Departed is essentially on the precipice of Metacritic’s number one spot for 2006, as far as best reviewed films go. Crime thriller tag-along Michael Mann stumbled over mojito sipping and dog-eared dialogue in Miami Vice this summer, but Scorsese succeeds in bringing the mean back to the streets. DiCaprio. Damon. Wahlberg. Sheen. Baldwin. Nicholson. Trailer.

“And lest anybody’s wondering, The Departed is splattered with moments of pure, dead-eyed, blood-soaked Scorsesean violence — the pop-pop of bullets and oof-oof of beatings that explode skulls and smash faces,” says Entertainment Weekly.

“DiCaprio and Damon give explosive, emotionally complex performances, but it must be said that Jack Nicholson reaches undreamed-of heights of decadent devilment.” - Rolling Stone

“After a couple of films where one of the best directors ever seemed more intent on pleasing Academy voters than millions of admirers, Scorsese returns to contemporary crime fiction with a hugely satisfying bang.” - The Hollywood Reporter

Departed link clusterfuck: More reviews | Cast & director interview: TIME | Released on the largest number of screens in director’s career | Know your Scorsese Quiz | Adapted from Hong Kong’s Infernal Affairs - Trailer | Sesame Streets mashup video | No dildos were harmed in the making of this film.

Tags: martin scorsese, the departed

In limited release this weekend - Director Michel Gondry, post- Block Party, sans like-minded screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, but back to the subconscious in this fantastical, magical mystery tour of the mind - The Science of Sleep (Trailer). Dreamer slash visionary of the highest order, Stephane (Gael García Bernal) finds that waking and working hours pale in comparion to his cerebral, nocturnal happenings - and then arrives next-door neighbor Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsborg). Awkward, romantic call and response follows, along with melding of the real/surreal. Elaborate set design, whimsical cardboard constructions, stop-motion techniques, Bernal, Gainsbourg - much eye candy to be had, for sure. But what substance lies below the music video veener? Early word out on the wire:

“Plays out like an indie version of Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, albeit with none of the star power, a quarter of the budget, half the angst, and twice the charm.” - The Onion’s A.V. Club.

“It’s rare for young actors to exude as much charisma and charm as Gainsbourg and García Bernal; they flicker like tiny, pulsating stars in a glaring galaxy of manufactured celebrity.” - L.A. Times

“A breathtakingly imaginative film, positively littered with arresting visuals that could only have come from Gondry’s mind…Those who come to this expecting a romantic comedy will be confused and likely angry…Those who get it, though, are likely to get it hard and so while unlikely to further the cult of Gondry, The Science of Sleep should further cement his status among already existing acolytes.” - via Twitch.

“So profoundly idiosyncratic, and so confident in its oddity, that any attempt to describe it is bound to be misleading…you leave this buoyant, impish movie feeling a little blue: sorry that it had to end and also wishing, perhaps, that it amounted to more. - The New York Times.

More of the generally positive, yet “left wanting” reviews, via Metacritic.

Tags: michel gondry, science of sleep reviews

Starting with the British television documentary Seven Up, fourteen children from different walks of life were brought together, and interviewed about their future goals and notions about their place in society. This spawned the concept of revisiting the group every seven years on their own voluntary basis, to get a sort of “state of my life” interview. The result is a body of work that transcends the standard documentary, or any concept of reality programming that we’ve come to know. The pool parties, the beachside housing, challenges and elimination ceremonies, all of the normal devices used to stir the pot on reality television are unneccessary. Instead there’s race, gender, and class structure, combined with aging, parenting, and the fact that your life is being portioned out in seven year fragments for public consumption and judgement.

In this edition, we catch up with the subjects as many now have grandchildren, some have remarried, and all are looking towards the final stretches of their careers. Tony, the teenage horse jockey turned cab driver, has a particulary funny segment as you see a few of his small acting gigs, and he gives a tour of his new summer house in Spain. Symon, who as a boy said “I had a dream that the world was falling on top of me”, has made his way from very meager and sad begginings to his second marriage, raising many children, and now takes on foster children who come from the same dire circumstances as he once did. Of course we catch up with two of “the three little shits” as I like to call them, from blue blooded families, who at seven years old had their lives spelled out for them . (They knew, to the letter, exactly which prep schools and universities they would attend.) In one of the most introspective moments, there’s Sue, one of the three east end girls pictured above, taking director Michael Apted to task for his interpretations of her sucess, or lack theof.

Overall this is one of the more “feel good” installments, as those involved have risen above many health issues, divorce, and other personal demons that have shed a light of uncertainty on their prospects in the past.49 Up, as with the previous installments, is easily accessible to everyone, featuring flashbacks to previous segments. Even without prior knowledge of the series, you will not walk out feeling as if you’ve missed the point. Regardless, all six of the previous installments are now available on DVD.

More info:
The Seven Up series - Wikipedia
49 Up - SIFF

Tags: 7 up, 49 up