Brie Larson – Way Too Indie http://waytooindie.com Independent film and music reviews Fri, 02 Dec 2016 17:34:42 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Way Too Indiecast is the official podcast of WayTooIndie.com. Our film critics grip and gush about the latest indie movies and sometimes even mainstream ones. Find all of our reviews, podcasts, news, at www.waytooindie.com Brie Larson – Way Too Indie yes Brie Larson – Way Too Indie dustin@waytooindie.com dustin@waytooindie.com (Brie Larson – Way Too Indie) The Official Podcast of Way Too Indie Brie Larson – Way Too Indie http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/waytooindie/podcast-album-art.jpg http://waytooindie.com Way Too Indiecast 56: Oscar Reactions, Alex Proyas’ Critic Hate http://waytooindie.com/podcasts/way-too-indiecast-56-oscar-reactions-alex-proyas-critic-hate/ http://waytooindie.com/podcasts/way-too-indiecast-56-oscar-reactions-alex-proyas-critic-hate/#comments Sat, 05 Mar 2016 01:47:18 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=44176 This week, Bernard, CJ and Zach react to the Oscars! Listen to find out how they did on their predictions and hear their thoughts on the show’s overall presentation. Also, filmmaker Alex Proyas recently lashed out at movie critics following a landslide of negative reviews for his movie Gods of Egypt. The boys dissect his resentment […]]]>

This week, Bernard, CJ and Zach react to the Oscars! Listen to find out how they did on their predictions and hear their thoughts on the show’s overall presentation. Also, filmmaker Alex Proyas recently lashed out at movie critics following a landslide of negative reviews for his movie Gods of Egypt. The boys dissect his resentment and discuss whether the hate is misplaced, misguided, or perhaps even warranted. Plus, we’ve got three new, glistening, unbelievable, don’t-miss-it-or-we’ll-kick-your-ass amazing Indie Picks of the Week!

Topics

  • Indie Picks (3:53)
  • Oscar Reactions (15:46)
  • Alex Proyas Critic Hate (1:00:57)

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http://waytooindie.com/podcasts/way-too-indiecast-56-oscar-reactions-alex-proyas-critic-hate/feed/ 1 This week, Bernard, CJ and Zach react to the Oscars! Listen to find out how they did on their predictions and hear their thoughts on the show’s overall presentation. Also, filmmaker Alex Proyas recently lashed out at movie critics following a landslide... This week, Bernard, CJ and Zach react to the Oscars! Listen to find out how they did on their predictions and hear their thoughts on the show’s overall presentation. Also, filmmaker Alex Proyas recently lashed out at movie critics following a landslide of negative reviews for his movie Gods of Egypt. The boys dissect his resentment […] Brie Larson – Way Too Indie yes 1:22:14
2016 Oscar Predictions http://waytooindie.com/news/awards/2016-oscar-predictions/ http://waytooindie.com/news/awards/2016-oscar-predictions/#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2016 16:17:15 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=43925 2016 Oscars predictions for every category, most of which have no real front-runners, making the playing field wide open.]]>

Well, we’ve finally got our wishes. For the first time in 5 years or so, the Oscars race seems fairly unpredictable. It’s been interesting to watch the so-called “front-runners” change throughout the year, starting with Carol earning strong buzz from Cannes and melting all the critics hearts. But when Tom McCarthy‘s Spotlight hit Telluride and Toronto festivals, the tidal shifted to a new standout. It wasn’t until very end of the year that another serious contender emerged, last year’s Oscar winner Alejandro G. Inarritu for The Revenant. And while the hands on favorite to win Best Picture this year is The Revenant (after wins from the Golden Globes, BAFTA, and DGA), it’s by no means a lock. There’s even been a slight surge from Adam McKay‘s housing market collapse film The Big Short, which shakes up the competition even more. Aside from a few categories, this year’s Oscar winners are difficult to predict and because of it should be entertaining to see who walks away with a golden statue.

Watch the 88th Academy Awards on Feb. 28th live at 7 p.m. ET/ 4 p.m. PST on ABC.

2016 Oscar Predictions

Best Picture:

The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight

Who Will Win: The Revenant
Who Should Win: Spotlight

Best Director

Adam McKay, The Big Short
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
Alejandro G. Inarritu, The Revenant
Lenny Abrahamson, Room
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight

Who Will Win: Alejandro G. Inarritu, The Revenant
Who Should Win: Alejandro G. Inarritu, The Revenant

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

Who Will Win: Brie Larson, Room
Who Should Win: Cate Blanchett, Carol

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

Who Will Win: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
Who Should Win: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant

Actress in a Supporting Role

Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara, Carol
Rachel McAdams, Spotlight
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

Who Will Win: Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Who Should Win: Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

Actor in a Supporting Role

Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Sylvester Stallone, Creed

Who Will Win: Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Who Should Win: Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight

Best Originial Screenplay

Bridge of Spies
Ex Machina
Inside Out
Spotlight
Straight Outta Compton

Who Will Win: Spotlight
Who Should Win: Spotlight

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Big Short
Brooklyn
Carol
The Martian
Room

Who Will Win: The Big Short
Who Should Win: Carol

Best Animated Feature

Anomalisa
Boy and the World
Inside Out
Shaun The Sheep
When Marnie Was There

Who Will Win: Inside Out
Who Should Win: Anomalisa or Shaun The Sheep

Best Foreign Language Film

Embrace of the Serpent
Mustang
Son of Saul
Theeb
A War

Who Will Win: Son of Saul
Who Should Win: Mustang

Best Documentary

Amy
Cartel Land
The Look of Silence
What Happened, Miss Simone?
Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom

Who Will Win: Amy
Who Should Win: Cartel Land or The Look of Silence

Best Cinematography

Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Hateful Eight
The Revenant
Sicario

Who Will Win: The Revenant
Who Should Win: The Revenant

Visual Effects

Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Who Will Win: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Who Should Win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Film Editing

The Big Short
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Who Will Win: Mad Max: Fury Road
Who Should Win: Spotlight

Production Design

Bridge of Spies
The Danish Girl
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant

Who Will Win: Mad Max: Fury Road
Who Should Win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Best Costume Design

Carol
Cinderella
The Danish Girl
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant

Who Will Win: Mad Max: Fury Road
Who Should Win: Carol

Best Original Score

Bridge of Spies
Carol
The Hateful Eight
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Who Will Win: The Hateful Eight
Who Should Win: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Best Original Song

“Earned It” from Fifty Shades of Grey
“Manta Ray” from Racing Extinction
“Simple Song No. 3” from Youth
“Til It Happens To You” from The Hunting Ground
“Writing’s on the Wall” from Spectre

Who Will Win: “Til It Happens To You” from The Hunting Ground
Who Should Win: “Simple Song No. 3” from Youth

Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

Mad Max Fury Road
The 100-Year Old Men Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared
The Revenant

Who Will Win: Mad Max Fury Road
Who Should Win: Mad Max Fury Road

Achievement in Sound Mixing

Bridge of Spies
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Who Will Win: The Revenant
Who Should Win: Mad Max: Fury Road

Achievement in Sound Editing

Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Who Will Win: The Revenant
Who Should Win: The Revenant

Best Live Action Short Film

Ave Maria
Day One
Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut)
Shok
Stutterer

Who Will Win: Stutterer
Who Should Win: Stutterer

Best Documentary Short Subject

Body Team 12
Chau, Beyond the Lines
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah
A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness
Last Day of Freedom

Who Will Win: Body Team 12
Who Should Win: Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah

Best Animated Short Film

Bear Story
Prologue
Sanjay’s Super Team
We Can’t Live Without Cosmos
World of Tomorrow

Who Will Win: Sanjay’s Super Team
Who Should Win: Bear Story
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2016 Independent Spirit Award Predictions http://waytooindie.com/features/2016-independent-spirit-award-predictions/ http://waytooindie.com/features/2016-independent-spirit-award-predictions/#respond Tue, 19 Jan 2016 14:04:04 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=42071 Predictions for the 2016 Film Independent Spirit Awards with category analysis.]]>

This year, instead of filling out that annual Oscar ballot for your office pool—which, lets face it, is always won by the person who never watches any of the movies—you should convince your co-workers to fill out an Independent Spirit Awards ballot. Your office will be the hippest on the block, and with my guide of winner predictions, you’ll finally be able to beat Henry from accounting. Plus, watching the Spirit Awards is infinitely more entertaining than the Academy Awards due to its layed back atmosphere and unstuffy attitude. In addition to my predictions below, I detail my reasoning for each category winner and also who to watch out for as a potential sleeper.

You can catch the Independent Spirit Awards live on IFC on Saturday, February 27, 2016 at 2:00 PM PT and see how accurate these predictions hold up.

