Review: THE COMEDY is an Unconventional, Unapologetic Comedy That's Unbelievably Entertaining

In the opening scene to The Comedy, a handful of grown men are wrestling and dry humping each other in slow motion to Donnie & Joe Emerson’s “Baby.” They’re in their underwear, piss drunk and spitting beer all over the room. This scene of debauchery sets the rhythm for the entire film, which focuses on unlovable losers who balance out the uninteresting world that surrounds them by way of alcohol, blasphemy, and anything that doesn’t require a lot of effort. The result is unbelievably entertaining.

Tim Heidecker (Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!) stars as Swanson, a wealthy 35-year-old bum who spends every night polluting his body with copious amounts of drugs and booze. During the daytime, he wanders around New York, pretending to work at places he doesn’t and obnoxiously mocking culture with his equally obnoxious friends. Swanson is a real go-getter who knows what he wants in life, which is, well, absolutely nothing. Except for a job as a busboy at a restaurant making minimum wage—this is the only thing outside of his comfort zone he really wants.

Swanson’s family inheritance is the reason he’s chosen his odd lifestyle–he never learned how to grow up normal. It’s also why his brother is locked up in a mental institution, and from the context clues given, his father was less than pleasant to them growing up. (This is probably why Swanson berates everyone he comes in contact with.) As Papa Swanson gets closer to death, Swanson gets closer to inheriting the leftover wealth, which he does not want. We know his hatred runs deep, because instead of living in the luxurious mansion where his father is being cared for, he’s lives in a tiny, uncomfortable motorboat that can only be reached by way of a little boat with a small engine.

There’s no one better to play this role than Heidecker. Swanson carries a lot of emotional weight and this character needs an actor who can smile while verbally abusing someone and pushing them to their limits. He also needs to be a man who can say the most shocking things without a hint of expression, things that would shock even punk rock legend GG Allin if he were alive today. After years of deadpan comedy, Heidecker knows how to deliver it in the strangest, yet most effective ways.

There is one scene that should be mentioned—it’s the only one that gives Swanson a hint of a soul. He’s wandering through a hospital and stumbles into a room where an elderly man lies in a coma. Swanson picks up a comb by his bedside and begins to brush his hair while talking to him gently. It’s eerily endearing.

Heidecker’s partner in crime Eric Warheim co-stars, and it’s no question that a majority of their scenes together were most likely improvised. These guys are masters at unconventional comedy, and you’ll quickly discover this watching a clip from Awesome Show, Great Job! on YouTube.

Acting for the first time in a film is LCD Soundsystem’s frontman, James Murphy, who co-stars as one of Swanson’s misfit friends. Murphy gets Tim and Eric’s bizarre and unpredictable humor and plays along with it. Being that this is his first role and he’s able to hold his own next to the duo, it’s safe to say playing a convincing actor made the list of things to happen in Murphy’s life.

When this premiered at Sundance in January, a lot of people walked out. It’s not your typical comedy, and this is co-writer/director Rick Alverson’s sharp intention—he understands dark comedy inside and out.

You shouldn’t laugh at most of the things that happen in The Comedy, but you will. It’s a cruel world, but laughing at others’ expense is an immature and real way people handle everyday life. Much like the protagonist, The Comedy is a brilliant odyssey that most people will hate. Fortunately, I am not one of those people.

Review: NATURE CALLS For a Limited Audience

I first learned of writer/director Todd Rohal when I saw his film The Catechism Cataclysm (or Cat Cat for short) at Sundance two years ago. You will either love or hate this film’s guts — I love it. I described this film as not a movie, but an experience, a bad acid trip gone awesome experience. (Note: I’ve never done acid but have seen Roger Corman’s The Trip and am guessing it’s bonkers.) Cat Cat was something I’ve never seen before — an original, mind-fuck comedy adventure. His follow-up, Nature Calls with comedian Patton Oswalt, is something else for sure, but falls short of fitting into the wild and weird cinematic world Rohal has created.
Randy (Oswalt) has lived and breathed boy scouting since the first day he can remember. His father was a Scout Master, and now that Randy is a grown man, he wants to fill his father’s shoes. Since his father is dying and hospital-bedridden, Randy has decided to take him and the remaining boy scouts left in his squad on a camping trip. But, we need at least one  conflict for this story, and here they are: 1) Randy is a terrible scout leader. Even though he’s been a scout his whole life, he’s a pushover and his bumbling persona makes him look like a clueless goon. 2) The kids would rather play video games than learn survival skills. 3) Randy’s jackass brother Kirk (Johnny Knoxville) thinks being a boy scout is a waste of time and goes out of his way to ruin Randy’s longtime planned Scout trip. But, Randy has outsmarted big bro by kidnapping all of the kids during a sleepover and they embark on their boys-become-men forest adventure.
While I admire everything Knoxville has done with the Jackass movie franchise — it’s brilliant and made a big statement in the film industry once the little engine show-turned-film franchise boomed — when he acts like a jackass in a fictional movie (which is almost everything he’s done), it lessens the value of the film. Knoxville takes his character’s stupidity to unbelievable and quite obnoxious levels and it’s agonizing to watch. 
What I adore about writer/director Todd Rohal is his skewed sense of humor. He writes and shoots things about life that everybody thinks but would never admit; nasty, dirty things. In Cat Cat, Rohal blasts religion in the most unconventional satirical ways possible. My jaw literally hurt from laughing so hard, and then I prayed God wouldn’t punish me for laughing at His expense. One of the more risqué moments in Nature Calls is a blonde bombshell who pops in and out of the movie randomly, riding through the woods butt-naked on a motorcycle. Since her nakedness is never explained, these random moments are very funny. This is the most crass Rohal-esque moment we get in Nature Calls. Most of the comedy follows that routine Hollywood pattern and it drags the jokes through the mud. Which is a shame because  Patton Oswalt has the capability to lead a movie (Big Fan was a marvelous surprise) and here, his raw talent never comes out to play. 
The only major bummer about Nature Calls is that it’s Patrice O’Neal’s last film. O’Neal was a downright hellacious comedian and it’s a damn shame he died at such a young age (41). He acted alongside some good guys and you can tell he had a lot of fun with his role, which ironically, is a presumed dead father. Chilling, but O’Neal carries his weight and brings the laughs to his final role. 
I think it’s lazy journalism for a critic to say “this film is not as good as his last,” but so much ofNature Calls feels half-baked and not Rohal’s style, I have to compare it to his previous film (which he was without question completely baked while making) to give his style context. Most filmmakers have a flat movie once in their career — Nature Calls looks to be Rohal’s.
Nature Calls is now available to watch on various VOD platforms. It opens on Friday, November 9 in limited theatrical release in the U.S.

