Blu Ray Review: BLACK ROCK

Now out on Blu ray and DVD:

BLACK ROCK 

(Dir. Katie Aselton, 2012)

At the beginning of a thriller, especially one with such an ominous title as BLACK ROCK, when a few friends get together to go camping saying over and over how much fun they are going to have, movie-goers obviously know that their experience is going to be anything but.

We, the audience, are the ones who supposedly are going to be having fun, watching them get into dangerous predicaments, all the while wondering which of them is going to get out of there alive.

But in Katie Aselton’s follow-up to her directorial debut, the anti-rom com THE FREEBIE (2010) what starts off promising due to dialogue scripted by her husband actor/writer/director Mark Duplass (SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED, The Mindy Project), who also co-executive produced with his brother/co-collaborator Jay Duplass, becomes a grueling and all too familiar struggle for survival.

Aselton herself stars with Kate Bosworth and Lake Bell as a trio of friends who take a boat out to a small island off the coast of Maine, mainly because Bosworth wants Aselton and Bell to reconnect after years of estrangement. Bell had slept with Aselton’s boyfriend back in the day, and despite agreeing to go along on the camping trip, Aselton is still not over it.

While drinking from a bottle of Jack Daniels, and eating from cans of SpaghettiOs on the beach, the women are startled by three young men (Will Bouvier, Jay Paulson, and Anslem Richardson) carrying rifles, who happen to be hunting on the island.

Bell recognizes Bouvier from their childhood, and before you know it the two groups are partying together around a campfire as night falls. It’s revealed that the three men served together in the military in the Middle East where something f’ed up went down that led to their dishonorable discharge.

A drunk Aselton comes on to Bouvier and lures him into the woods, but it gets out of hand when he violently forces himself on her. Screaming and unable to break free, she bashes Bouvier in the head to death with a rock. Crazed by this, Paulson and Richardson capture the women, with the intent to kill them. The women are able to escape from their angry unhinged tormentors and the hunt is on.

Paulson, who folks may remember as Don Draper’s younger brother on Mad Men, makes a convincingly evil presence that can’t be talked down, but Richardson is so transparently this horror film’s token black character, and we all know what happens to them.

That’s only part of the predictability, as is when Bosworth declares that “it’s time to stop being stalked, and start stalking.” A sequence with the women trying to get to their boat in the dark of night is marred by tons of unnatural lighting - surely the moon and the fellow’s flashlights wouldn’t provide that much lighting in that environment. I know many movies have night scenes that are unrealistically lit, but here it’s really distracting.

Aselton’s direction and acting is assured, but there’s no interesting angle on this material. Its short running time (83 min.) attests to its lack of ideas. It’s dead in the water, when it so could’ve been DELIVERENCE with a difference.

The themes of women finding their strength while bonding are buried under a less than riveting hide and seek scenario, with an ending that doesn’t have the impact it’s desperately trying for.

Aselton and Duplass, who made their acting debuts together in Duplass’s and his brother’s THE PUFFY CHAIR (2005) and appear together on the FX sitcom The League, have talent to burn, but BLACK ROCK is a far from fleshed out thriller that ends up in a routine rut.

* This review originally appeared in the May 16th, 2013 edition of the Raleigh News & Observer.

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These Indie Kids With Their Surreal Anti-Rom Coms…

This summer has been thankfully free of commercial romantic comedies.

There haven’t been any brightly-lit Kate Hudson or Jennifer Aniston vehicles in which they keep the Meg Ryan rom com fire going with the time-tested true-love-wins-in-the-end formula that I’ve been aware of.

There hasn’t even been a contender for all-star ensemble rom com like last year’s sleeper hit CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.

But hold on, that’s at the multiplexes.

What about at the art houses? Well, there are a couple of movies that, at first glance, look like rom coms. Look a little closer, and you’ll see that they are anti-rom coms, that is, comical love stories, but layered with cynicism, realism, and existentialism. And then there’s the surreal element.

Like in first-time director Colin Trevorrow’s SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED from a screenplay by first-time screenwriter Derek Connoly, now playing at the Rialto in Raleigh.

