friends with money Tagged Articles at Cinematical

(Reminder: Click on the movie titles to see a Weinberg-approved DVD review. If a review is unavailable, I'll just go with an Amazon link.)

Recent Theatricals

Akeelah and the Bee (Lionsgate) -- Bee-movie should make for an interesting double feature alongside Spellbound (the documentary, not the Hitchcock). (three featurettes, deleted scenes, gag reel)

Friends With Money (Sony) -- Aniston, Cusack, Keener & McDormand? Count me in. (filmmaker commentary, three featurettes)

Lonesome Jim (IFC) -- Y'know, that Buscemi guy is not just a pretty face; he's actually a pretty good director. (filmmaker commentary, featurette)

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (WB) -- We all love Albert Brooks' patented brand of nebbishy neuroses, but let's chalk this one up to bad timing. (deleted scenes)

Mountain Patrol: Kekexili (Sony) -- A fantastic doco-style story about the dangers of Tibetan antelope poaching. Rent it. (no extras)

The Sentinel (Fox) -- Just keeping us warm until 24: The Movie shows up. (writer/director commentary, four deleted scenes, two featurettes)

Take the Lead (New Line) -- Because middle-aged housewives like movies too. That's why. (director/editor commentary, seven deleted scenes, four featurettes, three remixed trailers)

• The history of filmmakers using New York City as a location for films. I don't really buy the idea that NYC is a "city without character." Sure, times have changed, but I think that it's up to the filmmakers to make the city (or any city) a part of a film.
  
• The globalization of the American independent film.
  
• A look at Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows.
• OK, so we're giving you all the Tribeca Film Festival coverage that you could possibly need, but that doesn't mean you can't read Caryn James' reports too!
• In an audio slide show, Catherine Keener and Nicole Holofcener discuss their movie Friends With Money.

Over the religious -- and apparently spoof-filled -- holiday weekend, Scary Movie 4 destroyed the box office competition, taking in $41 million, more than twice that of Ice Age: The Meltdown, its nearest competition. Despite the impressive numbers, however, that total is actually down from the opening weekend of Scary Movie 3, which means that, if the returns for each film in the series decrease at a similar rate, producers will only get worried at about installment #10 (and yes, number five is already being planned). Though it stayed strong in the second spot with $20 million earned for the weekend, Ice Age 2 was down over 40% for the second week running, and looks to be starting what may be a rapid slide down the rankings. In third place this weekend was The Benchwarmers, whose $10 million meant that it just out-earned The Wild, which made a dismal $9.6 million in its opening weekend. Rounding out the top five was Take the Lead which, though down about 45% from last weekend's earnings, still took in $6.7 million.

Notable among the also-rans was the Jennifer Aniston-starrer Friends with Money, which made $805,000 on only 42 screens (an incredible $19,166/screen), which was good enough for 15th place place for the weekend, well above a slew of films with far greater exposure. Full numbers are after the jump.

Note: Portions of the review appeared on Cinematical during the Sundance Film Festival, as part of this article.

Friends with Money stars Jennifer Aniston as an unhappy, 30-something, pot smoking maid who can't stop stalking her married ex. Like writer/director Nicole Holofcener's previous films, Walking and Talking and Lovely and Amazing, Friends with Money is an astutely observed relationship dramedy, painfully funny even as it burns. As Holofcener's unhappily unmarried heroine, Olivia, Aniston – a one-note actress, but virtuoso-good at that note – acquits herself more than admirably,  considering the film began shooting the day after news of her seperation from Brad Pitt leaked to the press, The timing could maybe not have been more cruely ironic: the role requires Aniston to convince us that she's a loser. Watch for a key moment, about three quarters in, where a romantic rival tells Olivia to "go get [her] own husband." It's not hard to imagine the real-life motivations Aniston used to fuel Olivia's profanity-laden response.

 

While Cinematical does its best to cover every square-inch of the Sundance Film Festival for its devoted readers (that's you!), I understand it's hard to connect with the excitement of the event when stuck on your living room couch, forced to only imagine what it would be like to ski down the slopes hand in hand with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

Since it could be frustrating to read about films you've never heard of or may never see show up at your local theater anytime soon, I figured I'd dig up a peek at a few of the films playing the festival this year. Even with 120 features, it was damn hard to find five that actually had a trailer...on the internet. If anything, hopefully (for those unable to attend), this gives you a small taste of what's going down out in Park City. Oh, it's all about Sundance on this week's Trailer Park:

Robert Redford is desperate to convince you that the Sundance Film Festival – the independent film showcase bourne out of his not-for-profit Sundance Institute 21 years ago this week - has not lost its edge. The original Sundance Kid appeared at a kick-off press conference on Thursday, where he delivered platitude after platitude in a blatant attempt to shore up his baby's integrity. As the Fest hasn't held an opening day press opp in years, the very fact that the event happened is a good indication that Redford thinks he has something to prove. And boy, did he come to play: "We don't program for commerciality, we program for diversity!", went one battle cry; "We provide, you decide!" was its too-cute compliment. By the end of the afternoon, not a few members of the press corps were left wondering: when it comes to defending the Festival's street cred in the face of celeb-baiting swag bags and liberal injections of corporate cash, perhaps doth protest too much?

Which is not to say that Redford doesn't have a few good reasons to be defensive. Sundance continues to show more new works by emerging and underestablished filmmakers than any other major film festival in the world. And yet, for almost a decade, media coverage of the Fest has focused almost solely on the stars and the scene and the deals, and the corporate muscle leveraged to bring the three together. The 2005 lineup featured disappointing works by a heap of indie name brands, from Thomas Vinterberg (Dear Wendy) to Hal Hartley (The Girl From Monday), but it also served as a crucial breaking ground for some of the year's most celebrated indies, from Me and You and Everyone We Know to The Squid and the Whale, the latter a multiple Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award nominee. Redford took pains yesterday to maintain that his team hasn't changed their programming mission since the fest began, but a cursory glance at this year's schedule gives the impression that the curation philosophy has indeed shifted in the past year. The most well-known auteurs on the 2006 schedule is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Michel Gondry, with Bad Santa helmer Terry Zwigoff the only close runner-up.

