Sundance Review: A.C.O.D.

1 in 2 marriages ends in divorce.

This one was particularly ugly.

And thus begins one of the first movies that tackles divorce in such a comedic style.

At first glance, one might think a title like A.C.O.D. stands as an acronym for a new kind of hyperactive disease suffered by middle school kids. You'd be almost right. A.C.O.D. stands for "Adult Child of Divorce". If a young children watch their parents go through a messy divorce--how does that affect them as adults? Will they marry? Avoid commitment? 

A.C.O.D. stars Adam Scott as Carter--the son who holds the family together. Carter has had to be the go-between for his divorced parents (played geniusly by Richard Jenkins and the marvelous (and camera shy) Catherine O'Hara) ever since they decided to get a divorce on his 9th birthday. Years later, Carter must try to bring his parents together to celebrate the marriage of his younger brother Trey (played by Clark Duke--who has words of wisdom for young people in the video below).

 

The reconciling of his parents brings an onslaught of issues to deal with from childhood events, to his current love life with his girlfriend, to his attraction to Jessica Alba (can't be helped, I suppose). This film stars Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Amy Poehler, Jessica Alba, and the marvelous Catherine O'Hara in one of the most poignant and truthful stories I've seen about family dysfunction. I would definitely take the time to watch the Q & A section in the video I posted....plus, it's the only time you'll see Catherine O'Hara (who was very camera shy on the red carpet). I'll leave you with this little message from Amy Poehler (yes, that's me asking the unglamorous and poorly worded question, but who cares!)

Sundance Review: The East

Clever. Captivating. Innovative. Perfectly Paced. Brit Marling has breathed new life into film with this fresh idea.

This film was satisfying.

How often can you say that?

I first discovered Brit Marling in Another Earth. She was quiet, stunning, and a persuasive actor. Little did I know she had not only starred in the film, she had also co-written it. A flawless beauty, she was tired of being offered parts as "the dumb cheerleader".  So, she started writing two screenplays of her own. She would work on one in the morning and one in the evening.

One of these was The East. It is an utterly and  completely refreshing idea for a film. A woman (Marling) goes undercover to find and expose an American "terrorist" group of young people led by a seeming fanatic (played marvelously by Alexander Skarsgard). It truly is a band of misfits, Ellen Page being the feistiest of them all.

However, what is defined as "terrorism" is questionable at best--and it puts me, as a member of the audience, in a peculiar situation.  What do you do when you find yourself agreeing and siding with the "terrorists" (gulp)? These people have respect for the land and the seas. They want people to protect their fellow man from the big, bad corporations. They target large oil companies who have trashed the oceans. They target large drug companies who sell drugs with side effects that kill people. They, in fact, do what a lot of young environmentalists wish, in a way, that they could do. But, their actions are dangerous and they are illegal....and enthralling as hell.

You'll definitely be surprised and intrigued. This is one movie that is not figure-out-able in the first five minutes. It doesn't follow a typical Hollywood movie plot line. It isn't simplistic and stupid. It's sophisticated, smart, fast paced, and the best movie I have seen at Sundance this far.

(movies and pictures will be added to this post tonight when I get home!)

Sundance Review: Stoker

As a photographer--this film was visually one of the most stunning sequence of composed shots I've ever seen compiled into a single movie. As a human being with a mother and many uncles, this film made me utterly creeped out. So, it was a win-win.

Stoker stars Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska (I finally know how to spell her name!), and the utterly delightful Matthew Goode. Perhaps the biggest reveleation, however, came in the form of director Park Chan-wook. Many will know him from Oldboy, but will have never even heard of him before. He makes his English directorial debut here at Park City this year. Armed with a translator, he was delightfully charismatic, charming, humorous, and low-key. I loved him.

Maybe it is because I like to explore the complexity of human emotion in my photography work, maybe it is because I like to push boundaries with what people feel comfortable with in their communication, maybe it is because--as a writer and creator--I spend much of my alone time thinking about why humans do what they do and how they do it. Maybe it is all of these things, that made this film so intensely interesting.

Or, maybe it was all the blood. It was shocking, but also not so shocking since I just saw Django Unchained last week. There was a lot of lovely blood spraying all over very pure flowers in this film, and I guess I'm ok with that. I never thought I'd be ok with blood in a movie, but when it's just so lovely and artistic, it sorta gets to me. In a good way. 

