The Screengrab : duplass brothers

Trailer Review: Humpday

Paul Clark — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Up to this point, I could sort of take or leave the indie-film movement that’s become known as “mumblecore.” While I respect the scruffy lo-fi aesthetic of these films, I’ve never quite bought into the “voices of a generation” hype that’s followed such adherents as Andrew Bujalski and the Duplass Brothers. However, ever since I first heard about Lynn Shelton’s Humpday in reports from Sundance this year, I’ve been pretty eagerly anticipating the film. Part of the reason is the premise itself- two straight friends co-starring in an amateur gay porn more or less on a dare. For one thing, I like the twist this premise brings to the usual comedy-of-homoeroticism formula, perhaps because I don’t find it funny when characters are oblivious to the “gayness” of their actions, but hilarious when they acknowledge the homoeroticism, and their feelings about same (the jackass movies have much the same approach, albeit without so much tentativeness). Add to this the fact that the Joshua Leonard character bears an almost uncanny resemblance to an old college friend- the kind of friend who would have been totally down for a stunt like this- and this looks to be right up my alley.

Morning Deal Report: Jennifer Garner’s Butter

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:30:00 GMT

Jennifer Garner will star in Butter, a “political satire set in the small-town world of competitive butter-sculpting.” See that, people are stealing my ideas again. “Butter follows a young orphan who, after being adopted by a Midwestern family, discovers she has an uncanny talent for butter-carving,” per The Hollywood Reporter. “She eventually finds herself up against the ambitious wife of the retired reigning champion in a town's annual butter-sculpting contest.”

Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Bryan Cranston have all signed up for Red Tails. “John Ridley wrote the script, which revolves around the young pilots who overcame institutional racism in the military to form the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American fighter pilots in U.S. military history. Their planes featured the red-painted tails that give the film its title,” Variety reports. George Lucas is producing, but mercifully not directing.

The Duplass brothers will write and direct Table 19 for Fox Searchlight. The film will revolve around “those wedding guests quarantined at the dreaded ‘singles table.’ Told from the points of view of the strangers randomly thrown together, the story explores what marriage means to those on the sidelines.”

Related:
Gary Busey Tries to Make Out With Jennifer Garner in Public
SXSW Review: Humpday

DVD Digest for December 30, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! This week, the big studios drop a ton of new DVDs and Blu-Rays into the market to compete for your newly-acquired Christmas cash.

In recent releases, DVD shopping begins early this week, with three new Paramount titles: Shia Labeouf and Michelle Monaghan in Eagle Eye (also Blu-Ray); Ricky Gervais in Ghost Town (also Blu-Ray); and Keira Knightley in The Duchess (also Blu-Ray). Today brings us Nick Broomfield’s Battle For Haditha (Image Entertainment), as well as a “head to head” match up (sorry) between Alan Ball’s Towelhead (Warner) and the Duplass Brothers’ Baghead (Sony).

In TV on DVD, today’s new releases include The Tudors Season 2 (Paramount) and Nip/Tuck Season 5 Part 1 (Warner).

Finally, this week’s bumper crop of new Blu-Ray-only releases includes: Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder (Paramount); the Shining-in-space thriller Event Horizon (Paramount); Demi Moore and the Swayz in Ghost (Paramount); Queen Latifah in Last Holiday (Paramount); Jim Carrey in Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (Paramount); Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn in Wedding Crashers (Warner); and finally, the Browncoats’ favorite, Joss Whedon’s Serenity (Universal).

Morning Deal Report: Brad Pitt Seeks Lost City

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

We Own the Night director James Gray is adapting the nonfiction book The Lost City of Z for Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B. Pitt will star as British soldier and spy Percy Fawcett, who “left Victorian society to explore in the Amazon, and he became obsessed by the idea of an advanced civilization he called Z, which he believed existed in the depths of the jungle. Along with his son, Fawcett headed into the jungle in 1925 in search of Z and was never seen again,” Variety reports.

