It’s interesting that teenagers and post-apocalyptic worlds fit so well together. Even Mad Max: Fury Road had a youngish cast. Perhaps there really is no country for old men. The Last Survivors (formerly titled The Well) is a post-apocalyptic film that tells a simple story convincingly, especially considering its director, Thomas S. Hammock, has up until now focused his career on production design. Taking place in a future world of water-depleted desperation, the film keeps its focus narrow, depicting life in the now desert wasteland of the Oregon Valley without trying to explain the world or how any of this came to pass. It’s a very present film, focusing on the immediate struggles of its quiet characters.

Kendal (Haley Lu Richardson) is a smart and self-sufficient survivor during these dangerous times. Living at what used to be a home for orphaned youth with another survivor, Dean (Twilight‘s Booboo Stewart), she discretely keeps the two of them alive off of water from their hidden well. During the day Kendal slinks around the sun-streaked arid land in search of abandoned cars, rummaging through their parts for a specific piece that will work on the non-functioning airplane they hope to use to escape this place. Dean, who is starting to look sickly, spends nights listening to the old two-way radio the neighboring farms use to keep each other informed. One night a neighbor says there are people outside her house, and her fright suggests there is more to fear in the desert than dehydration. Kendal grabs her trusty shotgun and heads off into the night. A man named Carson (John Gries) has been offering his help to those left in the valley who want to come out of hiding, but as she sneaks around the dark farm, Kendal sees that Carson, along with his daughter and the sadistic priestly looking lackey who never leave his side, clearly have selfish intentions for the land (and water) of the farmers. Kendal barely escapes with her life, the other farm folk not so lucky.

Setting a jumpy atmosphere as it transitions between dark indoor and night scenes and blindingly bright outdoor desert scenes, the film keeps up great tension. Hammock is smart to keep his plot simple, focusing on survival and the simple daily threats that Kendal must face. Richardson carries the film expertly, showing both courage and fear to round Kendal out as a believable and likable hero. The film does falter somewhat in providing proper motivation for its side characters. Kendal and Dean, forced to maintain their daily survival in hiding mode as they work toward their goal of flying away, do their small part to help others as available. A child, Alby (Max Charles), presumably also from the home, lives in a neighboring barn, refusing to join Kendal and Dean but accepting the daily rations she brings him.

Gabriel (another Twilight alum, Michael Welch), part of a neighboring farm, harbors feelings for Kendal yet inexplicably accepts his place in Carson’s army of burlap clad drones after his family ill-advisedly seeks Carson’s help. Which is another small hiccup—Kendal does a lot of hiding throughout the film doing a good job of staying alive, but isn’t especially helpful in keeping those around her alive, especially in warning others of Carson’s obvious maliciousness. It takes a lot for her to finally fight back in the end, though when she does it’s a well-crafted standoff. Most puzzling, though, is that Carson himself seems to lack compelling causation. Granted, his greed for water, the highest commodity, is evident, but his sadistic nature isn’t as clearly explained. Everything he does, he claims to do for his daughter, but the chemistry between them is weak.

While it’s easy to get caught up in the details (for one, Kendal’s hair is entirely too perfect considering showers are definitely not an option in a world without water), the overall picture Hammond paints is pretty remarkable for a first-time director. With the feel of a well-paced Western, The Last Survivors stands out, never sinking to the theatrics of other post-apocalyptic films.

A version of this review ran as part of our 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival coverage. The Last Survivors is available August 4, 2015 on VOD, DVD & Blu-Ray. 

Falling in a similar pattern as other teen-pregnancy type films, The Young Kieslowski is a one-sided tale of a young man’s perspective on being thrown into pending fatherhood. While much has been made of the female perspective on unexpected pregnancy, director Kerem Sanga, (who has one other feature under his belt, 2012’s Trigger Finger), attempts to effectively and humorously portray the thoughts that go racing through the mind of a young man in a situation he has little control over.

Brian Kieslowski (Ryan Malgarini) is a recent enrollee at Cal Tech, a science geek by anyone’s definition, he has long-awaited life in college not only for a chance to escape the tension he feels at home, where his mother is slowly battling lung cancer, but also because he’ll finally be that much closer to accomplishing a more substantial life goal: losing his virginity. When he and his roommate attend a party off campus one evening he meets Leslie Mallard (Haley Lu Richardson). Playing nice-guy to her drunk-girl he helps her home, sobers her up, and ends up spending a night of getting to know this self-ascribed Christian virgin who, while possibly out of his league, seems to connect with him in some way. In a moment of spontaneity, the two decide to have sex and Brian leaves with her phone number, feeling that he’s finally accomplished the impossible. When he accidentally washes Leslie’s phone number off of his hand, he finds it difficult to follow-up with her but takes it as a sign that perhaps he’s meant to move on. Leslie, however, is discovering that her night of temptation has a more lasting consequence: she’s pregnant, with twins. Managing to track Brian down, Leslie breaks the news to him. He doesn’t take it well. Acting on his frightened impulse, Brian simply walks away, mind racing, and ends up face down in the Cal Tech fountain.

After a pep talk from friends, Brian comes to his senses, finding Leslie in class and offering her the hug she needs. From there they have THE discussion. Abortion or parenthood? But Brian, rather than risk losing Leslie’s interest (since he truly likes her) pretends to go along with her decision to keep the babies, secretly hoping her wealthy hard-edged father will talk her out of it. When she chickens out on a visit to her father, they end up at his parents where, in a hilarious scene, he’s forced to tell them the truth of their situation. From there Brian makes some predictably bad decisions, sabotaging his chances with Leslie as a way of coping with his fear of becoming a father. All leading up to an expected finale in the delivery room—where all such films tend to end up.

The Young Kieslowski, while perhaps admirable in its truth about men’s feelings of helplessness when confronted with pregnancy, does little to garner much sympathy for the typical male response. Malgarini plays Brian with just enough geeky innocence to draw out some compassion, but ultimately his attempts to reconcile the decisions he’s made don’t even out. Richardson gives warmth to Leslie and her battle to act on what she feels is right despite what her family and Brian want to push on her, but she lacks credibility. Her feelings for Brian seem mostly motivated by the connection formed between them in the lives of the children she carries, decidedly falling short of real romance. The couple have a sort of chemistry but it’s entirely formed on superficial details, and while it’s cute for the sake of the “rom” part of this rom-com, doesn’t run deep enough to be felt from the screen. The inclusion of their parent’s perspectives adds more dynamic to the story and raises the stakes somewhat, but are also rather predictable.

Sanga’s comedy incites the usual laughs that accompany a young male freaking out, but the weaknesses of Brian’s character are too disappointing to laugh through. There’s nothing progressive here, and while touching at points, and undeniably realistic (and therefore funny) in its emotional touchstones, it feels wrong to laugh at what is essentially the worst of culturally ascribed gender role behaviors.

A version of this review was originally posted as part of our 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival coverage.

It’s an interesting sensation, and one of the more unique aspects of film, to experience the flux between spectator and consort. To pass judgment one moment, and then to find oneself represented on-screen the next. With his first foray into writing, directing and starring in a feature film, young filmmaker Matthew Brown presents a very natural, and at times tediously sincere, portrayal of one night in the life of a group of high school friends. The longer we’re given time with these four average, Normaltown, USA friends, the more their range of emotions and life approaches resonate and serve to remind those of us who left high school behind many years ago of just how significant a period of time it really is in forming our selves.

Brown plays William, the eldest in his group of friends and designated driver. One cold winter night he and his three best friends Eric (Gabriel Arant), Gary (Joshua Pagan), and Alissa (Emma Corley Geer) do their best to avoid going home but also decide against heading to a party going on. When they hear the party was broken up by the police, Alissa’s friend Kate asks for a ride home from the party for her and her friend Alexa. William, harboring a long-time crush on Alexa finds himself presented with the ingredients for what could be a truly memorable evening. He agrees to pick them up and is almost immediately thwarted when Kate and Alexa decide to just go home and sleep at Kate’s. But Kate’s mom won’t let Alexa in and William invites her to join the group as they wander toward morning.

The group heads first to a hot tub at Eric’s house where Alissa does her best not to be self-conscious around the beautiful and popular Alexa, joking to her about how happy she is to no longer be the only girl in the group for once, her face betraying that she clearly feels the opposite. William does his best to play it cool around Alexa, but sad news puts a serious spin on their fanatics as they learn that one of the teens who left the party earlier died in a car accident on his way home. William is the only one of the group to have known him in close capacity and he conceals the gravity of this news under his teenaged ambivalence.

Admittedly the film’s slow opening feels like we are about to be shown an iPhone’s view of the banal nightlife of rural teenagers. I felt like 30-going-on-90 as I refrained from yelling at the characters to stop mumbling and wasting gas just to avoid their warm beds. But watching William cope with the news of a friend’s death (and indeed mortality altogether) over the course of the evening, and seeing the very real possibility that he may get what he most hopes for with Alexa, and hearing him casually but endearingly discuss his future prospects and plans with his optimistic and encouraging best friend Alissa, slowly sucked me back into my 18-year-old body facing the cusp of adulthood and cleaving to my friends and everything that felt familiar.

It may not be at all times enlivening, amusing, or all that intricate in its plot, but In the Treetops is one of the most authentic representations of that magic moment before one transitions to adulthood. It’s a moment with very little perspective given the shortness of one’s life, and yet every emotion is felt so hugely and every detail seems so significant. Despite his casual coolness, William’s affection for his friends is made clear, his sympathy around their family situations, and his burgeoning adult understanding of the difference between lust and love and how one comes fast and fades quickly, while the other comes slowly and can last forever.

The film’s visuals—camerawork by Donald Monroe—aren’t especially complicated, but are just handheld enough and tightly focused on the characters so as to give off a feeling of being another member of the group. This film isn’t meant to be watched casually, the gems within it lie in seeing the way Alissa’s eyes watch William as she tentatively scopes out his plans for the future, her hope for her own part in that future made obvious in what those eyes convey. Or in how Gary and William bicker over Gary borrowing his jacket, only for William to understand the broader significance of showing his best friend that he has his back even if it’s in the simple act of sharing clothing.

While other teen-centric films tend to focus on the nostalgia, ease, or the comparatively silly drama of the teen years, this film expertly—and it may have to do with the age of its filmmaker—depicts a true-to-life window into the average American teenage experience. Looking past its slower moments—though they hold their importance in the accuracy of boredom in the teenage world—In the Treetops establishes two very naturalistic actors in Matthew Brown and Emma Corley Geer, and if Brown continues to grow with his art, and maintains his attention to truth and nuance, it appears we have a very promising new filmmaker on the scene.

There’s something really satisfying in a well-done adaptation, especially if it manages to walk its own original trail. Directed by brothers Adam and Aaron Nee, Band of Robbers takes the Americana classics The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and brings them to the present day in a hilarious crime comedy of errors that manages to maintain Mark Twain’s youthful silliness and broader themes of friendship and justice. Adam Nee also stars in the film as the scheming glory-glutton Tom Sawyer, and Kyle Gallner (Dear White People) stars as his best friend Huck Finn.

Their adventure begins with Huck Finn’s narration explaining the nature of his and Tom’s lifelong friendship. Since they were children, they’ve been on a search for an old pirate’s lost treasure, thwarted by local bad guy Injun Joe (around whom a hilarious recurring joke of cultural identity consistently delivers laughs). Years later, Huck, the one born into an abusive family, ends up spending some time in jail, and Tom, always looking for a way to glean some attention, has wound up as a police officer forced into the shadow of his hot-shot detective older brother. When Huck gets released, Tom gets their gang of friends together, including Joe Harper (Matthew Gray Gubler), Ben Rogers (Hannibal Buress), and Tommy Barnes (Johnny Pemberton).

