Sawed by guest critic Adam Perry

A look at the Saw films by guest critic Adam Perry


What came first, Tobin Bell or the Saw franchise?

Last night, a disturbing vision came to me. I was standing in a friend’s bathroom, taking a break from an intense but friendly card game. The game went on into the wee hours of the morning, ending up touching the pillow at six thirty A.M. So it is about four, five. I’m standing in this bathroom, collecting myself, as the routine types and amounts of substances have been passed about throughout the night. I look to my left, my reflection looks to its right. I see the bathtub. And I think, I’m about to be sawed. Sawed is the extremely scientific and clever-sounding term I developed over six straight years of watching the Saw horror films. To be ‘sawed’ is to be targeted by the main villain, Jigsaw (or just Saw,) as one who is not appreciative of their life and therefore must be subjected to numerous punishments, each more horrifying and gruesome than the last. Jigsaw, a cancer patient with an indeterminate amount of time to live, targets those who have abandoned life as a worthy pursuit, taking for granted time that he would literally kill to have. So he designs traps and mazes and punishments that are meant to teach the subject a lesson or two about the value of life.

Saw is unquestionably the franchise of the 2000s (or whatever we are choosing to call this decade.) In six short years, from 2004 to 2009, every October has brought with it a new film in the series. The first, released in 2004 with a budget of one million dollars, made almost twenty times that its first weekend in release. The first film, one of only two to not premier in first place (eat one, Paranormal Activity) ushered in the characteristics that would “define” the franchise.

First and foremost is incredibly poor acting, no matter the caliber of the actor hired. Bear in mind we are discussing a film that brought out Danny Glover’s worst performance, and gave us the worst piece of acting on screen of all time with Cary Elwes as Lawrence Gordon. Everyone is either a ham-handed, are-they or aren’t-they villain or a shrieking victim. The difference between the two is minimal, as almost every character of relevance, and I use that term loosely, spends screen time occupying both roles. I would be inclined to say that the acting was most tolerable in the second film, although Donnie Wahlberg and future Saw-ee Lyriq Bent make me regret typing that statement. Saw III saw the exit of many players, such as Jigsaw (live Jigsaw at least; Bell lives on in that most atrocious of storytelling techniques: the flashback) and his preening, shouting assistant Amanda. Saw III also gave us our first look at Mark Hoffman, an investigative officer of some sort (another Saw trait: law enforcement officers are always of indeterminate origin) who has connections to Jigsaw. Saw V had the bad acting showdown between Costas Mandylor, who plays Mark Hoffman, and Scott Patterson as the main character being sawed, Agent Peter Strahm, both cop characters seem to be vying for worst law enforcement officer ever. Saw VI, the first since the original to not open at number one (also opening about 4 million fewer than Saw I,) featured the lamest acting.

The second trait that one can readily link to any Saw film is that each film tries to outdo the past in terms of the twists and turns taken by the story and the shocking nature of the ending. In regards to this, logic and consistency tend to be abandoned. Sure, the endings of II through V all have a certain mathematical logic to them. Saws III-IV had one of the best plot twist combinations ever, where the two were running concurrently, and the end of Saw IV encompassed and continued the end of Saw III. This was where the series indisputably hit its peek. However, the altering of the Saw-niverse that occurred to accommodate these plot twists was rather preposterous. In the first Saw, John Kramer emerges as the villain, the presumed dead body that lay between the two main characters for the whole film. John Kramer is a regular, cancerous Joe in the first film, nothing making him special except for the fact that he was dying, and this made him angry about those who took life for granted. Over the course of films III-VI, John Kramer is revealed to be some huge mogul of sorts; flashbacks show his face on the cover of numerous magazines, and he is shown as an intellectual, man of industry, and philanthropist, occupying all roles to a certain amount of accolade from the public. This is the kind of character development that occurs on the fly. Nobody planned for this at the beginning of the series and so therefore you can feel the extremely forced nature of the change. But no matter. Tobin Bell could make reading the phone book nefariously hilarious, and as long as he has screen time the series will have something going for it.

The third and most predominant trait the Saw films are the production values and direction, both of which resemble that of the sub-par student film. Grimy, dank locations are the setting for everything, from torture chambers to police stations to doctor’s offices to doctor’s homes. Nothing can escape the production designer’s appetite for grays and dark blood reds and general grime. The city in which Saw takes place must be the most depressing to live in, making Gotham or any Alex “The Crow”  Proyas-designed city look downright like Pleasantville. Jigsaw’s warehouse/funhouses always have a permanent coat of rust and stain about them; he seems only to use junkyard scrap when building his traps, not caring a bit about the germs and contaminants that inhabit rusty metal. And for such hazardous looking contraptions, they all seem to work as if there was no rust or damaged part about them. The makers of these films realized early on that budgets could be kept low using shitty locations, and that it would also be in keeping with the themes they were going for.

So here I am, standing in this bathroom, thinking that it is something like a scene out of Saw. And a realization hits me. I feel that way because I deserve to be sawed. I hold down no job, honest or otherwise, and contribute nothing to society other than tax revenue. I panic, thinking that Mark Hoffman is waiting behind those shower curtains in a pig mask, ready to strike, and unleash me upon a warehouse full of my captured friends and plenty of bloodletting devises. Then I snap out of it, and return to the game, the only fear in my mind that there won’t be a Saw VII.

Saw VI certainly did not kill the franchise. While researching facts for this article I stumbled upon a screeninglog.com article, stating that “Saw VII 3-D…David “Saw V” Hackl’s film will open in theatres Oct. 22, 2010.” (I have already marked my 2010 calendar.) So we can see that it will take world’s more than a sub-30 million theatrical run to put the final nail through Jigsaw’s coffin. The danger of Saw VI is alienating the real fans, such as myself, who enjoy such trash films as long as their intelligence is not insulted. Saw VI, tried to be topical, making the lead villain an evil life insurance provider who had at one point rejected John Kramer, Jigsaw, on the grounds that he had terminal cancer, which did not fit this magic “formula” the agent had invented. “But your formula fails to take into account the most basic of all factors, the will of the patient to live.” John Kramer warns him. Well, five years or so later I’m sure he regretted it, after what Jigsaw posthumously subjected him to. This poorly written farce dumbs down the relevance of the real crisis facing us from drug companies and insurance agents, not to mention the fact that no one is in this theatre to watch “The Informant!” or “A Civil Action.” Saw VI was also about 40% made up of scenes from other Saw movies that were literally lifted right out of them. Other films in the series, however illogical, did not feel the need to over-explain the plot twists with scenes that audiences had already seen once, or even twice. Hopefully Saw VII will have a nice million dollar budget, very doubtful given it’s 3-D nature, and return to the basics of the original film. Until that happens, and Cary Elwes returns, it’s game over.

Luna Nueva and Terminator Four reviews by Adam Perry

Special guest critic Adam Perry weighs in on New Moon and Terminator: Salvation

´"Ten million flies can´t be wrong. Eat more shit."