AFI 2012 Fest Review: ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY Shines on Love, Life, and the Wonders of Living in L.A.

There’s a warm fire to Joe Swanberg’s All the Light in the Sky. Co-written by and starring Jane Adams (Happiness, Hung), All the Light follows a few days in the life of a moderately successful actress, Marie (Adams). She may not be an A-list star (she’s OK with this), but she’s doing well enough to live by the beach and surf the ocean every morning before she starts her day. 
At 45, she’s living in the moment and not worried about her non-existent love life. While juggling her life and career, she has taken on a new responsibility - showing her visiting niece  Faye (Sophia Takal) what it’s like to live in Los Angeles. Faye wants to be an actress and live the good life, just like Marie seems to be doing, but is unaware of the discouragements Hollywood usually has to offer. This is Marie’s one chance to tell her about the slums of Los Angeles while showing her a good time. 
There’s also another story illuminating in All the Light in the Sky; it’s perhaps the most important part of the film. Marie regularly meets with a man who’s an expert on the sun and light and listens faithfully to him as he tells her how to measure sunlight. I scribbled down most of the things they discuss during their meetings, and those clues lead me to believe Marie is searching for more concrete meaning in the labyrinth we call life. 
I first watched Jane Adams on the big screen when I saw Happiness at the age of 15. Her performance was something else, and I’ve followed her career ever since. She has the natural ability to make her broken characters real, relatable, and, well, natural human beings. Adams isn’t afraid to tackle uncomfortable roles. This is an admirable trait.
All the Light in the Sky also features a small collection of young filmmakers currently shaking things up in independent cinema. Ti West (House of the Devil) costars as a stereotypical over-ambitious independent filmmaker, along with the extremely talented Sophia Takal, who wrote, directed, and starred in the highly praised film Green. Both are as pleasing in front of the camera as they are behind it.
Co-writer/director/do-it-yourself auteur Swanberg is responsible for a lot of mumblecore films. He’s perhaps the king of mumblecore. (He made six films in 2011. Six.). A handful of them were panned and deemed immature, mindless, and too lo-fi. Yes, these opinions are subjective (although it’s arguable some are objective), but like anyone who’s deeply passionate about something, you grow from your past oopsies. Regardless of how you feel about mumblecore or Swanberg’s films, nobody can deny that Swanberg continues to grow as a filmmaker.  All the Light in the Sky is proof he’s graduated to a new, mature level of filmmaking and pulls it off remarkably. This is a deeply moving and well-written collaboration about some of the blunders and wonders we face in life. 
(Follow Chase Whale on Twitter.)

Review: MIAMI CONNECTION is a Vortex of Insanity. And Mullets. And Dancing Ninjas.

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Motorcycle Ninjas! Mullets! Cocaine Drug Lords! Synth Rock Band Ninjas! Grand Master Y.K. Kim! Slow motion karate kicks to the face! Dragon Sound! Dancing Ninjas! A black guy in search for his missing father! Pop songs about friendships and loyalty! This… is Miami Connection!

Miami Connection takes place, and was made, in 1987. Our story revolves around Dragon Sound, a popular band led by Mark (Y.K. Kim), the one the other band members look up to, and for good reason; the band’s friendship is unbreakable, and we know this because one of their hit songs is called “Friends” and it is all about friendship and loyalty. They play every night to a packed house at a local club in Orlando and, when not jamming out at night clubs or giving motivational speeches to each other shirtless in living rooms, Dragon Sound practices karate under the tutelage of Mark before drinking Pepsi after their training. These guys are real bad dudes.

Things become slightly complicated when band member John (Vincent Hirsch) starts dating the sister of the local mob boss, Jeff (William Eagle), a jealous badass who deals cocaine; we know Jeff is a badass because he only wears one earring. He’s also a dick and doesn’t want his sister (who’s one of the lead singers in Dragon Sound) to date John, or anybody, really. So Jeff and his gang decide to cast Dragon Sound out of town with their intimidating karate moves.

To add more dukes to the hazard, Badass Jeff enlists the help from another local band who are jealous of Dragon Sound’s success. Since Dragon Sound plays to win (when you watch the movie, a lot of these random phrases will make sense, I promise), they will not go down without a fight. It’s going to take a lot more than three dozen ninjas to run these five guys out of town.

It would take an obnoxious film critic to tear this movie apart today. Movies in the ‘80s era have more random shit than your local bar’s unflushed toilet. Yes, this movie is over-the-top and absolutely bonkers, but it’s also the greatest movie featuring rock ‘n’ roll ninjas you’ll ever see. Every character in this film is an expert in karate kicking people in the face – from the suit and tie bar manager at the club where Dragon Sound plays, to the chef that keeps them well-fed.

