Let Them Chirp Awhile.

"[I]f the structure of Let Them Chirp Awhile prevents any accumulated emotion, scene to scene, it's pretty hilarious," writes Vadim Rizov in the Voice.

"Written and directed by Jonathan Blitstein, the movie really does live in an imaginary past, the one immortalized in classic Woody Allen films," writes Nathan Lee in the New York Times. "How else to explain why Bobby and his circle of friends name-drop Chekhov, pontificate on Bergman, crack tired jokes about Los Angeles and spend all their time either failing at relationships or kvetching about their inadequacies while whimsical jazz coos on the soundtrack? This sort of thing was indulgent enough the first time around; transplanted to the mumblecore milieu, it's intolerable."

"Fresh out of NYU film school, Blitstein films what he knows," writes Ronnie Scheib in Variety: "His tale of a young filmmaker's writer's block gleefully incorporates all manner of antic styles, from Mack Sennett-style double-takes to Felliniesque black-and-white pantomime. That Blitstein pulls off this tiredly self-reflexive conceit with relative panache is due in no small part to the scruffy grace of leads Justin Rice (Mutual Appreciation) and indie fixture Brendon Sexton III."

At the Cinema Village in New York.

Posted by dwhudson at December 5, 2008 7:45 AM