-G.C. Hill

How long did it take Twilight to storm the most mundane hill in the world, that of mass appeal? The book Twilight came out in 2005, the final one, Breaking Dawn, in 2008. There are also apparently unpublished retellings and second parts to books one and two. The third book is called Eclipse, the second, New Moon. I think each book sold over ten copies. The author is Stephanie Meyer, a Mormon. She has never seen an R-rated film, except for parts of Interview with a Vampire.

The first film, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, came out on November 21st, 2008. Twilight the movie looked as though, from it´s exceptionally atrocious previews, like everything was saturated in grey. Maybe those were the creative differences that drove Hardwicke from the film, although it was allegedly the production timeline for New Moon. It took three hundred and fifty-seven days for New Moon, re-titled The Twilight Saga: New Moon to appear onscreens, unless, like me, you were in Spain, in which case it came out two days earlier than it did state side.

I saw the first trailer for New Moon before Where the Wild Things Are. It was a single scene, consisting of Kristen Stewart, the heroine, being threatened by an unseen attacker, and a shirtless Taylor Lautner, who nearly went the way of Hardwicke himself, run and turn into a wolf, defending her. The effects were so horrendous looking that I thought to myself, I have to see this film. Twilight´s extremely poor-looking production value and foolish greys had already tempted me, and here was new moon, with a release date falling on my birthday, tempting me again. The first full trailer of the Chris Wietz directed film looked so awful I couldn´t believe it was from a real movie, thus solidfying my need to see it.

However, things, as always, did not go according to plan. I had an opportunity to travel with a good friend, and although it meant missing both Bad LT. Port of Call New Orleans, I had to leave the country. However, as was to be expected, New Moon was playing worldwide, even earlier than in the states! I bullied my friend, a reluctent fan of the first film only, not the books, into seeing New Moon in spanish.

Since I knew nothing of Twilight or New Moon's plot, the movie did not make much sense to me. I know that New Moon starts on Bella´s birthday (because I remembered from Spanish class that cumpleaños means birthday), and that she is almost assaulted by one of her vampire lover Edward´s friends. This prompts Edward to leave the story, which I figured out because I was only seeing shadowy images of Robert Pattinson, which let me know he was in those scenes only in Bella´s mind. I knew that she was growing close to the Ducky-like Jacob (soley in personality, as Jacob is muscular enough to shame any gym-going man), who turns out to be a wolf also. Then Bella travels to a foreign country I didn´t know because I don´t speak spanish, Dakota Fanning showed up for no reason, some ancient vampires lead by Michael Sheen let Edward go, and he and Bella return to the states. The film ends with the most anti-climactic confrontation between werewolf and vampire.

I knew when I was supposed to laugh, as the audience´s laughter told me something funny was happening, and more importantly, when I wasn´t supposed to, which would be when I was the only one laughing, usually at Robert Pattinson´s hilarious ghostly images.

First, the good. The soundtrack, the entire theatre letting out a collective orgasmic gasp the first time Jacob appears shirtless, and any time Robert Pattinson is on screen.

The bad. The differences between vampires and humans in this series seem only to be strength and agility. Nary a fang or even a bite is shown, and vampires walk about during the day time freely. I´m all for reinventing the wheel and everything, but it should be reinvented with talent, not a bunch of illogical and, frankly, uninteresting stylistic choices.

At least Chris Weitz allowed a color other than grey into the film. Next job: getting Kristen Stewart to crack a smile. Current grade: A for a hilarious time. I plan to watch and review both Twilight and New Moon in english.

This morning I re-watched Terminator: Salvation. I had seen it in theatres and left taking only the discovery of Sam Worthington with me as a positive, hating the rest. This was mostly because the trailer for the film that debuted with The Dark Knight looked amazing, with the best Nine Inch Nails song (the day the world went away) playing throughout. However, upon second viewing, the film can be seen as, if nothing else positive, ambitious. Unlike the first three Terminator films, which were exaclty the same film no matter what any one says, McG and his crew cooked up a plot that did not just involve running from a machine that is unstoppable until film´s end. He split the movie into two parts, one that followed Christian Bale as the fourth person to play John Connor (yeah, I´m counting The Sarah Connor Chronicles), and the other following executed criminal Marcus Wright, played by the revelatory Sam Worthington. The film lumbers along inoffensively and is even somewhat satisfying, but it has three major problems that can make it flunk-worthy to purists.

1) the marginalization of John Connor.

for the main character of the film, John Connor is actually outmatched by Marcus Wright for screen time. It doesn´t help that the scenes he does have are full of tired shouting and predictable struggles with superiors, while Wright is an interesting, compelling, mysterious character that the audience will find way more interesting and exciting to follow. As John Connor, Christain Bale doesn´t really bring anything to the table, not giving a bad performance, but certainly not making the audience miss him when he is gone.

2) References to the other films

there are three of these that I find intolerable, one somewhat O.K. Young Kyle Reece, suprisingly not terribly played by Anton Yelchin, tells Marcus Wright "Come with me if you want to live." strike one. The second, which is atually somewhat more subtile, is Wright teaching Reece to tie his shotgun to himself, as Michael Biehn does in Terminator 1. The third is John Connor telling his wife, this time played by Bland, I mean Bryce, Dallas Howard, "I´ll be back." Not only does infuriate me to think how much that original line is taken out of context as it is, this "homage" solidified it. The fouth, and most unforgiveable, is a fake Arnold as the main terminator at the end of the film, revealed as though it is a huge surprise. Don´t treat me like an idiot McG, especially not after the dollars I pumped into Charlie´s Angels I and II and all the time I spent defending you, I know that ain´t Arnold Schwarzzenegger. Absolutly pointless.

3), and finally. the hated PG-13 rating

No, I did not want to see Moon Bloodgood naked. I wanted the old fashioned, and never abandoned unbrideled carnage of the first three films. Even the huge action set pieces that plagued Rise of the Machines were filled with the requisite creative blood-letting that had defined the franchise. The decision to make the film PG-13 felt purely financial, not artistic at all, and the bitch of it all is that Terminator: Salvation was a financial disappointment.

The film is worth it to watch simply for the Marcus Wright storyline, but mediocrity, along with the above stated issues, weigh the film down. It depends on the viewer as to how much. Marcus Wright parts, A-, Christian Bale: C-, film C plus (there is no plus sign on this spanish keyboard)

thanks for reading guys. -Adam

Tom McCarthy Directing New Film

Ion Cinema is reporting that my boy Tom McCarthy (who directed the super-ill The Station Agent and the lesser-but-still-very-good The Visitor) begins filming his new movie, Win, Win February in New York and New Jersey.

There are no details yet on the plot, but here's hoping its in the "people relating to one another" game than about making grandiose homeland security statements. Its important to use film for political purposes, but I just think he's got so much potential in the realm of small character-based films (a type very few are really good at writing/directing) and he should just focus on refining that. ("I bet this idiot likes Dan In Real Life." Yeah, I do.)

P.S. - Mr. McCarthy co-wrote the story for Up. Which is funny to me just because you know John Lasseter and the rest of those guys at Pixar think they're being really artsy working with the director of The Visitor. I'd love to see them have Lars Von Trier co-write a story, but we all know it would kill the Pixar boys to take a real risk ("Wall-E didn't talk for a while!" The whale from Free Willy had no dialogue, doesn't make his film art.) I'm kidding, Free Willy is obviously art.

