away we go Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Away We Go
John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph star as a couple about to have a child and who journey across the country to find the perfect spot to settle down. In his review, William Goss said: "It's easily the most tender film that Sam Mendes has done to date, and it's easily among the very best films that the year has offered so far." Buy it. Also on Blu-ray.

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Monsters vs. Aliens
Monsters, aliens, superheroes -- it's the sort of fare that's perfect for animation. For the most part, critics and fans seem to agree, although our Scott Weinberg says the film "is NOT one of those transcendent animated features, the sort that bridges the gap between kid stuff and grown-up art with no discernible effort whatsoever. No, Monsters vs. Aliens is a loud, rushed, choppy, silly, colorful Nintendo game of a movie." See for yourself and Rent it. Also on Blu-ray.

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Management
The latest Jennifer Aniston romcom to hit the shelves, this flick watches her get followed around the country by a motel manager (Steve Zahn) eager for her affections. In his review, Nick Schager said that the film's conventions are "delivered with a straightforward sappiness that seems all the more disingenuous in light of the film's variety of off-kilter trappings." Skip it. Also on Blu-ray.

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The Girlfriend Experience
One of Steven Soderbergh's less mainstream films, porn star Sasha Grey stars as a high-priced escort trying to balance her work and personal life. In his Sundance review, James Rocchi wrote: "Sex is everywhere in The Girlfriend Experience, except there's no sex," and instigates a crowd that walks "into the cold night more thoughtful than titillated." Rent it. Also on Blu-ray.

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Also out: Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa, Mickey's Christmas Carol, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, Lies and Illusions, Stepfather II, The Hills Run Red, The Hanging Woman, The Shortcut, Fermat's Room, Secrecy, Farmhouse, The Storm Riders, Bloodwine, Dinner with a Vampire, Nightmare, Flesh, TX.

Sam Mendes' Away We Go (54 screens) makes for a great trailer, consisting of all the very funny, snarky stuff written by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. The actual movie has some very funny moments as well, and some terrific individual scenes, but it doesn't add up to a reasonable whole, mainly because the ever-shifting tones never quite mesh. Nevertheless, it seems to be performing well in its arthouse capacity, surviving more on a well-executed stream of hype rather than on the quality of the movie itself. From the ads, you'd think it has already won an Oscar (and, because of this kind of subconscious suggestion, it still might). Either way, what this means is that a literary giant like Eggers didn't have to go slumming. His reputation is intact.

In the old days, great novelists would sometimes write for the movies, but it was sneered at and looked down upon. Movies were for hacks and has-beens, or for desperate sellouts who were willing to work for cash rather than for the reward of a richer soul. William Faulkner was perhaps the most famous example of this, scribbling screenplays for drinking money. Fortunately, nowadays, Mr. Faulkner's literary reputation not only remains totally intact, but also some of his screenplays, including To Have and Have Not (1944) and The Big Sleep (1946), are celebrated for their high quality. Similarly, Billy Wilder once hired the great crime novelist Raymond Chandler to adapt a book by another great crime novelist, James M. Cain, into Double Indemnity (1944). I can only imagine the indignity Chandler must have felt at the time, but today no one cares.

Before we look back at the past week, let's peak at what's opening this weekend: Francis Ford Coppola's family drama Tetro; Duncan Jones' sci-fi trip Moon; Daryl Wein's AIDS activist doc Sex Positive; Tommy Wirkola's Nazi zombie flick Dead Snow; Robert Kenner's appetizing (maybe) doc Food, Inc.; and Chai Vasarhelyi's music / tolerance plea Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love (poster and more info after the jump).

Box Office. Opening in four theaters, Sam Mendes' Away We Go scored a smashing $32,603 per-screen average last weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. The road trip comedy / drama, starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph as anxious, expectant parents searching for a place to raise their family, far outpaced other debuting indies, which had, on their own terms, decent returns: Seraphine ($6,640 per-screen at four theaters), Unmistaken Child ($6,293, one screen), and 24 City ($6,082, one screen). Our critic William Goss feels that Away We Go is "easily among the very best films that the year has offered so far." I was less impressed; the real test will come as it expands over the next couple of weeks.

