I Saw "Adventureland"

[Tom Lowe]

http://i43.tinypic.com/15ppf2c.jpg

This is a really good little movie. It seems like 99% of the films at the theater right now are pure garbage. I can't even submit myself to the torture of watching them. But I really enjoyed Adventureland. I recommend it, two thumbs up. http://www.reduser.net/forum/images/icons/icon14.gif

And BTW, OMFG... after seeing this I'm completely in love with Kristen Stewart. :eek6: http://i41.tinypic.com/atkh21.jpg

[Austin Glass]

wow, just based on the grab, I want to see this one...

Why haven't I heard of this? It sounds interesting from the brief bit I got off of IMDB.

And Tom, I would have thought that Twilight would have caused you to fall in love with Kristen Stewart :-P

[Tom Lowe]

Well I haven't seen Twilight yet, although I did see her in Into the Wild. :eek6::eek6: This girl has got to be the hottest thing to come along in like decades. She blows Megan Fox out of the water, IMHO.

I can't remember any other recent screen babes who really knocked my socks off. I remember when I first saw Sharone Stone in Total Recall I was like "wow." :thumbsup:

[Austin Glass]

Well, I think Megan Fox is overrated. Sure, she's got a hot body, but in most pictures she has an average face.

Besides, I have a thing for redheads, so there's that...

[Jay Voutour]

Kristen Stewart has been hot (as in good-looking) since Into the Wild. Well, as hot as a Janis Joplin-wannabe can be.

IMO, any movie that has Ryan Reynolds in it should at least be considered for a rental.
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Vaporgenie vaporizer (http://www.vaporshop.com)

[Tom Lowe]

Speaking of Reynolds, that lucky bastard has a nice little "romantic" scene with Stewart in this film = :eek6:

[Jay Voutour]

Nice...

But based on the trailer, doesn't she end up with geekazoid?
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[Tom Lowe]

Well I don't want to spoil it! But I agree with you. I think the casting of this dude is just too geeky.

[Jay Voutour]

Fair enough. :)

I'll see if my gf, who's the biggest Twilight (ugh...) fan, if she wants to go see it on the weekend.
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[Jonathan Stevenson]

SO funny, I just saw this tonight and was going to start a similar thread. I loved the film, great script, awesome characters, never a dull moment. I think Bill Hader stole the film. And yes, Kristen Stewart has that "damaged goods" hotness that is really hard to fake! haha...

[MikeHedge]

ya Kristin is neat! She did awesome in Cake Eaters too.

[Justin Kirchhoff]

This is a great film. Saw it a few weeks ago. It was much better than what the trailer showed it to be. Didn't know what to expect which is better than going into the movie assuming it will be a certain way. I also recommend.

[Andrew Walker]

Saw this film a month or so ago when we were doing print checks on it and I liked it. Tom has a very good point about Kristin...she is hot. I liked this film because it seemed to be very personal as it might have been taken from someone's past.

[Shawn Nelson]

I assume this is a joke...Kristin Stewart can't hold a candle to...about a 100 other actresses. Plus, I've heard too many bitch stories from the press and locals who worked on Twilight.

[Jay Voutour]

I assume this is a joke...I've heard too many bitch stories from the press and locals who worked on Twilight.

Pouty lips are hot. :thumbsup:
B*tchiness...not so much.

Might not be the nicest person to work with, but sure made it a helluva lot easier to sit through Twilight.
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[Craig Ryan]

*in Sean Connery impression*
Not'a fan of the ladies are'ya Trebek?

[Tom Lowe]

I assume this is a joke...Kristin Stewart can't hold a candle to...about a 100 other actresses.

Oh come on, Shawn, tell us the truth. We all know that you had a major supporting acting role in Twilight...

http://i39.tinypic.com/2iuxlic.jpg

Tell us what really happened. :shocked:

[jpp]

The director, Greg Motolla, is the classic American indie film success, love it or leave it. His first feature, The Daytrippers, was produced by our friend Steven Soderbergh, it attracted a then all-star indie cast (Parker Posey, Stanley Tucci and Liev Schrieber) and though rejected by Sundance, lead to TV directing jobs and, eventually, Superbad.

Is his accessible, middle-of-the-road path, from the very the beginnings, cause for rejoicing or weeping? Select rage, envy or tears, as the case may be....

If you can make this racket work for you, it's better than a Free Energy Mylow Magnet Motor.

[Tom Lowe]

See, jpp, it can happen.

BTW, does anyone know the budget for Adventureland? It was shot on 35mm and had a 2K DI.

