LOL Tagged Articles at Cinematical

While most of you are probably familiar with the work of Joe Swanberg (Hannah Takes the Stairs, LOL, Nights and Weekends) by way of film festivals and the term "Mumblecore," you may not know that he also has a very successful online series called Young American Bodies that just entered its third season. Presented by IFC.com and Nerve Video, Young American Bodies is "a candid, no-holds-barred look at the intersecting love lives of six 20-somethings in Chicago ..." Each episode is less than 10 minutes long, and you can watch all 20 episodes in total from seasons 1 and 2, as well as six of the twelve episodes in season 3 (one is revealed each weekday).

One thing I love about Swanberg's film making is his ability to capture the tiny moments between two people; not only as a director, but as an actor too. He's great at dissecting relationships right before your eyes, without any of the Hollywood fluff or unrealistic dialogue. Everything in a Joe Swanberg film will feel natural, and you, as an audience member, may feel a little uncomfortable watching -- because even though it's fiction, Swanberg has a way of making everything feel very real.

So if you have some time this weekend and you're looking for something to watch, head on over to the Young American Bodies website and settle in to some of these episodes. Then let us know what you think. (Keep in mind, these are R-rated.)

Only connect. -- E.M Forster

The phone's off the hook, but you're not. -- X

In Joe Swanberg's LOL, three men -- Alex, an aspiring musician (Kevin Brewersdorf), Chris, a student trying to sustain a long-distance relationship (C. Mason Wells) and Tim, a slightly smug young man in a seemingly-stable relationship (director Swanberg) -- can't quite connect with other people. They've got the tools -- cellphones, e-mail, video -- but they don't seem to have the temperament. Or maybe the tools are the problem -- they've got so many open channels in their life that all they can hear is the hum of the wires, so many sources of distraction they're waiting for what's next instead of looking at what's now.

Articles have been written -- and will, somewhat regrettably, continue to be written -- about how Swanberg, along with similar writer-directors like Andrew Bujalski , Aaron Katz and Jay Duplass, constitute a new movement called 'mumblecore.' This nomenclature suggests an enthusiasm for categorization more hearty than well-thought-out; if Swanberg, Bujalski, Katz and Duplass are a movement, then you and your close friends are a political party. These film makers have affinities, similarities, personal friendships and professional connections; at the same time, if you asked the 'mumblecore' film makers to articulate a Dogme 95-style manifesto, you'd probably be waiting a while for your answer.

With that aside -- and looking at LOL in and of itself -- the good news is that the new DVD release is a strong and well-crafted disc of a strong and well-crafted film. LOL is fragmentary -- overheard phone conversations, snippets of video, voice mail messages, instant message sessions between two people in the same room -- and you get that Swanberg's suggesting the same about modern life. The technique in LOL is mildly distancing at the start; as the film progresses, you understand that Swanberg's making a mosaic out of brittle pieces, and you see the big picture as you step back. It's not an a-to-b-to-c narrative; neither is life.

A glance at DVD Journal's release calendar reveals a jam-packed week. My personal pick is Jafar Panahi's superb Offside, which manages to pack drama, humor, tension, sports, feminism and social commentary into an Iranian girl's burning desire to watch an important soccer match in person. It's entertaining too! Cinematical's Erik Davis was positive in his review and so was Jeffrey M. Anderson.

If your cinematic diet includes thrillers, check out Antibodies (from Germany) or Red Road (from the UK). Antibodies borrows an idea from Silence of the Lambs by featuring a serial killer who will only talk to a local bumpkin cop. The cop has become obsessed with catching the killer of a local girl, to the point that his family is falling apart and he's suffering from nightmares. As a whole, the film doesn't completely work, the narrative crumbling as it dives deeper into madness, but director Christian Alvart has a terrific visual sense. Andrea Arnold's Red Road is a quieter work that relies more on the slow building of tension. Jeffrey M. Anderson's positive review has all the plot details you'll need.