'It's Complicated' earns R-rating over Weed Scene

In a move that is as shockingly stupid as it is thoroughly predictable, the Motion Picture Association of America has upheld its R rating of the new Nancy Meyers romantic comedy It's Complicated because of a scene in which Meryl Streep and Steve Martin smoke marijuana "with no bad consequences."

It's amazing to me that uncreative, pandering storytelling is a requirement of the MPAA. These are movies, not after-school specials. I do sympathize with the board's suggestion that young people could see the film and it might encourage drug use, but such thinking would suggest that people are going to kill robots because they see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

I know the drugs/sex versus violence argument is pretty old, and that's not what I'm getting at. What really bothers me is that if the filmmakers put something trite and predictable into the film, such as Meryl Streep crashing her car after smoking weed, then the film would land a PG-13 rating. This just encourages the "movie ideal" that life is simple and bad actions have immediately, obvious consequences. This doesn't reflect life and I don't see how the MPAA could think this would be a good thing to expose children to either, unless of course they plan on indoctrinating the masses to keep up the sale of popcorn and sour patch kids. Oh wait, they do.

Good for Universal for sticking by the filmmakers. Steve Martin even video conferenced in to plead the scene's case to the MPAA. I do think it's funny that the MPAA approved a scene in the trailer in which its obvious Ms. Streep and Mr. Martin have been smoking (Martin's holding the joint), a trailer which is approved for all audiences and can play in front of PG crowds even, but won't allow it in the finished film.

It's a shame that many families who were perhaps considering taking their more mature children to a nice Christmas romantic comedy will now be stuck viewing Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeekuel.

Here's the L.A. Times piece on the issue.

And the trailer below:

Vampire Weekend Video for "Cousins"

I'm really pumped for the new Vampire Weekend album Contra - music snobs be damned. Pre-order it on vinyl here.

Their new music video for first single Cousins (no, Horchata was not the first single, free downloads cause such confusion) does exactly what great videos do: takes a simple concept and has fun with it.

The Playlist has an interview with the directors, and Pitchfork reviewed of the song.

And the video itself:

"The Box" & "Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day" Reviews

Guest Critic Adam Perry reviews Richard Kelly and Troy Duffy's latest films.

Recently I had reason to take in The Box at the movies. Coming from Richard “Donnie Darko” Kelly, I had little reason for excitement resume-wise. However, I cannot help but be interested in Kelly after watching the #1 Donnie Darko Fan: A Darkomentary short film DVD extra, in which a crazed, possibly fake fan explains on camera why he is the number one Donnie Darko fan. The fan eventually goes to a convention where Kelly is speaking, and asks him numerous mythology related questions about Donnie Darko. Kelly, a good-natured, jockish looking guy, responds, “I made it all up, man. I made it all up.” This answer intrigued me, as did the downward spiral of the fan in the video, and ever since his name has caught my eye, always made me read an article about his upcoming projects. So I saw The Box, my first Richard Kelly theatrical experience.

The story of The Box is simple, but it is also crowded with details. A struggling family receives a box and a key. The key opens up to a “button unit,” as Frank Langella says, and the button, when pressed, signals for the killing of an unknown individual. The family is then compensated with one million dollars cash. In 1976!

Kelly seems to have a fascination with disfigurement in this film; Cameron Diaz has only one toe as the result of botched x-ray radiation, and anyone who knows anything about this film has seen Frank “half his face was…gone” Langella in the ads. The make-up department gets points for it being slightly more realistic, and far more frightening, than Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, but Kelly never really uses this idea for anything other than shock value.

The button is pushed, and calamity ensues. Herein lie the film's best moments, with evil Langella unleashing a torrent of unknown menaces in the form of everyday people from earlier in the film, all of whom are under his complete control and suffer bloody noses for it. It is here also where Kelly throws in many plotlines, including alien invasions and the nefarious nature of government testing. The Mars theme is eerily reminiscent of Black Bush’s, and real Bush’s, Mars follies, if I may get my Peter Travers on for a moment. The alien bit, I will give Kelly credit, is done fairly well, and gets points for originality, if anything, aping a tad bit from Sphere.

However, bad acting and lame dialogue makes the movie semi-unwatchable. Cameron Diaz has a wretched southern accent, but does not give a terrible performance. James Marsden and whoever plays the couple’s son are both terrible. Frank Langella is, of course, amazingly hilarious as Arlington “more like 1/8 of a face” Steward. I would, of course, prefer to abstain from giving the film a grade; I guess it would be [B-]

And now The Boondock Saints, being viewed in its entirety for the first time since I was a high school freshman. First time ever on DVD format.

The film opens with the theme of Smoking and Irish Stuff, including religious imagery, the font of the credits, and the music. One of my Irish friends, who is an outspoken hater of movies that are “too Irish,” which for him include Mystic River, said he thought The Boondock Saints was “a complete Tarantino rip-off” and that he “thinks so much less of [me] because [I] like those movies.”

Troy Duffy, despite his faults, does bring an amount of personal flair to this “Tarantino rip-off.” Great musical numbers, particularly the introduction of Willem Dafoe, original and humorous action set pieces, and likeable characters distract the non-anal, i.e. average viewer from the films otherwise present Tarantino biting. Also, some will disparage the time-shuffling of the script, also crediting that to Tarantino, I’ve always found the way Duffy fools with time to be like a Guillermo Arriaga script. Funny enough that The Boondock Saints came out before any of Arriaga’s big scripts, which may make the comparison fail, but that says something about the nature of comparing a work to a work, and labeling something as a rip-off. No one is original anymore; it’s the way ideas are applied that make a film like this one worthy of many a repeat viewing.

Despite myself I enjoy this film. It has the gritty, late ‘90s shoe-string budget feel of such other Dafoe classics like Animal Factory. There are diverting scenes, full of as much spectacle as any scumbucket-worthy action fair such as T-formers II or G.I. Joe. Throughout the film we get four action pieces, each recalled upon after the fact. A fight at a bar, an improbable case of self-defense, a large shoot-up of a Russian gang meeting, and a three on one gunfight that involves at least twelve firearms. The ending is a toss-up; the eventual alliance of the McManus brothers and Agent Smecker is interesting, mostly because Duffy is so clear about Smecker’s guilt over allying himself with such blatant, justice-dispensing killers, but the way events play out is a little on the weak, unbelievable side.

After re-watching The Boondock Saints, it was on to see Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day. The general public had been teased/threatened upon the general public for at least six years before a trailer and a release date were finally set, an interim during which Duffy was smeared/exposed as a megalomaniac, friend-alienating jerk in the film “Overnight,” and everyone except Norman Reedus aged noticeably. The film opens with Rocco, killed off in the first film, walking into a church, giving a monologue about being involved with the Saints. A priest is then murdered in the Saints’ style, in an effort to flush the McManus brothers out of hiding.