I deeply admire and respect Drafthouse Films’ founder Tim League and Director of Programming Evan Husney for resurrecting this (almost obsolete) film and going against the Hollywood norm. Instead of wasting their money on the conventional mumbo jumbo most studios invest in, they’ve put all of their concentration on movies most studios would never touch, and restoring obscure hits that never got proper releases. The affection never went away completely, but these guys have made watching B-movies exciting again. Especially for the ones who grew up watching anything with karate in the ‘80s and ‘90s. This sub-genre was an outlet that made us nerds feel invincible. Miami Connection is a vortex of insanity and has everything I love about life: ninjas, friendship, and loyalty.

AFI Fest 2012 Review: Amy Seimetz' Feature Debut SUN DON'T SHINE Haunts and Thrives

There’s a small scene in Sun Don’t Shine that keeps playing over in my head. A woman is telling a story about the time she was making a pizza and almost burned her house down. She mixed her prescribed sleeping pills with wine and passed out during the aforementioned pizza-making. Hours later, she woke up to a smoke-filled house. (Somebody up there must be looking out for her.) Without any hesitation, she blames this happening on her doctor. After all, he gave her the medication, which means it’s in no way her fault that the sleeping pills made her fall asleep, resulting in a non-edible pizza and near non-existent house. This small moment reminds me of Sun Don’t Shine’s running theme. It’s about people who don’t want to take responsibility for the bad things they’ve done in their life. They just want to rid of them and move forward, regardless of how detrimental they are. 

In Sun Don’t Shine, Crystal (Kate Lyn Sheil) and Leo (Kentucker Audley) are two miscreants on the run. They did something criminal but we’re unsure what at the moment. We just know from the opening scene things aren’t right and now they’re hyper-paranoid of their crime. Their plan is to take a four hour road trip through the everglades in central Florida, get a boat from Leo’s off-and-on girlfriend, and sail away to rid themselves of whatever it is they need to get rid of. As they get closer to their destination and their paranoia starts to take a hold, their painful past eventually floats up. 

Together, Crystal and Leo are what happens when a tornado meets a volcano. They are two very different people who don’t understand each other. These two are wrapped in their own worlds. Without realizing it, Leo abuses Crystal in one of the most unconventional (but highly effective) ways: when she talks to him (i.e babbles about how much she loves him and wants to have sex in a motel), he never responds - he’s too focused on not getting pulled over by a highway patrolman. We can see in Crystal’s hopeless eyes that this is tearing her apart. Leo does love her but isn’t good at showing it. He just wants to make it to their destination without any law enforcement interruption. 

Sun Don’t Shine marks the writing and directing feature debut from mumblecore darling, Amy Seimetz. Seimetz has spent a lot of her time in front of the camera, working for established filmmakers such as Joe Swanberg and Adam Wingard. This film proves she paid a considerable amount of time watching and learning tips and tricks from the filmmakers she’s worked with. Her work has paid off and she’s made something very sensational and haunting.

There isn’t much action in Sun Don’t Shine – a lot of the film rides on the Sheil’s performance as the brainsick Crystal. I’m probably not the first to say this, and I’m OK with that, but Sheil is so lovely to watching on screen - she can pull off raw emotion without doing much and it’s chilling. Sheil’s Crystal is very ambitious on gaining Leo’s affection, and it’s gripping to watch her progressively lose touch on reality.

It takes a lot of guts for an actor to step behind the camera and make a film. It’s really amazing how much Seimetz pulled off with so little. Road trip films are tricky because if not done right, you can lose your audience very quickly. Seimetz doesn’t slack and builds the intensity up to the very haunting and subtle finale. 

Follow Chase Whale on Twitter.

Review: UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING

It’s been an uphill battle for Universal Soldier to get a proper franchise off the ground ever since the original garnered much success in 1992. The star, and reason why my heart still beats, Jean-Claude Van Damme, did not return for the two followed sequels, which were made for TV. (It’s important you know Gary Busey and Burt Reynolds took his place, respectively.) Nine years later, JCVD returned to the franchise for Universal Soldier: The Return, in hopes of rebooting the franchise. It failed at the box office and all hope was lost in humanity (to the 16-year-old me, at least).

Van Damme didn’t have a lot of luck after the late nineties – his films faced the kiss of death and all went straight-to-DVD. In 2008, he made a triumphant return as himself in an unapologetic and sweet self-mockery of his career movie called JCVD (he was robbed of an Oscar nomination. ROBBED.). Ten years had passed since we last saw him in a Universal Soldier movie, and since Van Damme was back on everyone’s radar, he gave the series another shot with Universal Soldier: Regeneration. Dolph Lundgren even returned to fill the fanboy excitement. This film did not have the impact everyone hoped. There was a warm fire to it, however, and Van Damme re-teamed with Regeneration’s director John Hyams to make a fourth installment called Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning. This ambitious film takes the franchise in a whole new direction, trading out boring redundant fight scenes with fresh, stylized violence, and roundhouse kicks to fanboy glory. Day of Reckoning is the Universal Soldier follow up we’ve been anxiously waiting for since the release of the original.

In Day of Reckoning, JCVD is back and so is Lundgren (Andrew Scott just. Won’t. Stay. Dead.). Andrei “Pitbull” Arlovski returns to wreak havoc as well. Reckoning is being referred to as a quasi-sequel to Regeneration, and that’s because in the latter, we learn that instead of reanimating dead soldiers, the government has just been cloning the original Universal Soldiers; Andrew Scott (Lundgren) happened to be one of them.

