11/19/15: Love The One You’re With

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Adam Brody, Amy Schumer, asteroids, bittersweet, cinema, Connie Briton, Derek Luke, directorial debut, end of the world, film reviews, films, Gillian Jacobs, Keira Knightley, Lorene Scafaria, Mark Moses, Martin Sheen, Melanie Lynskey, Movies, Nancy Carell, odd couple, opposites attract, Patton Oswalt, road trips, Rob Corddry, Rob Huebel, romantic-comedies, Seeking a Friend For the End of the World, Steve Carell, T.J. Miller, Tim Orr, Tonita Castro, William Petersen, writer-director

When faced with the impending end of the world, there are lots of appropriate responses. One might wallow in abject despair, collapsing in the corner in a wretched ball of sobbing sorrow, lamenting all that could have been: perfectly acceptable way to meet Armageddon, no two ways about it. One might attempt some sort of last-minute, all-or-nothing push to save the day, giving every plan a shot, regardless of how far-fetched: if you have nukes, this is probably where you wanna use ’em. Will turning on every fan in the world blow the asteroid back into space? You won’t know ’til you try it. If you’re gonna go down with the ship, after all, make it count.

One might use the threat of upcoming doom as impetus to attempt things one’s never tried: after all, if the world is ending at noon, why not try deep-sea diving at 11? If you really like drugs, sex, video games, movies, chocolate, whiskey or huffing oven cleaner, there’s no better time to indulge than right before the whole world goes up in flames, right? Bottoms up, sport! Alternately, the overly pious and religious might use the countdown as an opportunity to double-down on their faith, making sure that they’re as “nearer their God to Thee” as possible.

Writer-director Lorene Scafaria’s Seeking a Friend For the End of the World (2012) showcases all of these possible reactions to an imminent extinction-level event but there’s one possible angle that the film is much more interested in: the need for closure and the quest for true love in the twilight hours of humanity’s stint on this big, ol’ ball of water, rock and air. With only days to live, would you try and make the most of the life you have or take a wild shot at getting the life you always wanted but we’re too afraid to go for?

SAFFTEOTW begins, ironically enough, with humanity’s ultimate end: a last-ditch effort to divert a massive asteroid’s collision course with Earth has failed and we are, to put it quite rudely, massively fucked. In three weeks, the enormous space rock will pulverize our former home planet, turning it (and us) into so many cosmic memories. There are no second, third or fourth chances, no last quarter Hail Marys or hope for intergalactic intervention: this is the way the world will end…with a big, ol’ “bang” and a cut to black.

As the denizens of Earth rush about, doing all of those last-minute things that we previously mentioned, we’re introduced to mild-mannered office drone, Dodge Petersen (Steve Carell). His wife, Linda (Carell’s real-life wife, Nancy), has just left Dodge after receiving the thoroughly bleak news about humanity’s future. Stunned into a sort of blank acceptance, Dodge continues to putter about the remains of his life, even as everyone around him indulges their whims to the best of their abilities.

Dodge’s time to stretch his wings comes soon enough, however, when he ends up in the orbit of his quirky neighbor, Penny (Keira Knightley). Not only is Penny one of those vaunted “Manic Pixie Dream Girls” that will kick-start Dodge out of his boring rut, she also holds the keys to his (assumed) happiness in another major way: she’s been collecting his mail for years and one of the letters just happens to be from his long-ago girlfriend/one-that-got-away Olivia. Seems that Olivia wrote him a note a few months back in which she explained how Dodge was the love of her life and she regretted letting him go. For our hapless hero, that’s all the information he needs in order to undertake a mission to reunite with Olivia and find true love in the waning hours of our collective existence.

As is always the case, however, this is easier said than done. Once Dodge and Penny hit the road together, they’ll have the usual adventures (an esctacy-fueled orgy in an Applebees-type family restaurant is an easy highlight), meet the usual quirky people (CSI’s William Petersen has a blast as a weirdo trucker, in one notable instance, while the party scene is stuffed to bursting with comedians like Amy Schumer, Rob Croddry and Patton Oswalt), learn the usual life lessons (sometimes, what you really need is right under your nose the whole time) and learn what it means to truly be happy.