2016 Independent Spirit Award Predictions

(Predicted winners are highlighted in red bolded font)

Best Feature:

Anomalisa
Beasts of No Nation
Carol
Spotlight
Tangerine

Reason Why:
There isn’t a sure-fire favorite to win Best Feature this year. While that makes watching the Spirit Awards interesting, it makes predicting this category challenging. But here is my logic. There are commendable elements in each of the nominated films; inventive stop-motion animation in Anomalisa, chilling sights and sounds in Beasts of No Nation, brilliant performances in Carol, and resourceful story and production work in Tangerine. But Spotlight is the most well-rounded of the group. The film features a well-paced controversial topic and is backed up with an amazing ensemble cast, each owning their role without stepping on others. It would be an ordinary, textbook procedural if it wasn’t done so insanely well.
Best Director:

Sean Baker – Tangerine
Cary Joji Fukunaga – Beasts of No Nation
Todd HaynesCarol
Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson – Anomalisa
Tom McCarthy – Spotlight
David Robert Mitchell – It Follows

Reason Why:
I have a feeling that despite Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight winning the top prize, Todd Haynes will be walking away with Best Director. The careful work Todd Haynes put in to Carol should be celebrated, and I think it will here.
Best Screenplay:

Charlie Kaufman – Anomalisa
Donald Margulies – The End of the Tour
Phyllis Nagy – Carol
Tom McCarthy & Josh SingerSpotlight
S. Craig Zahler – Bone Tomahawk

Reason Why:
Tom McCarthy & Josh Singer’s script landed on the Black List for good reason, it’s one hell of a screenplay! But I wouldn’t be too surprised if Kaufman’s name is called.
Best Male Lead:

Christopher Abbott – James White
Abraham AttahBeasts of No Nation
Ben Mendelsohn – Mississippi Grind
Jason Segel – The End of the Tour
Koudous Seihon – Mediterranea

Reason Why:
The safer pick might be Christopher Abbott or Jason Segel, but I’m going with Abraham Attah to win the award for carrying Beasts of No Nation with his brilliant performance.
Best Female Lead:

Cate Blanchett – Carol
Brie LarsonRoom
Rooney Mara – Carol
Bel Powley – The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Kitana Kiki Rodriguez- Tangerine

Reason Why:
A lot of people will be watching this outcome closely. It will be a fierce showdown between Brie Larson and Cate Blanchett, which will also happen on Oscar night. Kudos for the Spirit Awards to recognize Rooney Mara’s role as a lead and not support like most award shows.
Best Supporting Male:

Kevin Corrigan – Results
Paul DanoLove & Mercy
Idris Elba – Beasts of No Nation
Richard Jenkins – Bone Tomahawk
Michael Shannon – 99 Homes

Reason Why:
Paul Dano’s portrayal of a young Brian Wilson is spot-on and should land him with a trophy. I’m happy to see both Idris Elba and Michael Shannon get recognized here!
Best Supporting Female:

Robin Bartlett – H.
Marin Ireland – Glass Chin
Jennifer Jason Leigh – Anomalisa
Cynthia Nixon – James White
Mya TaylorTangerine

Reason Why:
Giving the award to Mya Taylor for Tangerine—which she totally deserves—would be huge not just for the Spirit Awards, but for the entire transgender community. I’m hopeful that happens.
Best First Feature:

The Diary of a Teenage Girl
James White
Manos Sucia
Mediterranea
Songs My Brothers Taught Me

Reason Why:
This one was so close for me that flipping coin was the best option. It landed heads so I’m picking James White. If it were tails I would have went with The Diary of a Teenage Girl.
Best First Screenplay:

Jesse AndrewsMe and Earl and the Dying Girl
Jonas Carpignano – Mediterranea
Emma Donoghue – Room
Marielle Heller – The Diary of a Teenage Girl
John Magary, Russell Harbaugh, Myna Josep – The Mend

Reason Why:
Picking Me and Earl and the Dying Girl here is a little bit from the heart, it was my favorite film from 2015, but I think it’s most deserving as well. Room should get some love in at least one other category. Watch out for The Diary of a Teenage Girl though.
Best Cinematography:

Cary Joji Fukunaga – Beasts of No Nation
Ed LachmanCarol
Joshua James Richards – Songs My Brothers Taught Me
Michael Gioulakis – It Follows
Reed Morano – Meadowland

Reason Why:
Despite plenty of critical backing, this might be the first award that Carol receives at the Spirit Awards (maybe the only if it doesn’t nab Best Director or Actress). But it will have to edge out Beasts of No Nation, which should be a worthy contender for cinematography.
Best International Film: (Award given to the director)

Embrace of the Serpent
Girlhood
Mustang
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
Son of Saul

Reason Why:
Always one of the strongest categories at the Spirit Awards, and it’s always a difficult one to predict. I’m going with Son of Saul from Hungary, but don’t be shocked if the French film Mustang takes the award.
Best Documentary:

Best of Enemies
Heart of a Dog
The Look of Silence
Meru
The Russian Woodpecker
(T)ERROR

Reason Why:
2015 was a strong year for documentaries, and you could make a case for each film here to win. But The Look of Silence should walk away a winner. It wouldn’t be surprising if took home the Oscar as well.
Best Editing:

Beasts of No Nation
Heaven Knows What
It Follows
Room
Spotlight

Reason Why:
Spotlight is a fast paced film with a lot of different storylines going on at once, but thanks to its editing the film flows in a cohesive manner. It’s good to see It Follows and Beasts of No Nation listed here though.
John Cassavetes Award: (Given to the best feature made for under $500,000)

Advantageous
Christmas, Again
Heaven Knows What
Krisha
Out of My Hand

Reason Why:
It’s the only film in this category that has a nomination in another category, proving that Heaven Knows What is the strongest of bunch.
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Room http://waytooindie.com/review/movie/room/ http://waytooindie.com/review/movie/room/#respond Fri, 23 Oct 2015 21:07:31 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=40907 Perfect performances and an excellently adapted script create a visceral emotional experience.]]>

Split almost perfectly down its center, Lenny Abrahamson‘s Room, based on the bestselling novel by Emma Donoghue, is equal parts heart-stopping thriller and emotionally visceral drama. Few films are as effectively stomach-churning while sustaining emotional connectedness in so compelling a manner. This is what is possible when a novel is perfectly translated to screen and, like Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl screenplay adaptation last year, holds up a keen argument for authors adapting their own work. A far cry from Abrahamson’s decidedly weirder film entry of last year, Frank, Room is an insular (literally) account of a young woman, Ma (Brie Larson, being amazing), doing her best to raise her five-year-old son Jack (Jacob Tremblay, almost stealing the show) in the tiny one-room shack where they are held captive. Pushed to her breaking point and fearing for her son’s safety, Ma is finally driven to enact a harrowing plan to help her son escape and experience the world outside of “room.”

Abrahamson spends the film’s first act focused on the intricacies of life in a tiny room and the inventive and loving ways Ma has devised to keep her son healthy and happy. She cooks him meals on a hot plate, breastfeeds him for added sustenance, and leads him through yoga and running exercises around the room. Through expert use of Jack’s first person narrative scattered throughout the film, we see “room” through his five-year-old eyes. The toilet, the chairs, the television and the wardrobe he often sleeps in all take on distinct and special characteristics as they make up the entirety of Jack’s universe and everything he’s ever known. But most important of all is Ma, and the bond between mother and son is strong and almost feral.

In watching their lives it becomes clear that in the seven years Ma has spent in “room,” and the five that Jack has, a routine has developed. Each night Ma tucks Jack away into the wardrobe, doing her best to shelter him from her captor, Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), when he makes his nightly visit to Ma to take advantage of her. Jack knows the drill, but curiosity gets the better of him one night and he climbs out to have a look at the only other human being he’s ever seen. Ma awakes to find Nick talking to Jack and reacts with a fierce protectiveness. She pays the price and decides once and for all something must be done.

The plan for escape in the film is equal in anxiety to any great heist film, more so because it’s experienced mostly through Jack’s scared understanding of what he is doing. The entire plan rests on him to act, but more than that it relies on him accepting this new truth his mother is revealing to him that there is an entire universe outside of “room” and he needs to choose to leave everything he knows and loves, including his mother. There isn’t an audience alive that won’t be gripping their armrests as the escape scene plays out, and without revealing too much about how the film continues, suffice it to say that Ma and Jack face an entirely new set of demons once they are out in the real world.

The intimate nature of the narrative is what especially allows for the emotional connection one feels for Ma and Jack. They represent the fear everyone shares at being violated so profoundly by another human. One can’t help but imagine what they would attempt or feel in a similar situation. How can anyone prepare for such a thing? Equally so, how can we predict the physical and emotional effects and how they will manifest in the years following such trauma? Jack shows us the resilient nature of children in the way he begins to accept the new world he is experiencing, while Ma is haunted by the world she knew before her kidnapping and how it can never be the same. And both have to get used to a world full of judgment and expectation and an inability to truly understand their experience.

Obviously the film’s writing is what sets it up for success, but Larson and Tremblay’s performances are what elevate this film to perfection and sure-fire award candidacy. Larson manages to juggle portraying an abused woman, a fierce mother, and a PTSD-afflicted young woman who wasn’t allowed to complete her own childhood. Tremblay, and his perfect little lips, expresses the entire range of a five-year-old: wonder, excitement, stubbornness, fear, and child-like unadulterated love. His courage is astounding and the chemistry between Larson and himself is palpable.

There are a few unexplored story threads in the second half that leave us wanting, most especially between Ma and her father played by William H. Macy. And, of course, it’s difficult for there to be a truly satisfying stopping point to the film, as one becomes so attached and invested in the characters it’s natural to wish we could see how their entire lives play out. The film’s lens stays close on its subjects, contributing to the claustrophobic but intimate relationship of its lead characters. The cinematography is a wash of blue and green but manages not to be depressing with its drab scheme.

Room is certainly among the year’s essential viewing and while some may be quick to label it a “difficult watch,” such a description neglects the ultimately life-affirming and passionately affecting story told. Abrahamson has done an amazing job in inviting viewers to consider one of those potentialities no one likes to think about, engaging us with a deeply personal and fantastically told tale of survival and familial bond.

