Built to Spill live...and some more Films!!
Last week (last Monday-- I know I know, I'm a bit late with my postings), I got to see Built to Spill live, at the Asylum (which is a small club in Portland). Last time I saw them, they played the State Theatre, so I was a bit surprised that they came back and played a smaller venue, but it was rather fitting for their sound. I loved that they ended the show with an amazing, jammed-out version of Velvet Waltz, and in between they played many of their songs I'd been dying to hear, including a cover of the Smiths' "How Soon is Now?"
"If I Stay"
starring: Chloe Grace Moretz, Mireille Enos, Jamie Blackley, Joshua Leonard, Liana Liberato, Stacy Keach, Gabrielle Rose, Jakob Davies, Ali Milner
directed by: R.J. Cutler
written by: Shauna Cross (novel by: Gayle Forman)
Chloe Grace Moretz is only 18 years old and has already built a resume worthy of any other twentysomething actress. Case in point:
The Amityville Horror remake (when she was 8 years old)
Dirty Sexy Money (a short-lived TV show a few years back)
(500) Days of Summer
Kick-Ass and its sequel
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Let Me In (the remake, American version of a vampire story)
Hick
Hugo
Dark Shadows (remake with Johnny Depp)
a brief role on 30 Rock
Carrie (remake) when she was only 16 years old
Muppets Most Wanted
The Equalizer (with Denzel Washington)
and this Young Adult film based on a novel...If I Stay
Should I be so bold as to make a comparison to Dakota Fanning, here. I see her career trajectory as bright and shining, but I think she needs to breakout a bit more.
With "If I Stay" she ventures into the safety zone of romantic, dreamy space of the Young Adult novel-turned film (in the same likes of "Twilight" and "The Hunger Games") except this one did not do as well as its counterparts, perhaps because its story is less relatable. The story keeps with the general feeling of most teenagers in that the main characters usually feel as though everyday trials and tribulations take a grandeur of world-ending tragedy (oh, if only our older selves could slap our younger selves and tell them to snap out of it). But, novelist Gayle Forman takes that familiar story plot and character feeling one step further, by putting her main character Mia (Moretz) in a coma after a tragic car accident that eventually leaves her the only survivor (her younger brother, mom and dad all die from sustained injuries). The difference here, in this story, is that Mia has some romantic woes and a questioned future as a cello prodigy who could potentially attend Julliard. The future of her relationship with the boy she claims to love but has seemingly lost to the rode (he's a musician as well) seems to keep her in limbo, questioning whether he is enough of a reason for her to stay in this world. Admittedly, I am a sucker for these stories, and this film was no exception. Chloe Grace Moretz is certainly proving her worth, but at the same time it is hard to look at her and not have to constantly remind yourself that she's only 18 years old.
The story is told mostly through flashbacks accompanied by an indie rock soundtrack, thanks in large part to Mia's parents and her boyfriend, because if given a choice Mia would only listen to classical music. There's a lot of voiceover from Mia, explaining things to the audience- and I have never been much of a fan of voiceover in films, because I find it distracting from the story, and quite honestly would just prefer to be shown instead of told. Mia also has quite a few "out-of body" experiences as she lies comatose in the hospital bed, visited by her grandparents and her best friend, and then eventually her boyfriend who pleads with her to stay. There are some great moments shared between Mia and her parents (played by Leonard and Enos) in her flashbacks that help the film regain its otherwise hallow heartache of should she stay or should she go? Mia is the kind of girl/character who seems only connected to herself, a seeming outsider even to her own family, so the fact that she's lost her entire family shouldn't be a determining factor in her decision, which means it comes down solely to whether or not the boy she loves (and first and only, really) is worth it.
...............................................................................
"Stories We Tell"
starring: Sarah Polley
written and directed by: Sarah Polley
"Stories We Tell" was shown at SPACE Gallery here in Portland, I think last year or the year before, and I missed it. I wish it hadn't taken me this long to see the film because Sarah Polley yet again proves how great she is behind the camera. I first saw her in the excellent film "The Sweet Hereafter" and could tell she was something special. Then, I saw her in "Go," about a group of partiers and ravers in the late 1990s, when that was the adopted scene of the moment. I loved her in the remake of "Dawn of the Dead," as well.