Full disclosure: I’ve never been the biggest fan of either Steve Carell or Keira Knightley. In Carell’s case, I’ve found the actor to be distressingly one-note: as far as I’m concerned, most of his roles are just variations of his Michael Scott character from The Office, including his much vaunted “serious” turn in Foxcatcher (2014). I was never particularly charmed by indie-efforts like The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Little Miss Sunshine (2006) or Dan in Real Life (2007), while films like the Get Smart (2008) remake, the Ron Burgundy films and the Despicable Me flicks really aren’t in my wheelhouse.

Ditto for Knightley, who always strikes me as embodying the worst excesses of the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” trope: regardless of the film, Knightley has a particular gift for letting her “quirky” persona overpower the proceedings, similar to someone like Zooey Deschanel. While I’ve seen performances of hers that were less grating (such as The Imitation Game (2014)), I’ve never really been fully on board.

To my immense surprise, then, Scafaria’s low-key dramedy (with much more emphasis on the drama than the comedy) not only presented performances from Carell and Knightley that were tolerable, it offered performances from the two that I genuinely enjoyed and got behind. Quite frankly, the two are pitch-perfect in the film, handily portraying characters that are equal parts damaged-goods and hopeful human beings. There’s a sense of world-weariness to Carell’s performance that’s perfectly balanced by Knightley’s acid-tinged optimism: too much of one or the other might have tipped the scales but the co-stars end up providing the best kind of checks-and-balances on each other’s performances.

For an actor that’s made a cottage-industry out of portraying lovable doofuses, Carell’s performance as Dodge marks one of the few times (for me, at least) where I actually like the character he’s portraying. Dodge isn’t perfect, mind you, but that’s part of the charm: he’s a (generally) nice guy who has made a few bad decisions, over the years, but who still takes a real “do no harm” view of society. The impending end of the world might have made him angry, depressed, or even selfish: any and all are perfectly acceptable outcomes. At the end of the day, however, Dodge is just a pretty normal dude who makes some pretty hard decisions and there’s nothing about that that’s hard to relate to.

For her part, Knightley’s Penny serves as the perfect foil for Dodge’s rather glum straight arrow. She’s quirky, yes, but not in the outrageously showy, self-centered way that…well, that previous Knightley performances were. There’s an underlying sadness and reliance to Penny that’s as much a by-product of Knightley’s performance as it is Scafaria’s script. Whereas similar films might try to shove Penny’s square peg into a round hole, Knightley grounds her just enough to make her seem like a genuine rebel rather than an obnoxious attention-seeker. She also expertly conveys Penny’s growing attraction to Dodge, a relationship that’s pretty much a foregone conclusion yet one that’s still allowed a little room to breathe and grow.

The one thing that I fully expected going into Seeking a Friend For the End of the World was a full-on goofy affair, full of silly, broad characters, pratfalls and endless dismayed looks from Carell (patent pending): what I ended up with, surprisingly, was the exact opposite. Rather than a loud, blaring multiplex “adventure,” SAFFTEOTW is a relatively low-key, morose affair, full of subtly strange characters, odd situations and some surprisingly astute commentary on human foibles. To be honest, the film is much more drama than comedy: even the film’s obvious comic setpieces, like the aforementioned restaurant bacchanalia or the house party, are shot through with just as much melancholy and quiet sense of loss as they are outrageous knee-slappers.

Ultimately, Scafaria’s end-of-the-world rom-com is a pretty rare bird: a mainstream, wide-release, popcorn flick with a big heart, sly sense of humor and bittersweet tone that never panders to its audience, yet manages to be both fun and thought-provoking. There’s an honesty and sadness to the film that you just don’t see in these kinds of things (suffice to say that the ending compromises nothing and gives not one inch on the film’s overall thesis): it’s the very epitome of “laughing through the tears” and, without a doubt, one of the film’s greatest strengths.

From the outside, Seeking a Friend For the End of the World might look like a dozen other films but it’s got a secret weapon that none of the others possess: it genuinely cares about the characters that haunt its reels and it wants you to genuinely care about them, too. In an all too disposable culture, that’s a pretty tall order for a romantic-comedy. Scafaria understands, however, that this is probably how the world will end: with a little hand-wringing, some quiet resolution and, hopefully, a bit of true love.