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‘Room’ Director Lenny Abrahamson On Brie Larson, Making Challenging Films http://waytooindie.com/interview/room-director-lenny-abrahamson-on-brie-larson-making-challenging-films/ http://waytooindie.com/interview/room-director-lenny-abrahamson-on-brie-larson-making-challenging-films/#respond Thu, 22 Oct 2015 20:23:57 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=41422 Lenny Abrahamson‘s Room, adapted by Emma Donoghue from her own novel, is an imaginative examination of parent-child dynamics that’s been garnering the Irish director wide praise. Also receiving her share of adulation is Brie Larson, who plays Ma, a single mother who lives confined in a little room with her son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay). “Room,” as […]]]>

Lenny Abrahamson‘s Room, adapted by Emma Donoghue from her own novel, is an imaginative examination of parent-child dynamics that’s been garnering the Irish director wide praise. Also receiving her share of adulation is Brie Larson, who plays Ma, a single mother who lives confined in a little room with her son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay). “Room,” as they lovingly call their humble abode, is the only world Jack’s ever known, but Ma wants more for her son’s life and hatches a plan to deceive their captor and break out of Room and into the larger outside world.

Room‘s brilliance is all but undeniable. Emotional, urgent, unpredictable, sweet, frightening—the movie is super complex and deceptively simple, not to mention it harbors arguably Larson’s best performance yet. Tremblay matches his older co-star’s talent and, amazingly, acts as the film’s anchor at eight years old.

I spoke to Abrahamson about the film in a roundtable interview during his visit to San Francisco at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. Room is out now in select cities, opens in San Francisco tomorrow, October 23rd, and expands wide November 6th.

Room

You’ve talked about a letter you wrote to Emma Donoghue and the pitfalls a director could face in adapting this story.
Lenny: I thought there were two opposite ways you could go wrong making this film. On one hand, you could make something terribly sentimental where you’re just button-pushing and manipulating the audience to fake emotion. In the other direction, if you go for tough, gritty, bleak and hardcore, you end up with something that’s a bit exploitative and doesn’t capture what the novel’s really about. It isn’t about incarceration. To tell the story as if it were about the incarceration is to tell the story on the terms the abuser sets; we’re telling the story on the terms the survivors set.

I also felt there would be a temptation—given that the novel is told from the point of view of the little boy—to try to find some device or trick or technique to directly copy that to film. Computer graphic techniques, ways to make more magical the things that Jack talks about—somehow externalizing the way the child is thinking. I thought, all that would do is distance the audience from what is the strongest aspect of this film, which is a sense of a real encounter with those characters. You trust an audience brings this empathetic tenderness to characters if they’re well shown, and that type of emotion is way more real and lasting than the shock or sentiment.

I had a wonderful experience with the film because I had not heard about the book or seen the trailer. I went in totally cold. When that pivotal moment comes halfway through the movie I thought, “Well, I guess the ending is coming soon.” I loved not knowing what was going to happen next. Is that the ideal way you’d like audiences to watch the film, knowing essentially nothing going in?
Lenny: Yeah! I think in an ideal world, everybody would walk into a theater without knowing anything about the movie they’re going to see. Obviously there are many reasons why we have to tell people a little bit about the film. Particularly in the case of Room, if all you knew was the very bare outline, you might think, “That sounds a little bit too tough for me.” In fact, what it is is a very uplifting and life-affirming film. To tell that to people is pretty important, I think. But you are still my ideal viewer. If I was Stalin and I could make people go and see my film, I wouldn’t tell them anything about the story! [laughs] Then the film gets to play with your expectations.

Some people mistake the movie’s setting as post-apocalyptic in the first half.
Lenny: One of the great things about cinema is, once a person buys a ticket to the theater, you now you’ve got them for a while. It’s not like TV where they have the remote in their hand. One of the great advantages of seeing a movie in a theater is that it allows the filmmaker a larger canvas to place you in the world at their own pace. There’s something about that opening that puts you in the head of the child. You wake up and you don’t learn anything he’s not bringing you. If at the beginning you really established what the world was and then went in, you’d have already created this external perspective.

What I wanted to do was tie you to the boy. You’re getting these hints that, in the world of his mother, there’s more tension and danger than he’s aware of. That’s really the condition of all parents and children. This is an extreme version of it so that you can really examine what parenthood is all about. Loving parents constantly present one face to their child, which is almost always confident and reassuring, trying to make things that are worrying to them not worrying to the children. In other words, there is an outside world and an inside world, and the inside world is the face you show to your child. Those are the kinds of little permeable barriers that we were really fascinated with. This is a film about being a child and having children and growing up. The rest of it is a way of unlocking some universal aspects of those things by picking this remarkable and unusual situation.

Brie’s career is really starting to catch fire. I think there’s a lot of warmth and intellect to her that makes her special. What makes her special to you?
Lenny: I think you said it. She started acting when she was seven. That process, that transition from who you are and into character, it’s like riding a bicycle to her because she’s done it so many times. She doesn’t have to think about it. What’s great about that is that she has a lightness of touch as an actor. She’s not walking around super intense on set, unable to make eye contact, desperate to keep in character for fear that if she steps out she’ll lose it. She has it so firmly in her grasp. That means, as a director, after you call cut, the person that comes back to you is ready to talk about what she’s just done, she’s ready to talk about alternatives. She’s not saying she can’t play it any other way because “this is how I feel it.” She can feel it lots of ways. She’s a shape-shifter in that way.

Sometimes we have a tendency to believe that the super-intense actors are the only ones who are deep. That’s absolutely not true. I don’t think I’ve seen a stronger lead performance for a long time than Brie in this film, and yet she manages to still participate in the overall conversation about the film. She’s very warm and very present. That’s very important because we’ve got a little boy on set who’s paired with her for so many scenes in the film. You can imagine if she was just flouncing off to her trailer when we called cut or if she didn’t want to play with him. You’d lose what makes that relationship special onscreen. She’s remarkable.

Cinematographer Danny Cohen is very talented. There are some clear cinematic challenges the first half of the film presents. What were some of the challenges the second half presented?
Lenny: That’s interesting. As soon as we got out of Room we missed it a bit, sort of like the characters in the film. In the second half I think the challenge was to over-express the largeness of the world. It’s really tempting to say, “Now we’re out of Room. Let’s have really wide shots.” We shot very naturally when we got out of Room. We don’t use super wide lenses or anything like that. As an audience, you’ve already been inside for 45 minutes. I wanted to say, the world as it is, without me exaggerating it, is pretty amazing. If I exaggerated, I’d be cheating. I wouldn’t be showing you something real. For me it’s always about making those little hints invisible to the audience. As soon as people think they’re being told something, it’s just less powerful.

The Room world is Jake’s normal world. Once you get into the outside world, how do you deal with how overwhelming that is for him? We did use some techniques. We were more likely to do some point-of-view stuff. If he’s sitting on Ma’s knee, we take shots from his point of view through her hair. The cutting style is a little more disjointed. His attention is on these details. Why can kids be irritating? Clearly, in this room, the focus is us talking. Come on, it’s obvious! A kid is just as interested in [some other little thing in the room]! You think, “Can’t you tell what’s important?” The answer is no—everything’s important if you’re a kid.

You’ve found success with this film. Does success worry you?
Lenny: Choice can be paralyzing as well as empowering. The answer for me is that I continue to pursue the things I’m interested in. The hope is that it’ll be easier to pursue now. I feel that some of the projects I’ve been developing for a while are big and challenging. That’s the hardest thing to make—big and challenging. Small and challenging is okay, big and mainstream is okay. Room was a very challenging film to make, and the fact that it worked shows that I can take difficult material and do something with it. That’s what I intend to do for the next few years.

There’s that interesting dynamic that develops later in the film where Ma almost becomes an older sister rather than a mother.
Lenny: It’s something that happens to everybody when they go back to their parents’ house. They go back to whatever teenage version of themselves they were and get grumpy. This is an extreme version of that because she’s literally been plucked out from there and when she comes back, she hasn’t moved on from that 17-year-old self. I felt that the best way of us feeling really worried for Jack was to feel that his mother isn’t this person that is there or him in this really nurturing way. She’s this older sister who’s irritating and clingy. We actually improvised a line that wasn’t in the film: As she’s dragging him out of her bedroom as he’s watching Dora the Explorer on his phone, she says, “Always in my room,” which is what an older sister would say.

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MVFF38 Diary Wrap-Up: ‘Suffragette,’ ‘Embrace of the Serpent,’ ‘Princess’ http://waytooindie.com/news/mvff38-diary-wrap-up-suffragette-embrace-of-the-serpent-princess/ http://waytooindie.com/news/mvff38-diary-wrap-up-suffragette-embrace-of-the-serpent-princess/#respond Mon, 19 Oct 2015 20:20:41 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=41340 The 38th annual Mill Valley Film Festival was a memorable 10-day celebration indeed. A few excellent films emerged as sure-fire Oscar contenders, like Tom McCarthy’s newsroom slow-burner Spotlight, Cary Joji Fukunaga‘s Netflix powerhouse Beasts of No Nation, László Nemes’ heartstopping Son of Saul, and Kent Jones’ incisive documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut. Actors further cemented their cases for awards consideration as well: Michael Keaton […]]]>

The 38th annual Mill Valley Film Festival was a memorable 10-day celebration indeed. A few excellent films emerged as sure-fire Oscar contenders, like Tom McCarthy’s newsroom slow-burner Spotlight, Cary Joji Fukunaga‘s Netflix powerhouse Beasts of No Nation, László Nemes’ heartstopping Son of Saul, and Kent Jones’ incisive documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut.

Actors further cemented their cases for awards consideration as well: Michael Keaton again went toe-to-toe with last year’s Best Actor Oscar-winner, Eddie Redmayne, as their two films, Spotlight and The Danish Girl, took center stage on opening night; Brie Larson gives the best performance of her career in Lenny Abrahamson’s Room; and Sir Ian McKellen charmed festival-goers for two days, reminding us of his heartfelt, unforgettable turn as the aging Mr. Holmes.