Never one to waste a minute, the eccentric Tom takes advantage of the not-so-secret surprise party they’ve thrown for Huck and explains to the men that he’s hatched a full-proof plan to make them all rich, not to mention earn himself some deserved respect at work. He’s been given insider information from Muff Potter (Cooper Huckabee) that Injun Joe (Stephen Lang) has that long-lost treasure and has placed it in the safe kept at the local pawn shop. With his fast-talking ways and earnest eagerness,Tom convinces his band of misfits to agree to a preposterous plan that includes pretending to be Latinos in order to rip off the pawn shop, present Tom as a cop who happens upon the scene and tries to help, and then make off with the treasure they’ve sought for so long.

Of course things don’t go as they expected. Tom is matched with an unexpected new partner, Becky Thatcher (Melissa Benoist, Whiplash), and suddenly has an eager-to-please police officer in the way of his plan. He isn’t the only one who scrimps on the details of the plan, and soon the haphazard band of robbers have more than just the law out for them. But they can’t quit just yet when they come to realize they are closer to finding the treasure then they realized.

The film breaks down the heist into neat sections, the stakes steadily building. In the same way Twain’s classic tale provides very real danger for Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, so do the Nee brothers keep the dark edge to their quirky comedy. But more significant is how consistent and true their characters remain. Not only to their boyish source material, but as wholly likable even in the midst of their scatterbrained venture.

Those familiar with the original stories will find the clever references to the character’s personalities and adventures amusing. Those unfamiliar will find a mischievous caper featuring perfectly delivered jokes, colorful charm, and sincere performances. The cinematography is grand enough to imbue an adventuresome vibe, but is mostly centered on its main characters in the midst of their action. The music is especially well curated, fitting the idiosyncrasies of the film and adding an extra layer of fun.

With such a large ensemble some of the talented co-stars aren’t given as much screen time as would satisfy, but this is truly Tom and Huck’s tale, and Nee and Gallner have a tangible chemistry that makes their unlikely friendship feel fitting. While Gallner narrates as Huck and is the moral compass to Tom’s crooked cop, Nee really shines with his comedic timing and bizarre charm. Band of Robbers is an exceptional ensemble comedy and an adventurous and original update that surely even Mark Twain would find flattering and quick-witted.

Whether they were inspired by the similarly titled Kanye West song or not, the title of this warm but silly caper comedy quite aptly fits the film’s rather obvious but chucklesome plot. Directed by Ian Edelman and starring Luis Guzman and Edgar Garcia as the titular Puerto Ricans, Luis and Eddie, the film starts with the pair as brothers-in-law and police partners working in the rather un-sexy field of handbag knockoffs. After a particularly clever undercover operation where they take down a Louis Vuitton fake manufacturer, they are handpicked by a popular French handbag designer, Colette (Alice Taglioni), and her business partner, to track down which of their colleagues has stolen one of Colette’s bags and may be intending to sell it to the knockoff market.

As per usual in these sorts of buddy comedies, one of the men is married, Eddie, and one is determinedly single, Luis. Eddie is married to Luis’s sister Gloria (Rosie Perez, and ridiculously underused) and can’t seem to get things right as he forgets their anniversary and then fails to deliver any sort of celebration to make up for it. Luis is (inexplicably) dating Vanessa (Rosario Dawson) who is getting antsy that he won’t pop the question and gives him an ultimatum when he lets slip that he may never want to marry.

When the offer to track down the stealer of the handbag in Paris comes along, not to mention a hefty reward offer, they decide taking the job may be their opportunity to make things right with their chicas. The usual sort of aloofness ensues, as two hard-nosed NYPD Puerto Ricans could never be expected to know how to behave in a chic a place as Paris *sigh*. Some deserved laughs arrive in the form of Eddie’s willingness to learn and experience the Parisian life. Luis is more determined to track down the thief, get his money, and go. Luis, usually the ladies man (aren’t all middle-aged Puerto Rican men?) is confused to find Eddie and his mild Dad-like empathetic married-man qualities seem to win over the Parisian ladies more than Luis’s attempts.

The two interview a few women close to Colette, dressing up in silly costumes and making up ridiculous cover stories in order to win trust. At one point they have a lead, and then it becomes obvious they don’t. They butt heads with the Paris police. They generally bumble about. It’s all rather predictable. Strangely the writers, Ian Edelman and Neel Shah, decided that the wrench in Luis and Eddie’s relationship would be around Luis’s misconception that Eddie and Colette are spending a little too much time together. As if anything in Eddie’s already established personality makes him appear like an adulterer?

The end result is a weak plot and silly concept utilizing two genuinely talented hispanic actors who just can’t quite make up for it all. The entire thing reeks of formulation and rather generic comedy. While Luis Guzman should probably have been given a headlining platform long ago, and as much as we love Guzman and Garcia in Edelman’s How to Make it In America, the content here is far too weak for the talent involved. Garcia, a relatively inexperienced actor, is surprisingly lovable here if somewhat flat in his delivery.

Considering the stated cultural identity of the film, it really doesn’t play off of this much at all. Only with the usual hispanic tropes. The fact that both Rosario Dawson and Rosie Perez were cast and then given all of maybe 15 minutes combined screen time, is just puzzling. It may just be Edelman hasn’t quite grasped the long-form of feature films, as the entire premise of Puerto Ricans in Paris would make for a great short sketch on television, but over the course of 80 minutes (short even for a comedy feature) the film is agreeable but not all that winsome.

It’s rare I start a movie immediately believing I hate it, end the film feeling like maybe I’d misjudged, and two days later feel even more convinced it’s an interesting if not groundbreaking film. Filmed on 35mm and left in its grittiest state—the colors have a relatively untreated feel, like a ’70s Dirty Harry film—Too Late is an L.A. noir shot in five continuous take scenes. With old-fashioned noir lines spouted from the mouths of modern LA characters, the film feels exceptionally off in its attempts to homage older films, but the building mystery and the always engaging John Hawkes, elevate the film much further than it possibly deserves.

Told out of order, the film opens on Dorothy (Crystal Reed), who looks like more of a Little Red Riding Hood in her red sweatshirt, and who quickly becomes the prey of several men as she hangs out in the hills of Elysian Park overlooking downtown L.A. When she has trouble making a call from her dated flip phone, she asks two passing drug dealers (Ryder Strong and Dash Mihok) for the use of their phone. The men, who had just previously been discussing movie tropes and discussing how much easier things would be if at the climax of a film all could be revealed by one character simply handing another character a copy of the film to catch them up—Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead being their example of a time this would have come in handy—lend Dorothy their phone. She calls John Hawkes’ Sampson, a private detective, who seems to have an affection for the girl despite the two having only spent one night together a year previous. The camera sloppily zooms in over to Chinatown from the hilltop to focus on Sampson as he takes the call.

Sampson jumps in his Thunderbird to come get the distraught Dorothy, Jesse and Matthew the drug dealers leave her with some ecstasy, and soon enough Dorothy finds herself chatting with a slimy park ranger who uses such unbelievably charming and flirtatious language any woman watching would have their creeper-radar at DEFCON 1. That Dorothy, a supposedly somewhat street-wise stripper, continues to chat with him becomes increasingly unbelievable. And its only the first instance of almost every female in the film being given highly implausible and slightly exploitive material to work with.

The mystery unfolds at the end of this scene and we jump ahead to the end of the story, then back to before the beginning, then back to the middle, then over to what would be the penultimate scene if anything went chronologically. It’s a good pace, though it takes some catching up to understand. The stakes often don’t feel quite high enough, though there is a satisfying sort of twist at the end. Mostly the film grows more intriguing the more we get to see of Sampson. Hawkes is the only one in the film able to pull off the constant spout of silly speech. Every scene sees him interacting with a different female—in fact, every one of the five scenes is anchored on a male-female dynamic—and he seems to add respect to the table which makes all the difference in their interactions. The film’s second scene involves a doting and cooped up housewife, Janet, wallowing in the truth of her husband’s disaffection and infidelity, played superbly by Vail Bloom. That Bloom was directed to play this entire scene bottomless was at first humorous, and then simply suspiciously distasteful. Another scene follows Sampson’s ex-lover (Dichen Lachman) as she works both a boxing match and a drive-in theater in nothing but a bikini and heels, the camera staying just far enough away to allow her half-naked bottom to maintain focus.

While clearly first time director Dennis Hauck has a real love for the old-timey-ness possibility of film—in addition to being shot on 35mm the scene at the drive-in focuses on Sampson’s ex Jill’s ability to change a film reel—he hasn’t quite grasped the way to incorporate this passion into a film with modern flourishes. His writing reflects a childish amusement at his own clever wordplay, but seems to forget that the best noir had as much to do with silence as with dialogue.

This film proves several things: John Hawkes can elevate a film far beyond where it would be without him, females are usually the more intriguing elements of a noir so don’t abuse them, and witty dialogue does not an intelligent film make. For a first-time film, Hauck proves he has ambition aplenty, and if honed even more he is certainly someone to keep an eye on. Too Late is engaging and at times amusing in spite of itself, its whole being somewhat better than its parts. But there’s no denying why this film works in any small way, and his name is John Hawkes.

So the thing about the LA Film Festival is that making a recommendation list is pretty futile. So any other articles you’ve read telling you what you MUST see are bullsh***ing you. This is because the LA Film Festival is one of the few American film festivals that truly takes risks on its acceptances.

With films in a variety of categories, such as LA Muse (dedicated to Angelino inspired films), Zeitgiest (films that reflect the times), and Nightfall (for us late night horror fans), the offering is a mixed bag, and while there are a few festival-tested films (which is what their Buzz section is for), most films are 100% indie and 100% full of potential. We couldn’t have predicted last year how much we’d love Man From Reno, Runoff (which gets a release later this month), and The Mind of Mark DeFriest. Not to mention last year’s gala screenings of Snowpiercer (among our favorites over all last year) and Dear White People.

As if to prove just how unexpected they can be, the curators of LAFF waited until today—the day before the festival begins—to announce their closing night film. And turns out it isn’t a film at all. It’s a live read-through of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. And guess who’s directing? Just guess. No, don’t. You won’t get it. It’s Eli Roth! Not exactly the dude who comes to mind when you think light-hearted high school humor. Maybe he’ll have a squirt gun of blood to spray at the actors?

As varied as the festival is, there are a few already-buzzed about films (and ones we’ve personally seen) that we can recommend right off the bat. Opening night’s Grandma is one of the best things we saw at Tribeca and has been discussed since Sundance. Lily Tomlin will also be receiving the Spirit of Independence Award so extra reason to catch that one. Additionally The Overnight, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, and Chuck Norris vs. Communism are also playing and have been garnering buzz wherever they are screened.

As for potential diamonds in the rough, here are a few we can’t wait to check out, and don’t forget about all the fun free things to do like a screening of Who Framed Roger Rabbit at Union Station on Friday!

Manson Family Vacation

Sunday, June 14 at 7:00 PM (Regal Cinemas LA Live 11)

These days you put the name “Duplass” in front of or after any film and us indie freaks perk up. The Duplass brothers have been giving us a lot of good stuff the past few years and here we have something new produced by and starring Jay Duplass. Directed by J. Davis, the film offers an intriguing premise. Duplass plays Nick Morgan, a man who has family, home, and career all going for him. His brother Conrad (Linas Phillips) has none of this. Conrad shows up for a visit and convinces Nick to partake in a road trip to visit the sites of the Manson Family murders. Sounds like equal parts unconventional and funny. We’re game.

Band of Robbers

Saturday, June 13 at 6:15 PM (Regal Cinemas LA Live 9)

Starring Kyle Gallner, Adam Nee, Matthew Gray Gubler, Hannibal Buress and mascarading as a modern day Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, this looks like a crazy bandit fantasy. I recommend simply watching the trailer (which has a killer soundtrack btw) below and then buying tickets. LAFF is the perfect place to embrace the weirdest things you can find. They almost always impress.