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3/12/15: Where There’s a Mom, There’s a Way

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abandoned in a foreign place, adult friendships, Andres Munar, Anthony Chisholm, bittersweet, Bradford Young, cinema, co-directors, co-writers, Colombian immigrants, coming of age, courage, dramas, dysfunctional marriage, Eddie Martinez, Entre Nos, feature-film debut, female friendships, film festival favorite, film reviews, films, Gil Talmi, Gloria La Morte, homeless, homeless children, husband-wife relationship, immigration, inspired by true events, Jacqueline Duprey, Laura Montana, motherhood, Movies, multiple directors, multiple writers, Paola Mendoza, Sarita Choudhury, Sebastian Villada, self-sacrifice, set in New York City, single mother, Spanish-language films, strength, writer-director-actor

Think about Mariana (Paola Mendoza) the next time you’re having a bummer day: uprooting herself and her two children from their lives in Colombia, she follows her shifty husband, Antonio (Andres Munar), all the way to Queens, New York, only for him to suddenly head off to sunny Miami, where he’s decided to start a new life…one that doesn’t include his “old” family. Alone in a foreign land, unable to speak the language, jobless and with children in tow, Mariana’s options look as grim and hopeless as they do scarce. Like I said: there are bad days…and then there are BAD days.

The human spirit is a funny thing, though, the kind of inner power that would make a superhero blush. When someone has the will to survive and the relentless drive to keep pushing forward, against all odds…well, pretty much anything is possible. Paola Mendoza and Gloria La Morte’s extraordinary Entre Nos (2009) is testament to this notion of inner strength, a semi-autobiographical story about an unstoppable mother’s ferocious fight to keep her family together, despite every disaster, tragedy, hiccup and speed bump that the universe can possibly throw at her. What could have been maudlin, overly emotional or obvious becomes vibrant, life-affirming and genuinely resonant in the hands of the truly gifted filmmakers and cast.

While Entre Nos (roughly, “between us”) is about the struggles that immigrants face when coming to a new country, it’s also about how easy it is for people to slip from the scant comfort of the “lower” classes into the abject terror of homelessness: as Mendoza and La Morte show, there’s only a few short steps and misfortunes that lead from four walls and a floor to a park bench. There’s a universality to the film that goes far beyond the nationalities of its protagonists: while not all of may have first-hand experiences with the struggles of being an emigrant to a foreign country, it’s fair to say that any and everyone worries, at least in the back of their heads, where their next meal is coming from.

It’s to Mendoza and La Morte’s great credit that they manage to combine these twin struggles, that of the immigrant and the newly homeless, into such a potent, vibrant stew. As mentioned earlier, there’s nothing overly sentimental or aggressively manipulative about the film: we’re simply shown a woman who’s been thrown into a hole and, rather than bemoan that fact, simply puts her head down and starts digging her way out. There’s a refreshing matter-of-factness to the way in which Mariana sizes up any given situation and acts: she’s conflicted, sure, and we get more than a couple heart-breaking breakdown, along the way…that’s just the unfortunate other half of the human condition. When the chips are down, however, Mariana has a resilience and power that’s positively inspiring: if she doesn’t let life beat her down, why should we?

Entre Nos, then, is about the struggles of the immigrant and the ever-present threat of personal and economic collapse: that would be a potent enough one-two punch for just about any film. There’s more under the hood, however, than just the “big” issues: Mendoza and La Morte’s film is also about the relationship between a mother and her children, about trying to balance being a kid with becoming an adult and about the importance of providing for your family, regardless of the costs or sacrifice. It’s about friendships, those halting ones that begin over shared strife and continue based on genuine love.