Some under-the-radar films made lasting impressions as well, like Mitchell Lichtenstein’s gothic ghost story Angelica and Gunnar Vikene’s Nordic dark comedy Here Is Harold (my personal favorite of the festival).

My MVFF experience ended off as strong as it started, with two very different but equally spellbinding foreign features and yet another film that may be picking up a few golden statues come February.

Suffragette

Fight (And Burn Stuff) For the Right

With feminism becoming less and less of a dirty word as women and feminist allies become more and more galvanized around the fight for gender equality, Sarah Gavron‘s Suffragette looks back to the early feminists who sacrificed home and health to demand their right to vote in early 20th-century England. Carey Mulligan stars as Maud, a working-class wife and mother who gets swept up by the British suffragette movement, participating in explosive acts of protest alongside her fellow footsoldiers (played by the likes of Helena Bonham Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, and Meryl Streep). The cost of Maud’s actions are steep, however; her husband (Ben Wishaw) refuses to abide her newfound passion for activism, kicking Maud out of their home, away from their son. Screenwriter Abi Morgan’s story is as rousing as you’d expect for such inherently inspirational subject matter, but the film’s real strength is in its humility and dignity; it’s a period piece brimming with stunning locations (it was the first production allowed to be shot in the British Houses of Parliament since the ’50s) and elaborate costumes, but never lets the production design take precedence over the characters’ plight unlike other, showier period pieces. Mulligan is typically wonderful though she doesn’t reach the emotional depth of some of her greater performances. Still, it’s a fine film all involved are surely proud to have been a part of.

Embrace of the Serpent

Amazon Enlightenment

The most sublime, heart-achingly beautiful thing I saw at MVFF was an Amazonian upriver tale called Embrace of the Serpent, by Colombian director Ciro Guerra. It’s a magical, almost religious experience when a film breaks free completely from modern cinema norms and puts you in a state of mind you’ve never known, and that’s what Guerra does here. Shot on Super 35 black and white, the film follows two white scientists (Jan Bijvoet and Brionne Davis) as they scour the Amazon for a rare healing plant, their journeys separated by decades (one’s set in the early 1900s, the other 40 years later). The foreigners share a common guide, Amazonian shaman Karamakate (Nilbio Torres and Antonio Bolivar). The story is a dirge-like lament on the soul-sucking effect colonization has had on the once pure Amazonian culture. Otherworldly and yet bound to the earth and all her natural glory, Embrace of the Serpent is as can’t-miss as they come.

Princess

Sin and Splendor

Inside a cozy little house lives a family fractured by sexual awakening, paranoia, and depravity in Tali Shalom-Ezer‘s bone-chilling Princess. A most unsettling topic—child molestation—is explored delicately and artfully by the Israeli writer-director, whose story gently unfolds in a series of quietly intoxicating, increasingly unsettling glimpses of domestic implosion. The protagonist is Adar (Shira Haas), a bright 12-year-old who lives with her mom, Alma (Keren Mor), and her mom’s boyfriend, Michael (Ori Pfeffer). Adar and Michael have fun horsing around at home while mom goes off to work, but Michael’s playing grows inappropriate before long (he starts calling her “little prince”). Adar’s new friend, a boy named Alan (Adar Zohar-Hanetz), bears a staggering resemblance to her, and when he’s invited to stay with the family for a while, he becomes the new object of Michael’s affections. Sumptuously-lit and fluidly edited, the film’s presentation is lovely, which is a nice counter-balance to the difficult subject matter. Like Ingmar Bergman’s PersonaPrincess creates a beautiful sense of dreamlike disorientation and mirror-image poetry that arthouse lovers will treasure.

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MVFF38 Diary Day 7: ‘Beasts of No Nation,’ ‘Room’ http://waytooindie.com/news/mvff38-diary-day-7-beasts-of-no-nation-room/ http://waytooindie.com/news/mvff38-diary-day-7-beasts-of-no-nation-room/#respond Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:04:32 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=41256 A week has passed and I’m still right in the thick of the Mill Valley Film Festival, which so far has been the best I’ve attended to yet. The films have been mostly great and the vibe in Marin has stayed energetic (but not chaotic) since day one. I spent day seven, however, not in […]]]>

A week has passed and I’m still right in the thick of the Mill Valley Film Festival, which so far has been the best I’ve attended to yet. The films have been mostly great and the vibe in Marin has stayed energetic (but not chaotic) since day one. I spent day seven, however, not in one of the festival’s designated theaters, but on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where I spoke to two directors whose films are wowing crowds at MVFF and are destined to be on myriad best-of-the-year lists for 2015.

Room

Breaking Out

First up was a conversation with Room director Lenny Abrahamson, who the night before was presenting his film at MVFF with Brie Larson, who was receiving a Mill Valley Award. But he was a hair away from not making it to the event at all, he told me. “I was supposed to do the red carpet, present Brie with the award…everything,” the Irish filmmaker recalled. “There was an accident on the Golden Gate Bridge and we were stuck in traffic! I ran onstage in the middle of the Q&A.” Close call notwithstanding, the night went beautifully, with the typically receptive, inquisitive crowd of festivalgoers embracing the film fully, as have audiences across the country.

Based on Emma Donoghue’s best-selling novel of the same name (Donoghue adapted the story to screen herself), the movie follows the journey of a mother (Larson) and her son Jack (Jacob Tremblay), who plan to escape from Room, the only world Jack’s ever known and the tiny prison Ma’s been trapped in for years. Knowing nothing of the film going in, I had a fantastic experience as the story unfolded and surprised me several times before the end credits with thought-provoking revelations and unexpected narrative wrinkles. Larson gives perhaps her strongest performance yet (that’s saying something) and Tremblay’s no slouch, to put it lightly.

Abrahamson was tickled by the fact that I didn’t know anything about the film going in. “In an ideal world,” he said, “everybody would walk into the theater without knowing anything about the movie they’re going to see.” Our conversation (which you’ll find right here on WTI in its entirety next week) enrichened my viewpoints on the film and has me now eagerly waiting to watch it again, the filmmaker’s fresh insights in tow.

Beasts of No Nation

Bay Area Son Returns

Cary Joji Fukunaga‘s career is blossoming at a startling rate. After directing just a handful of projects, he’s become one of the most talked-about young directors in the game right now. The quality of his work speaks for itself and explains all the excitement: his first feature, Sin Nombre, won heaps of awards and praise on the awards circuit and with critics in 2009; his second, 2011’s Jane Eyre, again garnered him critical praise; and in 2014 he directed every episode of the gigantic hit series True Detective (Fukunaga declined a return to the series for season 2).

I met with Cary to talk about the film, which was a true pleasure (come back to Way Too Indie tomorrow to read our full conversation). Cary’s from Oakland, CA (an East Bay boy like me!). It’s always heartening to see someone from your neck of the woods make an impact in the film industry, and I predict we’ll be talking about Cary’s work for years to come. It was clear from talking to him that he’s a thinking man’s director.

Set in an unnamed West African country, the film charts the journey of Agu, a young boy who loses his family in a military raid on his village. Lost and grieving, he’s recruited by a roaming group of rebels led by Commandant (Idris Elba), a charismatic leader who turns Agu into an indoctrination pet project. Surreal, powerful, and visually breathtaking, Beasts is one of the best things I’ve seen all year and showcases Cary’s skills as both a writer and visual storyteller (for the film he acted as cinematographer for the first time in addition to his writer-director roles). Better yet, it’s available on Netflix tomorrow, October 16th. As I type this, Cary is heading to Mill Valley to present the film to lucky festivalgoers who are in for a soul-stirring treat.

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MVFF38 Diary Intro http://waytooindie.com/news/mvff38-diary-intro/ http://waytooindie.com/news/mvff38-diary-intro/#respond Thu, 08 Oct 2015 16:00:53 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=41025 The Mill Valley Film Festival, which kicks off tonight in Marin County, Calif., is the perfect place to movie lovers to collect their festival-season thoughts and look forward to the approaching awards season. Boasting a lineup of some of the best films that played at the likes of Cannes, TIFF and Sundance, MVFF38 is one […]]]>

The Mill Valley Film Festival, which kicks off tonight in Marin County, Calif., is the perfect place to movie lovers to collect their festival-season thoughts and look forward to the approaching awards season. Boasting a lineup of some of the best films that played at the likes of Cannes, TIFF and Sundance, MVFF38 is one of the best festivals on the West coast and has a long history of showcasing films that go on to win Best Picture prizes at the major awards shows.

I’ll be posting daily diaries from tomorrow until closing night on October 18th. Stay tuned for updates on the Oscar hopefuls as well as coverage on the festival’s particularly excellent foreign feature, indie and documentary lineups this year.

The festival opens with Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, which garnered considerable acclaim coming out of TIFF. Starring Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton, the true-story drama should continue to pick up momentum in Mill Valley. Co-headlining opening night is Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, starring Eddie Redmayne in a role that could earn him his second-straight Best Actor win.

Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette, starring Carey Mulligan, will close out the festival, capping off a program with a decidedly strong female presence. Spotlighted this year are Sarah Silverman and Brie Larson, who both give standout performances in I Smile Back and Room, respectively, as well as Suffragette‘s Mulligan. Receiving the MVFF award will be Catherine Hardwicke, whose female-friendship dramedy Miss You Already stars Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette.

The foreign feature lineup has got me particularly excited this year, with even the deepest cuts looking irresistible. A great example is Here Is Harold, from Norwegian filmmaker Gunnar Vikene, follows an aging furniture dealer who wages war against IKEA by kidnapping its founder. What’s not to like about that? Other foreign highlights include French director Malgorzata Szumowska’s Body, Jacques Audiard’s Palme d’Or winner, Deephan, Jocelyn Moorhouse’s The Dressmaker, Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang, and Grímur Hákonarson’s Rams.