The hiding turns out to be Ireland, where the brothers have spent ten years growing their hair and beards and herding goats with their improbable father, Noah “Il Duce” McManus. Upon learning of the priest’s demise, the brother shave, cut hairs, and dig up the past in the form of a suitcase full of weapons, cash, and pennies. Boarding a freighter, they return to Boston, picking up Clifton “Gonzales Gonzales” Colins Jr. as a sidekick. When the Saints land in Boston, they uncover a multi-layered plan to flush them out, by Papa Joe Yakavetta’s son, Judd Nelson, who was in turn being used to lure Noah McManus out of hiding, so an old enemy can confront him. Extreme violence, time-shuffling, and unexpected cameos follow.

All Saints Day is truly a fan’s sequel. Duffy deftly recalls bits from his first film, like the brothers’ hilarious fight in a heating duct, without repeating them. The movie’s sweet spot for me was a fever dream that the McManus brothers have, in which Rocco expounds upon his death, saying, “I wouldn’t trade the good we did for the whole world…not a single minute of it.” Whether or not the viewer agrees with the film’s rampant vigilantism, it is hard not to identify with the themes of doing something with your life, even if your life ends up being the cost. Despite the films cartoonish nature, deaths sting and big ideas can blindside the viewer, while most serious films cannot even hope to evoke such feelings.

Duffy’s flair for violence is admirable, and the way his victims are shot echoes such films as The Wild Bunch, in the large scope of massacres that take place. His victims always die funny, being shot four or five times before the actor realizes that they are supposed to fall. Critics will deride his violence as unrealistic; I didn’t know we were watching Saving Private Ryan or A History of Violence here. The Saints are a cartoon unto themselves, their world is a fully realized one, and the sequel was made with that world and its fan base, all created with the first film, in mind. For entertainment value, southern Julie Benz, and crazily orchestrated scenes of carnage, look no further than the Saints, I and II. [A]. - Adam Perry.

'The Fourth Kind' Will Drown in 'Paranormal Activity' Wake

There is always the unfortunate situation of an indie film coming out and catching on with the mainstream audience, destroying whatever chance the studio equivalent had of making any money. It is a rare situation to feel bad for the studio, but I do feel a bit that way in regards to Universal's The Fourth Kind. The early reviews have been very ho-hum, but what's especially troubling is that the film is going for the "these events really happened" angle, which while not exactly the same as the "this is real footage" gimmick Paranormal Activity (domestic gross: $86 million and counting) used, audiences have already believed their share of real, spooky phenomena for the year.

The Fourth Kind (which I never really wanted to see, though looks like it might resemble one of the better X-Files episode) begins with actress Milla Jovovich as herself, stating that the interviews in the film are based on real footage. It's a clever idea, but you can feel the studio's slick hands all over the trailers for this one, which will be laughabled in the face of Paranormal Activity's (pseudo) authenticity.

I suppose at this point it would just taint Fourth Kind to move it to another date. Universal will just have to bite the bullet and hope to break even. Or maybe they'll just stop making Milla Jovovich vehicles. That's not a knock on her, but rather the types of films she stars in that get green lit. Although, A Perfect Getaway was quite entertaining. Look for that when it comes out on DVD.

The First Review of 'The Box': 'Eh, It's Kinda Okay, I Guess.' I'll Take It!

Click here for Variety's review of The Box (opening Nov. 6th), Richard Kelly's attempt at mainstream success. The good news is that all of the terrible buzz on the film seems to be a bit premature, as critic Jordan Mintzer says that it is "weird and [wild]," so if nothing else, Mr. Kelly hasn't gone soft.

The trailer's below:

Bill Nighy on 'Punch-Drunk Love'

I agree with actor Bill Nighy (Love Actually, Notes on a Scandal) that 'Punch-Drunk Love' is P.T. Anderson's best film. Here's Nighy's piece on the film from Rotten Tomatoes, where he was listing his Five Favourite Films to promote Pirate Radio (formerly The Boat That Rocked). What do you think is Anderson's best film?

"A relatively new film that went straight into my top five, I adore Punch Drunk Love, and I can almost recite it to you. It was on TV on a loop for a while, and it's like The Godfather, you hit that film on TV and you stay there. There aren't many, but you just stay there, thinking, 'I could keep flipping, but there's not actually going to be anything better than this,' and it doesn't matter that you've seen it sixteen times - you just dig it because it's such high quality.

I think Adam Sandler and Emily Watson are completely marvellous in it, and I didn't know anything about Adam Sandler, I've never seen any of his other films, so I've only seen him in this. I love Paul Thomas Anderson, and I think it's my favourite of his films. Possibly a controversial thing to say, as his other films are, perhaps, hipper, but I love the fact that it's this fucked up love story. I love it stylistically, the jokes, the visual attitude of it and those funky links that he does. I love the apparent arbitrariness of the plot, which hinges on upon the fact that you get free air-miles with a particular brand of chocolate pudding, and I love the way it dovetails at the end.


Everyone in it is magnificent, including Philip Seymour Hoffman, who's in The Boat that Rocked and who is beautiful in Punch Drunk Love. Adam Sandler gives one of the greatest light entertainment performances I've ever seen. It's a submerged light entertainment, it's so integrated, so authentic in terms of naturalism, that you surprise yourself by laughing, because it's so deadpan, so undercover in terms of comedy, and that's my favourite thing of all time, the highest level. For the first twenty minutes you think you're in art movie hell, but you're not, so don't panic."

John Mayer: 'Who Says' & 'Battle Studies'

The new John Mayer single Who Says  starts just about every verse with the line "Who says I can't get stoned." It will be interesting to see how it plays on radio. I can't imagine a filler line for "stoned," let me know if you guys come up with anything. My guess is he'll do for marijuana what the Black Eyed Peas did for lady humps and Katy Perry for kissing girls. More power to him. Controversy aside, the song is really quite beautiful. It reminds me of a James Taylor style slow jam. In fact, I'd love to hear a James Taylor cover of the song immediately.

Speaking of covers, check out the album cover for John Mayer's album Battles Studies (left). At first I was thinking, "Oh, it's a joke." And then I realized, "No. It is not." But of course, it is a joke, he just doesn't seem to be in on it.

Either way, I've pre-ordered the album on vinyl. It was supposed to be released before Thanksgiving but now has a December 1st release date. This would be the time to make a joke about Mr. Mayer's lazy ways, but I'm sure every other media outlet will have a field day with that so I'll just leave them to their cheap ways.

Below is the video for Who Says:

NBC Cancels 'Southland,' Calling it "Too Good"

That headline is not entirely true. I mean, it's really cancelled but NBC official reason is, well, non-existent. Southland did fine in the ratings, garnered unanimous critical acclaim, and seemed to be a worthy follow-up to E.R. (which I've never actually watched) by that show's producer John Wells (who produces some good independent films, too).

Southland will possibly find a home on basic cable or with a premium channel, but there is something very encouraging about a critically acclaimed show to have a home on one of the big four networks. Shows like (early) Lost, (the first season of) 24, or something like Friday Night Lights (which is only alive because of co-funding from DirecTv) give television hope. It says that the mainstream audiences, the people without cable, approve of quality programming - that's the real (note: only) power of television: to unite everyone under great art. It just never really happens anymore.

