hannah takes the stairs 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.)

The 51st edition of the London Film Festival kicked off last night with a red carpet gala for David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises. An article in Variety says that Cronenberg attended and even joked with the audience: "The reason you might not recognize London in this film is that it was shot in Prague." The now-notorious scene in which a naked Viggo Mortensen battles brutes in a bathhouse reportedly drew a round of applause.

Cast members Naomi Watts and Vincent Cassel were in attendance, as well as a treasure trove of celebrities, including Colin Firth, Martin Freeman and Elle McPherson. Check out the Cinematical photo gallery of the premiere below to get a taste of the red carpet.

Next Monday night, Robert Redford's political drama Lions for Lambs will have its world premiere, with Redford and stars Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep scheduled to attend. Other upcoming gala and special screenings include Bee Movie, The Darjeeling Limited, Into the Wild, Lust, Caution, Sicko and Things We Lost in the Fire.

Beyond the galas, the festival features a wide selection of world cinema. The "New British Cinema" section showcases 12 films, including Nick Broomfield's Iraq war docu-drama Battle for Haditha, John Crowley's tale of redemption Boy A and Simon Welsford's thriller Jetsam. "French Revolutions" highlights 14 newer titles from that country, while American titles like Hannah Takes the Stairs, Grace is Gone and Honeydripper are featured in other sections. The festival continues through November 1.

With many taking full advantage of the long holiday weekend, myself included, the box office numbers tumbled in a bit later than usual, but it appears that Spanish-language thriller Ladrón Que Roba a Ladrón won on a per-screen basis with an average of $6,090 at 340 locations, based on estimates by Leonard Klady of Movie City News. That put it #2 overall in per-screen averages behind Rob Zombie's Halloween. In Ladrón, two thieves resolve to steal the fortune of an man who's built his empire by selling useless health aids to poor people via infomercials. The official site has the fake infomercials plus Spanish and English language versions of the trailer.

Death at a Funeral is holding up nicely, averaging $5,260 on 264 screens for distributor MGM. Directed by Frank Oz, the dark ensemble comedy declined just 2% while adding three screens in its third week of release. Also in its third week out, the superb doc The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters increased its take by 27.3%, according to Box Office Mojo, adding seven screens and averaging $4,571. Cinematical's Scott Weinberg gave each film a positive review, and word of mouth must be good.

Other debuting specialty titles included John August's The Nines, which drew an extremely healthy $14,650 each at the two screens where it was booked. (Our own Ryan Stewart really liked it too.) On its sole screen, Indian drama Vanaja made $10,500, which should be considered a triumph in view of it subject matter and lack of stars. (Read Christopher Campbell's positive review to see why: I've seen it and I agree completely.) Johnny To's Exiled finally made its theatrical premiere. I loved this terrific, tangy, self-aware, modern Hong Kong Western -- Scott Weinberg liked it, though not as much as me -- so I wish it made more than $9,550 in two engagements so far.

Joe Swanberg's Hannah Takes the Stairs dropped an astounding 81.4% in its second week, taking in just $1,100 for a total of $14,200 so far. Good thing the budget was low. You'd have to think that all the press on so-called "mumblecore" films in general would help, but perhaps the audience is more limited than expected or hoped.

New releases had a tough time drawing interest this past weekend. Leonard Klady of Movie City News estimates that Bollywood comedy Heyy Babyy grossed the highest amount with a box office take averaging $4,460 per screen at 68 locations -- for a total of $300,000. This is the first full-length feature by Sajid Khan, who previously contributed a segment to the anthology film You Must Be Scared. Heyy Babyy looks like it was inspired by Three Men and a Baby; the trailer features a ton of faces being slapped, for some reason that doesn't translate without subtitles.

A handful of indies made their debuts in very limited engagements. Deep Water did the best, with Klady estimating $10,550 for each of its two screens, while Dedication took in $5,570 per screen and Hannah Takes the Stairs followed with $4,800. I checked Rotten Tomatoes for each: Deep Water scored a perfect 100%, while the others trailed far behind, with Dedication at 46% and Hannah at 55%. Cinematical's Nick Schager was highly critical of Dedication, but Jette Kernion was much more positive about Hannah. Deep Water, a doc about nine men competing in a solo boat race around the world in 1968, has a smashing trailer.

Three other new releases performed below expectations; our own Ryan Stewart saw two of them. He quite liked Right at Your Door, which he described as a manipulative but clever thriller with a good performance by Mary McCormack. On the other hand, he described Ethan Hawke's The Hottest State as "one of the most unauthentic films I've seen in a long time ... I've seen more sexual chemistry from two doorknobs." Ouch! Right at Your Door played on 20 screens but could only scare up $1,430 at each, according to Klady's estimate, while The Hottest State only pulled in $2,730 per screen (at three locations). That's still far better than family film Eye of the Dolphin, which dragged in just $290 per screen at 130 locations.

Last month, I alerted you to a pretty funny clip from Julie Delpy's 2 Days in Paris, which was up over at indieWIRE as part of the indie film series with Apple stores. Now the website has got another strange and comedic clip to distract us from the daily grind, and it will again be followed by store appearances. This time, the movie is Hannah Takes the Stairs, from director Joe Swanberg (Kissing on the Mouth and LOL). The film stars Greta Gerwig, who was in Swanberg's LOL, Kent Osborne, who actually got his start on School Ties (which helped launch the careers of many actors, including Damon and Affleck) and Andrew Bujalski, whose last film was Mutual Appreciation, which he wrote, directed, edited and starred in -- and all of them collaborated on the film's script.

Hannah Takes the Stairs (follow the link for a trailer) is about a young woman named Hannah who is interning at a production company in Chicago. She's got a crush on two of her co-workers, Matt (Osborne) and Paul (Bujalski), and the question becomes whether pursuing one of them will hurt their friendship trio. In the clip, Matt shows Paul and Hannah how you can get six-pack abs without working out. Between the six-pack and the hot dogs he can also change his stomach into, the man is a walking tailgating party. It'll definitely be a tough choice for the young professional. God only knows what special talents Paul has! The film will hit a limited release on August 22 through IFC Films, and the day after, you can hear Swanberg, Gerwig, Aaron Katz and Aaron Hillis talk about indie filmmaking at the Apple Store in Soho.