Too Late

Thursday, June 11 at 7:30 PM (Bing Theater at LACMA)

John Hawkes’s name has carried weight for us ever since Winter’s Bone—and probably should have sooner—so seeing his name among those listed for LAFF means we’re up for what’s next from this dedicated and intense actor. In this one he plays a private investigator named Mel Sampson, hired to track down a missing woman. Turns out she’s connected to his own past and the search takes him through southern California and among some eccentric personalities. Shot on 35mm, we look forward to some gritty California and some gritty John Hawkes.

Crumbs

Sunday, June 14 at 9:30 PM (Regal Cinemas LA Live 9)

As part of the dark and twisty Nightfall category at the festival, this one just reads as straight up enticing. Set in Ethiopia and directed by Spanish filmmaker Miguel Llansó, the basic premise is that an alien mothership has lied dormant for many years floating on the horizon. Then it comes to life and one man decides to make it his quest to board the ship. He crosses a post-apocalyptic landscape to get there as others barter with the aliens using pop cultural artifacts. Slap a big old question mark over my head and consider me intrigued.

The Final Girls

Tuesday, June 16 at 7:30 PM  (Regal Cinemas LA Live 1)

So if you happen to have written your college thesis on slasher films and the concept of the Final Girl, like a certain writer penning this article *ahem*, then the title alone will have wooed you in months ago when first you heard of this film when it premiered at SXSW. Not as in the know? No worries. In this film a girl, Max (Taissa Farmiga), gets sucked into an ’80s slasher flick with her friends. Her mother, a former scream queen actress, stars in the film, and Max has to use her knowledge of the genre to ensure she and her friends survive until the end and make their way back home. If the film simultaneously honors and pokes fun at this most revered of horror genres, then it’s already made my all-time favorite list.

Seoul Searching

Wednesday, June 17 at 7:30 PM (Regal Cinemas LA Live 1)

Another of the festival’s Gala screenings, this one is similar to The Final Girls in its ’80s genre homage. This time to the high school films of John Hughes. Based on filmmaker Benson Lee’s personal experiences, the film centers on a group of Korean high school misfits during the summer of 1986. Hailing from around the world, the teens are forced to go to a “propaganda” camp in Seoul over the summer in order to connect with what it means to be Korean. Filled with ’80s nostalgia and cultural hilarity, it looks like the situational comedy we never knew we were missing.

Dude Bro Party Massacre III

Saturday, June 13 at 10:20 PM (Regal Cinemas LA Live 8)

I’m tempted to say the title alone is weird enough to warrant a viewing. And as it falls under that never-know-what-your-gonna-get Nightfall category, it could be super bad. Or so bad it’s good. Or intentionally bad so as to be so good. Watch the trailer below, it reeks of satire but seems especially dedicated to mimicking those direct-to-VHS horror franchise films we sometimes got suckered into back in the day when a person could still rent a video. If you love (fake) blood and sheer tongue-in-cheek ridiculousness, this looks like great fun.

Uncomfortable situations abound in Nathan Silver’s latest film, Uncertain Terms. His earlier films Exit Elena and Soft in the Head also seem to focus on characters making unwise choices. In this film that character is Robbie (David Dahlbom), a 30-year-old man who comes to stay with his aunt Carla (Cindy Silver, the director’s mother) in the Hudson Valley while he and his wife sort out their marital problems. Carla runs a home for pregnant teens and Robbie’s new role as sole male in a house of 6 women, 5 of them hugely pregnant and remarkably young, makes him an object of interest. The girls vie for his attention, but it’s the quiet yet sharp Nina (India Menuez) who gets his attention. Nina is in the midst of her own relationship troubles with her baby’s father, Chase (Casey Drogin), who can’t seem to hold a job and who wants Nina to move to his parents’ house with him. As Nina and Chase grow rockier, Robbie starts to insert himself as Nina’s savior, finding himself protective of the young mother-to-be. Robbie’s continued phone calls reveal that his wife cheated on him and he can’t seem to decide whether to divorce her. It all leads up to a painful end where Robbie’s misplaced affections land him in deserved trouble.

The film plays like a slow motion car crash. The pregnant teens are predictably immature, house-mother Carla is maddeningly naïve at the real danger facing her wards, and Robbie is another innocently predatory man who tries to fix his frustrations toward his own failed relationship by engaging in one where he’s the de facto lead due to his age and gender. It’s unclear if Silver is trying to make Nina appear to have control over her decisions with these men. India Menuez gives a natural and innocent performance, but Nina’s age and situation make her an oblivious victim to the two men trying to decide what’s best for her. In the end it’s sad that these girls seem to have no real advocate truly looking out for them.

It may not be what Silver intended, but Uncertain Terms is just another movie about the egos of men and the minimization of their selfish manipulations. And while a happy ending was never in the works, at the very least any sort of lesson learned would have made this morally ambiguous tale more interesting.

Originally published on June 16th, 2014 as part of our LAFF coverage

Director Matt Shakman has worked a lot in television, most recently on FX’s television adaptation of the Coen brothers’ film Fargo, which is no surprise when watching his first foray into filmmaking, Cut Bank. Walking the line between thriller and dark comedy, the film boasts an all-star cast who can’t completely make-up for some misdirection and whose side characters completely outshine the film’s star, Liam Hemsworth.

Literally using the words “if I have to stay another day in this town,” discontented Dwayne (Hemsworth) dreams of a life outside Cut Bank, Montana (the “coldest spot in the nation”) with his girlfriend Cassandra (Teresa Palmer). One evening, when filming an amateur tourist video with Cassandra in a field outside of town, Dwayne accidentally captures the murder of a postal worker, Georgie Wits (Bruce Dern), on camera. Immediately taking the video to Cassandra’s father, and Dwayne’s boss, Mr. Steeley (Billy Bob Thornton) calmly calls in Sheriff Vogel (John Malkovich) to determine what to do next. The weak-stomached Sheriff starts his investigation as Dwayne looks into the huge reward he is apparently eligible for now that he’s provided information on the untimely death of a U.S. postal worker. Twists abound and are revealed in turn as we discover that not all participants in this crime are as innocent, or dead, as they first appeared. Turns out that providing the mailman’s dead body to a U.S. postal investigator (Oliver Platt) is the least of these small-time crooks’ worries as they unforeseeably piss off local recluse Derby Milton (Michael Stuhlbarg), who was expecting a package from the mailman that he’s bound and determined to track down.

Cut Bank clearly strives for the same dark comedic energy that Fargo has in abundance, but its inability to balance its dark situations with its humorous characters makes it hard to comfortably enjoy. The plot is fantastic, its actors equally so, but they are too reined in, with not enough vitality to engage. John Malkovich is especially unbelievable, his timid Sheriff played with too much subtlety. In fact, the only actors allowed to effectively shine are Oliver Platt’s fast-talking suit-wearing Inspector Barrett, Dern’s sassy “dead” man, and Stuhlbarg’s stuttering and intriguingly-motivated murderous outsider. Hemsworth just isn’t able to build sympathy, and Palmer is incredibly abused as the only character who is actually as shallow as she appears.

A sharply written script by Robert Patino, featured on 2009’s Black List, where all the elements exist but just aren’t quite fully realized. Seeing James Newton Howard’s name in the end’s musical credits was surprising as the muted music of the film did nothing to heighten tension or encourage the edge it’s sorely lacking in. While Fargo takes advantage of its snowy location, allowing it to serve as an instrumental element of the film’s themes and mood, the bleakness of Cut Bank is never explored, nor the wide expanses or back woods of Montana. Cut Bank is a mimicry of better films, which begs the question that if put into the hands of a more capable filmmaker, could it have lived up to the script’s potential?

A version of this review was first published in our 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival coverage. Cut Bank is out in limited release Friday, April 3.

After nabbing the 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival’s Narrative Award, Dave Boyle’s (Daylight Savings, White on Rice) suspenseful and intriguing neo-noir mystery The Man from Reno gets its own limited release. An engaging thriller, the film’s mystery unfolds in intricate deliberation, and its quiet characters demand rapt attention.

Starting as many of these sorts of tales do, it’s an exceptionally foggy evening and small-town Bay Area Sheriff Paul Del Moral (Pepe Serna) finds an abandoned vehicle in the road late one night. He’s hardly had a look around when he accidentally hits the car’s driver. Before he is able to question the man, he disappears from the hospital, leaving his clothing behind. Meanwhile, in San Francisco hit Japanese mystery author Aki Akahori (Ayako Fujitani) is finding her life of book signings, tours, and celebrity more than she can handle. She runs away mid-book tour escaping to San Francisco’s Hotel Majestic, the perfect dark and romantic setting for a mystery.

Attempting to nurse her jet-lagged mind and after contemplating a razor a bit too long in the bath earlier, she meets a dashing young man (Kazuki Kitamura) in the hotel’s bar, also indulging in a late-night drink. Running into him again the next day, she allows herself to get caught up in a brief affair that ends abruptly when he disappears, leaving his luggage behind in her room. When sinister characters start asking about her recent acquaintance, and she catches a man with a camera trailing her, her mystery-solving instincts kick in and she begins to look for clues about this mysterious man who left a name that doesn’t seem to be his and only a vague suggestion that he has ties to Reno. Meanwhile, Sheriff Del Moral’s investigation is complicated when what was simply an abandoned car and mysterious traveler are tied into a potential murder.

Fujitani is subtle and engagingly curious as Aki, her wonderment showing as each new stage of the mystery reveals itself and building as her renewed interest in her work grows as her career endeavors suddenly translate to real-life. When her investigation finally pairs her with Sheriff Del Moral’s investigation, they form a strangely likeable duo, and though the film doesn’t have overall pacing issues, they still should have devised a way for Aki and the Sheriff to have been drawn together sooner. The mystery never tries to become anything too large, allowing the simplicity of the crimes and crime-doers as appropriate for our small-time mystery-solving team. Though, the plot’s duplicity increases dramatically in the end with character development that achieves a heavier climax than would be expected. Plus a delightfully twisted ending that fits the genre perfectly but not predictably. My only complaint being that Boyle, and co-writers Joel Clark and Michael Lerman, shift the focus from the film’s central characters to its lesser ones in an uneven sort of way in order to add more curve balls to the story.

The obvious luminary of the film has to be Richard Wong for his cinematography. With obvious references to film noir of old and great use of San Francisco’s architectural slopes and angles, the film’s feelings are obvious in every well-crafted shot, whether it’s an upward-angled shot of the side of a building, or Aki’s eye peering through her chain-locked hotel room door. Boyle has shown clear directorial grit with Man From Reno, making a dual-language film (more than 50% of it is in Japanese) fly by like the pages of a mystery serial.

With its nuanced mood and star-quality leads, Man From Reno may be what gets Boyle the attention he deserves.

A version of this review was originally printed as part of our Los Angeles Film Festival 2014 coverage.

Back when Apartment Troubles premiered at LAFF in June, the quirky comedy about two friends trying to make it in Manhattan on an artist’s salary (translation: no income at all) was called Trouble Dolls. A crumpled piece of paper at the beginning of the movie explains the Guatemalan myth of the trouble doll: A young girl can place one of these toy dolls under her pillow, and the doll will solve all her problems while she sleeps. Hey, a 20-something without financial support in the big city has to try something. But, needless to say, the dolls suck at their job. An eviction notice and one dead pet cat later, Olivia (Jennifer Prediger) and Nicole (Jess Weixler) are on a plane to LA to get away from it all. They stay with Nicole’s aunt Kimberley (Megan Mullally), a has-been judge on an America’s Got Talent-esque program. Nicole, a conceptual artist more prone to quote Chekhov than Katy Perry, can hardly stand in her aunt’s presence without a glass of red wine in hand. But broke and with nowhere to go, Nicole and Olivia take up residence in Kimberley’s home and before long are auditioning for the show.

Apartment Troubles marks the directorial and screenwriting debuts for both Weixler and Prediger. What I found interesting about the script—clearly intended to be a comedy—is that I didn’t do a whole lot of laughing. In some cases the humor seems to have been lost in translation: scenes with Will Forte, who plays a socially awkward but well-meaning guy who offers the girls a ride in LA, just completely fail to land. But jokes about a 30-year-old guy who still cares way too much about his mother’s approval turn out to be far more harmless than the bizarre plot twist with Aunt Kimberley, who takes a liking to Olivia (for more than just her voice). Their scenes together are more uncomfortable than entertaining, and like Forte’s character, completely tangential to the plot.