This is Mariana’s story but it’s not hers, alone, to tell: characters like the kindly recycling maven, Joe (Anthony Chisholm), or Mariana’s landlord/hesitant friend, Preet (an absolutely extraordinary Sarita Choudhury), contribute just as much to the overall tapestry, but we’d be remiss not to mention the reason for Mariana’s constant struggle: her beloved son, Gabriel (Sebastian Villada), and daughter, Andrea (Laura Montana). As strong as the rest of the cast are, Villada and Montana still manage to shine as the equally resilient kids. It’s a real treat watching Gabriel, slowly, become a man, while Andrea provides a necessary innocence and sense of child-like optimism to circumstances that could certainly be deemed soul-crushing.

Entre Nos isn’t just an acting tour de force, however: the film is exquisitely crafted and looks amazing. Props to Gil Talmi for a funky, head-bobbing score that mixes cumbias with more “traditional” dramatic scores and only occasionally dips into stereotypically “serious” territory. The often gorgeous cinematography, courtesy of Bradford Young, has endless appeal: there’s one shot that frames Mariana and her sleeping children like the Pieta and is almost impossibly beautiful. In the years since Entre Nos’ release, Young would go on to shoot a couple of films called Selma (2014) and A Most Violent Year (2014): you know…no big deal…

Like the particular spot of land that it depicts, Entre Nos is nothing if not a melting pot of influences, styles, points of view and ways of life. There’s a vibrancy and immediacy to the proceedings that pulls viewers in and keeps us right in the thick of things: if I had to compare the filmmakers’ style to anything, it would be latter-day John Sayles, which is pretty damn high praise, indeed. There’s an eye and ear for the way that every-day folk talk and interact that cuts thorough generations of artificial bullshit and gets right to the heart of the human condition: each and every one of us deserves to live our lives to the fullest of our potential, regardless of our individual situations.

We find out, at the end, that Andrea became a filmmaker and created Entre Nos as a tribute and testament to the strength of her mother. It makes perfect sense: everything about the film has the feel of a passion project and Mendoza’s triple-threat of writing-directing-acting is nothing short of stunning. Reminiscent of Marion Cotillard’s powerful blend of iron-will and vulnerability, Mendoza’s performance is utterly unforgettable and the film’s deserves all of the love that it’s received at festivals since its release (although a little mainstream attention might be nice…).

Exemplifying the very best aspects of the human condition, Entre Nos is a film that deserves not only praise for its technical and thematic elements but for its ability to unite us all under one common need, regardless of race, class, gender, nationality or political affiliation: if you can’t understand and empathize with Mariana’s need to make a better life for herself and her children, well, pardner…I’m gonna go ahead and assume that you’re not human. In this one case, the film was definitely not made for you: move along…absolutely nothing to see here, whatsoever.

3/5/15: Hail To the Freaks

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bands, Best of 2014, bittersweet, Captain Beefheart, Carla Azar, Chris Sievey, cinema, co-writers, dark comedies, disguises, Domhnall Gleeson, dramas, dysfunctional family, entertainment community, experimental music, fame, favorite films, film reviews, films, foreign films, François Civil, Frank, Frank Sidebottom, Frank Zappa, Hayley Derryberry, hidden identities, inspired by true events, Irish films, James Mather, Jon Ronson, Leonard Abrahamson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, mainstream vs counter culture, masks, mental illness, Michael Fassbender, Movies, music-based films, musicians, outsider art, outsiders, Peter Straughan, pop music, Scoot McNairy, Shane O'Brien, social media, Stephen Rennicks, voice-over narration, Wes Anderson

Do true musicians create for themselves, alone, or is there always some sort of audience in mind? It’s a question that’s probably plagued the entertainment community since the first humans discovered that banging rocks in syncopated fashion caused people to get up, get down and get a little crazy. As music gradually moved from a pure art form into a commodity as readily quantifiable as real estate holdings, the question has become even more prescient: where, exactly, is the dividing line between art and product?

Is it even possible for musicians to create purely for the sake of creativity or is a marketing angle necessary regardless of how “experimental” or “outre” you are? Would past geniuses like Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart or Einstürzende Neubauten even be able to get a foothold in our current musical climate or would they be instantly written off and discarded for being too “uncommercial” or “difficult to sell”? And what, exactly, does it say about us if everything nowadays must come with a price tag? Art for art’s sake? Not on our watch, bub!