In Reckoning, a new, equally psychotic Scott returns (another clone, if I’ve lost you), and has finally joined forces with his nemesis, Luc Deveraux (JCVD). Here’s why: Deveraux has gone mad and is now an evil son-of-a-bitch hell bent on taking over the government, one soldier at a time, dead or alive. He covers his bald head in warpaint and uses a serum to brainwash meathead soldiers to join his side. The lion-hearted Deveraux we once knew is now forever gone. When Psycho’s Anthony Perkins once famously said in 1960, “We all go a little mad, sometimes,” he was obviously talking about Luc Deveraux. But, I guess if you trick yourself into believing this one’s a clone, it softens the blow.

This go-around, our focus isn’t on Deveraux or Scott, but on fresh blood John, played by Scott Adkins (Undisputed III, The Expendables 2). In the first scene of the film, John’s wife and daughter are brutally murdered right before his very eyes. The man responsible is Deveraux himself. After a nine month nap that’s clinically called a coma, John awakens and sets out to find out why this happened to him – he can only remember so much. Throughout his journey of I-need-some-goddamn-answers, he is plagued by memories of his deceased family and the man responsible for their deaths.

The excitement of this film boils down to Hyams. He tossed out all of the bullshit he used in his first attempt at a Universal Soldier film and made an incredible, intense cyberpunk action film that would make Nicolas Winding Refn crack a smile. Hyams traded in boring fast cuts and close-up kicks and punches for carefully stylized violence. He’s come a long way since Regeneration.

It was also a smart move to give Adkins the lead role. He’s credible enough to lead a film and his fans would agree he should be a bigger movie star than he currently is. It’s a shame, but Scott has learned to really bring out the punches in every film he’s in. His fighting in Reckoning is a slow burn and we don’t get to see much of it until almost the very end. This is actually a brilliant (and courageous) move from Hyams. It gives Adkins room to actually act (which he is exceptional at, by the way) and when it comes time for him to do what he does best (beat the shit out of people and look awesome while doing it), he does not disappoint. This is a treat for fans both new and old.

Even though we don’t get much of Van Damme or Lundgren, that’s OK, because Hyams has fearlessly taken the franchise in a whole new direction and pulls it off admirably. This could very well be the start of a fresh new and much deserved successful franchise for Universal Soldier.

Originally published on Film Threat.

Review: HOLY MOTORS Is Some Kind of Wonderful

"Holy Motors" is so layered a film, we don’t even know where or how to begin to describe it. It’s so much easier to dissect an unpleasant movie than it is to praise a marvelous one. There are only so many times one can say, “It’s awesome!” before people begin to realize there are a limited number of adjectives in a writer’s vocabulary.

Yes, “Holy Motors” is awesome, but let’s try this: writer/director Leos Carax has taken his love of avant-garde cinema to radical new heights. There, that should do it.

Denis Lavant (a frequent collaborator with Carax) stars as Monsieur Oscar, an elderly homeless woman, motion capture professional in the arts of combat and sex, sewer barbarian, overbearing father, accordion player (in an all-accordion band), assassin, old man on his deathbed, romantic reunited with an old flame (played by Kylie Minogue), and a father to two adult monkeys.” (You’re probably already lost, but bear with us). Oscar is a performer and travels in a white limousine from one destination to the next, playing these emotionally and physically demanding characters, one at a time, in each location. It’s assumed that we, the audience, are watching him every step of the way. His driver is Céline (Édith Scob — mostly known as the daughter with the disfigured face in Georges Franju’s “Eyes Without a Face”), and she has two simple responsibilities: give him the detailed file for his next appointment and make sure he arrives on time for it. We learn early on that Oscar is followed by constant security during his missions, so his profession is seemingly dangerous and important.

Carax also brings back the character of “Merde” from his short in the anthology film, “Tokyo!” This hellion looks like a Leprechaun who was never accepted into the Leprechaun society because he’s, well, a bit rough around the edges, to say the least. His tiny green pants rise well above his ankles, his toenails and fingernails are long, sharp and tainted with who knows what and he’s blind in one eye. This uncivilized man roams cemeteries, eats colorful flowers freshly put on graves and kidnaps a model (Eva Mendes, in a brief but important cameo). His intention with her is harmless — he just wants to lick her armpits and romance her without exchanging bodily fluids. It’s the most unconventional erotic moment one can possibly imagine.

This segment, along with a few others, includes some quick but extreme violence, and it’s unclear whether the brutality we are witnessing is actually happening or is part of the show. The complexity of this film’s reality is brilliant.

Film critic-turned-filmmaker Carax is known for taking daring chances. “Holy Motors” is his salute to all the French New Wave filmmakers who dared to think differently from the Hollywood norm decades ago. To add, this film just might be Carax’s visual commentary on today’s society.

Let’s recap: we are shown a homeless woman desperate for change, and minutes later, a rich artist completely unhappy with this fantasy job most would kill for. There are many questions that arise in this film, none of which are spelled out in front of you. This is a film that requires multiple viewings and encourages speculation and debate.

"Holy Motors" is a character study about a guy living life as other people more often than as himself. As Oscar gets dressed for his next persona, his hollow eyes suggest this job is quickly becoming an exhaustion. (Also, he says he’s exhausted twice, so that makes it obvious, too). But what do they say on Broadway? "The show must go on." Even though he is only dressed as one of his characters for five to 10 minutes, Oscar makes sure each personality becomes eccentric enough to stand on its own. You will not forget any of them. This is the handy work from Lavant, who’s perhaps the best character actor we’ve seen since Charlie Chaplin (which is ironic because he plays Charlie Chaplin in Harmony Korine’s "Mister Lonely"). Lavant gives each of his characters vision and ambition and pulls it off remarkably.