Where the movie succeeds is with the two leading ladies, and since this is ultimately a character piece with bits of humor thrown in to lighten its existential weight, their performances really do provide enough to make this is a worthwhile venture. I said I didn’t laugh a lot, but intentional or not, that’s something I kind of liked about this movie. It’s easy to take eccentric artsy types and make them into caricatures, but that’s not what this movie is really about. While a show like Girls helps us to laugh with a generation of girls who got their Bachelor degrees and make naive (sometimes absurd) life choices, I don’t think Apartment Troubles is really trying to critique its lead characters. Instead, I think it’s trying to ask if there is a place in this world for people like them, a question worth asking in an age where art degrees are looked at with the same disdain as drug addiction or sexual promiscuity. Nicole’s family treats her art ventures as a harmful and destructive life choice. One she could ultimately change. “I don’t think they want her around the kids,” Kimberley confesses to Olivia on why Nicole’s family may have taken a vacation without her.

Maybe it’s helpful here that Prediger and Weixler wrote the script, because Weixler’s Nicole, particularly, feels eccentric, yes, but like a living, breathing person. She has a way of delivering her lines with a certain calm and carefulness—a bit counter-stereotype for a role like this. There is, however, a deflatedness in her energy on-screen, like if she wasn’t too poor to eat something other than juice smoothies, she might want to try a small dosage of Zoloft. She’s been beaten down, and now her one remaining lifeline, her bestie Olivia, is making strides toward normalcy: successfully making small talk with strange dudes in cars, landing a TV ad, and insisting the girls apply for a silly reality TV show.

To be honest, if someone positioned this film to me as “two east coast girls take a leap of faith and go on a reality TV show,” I would have never hit play. The premise seems prime for obvious and overdone satire, but I think the reason it works here is because we never stray too far from a story of two friends. It’s not about auditioning for TV, it’s about two young ladies, finding their footing in the world. Their response to rejection shows the film’s subtle tension: these girls both desperately need each other and just as desperately need to separate from one another. Outside of the confines of whatever quirky art school they just graduated from, each has to learn to what extent she’ll adapt and which rules of society they’ll choose to play by.

The script doesn’t let Nicole go on depressive woe-is-me tangents, but as far as I’m concerned, this film is all about her, and taking an eccentric personality and treating her with the subtlety Weixler does is an appreciated surprise when dealing with this genre. By the movie’s end it’s not any external circumstance that lets us know she’ll be OK, but the way she quotes Chekov to a starving cat while sitting in a pile of trash outside her apartment (OK, I confess, this sounds hilarious—but it’s a genuinely tender moment). The fact that she can still see beauty in the struggle lets us know Nicole isn’t broken. And maybe it’s not she that needs to change, she just needs to change the minds of others.

It’s not a perfect script by any stretch, and it probably helps if you already have a little empathy for the plight of the artistically inclined, but the film has a lot of heart—and both Prediger and Weixler are transfixing on screen. It’s impossible not to root for them. Even I was able to forget that a conceptual piece about a dead cat could never do well on a cutthroat talent competition. That’s America’s loss.

This was part of our LAFF 2014 coverage.

The reprieve in a film about corruption is the relief of knowing it’s fiction. When watching a documentary that safety blanket of denial isn’t an option. The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest is the sort of documentary that reveals an uncomfortable truth: our one size fits all penal system not only doesn’t always fit the crime, but is often lost on the mind of someone whose brain doesn’t operate by the same code as much of society. Mark DeFriest is a man with such a mind. Called the Houdini of the Florida state prison system for all the times he managed to escape, DeFriest has the sort of mind that could have created rockets and renewable energy and other inventions requiring great genius. His family reminisces in the film about the science experiments he was always performing as a kid, the way he liked to take apart clocks and put them back together. His ex-Marine father taught him survival skills and mechanical know-how and when he passed away, when Mark was 19, he knew his father would want him to have his tools. Not aware of the nuances surrounding the property of a deceased person, Mark was sentenced to 4 years for simply taking something he assumed already belonged to him.

But Mark DeFriest is the sort of man whose brain—whether it’s due to mental illness or possible head trauma at a young age—literally rejects the idea of incarceration and within a month he had attempted his first escape after a prison bible study. He was quickly captured, but he made 18 more escape attempts over the years with countless confiscations of forged keys, zip guns, and other homemade escape items. With each new infraction his sentence has added up on itself to the point that DeFriest has spent over 30 years in a variety of jails, most of that time spent in solitary confinement. In the early years of his jail time several psychologists were asked to assess his mental state, determining whether Mark deserved to remain in prison or be given medical treatment instead. One of those doctors, Robert Berland, was the doctor who issued the damning diagnosis that Mark, while perhaps pathological, was not mentally unstable. This verdict is what kept Mark in the system and the film’s focus is on this same doctor’s regret at his decision as a young doctor and his attempts, along with Mark’s long time lawyer and second wife, to appeal to the parole commission for Mark to be given a chance at parole.

Director Gabriel London has spent over a decade following Mark’s story and the struggles his advocates have encountered in trying to find him a glimmer of hope. The film is intriguing and all those contributing to telling his story — his family, ex-wife, the ex-warden of the scandal-filled Florida State Prison, his lawyer, and Mark himself — paint the picture of a man who was thrown heavy punches in life and whose only instinctual (and mental) response was to swing back. The film is interspersed with Mark’s tales of his various escape attempts and the horrors he’s experienced in prison, all shown in animated form and narrated by Scoot McNairy. This format, while it serves to add humor to his antics, also brings disturbing depth to his more appalling experiences. The film is clearly condemning the justice system, especially Florida’s part in it, but it also excellently explores the various ways time changes all of us, whether it be Dr. Berland and his misdiagnosis, or Mark and the debilitating effects of a life spent in solitary and his basic human rights stripped clean away from him. As the ex-warden states in the film, prison is a punishment not where you go to receive punishment, and this film gives great insight into just how much that ideal has not been upheld.

The Mind of Mark DeFriest releases in theaters March 6 and on Showtime March 19.

John Ridley, the man who took on the heavy task of adapting Solomon Northup’s memoir Twelve Years a Slave into the Oscar-winning script that mesmerized us all this past year, has taken on true-life once again with Jimi: All Is by My Side. Focusing on the early years of Jimi Hendrix’s career, the film starts with Jimi, starring André Benjamin (André 3000 of Outkast fame), the night he meets the woman who will kick-start his path to fame, Linda Keith, played with doll-like charm by Imogen Poots. Her faith in his abilities and his destiny as a star pushes the film forward. After a series of misses, she finally makes a match for Jimi in Chas Chandler (Andrew Buckley), former bassist for The Animals, who sees that same star power in him and insists he come to London and sign with him as manager. On his first night in London Jimi meets Kathy Etchingham (Heyley Atwell) after playing at The Scotch and the two immediately begin what would be a several year relationship. The film documents the steps in Jimi’s career leading up to the Monterey Pop Festival where Jimi the Myth became Jimi the Legend.

The film’s weaknesses have nothing to do with its cast, instead Ridley attempts to channel the times with some of his more artistic choices in editing. Dialogue is often cut off mid-sentence, the more famous characters are given silly freeze frames with their names written on-screen, wigs run rampant, and while it’s understood drug use was a huge part of the scene, the hazy way in which Ridley tries to convey the mood is sometimes just too distracting from what we really want to see and hear: Jimi playing music. But when André Benjamin is given free rein to be Jimi, and in the scenes where he plays guitar especially, boy does he impress. His spot-on imitation of Jimi’s slow and deliberate speech patterns, juxtaposed with the intense presence he had on stage, are a testament to just how well the actor did his research. Jimi Hendrix enthusiasts will have very little to complain about.

It may be the tiniest bit too self-aware and Ridley might have been fan-boying out a little in his attempt, but the performances shine through his stranger directorial decisions and the film effectively pays tribute to the groundbreaking titan Jimi Hendrix was while respecting the more intricate parts of his personal life. A well done biopic carried by an inspired cast that’s failings are entirely artistic but in no way disrespect the legend it depicts.

Originially published on June 13, 2014 during the Los Angeles Film Festival

A little more on the biopic spectrum than a lavish stage-to-screen production as most cinematized musicals tend to be, Jersey Boys evokes the same nostalgia putting on a record of The Four Seasons would illicit but tends to lose steam between musical numbers. Clint Eastwood, as beloved as he is, shows his age somewhat in this clean-cut adaptation.

Plucking his lead actor straight off the stage, Jersey Boys stars Tony award-winning John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli, Vincent Piazza as Tommy DeVito, Erich Bergen as Bob Gaudio, Michael Lomenda as Nick Massi, and Christopher Walken as mob boss Gyp DeCarlo. Starting on the streets of Jersey where the boys began, the film uses the same narration-driven model as the musical, allowing it’s characters to speak directly to the camera as they describe their struggle from street-hooligans to one of America’s most beloved and innovative musical acts. Young Frankie Castelluccio hangs with a tough crowd, especially Tommy DeVito, who, although he teaches Frankie about music and encourages his talent, has a penchant to get into trouble and is in and out of jail at a young age. Despite the rough people around him, people seem to want to protect Frankie and his talent, keeping him off the streets and setting him up with singing gigs. Tommy, Frankie, and Nick struggle with making anything of their musical act (nobody’s looking for trios anymore says Tommy), but when they meet Bob Gaudio, a songwriting hit machine, they finally have the missing magical element.

The film navigates their career keeping up energy with each ah-ha moment of each hit song’s inception and then race to the top of the charts. The more serious in-between scenes, Frankie’s ill-advised romance and marriage to Mary Delgado (Renee Marino), the mounting debt and drama caused by Tommy, the ambition of Bob as he forms an alliance with Frankie, the decline of marriages, the struggle of touring life — all suck the energy right out of the film. The pressures of success are familiar territory and the only thing that is remarkably different, as the group’s tension builds toward an inevitable breakup, is Frankie’s role as a lead singer never inflated his ego or led to their decline, in fact his forgiveness and gracious attitude toward his friends and his sense of loyalty are painted as absolutely saint-like.

The Four Season’s notorious songs such as “Sherry”, “Walk Like a Man”, “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “December 1963 (Oh What a Night)” are impossible not to tap a toe to, to the point where its easy to be distracted away from how deflated the film really is. The end builds well, past all the troubles the group, especially Frankie, have experienced, to a fantastic rendition of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” but then undoes (once again) its good work by showing an overly sentimental ending that commits what I consider to be a cardinal sin of biopics in attempting to provide closure by showing it’s subjects years later, bygones being bygones.

Throw in awkward curtain-call style ending credits and the film just proves that stage and screen hold their respectable differences for good reasons. There will always be charms that one can hold over the other. Eastwood tried a bit too hard to mix those charms, only proving further that both film and stage hold their own artistic purposes. Jersey Boys is a good film, but not a great musical adaptation.

Before Wednesday’s Los Angeles Film Festival Gala Screening of Dear White People, director Justin Simien, along with exec-producer Stephanie Allain, told white members of the audience that they were absolutely “allowed to laugh”. An ominous sort of joke, but considering the deep satire contained within this Sundance favorite, it was a joke entirely in keeping with the film’s mood.

Set on the fictional Ivy League campus of Winchester University, where different residential halls reflect certain stereotypes, race, and class distinctions, the film follows four black students with four different perspectives and different experiences dealing with the people surrounding them in our so-called (by some) post-racial society. Samantha White (Tessa Thompson, whom Veronica Mars fans will recognize), a bi-racial radical, hosts a radio show called “Dear White People” where she regularly offers sarcastic advice to white people on their interactions with black people. Her opening joke being that the acceptable number of black friends to have so as not to appear racist has just been raised to two, and your weed provider doesn’t count. Interspersed throughout the film, her jokes add a harsh but effective humor.

