bart got a room Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Fast & Furious
"Not only is the story silly, but there's not even much car-racing in it -- and why would anyone want to watch this movie if it doesn't have a lot of car-racing in it?" Eric D. Snider asked. "It turns out minimizing the one entertaining element of a franchise was a BAD idea!" Alas, I must agree. Also on Blu-ray. Skip it.

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Bart Got a Room.
"It's not much different from other nerdy-teen-needs-date-for-prom flicks," noted Erik Davis in his review, "but it sure as hell packs a ton of heart and has a lot of fun. It's alive, it's colorful, it's got well-written characters and more than a handful of memorable scenes." Steven Kaplan stars, with William H. Macy and Cheryl Hines as his newly-divorced parents. Rent it.

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Dragonball: Evolution
"It's not aggressively bad," opined the long-suffering Eric D. Snider, "It's more like a dumb, energetic puppy." Personally, I think he was being far too kind to a sloppy, embarrassing, and dull movie. Also on Blu-ray. Skip it.

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Miss March
"Up until yesterday I was having trouble keeping track of all the movies that were contenders for the worst of 2009," confessed Jeffrey M. Anderson, "and I couldn't decide which one topped the list. Now my head is clear of such decisions. I've seen Miss March." Also on Blu-ray. Skip it.

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Also check out: This week's TV on DVD releases at TV Squad.

New indie film releases, more Blu-ray picks, and a look at the Collector's Corner -- featuring the complete BSG set -- all after the jump!

By: Erik Davis (reposted from our Tribeca Film Festival review - Bart Got A Room opened this weekend in New York, Los Angeles and South Florida)

I'm happy to say one of the films I was most looking forward to this year actually lived up to my expectations -- and though it's still very early in the festival, Bart Got a Room is easily my personal favorite so far. It's not complex, it's not much different from other nerdy-teen-needs-date-for-prom flicks, but it sure as hell packs a ton of heart and has a lot of fun. It's alive, it's colorful, it's got well-written characters and more than a handful of memorable scenes; if I had to describe this film in one sentence, my pitch would go something like: Picture a contemporary version of Brighton Beach Memoirs if it featured an only child and was set in South Florida. That's Bart Got a Room.

Danny's (Steven Kaplan) a skinny Jewish kid with low self-esteem, eccentric, over-protective parents and no prom date. While he can easily take his best friend Camille (Alia Shawkat), Danny would rather take a girl he might have a romantic chance with. Like the pretty, flirtatious blonde cheerleader he carpools with, or the reserved Asian classmate who writes exotic, pornographic poetry. He'd let his friends set him up with "that girl who sleeps around," he'd throw open the phone book and dial up a girl he hasn't seen in years -- all of which makes Danny a man on a mission. And that mission becomes even more complicated (and important) when Bart, the school's biggest loser, not only secures a prom date ... but also a hotel room. Yup ... even Bart got a room.

Welcome back to the Indie Spotlight, in which we list the new limited-release films being released today. Keep an eye out for when they come to your local art house or Netflix queue.

• Alien Trespass (pictured), opening on about 40 screens nationwide, is a loving, non-parody homage to the cheesy invaders-from-space B-movies of the 1950s. For me, the style wears thin too quickly; the fact that the '50s films were corny out of necessity while this one is doing it on purpose makes it feel insincere. Indeed, it has a low 31% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

• Bart Got a Room is a comedy about a nerdy Jewish teenager trying to find a date for the prom. Cinematical's Erik Davis loved it at Tribeca last year, and the 71% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes backs him up.

• C Me Dance combines the world of evangelical Christianity with the world of dancing. Sold! It's opening on about 150 screens nationwide. No reviews are up yet, but I would suspect it's a preaching-to-the-choir sort of thing, aimed at people who are already evangelical Christians.

• Sugar comes from the Half Nelson team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck and is finally hitting theaters after premiering at Sundance last year. It's about a young Dominican Republic baseball player who is recruited by scouts and brought to the U.S. to train for the majors. Cinematical's Kim Voynar liked it quite a bit, calling it a coming-of-age story more than a baseball movie, and as beautiful as "a painting brought to life" -- and hey, check out that 88% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes!

Cinematical has just received this exclusive clip from Bart Got A Room, featuring William H. Macy (complete with awesome Jewfro) and newcomer Steven J. Kaplan. One of my favorite films from last year's Tribeca Film Festival, Bart Got A Room follows one skinny, nerd-ish dude on his quest to find a prom date and secure a hotel room for himself and said prom date, all while navigating his way around two embarrassing parents (played by Macy and Cheryl Hines) and a host of potential female lovers.

Back when I reviewed Bart Got A Room, I called it "a contemporary version of Brighton Beach Memoirs if it featured an only child and was set in South Florida." The film itself is pretty damn funny, and Macy steals the show as a sex-starved divorced dad who has no problem sharing his thoughts with whoever may be in the room. Check him out in the scene below, and make sure you catch a screening of Bart Got A Room when it hits theaters on April 3.

I've always found it tricky to navigate the indie world by trailers alone. Many mundane trailers taint great films, and many decent trailers leave the nagging question: Is it cute in two minutes, but falls flat at an hour-plus? Armed with a great review and the solid trailer above, I don't think we'll have to worry about that with Bart Got a Room.

Unlike the hordes of teen comedies where the kids all look "perfect," the lives seem more Clueless than real, and it's all thrust into the mainstream pop mindset -- a habit that really must die -- Bart Got a Room sets snarky realism against a far-from-flashy South Florida backdrop. There's the obligatory teen trauma: Getting a date for the prom, but as Erik said in his Tribeca review last year: "It's not complex, it's not much different from other nerdy-teen-needs-date-for-prom flicks, but it sure as hell packs a ton of heart and has a lot of fun."