Follow Chase Whale on Twitter.

Originally published on NextMovie.

Interview: 10 Things LOOPER Star Noah Segan Told Us About LOOPER Star Noah Segan

The first time I met Noah Segan was at Fantastic Fest 2010. He was there with Rider Strong promoting “Cabin Fever 2,”where his performance stood out despite the film’s mediocrity. I interviewed him shortly after the premiere, and our chance encounter turned into a Twitter friendship over the next few years as we discussed retro films, film festivals, music and various other topics that nerds nerd out over — in 140 characters or less, of course.

This dude knows a thing or two and can talk your ear off about repertory cinema, old film cameras, Sid Vicious, the migration patterns and mating habits of Great Horned Owls. Well maybe not the last one, but all that other stuff, definitely. It’s rare these days you’ll find an actor Segan’s age (29) who can converse about cool trivia without looking it up on his iPhone or who actually understands his craft on this level. All trivia knowledge aside, this is the most impressive quality.

When the big announcement came that he was cast as Kid Blue (which not so coincidentally happens to be his Twitter handle), one of the villains in Rian Johnson’s highly anticipated“Looper,” it felt like the time was right to sit down and put him on the record. So here we are, presenting one of those “top 10″ lists. But don’t scoff just yet. These are the ten really kick-ass things you should know about Segan before they become common knowledge or he ends up in a “They’re Just Like Us” page in US Weekly. After you read this, follow him on Twitter and ‘Like’ his Facebook page. Trust me, you’ll want to be able to tell your friends, “I knew who Noah Segan was before it was cool.”

Below are excerpts straight from the Kid himself, broken down into the best parts of our extended conversations. Enjoy.

He was the first to be cast in Rian Johnson’s first feature, “Brick.”

I ended up becoming friends with an actor who I looked up to and thought I had a lot in common with, and the guy suggested that I think about acting. He introduced me to a guy, who introduced me to another guy — being Hollywood, someone always introduces you to someone else, the nephew of someone else, best friends of the third person. Eventually, someone will send you on an audition, and if you’re really lucky, it’s an audition for “Brick” and you happen to meet Rian Johnson.

I was the first person cast in “Brick.” Rian met with me, personally, privately, without an audition, before the audition, which is very rare for a young director to do and even rarer for someone who’s never done a movie before. Having that opportunity, we both realized that we were going to get along. We met, hung out and eventually I had the audition, and he asked me to do it. We spent the better part of the year just hanging out being friends, watching the rest of the movie come together.

His role in “Deadgirl” won him the 2009 Chiller Award for Best Villain. The movie is about zombie rape, and is the same dope show that bonded him and Marilyn Manson.

About two years ago, I was at a party and I hear “Deadgirl!” across the room and then again “Deadgirl!” and lo and behold I look over, and the guy screaming is Marilyn Manson. He runs up to me and gives me a big hug, and we start talking. He’s a fan of the film. He is a huge cinephile and into a lot of the same stuff I’m into — a lot of cinéma vérité, a lot of ’60s,’ 70s kind of off-the-wall stuff, and now we’re very close friends. He has so much respect for art that it engenders his art.

I appreciate what he did — he’s the last rock star. He’s the last guy to piss off everybody’s parents. He’s in a very exclusive club that the Beatles are a part of, that the Rolling Stones are members of, Alice Cooper, etc. [He has the] boundary-pushing mentality that is rock ‘n’ roll. Elvis did what he did. As we spent more time together and connected on the movies we both like, it made me really appreciate his music and his humor. I don’t know if he’s going to be upset when I say this, but mostly when we hang out we go to IHOP. We go to IHOP, get shakes and then go watch “Sons of Anarchy.”

Noah Segan and Marilyn MansonHe takes impromptu trips to Vegas with Manson on Halloween. Mischief. Mayhem. Makeup. Tchotchkes.

Last Halloween, he called me up and said, “Let’s get out of town. I got this gig — we are going to hang out at this night club. A couple of other friends are going to come out, too.” A bunch of us got in this van, and we drove out to Vegas. We end up in Barstow, and of course, all we’re doing is making Hunter S. Thompson jokes. Hunter was a good friend of Manson’s. When people ask about Manson, I tell them, “He’s more Thompson than he is Vincent Price.” So we show up in Vegas, and we check in. It’s Halloween, right? Of course, that’s a very important holiday for Manson, it’s a very important holiday for me — I’m a performer, I dress up for work too. I realized I didn’t bring a costume. Manson is getting ready to go do his schtick and he says, “You need something, man. You can’t go out there naked.” So we go into his dressing room and he says, “I’m going to do your makeup,” and grabs me and starts putting eyeliner on me. I thought, “If anybody knows how to put eyeliner on me and do me up for Halloween, it’s Marilyn Manson.”

Also, we stopped at this gas station [on the way to Vegas], and there was this gift shop. They had all kinds of stuff — samurai swords, bottle openers, t-shirts, etc., all kinds of weird random stuff. Manson decides he wants to get a tchotchke. So I pick something out and he goes to buy it. He’s a tall guy and he’s got a sweat shirt on, looking like a normal person like you and I would going somewhere. He goes to buy the tchotchke and uses a credit card, and the cashier asks for an I.D. He doesn’t drive so he doesn’t carry around an I.D. or [he] forgot his I.D. We’re trying to figure out how to buy this tchotchke — he’s standing on principle and doesn’t want anyone else to buy it. So I pulled up his Wikipedia page and show the clerk and said, “This guy is that guy!”

Mom tattoosHe also loves his mom.

His friend wrote his IMDb biography, and it’s priceless.

