DVD OF THE WEEK: Whip It

Whip It
Directed by Drew Barrymore
2009, 111 minutes, USA

It should be prefaced that this week has oodles of recommendable discs—including The House of the Devil (podcast), A Serious Man (interview), Bronson (review), and Eleven Minutes (podcast)—so here's a plea to those who might've sadly ignored Drew Barrymore's directorial debut last week simply because, well, it's Drew Barrymore's directorial debut. The former Charlie's Angel hasn't exactly developed a distinct style and vision to canonize her as a great American auteur or anything, but in her capable hands, a potentially hoary coming-of-ager about a small-town Texas high schooler who finds empowerment through an all-girl roller derby league proves to be an infectious, emotionally credible dramedy with a decidedly postfeminist ideology. More movies deserve to focus on the kinds of progressively written female characters Whip It offers in teams, but almost as important, it's a kick-ass entertainment, too.

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CONTEST: Win 2 Tickets for TERRIBLY HAPPY in NYC

This Friday, Oscilloscope Laboratories will release Danish filmmaker Henrik Ruben Genz's Terribly Happy in New York, with more dates to follow in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Denver and more. From the official synopsis:

Robert Hanson (Jakob Cedergren) is a Copenhagen police officer who, following a nervous breakdown, is transferred to a small provincial town to take on the mysteriously vacated Marshall position and subsequently gets mixed up with a married femme fatale. Robert’s big city temperament makes it impossible for him to fit in, or understand the uncivilized, bizarre behavior displayed by the townspeople. Quickly spiraling downward into an intense fable reminiscent of the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple and No Country for Old Men, Terribly Happy displays a unique, often macabre vision of the darkest depths to which people will go to achieve a sense of security and belonging.

GreenCine Daily has 5 pairs of tickets to give away to see Terribly Happy at the Angelika Film Center in New York City. To enter to win, you must live in the NYC area (okay, New Jersey and Connecticut, you can play, too). Below the jump are screenshots from three Oscilloscope titles in which nobody looks too terribly happy. The first 5 people to identify all three films will win a pair of tickets. Good luck!

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Posey's Waltz: Thoughts on the Sundance Tradition

by Eric Kohn

It was a late hour on Thursday night when Parker Posey began tearing up the dance floor in Sundance's filmmaker lounge. Nobody can deny the obvious metaphorical connotations of the festival's prototypical indie starlet showing off her legwork for a crowd mainly comprised of newbie auteurs. It felt like a gesture of optimism: Celebrate, fellow devotees of the moving image cult, for this is your moment.

Or something like that. The paradox of the Sundance Film Festival is that its galvanizing spirit can seem at once inspiring and obnoxiously cheesy, an issue reflected in the typically hit-or-miss program. My mind has been spinning over the last week and a half as dozens of movies whiz through my consciousness, but only certain ones stick out as distinctly, unabashedly part of the Sundance routine. Marching to the beat of the Posey metaphor, these cinematic offerings clearly define the standards associated with the festival: Two art house tendencies, one a little older than the other, both occasionally grating but nonetheless admirable.

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SUNDANCE '10 PODCAST: Chris Morris ("Four Lions")

From radio to television and now feature films, Chris Morris has amassed an impressive body of work in the UK as a trenchant writer, director, actor and prankster. Perhaps best known for his current-affairs TV satires Brass Eye and The Day Today (the latter co-created with In the Loop director Armando Iannucci and featuring Steve Coogan's befuddled host Alan Partridge), Morris was more recently seen as managerial madman Denholm Reynholm in The IT Crowd. Premiering at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, his directorial feature debut Four Lions has been brewing some oh-no-you-didn't controversy:

Could there be a more hot-button topic than terrorism these days? Although it is historically the subject of serious documentaries and intense dramatic films, renowned British comedian Chris Morris finds the humor (and ultimately the humanity) in this extremist world. Four Lions tells the story of a group of British jihadists who push their abstract dreams of glory to the breaking point. As the wheels fly off, and their competing ideologies clash, what emerges is an emotionally engaging (and entirely plausible) farce. In a storm of razor-sharp verbal jousting and large-scale set pieces, Four Lions is a comic tour de force; it shows that—while terrorism is about ideology—it can also be about idiots.