The only comment NBC will make is that "the quality of the show wasn't a factor in the decision." NBC execs are looking to cut costs across the board. Hence The Jay Leno Show and shipping off Medium to CBS. Their highest rated show is the cheap-to-produce The Biggest Loser.

NBC's ideal situation, it seems, would be a schedule filled with reality shows - anything cheap to make. At a certain point its just about keeping one's job. Jeff Zucker doesn't want to stop running NBC Universal, and with an offer by Comcast (and now Rupert Murdoch is jumping in) on the table to buy the company, they want NBC Universal to look as attractive as possible to stockholders. Sure, there are some losers who care about quality television, but that is 95% of the time an oxymoron anyway so fuck it - let's make some money.

Dawson's Creek: The Complete Series Coming to DVD Nov. 10th

I know that none of you care, but I'm hyped for the release of the Complete Series of Dawson's Creek on DVD. I own all the seasons but can't find my copies of the 2nd and 3rd, so maybe I could justify this purchase.

The packaging looks pretty lame, but it comes with a CD of music featured on the show, a new booklet (wow!) and a new interview with series creator, Kevin Williamson (should be whack, probably less than five minutes). I've been rewatching the First Season of the show and I think it's a program that, more than any other series I can recall, completely feeds off its pilot. The pilot is amazing television, and the second episode is as well, but beyond that it's all fairly standard. I love it all, every episode, but I think if you're not hooked by the pilot, you wouldn't have much desire to find out what happened to these characters. However, if you do watch the pilot, I'm fairly certain you'll become addicted. I hope Nick Schibani comes out of hiding to comment on this.

I also found out about this book: Dawson's Creek: A Critical Understanding which features this absurd review:

"To whom it may concern,

I bought this book and I would just like to say that I do not regret it AT ALL. I would easily say that this book changed my life. I have been a Dawsons Creek fan for several years, and Bindigs point of views and ability to capture the true story of Dawson's creek is remarakable. I have never read a book that I physically could not put it down. My husband left me because I would want to read the book all day rather than spend some quality relationship bonding time with her and the kids. Im not upset about it at all. I am perfectly happy sitting with my cats in my cat pajamas just reading this book with a good cup of tea. I would recommend this book to any stranger. It changed my life for the better. Because I knew read this book. I have been changed, for good."

Here's the first part of the pilot. I think it's in Spanish, I don't have speakers here:

Early Word From Critics: 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' is Good, Not Great

So far, The Playlist has given Fantastic Mr. Fox a B-, Variety has posted a moderately positive review (discussing its box office potential more than any review should, as is typical of Variety - and especially Todd McCarthy), and Comingsoon.net gave it an 8 out of 10. Comingsoon.net critics, however, are typically all over the map, never reflecting a critical consensus or any reflection of the film's quality.

Middling reviews are typical of Mr. Anderson's post-Royal Tenenbaums work (that film earned Mr. Anderson and Owen Wilson respective Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay), so it could still be quite good.

The one thing the critics all agree on is that the film resembles Mr. Anderson's films more than a Roald Dahl book - which, no offense to Mr. Dahl - is the way I'd prefer it.

New Haneke/Huppert Collabo In The Works

The Playlist reports that Michael Haneke's next film will star his muse, Isabelle Huppert who acted in his best film (me thinks), The Piano Teacher, as well as one of his less successful (but still great - that's the scale with Haneke) films, The Time of the Wolf. The new as-yet-untitled film centers on the idea of aging, specifically "the humiliation of the physical breakdown in the elderly." Sounds intriguing.

I haven't had a chance to see The White Ribbon yet - it opens in NY Decemeber 30th. Let me know if any of you guys hear about screenings before then.

Here's Haneke talking about The Piano Teacher:

Interview: Eleni Mandell

Eleni Mandell is one of the premiere singer/songwriters working today with a prolific oeuvre dating back to 1998 where her fantastic Jon Brion co-produced debut, Wishbone, perfected the Brion sound before there was one. Every album since has seen her create filler-less opuses – from Thrill to Miracle of Five. Check out her website (elenimandell.com where you can buy all her albums, as well as some 7’’ records). Her latest album, Artificial Fire, is a fine addition to her catalog, the title track (video here) finds her rocking a bit more, and she really living up to song titles with the aptly-named Personal.

Rocket Multimedia: On my iTunes, all your albums fall into different genres. (Eleni laughs) Wishbone is folk, Miracle of Five is jazz.

Eleni Mandell: None of it makes any sense to me. If you walk into a record store, they file me under ‘Rock.’ They don’t file me under a million different places. Although, record stores don’t really exist anymore.

RM: That’s true. I feel that something like [the song] Afternoon I could totally see that being on Artificial Fire and Don’t Let It Happen could be on Miracle of Five. I feel like a song of yours is unique and even if you’re using different instruments or doing a different genre, it all comes across as one of your songs.

EM: That’s very nice, thank you.

RM: Oh no problem.

(Both laugh)

EM: Yeah, I wish there was a way I could control what they say, but, you know…

RM: I guess that wasn’t really a question, I’m sorry.

EM: It was a commiseration.

RM: When you write a song, is there a certain group of people whom you share it with? I’m a writer and I never know who to take notes from and which notes to take and how long until you say, “Okay, it’s done.”

EM: I have a few people I’ll share things with. But, when I was younger I definitely used to say, “Hey, I wrote a new song! Can I play it for you?” Now I definitely feel a bit more private about it for some reason. There are a couple of people who, if they happen to be here, I might play it for them. Then I’ll stop halfway through and be like, “You know, you get the picture.” I always have this sense that people don’t feel comfortable listening to a song that way. I don’t want to impose myself and I also don’t want to be in that position where someone says, “Hey, can I play you my latest opus?” I try to be a little on the down low about it.

RM: Lilly Allen was going on about how it’s harder for new artists to come up in music because of illegal downloading. Your` first album came out in 1998 so you’ve evolved as all the illegal downloading has gone on. What do you think about the situation?

EM: I’ve always felt that if somebody wanted my music, I was flattered - no matter how they got it. I once got a letter from somebody that said they discovered me because they stole my record from a record store. I was flattered that they were compelled to do so. In some ways, I feel like it’s a shame the way things have worked out. In a lot of ways, I feel like it’s a shame the way things have worked out in the music industry. And I was never really a part of the mainstream industry, but I always did have that dream that someday I would get a record deal and then they would make me known to the general public, and people would want to buy my music. The airwaves are just completely flooded. There are so many bands and so many people wanting to be musicians and so many people getting stuff for free. I’m not really too aware of how much free downloading goes on with my music, but I don’t really know how I feel about it. I still struggle to get my music heard and its kind of a mystery as to how things will continue. I guess if people steal it, I hope at least they come to shows.

RM: I feel like you can’t really win because if you’re saying, “Hey, you should pay for my music” then you’re not cool. And if you say, “Hey, everything’s free,” then you don’t have a career.