Next we have Troy (Brandon Bell), son to the college’s Dean (Dennis Haysbert) and all around go-getter, he holds the title of Head of House over the historically black resident hall Parker/Armstrong. When the house’s election is sabotaged by Samantha’s friend Reggie (Marque Richardson), she ends up winning against Troy, bringing with her all the aggressive views she holds on the diversification of their house. Immediately she bans non-residents from eating in their hall, mostly meaning white students, and victoriously throws the privileged President’s son, Kurt (Kyle Gallner, another Veronica Mars star) and his comedy troupe Pastiche, out of the hall. Wishing she had as many YouTube views as Samantha is Colandrea ‘Coco’ Conners (Teyonah Parris), whose attention seeking ways have her vying for a spot on a reality show while doing her best to fit in with the white crowd. And last is Lionel Higgins (Tyler James Williams of Everybody Hates Chris), who is asked to write a piece on the racial tensions brewing on campus though internally he doesn’t believe he fits into either the black or the white crowd.

The film shows the different ways these black students, and indeed anyone of any race, approach their own identity. Samantha, the anarchist seeks mostly to show the holes in society and the barriers we have yet to overcome. Troy, the somewhat two-faced people-pleaser, becomes what most impresses those in his vicinity. Coco compromises herself for the sake of fitting in. Lionel wants recognition for his writing abilities, not his race, while writing a piece on a culture he hardly understands despite belonging to it. All of their various experiences come to a head when one of the residence halls on campus decides to throw an African-American themed party with atrocious stereotypes in abundance and white people showcasing their insensitivity.

Claiming a love for Robert Altman in the Q&A after the film, Simien similarly handles the heavy task of directing an ensemble cast with excellent results. The film is sharply written, out to prove that black films can feature intelligence and self-awareness and still be funny without any wigs, fat suits, or Tyler Perry tropes. Some of the story elements are slightly contrived, characters being the most extreme versions of themselves, but satire aims at showcasing ridiculousness and none of the more melodramatic choices Simien opted for detracts from the film’s social criticism.

Progressive and humorous, the film teems with talent all around, but more than anything is a perfect catalyst for conversation.

Those who understand and appreciate the humor of David Wain and Michael Showalter have no doubt been anticipating They Came Together, the first film the duo has worked on together since Wet Hot American Summer, their TV endeavors aside. (Fans will be happy to hear that in the Q&A following the premiere the duo said a Wet Hot American Summer prequel is in the works). To appreciate their comedy means also appreciating those they pay homage to, the spoof films of Mel Brooks and Jim Abrahams, who perfected the craft of effectively using films to make fun of films with a distinctly self-aware humor. They Came Together, rather than directly parodying romantic comedy films (though there are some obvious references dashed about the film), seeks to poke fun at the entire genre, incorporating almost every major romantic film cliché there is. What makes it more effective than say an outright parody film like Date Movie, is it’s use of major comedic talent and that Wain/Showalter touch that, though sometimes baffling and always ridiculous, almost always elicits a laugh.

The film is about Joel (Paul Rudd) and Molly (Amy Poehler) as they tell the story of how they met to two friends at dinner (Ellie Kemper and Bill Hader). Set in New York City (which is repeatedly jabbed at as the “third main character” of the film), Joel works for a large corporate candy company and Molly operates a small candy store. Joel is just getting over his smoking-hot ex (Cobie Smulders) who cheated on him with his successful co-worker. Molly has also recently broken up with her boyfriend and turns down her accountant’s advances (played by Ed Helms) to focus on herself. When friends try to set them up at a Halloween party they run into each other on the way there and instantly dislike each other. It isn’t until they see each other later at a book store where they discover a mutual love for (gasp) fiction books that Molly agrees to a date and their romance begins. From there almost every romantic film cliché appears. She’s lovably klutzy. He’s a responsible older brother, caring for his aimless sibling (Max Greenfield). They fight over family differences (hers are all white supremacists, whoops) and break up. He finds solace in his ex, she tries dating her accountant, eventually leading up to a wedding that needs breaking up and a solid ten minutes of every romantic movie ending they could fit in.

Wain and Showalter prove once again there is no joke they won’t beat to death, going just over the line enough to bring it back to life. It’s a humor that revels in straddling the line between ridiculous and ridiculously funny. The two delight in the humor of repetition and certain scenes take it to the point of exhaustion. Those who don’t find it funny, will find it utterly obnoxious. Much of the film’s success relies on the impeccable chemistry between Pohler and Rudd, two actors well aware of each other’s methods by now and perfectly cast in their stereotypical roles. It’s idiocy for the sake of idiocy, but has so much charm and excellent timing that this reviewer’s funny bone was tickled for 90 minutes straight.

If you aren’t laughing, you’ll probably be shaking your head, but there are very few people in this world not won over by Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler. Let’s be honest, we’d watch them read the phone book.

As a vast majority of the world tuned in to the World Cup Sunday, I was treated to an equally lively South American production. Libertador, or The Liberator, is a large-scale saga portraying the early years and successful liberation campaign of Simón Bolívar. Known as the key player in Latin America’s quest for independence from the Spanish Empire, the film begins at the end. Bolívar is being hunted down by those who would rather see the hard-won independent nations of Gran Colombia separated into their own governing parts and the quickest way to form their own order is by assassinating Gran Colombia’s legendary leader. Bolívar runs from his pursuers as the film transports us back years before this moment, where a younger Bolívar is in Spain and asked to play tennis with a young Prince Ferdinand. And he doesn’t lose well.

Bolívar, born to wealth, is well-traveled and debonaire, so when he begins a flirtation with María Teresa, a young woman at the court, it’s unsurprising that he arrives back in Venezuela with her as his wife. The film spends a fair amount of time on what was a relatively short amount of Bolívar’s life before he began his campaign, director Alberto Arvelo attempting to provide the spark of Bolívar’s passion. In the short amount of time he had with his wife before her untimely death and his spiral of grief after, the film shows a man who must choose where to direct the powerful devotion he has as the land of his birth struggles against oppression.

Édgar Ramírez (The Bourne Ultimatum, Domino) carries the heavy burden of portraying such a well-known and well-debated historical figure with absolute precision and a charismatic performance. While the film has much ground to cover, the struggle for autonomy played out over the course of almost 20 years, it picks up steam once Bolívar gets to the heart of the campaign, rallying the divided people of such a huge continent into an organized army. It slows somewhat as it delves into the political aspect of Bolívar’s tenure, his time as President and Dictator, but paints the picture of a man who fought his entire life with the interest of his people always at the forefront of his actions. There are some liberties taken with how Bolívar may have died, which is debated, and the film opts for glorifying him rather than erring on the side of historical documentation. Which it also does in downplaying his dissidents’ complaints about some of his political decisions.

Excellent supporting roles abound, especially Erich Wildpret (The Zero Hour) as Bolívar’s right-hand man Antonio José de Sucre and Iwan Rheon (Game of Thrones, Misfits) as Daniel O’Leary, one of the Irish who came to aid the Venezuelans in their efforts. The score, by beloved Los Angeles Philharmonic director Gustavo Dudamel, reflects the spirit of those fighting on-screen with heavy drums and showcases the beautiful tradition of music based in South America. Cinematographer Xavi Giménez expertly manages the scope of multiple battle scenes, and highlights the varied landscapes of South America, from tropical beaches to the tip of the Andes, with beautiful detail.

The length of a film could never be enough to summate the life of so accomplished a man. So there’s no way not to feel somewhat short-changed when the film ends. But Libertador still earns its place easily among other war and revolution behemoths like Braveheart or Saving Private Ryan. The film is an enjoyable slice of narrative history about a man whose name in history is written beside Cromwell, Napoleon, and Washington, and is finally getting cinematic recognition worthy of his legacy.

The Los Angeles Film Festival continued its Gala screenings Tuesday with The Two Faces of January. First time director Hossein Amini has proven he understands the art of calculated and slow-building periodic drama as the screenwriter of subdued gems The Wings of the Dove and Jude. He’s even proven he can handle drama of a more fast-paced nature with his script for 2011’s Drive. But Amini’s directorial début seems to hint at a possible film truth — that perhaps writing talent and directorial talent come from two different places.

Set in Greece in 1962, The Two Faces of January is based on the Patricia Highsmith novel of the same name. She who gave us the inspiration for similar film adaptations The Talented Mr. Ripley and Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. Highsmith weaves thrillers involving characters that fall into one of two categories: those who have and those who covet. The Two Faces of January is no exception, telling the tale of American couple Chester and Colette MacFarland (Viggo Mortenson and Kirsten Dunst) on vacation in Greece, both the epitome of American wealth and refinement. The two catch the eye of part-time tour guide and sometime swindler Rydal (Oscar Isaac), an American who has been living in Greece, avoiding his family to the point of missing his own father’s funeral.

After catching Rydal staring at them, Colette investigates and Rydal charms them into an outing at the flea market, and later dinner. Enamored with the young Colette, and clearly in awe of the stylish Chester, Rydal rushes to return a bracelet Colette left in the taxi after their evening out. When he gets to the hotel he finds Chester in a precarious position involving an unconscious man. From there Rydal’s ambition and daddy issues pull him into the mounting troubles of Chester and Colette, while his increasing attraction to Colette forces him to travel into darker and darker territory to protect them.

Amini, while clearly capable of writing great characters, falters somewhat in getting his actors to help push the story along. The tacit tension between the three of them is certainly evident in their spectacular performances, however the film’s pacing is lacking, each of their misery only adding to the heap and not building off one another. Viggo Mortenson has made a believable transition from the smoldering heroes he’s played in the past, to an older cocksure man of leisure. Oscar Isaac continues to be the best part of almost every movie I’ve seen him in of late (even the recent and truly stunted In Secret, another film of wasted performances), his chiseled face and hungry expressions always conveying his lust for the sort of life he thinks he wants. Kirsten Dunst seems to be the deficient element, though not likely by any fault of her own as she’s given us plenty of remarkable performances over the years. Instead Amini underutilizes Dunst’s character, rather than allow the story to flow from her anchor as the strongest link between the three of them. As a result, Rydal’s infatuation seems unwarranted, Chester’s growing jealousy equally so.

With a distinctly classic feel, the soft lighting and bright colors of Greece are a stark contrast to the darker moments of vulnerability and madness woven through the few days the film covers. Cinematographer Marcel Zyskind (Dancer in the Dark) could hardly make the exotic locales of the film look anything but beautiful. Amini’s ambitions are clear, often utilizing distinctly Hitchcockian motifs. A closing foot chase scene through the pebbled streets of Istanbul could have been pulled straight out of a 50’s black and white film-noir. Steven Noble’s costume design is distractingly sophisticated. Clearly Amini has all the pieces: the looks, the feel, the music, the actors, but where he seems to falter is where Hitchcock most excelled — delving into the psychology of his characters.  Where Hitchcock would dig deeper, Amini has only given us surface level and thus being truly invested in their collective fate is rather hard to muster. The story plays out melodramatically, instead of thrillingly.

Leveraging nostalgia and star power, the film is enticing even as it makes one hungry to put on an older classic. He may not yet be a writer-director double-threat, but this is an elegant first film from Hossein Amini.

A cross between the millennial musings of Lena Dunham and the dimwittedness of Romy and Michele, Trouble Dolls is a female buddy comedy for today’s self-aware art hipsters, or more specifically those looking to poke fun at them. Written and directed by its co-stars, actress Olivia (Jennifer Prediger) and artist Nicole (Jess Weixler) are best friends and roommates living the boho life in New York City. Their electricity is off (by choice they say), their rent is short, and they are starving (or on a cleanse, it’s all about perspective). When Olivia’s beloved cat Seagull dies unexpectedly, Nicole decides a weekend vacation is in order. Utilizing her father’s private jet, she whisks Olivia off to California to visit her aunt Kimberley (Megan Mullally).