Deals. Our friends at indieWIRE have details on the recent acquisitions of Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein's doc No Impact Man, due September 4 from Oscilloscope; Jonathan Parker's comedy (Untitled), due September 18 from Samuel Goldwyn Films; and Kenneth Bi's The Drummer, due this fall from Film Movement.

Online Viewing Options. New selections at iTunes Movie Store include Bob Odenkirk's comedy Melvin Goes to Dinner; Scott Smith's dysfunctional 60s family drama Falling Angels, with Miranda Richardson; and Mike Akel's mockumentary Chalk, which school teachers have assured me is very funny (it drove me this former bad student nuts).

After the jump: CineVegas, the "Mile High Mutiny," and a sweet-looking poster.

Downsizing in Hollywood isn't the same as downsizing for you or me. Four A-list directors decided to downsize their latest productions by choice, according to Rachel Abramowitz in the Los Angeles Times. And to hear Sam Mendes (above, right), Ang Lee, Sam Raimi (above, left) and Steven Soderbergh talk, they made the choice in order to save their own artistic souls after working on creatively-draining big-budget projects for years.

• Sam Mendes (Away We Go): "I loved having to work fast again ... You can get into the habits when making bigger films where you sort of expect everything to be there for you. You don't have to work for it ... there was even less conspicuous consumption ... There aren't as many people, and you feel less guilty because you're not spending as much money." Estimated budget: $17 million.
• Sam Raimi (Drag Me to Hell): "I realized all these toys I'm used to are wonderful but not always necessary ... All I really need is the actress." Estimated budget: $30 million.
• Ang Lee (Taking Woodstock): "I faced a lot of pressure [making Lust, Caution] . . . It gets to be too much ... Spiritually and philosophically I was yearning to do something warm." Estimated budget: $30 million.
• Steven Soderbergh (The Girlfriend Experience): "Employing non-actors, by design you are building the piece around them ... It's a good way to work, you're constantly adapting to what's in front of you."Estimated budget: $1.7 million.

I loved Drag Me to Hell and enjoyed Away We Go, so maybe they've got the right idea. What other big-budget Hollywood directors should consider doing a downsized project for the sake of their own artistic souls? McG? Brett Ratner?

In Sam Mendes' Away We Go, Verona (Maya Rudolph) and Burt (John Krasinski) touch down in a number of spots around North America in search of a new home after Burt's flighty parents decide to go live in Antwerp. Thanks to a script from Dave Eggers and his wife Vendela Vida, Away We Go is far less wrist-slittingly depressing than Mendes' last outing, Revolutionary Road, if quite a bit more twee.

The clip below is from a scene where three concerned airline attendants don't want to let Verona board the plane because she looks more than eight months pregnant, even though she assures them she's not. This goes out to all the mommies and daddies (and expecting mommies and daddies) out there who have to deal with anyone eyeballing and/or touching your belly when it's not welcome. Hands off! (Unless you're John Krasinski armed with a stethoscope, of course.)

Watch the clip after the jump

Burt and Verona (John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph) don't quite have things figured out yet. I mean, they pretty much have each other pegged, enjoying a marriage-less relationship, keeping each other warm on those cold Colorado nights, and they know that they want to bring a kid into this world -- well, want to or not, the baby's coming, and so they'll keep it warm as well.

Their parents won't be of much help. After all, his (Catherine O'Hara and Jeff Daniels) are making plans to take off for Europe just before the baby's due, a trip years in the making and selfish as all get out, while hers passed away some time back. So Burt and Verona decide to visit other family and friends, looking for people they can depend on in places they could grow up in, let alone grow old in -- looking for a place that might help them figure out together the whys and hows of keeping it all together.

Sam Mendes started his feature directorial career with American Beauty, an incisive look at suburban malaise that in addition to netting multiple Oscar nominations, earned him a reputation for being a keen if not altogether optimistic observer of human nature. Ten years later he's virtually cemented that pessimistic point of view with films like Jarhead, Road to Perdition and Revolutionary Road, all chronicles of characters desperately in search of something, if not better, than at least different than what they already have. But while his latest film, Away We Go, uses a couple's road trip as yet another journey of self-discovery, Mendes looks at the central characters' future with one another with optimism and genuine hope, offering a reassuring rejoinder that the director does not in fact believe that all relationships are destined to fail.