At the opening of the film, India (Wasikowska) has just lost her father (Dermot Mulroney) on the day she turned 18. Her mother, Evie (Kidman) is distant, and often cruel, to her daughter. On the day of the funeral, Evie introduces India to an uncle she didn't know she had, Charlie (Matthew Goode). Then everything just gets bizarre. Evie and Charlie have feelings for each other. Charlie and India have feelings for each other. There is a lot of staring. There is a lot of emotion. There is a lot of anger and violence, especially on the part of India. And there is a lot of dysfunction. If you want to feel better about your own dysfunctional family, come and spend time with this one.


Oh, also, this was written by the ever intense Wentworth Miller who starred in Prison Break. I've always liked him.

Sundance Review: Kill Your Darlings

This is a cheesy video I made because I want my magazine to get lots of subscription and YouTube love, so watch it please!

When Michael C. Hall walked into the Eccles Center for his Sundance Premiere of Kill Your Darlings, he was dressed in monochromatic gray sweater and pants, and had a very unassuming nature. He also had a ready smile and talked a lot about his love of the Beatnik icons like Jack Kerouac (played beautifully by ravishing (and tall!) Jack Huston from Boardwalk Empire). He talked about the depths the film goes to in an eloquence that was unexpected. Not only is Hall refeshingly kind, succinct, and interesting--we also give him thumbs up for being well read and eloquent. During one moment, he said, honestly, that it's the one and only time in his life where he looked at the director and said, "Don't be an idiot, hire me."

The director, John Krokidas, is not an idiot. Thank God. Not only did he cast Michael C. Hall, he also rounded up such talent as Dane DeHaan, Ben Foster, newbie Elizabeth Olsen, and Daniel Radcliffe. When Radcliffe took to the stage for the Q & A, a member of the audience asked him, "Why are you drawn to such bizarre roles?" Radcliffe did a sweet little smile and looked like he was about 12. He was good natured and cracked a little joke about how parts he thinks are interesting, everyone else thinks are crazy-weird and that he's a weirdo for taking them. Truth be told, this movie is a far cry from Harry Potter days (thank God, again) and Daniel has a gay love scene in the film. I overheard one girl, a LDS woman from Utah, say as she left the screening, "I feel really guilty because that guy love scene totally turned me on."  I'd say that's pretty good praise when you're in Utah.

Set in 1944, the movie draws real figures from history like Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs together in an intriguing murder mystery. As Ginsberg (Radcliffe) ventures off to Columbia, he's pulled into a world of education, city life, new explorations in sexuality, and a bit of obsession. His obsession centers around a young man named Lucien Carr (played by Dane DeHaan). Carr soon commits an unexpected, but well documented murder that draws Gingsberg in even deeper into a world that unfolds before the audience in a true mastery of story telling. As is true for most Beat stories, the women don't have much to do.

The film started with a poem that one of the producers wrote on a stickie note and handed to his friend. He told his friend he wanted to write this play. His friend said, "Nope, you're gonna write a screenplay and I'm going to direct it." And they did. I like people who's dreams start on stickie notes and end up on the big screen at Sundance.

Sundance: 28 Hotel Rooms

Are relationships, more often than not, starting backwards? Have sex and chemical attraction taken first place in our seeking connection? Are we in a culture that goes straight to the mattresses and then, if that goes well, we develop friendships and possibly love afterwards? Would Darwin like where we are going?

The simple reality is that our fear skyrockets on the chart when we thinking of having to define anything in regards to love. “Whatever this is…Whatever we’re doing here…” is a reoccurring phrase ping-ponged about between my single friends and myself when describing our current and various relationships. Unlike others, however, this phrase doesn’t bother me as it might bother people like my mother who grew up in a world where all things were labeled in nice, tidy, and simple ways. But, when have relationships…when has love…ever been easily defined?

28 Hotel Rooms takes place over an undetermined amount of time (the director mentioned somewhere between three and seven years). Two working professionals on individual business trips meet in a hotel restaurant. They get room #1, sleep together, and then go their separate ways. A few months later, they find themselves both on trips and both in the same city and they decide to share Room #2. What started out as a one-night stand develops into one of the most honest, real, and touching on-screen relationships that I have ever seen. I felt voyeuristic watching the film, but I accepted the feeling and then embraced it. A film lover’s gotta do what a film lover’s gotta do. This was, easily, the best thing I saw at Sundance. With a color palette to match my personality and an understated plot, this film was brilliant.