Leonard Abrahamson’s Frank (2014) takes a look at some of these questions, although it’s not as interested in the answers as it is in positing more questions: To whom, exactly, does an artist’s music belong? Does it belong exclusively to that artist? To their fans? Their critics? The world at large? Is it more important to stay true to one’s “vision” and languish in obscurity or is compromise necessary in order to insure that at least some part of an artist’s meaning makes it out, even in an unintended form? What responsibility do musicians have towards their fans and vice versa? Do the wants and desires of the masses outweigh and override the needs of the individual artist? And, perhaps most importantly: what responsibility do audiences owe severely “damaged” artists? If the very act of creating leads to mental distress for the musician, is it proper (or even moral) for the rest of us to consume said product?

Loosely based on Jon Ronson’s book about his tenure with Frank Sidebottom (aka Chris Sievey) in the ’80s, Abrahamson’s film combines elements of the enigmatic performance artist (known for wearing a giant, fake head at all times) with aspects of Captain Beefheart’s eclectic, “everything and the kitchen sink” recording process to come up with the perfect outsider artist. By updating the action to the present day, Frank also allows for some rather piercing insight into the ways in which things like social media help to shed light on previously unknown performers, for better or (in the this case) much worse. Through it all, however, one thought remains clear over all others: some people are just out of step with their era, regardless of what era that happens to be.

Our entry into the story is young Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), an aspiring singer-songwriter-keyboardist who still lives with his parents, is constantly on Twitter and seems to spend the majority of his time walking around, writing spontaneous songs about any and everything he sees. As luck would have it, Jon lands a gig with a touring band after their keyboardist, Lucas (Shane O’Brien) tries to drown himself in the sea. The band’s name is unpronounceable, their music sounds like an atonal, experimental jam (including theremin!) and their frontman, Frank (Michael Fassbender) wears a giant paper-mache head as he rants, raves and performs what seems to be some sort of stream-of-conscious manifesto. Needless to say, Jon is fascinated by the group and thrilled when he gets the call to join them, full-time, as their new keyboardist.

Once in the band, Jon finds himself smack dab in the middle of a fairly unique group of individuals: Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the theremin player, is almost impossibly angry and seems to hate Jon with absolute zeal; Don (Scoot McNairy), Frank’s right-hand man, spent time in a mental hospital and used to “fuck mannequins”; Baraque (François Civil) and Nana (Carla Azar) don’t speak English and dress as if they just stepped out of a French New Wave film. And Frank…oh, my…Frank. Our titular fellow is a complete mystery, a soft-spoken, well-reasoned musical prodigy who just happens to operate on a completely different wavelength from the rest of the world. His perception of “normal” is so skewed that when Jon asks him for a more “mainstream” song,at one point, his contribution still sounds like some form of mutant Martian national anthem.

Things go from “absurd” to “very difficult” in no time flat after the group convenes in an isolated cabin (on a deserted island, to boot) in order to record their album. As Jon tries to push the group into a more “mainstream” direction, Clara and the others push back with all their might: only Frank seems bemused enough to want to give it a shot. Frank’s idea of “normal,” however, is about as abnormal as it gets and Jon begins to dread the group’s upcoming performance at a South By Southwest music showcase: will Frank’s decidedly cracked psyche be able to handle not only the trip to America but the exposure to a (presumably) new audience or will Clara need to make good on her promise to stab Jon if he “fucks up America for them?” As their situation gets stranger, more strained and more precarious, Jon will gradually come to realize that some artists really are better off in the margins, away from the blinding-white spotlight of public perception.

In every way possible, Leonard Abrahamson’s Frank is a love letter to the weirdos, the freaks and the dreamers of our world, those individuals who follow their own drummer and, in the process, create so much indelible, amazing art for the rest of us to enjoy, puzzle over, debate, love and hate. Operating within a production style that handily recalls that other great lover of the misfits, Wes Anderson, Frank is a colorful, quirky, odd and utterly endearing film, packed with great performances and some nicely nuanced commentary about this crazy era we find ourselves in.