“Noah’s favorite actor is Warren Oates, who died, as Noah expects to do one day as well. Love and cherish him for this one reason.” — Paul Sado.

My buddy, a screenwriter and filmmaker back in New York, Paul Sado, wrote it about 10 years ago, right before I did “Brick.” One day, that bio popped up on what at the time was a rather infantile version of IMDb, the better part of a decade ago. We thought it was hilarious and kept it up, with Paul occasionally surprising me with a change here and there. Over the past few years, a handful of folks, mostly agent-types or producers, have suggested I change it, but I figure it’s a good litmus test as to whether we’re all on the same team. It’s also a great homage to my buddy who is a brilliant writer and responsible for so much of my taste and humor. You’ve got to be able to laugh and be a little sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek. You’ve got to laugh at yourself and the whole circus. So that’s my way of surreptitiously finding out if y’all get it, get it?

He comes from a line of prominent artists you’d want to hang out with. 

My late grandfather on my mother’s side was photographer Arthur Rothstein. He had a very prolific career beginning in his early twenties shooting Farm Security Administration. He, along with Dorothea Lange, Jack Delano and the people you’ve heard of, went around the country and photographed the Depression and the Dust Bowl. He documented this very important time in history.

My uncle Rob, “Rockin’ Rob,” as we call him, is a rock star. He’s my grandfather’s son, born Rob Rothstein. Sometime in the mid-’60s, he became Rob Stoner and started playing with the greats. He played with Bob Dylan for a long time, worked on Don McLean’s classic “American Pie,” Meryl Haggard, Jerry Lee Lewis. He’s a bass player by trade and was a great side man. The greatest gift I have is growing up in an environment where it was very realistic where you could make art and survive.

LooperHe’s not your typical villain in “Looper.”

The concept of the “villain” in “Looper” is a little more fluid than what we’ve come to expect from your average shoot-’em-up action flick. Nobody does the right thing. My character, “Kid Blue,” is a “Gat Man,” meaning he’s a gangster, an enforcer, a right-hand to “Abe,” played by Jeff Daniels, who runs the little town. The Kid, as we’ve come to call him, is the bulldog chasing after the two versions of “Joe,” played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis, who are stuck in a cat-and-mouse game. Everyone in this movie is looking for vindication, for a purpose, and The Kid won’t stop at any cost to prove he can do his job, which is to catch the “Joe’s”. He’s beaten, he’s berated, he’s begrudging, but he keeps going.

We tried our best to make that engender some sympathy for him, give the audience a sense that even though he’s coming after our protagonists, he’s human, he’s diligent and he’s willing to do anything to succeed. He’s vulnerable and pretty pitiful. One savvy Tweeter made a comparison to “Dode,” the character I played in “Brick,” and I came up with an unfounded back story that The Kid is actually his grandson!

His character’s name in “Looper” (and his nickname) is a reference to James Frawley’s movie “Kid Blue.”

When I was a teenager and discovering the movies that I really identify with, my friend Paul Sado, same guy who wrote his IMDb profile, was turning me on to movies. He was the guy who turned me on to all the ’60s and ’70s counter-culture cinema, the American New Wave, that I still hold close — John Cassavetes, Sam Peckinpah, Monte Hellman, movies with Warren Oates and Dennis Hopper, guys who I hold in high regard. Subversive and funny stuff. He took me aside one day and said, “There’s this movie at Kim’s [a legendary New York video store that was the go-to for movies freaks looking for esoteric films, bootlegged movies, arthouse goodies and anything else you could think of] called ‘Kid Blue’ from 1973 with Dennis Hopper, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Lee Purcell, Peter Boyle, and it’s your movie.” He told me that I’d find great inspiration in Dennis Hopper, from his acting to filmmaking to photography. The film’s about an outlaw, a western gunslinger, who tries to go straight, but of course he can’t and hilarity ensues. And Paul said, “That’s you.” So I go to Kim’s and find a VHS tape taken from Spanish television [laughs] of this movie, and I watch it.

My buddy was right; it became my favorite movie. There’s humor in the film, but it’s about change, it’s about adulthood and it stuck with me, and people started calling me Kid Blue. Rian [Johnson] sent me the first draft of “Looper” years ago. I opened it up and there it was on whatever page — “Kid Blue.” I called him up, and I said, “What’s that?” and he said, “That’s you.” It really works with this character. It’s a guy who’s sort of a bumbling diligent failure. In “Kid Blue,” Hopper plays that up for comedy, and in “Looper,” I sort of play up for pathos. I’m unimaginably trying to emulate Dennis Hopper [laughs].

For Segan, art is expression, but it’s also a legacy.

That’s what’s so important to me about photography and filming is that you’re creating these hard documents, these entities that you send out into the world, and they exist long after you. They are a story with a plot and a character, or they’re a documentary of where you were or what you did and who you did it with, or they’re a mix. I truly believe that everything is subjective. Even a casual photograph is subjective. You hope that if you take a picture of someone doing something that it captures something about who they are or what they’re doing. At the end of the day, whether it’s acting in movies or taking some good pictures, I want it to be reflective of a story of times and places and people and experiences that make some sort of sense. [Laughs] I want to share that with people. All art is a diary — it’s reflective of what you’re doing at that time. It’s exciting.

Review: MIDDLE OF NOWHERE Takes Us On A Pleasing Road of Self-Discovery

Ruby (Emayatzy Corinealdi) is on a road to nowhere. She just dropped out of med school to work full time in hopes of getting her husband out of jail for being bad once (really nice of her, right?). 

Things really start to suck even more when she’s blindsided regarding news of his behavior while incarcerated. He hasn’t been released yet and still has a few years left. So, she does what any levelheaded person would after hearing this — she starts to live a little; discover herself and what’s now good for her. Nothing wrong with letting your hair down every now and again. 