Morris agreed to do only one other interview at Sundance besides GreenCine Daily, so I wanted to make sure politics didn't smother our conversation since—unlike Sacha Baron Cohen, who was able to shield himself from questions about Borat's anti-Semetic humor since he's Jewish—Morris risks people belaboring his intentions over what's clearly a lampoon. We discussed his brilliant new film, the real-life absurdities he discovered in his research, his 2007 lashing-out at novelist Martin Amis on the topic of Muslims, and the most trouble he's ever gotten into for a joke.

To listen to the podcast, click here. (16:02)

Podcast Music
INTRO: tUnE-yArDs: "Lions"
OUTRO: Braintax: "The Grip Again (A Day in the Life of a Suicide Bomber)"

[Four Lions screens again at Sundance on January 28 and 29. For more info, please visit the festival website.]

DVDs OF THE WEEK: Whisper & Shout / Red Cartoons

whisper & SHOUT (flüstern & SCHREIEN)
Dir. Dieter Schumann
1988, 115 minutes, in German with English subtitles
First Run Features

Red Cartoons: Animated Films From East Germany
1974 – 1990, 57 minutes, in German (no subtitles)
First Run Features

As the exclusive North American distributor of the DEFA film archives (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft, the state-run studio of former East Germany, which disbanded after reunification), First Run Features has smartly doled out a pair of discs this past week showcasing unlike artistic mediums with plenty of thematic overlap in the GDR era: rock music and animation.

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SUNDANCE '10 PODCAST: Dax Shepard & Katie Aselton ("The Freebie")

The 2010 Sundance Film Festival opens today, and indieWIRE correspondent Eric Kohn and LA Weekly's Karina Longworth have already both weighed in rather astutely on the festival's NEXT section, a showcase for low-budget indies. In that particular mix is the intimate relationship dramedy The Freebie, the directorial debut of The Puffy Chair star Katie Aselton—who can also be seen at the fest in Cyrus, co-directed by her husband Mark Duplass. Dax Shepard (Idiocracy, Employee of the Month) co-stars:

Darren (Shepard) and Annie (Aselton) have an enviable relationship built on love, trust, and communication. After seven years of marriage, they wouldn’t change their relationship one bit. They still enjoy each other’s company and laugh at each other’s jokes, but, unfortunately, they can’t remember the last time they had sex. When a dinner party conversation leads to an honest discussion about the state of their love life, and a bikini photo shoot leads to crossword puzzles instead of sex, they begin to flirt with a way to spice things up. The deal: one night of no-strings-attached sex with a stranger for each of them. Can one night of freedom be just what they need?

A few days before The Freebie's world premiere, I spoke with Aselton and Shepard about their collaboration, being too candid among friends, whether Aselton is concerned with the film's passing resemblance to Humpday, and if Shepard recognizes how miserably prescient Idiocracy seems with each passing year.

To listen to the podcast, click here. (18:10)

Podcast Music
INTRO: Antonio Carlos Jobim: "Dax Rides"
OUTRO: The Anomalies: "Employee of the Month"

[The Freebie screens at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30. For more info, visit the festival website.]

Ciné Institute: Documenting Haiti

Late last night, I received an impassioned email from Michelange Quay, a Paris based Haitian-American filmmaker with whom I've been friendly since his feature debut Eat, for This is My Body screened at New Directors/New Films in 2008:

Aaron, could I implore you to read about and mention my young film students in Haiti, from Ciné Institute, the country's only film school, and their efforts to document the tragedy and recovery since the earthquake? I'm trying to raise awareness in our media profession for them, our younger brothers down there, showing us that in the face of CNN etc's version, there is a human, patient, hopeful, sober reality to survival and solidarity in Haiti before and after this tragedy. Although they've lost family and friends, school, equipment, their films… their dreams... their first instinct was to pick up the one or two cameras left in the rubble and be of service with them. They prove that a camera can be a vital and noble thing. Please spread the word and get their story out. Sorry to disturb you with this.

Consider it done, Michelange. The clips—mostly shot from the southern coastal town of Jacmel—feature personal testimonies from the refugee camps and up-close-and-personal footage of the victims and damage rarely seen in other reports. To visit Ciné Institute's Vimeo channel directly, click here.

If you'd like to contribute to the Haiti relief efforts, the American Institute of Philanthropy has rated the nonprofit charities.