As a director, she has shined behind the camera for three films: "Away From Her," "Take This Waltz" (starring Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen in one of my favorite films of this decade), and then there's this documentary "Stories We Tell" about her own family (using them as the subjects of her interviews and storytelling) as an attempt to excavate the layers of myth and memories to her background to find/discover the elusive and hushed truth the lies at the core of her family's history.
Well done, Sarah Polley. Now, please make another film!
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"Thanks for Sharing"
starring: Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Josh Gad, Joely Richardson, Patrick Fugit, Pink, Carol Kane, Emily Meade, Isiah Whitlock Jr. Michaela Watkins, Poorna Jagannathan
written and directed by: Stuart Blumberg
Stuary Blumberg wrote "The Kids are All Right" and in his directorial debut he reunites with Mark Ruffalo in a romantic comedy that centers around 3 male characters who happen to be "recovering" sex addicts- and the women in their lives affected by this affliction. The title "Thanks for Sharing" I think comes from the whole idea of sharing your stories at Sex Addicts Anonymous, but it also can be seen as a nicety that we say to our significant others when we ask/demand the whole truth about them and their pasts, even when they reveal things we were perhaps better off not knowing.
Adam (Ruffalo) is five years sober, but unsteady in his first post-treatment relationship with a cancer survivor (Paltrow); his sponsor, Mike (Robbins), is still married to his high school sweetheart, but has a troubled relationship with his son (Fugit); and Neil (Gad), a socially stunted doctor newly in treatment (under court order) for “nonconsensual touching,” finds a friend in an earthy fellow sex addict (Moore, better known by her pop-star moniker, Pink).
The screenwriter and director try to hard, at first, to keep in the tradition of romantic comedies by having a few funny/awkward/uncomfortable moments that define the genre, but clearly the wrong actors and actresses are involved if that's what they wanted (aside from Josh Gad, being the only comedian actor in the mix). The first part of the film splits between moments of cuddliness and clownishness. Then, it just seems to lose its focus even more when it goes off in several directions (and the 3 different narratives taking place and never really connecting other than at the Anonymous meetings), just derails the film even further.
Then, in the third act, the story takes a cliff-dive, no holds-barred approach to saving itself when it explores the darker terrain of relapse. This is like a Hail Mary pass at the end of a football game, but it's too much, too dark, too late, to save this film, although it's a bold move, but in order to work, "Thanks for Sharing" would have had to have been an entire film about the disease these men share in common. And then, there's the trouble of showing these men as actual human beings and not prototypes or facsimiles of people, in order to evoke sympathy from the viewer.
I wanted to like this one, because I enjoy Mark Ruffalo as an actor, but this one missed the mark.
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"Last Hours in Suburbia"
starring: Kelcie Stranahan, Maiara Walsh, Grant Harvey, Liz Vassey, Tom Kemp, Nina Van Brunt
directed by: John Stimpson
Here's a Lifetime movie, which I didn't know at the time I chose to watch it when it appeared on Netflix streaming, but as I watched it and how the film depicts the guys in the story as the "bad guys" before the big reveal at the end, I should have known better.
Kelcie Stranahan kind of proves she's got a decent career ahead of her as a teenager in distress with her role as Grace Flynn. Grace is facing her last hours of freedom before going to jail for something she has no recollection of being a part of. She has no memory of the car accident that left her best friend, Jenny (Maiara Walsh, a decent actress, despite the material here), dead. But, on her last day of freedom, Grace is determined to figure out what happened by jogging her memory of any and all details she can muster in an attempt to put the puzzle pieces together (and perhaps halt her jail sentence- but things don't look very promising). She wants to prove her innocence, like any strong-willed bullheaded teenager or twentysomething who thinks the world owes them something, least of all an explanation for the trials and tribulations they ultimately put themselves in.