EM: Yeah, I don’t make most of my money from people buying my records. I never have. I’ve gotten by from licensing. But, I guess at live shows I’ve noticed over the years, a decline in people buying CDs and records. Although, vinyl shelves are filling up in small increments. So that may be where I might be losing money, when people come to shows and then don’t want to buy something. But, it’s so great when people come to shows, no matter how many people there are.

RM: Are you doing more touring for Artificial Fire coming up?

EM: I don’t think we are It’s been pretty complicated to keep my band together for the U.S. My bass player [Ryan Feves], he and his wife had twins and my drummer [Kevin Fitzgerald] of ten years was suddenly unable to get time off from work. I ended up using Nigel Harrison (wrote the hit song One Way or Another by Blondie and played bass for them) and DJ Bonebreak (drummer for the LA punk band, X) on bass and drums and they were amazing, great guys to tour with. But, I can’t really afford it to be perfectly honest. I don’t think a full band tour is in the near future.

RM: The acoustic tour.

EM: I did do a recent Southeast tour with my guitar player as a duo and that was really a lot of fun and the shows were really successful.

RM: I Believe in Spring - I love that song. Were you influenced by Cole Porter on that?

EM: I was influenced by all of the great American songwriters of that era, really more unconsciously than consciously. I grew up listening to the music of that era so its sort of ingrained in me. It’s probably the first music that I danced around the living room singing. At the time, I wasn’t specifically listening to anybody of that genre but that influence is just a constant in my brain. I can’t get away from it and I don’t think it really helps sell records.

RM: The song Cracked had one lyric that I was wondering if you could help me decipher: “You gave up God/I’ve seen the evidence in the pictures.”

EM: (laughs) One of the funny things about my songs is that the lyrics are often very literal and the person who inspired that song had been raised as a religious Christian. He was explaining to me when he gave up on believing in God, and then I had come across all these pictures of him with other women and I got really angry about it. So that’s what that is. It’s not a metaphor but I like the idea that people would listen to a song and come up with their own ideas about what something means. I’m always afraid of disappointing people by saying, “No, that conversation happened.”

RM: You did a song for the I Love You, Beth Cooper soundtrack. What was that experience like?

EM: It was great. I was invited to submit the song for that and they told me that they had had a different song in mind that they couldn’t afford to use, so that’s why they came to me. They wanted it to be a sort of bittersweet, twisted song that someone might sing at a graduation. So it should point at lyrics about moving on. I just gave it a shot and the director loved it. That lead me to record the song for the film’s final credits. It was a really different experience. Rob Cavallo [Green Day’s Dookie] produced the song.

RM: Oh yeah, wow, I’ve heard of him.

EM: Yeah, he’s a very big time producer. It was kind of fun to work with him and see the different way he approaches music from how I would do it. In the end, the director wanted something specific. It’s not really my version of the song. It’s what they wanted for the movie. I think it’s a really great song and the version that my band and I arranged originally was more Velvet Underground, but they wanted something that they thought the teenagers would like so it became something different. I always think teenagers should just like stuff that’s cool but I was never a mainstream teenager so I guess my point of view on that is very skewed.

RM: Yeah, I always like it when forty-year-old men are saying, “No, this is what teenagers like.”

EM: I know. And what they’re going by is just previous record sales. But, they’re a lot better at business than I am so I guess they don’t need to listen to me.

RM: They should, they’d be better off. Speaking of producers, on your first album, Wishbone, you worked with Jon Brion. What was that like?

EM: That was great. I learned a lot from working with Jon. He had so many incredibly foreign instruments, foreign to me at the time. Now they’ve become, “Oh yeah, I know all about that.” But at the time I’d never heard anything like it and it was a sound that I was really drawn to and that I loved. Jon can play anything. We had a lot of fun where I’d record the song on guitar with vocals and Jon would play all of this crazy stuff all over it. It was a lot of fun and it was great to work with him and with Ethan Johns who was engineering and playing drums on some things. Ethan Johns went on to be a really big producer as well, producing Kings of Leon and stuff. It was great working with them and learning from them. They kind of got swept away into their big careers and I had to finish the record with Brian Kehew, who’s also really great and whom I also made several records with. He went on to produce one of Fiona Apple’s records many years later, which is a coincidence because Jon was working on Fiona Apple’s first record when he and I were starting to go into the studio.

RM: I’m a big fan of Fiona Apple’s When the Pawn… and some of the instrument, I’m said, “That’s from ‘Wishbone!’” Some of the mad circus style, I was saying, “Oh, that was done first on ‘Wishbone.’”

EM: That’s very Jon and I kind of purposely moved away from it because it did become a very big trend in the music industry as Jon got bigger and bigger.

RM: At UC Berkeley, were the kid in the dorm who’d bring out her guitar and play for everybody?

EM: Like I always say, I don’t do campfire. I actually never lived in the dorm. When I went to college I lived in a boarding house, which was really great. Sometimes girls would come in my room and I would play to them. But I wasn’t really taking music seriously at that time, I just always had a guitar and I’d make up funny songs or try to learn peoples’ songs. But it wasn’t until I was in my senior year that I started to actually take music seriously.

RM: I read in a popgurls.com interview that you were in a writing group and writing short stories. Are you still writing short stories?

EM: I find it really, really difficult. I’ve been working on these extremely short stories, little songs that are stories for a long time and kind of honing that craft. It’s so incredibly different trying to write prose, but I do have an idea for a story. I want to learn how to write mystery/thiller/detective stuff. I don’t know when I’ll do that but I think it would be really fun.

RM: Like The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.

EM: Exactly. I always say, “This is the perfect book: it’s a Jewish/detective/heroin novel.

RM: I also read that you have a signed copy of a Charles Bukowski love poem?

EM: I do. It’s really beautiful. I didn’t meet him. My mother got that for me for a Hanukkah present because she was on jury duty with a bookseller.

RM: You said in an interview that you’re not a fan of laid-back, casual, ironic, deadpan type music. I didn’t know if there were any trends that have come out recently that you’ve kind of rolled your eyes at?

EM: I actually roll my eyes at all trends. Every now and then I jump on a bandwagon ten years too late. I think I’ve always shied away from being part of a group, a trend or a scene. I’ve always kind of felt like a spy. I feel like I have a day pass or something. It’s probably part of what’s been difficult in marketing me, for people who do that, that I’m not part of a scene or trend. What are some of the latest trends? Guys with beards?

RM: Yeah, guys with beards.

EM: Big beards like, “Hey, I’m just a farmer living here in L.A.”

(both laugh)

EM: Or the ironic mustache? I went with a friend, a guy in the music business, to see a singer/songwriter. And he said, “What did you think of him?” And I said, “I don’t really find it sexy to look up on stage and see someone who could be someone’s dad from 1979.” That’s not sexy to me. I know that’s part of the new trend, “Hey, I’m just a casual dad, wearing my tucked in shirt here.”

(both laugh)

RM: The song Don’t Let It Happen has a Bonnie Raitt vibe, I felt like. And I noticed there were some things with the vocals and melody. Does that all come to you at once or is there a layering process of, “Okay, we’re going to put this here, and…”

EM: As far as the whole recorded song with the band?

RM: Yes.