PODCAST: Chantal Akerman

"Comparable in force and originality to Godard or Fassbinder," began the Village Voice's J. Hoberman about the hypnotic hyperrealism of a certain Belgian auteur, "Chantal Akerman is arguably the most important European director of her generation." On January 19, Criterion will release an inarguably vital Eclipse box set entitled Chantal Akerman in the Seventies, which will include "The New York Films" (La Chambre, Hotel Monterey and News From Home), her feature debut Je tu il Elle, and my personal favorite of the set—Les rendez-vous d'Anna:

Over the past four decades, Belgian director Chantal Akerman (Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles) has created one of cinema’s most distinctive bodies of work—formally daring, often autobiographical films about people and places, time and space. In this collection, we present the early films that put her on the map: intensely personal, modernist investigations of cities, history, family, and sexuality, made in the 1970s in the United States and Europe and strongly influenced by the New York experimental film scene. Bold and iconoclastic, these five films pushed boundaries in their day and continue to have a profound influence on filmmakers all over the world.

During a brief visit to New York in December, Akerman gave me the pleasure and honor of a sit-down to discuss these early films. Typically, I forewarn my podcast interviewees that I edit our audio later to make us both sound clearer, removing the uh's, hiccups, burps and spaces. I reluctantly obliged Akerman, who was against the idea, of course: "The spaces are the best part!"

We chatted about the '70s avant-garde filmmakers who inspired her during her New York residency, the strangest job she had in the "phallic city," being Andrew Bujalski's thesis advisor at Harvard, and why she now takes back a title she once rejected.

To listen to the podcast, click here. (26:50)

Podcast Music
INTRO: Univers Zero, "Célesta (For Chantal)"
OUTRO: Jacques Brel, "Bruxelles"

DVD OF THE WEEK: Goliath

by Eric Kohn

Goliath
Directed by David Zellner
2008, 80 minutes, USA
MPI Home Video

David and Nathan Zellner's Goliath is a passionate ode to old ties and new beginnings, steeped in metaphor, strangely evocative, yet hilariously deranged. The Austin-based sibling filmmakers seemingly know the tropes of mainstream comedy and work against them. A plot synopsis tells you almost nothing: Though essentially the story of one man's ties to his cat, the movie operates on a singularly bizarre narrative plain based around the ramifications of becoming a social pariah. It moves along in fragments of scenes, sudden outbursts and extended pauses. A climactic sequence involves as much emotional finality as it does absurdity and mayhem. In the final minutes, it's like a Looney Tunes cartoon came to life, invaded suburbia and absorbed its discontents. In other words, Goliath is purely unique cinema.

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BEST OF 2009: Gay Films on DVD

by James Van Maanen

2009 was a decent year for finding good gay-themed films on DVD. While Milk might seem a shoo-in for the list, I would suggest instead renting the original documentary about Harvey Milk, which is superior to the Van Sant film in almost every way (except budget). My choices this year include one very fine lesbian movie; I wish there were more in this vein to recommend. Some of these are more subtle than others in the manner in which they address their gay themes, but each is worth seeing and thinking about. I’ve chosen my top 12, not on the basis of whether the main characters are gay, or whether the film in question is a "gay movie." Instead, I’ve tried to choose films in which gay characters and themes are used more richly and inventively. God knows there were a number of other movies not included here that gave center stage to gays (Were the World Mine, et al.), but that didn't necessarily make their quality of a higher order. In past years, I've included the first two films from the Eating Out franchise; the latest addition, however, while not bad, just didn’t quite make the cut. (Each subsequent film in this three-part series has grown slightly less acerbic and more cutesy.)

Here, in alphabetical order, are my dozen choices:

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New Year's Resolutions for 2010

My god, can we please put this recession-wrought year out of its (and our) misery? Not that 2009 didn't have its pleasures, especially when it came to film, as it was a fruitful year for the cinema. My own New Year's resolution for 2010—again, when it comes to film—is about the same as it was last year. I'm going to strive to be progressive, pragmatic and curatorial as a critic, innovative as a distributor, and motivated enough to write and direct a second feature. I thought it might be fun to ask fellow members of the film community to share their own pledges for 2010, and was excited that less than 24 hours' notice yielded responses from over 40 filmmakers, critics, distributors, publicists, and other noteworthy voices. Be safe tonight, friends... Nah, screw that. Get into some trouble, try something radical, and let's shake things up in the new year.

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