But what Sundance 2006 might lack in terms of behind-the-camera boldface names, it makes up for by offering big-name, above-the-title talent in spades. The opening night film, Friends with Money, stars Jennifer Aniston as an unhappy, 30-something, pot smoking maid who can't stop stalking her married ex.  At Thursday's press conference, festival prorammer Geoff Gilmore answered the logical questions about his choice of opener before they could be asked. "There are a lot of issues that people will bring up to you about how [a film starring one of the most photographed women in the world] represents the independent spectrum – but the quality of this filmmaking, and the talent of [director Nicole Holofcener] ... makes it a slam dunk. It's got the qualities of storytelling that make independent filmmaking what it is."

Gilmore and Redford took plenty of time out of their busy rep-backing schedule to heap praise on Aniston's new Friends – so much so that, going into the film's first press screening two hours later, the largely-unseen film already bore the burden of living up to faintly positive buzz. Though not quite a revelation, Friends didn't exactly disappoint. Like Holofcener's previous films, Walking and Talking and Lovely and Amazing, Friends with Money is an astutely observed relationship dramady, painfully funny even as it burns. As Holofcener's anti-heroine, Olivia, Jennifer Aniston acquits herself more than admirably, especially considering the film began shooting the day after news of her seperation from Brad Pitt leaked to the press, The timing, actually, could maybe not have been better: the role requires Aniston to convince us that she's a loser. Watch for a key moment, about three quarters in, where a rival tells Olivia to "go get [her] own husband." It's not hard to imagine the real-life motivations Aniston used to fuel Olivia's profanity-laden response.

The first press screening of the Sundance Film Festival had all the things veterans have come to expect: Parka-clad professional film mavens shuffling in, sharing questions  about buzz, commiserating about travel tales from hell, complaining about acclimating to the 10,060 ft. elevation of Park City and the attendant headaches it brings – and, ultimately, curious about if Friends with Money, Nicole Holofcener's first film since Lovely and Amazing, was going to be any good – or overshadowed by the public persona and problems of star Jennifer Aniston.

But Friends with Money turned out to be a good choice to open Sundance – not because it's revolutionary, but because it isn't: It was what many have come, for good and for ill, to expect from "independent" film: A well-made drama-comedy with several indie actors (Catharine Keener, Frances McDormand) doing the kind of work we've come to rely on them for, and several non-indie actors (Aniston, Jason Isaacs) stretching just enough to show they're not just who they seem to be. Friends with Money revolves around four lifelong friends – Aniston, Keener, McDormand and Joan Cusack – and their complex relationships and intertwinings, especially as some of them have good fortune and others do not. Or, put more bluntly: As the film opens, Keener and her husband Isaacs are approving plans for re-building their own house; Aniston is cleaning other people's houses. … Or, as McDormand puts it, speaking of Aniston's Olivia: "She's the only one of our friends who's not married; she's a pothead; she's a maid."

Writer-director Holofcener has an excellent ear for the way married couples talk to each other; more tellingly, she has an excellent ear for how married couples don't talk to each other.  Much as in Lovely and Amazing, the characters here are just artificially clever enough to create a convincing simulation of reality, and we get a quick sense of why these people are who they are that doesn't linger on backstory or overly-elaborate explanations. The dialogue seems arch, but never fake, and Holofcener puts enough zing in the script to make sure that her comedy about depressed people is never itself depressed. None of the assembled press walked out of Friends with Money amazed; no one wandered away disgusted (and look for Karina Longworth's longer review of the film later on Cinematical). It may not have been the most startling choice to open the festival, but it did set off on the right foot, skilfully walking the precarious line between big Hollywood and over 30 years of indie tradition as onlookers waited for a slip that never quite came.

Others on Friends with Money: Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter thought it "a pitch-perfect ensemble comedy," while Variety's Todd McCarthy went for the ever-reliable food metaphor, calling it "an agreeable grazing menu of smart dialogue, wry observational humor and bright characterizations [that]...doesn't end up feeling like a full meal."

I couldn't get a steady wifi connection at this afternoon's Sundance Opening Press Conference at the Kimball Art Center, so here's my "live blog" ... an hour after the fact:

Geoffrey Gilmore (fesitval co-director and programmer), Nicole Hofcener (director of opening night film, Friends with Money) and Robert Redford (duh) take the stage. Geoff starts, and right away the agenda seems to be about proving that Sundance still has cred:

"It's a pleasure to have an opening night press conference, we haven't in the past. Fest in the 20th year, Institute in its 25th. People don't understand the merging of the institute and the festival. Truth is, it's really hard to talk abou the festival when you haven't seen the films yet...I can tell you that I think the fest is as independent as a festival we've done in years, but you'll be the judge of that."

He lists the numbers on this year's program:

120 features
84 world premires
48 first time featuremakers
102 films to be presented on digital projection (!)
(Only 41 shot on digital formats)
46 docs
35 features by women - speaks to our diverstiy, speaks to what this festival is about

if the number of films being made in this country is any indication of the level of interest in independent cinema ... look at the diversity of the range of films that are at this festival.

Geoff wants to ask two things of the press: that we try not to talk about the films by reducing them to summary points, and that we hold your judgements about what the festival is, until we get through the festival, and that we try to see work we wouldnt ordinarily get a chance to see (obviously, that's three. Wonder which one he made up on the spot?)