Mumblecore mavens the Duplass Brothers are set to make their studio debut with “an intergenerational comedy” for Fox Searchlight. “The studio is in talks with Marisa Tomei, John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill to star in the film, which will center on a budding romance between a man (Reilly) and woman (Tomei) that the woman's son (Hill) attempts to foil,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

Get ready to hold your lighters aloft. “New Line has won an auction for screen rights to Rock of Ages, a stage musical that does with '80s rock anthems what Mamma Mia! did with Abba tunes,” Variety reports. “The show is propelled by signature '80s rock anthems popularized by Journey, Twisted Sister, Joan Jett, Pat Benatar, Foreigner, Bon Jovi and REO Speedwagon.” What, no Loverboy?

Related:
Brad Pitt Jilts Aronofsky Again
Die Mumblecore Die

Trailer Review: Baghead

Paul Clark — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later: the first mumblecore horror movie. Even as someone who has never really had much use for the mumblecore movement, this one has me intrigued, in large part because the two elements seem so incongruous. The casual loosey-goosey feel of movies like Hannah Takes the Stairs and Mutual Appreciation just doesn’t seem to jive with the stylistic and storytelling conventions of the fright genre, which if nothing else makes it a noble effort by The Duplass Brothers to make it work. But how successful will it be? A few weeks ago, Screengrab’s own Phil Nugent saw the film at Tribeca, where he praised the comic aspects of the film but had little to say about the horror, which leads me to believe it’s not as much of a factor in the film as this trailer would lead you to believe. Still, I’m willing to give this a shot, which is more than I can say with many movies of its ilk.

Die Mumblecore Die

Peter Smith — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:00:00 GMT

Well, it had to happen sometime. What with two weeks' worth of crushing hype mid-summer, the mumblecore kids were due for a backlash, but who knew Amy Taubin would be the one to do it? Taubin, after all, went on record in 2005 with a "Distributor Wanted" for Mutual Appreciation, exceeding all the hype two years ahead of time by calling Andrew Bujalski's work "Rohmer without subtitles." The tide turns, viciously, in a Film Comment jeremiad that goes viciously ad hominem in record time, from an opening shot bidding goodbye to "the indie movement that never was more than a flurry of festival hype and blogosphere branding." Studiously ignoring her own early championing (Matt Zoller Seitz correctly points out that Taubin seems to be suffering from "buyer's remorse"), Taubin taunts the movement for not making enough money at the IFC Center, accuses all involved of racism for not inviting So Yong Kim's In Between Days to the party "because the filmmaker is a Korean-American woman and her heroine is a Korean immigrant," and calls Joe Swanberg a "lout." These aren't criticisms of film; seemingly the spirit of political campaigning in the air has infected Taubin, whose article is as ridiculously mean-spirited as any negative ad.

Gradually, it emerges that Taubin doesn't seem to hate mumblecore (a vast umbrella of filmmakers more disparate than they initially seemed), just Swanberg. Now, there's plenty of reasons to get annoyed by the queasiness-inducing auteur; I've only seen Hannah Takes The Stairs, and frequently wished that Swanberg would learn what a camera does besides recording images. (Some framing would be nice, in other words.) But I'm also struck by his knack for turning potentially ruinously indulgent improv bull-sessions into something like emotional truth, and the fact that he's the weakest out of the four filmmakers I've sampled (which includes Bujalski, Aaron Katz and the Duplass brothers) speaks strongly of everyone. And only in Taubin's insular, privileged world (one, frankly, I'd like to be a part of) could mumblecore count as some kind of overwhelming "film movement," one which she inexplicably feels compelled to note has nothing on "the French New Wave or the postwar American avant-garde." Follow the growingly uncivil controversy at Greencine's comments section, which has swelled to thirty-six indignant missives, including a rightfully pissy riposte from SXSW honcho Matt Dentler. — Vadim Rizov

Correction: We originally reported that Joe Swanberg had himself posted comments on the Greencine page. He hadn't. Sorry, Joe.