Middle of Nowhere is Ruby’s life pieced together post husband-going-to-jail and includes memories of the good times that keep her hanging on to their now-hollow relationship (insert Stevie Nicks lyric here). She just can’t let go of the nostalgia. They were the best times of her life. And even though she’s clearly paid her dues to be a young woman on her own, it feels like she’s just now discovering adulthood. It’s really powerful. 

As a whole, Middle of Nowhere does have some problems. One specifically: the story becomes a bit insecure  towards the third act, seemingly feeling uncertain about how it wants to end. It’s hard to tell if this is writer/director Ava DuVernay’s intent. 

Corinealdi’s marvelous portrayal of Ruby keeps us in full-focus, however. This character is strong and going through the ringer but still manages to stand tall and be independent. Despite some disappointing setbacks, she’s courageous and fights for what she believes in. Her independence is really sexy. It gives us emotionally unstable, hopeless romantics a feeling of hope.

According to IMDb, DuVernay’s previous film, I Will Follow, tells the story of a “grieving woman,” which tells me this Sundance award winning filmmaker may have gone through the ringer herself. If this is true, she has cleverly learned how to use past upsets as a tool for making movies. I’m OK with that.

Middle of Nowhere opens in limited release in the U.S. on Friday, October 12. Check official site for theaters and showtimes.

Published on Twitch Film.

Review: SMASHED Offers a Sobering Look at a Young Alcoholic

Young and in love, married couple Kate and Charlie Hannah like to get smashed. Like GG-Allin-meeting-your-Christian-parents smashed, someone is going to vomit and piss themselves at some point in the night. They spend their days in bars getting drunk and nights having unconscious sex. The good life, right?

Things change, however, when schoolteacher Kate — Mary Elizabeth Winstead in a knockout career performance — throws up in the middle of class from sipping too much whiskey before entering the building one morning. The crack she smoked for the first time while being black-out drunk the night before may have also played a part.

When questioned by school authorities, Kate tells them she’s pregnant, and now must sober up and figure out how to extricate herself from this unfortunate lie. With help of the school’s vice principal, Dave (Nick Offerman, who says his most awkward line in his career ever) and newfound friend Jenny (the always wonderful Octavia Spencer), Kate decides to get sober. She begins to clean up, and her marriage to Charlie (Aaron Paul) is put to the ultimate test as he continues his efforts to hit the bottle as hard as he can. She’s a work-in-progress and he’s a train-wreck just waiting to happen.

Alcohol addiction is no laughing matter, but co-writer/director James Ponsoldt transforms this disease into an honest, somber, and often good-humored story. Being a guy who’s butted heads with alcohol, I can see Ponsoldt understands that even with living a great life, even with being super happy, alcohol often sneaks up, takes control, and sends your life spiraling in all kinds of horrifying directions, completely out of control. It’s like being damned to listen only to Michael Bolton for all eternity; nobody wants that.

With that being said, this is a light-hearted yet bracingly real look at a young alcoholic, driven by a strong lead we can relate to and care for during the awkward, sad, and hilarious moments when she’s desperately trying to take control. Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World) is absolutely terrific. She simply gets it. She gets the rigid and painful experience of giving up something that was once so fun and innocent. Winstead was born to be a star.

Most films dealing with booze-loving people tend to cast older actors, but Smashed catches the disease at its most youthful, absent-minded stage, the mid-twenties. Ponsoldt paints the dangerous-but-oh-so-fun portrait of a drunk woman trying to better herself, and it’s smashing.

(Review originally published during the Sundance Film Festival in January 2012. The film opens in limited theatrical release in the U.S. on Friday, October 12.)

Follow Chase Whale on Twitter.

Originally Published on Twitch FIlm.

'V/H/S' Has Smart Scares You Won't Be Able to Erase

Before DVDs, before Video On Demand and before Netflix, there was the VHS revolution. It was a time when movie nerds would rush to the nearest Blockbuster (remember that place?) or the local mom and pop video store every weekend to grab the latest home video releases.

It was also before the Internet, so the only way you knew if a movie was good was by watching it yourself. For indie films that had limited or no theatrical distribution, you had to judge the book by its cover. Then the digital age came and took away a large chunk of the fun.

In comes Ti West (“House of the Devil” and the upcoming “The ABCs of Death”), Adam Wingard (director of the highly anticipated “You’re Next” and “The ABCs of Death”), Joe Swanberg (“Uncle Kent,” “Hannah Takes the Stairs”), Glenn McQuaid (“I Sell the Dead”), David Buckner (“The Signal”), Radio Silence and Simon Barrett (writer of “You’re Next” and “The ABCs of Death”), a crew of movie geeks who grew up during the VHS boom and took a chance on watching more low budget films (mostly horror, obviously) during that heyday than you probably have in your entire life. It paid off and brought us the found footage anthology film, "V/H/S."

Shot in first person, “V/H/S” is made up of five complete shorts with an extra-short sixth called “Tape 56” (written by Barrett and directed by Wingard), which is broken into parts to serve as the film’s intro, transitional segments and outro to bring everything full circle. It follows a couple of hoodlums running around, filming themselves as they wreck abandoned buildings with spray paint and baseball bats. After hearing about a VHS tape that’s worth a lot of money, they break into the house where it’s rumored to be at — perhaps the darkest of their many none-too-bright ideas, especially since it looks like Satan himself lives there.