For more info on MVFF38, visit mvff.com

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TIFF 2015: Room http://waytooindie.com/news/tiff-2015-room/ http://waytooindie.com/news/tiff-2015-room/#comments Tue, 08 Sep 2015 13:30:37 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=40043 Great performances save 'Room' from becoming a laughable piece of schmaltz.]]>

A tug of war between great drama and schmaltzy pap, Lenny Abrahamson’s adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s novel Room comes perilously close to collapsing into a laughably maudlin film at times. Spending its first half entirely in the titular room (in actuality a shed), Ma (Brie Larson) and her 5-year-old son Jack (Jacob Tremblay) are being held hostage by a man they call Old Nick (Sean Bridgers); Old Nick kidnapped Ma seven years ago and has been using her as his sex slave this entire time. Jack, unaware that Old Nick is his dad (kidnapped for seven years with a five-year-old son, you do the math), has no concept of the outside world, having lived his entire life in his mother’s prison. Eventually Ma, thinking Jack is old enough to face the truth about their situation, starts devising an escape plan.

Note: minor spoilers follow

Room thankfully doesn’t stay in its one location the entire time, instead dealing with the struggles of Ma and Jack once they escape captivity. Larson, Tremblay and Joan Allen (playing Larson’s mother) all do terrific work; Larson excels at going from tough and resilient to psychologically shattered, Tremblay is absolutely convincing as a child facing the world for the first time, and Allen is remarkable as she tries to deal with both her daughter’s return and becoming a grandmother. But every time Room’s cast comes together to create a great moment Abrahamson, who directed the insufferably quirky Frank last year, finds another moment to screw things up. Twee sequences where Jack narrates things from his perspective make the film suddenly turn into “The Littlest Hostage,” and the final sequence is laughably bad, with a scene that feels like watching a PTSD version of Goodnight Moon. It’s an uneven picture that could have been much better, and that makes Room all the more frustrating.

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Digging for Fire http://waytooindie.com/review/movie/digging-for-fire/ http://waytooindie.com/review/movie/digging-for-fire/#respond Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:10:09 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=37737 Digging for Fire is a deceptively low-key hangout comedy turns into a fascinating exploration of commitment.]]>

Go through the massive list of stars that appear in Joe Swanberg’s Digging for Fire and it might be easy to claim that one of the most prolific names in modern indie has “gone mainstream.” But actually watch Digging for Fire (or Happy Christmas or Drinking Buddies), and it’s clear that the mainstream has actually come knocking on Swanberg’s door. This is the same low-key, character-based storytelling Swanberg has been honing for years, only now with a plethora of talent and established names thrown into the mix. And, if anything, Digging for Fire shows Swanberg as a filmmaker in total control, using his ensemble and skills at creating a casual, inviting tone to make a subtle and fascinating exploration of commitment, aging and marriage.

Taking place in Los Angeles, the film opens with married couple Lee (Rosemarie Dewitt) and Tim (Jake Johnson, who co-wrote with Swanberg) taking their son Jude (Swanberg’s own son, stealing every scene he’s in) to house-sit for one of Lee’s wealthy clients. While Lee goes off working as a yoga instructor, Tim—a public school teacher—stays at home during the summer break. Soon after arriving, Tim starts poking around the house and discovers a bone and an old gun buried in a yard behind the house. Tim wants to keep digging, but Lee doesn’t want him messing up her client’s property, and a host of other small disagreements between the two (including Tim’s refusal to put Jude in a private school) leads to Lee taking Jude to spend the weekend with her parents (Sam Elliott and Judith Light).

Tim takes the opportunity to invite some of his old buddies over (Sam Rockwell, Chris Messina, Mike Birbiglia and Kent Osborne, to name a few), and before long he’s convincing all of them to help dig up whatever else might be hiding underneath the property. At this point the film forks off into two narrative strands, one profiling Tim’s weekend with his friends, and the other following Lee trying to have a girl’s night out with her sister (Melanie Lynskey). Both Lee and Tim wind up finding themselves conflicted when they each encounter an opportunity to cheat; Lee meets a British restaurant owner (Orlando Bloom), and Tim makes nice with the young, carefree Max (Brie Larson).

Anyone familiar with Swanberg’s previous work won’t be surprised to learn the film’s central mystery is a nonstarter. It’s more of an excuse for getting characters together to casually chat about the themes Swanberg and Johnson really want to explore. “When did you feel like you got back to yourself?” Lee asks her mom at one point, wondering if marriage and motherhood have removed her ability to live her own life, and Tim admits to Max that he feels like he’s not maturing, he’s just getting older. Their brief exchanges with friends, family and strangers around them reveal that both Lee and Max have hesitations about staying in for the long haul of their marriage, with the hypothetical idea of something “better” existing out there tempting them into seeking individuality over partnership.

What makes Digging for Fire such an enjoyable yet fleeting experience is how Swanberg lets these ideas flow organically into the film through his terrific cast and tight editing. Narrative doesn’t mean much here, as it’s more about how Lee and Tim’s actions reflect their concerns. Dewitt and Johnson anchor the film nicely, and there isn’t a single weak spot in a cast that’s as sprawling as LA itself. Shooting on 35mm with cinematographer Ben Richardson (who also shot Drinking Buddies and, most famously, Beasts of the Southern Wild), the film’s keen eye for composition helps give it a cinematic feel that comes across as a surprise given its dialogue-heavy approach. Swanberg has made films for over a decade now, and at a pretty quick pace too (remember when he directed six films in 2011?), but in some ways Digging for Fire feels like the start of a newer, more refined era for him. It’s exciting to watch Swanberg in complete domination of his craft, but it’ll be more exciting to see what he does next.

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WATCH: A Daring Escape in First Teaser for Lenny Abrahamson’s ‘Room’ http://waytooindie.com/news/watch-a-daring-escape-in-first-teaser-for-lenny-abrahamsons-room/ http://waytooindie.com/news/watch-a-daring-escape-in-first-teaser-for-lenny-abrahamsons-room/#respond Thu, 30 Jul 2015 17:36:34 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=39000 Lenny Abrahamson's new film looks tensely heartbreaking. ]]>

A vastly opposing turn from last year’s mostly light and decidedly oddball Frank, Lenny Abrahamson’s next film—which will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival as a Special Program—looks to be a heartstring tightener. Room stars Brie Larson and newcomer Jacob Tremblay as a mother and son trapped within the confines of a 10ft x 10 ft one-room shed. Based on the book by Emma Donoghue, Larson plays Ma, a young woman determined not to let the smallness of the universe she and her son Jack (Tremblay) occupy limit his growth and world experience.

As evidenced by the teaser, Ma and Jack make a daring escape and young Jack faces the shocking reality that there is a world beyond the four walls he’s only ever known. Also starring William H. Macy and Joan Allen the film looks like it should elicit some serious emotion.

The film releases limitedly on October 16th and nationwide November 6th.

Room
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Trainwreck http://waytooindie.com/review/movie/trainwreck/ http://waytooindie.com/review/movie/trainwreck/#respond Fri, 17 Jul 2015 18:02:24 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=37937 Schumer and Apatow make raunchy feel classy in their hilarious big-screen collaboration.]]>

Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer‘s Trainwreck is an odd little thing. How does a movie so raunchy and brash ultimately turn out to be one of the most polished, classiest comedies of the year? Seems these two comedy juggernauts are the only ones in on the secret. Trainwreck‘s only rival is Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy‘s Spy, a movie whose humor works very well, but lacks the discipline and sophistication of the former’s more socially aware material.

Yes, I said sophistication, and yes, Trainwreck sees Schumer tearing through Manhattan on a boozy sex rampage, with most of the humor stemming from calamitous events involving her nether region. This is the same well-crafted gross-out humor that rocketed Schumer to the front of the mainstream media line, the stuff that fuels her eminently popular show, Inside Amy Schumer. Her charm is her fearlessness and willingness to make herself look like an ass, as long as we know she’s being completely honest with us. It’s a winning formula, and one she employs to great success in her big-screen collaboration with Apatow.

Schumer, as she’s liable to do, plays a variation of herself (her character’s name is Amy) in the conventionally-plotted rom-com, which she wrote herself. Rabid sex monster Amy Townsend’s origin story is dispensed with quickness in the film’s opening: in a flashback to her childhood, we see her father (perennial grump Colin Quinn) explaining to she and her sister (played later by Brie Larson) that monogamy is for fools. Hence, Amy’s adult life has been defined by reckless sexcapades rather than traditional romantic pursuits. She’s got a steady boyfriend (an inexplicably hilarious John Cena), but he’s just there to take her to the movies and share the occasional meal with; she gets her rocks off with other men all the time, unbeknownst to the lovable muscle-head. (One of the movie’s biggest laughs belongs to Cena, whose ambiguously gay character intimidates another man by growling, “You know what I do to assholes! I lick ’em!”)

She works at a faux-classy magazine called S’Nuff, her editor a wickedly egocentric witch played by Tilda Swinton (whose character work has been fantastic of late). Her latest assignment is to do a profile on sports doctor Aaron Connors (Bill Hader), whose clientele includes Lebron James and Amar’e Stoudemire (both of whom play themselves, to moderate amusement). As you’ve probably guessed by now, Hader’s character turns out to be “the one,” the guy who finally convinces Amy to give monogamy a go. Their relationship hits some snags when Amy’s demons (sibling jealousy, deceased mom, dad-instilled bad attitude) compel her to reject Aaron’s affection, but things work out in the end, because Apatow.