The interesting approach to this film and its story, though, is that Jenny comes along for the ride the whole time/way, despite Grace's desire to figure things out on her own and not be haunted by the ghost of her (former) best friend. But, the thing is, Jenny knows the truth and she's really pushing for Grace to realize she knows the truth and now she just needs to accept what she did. The whole time, the viewer is led to believe that Grace will absolutely prove her innocence and prove that a boy was ultimately responsible for Jenny's death- added into the mix is a near-rape at a party, just to show that the boy in question is a terrible person.
What drives the story along is the mystery of what exactly the two girls talked about in Jenny's final moments in the car. Jenny's mother wants to know from Grace what her last sentence was, but Grace cannot even remember that (or perhaps has blocked it out, along with the truth). In the final moments of the film, we finally discover the truth just as Grace does and ride is over, without much pay off, because Grace is not a sympathetic character. We feel for Jenny though, but she's not the central character- like in "The Lovely Bones."
......................................................................................................
"Bad Night"
starring: Lauren Elizabeth Luthringshausen, Jenn McAllister, Judy Marte, Julianna Guill, Owen Smith, Gareth Reynolds, Molly Ringwald, Matt Walsh, June Diane Raphael
directed by: Nick and Chris Riedell
This wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, honestly.
Here is a low budget American film about two teenage/high school girls, named Kate (Lauren Elizabeth Luthringshausen) and Abby (Jenn McAllister), supposedly going on an art class field trip to a museum on one Saturday morning with some "breakfast club" type characters. These two girls are allegedly heading off to college soon, except one of the girls discovers from her parents that they cannot afford to send her to her first choice college because her father made some terrible investments and lost all the college fun money. Anyway, in the same vein as many screwball adventure stories, things go from bad to worse when their bus stops at a restaurant and everyone eats at the iffy buffet except for the two girls. Everyone gets sick (except the two girls, of course) and they have to spend the night at a seedy motel. This is where Kate and Abby get caught up in a case of mistaken identity, when a driver mistakenly picks up the girls because he thinks they are art thieves, Viceroy (Julianna Guill) and Monarch (Judy Marte), who happen to be staying at the same motel. There's a gang leader and rollerskating rink owner named Ari (Matt Walsh, perhaps slumming it a bit in this role), who is bankrolling the art heist. Things go as one would expect in any other kind of these films and the acting is subpar, but that's what you get when you employ YouTube "stars" instead of actual actresses, who have studied the craft.
This leads me into a bit of a tirade into what our society has been slowly (or rapidly?) turning into and what we seem to value. It seems like more and more people are coming out of the woods into the limelight due to our obsession with "reality" shows and the idea that you can record your own videos/shows are broadcast them over the internet, in the hopes of anyone and/or someone "important" "discovering" you. Perhaps I'm slightly bitter because nothing like this has happened to me and I crave the spotlight/attention, which hasn't come to me like I think it should, but I also haven't put myself out there like these two YouTube sensations (re: Jenn and Lauren).
Anyway, as long as we accept this kind of attention and give accolades to people who, in my humble opinion, do not necessarily deserve it, there will always be a place for media like films and music and TV shows that churn out shit like this, because there's enough people consuming it. Although, I do understand that by allowing everyone and anyone access to "reality" opportunities, we do find some amazing and talented people who otherwise wouldn't be given the chance to showcase their abilities (re: Kelly Clarkson, the first and original winner of American Idol, or Carrie Underwood, who also won the crown, just as a few examples).
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(The Smiths cover)
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(The Halo Benders cover)
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- Encore:
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"If I Stay"
starring: Chloe Grace Moretz, Mireille Enos, Jamie Blackley, Joshua Leonard, Liana Liberato, Stacy Keach, Gabrielle Rose, Jakob Davies, Ali Milner
directed by: R.J. Cutler
written by: Shauna Cross (novel by: Gayle Forman)
Chloe Grace Moretz is only 18 years old and has already built a resume worthy of any other twentysomething actress. Case in point:
The Amityville Horror remake (when she was 8 years old)
Dirty Sexy Money (a short-lived TV show a few years back)
(500) Days of Summer
Kick-Ass and its sequel
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Let Me In (the remake, American version of a vampire story)
Hick
Hugo
Dark Shadows (remake with Johnny Depp)
a brief role on 30 Rock
Carrie (remake) when she was only 16 years old
Muppets Most Wanted
The Equalizer (with Denzel Washington)
and this Young Adult film based on a novel...If I Stay
Should I be so bold as to make a comparison to Dakota Fanning, here. I see her career trajectory as bright and shining, but I think she needs to breakout a bit more.