Without the foresight to charge their phone, let alone phone ahead to inform her aunt of their arrival, the two hitch a ride with another person at the airport (Will Forte), which Olivia insists will work out fine. Along the way to auntie’s house, they realize their chauffeur is on a prescription pill cocktail that may soon turn ugly. So they bolt, walking the rest of the way. Upon their arrival, Nicole’s aunt welcomes them with open arms, doting upon them (a little too graciously for Olivia’s liking), and lets slip that Nicole’s family is on a planned trip without her. Nicole sulks while Olivia is wooed by Aunt Kimberley,  a host for a talent TV reality show called “That Special Something”,  into auditioning for her show. After the two girls have their tarot cards read the next day, Nicole believes she should help Olivia with her audition, turning it into a mixture of her art and Olivia’s monologue.

With faces painted white and adorned in black trash bags, the girls go to the audition to perform in front of the judges, Lance Bass, Christopher Reid, and of course Aunt Kimberley. A strange mixture of spoken word, dialogue, flower backdrop, and projected images, their art piece is hilariously baffling. Afterwards Olivia is upset over her audition as Nicole begins to see the unhealthiness of their co-dependence. The two take their aggressions out on one another and as they begin to change, they have to figure out if their friendship can change with them.

Prediger and Weixler play off one another well and hold a believable friendship. Their jokes, however, aren’t as easily swallowed and while it’s easy to laugh at their naiveté to a certain point, eventually their obtuse and self-centered traits make for a heavier atmosphere than I think they were really going for. Their A-list co-stars handle the satire with far more ease, but are given some questionable character twists. Megan Mullally is fantastic as an oft-drunk washed up starlet, but is also an oddly predatory-like closeted lesbian whose advances on Olivia start out as funny then quickly move to uncomfortable. Jeffrey Tambor equally shines in his small role as the girls’ landlord, but a landlord who happens to be in an on-again off-again relationship with Nicole. They seemed to have aimed for awkward but went flying over their mark.

As a first directorial attempt on both Prediger and Weixler’s part, they’ve fashioned a friendship comedy that relies too much on the love its main characters hold for each other to buy over their audience. The film’s title comes from the tiny dolls Olivia whispers her hopes and troubles to, placing them beneath her pillow to manage her and Nicole’s anxieties. But no doll can save these girls from their troubles, as in the end the girls (and the movie as a whole) seem hardly willing to truly manage their own destinies.

Sunday at the Los Angeles Film Festival was a gorgeous day, so it’s fortunate that this year’s LA Muse category at the festival has afforded viewers a way to enjoy the city despite being inside a theater all day. Eat With Me, a first feature from director David Au, is one such entry in this category. The film stars Sharon Omi as Emma, a middle-aged wife and mother who decides to walk out on her neglectful husband and goes to stay with her son. Teddy Chen Culver is Elliot, her son, a cook at the family’s Chinese restaurant. Emma’s arrival disrupts Teddy’s life and he and his mother must sift through the awkwardness of their relationship as Teddy faces foreclosure on his restaurant and Emma comes to terms with her son’s homosexuality. A free-loving nosey neighbor, Maureen (played by TV’s Nicole Sullivan), encourages Emma to not only talk with her son but explore what else life has to offer (including her first drug trip). Teddy begins a new relationship that may have staying power, but only if he’s honest with himself and his mother and starts to truly fight for what’s good in his life.

There are good elements included in this film. Food has often played successful middle ground for characters needing to connect. However, the stiff and formulaic dialogue of the script makes for a film teeming with awkward and entirely flat performances. Perhaps due to some editorial failing, or a director whose greenness makes for misdirected actors, the film has a hard time breathing life into its characters or any heart into its message. George Takei makes an uninspired cameo, clearly in support of anything portraying acceptance for a gay Chinese-American. Nicole Sullivan, known for her over the top comedy in MAD TV, overshadows her co-stars with the energy she’s putting out, but sidled next to such restrained characters her comedic relief is off-putting.

It’s regrettable a film with a decent premise and an admirable mission is so ineffective. Despite the delicious looking food being cooked in the film, Eat With Me is unfortunately quite bland.

A night-on-the-town movie for the pre-middle age crowd, The Last Time You Had Fun is out to show that divorce, kids, and growing disillusionment doesn’t mean life can’t still be lively. Mo Perkins’ comedy follows four adults, each in the midst of some sort of relational rut, who meet at a wine bar. Clark (Kyle Bornheimer) is recently divorced and his best friend Will (Demetri Martin) is expecting a baby in his now loveless marriage. Will convinces Clark to celebrate his divorce with a night out. In a stretch limo. Clad in his trusty sweatpants, Clark gives in and he and Will embark for the night. Meanwhile, sisters Ida (Eliza Coupe) and Alison (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) also head out for the evening as Alison, whose 5-year-old has detracted from the spark in her own marriage, attempts to get her sister’s mind off her cheating husband. When the four discover over wine that they have quite a bit in common, they decide they deserve a night of fun. Into the limo they go (driven by Charlyne Yi with her driest of dry humor). As they drive around LA, getting drunk, looking for pot (in a hilarious scene involving Jimmi Simpson as Ida’s philandering husband), and trying to recreate the fun they once had in younger years, they help each other face the realities of their lives.

With four immensely talented leads, the comedic timing and sharply written jokes (Hal Haberman, Perkin’s husband, wrote the script) are spot on. The same sex-jokes, pot humor and sexual tension that abounds in raunchy teen comedies is even funnier when put in the hands of four adults trying to channel that same energy while acutely aware of their age. Balancing humor and introspection well, each character is allowed to come to their own realizations about their situations without feeling overdone or schmaltzy. The film shows a little hypocrisy in the end, juxtaposing the problem of one character, a cheating husband, with the possibility of other characters also engaging in infidelity, as though unhappiness ever justifies that sort of behavior. But the connections the characters form with one another are where the film stays strong.

The Last Time You Had Fun plays to some overused gimmicks: spouses coming out of the closet, children sucking life out of relationships, sexless marriages, serially cheating spouses that can’t just be gotten over. However, their stories and misadventures play out with such great pacing and just enough self-awareness the film can’t help but be thoroughly enjoyable. Misery makes for great company and definite hilarity. Mo Perkins proves herself a director up to the challenge of matching Judd Apatow at his own middle-aged comedy game any day.

It used to be that indie cinema was the place to go to get fresh perspective on common film themes. Somewhere along the way indie films have formed their own grooves and well-worn paths, and every so often someone gets stuck in them. One such trend are clichéd englightenment films, where a character has a crisis of faith/life/romance/whatever and runs away to someplace new, because as we all know, the answers are “out there”. Echo Park is just such a film. Named for Echo Park, a hipster hot spot in LA, this uninspired neighborhood serves as the background to an unoriginal tale of transformation.

Mamie Gummer (whose previous works show she is obviously better than all this) plays Sophie, a women whose long-term boyfriend and upper class West LA life just doesn’t seem fulfilling any more. So she moves to Echo Park, land of coffee shops, record stores, and people with suspicious amounts of free time. She buys a couch from Alex (Anthony Okungbowa) who starts to imbue his wisdom from the get-go on how great life can be when you get to know your neighbors. He awkwardly asks Sophie to come play soccer with his best friend (and neighbor, of course) Mateo (Maurice Compte) and his son Elias (Ricky Rico). She awkwardly declines, then does it anyway. And thus begins Sophie’s predictable rebound affair with Alex, who also predictably wishes it was more than it is despite his impending move to England. Sophie hangs out with her new friend group, encourages Elias’s new photography interest, and ignores calls from her ex. Helen Slater shows up as Sophie’s hysterical stuck-up mother, offering absolutely no motherly advice whatsoever, or any emotion for that matter. When Simon (Gale Harold), the ex, comes knocking on Sophie’s door, she gives in to his overbearing requests, but ultimately has to decide whether to return to her old life or take a chance on this new one in Echo Park.

Maybe someday a person dealing with a stagnant relationship and a crisis of lifestyle choice will try something more inspired than making friends with ethnically diverse children or engaging in doomed-to-failure rebound relationships. It feels as though first time director Amanda Marsalis read Catalina Aguilar Mastretta’s script set in a LA cultural hub, it reminded her of a breakup, and she declared it inspired. As though rebound relationships and randomly buying houses in unknown neighborhoods are usually remedies for life’s problems . (And for the record, with real estate prices where they are in Echo Park, Sophie buying a house there is about the best way to highlight her obvious socioeconomic differences from her neighbors.)

Really this film does no justice to the diverse neighborhood of Echo Park, nor to the nuanced emotions and reasons for breakups and makeups. Alex says at one point “why do people always go back?” But he never questions the changing nature of people in general. That people can change for the better. His words are naïve and indeed the entire film exudes this same shortsightedness. Echo Park is a presumptive piece of work, relying on its audience to be on the same page: Echo Park is magic, breakups suck, running away is the best path to enlightenment, and the people one meets in the midst of life change are only there to serve one’s forward movement. A shallow film, with shallow characters, this film does Echo Park tourism no favors.

The gap between the allure of American refuge and the actual plight of those who immigrate here empty-handed is movingly portrayed in Mike Ott’s Lake Los Angeles. Entirely in Spanish, the film is slow and intentional, with breakout performances by its two leads. The film follows Francisco Fumero (Roberto ‘Sanz’ Sanchez), a Cuban exile as he houses undocumented immigrating Mexicans. When one such immigrant, a young girl named Cecilia (Johanna Trujillo) comes across the border alone and has to stay longer than most, Francisco finds someone with whom to share his solitary existence, if only briefly. With steely reserve at first, it takes a while for Cecilia to allow Francisco to connect. His own wife and children are back in Cuba, where it’s been many years since he left in the hopes of establishing a better place to bring them from communist Cuba. When the immigrant mover, Eduardo (René Mena), comes to collect Cecilia in the guise of reuniting her with her father, Francisco returns to his limbo-like existence once again. But Cecilia soon discovers her father is not coming for her and she takes off on her own rather than risk what the questionable Eduardo may have in store for her. In the desert of Lake Los Angeles, she wanders on her own. She tells stories to the snow globe that is all she has of her mother and the life she lived in Mexico. Her careful whisper opens and closes the film, telling stories that provides the perfect narrational backdrop to her situation. Subsisting on what she can steal, Cecilia manages to keep herself alive, always hoping that her father will still come and eventually allowing herself to believe that there may be someone out there who cares for her, if only she can find her way back to him.

Touching on the inherent need in all people for companionship, Ott has weaved a story that’s ruthlessly slow-paced and achingly touching. Francisco speaks eloquent love letters into a recorder to his wife in Cuba, displaying all the yearning of man who has only his dreams and memories to keep him company. Cecilia’s time in the desert instills mortal fear for such a young girl who must somehow make it on her own in a new country. Johanna Trujillo, with her direct, wise-beyond-her-years gaze is an absolute marvel in her first major role, and manages to carry the film expertly.

Staying within a similar purview of his previous films of Littlerock and Pearblossom Hwy, Mike Ott continues to show a growing maturity in his work. His simplistic and naturalistic approach to tackling heavy subjects shows delicacy and tact and makes for an emotive film. A definite stand out at this year’s LA Film Fest and a director we can continue to expect great things from.

Saturday at the Los Angeles Film Festival has been full of laughers, but the quirkiest among them is likely Lenny Abrahamson’s Frank. The film first premiered at Sundance in January and will get a limited release in August. Following musician wannabe Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) as he randomly connects with a bizarre pop group called Soronprfbs (don’t worry, no one in the film knows how to pronounce it either) playing one random show with them before they quickly adopt him to be their keyboardist and whisk him away to a remote cabin in Ireland to record their album. Led by the eponymous Frank (Michael Fassbender), who at all times wears a large cartoonish head in the style of Frank Sidebottom (writer Jon Ronson played in Frank Sidebottom creator Chris Sievey’s band and based the script on some of his experiences), Jon is thrown into the oddest of circumstances.