The classic rom-com formula is represented here without deviation, but the movie works because it’s all just a frame for Schumer’s personality and charisma, which is rich and colorful enough to carry any plot, even unimaginative ones, to success. Moment to moment, she’s crazy funny, from her line delivery, to her facial expressions, to her self-deprecating physical humor. As in her other work, her social commentary sneaks up on you. While having tea with her sister’s prudish, soccer-mom friends, one woman confides that she has yet to explain to her son what gay people are. With a priceless look of befuddlement, Amy interjects: “Well…they’re people.”

Celebrity cameos, if anything, are the movie’s achilles heel. Some work (Cena), some don’t (James), but there are just so goddamn many of them stuffed in there that the movie threatens to combust under all the pressure. A moronic intervention scene including unfunny cameos by Matthew Broderick and Marv Albert is egregious, but not nearly as bad as a shoehorned fake arthouse movie-within-the-movie starring Marisa Tomei and Daniel Radcliffe, who’s only thrown in there to make Potter fans squeal.

Schumer and Hader bring the movie back to life whenever they share the screen, however. They glide in and out of tone with grace and synchronicity, and unlike a lot of rom-com couples, their arguments feel just as real as their romantic exchanges. Apatow and Schumer, despite their reputations as champions of crude humor, are storytellers of taste and restraint. They’re never cruel to us or their characters, and that discipline is what sets Trainwreck apart.

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The Orchard Nabs Release Rights to Joe Swanberg’s ‘Digging For Fire’ http://waytooindie.com/news/the-orchard-nabs-release-rights-to-joe-swanbergs-digging-for-fire/ http://waytooindie.com/news/the-orchard-nabs-release-rights-to-joe-swanbergs-digging-for-fire/#respond Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=30002 Another Sundance favorite gets picked up, Joe Swanberg's 'Digging For Fire' is bought by The Orchard.]]>

Fresh off the heels of its world début at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, The Orchard has acquired Joe Swanberg’s latest, Digging for Fire, for its North American release.

Digging for Fire looks to continue Swanberg’s recent trend of higher profile films with more notable casts. The film stars Swanberg vets Jake Johnson, Anna Kendrick and Melanie Lynskey, as well as Rosemary DeWitt, Orlando Bloom, Sam Rockwell, Brie Larson and Mike Birbiglia. The film follows the discovery of a bone and a gun which sends a husband and wife—each full of doubts about their future and anxiety about the present—on separate adventures over the course of a weekend.

The Orchard is a music, video and film distribution company, founded in 1997. It previously released 2015 horror film Preservation and the upcoming documentary Point and Shoot, which has found acclaim on the festival circuit.

The release strategy and date is not immediately known.

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The Gambler http://waytooindie.com/review/movie/the-gambler/ http://waytooindie.com/review/movie/the-gambler/#respond Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=28079 Rupert Wyatt and Mark Wahlberg's 'The Gambler' is a bitter character portrait that's more shallow than its moody imagery and eloquent dialogue suggest.]]>

“Don’t look at him. Look at me. Just deal the cards.” Mark Wahlberg plays a man sprinting down the path of self-destruction in The Gambler, a bitter character portrait set in the seedy world of L.A. underground betting. Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) does a good job directing a gifted cast of talents young and old, and moody cinematography by Greig Fraser gives the film a stylish visual signature, but it’s in the script by William Monahan where the film comes up short. Wahlberg is fully capable of carrying a film on his shoulders and does as best he can here, but when you’re stuck with a character so cynical and ungrateful, we need something more to compel us and keep a vested interest in his journey of doom and gloom, something the introspectively passive script fails to provide.

A remake of the 1974 Karel Reisz movie of the same name, Wyatt’s film starts with a nail-biting game of blackjack at a Korean-run gambling party, thousands of dollars of our anti-hero Jim Bennett’s (Wahlberg) money on the line. “Just deal the cards,” he unblinkingly tells the dealer, who keeps glancing nervously to the casino enforcers hovering in the background. Bennett’s a picture of composure, a high-roller in complete control. Then again…maybe not. The game doesn’t go his way, and a nearby loanshark named Neville (Michael K. Williams) notices, like us, that Bennett looks unbothered, like he just lost 5 bucks at the slots rather than several stacks in a high-stakes card game. Is this man addicted to gambling, or addicted to losing?

After some wise-ass jabbering, Bennett convinces the not-to-be-fucked-with Neville to loan him $50,000. He also ends up borrowing even money from another dangerous kingpin, Frank (John Goodman, in beast mode), who’s also not to be fucked with. Of course, he fucks with them. We learn that Bennett–in his other life a university English professor and retired novelist (he quit after one book)–has one week to pay back the $240,000 debt he owes the Korean mobsters. A dizzying game of evading hitmen and robbing Peter to pay Paul ensues, with Bennett shrugging off all outside help (his wealthy mother, played by Jessica Lange, loans him the debt money, which he squanders at the tables), content with accepting his downfall all by his lonesome.

Hope for a less dreary future lies in the classroom. Amy (Brie Larson) is Bennett’s star student, and also happened to be working as a waitress the night he lost that game of blackjack. There’s a chance, be it a small one, that Amy could be the safety line that saves Bennett from his downward spiral. Two students who may also play a part in his escape from his doom addiction are Lamar (Anthony Kelley), a star basketball player, and Dexter (Emory Cohen), the number 2 college tennis player in the country. How they figure into the grand plot feels a little contrived and convenient, but Kelley does a fine job as a first-time actor, keeping pace with Wahlberg like a pro.

Wahlberg lost a significant amount of weight to play Bennett and exhibits less of his signature tough guy bravado than usual. He’s a whiner, a weasel, and a fast talker who always has something snarky or pessimistic to say, particularly in front of his students. I was surprised to find Wahlberg to be a pretty believable college professor, rambling and ranting about Shakespeare and the absurdity of being a novelist with dark, explosive eloquence. Larson provides arguably the film’s best performance, adding much-needed soul and level-headedness to the scenes she steals. Goodman and Williams are both given chewy roles that they both own, keeping the film alive when it’s on the verge of falling asleep.

In the film’s late stages, it becomes painfully clear that whatever’s going on inside Bennett’s head isn’t that complex or interesting at all, or at least Wyatt and Monahan aren’t interested in exploring the depths of his pathos. Bennett doesn’t reveal himself to be much more than a sad-sack slacker, a lazy schmuck with a death wish who loves swimming with sharks. Even in the film’s climax, you have about as much sympathy for Bennett as you do a snoozing teenager you’re trying to shake awake so they won’t be late for school. It’s infuriating, and barely worthwhile. Wake the hell up, you lazy bastard! I’ve got better things to do!

Fraser’s visuals help keep things flowing, with jazzy compositions (especially during the intense card games) and clever uses of tilt-shift and time lapse. The dreamlike imagery, editing, and soundtrack (an a capella version of Radiohead’s “Creep” is pretty…uh…creepy) invoke the haze of addiction, but the writing never follows through with the message, leaving us unstirred, with little to take home and think about.

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The Spectacular Now http://waytooindie.com/review/movie/the-spectacular-now/ http://waytooindie.com/review/movie/the-spectacular-now/#comments Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=17089 Considering James Ponsoldt’s first two films (Off the Black, Smashed) deal with alcoholism, it comes as no surprise that the subject is also baked into his third film, The Spectacular Now. This time around the theme is buried underneath the surface of a high school coming-of-age film that demonstrates there is more to life than […]]]>

Considering James Ponsoldt’s first two films (Off the Black, Smashed) deal with alcoholism, it comes as no surprise that the subject is also baked into his third film, The Spectacular Now. This time around the theme is buried underneath the surface of a high school coming-of-age film that demonstrates there is more to life than living in the spectacular now. There is more to appreciate than to despise in The Spectacular Now, largely due to the outstanding performances from the two leads that transcend the film beyond just an ordinary young adult drama.

The Spectacular Now begins not unlike other of high school dramas, with an 18-year-old named Sutter (Miles Teller) recalling how the love of his life Cassidy (Brie Larson) recently broke up with him. Everyone in the school thought they were the perfect couple and together they were the life of every party. After a long night of partying in an attempt to free his mind from his recent breakup, Sutter wakes up on a random lawn to the sound of a timid girl named Aimee (Shailene Woodley) calling his name. Aimee recognizes Sutter from school, but the familiarity is not mutual. As with most high school stories the popular student is completely unaware the quiet nerdy student even exists. However, instead of viewing her as solely a rebound girl (like what typically happens before realizing they are good together) he takes a genuine interest in her from the very beginning.

Sutter is known as the sarcastic class clown at school and the person everyone wants to be around at parties. He subscribes to the ‘living in the now’ philosophy, though to a punishing fault. His literal interpretation of this viewpoint means that he takes absolutely nothing seriously. Slowly he begins to realize that his classmates not only think he is the class joker, but also someone who is destined to go nowhere in life. The ultimate eye-opener for him is when he meets his father for the first time since he was a child only to discover he does not want to windup like him.

The Spectacular Now indie movie

When you first see Sutter drinking alcoholic beverages at parties you do not think much of it. After all, it is a somewhat socially acceptable occurrence regardless of the fact he is underage. It is when he busts out his flask seemingly everywhere (including his job!) that we begin to notice a much larger issue at hand. And so does he. Because of Aimee he begins to think about consequences for the first time.

Both of the main character’s weaknesses stem from their strengths. Sutter’s flaws are easily seen in plain sight, living in the moment without ever thinking about his actions. But his shortcomings are not as exasperating as Aimee’s are because he is a troubled teen who is smarter than he appears; whereas Aimee seems to contradict her intelligence by repeatedly making poor decisions. While her unconditional affection towards Sutter is inspiring most of the time, her willingness to always look the other way, turn the other cheek, and to forgive everything he does can be frustrating to watch. Specifically, there is an incident late in the film that would have been a wake up call for most people, or at the very least a chance for her character to stand up for herself for once. In the grand scheme of things however these are admittedly only minor complaints to otherwise enjoyable characters.