Aubrey Plaza, from the very funny NBC show Parks and Recreation, stars as a jaded young woman interning at a magazine in Seattle (Seattle Magazine, duh), who comes off like a spiritual descendant of Daniel Clowe’s Enid from both the comic book and movie GHOST WORLD. Plaza’s father (Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Jeff Garlin) thinks she’s in a funk (he embarrassingly thinks she’s a virgin too), and encourages her to get out and be social. So far, so rom com.

It veers off that well trodden trail, when our surly sarcastic heroine jumps at the chance to work on a story pitched by Jake M. Johnson (from the Fox Zooey Deschanel show New Girl) about what’s behind a classified ad that states: “Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. Safety not guaranteed.”

Plaza discovers that a scruffy Mark Duplass (who appears to be in every other indie film this year) wrote the ad, so she applies for the time traveling companion position. Meanwhile, it turns out that the smarmy Johnson, who at least owns up to being a crass jerk, just took on the assignment so he could hook up with an old girlfriend in the not-as-interesting-but-still-fine subplot.

Sure, it’s predictable that Plaza will come out of her shell and fall for Duplass, but the snappy script and tuned-in tone make this an endearing film that never tries to be too hip or self consciously pop culture savvy, despite having a few STAR WARS references in it. It can’t help but have some rom com story beats, but its naturalistic rhythms subvert them. That’s very impressive, considering the plot hinging on whether or not some odd guy can actually time travel.

Less successful in its rom com subversion, is Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s RUBY SPARKS, now playing at the Colony Theater  in North Raleigh. 

Its surreal premise is simple: a young writer (Paul Dano) writes about his dream girl (literally from his dreams) and she comes to life in the form of the energetic red-headed Zoe Kazan (who wrote the screenplay).

If Dano writes that she speaks French - she speaks French, if he writes that she can’t live without him - she freaks out if he lets go of her hand, and so on. “You can make her do anything you want…for men everywhere - tell me you’re not gonna let that go to waste” Dano’s brother (Chris Messina, another indie actor who gets around a bit) implores of him.

Dano’s attempts to control her always backfire, which, of course, is the point, but RUBY SPARKS is maybe half of a good movie. A sleazy Steve Coogan as Dano’s agent bit seems like a conventional concession, and the film’s conclusion spastically beats its message into the ground - or Dano’s apartment floor as Kazan frantically jumps up and down yelling that he’s a genius, because that’s what he’s typing her to do. Okay, we get it.

It’s sort of ADAPTATION meets (500) DAYS OF SUMMER, but it’s not fleshed out enough to really hit its marks. Still, the attempt to comment on the egos and expectations in a relationship as well as rom com tropes (though I’m not sure it’s really the refutation of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl ideal that the A.V. Club claims) does yields some satisfaction, and it’s nice to see apt cameos by Anne Benning, and Elliot Gould.

It’s worth noting that one of the only movies close to a conventional commercial rom com this summer is David Frankel’s HOPE SPRINGS, starring Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones as an old married couple trying to get their groove back. That’s a nice little film that doesn’t need any sci-fi gimmickry or supernatural shenanigans in order to charm.

But if the idea of seeing A-list geezers getting it on puts you off, and you’re willing to give a surreal anti-rom com made by indie kids a try, go with SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED - it certainly has the edge because nobody would ever call Aubrey Plaza a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Not if they know what’s good for them.

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JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME: The Film Babble Blog Review

Now playing in Raleigh at the Colony Theater:

JEFF, WHO LIVES AT HOME (Dirs. Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass, 2011) 

This is a day in the life of 2 brothers: one’s a slacker, the other a jerk. Jason Segel, in the title role, is the slacker - a jobless 30-year-old pot-smoking lug whose life philosophy is based on the movie SIGNS. That’s right, M. Night Shyamalan’s SIGNS.

The jerk is a goateed Ed Helms as the older brother, a paint-store salesman whose marriage to Judy Greer (last seen in “The Descendants”) may be in trouble.

Susan Sarandon plays their widowed mother who gets Segel’s day going when she calls home from her cubicle in an unspecified office to ask him to get some wood glue.

