Helen Hunt – Way Too Indie

2015 SFIFF Full Lineup Announced

Bernard Boo — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 16:45:25 +0000

In a press conference yesterday the San Francisco Film Society announced the complete lineup for the 58th annual San Francisco International Film Festival, running from April 23rd – May 7th. Festival Executive Director Noah Cowan led the presentation, emphasizing SFFS’s mission to champion films and filmmakers from around the globe.

“I think this festival doesn’t get as much credit as it’s due as being among the most significant champions of emerging filmmakers from around the globe,” said Cowan at the press conference. “There’s a lot of focus right now in the festival world on American independent cinema. There’s lots of great stuff going on here, but sometimes it happens to neglect the quite extraordinary artists coming from other parts of the globe.”

Emblematic of the festival’s initiative to spotlight films on a global scale is its “Global Visions” section, which boasts an array of narrative and documentary films from Japan (Wonderful World End), Brazil (The Second Mother), Germany (Stations of the Cross), China (Red Amnesia), the United Kingdom (Luna), South Korea (A Hard Day), France (Fidelio: Alice’s Odyssey), New Zealand (The Dark Horse), and many more countries with exciting, emerging filmmakers and films worthy of our undivided attention. Also celebrating global storytelling are the Golden Gate Award Competitions, in which will award films from around the world nearly $40,000 across 14 awards categories.

The festival’s “Marquee Presentations” section takes a look at some buzzy titles from the festival circuit. Highlights include Eden, Mia Hansen-Løve’s French DJ drama starring Greta Gerwig and Brady Corbet; Best of Enemies, Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon’s doc about Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr.’s legendary 1968 televised debates; Results, Andrew Bujalski’s awkward comedy starring Cobie Smulders and Guy Pearce as personal trainers; Francois Ozon‘s latest drama, The New Girlfriend; and What Happened, Miss Simone?, Liz Garbus’ piercing doc about legendary vocalist Nina Simone.

The festival will open with lauded documentarian Alex Gibney‘s Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, which should be a perfect kick-off for the Bay Area audience. The End of the Tour, James Ponsoldt’s follow-up to The Spectacular Now, is the fest’s Centerpiece presentation, while Michael Almereyda’s biopic Experimenter, starring Peter Sarsgaard as scientist Stanley Milgram, will be the Closing Night Film.

Late additions to the festival lineup are still rolling in, but three additions confirmed are Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s Sundance darling Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Patrick Brice’s uncomfortable comedy The Overnight, and Helen Hunt’s Ride.

Special awards will be handed out to two of the industry’s most enduring luminaries. Guillermo del Toro will be in attendance to receive the Irving M. Levin Directing Award, and Richard Gere will be on-hand to receive the Peter J. Owens Award. Also receiving awards are documentarian Kim Longinotto and film translator Lenny Borger.

For the complete lineup, visit www.sffs.org

Giveaway: Win The Sessions on Blu-ray

Dustin Jansick — Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

If you haven’t had a chance to see the Oscar and Independent Spirit Award nominated film The Sessions, which stars John Hawkes and Helen Hunt, now is your chance. Way Too Indie is giving away a copy of The Sessions on Blu-ray to one of our readers.

How do you enter the giveaway?

Just correctly email me (dustin AT waytooindie.com) the answer to the question below.

In The Sessions, William H. Macy portrays a:

a) Poet
b) Priest
c) Journalist

Email me the answer to enter. Winners will be picked on March 8th.

RELEASED ON BLU-RAY AND DVD ON FEBRUARY 12th

Paralyzed and confined to an iron lung since childhood, poet-journalist Mark O’Brien (Hawkes) has overcome adversity time and time again. But now, at age 38, he faces his toughest challenge yet: losing his virginity. With the help of a beautiful therapist (Hunt), a sympathetic priest (Macy), and his own unbridled sense of optimism and humor, Mark embarks on an extraordinary personal journey to discover the wondrous pleasures that make life worth living.