With "If I Stay" she ventures into the safety zone of romantic, dreamy space of the Young Adult novel-turned film (in the same likes of "Twilight" and "The Hunger Games") except this one did not do as well as its counterparts, perhaps because its story is less relatable. The story keeps with the general feeling of most teenagers in that the main characters usually feel as though everyday trials and tribulations take a grandeur of world-ending tragedy (oh, if only our older selves could slap our younger selves and tell them to snap out of it). But, novelist Gayle Forman takes that familiar story plot and character feeling one step further, by putting her main character Mia (Moretz) in a coma after a tragic car accident that eventually leaves her the only survivor (her younger brother, mom and dad all die from sustained injuries). The difference here, in this story, is that Mia has some romantic woes and a questioned future as a cello prodigy who could potentially attend Julliard. The future of her relationship with the boy she claims to love but has seemingly lost to the rode (he's a musician as well) seems to keep her in limbo, questioning whether he is enough of a reason for her to stay in this world. Admittedly, I am a sucker for these stories, and this film was no exception. Chloe Grace Moretz is certainly proving her worth, but at the same time it is hard to look at her and not have to constantly remind yourself that she's only 18 years old.
The story is told mostly through flashbacks accompanied by an indie rock soundtrack, thanks in large part to Mia's parents and her boyfriend, because if given a choice Mia would only listen to classical music. There's a lot of voiceover from Mia, explaining things to the audience- and I have never been much of a fan of voiceover in films, because I find it distracting from the story, and quite honestly would just prefer to be shown instead of told. Mia also has quite a few "out-of body" experiences as she lies comatose in the hospital bed, visited by her grandparents and her best friend, and then eventually her boyfriend who pleads with her to stay. There are some great moments shared between Mia and her parents (played by Leonard and Enos) in her flashbacks that help the film regain its otherwise hallow heartache of should she stay or should she go? Mia is the kind of girl/character who seems only connected to herself, a seeming outsider even to her own family, so the fact that she's lost her entire family shouldn't be a determining factor in her decision, which means it comes down solely to whether or not the boy she loves (and first and only, really) is worth it.
...............................................................................
"Stories We Tell"
starring: Sarah Polley
written and directed by: Sarah Polley
"Stories We Tell" was shown at SPACE Gallery here in Portland, I think last year or the year before, and I missed it. I wish it hadn't taken me this long to see the film because Sarah Polley yet again proves how great she is behind the camera. I first saw her in the excellent film "The Sweet Hereafter" and could tell she was something special. Then, I saw her in "Go," about a group of partiers and ravers in the late 1990s, when that was the adopted scene of the moment. I loved her in the remake of "Dawn of the Dead," as well.
As a director, she has shined behind the camera for three films: "Away From Her," "Take This Waltz" (starring Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen in one of my favorite films of this decade), and then there's this documentary "Stories We Tell" about her own family (using them as the subjects of her interviews and storytelling) as an attempt to excavate the layers of myth and memories to her background to find/discover the elusive and hushed truth the lies at the core of her family's history.
The further into the past things recede, the knottier their truth becomes. Time passes and the matters in question solidify into stories repeated to others, the truth further refracted by the varied perceptions of both the witnesses and the hearers of the tales. And, too, there exists some distance between the truth of an event and the individual experience of that event. Truth is slippery and multifaceted – and a devil of a thing to pin down in a documentary.
Acknowledging all this, Sarah Polley plunges ahead with Stories We Tell – a very personal yet inventive inquiry into the true identity of her biological father, as well as the many aspects of truth. Using interviews (or interrogations, as some subjects call them), old home movies, newly shot footage made to look like scratchy, old Super-8 film, and material that records her father reading from a memoir he wrote, Polley constructs one of the most lyrical documentaries to come along in a while. The story she tells is ultimately her assemblage of the truth, but one that looks beyond herself to understand the multiplicity of perceptions that shape her understanding.