Cinematical recently sat down with Mendes to discuss Away We Go, an intimate but broadly appealing comedy about two lovers, Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph), who embark on a road trip to figure out where they want to raise a family, if not also determine what kind of family they want that to be. In addition to talking about his own feelings – cinematically and otherwise – about the prospect of living happily ever after, Mendes discussed the process of helping his co-stars get comfortable with one another, and ruminated on making a movie for the first time that's unfettered to the expectations of an awards season.

This year it's Summer Appreciation at Cinematical, but summer doesn't just mean one lumbering tentpole blockbuster after another. In fact, smaller distributors and indie studio arms often use summertime to offer some great low-key alternatives -- not big Oscar contenders, but smaller-profile festival favorites. And this summer is particularly rife with other options if and when you tire of all the sequels and franchises. Here are seven small films -- most but not all of which I've seen -- that you might consider supporting in the next three or four months.

1. The Brothers Bloom (May 15) - Rian Johnson's sophomore feature -- a character-driven fairy tale masquerading as a con man flick -- debuted at Toronto last year to muted acclaim. It's no Brick, but it's actually a fantastic summer offering: sunny, whimsical and bittersweet. Summit was originally set to release the film last fall, then last winter, before finally bumping it to May. It's legitimately funny and whip-smart, which should make it an attractive option in mid-May.

I don't know about you, but I've barely warmed up this year, yet already I feel inundated with thoughts of summer, thanks to our friends the movie marketers. Bowing to the inevitable -- after all, everyone shops for board shorts and bikinis in the spring, not the summer, right? -- my attention was drawn to "Top 10 Summer Movies Guaranteed to Bomb" in Coed Magazine.

Since that site features some images that are NSFW, I'll list a few here with my comments and encourage you to check out the entire list along with their reasoning -- which, frankly, is faulty on almost every one. Their basic criteria, by the way, is that these movies "just don't jive with the summer spirit. They're too serious, too treacly, or too completely, horribly awful." Here's the bottom five:

• Dance Flick. From the Wayans family; opening against Terminator Salvation and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian; it's a comedy tailor-made for teens. Not a bomb.
• Away We Go. Sam Mendes directs and John Krasinski stars in an indie comedy. Depends entirely on critics and word of mouth. Could be a bomb.
• Final Destination: Death Trip 3D. Did My Bloody Valentine 3-D teach us nothing? Ka-ching!! Not a bomb.
• Battle for Terra. Animated and in 3-D. Might do OK against Wolverine for parents who think claw guy is too violent for their kids.
• All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (pictured). Low-budget horror usually does fine. Not a barn burner, but not a bomb.

I was expecting to see a few big-budget productions on the list -- at least one or two bomb every year -- and so I ask for your input. Are these summer movies guaranteed to bomb? Or are there other, worthier, more potentially cringe-worthy flicks that will prove to be box office poison?

Part of me completely forgot we were getting a double bill from director Sam Mendes this year (though, technically, it's last year and this year, but regardless it feels like we're getting two films from the man during a very short period of time). Once again Mendes returns to themes of family with Away We Go, however unlike Revolutionary Road, you probably won't have a desire to off yourself when the credits begin to roll.

What intrigues me most about Away We Go is its cast. Mendes went from Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to a bearded John Krasinski and a pregnant Maya Rudolph. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you, it's just an odd pairing. The chemistry looks to be there, though, and the supporting cast is pretty fantastic with three power women leading the way in Maggie Gyllenhaal, Allison Janney and Catherine O'Hara. Oh, and Jeff Daniels squeezes himself in there too.

Watching the trailer, this doesn't feel like a Mendes film. It sorta gives me this ultra indie, hippie-ish Noah Baumbach funny (yet tender) dysfunctional family vibe (it was written by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, so maybe that's where it's coming from). Yes, I dig it ... though I'm hoping its charm turns out to be unique, and not just another piece off the Little Miss Sunshine gravy train. Watch it below and let us know what you think. Does it have potential? Away We Go hits theaters in limited release on June 5.