Because the story has so much depth to it—much more than your typical teenage drama—it is easy to tell The Spectacular Now is based on a novel. Each character in the film has a specific purpose not only to the story, but meaningfully intricate to one another as well. For these reasons it is easy to compare this production to The Perks of Being a Wallflower, another come-of-age story that successfully transitioned from novel to film.

Credit the writing for creating a redeeming character that makes you want to reach out to stop him from ruining his life, but also for allowing the character to be smart enough to so himself. You must also give credit to the two main leads who help make some of the familiar plot devices feel fresh again. Far too many teenage dramas are content with staying within the boundaries of the schoolyard, in this case placing all the focus on Sutter’s temptations with getting back together with his ex. Fortunately, The Spectacular Now introduces a darker side of the film that helps separate it from its competition.

The Spectacular Now trailer

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Short Term 12 http://waytooindie.com/review/movie/short-term-12/ http://waytooindie.com/review/movie/short-term-12/#comments Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=13821 It’s become fashionable over the past few months to shower Destin Cretton’s (I’m Not a Hipster) social worker drama, Short Term 12 (a veritable Sundance phenom), with buckets of adulation. It deserves every drop—this is a supreme effort for a young filmmaker, and one of the most emotionally impactful films of the year. Expanded from […]]]>

It’s become fashionable over the past few months to shower Destin Cretton’s (I’m Not a Hipster) social worker drama, Short Term 12 (a veritable Sundance phenom), with buckets of adulation. It deserves every drop—this is a supreme effort for a young filmmaker, and one of the most emotionally impactful films of the year. Expanded from a short Cretton made in 2008, the most noticeable change from the original is the switch of the main protagonist from male to female, with Brie Larson (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The United States of Tara) helming the ship (she does a fine job as captain.)

The film opens with Grace (Larson, whose confidence feeds her beauty) and Mason (John Gallagher Jr., consummate bearded nice guy), two lead staff members at a foster care facility (and lovebirds, though they leave their relationship at home as they’re both seasoned professionals), welcoming new recruit Nate (Rami Malek) to the fray by sharing an amusing anecdote about Mason messing his pants following a hilarious sequence of events, all for the safety of one of the adolescents-at-risk they used to watch over. It’s a fun story that sets the tone for the film’s humor while also illustrating the counselors’ dedication to the kids. Grace in particular is passionately driven and undaunted in assuming the emotionally backbreaking role of lead caretaker.

As Mason is wrapping up his yarn, one of the young dorm-dwellers (Alex Calloway) bursts out of a door at hell-bat speed, American flag blowing behind him, inexplicably tied around his neck like a cape. This prompts our social-worker heroes to chase and subdue the redhead loose cannon with S.W.A.T. team efficiency (their relaxed countenances are evidence that the footrace is a common occurrence.) From there, we’re introduced—in a series of deftly written character moments, each more gripping than the last—to the angst-filled, invariably volatile facility innards.

Short Term 12 movie

Cretton—who wrote the unbelievable screenplay (I’ll get to that later)—drew inspiration from his own experiences working in foster-care, and the chaotic, yet cyclical dynamics of the on-screen facility feel resultantly authentic, organic, and full of life (real life; the dirty kind.) The troubled kids—whose view of trust is that it’ll inevitably betray them—give the staff members all the pushback (sometimes violent) they can handle, though Grace and Mason valiantly weather the thunderstorms of screams and freak-outs and are especially gifted at cultivating easy rapports with the bottled-up teens, as best they can.

When Grace and Mason get one-on-one time with the kids, we get to see them really work. After some gentle, genuine chit chat with Mason, Marcus (Keith Stanfield), the brooding, “don’t-give-a-fuck” bad boy of the bunch (he shows glimmers of a keen intellect), performs a private rap in his dorm room, revealing a harrowing history with his abusive mother. “Revealing” is the key word here—these kids suppress their emotions to the point of self-destruction, and the only way to identify their problems is for the staff members to peacefully persuade them to reveal the roots of their pain. Thankfully, the compassionate caretakers are gifted at just that.

When Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever), a morose (she makes Marcus look like the life of the party) Avril Lavigne-ish teen, arrives at the compound, Grace sees something in her (a bit of herself, perhaps?) and takes a personal stake in the girl’s future, which disrupts the crucial practice of her leaving work at work. Grace’s name turns out to not be as fitting as you might initially think, as her tether to Jayden’s dangerous home situation begins to destabilize her mentally, damaging her relationship with Mason in the process (the two are on the fence between marriage and lover’s limbo.) Larson is the heart and soul of the film, and her ability to embody both titan-like strength and damaged vulnerability is much of what makes Short Term 12 great.

Cretton’s script is, in a word, sleek—there are few wasted moments, no lulls in pace (though there are loads of slow, quiet, emotionally intense scenes), and no disposable components; characters, story beats, or otherwise. The plot is structurally sound, but always feels like it’s unfolding organically, which is even more impressive considering this could’ve easily turned out to be an unnecessarily elongated short in the hands of a lesser filmmaker. Cretton and DP Brett Pawlak’s camera makes us feel like we’re standing in and walking through—not simply inhabiting—the close-quarters halls of the facility (he uses shaky-cam well, which is always a tricky device to harness.)

There are a few quibbles and nit-picks I have with the film: a brief demented detour near the film’s conclusion (involving a bizarre home invasion) feels a little tonally dissonant, the character of Nate could do with more attention, and a romantic scene between Larson and Gallagher where they doodle portraits of each other on their living room couch feels like stock indie fare. But hell, life ain’t perfect, and at the end of the day, Short Term 12 lives and breathes true reality onto the movie screen better than most documentaries can.

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Interview: Destin Cretton and Brie Larson of Short Term 12 http://waytooindie.com/interview/interview-destin-cretton-brie-larson-short-term-12/ http://waytooindie.com/interview/interview-destin-cretton-brie-larson-short-term-12/#respond Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=14168 Director Destin Cretton (I Am Not a Hipster) and Brie Larson (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, The United States of Tara) sat down with us in San Francisco to chat about their new, festival-darling film Short Term 12. The movie follows Larson and her fellow staff members at a foster care facility as they give […]]]>

Director Destin Cretton (I Am Not a Hipster) and Brie Larson (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, The United States of Tara) sat down with us in San Francisco to chat about their new, festival-darling film Short Term 12. The movie follows Larson and her fellow staff members at a foster care facility as they give their full attention and energy to the kids they watch after, all the while struggling to manage their turbulent home lives.

Short Term 12 is out now nationwide and opens in San Francisco this Friday, August 30th.

Brie, you grew up relatively close to the Bay Area, in Sacramento. How long did you live there?
Brie Larson: Until I was eight.

Do you have any attachment to that city anymore?
Brie Larson: I’m attached to it in that I have some really important childhood memories there. I saw the music circus. They had The Sound of Music there, and that was the beginning of me being completely obsessed with acting in movies and theater. I could not stop talking about The Sound of Music. They do it in the round [at the music circus], and now they have a big air-conditioned thing, but before, it was an actual tent in the summertime. I loved it. I loved Maria and it was this whole thing. I remember so distinctly being at a friend’s house and being like, “Oh my god, Maria is so beautiful!” and she was like, “I have it on VHS!” I was so excited. She put it on and Julie Andrews [came on], and I was like, “That’s not Maria! I know Maria, and that’s not Maria!” (laughs)

You’ve been acting since you were really young, right?
Brie Larson: Yeah. I started taking lessons when I was seven. I went to ACT (American Conservatory Theater) out here. You have to audition to get in, and I was the youngest person to [ever] get in, at seven. But I feel like there’s some freak four year old that did something really awesome, did the ending monologue from Our Town and just annihilated me at this point. (laughs)

You’re not sure if you hold the title anymore!
Brie Larson: Yeah, I’m not sure, but many years ago. (laughs)

The film started as a short, which you’ve made into a full-length feature. There is a danger of films like this feeling like stretched-out shorts, but yours has no filler. There aren’t any wasted moments in the film.
Destin Cretton: That was an inherent fear of mine going from the short to the full feature. I felt incapable of forcing it, so I didn’t want to take a short and stretch it to an hour-and-a-half, you know? I initially tried that, to just extend it, but the short was never meant to be extended into a feature. I think it’s a piece entirely of its own. When I initially tried [stretching it], it felt wrong and it felt forced. It felt like I was trying to do what I was told to do. You’re supposed to adapt it with the same characters, or whatever.

As soon as I changed the character from a male into a female, it started a ripple effect that transformed all the characters into new people.

So you viewed the project as a completely new story.
Destin Cretton: Yeah. We’re still exploring similar themes that the short explores, but I don’t see it as an adaptation. I see it as a completely new story.

Why did you change the sex of the main character?
Destin Cretton: The main reason was to keep my interest. Also, to instill a healthy bit of fear in me. I’d never done that before, and it scared the living piss out of me.

Why was it scary?
Destin Cretton: ‘Cause I’m not a girl. (laughs)

Was it difficult writing from a girl’s perspective?
Destin Cretton: Yeah, and I knew that I would be judged by, at the very least, my three sisters if I did it wrong. That was also a wonderful challenge for me and a healthy process to go through. I think most people who are exploring anything creative want to do it to learn something, you know? I feel like, through exploring the story through Grace, I learned a lot. I feel like it has made me a better person that’s able to relate to my girlfriend more, my sisters more. I really enjoyed the process.