In the indie comedy/drama aisle, we have Year of the Dog, written and directed by Mike White, which received nods of approval from both Scott Weinberg and Kim Voynar; when those two agree, it's an automatic "must rent." Molly Shannon stars as a lonely women dealing with the loss of her beloved canine companion. Joe Swanberg's second feature, LOL, gets the deluxe treatment from new distributor Benten Films. Karina Longworth quite liked it when she saw it at SXSW last year -- and Mr. James Rocchi offers a brand-new review right here.

Though I haven't seen either The Beautiful Washing Machine (from Malaysia) or The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros (from the Philippines), both received good reviews. For example, David Ng of the Village Voice said Washing Machine "demands at least two viewings" and Dennis Lim wrote that Maximo was "further evidence of a mini renaissance in the country's long dormant cinema."

Once again I don't see a theme forming in this week's gaggle of new previews, so I'm just going with stuff that I would plunk my hard-earned money down to see.

LOL
At first look I thought this humorous look at the relationships of three technologically obsessed young men was a documentary, and I think the realism the trailer conveys gives the film a sort of Blair Witch Project feel (that's a good thing). Director Joe Swanberg stars as Tim, who appears to be caught up in a triangle with his girlfriend and his computer. Tim's friend Alex is so obsessed with a beautiful girl he's met online that he doesn't notice the very real girl who is attracted to him. Chris finds himself separated from his girlfriend, and they are forced to continue their relationship through the technological filters of internet and cell phone. Karina Longworth reviewed LOL way back in March of 2006. The trailer grabbed my attention as something different, and Karina's positive review really has me wanting to see this one.

Dan in Real Life
Steve Carell may have taken a bit of a bath with Evan Almighty, but I suspect he'll be bouncing back with this one. He's still being funny here, but you can see a little more of the subtlety he brought to Little Miss Sunshine. Carell plays an advice columnist and single father of three girls. He meets a woman for whom he feels he has a special connection and she turns out to be his brother's girlfriend. As simplistic and sitcom-esque as the plot sounds, Carell really sells it with his usual warmth and likability. Scott found himself liking the trailer too and you can read his take on it here. The film goes into limited U.S. release on October 12 with a wider release following on October 19. Check out the trailer right here:

Joe Swanberg, the driving force behind Kissing on the Mouth and LOL, basically doesn't sleep. Even as he follows both of his features around the country on the festival circuit, he's somehow found the time to write, direct, produce and star in Young American Bodies, one of the initial offerings of Nerve.com's just-launched Nerve Video portal. Bodies is a lot like Kissing -- in that it's basically concerned with the sex lives of a gaggle of self-absorbed 20-somethings -- but snappier, soapier, and chopped up into time-release capsules for easy consumption. Of the three episodes currently available, my favorite is the second, Ben's Night Out, in which the sudsier elements really start to take off. It doesn't seem to be enabled yet, but soon you'll be able to vote for your favorites right on Nerve. So go forth and check them out. Actually, maybe wait a couple of hours -- it's definitely not safe for work.

 

There are not many press screenings out there for which consenting to a $200 last-minute change-of-flight fee seems like a good idea. Hell, last week I failed to make a 20 minute trip on the 7 train in time to make a screening of The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. So whilst a new Robert Altman film alone might not have been enough to get me on the phone with AOL Travel,  a new Robert Altman film, rumored to have been ghost-directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, in which Meryl Streep plays Lindsay Lohan's mom? You couldn't pay me $200 to stay away.

And so on Thursday afternoon I'll depart for Austin, one day earlier than originally scheduled, in order to make the Friday morning press screening of Prairie Home Companion. Starring, in typical Altman fashion, an ensemble cast of what seems like thousands, and based on and around Garrison Keillor's radio show of the same name, the production produced a swirl of ink last summer, when two items of interest hit the 'net. First, we learned that P.T. Anderson, who was nominated for an Oscar for the decidedly Altmanesque Magnolia, was hanging around the Companion set. Though some brushed his presence off as owing to the fact that his pregnant girlfriend, Maya Rudolph, was in the film, P.T. confirmed to the New York Times that he was in fact "pinch hitting" for the 80-something honorary Oscar winning director. This was apparently necessary because the wheelchair-bound Altman, as the second item of interest reveals, was busy giving young Miss Lohan some extra special tutelage.