As a biopic of the original Frank Sidebottom, it’s difficult to gauge how well Frank hits its mark: as someone who’s only peripherally aware of the Sidebottom character, it’s pretty impossible for me to determine how “accurate” any of this is. On the other hand, I’m familiar enough with outre artists like Captain Beefheart to recognize bits and pieces of their history in the film, leading me to believe this is more of a melange than anything approaching a straight-forward biography. If anything, I’m sure that the character of Frank Sidebottom provided the filmmakers with a readily identifiable outside artist to reference, as well as giving the film its visual hook (that big, fake head is pretty unforgettable, after all).

By updating the action to the present day, Abrahamson, Ronson and co-writer Peter Straughan are able to make plenty of astute observations about the ways in which social media help to fuel (or, in some cases, create) a performer’s career. Despite never playing a single gig in the U.S., Frank and the others (supposedly) have a ready-made audience waiting for them, thanks to Jon’s numerous Twitter and Youtube updates on the band’s recording process. It doesn’t matter that their music is highly experimental and unlikely to appeal to the “average” music festival fan: social media hype turns everything into an “event,” even if for only a minute or two. As Jon comes to discover, however, interest in “hype” is much different from actual interest in something: hype is what gets bodies in the seats but it’s no guarantee that they’ll stay there.

There’s also plenty of interesting discussions on the dangers of exposing “vulnerable” artists to a larger, uncaring audience. As we come to know Frank better, it’s painfully obvious that he’s a deeply troubled, possible mentally disturbed, individual.  This, of course, doesn’t stop Jon from trying to expose him to a larger audience: as a “true fan,” Jon feels that he has an obligation to expose his heroes to as many people as possible. As a similarly hardcore fan of music, I know exactly what he’s feeling: if I had a penny for every time I tried to expose someone to challenging, experimental or “difficult” music, I’d own most of the planet’s uninhabited islands, by this point.

While there are plenty of great performances in the film (Gyllenhaal and McNairy are particularly great), they all tend to orbit around Gleeson and Fassbender’s twin planetary spheres. Gleeson is quickly establishing himself as one of this generation’s finest actors, as handily capable of portraying sweet naivety as he is petulant bullheadedness. In other hands, Jon might have come out a much different character: too much “nice” and he’s a lunk-headed bit of stage property…too much avarice and he’s an unrepentant creep. In Glesson’s hands, however, Jon is nothing if not complex: we come to understand not only his over-riding desire for fame and recognition, at any cost, but also his genuine love and affection for Frank and his band. The last thing that Jon would ever want to do is destroy the group that he loves so much which, ironically, makes his inevitable destruction of said band so genuinely sad.

For his part, Fassbender works wonders with just his voice and body language: Frank’s fake head could have come across as just another gimmick but there’s never the sense that Fassbender takes the performance as anything less than deadly serious. It would have been incredibly easy to turn Frank into a childish symbol of innocence and purity but Fassbender is always able to keep the character fully grounded, even during the film’s more whimsical moments. For as often as the film builds genuine laughs and humor from the character of Frank, it just as often frames him in a poignant, bittersweet way that never fails to remind us of his ultimate situation: this isn’t just a quirky weirdo…this is a real, damaged individual whose unblinking mask hides a wealth of fear, insanity, confusion and sorrow. While Fassbinder has been a reliable presence in films for a good decade, at this point, Frank is one of his most subtle, vibrant creations yet. The moment where we finally see him, sans mask, is a real gut-punch and Fassbender deserves much of the credit for that.

Frank is a helluva film, no two ways about it. While there’s plenty of humor here (the scenes where the band tries to record their album are all great, as are any of the ones where Clara threatens to commit grievous bodily injury to Jon), the film has a solid emotional core that leads to some incredibly powerful moments. By the time we get to the hushed, intimate finale that features a band reunion in a scrappy pool hall, it’s pretty obvious that Frank is an exceptional piece of filmcraft. Whether you love music, love outsiders, love a rags-to-riches-to-rags story or just love good films, Frank should be right up your alley.

If nothing else, the film should give anyone pause for thought whenever they consider their favorite “unknown” artist: we might want the whole world to celebrate them, just like we do…but what would they actually want? Chances are, if they’re anything like Frank, they just want the chance to live their lives, in their world, under their own terms.