Duane Byre of the Hollywood Reporter said, “The technical crew's on-the-spot aesthetics are akin to prolonged foreplay:  cinematographer Doug Emmett's compositions and framings strip away any role-play facades.”

That was the magic. I’ll sum it up in one line:

It felt so far removed from acting and so close to living.

I had such a visceral reaction to so many moments. The film is made up of one Man and one Woman. We don’t even know their names. Their names aren’t important—. Their connection is--this deep connection that you want to believe is possible, but you find yourself settling for far less for most of your life.
 
Why do you settle?

Because you fear it’s not reality?
Because people are incapable of connecting with you on the level you desire? Because people aren’t poetic?
Because it takes work to connect like that?
Because 88% of people don’t know what I’m even talking about?

When was the last time you stayed up all night long laughing, talking, and being real—really, really real—with your lover? Why do relationships maneuver around the simple things—like honest talking—and embrace the more complicated things like jealousy and petulance?

The film covers 28 meetings in 28 hotel rooms. In order. Over a period of time. It’s the most concise summary of the relationship maze I have ever seen. Ups. Downs. Laughs. Cries. And the silences that most of us pretend aren’t there.

28 Hotel Rooms pulls you out of the traditional definitions of love and marriage and connection that you so easily cast about. It breaks away from relationship labels and society’s need to define everything to the last fucking detail (as proven by the Facebook relationship option of “it’s complicated”). These people define nothing. Not really.  Maybe they do it after the camera stops rolling. I don’t care. Because they are two people and they just do not fit a generic definition. I admired this movie. So much. Because, frankly, I’m tired of the definitions and labels I’m offered in this day-to-day world about love and friendship and connection. I don’t want the regular sort of defining. I don’t. And neither did they. We are tired of it. We want to be undefined.

Sundance: Corpo Celeste

This Italian film was the only showing at Sundance this year that made me want to stick a fork in my eyeball, pull it out, and examine it with the eye that I had left in my head. I’m sorry to be so harsh on a medium I love so well (Italian Cinema ftw!), but I gots to tell it how it is.

Marta, a young Swiss girl who has just moved to Italy with her mother and sister, has been enrolled in the local church to prepare for her Catholic confirmation. She’s faced with a faith she doesn’t understand and lots of expectations heaped upon her shoulders of how and what she should be. It’s a good premise for any disaffected Christian like myself and I was looking forward to it. Sweet Marta is very, very moody and very, very dissatisfied with life. At 13.  Why? That’s the question you’re going to be asking yourself throughout the whole movie. And not the good kind of “why”…like “Why is the sky blue?” and “Why are puppies so cute?”  But the kind of “why” where you can't really reflect on the answer because it doesn't make sense, like “Why is Nicole Kidman injecting her lips again?”  and “Why is Winona Ryder shoplifting?”  These whys aren't fun. Sure, Marta has a mom who works late and sure and her older sister gets mad at her for borrowing her bra and being so selfish (I sort of agree with the older sister).  But ultimately, this is a character that has no motivation (I don't think she knows what's happening to her ever) and gives you no reason to like her and doesn’t really express why she’s so unhappy. There is no WHY.

This film was full of one drawn out scene to the next. There is the scene where her Sunday School teacher yells at her so she goes and cuts all her hair off (beautiful hair) with dull scissors. I was too bored to search for a metaphor here. There is the scene where she finds a liter of newly born kittens and the Sunday School teacher shoves them all in a plastic bag and sends them off to be drowned (not before hitting the bag on the concrete a few times out of lack of humanity…you’ll want to punch someone in this scene because it’s so awful, so sit alone if you see it…note to yourself: don’t see it.) There is the scene where she starts her period (do girls in this modern age get to the age of 13 and REALLY not know what a period is still? Really internet? Really television?) and the only person there to help her is her priest.  What is this, I asked myself? A messed up Italian version of the Thornbirds…no, sadly, no because the Thornbirds, while it disturbed me, still held my interest.

Soon the priest and the PMS-suffering-teen go on a journey to the top of a mountain to steal a large, life size crucifix from an old chapel and bring it down the mountain for their congregation to enjoy (because Jesus suffering on the cross is always an enjoyable thing to look at). She’s left alone with it and rubs her hands all over Jesus’s body as the screen gets dark and the lighting gets sexual. This made me get all protective of Jesus. Damn girl! Step away from Jesus! You’re being inappropriate.