Short Term 12 movie interview

Brie, were you nervous to have to be such a leader on set, mentoring the younger actors?
Brie Larson: I had a lot of fears inside, but I acted like I didn’t. (laughs) I love kids. I grew up being the oldest of my family, so that sort of role wasn’t a stretch for me. I was also an actor very young, so I know what that feels like. It’s a really intense feeling to have as a kid, because you want it so bad and you care so much. It’s a really informative time and I remember very specifically the people that I looked at and went, “I want to be like that,” and other people that terrified me. It was an important thing to me to try, in my way, to be professional with them and show them what it’s like to be a leader and to think of yourself as the head of your own department, and to also just be a team player. It’s so much more than just a self-centered, get your performance on camera thing. There are a lot of other aspects to it that are required to create a fun and positive environment for the other aspects of filmmaking. It’s not just about being an actor.

Was there a collaborative dynamic on set between you guys and the crew?
Brie Larson: Yeah, I felt that way.

Destin Cretton: I think, specifically, both Brie and John (Gallagher Jr., who plays Larson’s boyfriend and co-worker in the film) stepped into their roles, not only on camera, but the similar roles as mentor and motivator for the entire team of actors, some who were kids who had never acted before. I think together Brie and John helped to create this environment of safe, fun, playfulness, but also taking their job very seriously. They were an extreme source of inspiration for these kids. That is something that a director could not create, the feeling of family and spontaneous interaction between people who don’t know each other. That’s not something you can fake. Thank god that they naturally stepped into those roles.

Brie, did you have to go to dark places in your mind for certain scenes? Is that comfortable for you?
Brie Larson: Yeah, it’s very comfortable for me. I have to make a conscious decision to go to that side of town and I don’t live there, you know? I think everybody gets a little too attached to feeling sorry for themselves in the sort of dark places. There’s also a whole other, healthy life to lead and other responsibilities to have, and you just can’t survive living like that. It’s important as an actor to understand the difference between reality and fiction, which can get confusing if you get too lost in it. It was a very big focus for me, especially for this movie. I was really proud of myself for the way that I structured my day while shooting. It’s something that I want to continue to take as a philosophy. When you go that dark, it’s like a ghost thing—it sticks with you for a while and sometimes it takes a lot longer than you want it to to let go of some of the things that you stir up inside.

So, you were able to let go of these dark feelings on the same day.
Brie Larson: Every day. You do it, and then you let it go. Luckily, I just became very clear. There were certain moments that I had to go really deep, and I was afraid that since that’s not how I am on my day-to-day, and I created these relationships, that I was going to feel self-conscious and that I was going to be afraid to go there. I would just say, “Hey, I’m going to go underwater for a little bit, and it’s going to be a process to get me where I need to get to. Just bear with me. It’s going to seem a little scary and weird. When I get to come up for air, I’ll let you know.” That’s how it worked. You let it go. It feels like you’re waking up. I don’t have a lot of memory of the darker things. When I’d watch them, I’d have no memory of doing them. I’d look up, and there would be a bunch of friendly faces, and I’d sometimes even get a hug. (laughs) Sometimes there’d even be pizza at the end of the day! (laughs)

Pizza day!
Brie Larson: There were pizza days! We could afford that.

Destin Cretton: We tried to schedule the pizzas right after every intense scene.

Is that true?
Destin Cretton: It did kind of turned out that way!

Brie, did you learn the skill of separating your work from real life on this film?
Brie Larson: I learned it from shadowing at the [foster care] facility. The woman I spent time with, that was her philosophy and how she dealt with it. She had Grace’s job for 20-something years, so she knows what she’s doing. (laughs) I trust that advice. It really works. You put everything you can into the work while you’re there, and then you go home and try to remove yourself from it. I’m very hard on myself and am very much an over-thinker, so it was important for me to recognize that about myself and to be aware that it wasn’t healthy.

Destin, what’s a skill that you developed on this project that you think will really help you in your future projects?
Destin Cretton: Well…that’s a question I haven’t been asked before. There’s a huge list of things, a huge list. I think more so than any other film, the importance as a director to create an environment off screen that is in cooperation with what you want to be on screen. In the same breath, I think a fun, safe atmosphere is cooperative to anything that’s going to be on screen, even if it’s a tense scene. Most human beings are able to be at their best creative space when they feel like they’re safe and having fun, even if it’s an intense thing. What we’re doing is playing make-believe. It’s somehow attached to what we used to do when we were seven, even if we’re doing a very serious movie, we’re still attaching ourselves to this free, I don’t care what I’m doing, playing make-believe and being expressive [mentality.] The best stuff that we did on this movie, the best moments, were created with a feeling of childish fun. That’s why I like making movies.

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LA Film Fest Reviews: Short Term 12, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, In a World http://waytooindie.com/news/film-festival/la-film-fest-reviews-short-term-12-aint-them-bodies-saints-in-a-world/ http://waytooindie.com/news/film-festival/la-film-fest-reviews-short-term-12-aint-them-bodies-saints-in-a-world/#respond Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=12855 Short Term 12 SXSW film-goers pegged this picture pretty well when they gave it the audience award a few months ago. Destin Cretin’s second feature in as many years is an honest crowd pleaser that leaves you feeling all warm inside. Brie Larson, in an exceptional dramatic turn, and a solid John Gallagher Jr., mentor […]]]>

Short Term 12

Short Term 12 indie movie

SXSW film-goers pegged this picture pretty well when they gave it the audience award a few months ago. Destin Cretin’s second feature in as many years is an honest crowd pleaser that leaves you feeling all warm inside. Brie Larson, in an exceptional dramatic turn, and a solid John Gallagher Jr., mentor a very good ensemble cast as the head staff at foster care facility named Short Term 12. Cretin skillfully reveals that the bright faculty of this care center emerged from a similar backgrounds as many of the children they oversee. He does so with a script that skirts the many clichés of a ‘troubled kids’ drama and renders his characters painfully clear. In a post-screening Q and A he admitted to working in a facility similar to the one depicted in the film and conducting hours of interviews with workers and children as research.

Short Term 12 often deals in extreme emotions and Cretin guides his actors skillfully into restrained performances, yet at times the filmmaking fails to follow suit. Too often the production sound falls to a dreamy silence as the music, an excellent score from young composer Joel West, pumps up the emotion when audiences are already right there with the film. So many recent filmmakers have adopted a “naturalist”, documentary, or handheld style that it feels like the new norm. It’s more shocking to see carefully executed dolly shots and classical editing than shaky close-ups in low lighting. In Short Term 12, Cretin with long time cinematographer Brett Pawlak, execute this style to a tee and allow their actors to shine. Cretin and his team craft a beautiful film about nontraditional families using traditional storytelling.

RATING: 8

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints movie

David Lowery’s unclear and unconvincing script extinguishes what could have been a fiery noir burning with lust and violence. His story contains many great crime genre staples—a love struck criminal, a beautiful country girl, a menacing father figure, lusty cops, and a prison escape; not to mention it’s set in the 30s. The industrious Lowery has lured immense talent to his film but fails to deliver even an ounce of the proposed excitement.

Full Review of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

RATING: 5

In a World

In a World movie

Lake Bell, a lovely character actor, makes her feature debut as writer/director with the unique comedy In a World. She draws from an impressive Rolodex of friends, such as Children’s Hospital co-stars Rob Courdry, Ken Marino, and Nick Offerman. Bell delights in filling most of the cast with comedians who all excel in dramatic turns. In a World works because it is not just silly nonsense like many of this summer’s comedies, but a compelling father daughter story set in the goofy, yet interesting, niche world of Hollywood voiceover artists.

Bell plays, Carol, a shiftless layabout who specializes in voice coaching dialects because she thinks she cannot make it in the cutthroat would of voice acting, dominated by her father, Sam, played by the marvelous Fred Melamed. Sam seems comfortable to pass the torch to a younger voice stud named Gustav when studios revive the classic movie trailer phrase, “In a World…” for a new round of epic Hunger Games/Twilight-esque films, but Carol begins booking voice over gigs of her own and throws a wrench into this male dominated world. On paper the plot seems a bit trite, but the wealth of supporting characters, touching family drama, and beautiful performances all around make for a great time. Bell perfectly balances the laughs with the drama and never lets the story get too silly or too dire. She crafts a wonderful and heartfelt comedy that also addresses serious issues of family relationships and feminism in Hollywood yet remains entertaining throughout. I look forward to more films from Bell.

RATING: 7

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Watch: Short Term 12 trailer http://waytooindie.com/news/trailer/watch-short-term-12-trailer/ http://waytooindie.com/news/trailer/watch-short-term-12-trailer/#respond Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://waytooindie.com/?p=12574 Destin Cretton, writer/director of I Am Not a Hipster, is back with his next film, Short Term 12. The film stars Brie Larson (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) as Grace; a girl in her 20’s who works at a facility for at-risk teens. Working at the center with her boyfriend, the film follows her as […]]]>

Destin Cretton, writer/director of I Am Not a Hipster, is back with his next film, Short Term 12. The film stars Brie Larson (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) as Grace; a girl in her 20’s who works at a facility for at-risk teens. Working at the center with her boyfriend, the film follows her as she navigates her job while doing her best to help the young, fragile minds that populate the facility.

The trailer for the film is quite endearing. Promising the audience to be taken on what looks to be a very emotional ride. The film debuted at SXSW were it was met with rave reviews almost across the board. One reviewer compared Larson’s performance to Ryan Gosling’s from his work in the indie darling Half Nelson from a few years ago. High praise if you ask me. We here at Way Too Indie can’t wait to see the film. The release date for Short Term 12 is August 23rd. You can check out the trailer below.

Watch the official trailer for Short Term 12:

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