EM: I write all the songs myself in my living room, and I have my own ideas about where I want it to go a lot of the time, and sometimes I really don’t. With that record in particular, we really arranged everything as a band. So I would bring in the song. Or sometimes I wouldn’t bring in the song, I would start saying, “Can we try this at a live show?” And that was one of the songs we sort of started to figure out as we were touring a few years ago. My drummer is a collector of 45s - LPs too, but he loves old soul from the ‘60s. That was kind of the vibe we were going for. It was kind of an old soul song. Everybody brought something unique to all the songs. We’ve been playing together so long, we can really fall into a nice kind of arrangement. The only thing specific I can remember is that originally my guitar player was playing it, as he would say, kind of “country funky.” And I said, “No. I don’t want that.” And he’d say, “Why? What’s wrong with that?” I kind of cringe if anybody gets a little too bluesy. He was kind of resisting, arguing with me, and I said, “Look, you can come up with beautiful melodies, just come up with something else.” Then he came up with that beautiful melody. It was perfect.

RM: One thing that goes through your music, that I feel like more people should do, is that I feel like there’s a certain modesty to it. You’re assembling these great songs with beautiful melodies, but you’re not ever trying to say, “Oh hey, look at this, look at that.” You’re inviting people to let it wash over them. You’re not screaming for attention.

EM: Oh that’s so nice. I think that’s a really nice compliment. I do believe in subtlety and I think that’s really cool.

RM: The song I Love Planet Earth is a lot of fun. Why did you write a song like that?

EM: I wrote it because I was touring and I get really inspired touring the United States. Everybody likes touring Europe because you get treated really well, but the landscape of the United States really blows my mind. I find it incredibly beautiful. I was sort of, worrying so much about the planet and how we’re all going to survive and what we can do to make changes. And I was driving around thinking, “It’s so beautiful out here and it’s so weird.” We were in eastern Oregon leaving my bass player’s hometown of Pendleton. Normally we would cut across and angle to go back to highway 5, which goes through the Western States. It’s incredibly dull with little restaurant clusters of McDonalds and stuff. It’s a very, very boring drive. I said, “We can’t do it. We’ve got to find another route.” We ended up taking this eastern route into Utah and Idaho and Nevada and kind of going back and forth over the California border in the desert. It was just so mind-blowingly beautiful. We were on two-lane roads. We were driving through Indian reservations. There was just nothing for hours. And it was incredible. As corny as it is to write a song called “I Love Planet Earth,” there was nothing else I could say about it. That was it. No other way to put it. I highly recommend to everyone that they drive back and forth across the country a few times.

Review: Zombieland

I came in with very small expectations for Zombieland. I'm still beefing with Columbia Pictures prez Amy Pascal over her treatment of Steven Soderbergh. But she done good on this one. The film is a machine. It gives the audience just what it wants - laughs, thrills, horror conventions. Jesse Eisenberg carries the film, his neurotic tendencies overwhelming Woody Harrelson, who does a fine job (although he says "Nut up or shut up" one-too-many times). The film ends just as we'd like it to, is thoroughly predictable and yet also surprising in the way it chooses to be predictable (if that makes sense). There's a great cameo, which you may have heard about, but I won't spoil it for you here.

The film's director, whose presence is so inconspicuous his name isn't worth mentioning, contributes a few interesting visual flourishes - the rules to surviving Zombieland are especially amusing.

Zombieland is the type of film that anyone - from an infant to your grandmother (god rest her soul) - can watch and enjoy: present company included. [B+] - Ryan Sartor.

Review: Vampire Weekend's 'Horchata'

A few listens in, I get the impression that Vampire Weekend felt some pressure to follow up their self-titled debut. Rightfully so. Their second album's lead single, Horchata, is not an out-right retread of their previous work. It's meant as a compliment when I write that the song is different than what they've previously done, but not a terribly strong departure.

The various instruments in Horchata feel carefully chosen, their arrangement a bid at levity and originality. Maybe the same strategy was used in the writing and recording of songs like Mansard Roofand Walcott, but it never seemed that way.

Overall though, it's quite enjoyable, and as far as the dreaded 2nd album goes, I don't think there's a whole lot about which to worry. [B] - Ryan Sartor.

Check here to download 'Horchata' for free.

Einstein on 'The Informant!'

I've been trying to come up with an argument to support my (unwritten, but much thought) claim that 'The Informant!,' while brilliantly made, lacks something essential. Here's an Albert Einstein quote to help me out:

“Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty; it stems rather from love and devotion towards men and towards objective things.”- Einsten

Interview: Ethan Vogt, producer of 'Beeswax'

Ethan Vogt is the creator of Live Projections (check out liveprojections.org, there are some cool videos on the site), which has put on A/V shows with such bands as The Fiery Furnaces and Franz Ferdinand. He is also the producer of Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation and Beeswax, which premiered at this year’s Berlin Film Festival and is being released throughout the country. Look for it. It’s great. and

Rocket Multimedia: The standard question is: “What does a producer do?” Could you explain your role as a producer on films like Beeswax?

Ethan Vogt: Andrew is the only person I’ve produced for, so my role is very much a product of the particular relationship that we have.  We were in the same introductory class in film school and have been working together for 12 years now, having made three features during that time.  On the film set, I hope to give Andrew a sense of confidence that everything is will get done, that we will make the shooting schedule, and that crew is happy and motivated.  My role is very “hands-on,” basically doing whatever is called on so that we can keep a very small crew on these films.  This keeps the actors comfortable and creates an atmosphere conducive to making the kind of work that Andrew is interested in. So it’s a role that we’ve invented that has worked really well for the last three films and one that I hope to continue with him.

On Hollywood films, the “producer” can be anyone from a person who shows up at the last minute with some money, to a person who has made the project happen entirely (optioning the book, hiring a screenwriter, picking the director, having final cut in the edit).  With Andrew: he’s the creator, I’m a trusted “enabler.” I try to be the kind of producer that I would like to have if I was directing by allowing Andrew to own the creative vision and just helping him achieve it.  We work well together and I’m really proud of the work we’ve done so far.

R: I’ve read in various articles about how you used two minivans on Funny Ha Ha and one on Mutual Appreciation [to carry all the film equipment]. And I read in one Film Comment article that you guys used your lighting and gaffing equipment on Funny Ha Ha. And I feel like that kind of aesthetic has always appealed to me and I’ve always been told by the establishment and everybody says, “You can’t do that. You need 100 people on a film set.” How has that experience been for you as far as dealing with a small group of people whom you’re friends with and that sort of thing?

E: If there’s a “film movement” that I feel comfortable being a part of is “DIY” (Doing It Yourself).  I think that the best way to learn or to be a filmmaker is to make films. Even though distribution is in transition and getting paid for this work seems harder and harder, my advice to filmmakers is to make films, even if they are short and made with a cheap video camera. And [to] not really wait around for a big deal before you are able to get your vision on the screen. Or, be waiting around for that big deal, but in the meantime be pursuing projects that you care about. We just worked with our friends and we’ve been lucky that these films have found some sort of niche audience.  That said, Andrew “casts” his films very carefully, making sure to screen test everyone he is thinking about before making any decisions. Not everyone can be a decent non-professional actor and Andrew really tries to get a sense of how people behave in front of a camera before he makes a decision to put them in his film. And in terms of crew, yeah, it doesn’t take much, we had maybe a 4-person crew on Funny Ha Ha and I don’t think we ever had more than 8 people on Beeswax. I love what directors are able to do when they have a lot of money and resources, but it’s not necessary for all films.