The first complete short, “Amateur Night” (co-written and directed by Bruckner), follows three bros whose night out on the town bar hopping, looking for women and getting piss drunk ends up turning into a dude’s worst nightmare when they actually do score and take a mysterious woman home with them. Oh yes, there is a penis-being-ripped-out-of-place scene. The second short, “Second Honeymoon” (co-written and directed by Ti West, whom I’m coining and complimenting as the new King of Slow Burn Horror), stars Swanberg and Sophia Takal as a young couple whose stab at taking a nice vacation is interrupted when an unknown visitor comes knocking at their motel door. The third short, “Tuesday the 17th” (written and directed by McQuaid), follows a group of college kids whose journey deep into the woods turns deadly when a blurry and static-looking killer shows up.

The fourth short, “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger” (written by Barrett and directed by Swanberg), takes place over the course of a few days and consists of multiple web-cam conversations between two lovers trying to figure out why something — or somethings — are going bump in the night in one of their homes. The final short, “10/31/98” (written and directed by a crew called Radio Silence), is similar to the first short, following a couple of dudes on a crusade to get drunk and laid on Halloween. All dressed up, they end up at the wrong house party and interrupt a Satanic cult trying to sacrifice a girl (presumably a virgin) and from there things turn into a new kind of Monster Mash, if you know what I mean.

"V/H/S" is a film by horror fans, for horror fans. Even though there is some CGI in one of the shorts (it’s used sparingly and wisely), the whole film has the VHS look and feel, most notably by the random static that comes from tape that’s been watched too much. There are also sporadic moments when completely unrelated scenes pop in, like someone has been re-using the same tape over and over.

A lot of recent found footage films contain unnecessary, painfully boring scenes, often used as a way of providing filler to reach a feature running time. This is not the case in “V/H/S,” as every scene is crucial in pushing each short’s narrative forward. Indeed, the filmmakers of “V/H/S” have made found footage films smart again.

And terrifying. Let’s be honest; it’s easy to scare a crowd (cue loud music, throw something toward the camera and presto!) but the real challenge is to strike fear in the heart of the viewer and have them remember those moments for months, possibly years down the road. “V/H/S” slices out all of the cheap scares and fills the film with truly clever scream-out-loud moments — some that are left up to the viewer’s (hopefully twisted) imagination and some where the terror is right in your face. Have some tree bark or a stick handy, as you’ll need something to chew through while watching this movie.

Originally published on NextMovie.com

Review: Poetic Justice Is Served in Insightful LIBERAL ARTS

Actor Josh Radnor is mostly known as hopeless romantic Ted Mosby on the hit show, “How I Met Your Mother,” though he garnered much more deserved attention for his first feature, “HappyThankYou-MorePlease” (not a typo, I promise), which won the Audience Award for Drama at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The central theme in “HTYMP” is the hardships of falling in love as an adult. Life would certainly be so much more pleasant if finding “the one” was as easy as movies make it seem to be, no?

Echoing “HTYMP,” Radnor carries on the “love sucks” theme in his second feature,"Liberal Arts." He plays Jesse Fisher, an admissions officer at what appears to be a community college in New York; we know it’s a small school because every prospective student he meets to discuss their educational direction seems to care nothing about it. The only exciting thing in Fisher’s current life is chasing thieves who steal his laundry (mere feet away from him) at the laundromat.  Things are not what he imagined 13 years after graduating college with a B.A. in English.

One night, Fisher gets a call from his second, er, first favorite professor from college, Peter Hoberg (the incredibly talented Richard Jenkins). Hoberg is retiring and wants some of his favorite students to attend his goodbye dinner and say nice things about what a wonderful teacher he was (“Lies,” he calls them). When Fisher arrives in town, he meets Hoberg’s friend’s daughter Zibby (the gifted Elizabeth Olsen, from “Martha Marcy May Marlene”), who’s currently a student at his former college. Sparks fly immediately and an old-fashioned romance begins; we say “old-fashioned” because instead of texting one another, they hand-write powerful letters on how classical music and prominent poets’ work make them feel about life. This is where Fisher’s degree means something to the film — he’s very, very obsessive about the books other people read.

Because Fisher spends most of the film on campus, most of his time is spent with students, misguided by dark things a famous writer had once written. What makes “Liberal Arts” so admirable is its honesty  about “the real world.” Even as a fully grown adult, life is still trying to work itself out. S**t happens, laundry gets stolen and you may never turn out to be that famous person you once dreamed about or find your soulmate at 22. These are the things students aren’t ever prepared for. This is one of those films that tells you about real grown-up connections that you won’t see in "Twilight" … and that good-natured jab is only given because there’s a brilliant discussion about the book in the film (“Twilight” alum Elizabeth Reaser also happens to co-star).

Supporting characters include Allison Janey as Fisher’s former professor who taught British Literature — and now that Fisher is now longer her student, she doesn’t have to pretend to be nice to him when he runs into her. There’s also a downright awesome surprise cameo, or at least that’s what we’re going to call it since it’s not advertised in the trailer. The casting of said gentleman is genius — it’s nice to see this young man step away from his teen idol status and really tackle some challenging roles (and, in this case, harmlessly absurd ones).

Like Vincent Gallo (“Buffalo ‘66,” “The Brown Bunny”), Radnor writes, directs and stars in his films. Unlike Gallo, Radnor has a heart (a gooey one, at that) and doesn’t use his actresses for extracurricular activities. He’s fair and shows that both men and women have their equal quarrels with the crazy things we do to find a connection with someone. Radnor is more of a Ben Affleck kind of guy — his eye is as sharp behind the camera as he is catching in front. (Did you know he’s 38? He looks at most 28. Time has been very kind to you, Mr. Radnor.) Ultimately, “Liberal Arts” is poetic justice for the romantics.

Originally published on NextMovie.com.