Marta hates life. And hates everyone. And does stupid stuff. As a person who likes life. And likes everyone. And tries not to do stupid stuff. I wouldn’t recommend this film.

Sundance: Celeste and Jesse Forever

I like to credit photos I use, but I don't know where this one is from. Sorry! 

The very title Celeste and Jesse Forever sends a scent of Nic and Nora’s Infinite Playlist to your nose...and then you realize that this is no Michael Cera flick. This is a movie for adults—adults who are still getting their hearts broken in the exact same way they did when they were 16. While the title sounds whimsical and lofty, this is anything but a lighthearted comedy. Yes, you will laugh until you pee a little bit. And yes, you will be privy to more witty banter than you’d expect during an evening with Tina Fey..but be forewarned, people…this movie is not for the faint of heart, especially the already-broken-not-quite-healed-ones.

Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) have known each other forever. They are your friendly neighbors who beat all the odds placed against us in this cold, gray “Jersey Shore” world. Their lives are perfection. They have the perfect house, marriage, and well-behaved dog that you can imagine without getting into Stepford territory. They know everything about one another.  The chemistry between Jones and Samberg is so real that you want this to be reality television and for them to feel this way in real life. When kismet like this happens in a movie you begin to wonder if your lover could ever know you as these two know each other. The answer to that is a resounding No! Nope. No one does. It’s not reality. But it is cinematic.

Celeste and Jess meet in 8^th grade and marry young. After several years, Celeste realizes Jesse, as much as he listens to her and makes her laugh, is never going to get his shit together and get a real job. They amicably divorce. The divorce is so amicable, that they remain living in the same house, going out with their same friends, and being each other’s BFFs. It’s sort of weird. Who does that? Who divorces and still goes out for pizza? I’ll tell you who—two people who realize the value of the other, two people who still love each other and two people who aren't sure when to let go. I’ve been there. It doesn’t end well.  Jesse would take Celeste back in a heartbeat (and helping her build her IKEA dresser at 2 in the morning shows his dedication). And, she sort of enjoys the power she has over him…not in a diabolical way, but in a way that we all really understand. It’s the way all we humans hope our exes still feel about us. It’s always easier being the one who is loved more in a relationship, isn’t it? Then you hold the power. And while Celeste is adorable and kind and funny and charming, she’s also a powerhouse at her job, ambitious, and on the fast track of life. Jesse, she thinks, drags her down. Where is her ambition equal?

During the midst of separation, Jesse has a one-night stand with a beautiful Belgian woman because this is what men naturally do when they divorce. They also don’t use protection and Ms. Belgian becomes pregnant. Then they get remarried to the Belgian beauty. Jesse suddenly realizes he has a child on the way. He starts to grow up. He starts to work. He starts to be responsible. He starts to become everything that Celeste always wanted him to be, except now he’s being that person with someone else.

There are many heart-wrenching scenes throughout the film, and they get more painful as the film goes on. Moments when you are laughing, crying, cringing and then suddenly hitting the person next to you and telling them to turn off the screen because your heart can’t take it any more.

Ultimately, this film is about knowing when to let someone out of your life and when to keep them. We’ve all been there. It’s a little sad. Shit, it’s really sad. It’s the color blue. It makes you want to go and sit on your ex-boyfriend’s porch until he realizes you really were supposed to be together and the music swells and everything feels right again as you French kiss. It makes you question every break up you’ve ever had. It makes you realize you probably did have to let them go and move on and that yeah, everything turns out the way it should (what other choice is there?)

Rashida Jones is simply the leading lady. Having been deemed by Hollywood as supporting lady material, Jones went out, wrote a script and cast herself as the star. This made my like of her turn into all out girl-love. She’s my kind of woman. Just like Kirsten Wig’s big breakout in Bridesmaids, Jones shows us she’s more than just second fiddle to Pam from The Office.  She’s truly the heart and soul of this film.

So go! See it! I met the director and he was really hot and smart and a bit dark and sort of edgy and pulled off a gray beanie, gray peacoat, and gray pants while looking like a ray of hot sunshine. Et voila.

p.s. If you’re going through a divorce  or you are not over your divorce, do not go see this unless you like being that guy huddled in a corner…sobbing.