R: That’s a good point. I feel like with each project you guys it gets a little bigger. You guys went to Berlin with this one. What was that experience like?

E: It was amazing to premiere Beeswax in Berlin. We had really fantastic audiences and we were able to have a lot of people from the cast and crew make the trip over. So it was a real honor and a pleasure.

R: So which do you prefer: being a cinematographer or a producer?

E: Actually, neither!  These days, I am mostly interested in directing more experimental work and have been putting together events that combine live music along with a visual score.  I call this genre: Live Projections, the website is liveprojections.org.

R: Oh cool. How did you get involved with LiveProjections.org?

E:  The idea really came from seeing classic, silent films for example Man with a Movie Camera with a new live score and really being fascinated by that as a cinematic experience.  I’ve always loved “found footage” films and in the last five or ten years technology allows you to use video as an instrument and to really work alongside a performance in real-time.  So far, I’ve got really great responses from audiences who have seen this work and I’d like to continue to introduce more people to this.

R: Yeah, in New York City a few weeks ago, I feel like Found Footage Festivals are becoming a thing also.

E: Yeah, there are a bunch of experimental filmmakers that I admire that work with found footage. Bill Morrison, who actually was in Mutual Appreciation, is a great found footage filmmaker. And there’s an artist, Martin Arnold, who uses an optical camera and re-photographs scenes, and his work is really inspiring to me. So there are these great filmmakers who are able to make really poetic, beautiful work with found footage. But also, we are in the age of YouTube and people are digitizing these crazy video clips from the 1980s and it’s just a pleasure that we’re able to see that material again. Plus there is all the remixing or mash-ups that is taking place and being share online. Barney with Tupac is a personal favorite.

R: I’ve read, it’s on Wikipedia so I never know if these things are true, that Andrew Bujalski was hired to adapt this book, Indecision? And would you be involved producing that if that came to be?

E: Andrew was hired a couple years ago by Scott Rudin to adapt Indecision, and he’s submitted drafts and it’s in the development process. Your guess is as good as mine about when or whether that will come to fruition.  Andrew writing a number of scripts, so much depends on how those screenplays develop and if they are the kind of projects that might require a large budget, or whether they’re smaller scripts that we might be able to do in a way we’ve done before.  So, everything’s up in the air, but I don’t spend a lot of time wringing my hands about it.   There is one script set in Montreal that he is working on that I really like a lot, so I’m hoping that we might be able to make that happen next year, but we will see.

R: I feel like every single film that you guys do, I’m always like this is gonna be the one. Like, Mutual Appreciation, I was like, “This is gonna blow up, this is gonna be huge.” [At the], Film Forum, I went opening weekend [to see Beeswax and] it had a great crowd. I just, I don’t even understand why these local kind of smaller art house theaters aren’t really jumping on board because I feel like the work you guys are doing is so much more exciting than, not to disparage other filmmakers, but is a lot more exciting than other films being shown at these types of theaters.

E: Our priority is just making good films and hoping that the audience will find them somehow. And so, we’re not distribution or marketing experts. I think that we’re in a kind of transitional time and this will be a little bit more sorted out in five more years when filmmakers will have a better sense of how to distribute their work. We’ve been really lucky to have really great reviews in lots of newspapers but less people are reading those reviews.  We certainly believe that the best place to watch a movie is “on film” and in a theater, but we’ll just see what happens. Our goal is just to make films that we care about ourselves and hopefully we’ll continue to have the audience that’s supported us so far and build on that.

R: I think that it’s great that you and Andrew Bujalski aren’t concentrating on the marketing, and are just trying to make the best movie possible. I think one of the biggest problems with filmmaking nowadays is that people will try to figure out what an audience will want and that is the death [to any art form].

E: I don’t want to claim to be some sort of movie monk or purist. Andrew loves all sorts of films and you know, the next project we do may, we may find that it has a sort of broader appeal than these other films, but I think the point there we’re making is we’re going to continue to make films that are meaningful to us. Reaching an audience is exciting and we’re not trying to make things that are difficult or off-putting on purpose, but I would agree with you that trying to second-guess what would bring in an audience to your film is….I don’t think I’d be stating anything radical to say that that mindset has ruined many films.

R: Absolutely.

E: Instead of taking a personal approach.

R: I don’t know if this is broadcast everywhere, but I know in the New York area, I’ve seen Funny Ha Ha on PBS at least twice, Reel 13, I think that’s a great forum, too.

E: Right, I think the fact there we’re still able to get Funny Ha Ha broadcast now, I mean, five years later is a great testament to the value of that film and hopefully the same thing will be going on with Mutual Appreciation and Beeswax. I believe in the long-term values of these films.

R: Awesome. I have um, one final question: what has been your favorite film festival experience?

E: South by Southwest has been a great place for us to show the last two films and it feels like a “home” of sorts for us. Personally I’m really excited by the way that that event combines music and interactive, it’s the same thing that interests me about Live Projections.  SxSW brings film into proximity with other art forms and ideas that is definitely something that I see a lot of value from.

R: Awesome. Yeah, have you noticed any trends or any at certain film festivals that you could do without?

E: Andrew goes to many more of the festivals than I do so he might have a better answer than I do. I guess I would say that I have been surprised that the entrance fees are getting pretty expensive.  I’ve just been kind of shocked at the prices. I think film festivals can be such a great event for a town and for sponsors and I’m a little concerned that entrance fees are a barrier for some filmmakers.  Of course, there’s a lot of submissions to be watched and those programmers have to get paid too… so I don’t really know what the answer is.  But there may something that as a community we could look at how to make that a little bit more affordable, especially for young filmmakers.

New 'Mystery Team' Website Online!

Mystery Team, the first feature from Derrick Comedy, has a new website online (click here to check it out). The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year and has been praised by Entertainment Weekly, The Onion A/V Club and Slashfilm.com among others.

The site has two trailers and a new short featuring the Mystery Team. I saw it at Sundance and the crowd was dying with laughter. Director Dan Eckman did a great job of elevating the status quo for comedy directing - usually it's just, throw the camera somewhere and do all the standard set ups. Mr. Eckman took a great deal of care with every shot and it pays off brilliantly. The cast is great, too: writer/actors Dominic Dierkes, Donald Glover and Dc Pierson have worked together for years, performing shows in New York City and at various college campuses throughout the country. They've also made numerous videos along with their producer Meggie McFadden and Mr. Eckman directing, all of which are at the Derrick website. Mr. Eckman, Mr. Dierkes, Mr. Glover, Ms. McFadden and Mr. Pierson collectively make up Derrick Comedy. Full diclosure: I was a production assistant on the movie, but I've been PAs on other films that I wouldn't vouch for and this one definitely is hilarious. Look for it as it rolls out in October.

Here's the latest trailer: