You Got Some More Indie Films to Watch
"Bluebird"
starring: Amy Morton, John Slattery, Louisa Krause, Emily Meade, Margo Martindale, Adam Driver
written and directed by: Lance Edmands
The depressing performances of each character in this film are what saves this film from just being a terribly morose story/film- even though it certainly tows that line, beautifully, thanks to Lance Edmands.
The audience is the only witness to what propels the story into chaos. The antagonist is a lone bluebird that visits the inside of a school bus and thus distracts the veteran bus driver, who is cleaning the bus and making sure nothing has been left behind. This simple, brief distraction leaves her unable to see that there is a boy sleeping in one of the seats on the bus. The problem being- it's the middle of winter, and the freezing temperatures make it quite likely that this lone bird has been separated from his flock, because he should have flown south months ago. The little boy is overlooked and sleeps through the night on the bus, only to be discovered in the morning by the same bus driver. He has suffered hypothermia and is rushed to the hospital where he is subsequently in a coma. The film's story then becomes an examination of who is supposed to be "responsible" for this poor little boy.
"Bluebird" is certainly an art-house film that would do great at festivals, but would not necessarily delight crowds in theatres. It is a weary film about working-class people in a small, working class town in Maine during the subzero temperature winter. It plays out with many characters and their lives/stories intersecting much like the films "Babel" or "21 Grams," but perhaps a bit more depressing because of the up-north, working class, small town folks involved. It's about how their lives crumble and fall apart, altogether, because of one person's simple oversight.
Played with tortured reservation by terrific stage actress Amy Morton, Lesley, the guilt-stricken bus driver, is but one of the blue-collar souls thrown into turmoil by the incident. Oddly, the boy’s mother, Marla (Louisa Krause, whom looked oddly familiar and then I remembered she was in a film called "King Kelly" about a girl wanted internet fame by having her own website), appears to be the least affected, having neglected to collect her son from the bus stop after school. The child’s grandmother (Margo Martindale), his principal caregiver, patiently attends his hospital bedside, while the driver’s lumberjack husband, Richard (John Slattery), and daughter Paula (Emily Meade, looking like Leighton Meester's doppelganger) cope with Lesley’s distress as best they can.
Edmands observes this small group of characters in Millinocket, Maine with a beginning and ending look into the Grand Northern Paper Company's mill. He is concerned with the decline of the local economy and what it means for these people, but he stays at an even arms-length away. When a lot of these types of films become concerned with the younger generation and how exactly they can escape the small town as it seems to be slowly dying while they are growing up, this film is not necessarily concerned with that. Although, Edmands does give the daughter, Paula, a chance to reveal her worry with an understated comment, "Do you ever worry that you're going to turn into your parents?" she asks her 'boyfriend' one night in his small, trailer-like home, before they sleep together for the first and only time. These poor kids often have a dead-end existence and are doomed to repeat their family's mistakes of never chasing dreams or experiences elsewhere in the world.
The specific tragedy recalls Atom Egoyan’s “The Sweet Hereafter,” but just insofar as “Bluebird” examines the repercussions of a bus-related accident on a tiny community. Stylistically, it has more in common with a multi-character film like “Magnolia” (albeit on a smaller scale) and might have benefited from a similar narrative energy. Instead, Edmands maintains too measured a pace as he cycles through the various lives affected, to the extent that one begins to wonder when things will start kick in. And then it’s over, with six lives immeasurably changed, left to face tomorrow however best they can manage.
.........................................................................
"The Dramatics: A Comedy"
starring: Kat Foster, Scott Rodgers, Pablo Schreiber, Riki Lindhome, Timm Sharp, Sean Astin, Rosemarie Dewitt, Amy Baklini
written by: Kat Foster and Scott Rodgers
directed by: Scott Rodgers
All right, Kat Foster and Scott Rodgers must be a couple in real life (because this seems too closely based on real experiences, and the fact that they have done a few projects together). With that being said, they wrote a decent, funny, heartfelt romantic comedy that explores an interesting topic not often put under the microscope in Hollywood, perhaps because everyone there knows what's going on and they choose to sweep it under the rug, for the benefit of all those involved.