Special Features:
• Theatrical Feature Blu-ray
• John Hawkes becomes Mark O Brien
• Helen Hunt as the Sex Surrogate
• The Women Who Loved Mark O Brien

Blu-ray Exclusive Features
• Deleted Scenes
• Writer/Director Ben Lewin Finds Inspiration
• A Session with the Cast
• Ultraviolet Copy

Follow Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment on Twitter @FoxHomeEnt

2013 Independent Spirit Award Winners

Dustin Jansick — Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The 2013 Film Independent Spirit Awards were filled as many laughs from the host Andy Samberg as there were shocks from some of the voting. Silver Linings Playbook walked away with four major awards but surprisingly only one of them was from the acting category. Jennifer Lawrence was awarded Best Female Lead for her role in the film but the biggest upset of the night was a welcoming one, John Hawkes for The Sessions beat out Bradley Cooper. The other wins for Silver Linings Playbook were Best Feature, Best Director and Best Screenplay.

As far as my predictions went, I started off strong with five of the first six awards correctly picked. The start of the Spirit Awards themselves did not go as smoothly. The first announced winner was Derek Connolly from Safety Not Guaranteed spent over 5 minutes at the mic before people awkwardly ushered him off the stage. There was little doubt Amour would lose Best International Film and I had a hunch Middle of Nowhere would win the John Cassavetes Award, while The Perks of Being A Wallflower was more of a lucky pick from me. But I expected Beasts of the Southern Wild to win the top prizes of Best Feature and Best Director and it appeared as if the actual winner Silver Linings Playbook felt the same; they kept giving nods to Beasts of the Southern Wild when they were on stage accepting the awards. All in all, I predicted only 7 of the 13 categories correctly, which gives me only a 53% accuracy this year (a far cry from my 69% (or 9 of 13) accuracy last year).

2013 Independent Spirit Award Winners:

(The winners are highlighted in bold red font)

Best Feature:

Beasts of the Southern Wild
Bernie
Keep The Lights On
Moonrise Kingdom
Silver Linings Playbook

Best Director:

Wes Anderson – Moonrise Kingdom
Julia Loktev – The Loneliest Planet
David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Ira Sachs – Keep The Lights On
Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best First Feature:

Fill The Void – Rama Burshtein
Gimme The Loot – Adam Leon
Safety Not Guaranteed – Colin Trevorrow
Sound of My Voice – Zal Batmanglij
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower – Stephen Chobsky

Best Male Lead:

Jack Black – Bernie
Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook
John Hawkes – The Sessions
Thure Lindhart – Keep The Lights On
Matthew McConaughey – Killer Joe
Wendell Pierce – Four

Best Female Lead:

Linda Cardellini – Return
Emayatzy Corinealdi – Middle of Nowhere
Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook
Quvenzhane Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Mary E. Winstead – Smashed

Best Supporting Male:

Matthew McConaughey – Magic Mike
David Oyelowo – Middle of Nowhere
Michael Pena – End of Watch
Sam Rockwell – Seven Psychopaths
Bruce Willis – Moonrise Kingdom

Best Supporting Female:

Rosemarie DeWitt – Your Sister’s Sister
Ann Dowd – Compliance
Helen Hunt – The Sessions
Brit Marling – Sound of My Voice
Lorraine Toussaint – Middle of Nowhere

John Cassavetes Award:

Breakfast With Curtis – Laura Colella
Middle of Nowhere – Ava DuVernay
Mosquita y Mari – Aurora Guerrero
Starlet – Sean Baker
The Color Wheel – Alex Ross Perry

Best Documentary:

How To Survive A Plague – David France
Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present – Matthew Akers
The Central Park Five – Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon
The Invisible War – Kirby Dick
The Waiting Room – Peter Nicks

Best International Film:

Amour – Michael Haneke
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia – Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Rust and Bone – Jacques Audiard
Sister – Ursula Meier
War Witch – Kim Nguyen

Best Cinematography:

Yoni Brook – Valley Of Saints
Lol Crawley – Here
Ben Richardson – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Roman Vasyanov – End of Watch
Robert Yeoman – Moonrise Kingdom

Best Screenplay:

Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola – Moonrise Kingdom
Zoe Kazan – Ruby Sparks
Martin McDonagh – Seven Psychopaths
David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias – Keep The Lights On

Best First Screenplay:

Rama Burshtein – Fill The Void
Derek Connolly – Safety Not Guaranteed
Christopher Ford – Robot & Frank
Jonathan Lisecki – Gayby
Rashida Jones and Will McCormack – Celeste and Jesse Forever