He observes the off-beat musical styles of his bandmates. Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and her electronic frequency manipulator, Nana (Carla Azar) the drummer, Baraque (Francois Civil) the guitarist, and the most mental of them all, the band’s manager Don (Scott McNairy). Frank’s unusual music methods put the band members in awkward and hilarious situations as they wait for inspiration to strike before they begin recording their album. A door opening and closing is music to Frank’s ears, drills up and down the lawn inspire musical expression, hours and hours of non-stop playing for Frank’s high standard of perfection. Jon documents their endeavors with YouTube videos and Twitter updates, to the point where without having much to show for themselves, the band has a small cult following. The band finally records their album and though Jon’s blown through his inheritance to fund the band, he feels on the verge of a personal musical breakthrough. When the band is asked to take part in the SXSW music festival, Jon argues against the fiercely protective Clara to get Frank and his band to enter the mainstream world and play in America. Inspired at the thought of others loving their music, Frank agrees and they set out for Texas. However, when Jon encourages last-minute changes to their music to appeal more to the masses, his egotism costs them greatly as Frank becomes derailed from being true to himself.

The film is charming and at parts laugh out loud funny. Despite having any sort of face to work with, Fassbender creates a likeable if disturbed portrayal of Frank. Maggie Gylenhaal is guaranteed to shine when allowed some venom in her characters and she can be truly frightening with her mania. The film’s juxtaposition of pop culture and indie culture and the fine line between them makes for humorous irony. Audiences will laugh at the ridiculousness, but may not be moved in the end when it attempts to infuse a little humanity into the absurdity. While it ends poignantly, the film loses its steam by insulating Frank’s world and marking it unapproachable to outsiders. The song he sings at the end, mostly repeating his love for all, feels somewhat false, as catchy as it is. And considering the gravity Abrahamson choice to infuse in the end, the friendships Frank has seemed based on all around denial.

Whether audiences are able to live in that same land of denial is entirely subjective, but anyone wanting to laugh at the creative process at its quirkiest will enjoy Frank immensely. At its essence the film does show creating for oneself before others is a truer path to happiness, and with great performances all around, that theme is doubly felt.

First time director, Sam Esmail, may not have picked especially uncharted territory for his directorial debut Comet, which focuses on the rocky relationship of an oddly paired couple, but his storytelling technique reflects the perspective of an enlightened and astute new addition to the film scene. In a parallel universe, Dell (Justin Long) and Kimberly (Emmy Rossum) move back and forth between different periods of their 6 year relationship. An epic first meeting/date in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, an afternoon in a Paris hotel before a wedding, a train ride a year after their first breakup, a relationship defining phone call, and a meeting years later. Their relationship and personalities are revealed through each major juncture with a magical realism quality framing all of it, à la PT Anderson or Michel Gondry. Meteor showers, double suns, reality and fantasy lines blur as scenes transition with special effects that provide a cosmic backdrop.

The music and visual effects somewhat save the film, however, as it’s literally all dialogue, and each scene’s distinct look (props to cinematographer Eric Koretz) showcase the conversations beautifully.  Long and Rossum carry the weight of the film as they talk their way through every scene. And in this parallel universe witty fast paced speak flows in abundance. Quippy romantic soliloquies & sharp bantered humor, marks of an unrealistic romance, are strangely viable because of our pretend setting and the actors’ ease. What isn’t made clear is why a fatalistic, love-doubting and yet clearly romantic dude, and a somewhat self-absorbed and insecure borderline manic-pixie girl should be together. Because of the limited purview of the film we’re not allowed access to the moments where their love makes any practical sense.  She doubts his commitment to the long haul, yet he’s the one always in pursuit. He is a cancer-curing hero who is always afraid of missing the moment and thus lives for 5 minutes from now, yet has trouble committing to the future. Comet‘s many disjointed parts don’t all add up, but they are engaging to watch and hypnotic to listen to.

While it could have been another love story about unrealistic people and irrational infatuation, Comet manages to hold to the indie film spirit. Which makes it, perhaps impractically, immensely easy to enjoy. Long plays insufferable in a way that  still allows him to seem charming, and he definitely carries the majority of the chemistry between himself and Rossum. Rossum keeps up with the banter well enough, but her character isn’t given enough common sense to win us over. If she could have conveyed some sort of inner wisdom, it would have worked in her favor, but she seems to delight in her character’s insensibility and takes for granted that Kimberly is simply wanted.

Perhaps love doesn’t follow rules, so if Sam Esmail wants to dream up new ones in a world of his imagination, he’s just clever enough to make it interesting, if not remarkable.

The words “twist on the found footage genre” are among the most cringeworthy you’ll find in a movie review these days. If anyone has found any new way of twisting found footage it’ll probably be laughably implausible, and since the found footage subgenre is already a twist on traditional filmmaking, can we all just agree to stop trying to bend it any further? Inner Demons is not a twist on found footage, it is not even found footage done well. Introduced by Linda Blair and screened predictably on Friday the 13th at the festival, the film is from the vantage point of a TV crew putting together an episode of Intervention around two parents at their wits end to get their heroin addicted daughter back to normal. After interviewing the parents and daughter (under the guise of this being an informational video on drug addiction) and vaguely investigating the girl’s background and snobby friends at an elite prep school, they stage their intervention and get the reluctant Carson (Lara Vosburgh, who has a Fairuza Balk look about her) to agree to enter rehab. Her interactions with the young and impressionable cameraman Jason (Morgan McClellan), recently hired to the show, reveal that her addiction may be how the disturbed young woman suppresses an even darker side of herself. A few days in rehab and on the road to being clean, Carson’s condition becomes notably worse, and clearly isn’t just withdrawal. Jason’s research into demonic possession, and the secrets her so-called high school friends are keeping, lead him to believe Carson’s problems are much harder to cure than rehab. Her early release from the program to be with her family leads up to an uninspired standoff between the self-serving TV folk and the drug-free and fully possessed Carson.

With almost no bona fide scares, other than the discomfort of being screamed at unexpectedly, this horror movie contains very little to be afraid of. Instead, there were notably more laughs than gasps heard throughout the film. Rather than allowing the possession angle to be slowly revealed it’s obvious from the get-go what is going on with Carson, we’re just somehow supposed to think maybe she’s wrong. But if that were true, this wouldn’t be a horror film. Stock characters abound: a predictably bitchy Hollywood producer, a prima donna host, a lovestruck straight out of film school camera boy, and uptight religious parents. Possession and found footage have been blended a number of times already and not only does Inner Demons have nothing new to add, but makes one wonder how any horror director who (presumably) has a passion for the genre could consider that angle worth pursuing. It’s getting harder and harder to believe that even in our constantly plugged-in society, anyone is really taking the time to film every little thing they do. To give the film some credit, I appreciate when anyone — even unintentionally — pokes fun at society’s reality TV obsession, but in this case the  mashing of two well-worn horror subgenres only makes it twice as annoying that the film couldn’t do either of them well.

Writer turned director Mark Webber is only 34 years old, his wife of a few months, Teresa Palmer, is 28. Incredibly young and newlywed for the level of drama they face in Webber’s latest directorial endeavor which involves him playing a photographer, Thomas, and Palmer playing his young actress wife, Ava. Blurring reality’s lines further Ava takes credit for Palmer’s real life films, and the fictional couple have a daughter, albeit older than the baby Webber and Palmer just had together in February. The realistic parallels make one wonder why on earth Webber and Palmer would want to imagine a false future for themselves as bleak as the one they paint in The Ever After. The film follows the young married couple as they face an early marriage slump, doubting each other’s feelings and trading sex for real conversations. The restless Thomas heads off to New York for a photography gig where he walks further down the path of infidelity only to find himself paying an intensely high price for his mistakes. Back in LA, Ava meets a hippy woman (Melissa Leo) who invites her to stitch and bitch in her storefront and starts to force her to address some of her issues, though the inner analysis ends up revealing a deeper problem than just a lukewarm marriage.

Perhaps Webber and Palmer were thirsty for challenging roles and decided the best way to do it would be to write their own. And indeed they’ve given themselves the sort of complicated content even older actors would shy away from. Palmer has an enthralling and expressive face, with exacting control of her emotions. In any given scene she fluctuates between five different moods and has mastered her tear ducts into working overtime for her. She’s inspiring to watch. Webber is equally masterful, having written for himself some truly gritty and horrifying content, and while it’s questionable why he felt it necessary to go quite so far it shows courage and commitment to his craft. I hope (for their sakes) the parallels between Thomas and Ava and Webber and Palmer is mostly confined to their reflections on the narcissism of their industries. The dark picture Webber has painted, while stirring and both beautifully felt and heard (Moby and Daniel Ahearn have put together a great soundtrack), makes for a sometimes difficult watch. The ending is a bit simplistic, boiling down all that heavy content into an easier to swallow broth so no one leaves the theater with suicidal thoughts. The film is sure to evoke mixed impressions, but one that carries across firmly is that this is a film made by immensely talented people.

Films set in the Midwest have the perfect background for the slow delivery of a well told story. A natural element of the setting I suppose. Competing in LAFF’s Narrative Competition is the slow and mesmerizing Runoff. Starting with beautiful farm-based imagery that Terrence Malick would appreciate, corn fields and a babbling creek lead to Betty (Joanne Kelly) and Frank (Neal Huff), a couple raising their two sons in a rural farm town. The harvest is upon them, Halloween coming up soon, and Frank’s business dealing antibiotics to animal farmers has dwindled more and more as a larger company steals his clients left and right. Betty tends to her bees, sews her son’s Halloween costume, and attempts to connect with her eldest son who continually rejects the agricultural school future his father continues to push on him. Their situation grows desperate when their home comes under foreclosure and Frank’s health wanes, it becomes up to Betty to make the hard and fast decision that can save her family.

With moving performances all around, standout Joanne Kelly as devoted wife and mother Betty carries the film. The building drama as she realizes the gravity of her family’s situation and the responsibility she has to take on the burden makes the morally ambiguous climax that much more heart wrenching. The increasingly dire situation for many of the working class in our modern economy is a sobering backdrop for this film. The bind this family finds themselves in is realistic and Betty’s choice reflects the appealing quick fixes many would be tempted by. A strong story around one woman’s empowered stance to take circumstances into her own hands is one that is both original and engaging. First time director Kimberly Levin has crafted a quiet and good-looking film that’s small-scale drama impresses the urgency of real-life and the glimmering mirage of the American dream.

The 20th Los Angeles Film Festival has begun! Despite its location in the heart of the film industry in downtown Los Angeles, and the now 20 years it has under its belt, the LA Film Fest hasn’t yet joined the ranks of Sundance, Cannes, and Toronto. But this year’s offerings prove the LA Film Festival can hold it’s own with 35 premieres, 23 of those World Premieres. Put on by Film Independent, who also stage the annual Independent Spirit Awards, the film festival has a distinct indie feel, and first time and emerging artists are given deserved exposure. The festival kicked off with the North American premiere of Joon-Ho Bong’s dystopian flick, Snowpiercer. Despite its rocky entry and noted squabbles over editing for the North American release, the film is here and it’s magnificent.

Set in 2031, the future of the world is cold and bleak. Literally. The world has been frozen over when an attempt to counter global warming backfired and the world is now a snow-covered tundra. The last few survivors live aboard the Snow Piercer, a train that travels along a worldwide track at breakneck speeds powered by a perpetual-motion engine. Over the past 17 years that the train has traveled on its endless loop, a class system has emerged. Those up front near the engine live in luxury, those at the tail live in destitution. Led by elderly Gilliam (John Hurt), a revolution begins to form and at its forefront is Curtis (Chris Evans playing a decidedly darker hero than the recent Captain America), along with his doting friend Edgar (Jamie Bell). They’ve been receiving messages from someone at the front, encouraging their revolution. After several of their children are taken and yet another innocent man is punished, they decide the time has come to fight back. Their first mission: rescuing an ex-security man from the jail section, Namgoong Minsu (Kang-ho Song), who can open the gates as they make their way to the front of the train.