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"The Blue Room"
starring: Mathieu Amalric, Lea Drucker, Stephanie Cleau
written by: Mathieu Amalric and Stephanie Cleau
directed by: Mathiey Amalric
It's a great pleasure as a movie-watcher to witness a character's face crumble as they come to the realization that they've been found out and that their life as they know it is over, the ruse is over. With this French film, Mathieu Amalric is the actor who's face crumbles before us. With "The Blue Room" Amalric has the trifecta of roles (starring, directing, and writing). He has adapted a Gallic crime novel from Georges Simenon into a fittingly tight, brief (85 minutes long, anything else not necessary) and extremely entertaining film. There's some labyrinthine plotting in the story of two lovers caught up in an affair, who's significant others end up dead and they are the prime (and only suspects). There's a dark underbelly to the small town they live in, with some Hitchcockian elements attributed to it. Of course, their affair goes terribly wrong and the majority of the film takes place after their affair and they are being questioned by the police (and then made to appear in court as their fate is determined).
Amalric plays Julien Gahyde, a successful businessman with a lovely wife (Drucker) and children. But the film begins with him entangled in the arms of his lover Esther (Cléau); there’s blood, too, and from thereon nothing is entirely what it seems to be, or even what Julien believes it to be. The character’s double life is matched by the double meaning of the film’s title, which I won’t spoil here, as his comings and goings and lies and diversions become increasingly frantic. The less you know about the patchwork storyline of Amalric’s assured, increasingly nightmarish film going in, the better. Sometimes being baffled is a good thing. This is one of the finest performances by one of cinema’s finest actors (and now director). The Blue Room is mesmerizing, psychologically complex, and, at the very end, viscerally devastating. They don’t make them like this much anymore, but they should.
starring: Amy Morton, John Slattery, Louisa Krause, Emily Meade, Margo Martindale, Adam Driver
written and directed by: Lance Edmands
The depressing performances of each character in this film are what saves this film from just being a terribly morose story/film- even though it certainly tows that line, beautifully, thanks to Lance Edmands.
The audience is the only witness to what propels the story into chaos. The antagonist is a lone bluebird that visits the inside of a school bus and thus distracts the veteran bus driver, who is cleaning the bus and making sure nothing has been left behind. This simple, brief distraction leaves her unable to see that there is a boy sleeping in one of the seats on the bus. The problem being- it's the middle of winter, and the freezing temperatures make it quite likely that this lone bird has been separated from his flock, because he should have flown south months ago. The little boy is overlooked and sleeps through the night on the bus, only to be discovered in the morning by the same bus driver. He has suffered hypothermia and is rushed to the hospital where he is subsequently in a coma. The film's story then becomes an examination of who is supposed to be "responsible" for this poor little boy.
"Bluebird" is certainly an art-house film that would do great at festivals, but would not necessarily delight crowds in theatres. It is a weary film about working-class people in a small, working class town in Maine during the subzero temperature winter. It plays out with many characters and their lives/stories intersecting much like the films "Babel" or "21 Grams," but perhaps a bit more depressing because of the up-north, working class, small town folks involved. It's about how their lives crumble and fall apart, altogether, because of one person's simple oversight.
Played with tortured reservation by terrific stage actress Amy Morton, Lesley, the guilt-stricken bus driver, is but one of the blue-collar souls thrown into turmoil by the incident. Oddly, the boy’s mother, Marla (Louisa Krause, whom looked oddly familiar and then I remembered she was in a film called "King Kelly" about a girl wanted internet fame by having her own website), appears to be the least affected, having neglected to collect her son from the bus stop after school. The child’s grandmother (Margo Martindale), his principal caregiver, patiently attends his hospital bedside, while the driver’s lumberjack husband, Richard (John Slattery), and daughter Paula (Emily Meade, looking like Leighton Meester's doppelganger) cope with Lesley’s distress as best they can.
Edmands observes this small group of characters in Millinocket, Maine with a beginning and ending look into the Grand Northern Paper Company's mill. He is concerned with the decline of the local economy and what it means for these people, but he stays at an even arms-length away. When a lot of these types of films become concerned with the younger generation and how exactly they can escape the small town as it seems to be slowly dying while they are growing up, this film is not necessarily concerned with that. Although, Edmands does give the daughter, Paula, a chance to reveal her worry with an understated comment, "Do you ever worry that you're going to turn into your parents?" she asks her 'boyfriend' one night in his small, trailer-like home, before they sleep together for the first and only time. These poor kids often have a dead-end existence and are doomed to repeat their family's mistakes of never chasing dreams or experiences elsewhere in the world.