Polley is the daughter of two actors, Michael and Diane Polley, who met in the theatre. Different in disposition (Michael suspects Diane fell in love with the character he was playing at the time they met instead of the actual person he was), theirs was a loving but unbalanced marriage. Diane died of cancer when her youngest child, Sarah, was 11 years old. Aside from the trauma of losing one’s mother at such a young age, Sarah grew up perplexed but largely unconcerned about the ribbing she received from her siblings, who teased that she was not Michael’s biological daughter. Lots of circumstantial evidence points in that direction, and Sarah ultimately embarks on a journey to discover the truth, while recording it on film. Needless to say, the experience takes her in unexpected directions. The film also becomes a lovely portrait of Diane, a woman who left mysteries in her wake.
The only problem I had with the way Polley crafted this story is that she revealed the discovery/truth far too early and then the rest of the film seems unnecessary. But, given that Polley is an excellent indie filmmaker/actress, with this story essentially about herself it never seems too self-indulgent. She knows how to tell a tale and make it one you'll want to listen to.Well done, Sarah Polley. Now, please make another film!
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"Thanks for Sharing"
starring: Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Josh Gad, Joely Richardson, Patrick Fugit, Pink, Carol Kane, Emily Meade, Isiah Whitlock Jr. Michaela Watkins, Poorna Jagannathan
written and directed by: Stuart Blumberg
Stuary Blumberg wrote "The Kids are All Right" and in his directorial debut he reunites with Mark Ruffalo in a romantic comedy that centers around 3 male characters who happen to be "recovering" sex addicts- and the women in their lives affected by this affliction. The title "Thanks for Sharing" I think comes from the whole idea of sharing your stories at Sex Addicts Anonymous, but it also can be seen as a nicety that we say to our significant others when we ask/demand the whole truth about them and their pasts, even when they reveal things we were perhaps better off not knowing.
Adam (Ruffalo) is five years sober, but unsteady in his first post-treatment relationship with a cancer survivor (Paltrow); his sponsor, Mike (Robbins), is still married to his high school sweetheart, but has a troubled relationship with his son (Fugit); and Neil (Gad), a socially stunted doctor newly in treatment (under court order) for “nonconsensual touching,” finds a friend in an earthy fellow sex addict (Moore, better known by her pop-star moniker, Pink).
The screenwriter and director try to hard, at first, to keep in the tradition of romantic comedies by having a few funny/awkward/uncomfortable moments that define the genre, but clearly the wrong actors and actresses are involved if that's what they wanted (aside from Josh Gad, being the only comedian actor in the mix). The first part of the film splits between moments of cuddliness and clownishness. Then, it just seems to lose its focus even more when it goes off in several directions (and the 3 different narratives taking place and never really connecting other than at the Anonymous meetings), just derails the film even further.
Then, in the third act, the story takes a cliff-dive, no holds-barred approach to saving itself when it explores the darker terrain of relapse. This is like a Hail Mary pass at the end of a football game, but it's too much, too dark, too late, to save this film, although it's a bold move, but in order to work, "Thanks for Sharing" would have had to have been an entire film about the disease these men share in common. And then, there's the trouble of showing these men as actual human beings and not prototypes or facsimiles of people, in order to evoke sympathy from the viewer.
I wanted to like this one, because I enjoy Mark Ruffalo as an actor, but this one missed the mark.
..........................................................................................
"Last Hours in Suburbia"
starring: Kelcie Stranahan, Maiara Walsh, Grant Harvey, Liz Vassey, Tom Kemp, Nina Van Brunt
directed by: John Stimpson
Here's a Lifetime movie, which I didn't know at the time I chose to watch it when it appeared on Netflix streaming, but as I watched it and how the film depicts the guys in the story as the "bad guys" before the big reveal at the end, I should have known better.