2013 Independent Spirit Award Predictions

Dustin Jansick — Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are a mere 36 days until the official winners are announced at the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards, so I will offer my predictions of who the winners will be this year. Last year my predictions were pretty solid, with an roughly 70% accuracy I correctly predicted 9 of the 13 unannounced awards. Unlike last year’s juggernaut The Artist, I believe this year there are two films that could both easily win the top awards. Both Beasts of the Southern Wild and Silver Linings Playbook stand good chances of being winners, making the predictions more difficult this year. I predict that Beasts of the Southern Wild will win the top two awards while Silver Linings Playbook cleans up the top acting awards. In addition to picking the winners for each category, I explain the reasoning behind my picks in detail under the categories.

Watch IFC on Saturday, February 23rd to see how my predictions hold up.

2013 Independent Spirit Award Predictions:

(My prediction for the winners are highlighted in bold red font)

Best Feature:

Beasts of the Southern Wild
Bernie
Keep The Lights On
Moonrise Kingdom
Silver Linings Playbook

MY REASONING:
As I mentioned in the opening, I believe two films have a great chances of walking away with the top prizes. I believe Beasts of the Southern Wild will slightly edge out Silver Linings Playbook for the Best Feature Award. But both probably have equal chance of winning as both films also got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. I will have to go with my instincts on this, even though Silver Linings Playbook is more of an audience pleaser.

Best Director:

MY REASONING:
Just like the Oscars, this category is closely tied with the Best Feature category. Typically, the winner of this category will go on to win the other. So I will stick with Beasts of the Southern Wild and say Benh Zeitlin will win, with David O. Russell in a close second. Glad to see Wes Anderson on this list though.

Best First Feature:

MY REASONING:
Rules state that a film cannot be in both the Best Feature and Best First Feature category, so when Beasts of the Southern Wild got slated for Best Feature, this category really opened up. I believe The Perks Of Being A Wallflower received the warmest reception and is the most well-rounded film of the bunch, so it is a safe pick. Safety Not Guaranteed might be the dark horse here.

Best Male Lead:

MY REASONING:
Bradley Cooper should walk away with this award. His biggest competition should be previous Spirit Award winner John Hawkes, but likely will not be much of a “fight”. The sleeper pick here would be Jack Black for Bernie, but consider it an hefty long-shot.

Best Female Lead:

MY REASONING:
Jennifer Lawrence probably has a little more momentum behind her to be the favorite in this category. But not by much. Quvenzhane Wallis is likely right on her heels and I will be rooting for her to win.

Best Supporting Male:

Matthew McConaughey – Magic Mike
David Oyelowo – Middle of Nowhere
Michael Pena – End of Watch
Sam Rockwell – Seven Psychopaths
Bruce Willis – Moonrise Kingdom

MY REASONING:
I thought about this pick the longest out of all the categories, but feel the least confident in my choice. The reason being is that I do not see a clear standout here. If it were me voting, I would pick Michael Pena. But I will say the actual voters go with David Oyelowo.

Best Supporting Female:

Rosemarie DeWitt – Your Sister’s Sister
Ann Dowd – Compliance
Helen Hunt – The Sessions
Brit Marling – Sound of My Voice
Lorraine Toussaint – Middle of Nowhere

MY REASONING:
This is probably the most solid category form top-to-bottom, any one of theses nominees could easily win here. But I think Helen Hunt has the best odds of winning because of her daring role in The Sessions.

John Cassavetes Award:

Breakfast With Curtis – Laura Colella
Middle of Nowhere – Ava DuVernay
Mosquita y Mari – Aurora Guerrero
Starlet – Sean Baker
The Color Wheel – Alex Ross Perry

MY REASONING:
Middle of Nowhere generated some buzz last year at Sundance, earning two nominations and one win. For that reason, my bet is on it to win this award. Sean Baker’s Starlet has a real solid shot at winning though.

Best Documentary:

MY REASONING:
There are two nominees here that were also nominated for an Oscar, How to Survive a Plague and The Invisible War but I feel like the former will win. Joining the tight race is Ken Burns’ The Central Park Five, which makes this category a competitive one.