And you've gotta feel for a kid (Steven J. Kaplan) who can't find a prom date when the school loser (Bart) can -- which only leads mom (Cheryl Hines) to secure a hotel room for the kid in extreme pity, while dad (William H. Macy) goes on and on about sex. The film hits theaters on April 3.

Did you know that Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari Corp. and inventor of Pong, is also responsible for unleashing Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theaters upon the world? Well, he is. He founded the "restaurant" after selling off Atari -- which he built up from scratch -- for $28 million in 1977. In addition, Wikipedia says that Bushnell later invented "autonomous pizza-delivery robots" for Little Caesar's Pizza, but I think that might be someone's idea of a joke.

The game-enthusiast-turned-multimillionaire is getting his own biopic at Paramount (according to THR), from a pitch by Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman. (Hecker wrote and directed the Tribeca charmer Bart Got a Room, while Sherman is a newcomer.) Paramount only bought the project on Friday, but somehow Leonardo DiCaprio has already managed to leech onto it; he's attached to produce and to play Bushnell. If Atari and DiCaprio's planned biopics of Theodore Roosevelt and Ian Fleming all go through, that will narrow the list of celebrities Leonardo DiCaprio has not played to: Mark Knopfler, Johnny Weissmuller, and Charo.

If you're out to make a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-like tale of a nerd who makes it big, it seems to me that the nerd should not look like Leonardo DiCaprio. He should look... well, more like the guy up at the right. But whatever. I do think they should change the title from Atari to Pong, though.

Pictured: Bart Got a Room writer-director Brian Hecker with William H. Macy

The 2008 Tribeca Film Festival has already produced its first little gem in Bart Got a Room, a charming teen sex comedy set in the vibrant, pastel-colored retirement communities of South Florida. Cinematical had a chance to conduct an email interview with writer-director Brian Hecker prior to Bart's premiere at the festival, and it went something like this:

Cinematical: A film like Bart Got a Room has "personal story" written all over it. How close is this film to your own life growing up?

Brian Hecker: The film is very close to my life growing up as a real nerd in South Florida. Of course, elements are stretched for comedic purposes, but the essence of it is painfully close to home.

Cinematical: Why do teenagers care so much about what other teenagers are doing?

BH: I don't think it's just teenagers. In our society, most people think about or worry about what other people are doing in relation to themselves. It's the cause of most people's suffering, and it's quite stupid and unnecessary when you start examining why we do this. High school is a place where you're stuck with the same small group of people year after year, so it's most apparent in this environment.

I'm happy to say one of the films I was most looking forward to this year actually lived up to my expectations -- and though it's still very early in the festival, Bart Got a Room is easily my personal favorite so far. It's not complex, it's not much different from other nerdy-teen-needs-date-for-prom flicks, but it sure as hell packs a ton of heart and has a lot of fun. It's alive, it's colorful, it's got well-written characters and more than a handful of memorable scenes; if I had to describe this film in one sentence, my pitch would go something like: Picture a contemporary version of Brighton Beach Memoirs if it featured an only child and was set in South Florida. That's Bart Got a Room.

Danny's (Steven Kaplan) a skinny Jewish kid with low self-esteem, eccentric, over-protective parents and no prom date. While he can easily take his best friend Camille (Alia Shawkat), Danny would rather take a girl he might have a romantic chance with. Like the pretty, flirtatious blonde cheerleader he carpools with, or the reserved Asian classmate who writes exotic, pornographic poetry. He'd let his friends set him up with "that girl who sleeps around," he'd throw open the phone book and dial up a girl he hasn't seen in years -- all of which makes Danny a man on a mission. And that mission becomes even more complicated (and important) when Bart, the school's biggest loser, not only secures a prom date ... but also a hotel room. Yup ... even Bart got a room.

We're going to have plenty of Tribeca Film Festival coverage here as the festival revs up in the next week. In the meantime, if you're fortunate enough to be headed to the pricey, exclusive fest, Variety has posted a primer to the movies that have a good chance of getting picked up for distribution based on their reception there -- movies that are "piquing interest among execs." Making the list are the William H. Macy comedy Bart Got a Room; a psychological thriller called From Within that sounds oddly similar to this summer's The Happening; a documentary about a senior citizen hip hop dance team called Gotta Dance (also known as Young@Heart 2); Tennessee, a road movie starring Mariah Carey; and 6 others.

Not too much is known about most of these, but I can tell you that Bart Got a Room features the big screen debut of one Brandon Hardesty, who became a YouTube sensation by posting dead-on reenactments of famous movie scenes in which he played all the characters. He's one of the few instances of YouTube popularity that stems from actual talent -- he's an amazing impressionist, and a really funny guy -- so I'm thrilled for him. I hope the movie's good.

Stay tuned for Erik Davis's dispatches from Tribeca, including his own must-see list.

One of the films I'm most looking forward to at this year's Tribeca Film Festival is Bart Got a Room, directed by Brian Hecker (in his feature debut) and starring William H. Macy, Cheryl Hines, Steven Kaplan, Alia Shawkat and Jon Polito. Before I go any further -- I'm sorry, but how awesome does Macy look with that haircut? Only he can pull off the White Man's Fro and do it with style (click on the image to enlarge).

Bart Got a Room centers on any teenage kid's worst nightmare: Imagine the school's biggest dweeb not only secured a date for the prom before you, but he also got a hotel room. That's what happened to Danny (Kaplan), and now he's on a desperate quest to find a date while his divorced parents, Beth and Ernie Stein (Hines and Macy) independently search for love. Oh man, a skinny Jewish kid with major prom anxiety and nutty parents. This film will certainly take me back a few years.

We'll have a full review and interview with writer-director Brian Hecker later on this month. Oh, and when a trailer is available, we'll let you know.