Kelcie Stranahan kind of proves she's got a decent career ahead of her as a teenager in distress with her role as Grace Flynn. Grace is facing her last hours of freedom before going to jail for something she has no recollection of being a part of. She has no memory of the car accident that left her best friend, Jenny (Maiara Walsh, a decent actress, despite the material here), dead. But, on her last day of freedom, Grace is determined to figure out what happened by jogging her memory of any and all details she can muster in an attempt to put the puzzle pieces together (and perhaps halt her jail sentence- but things don't look very promising). She wants to prove her innocence, like any strong-willed bullheaded teenager or twentysomething who thinks the world owes them something, least of all an explanation for the trials and tribulations they ultimately put themselves in.
The interesting approach to this film and its story, though, is that Jenny comes along for the ride the whole time/way, despite Grace's desire to figure things out on her own and not be haunted by the ghost of her (former) best friend. But, the thing is, Jenny knows the truth and she's really pushing for Grace to realize she knows the truth and now she just needs to accept what she did. The whole time, the viewer is led to believe that Grace will absolutely prove her innocence and prove that a boy was ultimately responsible for Jenny's death- added into the mix is a near-rape at a party, just to show that the boy in question is a terrible person.
What drives the story along is the mystery of what exactly the two girls talked about in Jenny's final moments in the car. Jenny's mother wants to know from Grace what her last sentence was, but Grace cannot even remember that (or perhaps has blocked it out, along with the truth). In the final moments of the film, we finally discover the truth just as Grace does and ride is over, without much pay off, because Grace is not a sympathetic character. We feel for Jenny though, but she's not the central character- like in "The Lovely Bones."
......................................................................................................
"Bad Night"
starring: Lauren Elizabeth Luthringshausen, Jenn McAllister, Judy Marte, Julianna Guill, Owen Smith, Gareth Reynolds, Molly Ringwald, Matt Walsh, June Diane Raphael
directed by: Nick and Chris Riedell
This wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, honestly.
Here is a low budget American film about two teenage/high school girls, named Kate (Lauren Elizabeth Luthringshausen) and Abby (Jenn McAllister), supposedly going on an art class field trip to a museum on one Saturday morning with some "breakfast club" type characters. These two girls are allegedly heading off to college soon, except one of the girls discovers from her parents that they cannot afford to send her to her first choice college because her father made some terrible investments and lost all the college fun money. Anyway, in the same vein as many screwball adventure stories, things go from bad to worse when their bus stops at a restaurant and everyone eats at the iffy buffet except for the two girls. Everyone gets sick (except the two girls, of course) and they have to spend the night at a seedy motel. This is where Kate and Abby get caught up in a case of mistaken identity, when a driver mistakenly picks up the girls because he thinks they are art thieves, Viceroy (Julianna Guill) and Monarch (Judy Marte), who happen to be staying at the same motel. There's a gang leader and rollerskating rink owner named Ari (Matt Walsh, perhaps slumming it a bit in this role), who is bankrolling the art heist. Things go as one would expect in any other kind of these films and the acting is subpar, but that's what you get when you employ YouTube "stars" instead of actual actresses, who have studied the craft.
This leads me into a bit of a tirade into what our society has been slowly (or rapidly?) turning into and what we seem to value. It seems like more and more people are coming out of the woods into the limelight due to our obsession with "reality" shows and the idea that you can record your own videos/shows are broadcast them over the internet, in the hopes of anyone and/or someone "important" "discovering" you. Perhaps I'm slightly bitter because nothing like this has happened to me and I crave the spotlight/attention, which hasn't come to me like I think it should, but I also haven't put myself out there like these two YouTube sensations (re: Jenn and Lauren).
Anyway, as long as we accept this kind of attention and give accolades to people who, in my humble opinion, do not necessarily deserve it, there will always be a place for media like films and music and TV shows that churn out shit like this, because there's enough people consuming it. Although, I do understand that by allowing everyone and anyone access to "reality" opportunities, we do find some amazing and talented people who otherwise wouldn't be given the chance to showcase their abilities (re: Kelly Clarkson, the first and original winner of American Idol, or Carrie Underwood, who also won the crown, just as a few examples).
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