Actually it’s a phone call Segel got earlier that really sets the day in motion - a wrong number asking for somebody named Kevin. “What if there is no wrong numbers?” Segel speculates, “What if it’s always the right number?”

So Segel leaves his Baton Rouge, Louisiana (the filmmakers' home town) basement dwelling to go get wood glue, but he gets caught up in a seemingly random series of events, most of which are triggered by the name Kevin coincidentally popping up at odd times. “There are no coincidences” I’m sure Segel’s Jeff would say.

While at a business meeting (or so he says) at Hooters, Helms happens to see Segel walking by. Sarandon had phoned Helms earlier asking him to help get his brother moving so, of course, Segel sees this as another sign. Their destinies take a turn when the brothers happen upon seeing Helm’s wife Greer out with another man (Steve Zissus).

They follow and spy on Greer and Zissus (Helms is either too scared or stupid to confront them), ending up at a hotel (after Segel gets diverted by another Kevin sign). This is where the film most successfully balances humor with heartfelt drama. We can see why Greer would cheat on the thickheaded Helms, and we feel Segel’s compassion for his brother’s predicament, as airheaded as it is.

The characters are better drawn and play off each other more believably than in the Duplass brother’s previous films (THE PUFFY CHAIR, BAGHEAD, CYRUS), and the film certainly feels sincere without any cynical snarkiness. Just like Jeff.

I was less annoyed by the brothers’ shaki-cam framing too.

A subplot involving Sarandon and co-worker Rae Dawn Chong trying to figure out who a secret admirer at work is gets a bit cutesy, but it doesn’t detract from the overall charm and likability of this simple story.

Segel’s Jeff loves the film SIGNS because “everything comes together in one perfect moment.”

The Duplass brothers haven’t pulled off perfection here, but this sure is a terrifically unpretentious attempt.

And it’s way better than SIGNS.

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CYRUS: The Film Babble Blog Review

CYRUS (Dirs. Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass, 2010)

“I’m like Shrek! What are you doing here in the forest with Shrek?” John C. Reilly jokingly asks Marisa Tomei after successfully determining that she’s flirting with him at a party. Although, or maybe because, she walked up on him taking a leak in the bushes it’s definitely a “meet cute.” * 

Reilly almost jeopardizes the moment by running back in the house when he hears Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” come on the stereo, drunkenly yelling “dance party!” Using his beer bottle as a microphone he sings along and tries to get others to join him. When nobody does, Tomei saves the scene by entering the room singing and dancing along. Before you know it their previously embarrassed and snickering fellow party goers are right there with the couple singing and dancing along with them to the classic ‘80s synth pop song.

See? A meet cute. Reilly is a divorced lovable lug of a guy who is still close to his ex wife (Catherine Keener) although she is about to get re-married. Reilly hasn’t dated in ages and it’s easy to see why he is instantly smitten with Tomei. The woman of his dreams though has a secret. Thinking she’s married he follows her one night and finds out what it is – she has a grown son (Jonah Hill) who still lives at home. 

Their first encounter Hill is polite and though he makes odd awkward jokes (“it’s great to finally have a new dad”) he seems to be cool with Reilly dating his mother. However clues start to form that that’s not the case like when Reilly wakes up the next morning and can’t find his shoes. Over time more clashing occurs when Hill has panic attacks that Reilly suspects are faked. When Hill moves out then wants to move back in, Reilly confronts him and it’s obvious that the weirdness between them has now become war. 

Director brothers Jay and Mark Duplass take another step away from the “mumblecore” movement they helped found (their last one was their entertaining indie thriller “Baghead”) here by using name actors and a more conventional structure. Unfortunately they haven’t left behind sloppy camera work – the zoom ins and outs are overdone and the staging of many shots is shakier than shaky cam should be. CYRUS has comic moments, but can’t really be considered a comedy.

Reilly and Hill may be Judd Apatow repertory players, but here they’re servicing a story that tries more for tears than laughs. Although it rarely gets either it’s a quirky diversion that may be worth a film goers’ time depending on whether they are a fan of the actors.

* Roger Ebert, who popularized the term, describes a "meet cute" as when "somebody runs into somebody else, and then something falls, and the two people began to talk, and their eyes meet and they realize that they are attracted to one another."

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