The film pays sincere homage to its comic roots. Based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, many of the film’s sequences play out in well formed sequences that could easily have been taken directly from frames on the novel’s pages. The exaggerated characters feel the most cartoonish at times, but always to excellent effect, the standout character easily being Tilda Swinton’s Minister Mason, a first class train citizen in charge of representing the almighty Wilford, he who built the train and runs its engine. Mason, with her large lipstick stained teeth, school-girl bob, and her stylized Yorkshire accent is excellent material for Swinton’s skills.

The film is well paced, fleshing out its characters as they level-up to each new section of the train. And the train! An ingenius setting for a revolution, each section narrow and yet wholly original in its purpose. Food manufacturing. Water source. Sushi bar. Sauna. School room. Night club. Each of them bringing some new insight into the train’s hierarchy, and each building to what awaits beyond the final gate: the engine room. Art Director Stefan Kovacik continually impresses with each subsequent scene.

The end threatens to weigh the film down. While Chris Evans easily impresses wielding an axe, shooting a gun, and looks damn good with bruises and blood covering him for most of the film, his wide-eyed wonder during the film’s complicated ending is entirely out of character for the action-oriented Curtis. The final 20 minutes are easily where the Weinsteins could have insisted on some editing and the film would have been all the better for it. But as drawn out and self aware as it is, each revelatory moment in the ending adds to the epic feel of the film and Ed Harris’s portrayal of the enigmatic Wilford, while somewhat expected, is still worth the film’s build.

By far the best sci-fi film I’ve seen yet this year, and proof that international films make for more interesting dynamics, Snowpiercer is easily the original action film a summer full of big budget explosions needs.

Way Too Indie loves Film Independent and their support of independent cinema, so we’re quite excited to see the line-up announcement for this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival. This year marks 20 years of the festival and to mark the occasion they are showcasing films inspired by the city.

The festival kicks off with the North American première of Bong Joon-Ho’s Chris Evans helmed, sci-fi action film, Snowpiercer and will close with the première of Clint Eastwood’s Jersey Boys, based on the hit musical and starring Christopher Walken. Gala screenings include Ira Sachs’ Love Is Strange, which stars John Lithgow and Alfred Molina as longtime companions who finally get to marry only to be separated by housing issues, Justin Simien’s Dear White People about black students at Winchester University who take action over a racist frat party, and Hossein Amini’s The Two Faces of January, starring Viggo Mortenson and Kirsten Dunst as misguided tourists caught up in a murder mystery.

A few of the competing categories below and the full list and press release here.

Competing in the Narrative category

10 Minutes, Dir. Lee Yong-Seung, South Korea
Comet, Dir. Sam Esmail, USA.
Lake Los Angeles, Dir. Mike Ott, USA.
Man From Reno, Dir. Dave Boyle,  USA
Recommended By Enrique, Dir. Rania Attieh, Daniel Garcia, USA/Argentina/France
Runoff, Dir. Kimberly Levin, USA
Someone You Love, Dir. Pernille Fischer Christensen, Denmark
Uncertain Terms, Dir. Nathan Silver, USA
The Young Kieslowski, Dir. Kerem Sanga, USA

Competing in the Documentary category

Billy Mize and the Bakersfield Sound, Dir. William J. Saunders, USA
The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest, Dir. Gabriel London, USA/Canada
Meet the Patels, Dirs. Geeta V. Patel, Ravi V. Patel, USA/India
My Name Is Salt, Dir. Farida Pacha, Switzerland/India
Out in the Night, Dir. blair dorosh-walther, USA
Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story, Dir. N.C. Heikin, USA
Stray Dog, Dir. Debra Granik, USA
Walking Under Water, Dir. Eliza Kubarska, Poland/Germany/UK

Only God Forgives

Only God Forgives is director Nicholas Winding Refn’s most bizarre film yet, even more so than the inter-dimensional Viking picture Valhalla Rising. The marketing for his new film suggests an extension of the beloved Ryan Gosling fueled mayhem seen in Drive. However, that’s a trick. Refn refuses to repeat himself and that is not necessarily a bad thing. During the introduction to Only God Forgives Refn compared both films to drug experiences; that Drive is like doing really good cocaine all night and Only God Forgives is like doing acid in college.

The conflict begins after the elder of two psychotic brothers meets his maker for raping and murdering a young prostitute in Bangkok, where they run drugs together, and their even more psychotic mother arrives screaming for the killer’s blood. Ryan Gosling plays, Julian, the younger brother, who must deal with the complex business of revenge involving a high ranking Thai police captain.

Now that the plot has been described, forget it. Refn focuses the film on Julian’s Oedipal relationship to his mother (she mentions that he killed his own father to protect her) and police captain Chang’s sadistic stranglehold on Bangkok’s underworld. He visualizes this by obsessing over various visual metaphors for each character. Julian’s hands act as his sexual organ and his mode of violence as a boxer. Chang eventually castrates him figuratively, by severely beating him in a boxing match. This motif also makes for some very strange love scenes. Chang, Refn’s villain, rules the screen with long mesmerizing karaoke numbers that symbolize his control over Bangkok’s underworld. The Thai music during these scenes is just as enchanting as Cliff Marinez’s wonderful score. These musical driven sequences dominate most of the film’s screen time that call to mind moments in David Lynch’s early films.

Only Kristen Scott Thomas’s turn as Julian’s deranged mother disrupts the stillness of the film. She proves to be far more of a monster than Chang and steals every scene she’s in. The best moment of the film pits her against Julian who only wants to impress her with his pretty girlfriend. It is one of the few scenes with dialogue. Luckily, cinematographer Larry Smith’s images drive the film and truly establish the hallucinatory tone. If you’re not enchanted by Refn’s strange hang-ups, you’re not likely to enjoy the film, but many of the haunting images and unexpected scenes linger long after the lights come up.

RATING: 6

Lesson of Evil

Takashi Miike’s batshit crazy return to form, Lesson of Evil, will truly appease any fan of bad taste. After a droll remake of samurai classic Hara-kiri, Miike jumps back into the horror genre with his wicked sensibility intact. Lesson of Evil takes place at an average Tokyo high school where teachers grapple with the everyday problems of bullying, cell phone cheating, and teacher-student sexual assault. Super-stud English teacher Hasumi struggles to right all his school’s wrongs as he helps a student extricate herself from a blackmailed sexual relationship with the gym teacher and proposes to install cell phone jammers to eradicate cheating. But soon teachers and students become suspicious of Hasumi’s squeaky-clean persona. Miike masterfully balances a massive cast of students and teachers, while sticking closely to Hasumi’s point of view. In doing so, he establishes a high school drama while exposing subtle cracks in Hasumi’s façade. Much like his breakthrough film Audition, Miike abruptly changes directions mid-film and pulls out the rug from under audiences.

The second half of Lesson of Evil shifts into a psycho-horror comedy with an insanely un-politically correct plot twist that only could have originated from the culturally insensitive nation of Japan. Miike proves himself as a master of tone and character as he shifts from gruesome violence to side-splitting humor all within the pull of a trigger. He efficiently reintroduces peripheral characters, gives them hopes and dreams, and then kills them off with diabolical wit and gallons of gore. The dark humor Miike injects into his film hits even harder because Lesson of Evil is actually a tasteless exploitation of American headlines, but one that manages to brutally entertaining and clever.

RATING: 7

The Conjuring

A movie so scary, the MPAA rated it ‘R’ for just being way too scary. The Conjuring has amassed an impressive amount of hype as a classy horror offering from schlock director James Wan, the new master of scare of the week films Saw, Dead Silence, and Insidious. Here, he’s found a solid script from Baywatch turned thriller writers Chad and Carey Hayes that explores an unused chapter from the files of famed demonologists, The Warrens, of Amityville horror fame. Their script adapts the best elements of The Amityville Horror, a terribly overrated film ripe for an overhaul, and The Exorcist. Wan displays ample restraint in the first half of the film easing audiences into the possessed house along with the lovable and unsuspecting family parented by the excellent Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor. Cinematographer John Leonetti executes some showy, yet breathtaking shots to establish a 1970s style full of zooms and hand held camera work, while expertly shooting on digital.

The second portion of The Conjuring introduces Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Lorraine Warren, the married ghost hunters. The script gives ample time to their characters and some other supernatural cases they’ve investigated, which proves extremely interesting and provides more material for scares. Both Wilson and Farmiga are good and add a higher degree of credibility to the film as does the rest of the talented cast of knowns and unknowns. In his introduction Wan said he wanted to make a picture in the vein of classic studio horror films of the 70s, that have vanished over the years. He puts those resources to work to craft a high caliber film that truly scares.

RATING: 7

Crystal Fairy

Sebastián Silva just directed two Michael Cera features and at least one, Crystal Fairy, is bizarre and excellent. The story is rather simple, an American dick studies abroad in Chile in order to party and try the uber-psychedelic San Pedro, a cactus native to the Northern regions. Cera, his Chilian roommate, and brothers have a trip all planned out, but Cera sabotages their own intentions by trying to impress the groovy hippie chick, Crystal Fairy, at a party and drunkenly invites her along on their journey.

The beauty of Crystal Fairy evolves from the shifting group dynamic between Cera and the Chilian brothers, portrayed with honest naïveté by Silva’s three younger brothers and how it falters when Fairy joins them. Cera’s abrasive, insensitive American plays well against his established innocent persona, while feeling like a totally honest character. Gaby Hoffman’s fearless portrayal of the hypocritical hippie, Fairy, is something to behold. She literally bears all in a moving and disturbing performance.

The film weaves between a hipster comedy of manors, road trip, drug film, and honest drama but never settles long enough to get stale. Not much happens in Crystal Fairy, but its small character driven rewards feel like grand revelations. The excellent, yet sloppy cinematography and great music selection only elevate its already assured scenes. I’m eager to see this film again and to see Silva’s other Cera picture, Magic Magic, but I hear lightning doesn’t strike twice.

Monsters University

Pixar is dead. If the back-to-back of Cars 2 and Brave didn’t seal the deal, then Monsters University will. While the past two pictures were so obviously missteps, this one trips and plunges into the indiscernible Hollywood slurry. Monsters University gets under my fingernails like bamboo spikes because of its mediocrity.

Monsters University brings nothing new to the Monsters universe that was not already created in the excellent first film, yet seems fine with it as it skips along at a brisk pace. I found myself chuckling at a few of the lame jokes and was happy with the inclusion of Always Sunny In Philadelphia’s Charlie Day as a wacky new monster. People of my generation (late 20s) grew up on Pixar in a way that we were young enough to be enchanted, but old enough to appreciate the new films and analytically follow their progression. It pains me to see a studio, who used to produce only amazing films, fall so far with only varying degrees of recent success. It seems that Pixar is now fine with producing the same old recycled crap, just with newer and better animation. Pour out a little Old E on the sidewalk. A giant has fallen.

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 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

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

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

Film Independent, the same organization that produces the Independent Spirit Awards, announced the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival jury and audience award winners. Walking away with top prize for Best Narrative Feature in competition is Pocas Pascoal’s All is Well. The winner of Best Documentary Feature went to Everardo González’s Drought. Beasts of the Southern Wild can add another award win to it’s impressive arsenal of wins with the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature win it picked up here.

The entire list of 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival Winners:

All is Well, (director Pocas Pascoal)

Drought, (director Everardo González)

Wendell Pierce, Emory Cohen, E.J. Bonilla and Aja Naomi King, Four

Beasts of the Southern Wild, (director Benh Zeitlin)

Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives, (directors Sara Lamm and Mary Wigmore)

Searching for Sugar Man, (director Malik Bendjelloul)

The Chair, (director Grainger David)

Kudzu Vine, (director Josh Gibson)

The Pub, (director Joseph Pierce)

Asad, (director Bryan Buckley)

Piranhas Club, (director Lex Halaby)