“I wanted to make a film about an orgy,” said writer-director Patrick Brice to an enthusiastic audience following a screening of his film The Overnight. With an impeccable cast featuring Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwartzman and Judith Godrèche, he brings a surprisingly poignant intimacy and earnestness to a story that, in other hands with other actors, could easily have gotten lost in its own kinkiness.
It’s easy to be disillusioned by bland, scare-free horror films like The Lazarus Effect. Of course, not every horror film makes Ouija look like The Exorcist, but perhaps we can use this as a learning exercise. Rather than cursing the darkness, let’s light a little candle and look at “Three Things We Can Learn from The Lazarus Effect.”
One thing Togetherness does so well each, without even seeming like it has to work that hard to achieve it, is the way each new detail or drip of backstory about these characters seems completely natural as it is introduced. Even if an insecurity or personality tic arrives without prior discussion in previous episodes or allusions from other characters, everything melds together in a way that reflects life experience. The best example of this is the gradual return of Tina’s Texas accent as she gets closer to Houston, beginning with the surfacing of “y’all” on the plane and culminating with her drunk Southern Drawl. Not one character knows or expects everything that comes out of another’s mouth and to pretend otherwise would not be an honest representation of interpersonal relationships. Even Michelle and Brett, together for a decade or more, are continuously finding new ways to speak their minds that shocks their partner and at points even hurt them.
That’s great if you’re stoked for those Adam Sandler Netflix movies, but the real intriguing development of Netflix and Amazon and increasingly bizarre players like Overstock.com getting into the original content game is what it means for independent filmmakers. Ask HBO, and they know how to market a high level program to a specific, tailored …
If Togetherness was only about Amanda Peet’s Tina being dishonest with herself about how her behavior around men and friends affects the rest of her life, it could be a great show. Peet is performing far out of her normal lane with this zany, insecure women who either cannot or refuses to acknowledge social cues from men she dates. Long the straight woman in her television and film roles (except for Bent- RIP Bent!), Peet is impossible to look away from here, constantly the most entertaining yet cringe-worthy of the four main characters introduced in the pilot. Her misguided attempts to force a relationship out of what is so obviously a brief hookup with a perfectly cast Ken Marino is only the tip of the iceberg for Tina, as she sets all her hopes on one guy only to see them dashed when he “breaks up with her” via text message.
A conflicting romantic, mumblecore-like, comedy, with a frequently stirring mystery and flashes of Twilight Zone, wound around a Charlie Kaufman-like mystery-box, Charlie McDowell’s debut, The One I Love, turns expectations upside down, inside out, and then asks its audience it make sense out of it.When the camera first introduces Ethan (Mark Duplass) and Sophie (Elisabeth …
Bluntly revealing information to the audience is one manner by which to increase the tension, another being the performance of a capable star. In the case of Creep that star shines very brightly on Mark Duplass. Having co-written the screenplay with director Patrick Brice Duplass was well positioned to understand where to take the character, how to behave and when to dial up the creepiness. The most inventive decision is to make Josef has compelling a character as he is through comedy.
Black Rock Directed by Katie Aselton Screenplay by Mark Duplass Story by Katie Aselton 2012, USA Three best friends on a wilderness excursion find themselves in grave danger after an unfortunate encounter with a trio of x-war vets, on a hunting trip. Sound familiar? This indie, female-centric take on Deliverance features a great cast (Lake Bell, …
One of the breakout stars of NBC’s long-running sitcom The Office was Mindy Kaling, whose Kelly Kapoor had been a mainstay at Dunder-Mifflin since the show’s inception. Following the publication of a hit nonfiction book, Kaling received a development deal for her own sitcom at Fox, which made its debut in the fall of 2012 …
Have you noticed a trend in contemporary American indies? From Another Earth to Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, and now the quirky, relatively light-hearted time-travel (sorta) romp Safety Not Guaranteed, there seems to be a newfound infatuation among filmmakers for propelling intimate stories with new iterations of familiar sci-fi conventions. If …
Safety Not Guaranteed Directed by Colin Trevorrow Screenplay by Derek Connolly 2012, USA An eccentric and mysterious classified ad appears calling for a time-travel partner. Leads on other interesting stories have dried up for a Seattle magazine and so a reporter and two interns are dispatched to a small town to bring home a quirky …
Jeff, Who Lives at Home Written and directed by Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass USA, 2011 The Duplass brothers’ fourth feature length effort opens with its protagonist Jeff (Jason Segel), wielding a voice recorder, discussing how rewarding he finds M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs. Heavily relating to that film’s themes of fate and purpose, Jeff also …
Your Sister’s Sister Written and directed by Lynn Shelton USA, 2011 Lynn Shelton’s follow-up to her “mumblecore” hit Humpday retains frequent collaborator Mark Duplass and a focus on the dynamic between a small group of people, the trio of Your Sister’s Sister being Iris (Emily Blunt), Jack (Duplass), and Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt). Humpday’s character exploration …
Mark and Jay Duplass, considered to be one of the founders of the mumblecore aesthetic are moving forward with their next feature, a script that has been making the rounds in the past few days to Hollywood studios. According to the LA Times, the script titled Pitchfork is a dramatic thriller about the middle-aged mother …
Cyrus Directed by Jay and Mark Duplass The Austin based Duplass brothers made a name for themselves as vanguards of the mumblecore movement–a movement in film which emphasized uber-tiny budgets and naturalistic acting. Their first two features, The Puffy Chair and Baghead, drew immense, if hesitant, praise from festivals like SXSW, and skyrocketed them to …