The specific tragedy recalls Atom Egoyan’s “The Sweet Hereafter,” but just insofar as “Bluebird” examines the repercussions of a bus-related accident on a tiny community. Stylistically, it has more in common with a multi-character film like “Magnolia” (albeit on a smaller scale) and might have benefited from a similar narrative energy. Instead, Edmands maintains too measured a pace as he cycles through the various lives affected, to the extent that one begins to wonder when things will start kick in. And then it’s over, with six lives immeasurably changed, left to face tomorrow however best they can manage.
.........................................................................
"The Dramatics: A Comedy"
starring: Kat Foster, Scott Rodgers, Pablo Schreiber, Riki Lindhome, Timm Sharp, Sean Astin, Rosemarie Dewitt, Amy Baklini
written by: Kat Foster and Scott Rodgers
directed by: Scott Rodgers
All right, Kat Foster and Scott Rodgers must be a couple in real life (because this seems too closely based on real experiences, and the fact that they have done a few projects together). With that being said, they wrote a decent, funny, heartfelt romantic comedy that explores an interesting topic not often put under the microscope in Hollywood, perhaps because everyone there knows what's going on and they choose to sweep it under the rug, for the benefit of all those involved.
Foster stars as the out-of-work actress Katie. When she lands a role in a movie adaptation of a best-selling book, her boyfriend, Paul, a stoner, tries his best to be supportive. This is easier said than done one considers that the film is going to be sexually explicit and that Katie will have to shoot racy scenes with Oscar-winning playboy Bryan J. Macy (Pablo Schreiber). One can see how this becomes a nightmare for Paul. I'm not sure I am confident and secure enough to let this happen with my girlfriend.
Not only does Katie have to head overseas for six months to shoot the film, Paul has to do with her shooting scenes with Macy. He barely even gets out a “Congratulations.”
More than having trouble with her boyfriend in the congratulations department, Katie doesn’t feel that she’s hot enough to be in the role (what I've determined is a plague of concern among all women, no matter the level of hotness they have- all women are insecure about how they look, and ultimately just want to be told how sexy they are- a seemingly easy cure). Anxiously, she’ll turn to anyone for support. This includes Jacqueline (Rosemarie Dewitt), an acting coach that takes her job way too seriously; Alex Dixon (Sean Astin), an old love of hers that became a sitcom star; and Macy, too. Not being made easy on Paul, he teaches am improv class and starts to become friends with Abigail (the very funny and talented Riki Lindhome of Garfunkel and Oates fame). Abigail helps Paul with trying to relax, so to speak, by smoking pot with him and removing her bra underneath her sheet so effortlessly, and then hitting on him, unforgivingly.
Katie’s last day in town is when tensions between the two increase to the point where hearts get broken and lives are forever changed.
The end of the film seems to come rather abruptly, but you are happy for these two once things settle down and you can believe that they will change themselves for each other and the sake of their relationship. Besides, they have a dog together!..................................................................................
"The Blue Room"
starring: Mathieu Amalric, Lea Drucker, Stephanie Cleau
written by: Mathieu Amalric and Stephanie Cleau
directed by: Mathiey Amalric
It's a great pleasure as a movie-watcher to witness a character's face crumble as they come to the realization that they've been found out and that their life as they know it is over, the ruse is over. With this French film, Mathieu Amalric is the actor who's face crumbles before us. With "The Blue Room" Amalric has the trifecta of roles (starring, directing, and writing). He has adapted a Gallic crime novel from Georges Simenon into a fittingly tight, brief (85 minutes long, anything else not necessary) and extremely entertaining film. There's some labyrinthine plotting in the story of two lovers caught up in an affair, who's significant others end up dead and they are the prime (and only suspects). There's a dark underbelly to the small town they live in, with some Hitchcockian elements attributed to it. Of course, their affair goes terribly wrong and the majority of the film takes place after their affair and they are being questioned by the police (and then made to appear in court as their fate is determined).
Amalric plays Julien Gahyde, a successful businessman with a lovely wife (Drucker) and children. But the film begins with him entangled in the arms of his lover Esther (Cléau); there’s blood, too, and from thereon nothing is entirely what it seems to be, or even what Julien believes it to be. The character’s double life is matched by the double meaning of the film’s title, which I won’t spoil here, as his comings and goings and lies and diversions become increasingly frantic. The less you know about the patchwork storyline of Amalric’s assured, increasingly nightmarish film going in, the better. Sometimes being baffled is a good thing. This is one of the finest performances by one of cinema’s finest actors (and now director). The Blue Room is mesmerizing, psychologically complex, and, at the very end, viscerally devastating. They don’t make them like this much anymore, but they should.
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