Best International Film:

Amour – Michael Haneke
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia – Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Rust and Bone – Jacques Audiard
Sister – Ursula Meier
War Witch – Kim Nguyen

MY REASONING:
I believe for the second year in a row, the winner of the Oscar and Independent Spirit Award for foreign film will be the same. Before last year, it had been 25 years since the same film won in both award shows. Amour is the clear front runner to win at the Academy Awards and should win here as well, despite the rest of the films all being worth-while watches.

Best Cinematography:

Yoni Brook – Valley Of Saints
Lol Crawley – Here
Ben Richardson – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Roman Vasyanov – End of Watch
Robert Yeoman – Moonrise Kingdom

MY REASONING:
My pick here goes to Moonrise Kingdom, in what I think will be the only award the film will win. I am not sure if you can call it an upset, but I think it will beat out Beasts of the Southern Wild, which might seem like the most likely to win.

Best Screenplay:

MY REASONING:
The two films that have the best odds of being declared the winner are Silver Linings Playbook and Moonrise Kingdom. It was great to see Ruby Sparks nominated for an award and Keep The Lights On nominated for four, but I think the winner here is Silver Linings Playbook.

Best First Screenplay:

MY REASONING:
Because Safety Not Guaranteed will likely get edged out of the Best First Feature award by The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, which is not present in this category, it has the best shot at winning in my eyes.

The Sessions

Dustin Jansick — Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ben Lewin’s The Sessions collected attention at various film festivals throughout the year, under the film’s original name of The Surrogate. Because the film is based on a true story about a man who struggles in life because of his condition; the film had a good chance of either being a contriving work of Oscar-bait or an emotionally inspiring film. Oddly enough, the film ended up being neither of those things. The Sessions was ultimately a light-hearted comical take on a very serious subject.

The opening scene gives a quick background on the real-life Mark O’Brien. At 6 years-old Mark O’Brien was diagnosed with Polio, which left his body immobilized but his mind completely unharmed. Despite his condition he followed his dreams of becoming a poet by graduating from University of California Berkeley.

The Sessions jumps ahead to the 1988 after Mark (John Hawkes) graduates from college. He sleeps in an iron lung and is taken care of by an attendants. Being that he was raised Catholic, when he is in need of answers he turns to church. This is when he meets with Father Brendan (William H. Macy), who would later become a close friend of his after repeated advise conversations.

In due time, the core of what The Sessions is about comes to light, which is sexuality. Mark realizes being 38 years-old means he does not have a lot of time left to engage in sexual intercourse. Considering he is not able to move from the neck down and that he has never had sex before, this is a monumental procedure for him. Mark turns to Father Brendan if he thinks God can overlook having sex outside of marriage because of his situation. In an unlikely response, Mark receives the Fathers blessing.

The courage he possess to go explore his sexuality is overshadowed by his understandable nervousness in the uncharted territory. Setting up the appointment to meet with a sex therapist is one thing, but having the courage to show up to the first meeting is another. Once he finally does and meets with a sexual surrogate named Cheryl (Helen Hunt), he begins a journey that he has never been able to experience before.

John Hawkes continues to prove why he is one of the best actors in the field today. Dealing with the difficult physical challenge with ease; Hawkes remained full of spirit and had a wonderful sense of humor about everything. Over Helen Hunt’s long career, she has had more ups than downs and fortunately she can chalk up another victory here. She played a lovely saint accompanying Hawkes who desperately needed it. Because of how much nudity her role entailed, it was a brave role for her. The Sessions picked up two well-deserved acting nominations for this year’s Independent Spirit Awards. While Hawkes did not receive an Oscar nomination for the Academy Awards this year, Hunt did receive a nod.

What the film does well is show a subject that is rarely shown, disabled people being just as sexual as the able-bodied. Without glamorizing sexuality, the film handles the subject with grace and maturity. Unfortunately, the film felt stuck between being insouciant and hard-hitting. The charming route helps widen the audience net, but makes you question if a slightly different approach would have had a more meaningful impact.

The Sessions successfully tackles a subject that is often either mishandled or grossly embellished, so in a way the film deserves recognition for that alone. Add in the two delightful lead performances and one might think the film would be a home-run. Unfortunately, the film ends up slightly missing a big payoff because of undeveloped sub-plots and rushed pacing, making for a marginally underwhelming finish.