[jpp]

Yes and no. The game is just a little bit fixed, as usual. Success needs no excuses, but he did have Soderbergh & Co. to draw on, which brought him resources that money couldn't buy. An unknown, on that shooting budget, would never get that cast, or the range of free services the Daytrippers production must have enjoyed.

And the accessibility of the material made it all possible. Not exactly Hollywood, but not all that different, either. Though it does have some nice moments with Stanley Tucci.....

OTOH, there's nothing inherently surprising or even unfair in the fact that it takes extraordinary luck to achieve extraordinary access to industrial feature filmmaking, given the relatively large of pool of competent directing talent, and so few spots available. Something needs to distinguish all the available candidates, and it might as well be access or luck. They're not, after all, electing the Pope.

[Tom Lowe]

Yeah, but jpp, it also takes extraordinary luck to make it as a rock star, too. Or a supermodel. Or a famed novelist.

BTW, what was the guy's initial relationship to SS? I mean, if he started out rigging lights, then his relationship with SS was earned the good old fashioned way. If he was SS's college roomie, then yeah, that's an "unfair" advantage I suppose.

[jpp]

Yeah, but jpp, it also takes extraordinary luck to make it as a rock star, too. Or a supermodel. Or a famed novelist.

BTW, what was the guy's initial relationship to SS? I mean, if he started out rigging lights, then his relationship with SS was earned the good old fashioned way. If he was SS's college roomie, then yeah, that's an "unfair" advantage I suppose.

Well, we hope the famed novelist can write better than the supermodel and the rockstar..... But we've got supermodels and rockstars directing movies.

Don't know the truth of the matter, only the folklore, but I believe Soderbergh and his then producer, Nancy Tanenbaum saw a short of Mottola's. So, on that basis, he arrived at them fair and square. I believe they were in development on a larger project, it didn't gel, they offered him $40K to shoot something else, they eventually raised $60K to get Daytrippers in the can, with a finishing cost of about $500K.

It remains something of a small miracle (for him). And the middle-brow nature of the material made it possible. No crime in that, but we need to know what we're dealing with here. Haven't seen this one, but Adventureland appears to be commercial material, and it's not all that surprising that commercial material gets produced, and somebody's got to direct it.

[Tom Lowe]

The film is certainly formulaic. But it's clearly a personal story told by a director on a fairly small budget, and it's better than 95% or more of the crappola churned out by Hollywood.

[Shawn Nelson]

lol, Tom, if I lost about 30lbs I would look a lot like that.

Did you see my movie Aetas? My lead guy in that was one of the frat boys. I still havent seen the flick...

[Tom Lowe]

Lol when I first saw the Twilight trailer I was like, "Shawn Nelson!"

[jpp]

and it's better than 95% or more of the crappola churned out by Hollywood.

The producer was Ted Hope, who's either legendary or notorious in American indie film, depending on your point of view....

It all goes back to the peculiar debilities of the form in the U.S. in the 1990s, and what came to be known as the 100% Artificial American Independent Film -- a well-produced movie with production values and stars beyond its budget, which could likely never get made in Hollywood, but probably more due to tone than content. They were accessible products. These films often attracted distributor interest, though it wasn't entirely clear who the audience for them was, other than filmmakers who wanted to make their own 100% Artificial Independent Films, and Sundance, where they won prizes.

Anyway, the company Ted Hope and James Schamus founded, Good Machine, eventually produced many of these tony indies, having become viable after Ang Lee turned up with Taiwanese government funding for his first two features, Pushing Hands and The Wedding Banquet, the latter of which made them a lot of money. Thereafter, Good Machine got great press and produced a number of films at a range of budgets, but was widely if secretly reviled for charging exorbitant producing fees and declining to return phone calls. And, in some quarters, it was reviled for producing nothing but 100% Artificial American Independent Films.

It must also be said that 100% Artificial American Independent Films tend to sell pretty well to distributors (or at least they used to), even if audiences aren't much interested in them. So it was a canny maneuver on the part of the company.

For better or worse, this was the only truly viable independent production company, ever, producing American indies. And the principals are still producing films which *look* like independent productions, only on much higher budgets. You can't blame them -- they want to eat.

Anyway, this guy produced Adventureland, and I don't doubt it's better than most Hollywood crap, he knows what's what. But it looks like the producing formula hasn't changed much, it's just more successful now and the material has broader appeal.

[Tom Lowe]

Yeah, I mean, Adventureland certainly is following in the footsteps of exactly the types of films you are mentioning. It's probably significantly smaller budget than "Little Miss Sunshine" but is still sort of in that league, I suppose.

But again, as we seem to agree, this type of film is better than most of the junk churned out by the studio system proper.

[Zak Forsman]

Ted is producing my friend's next picture. Can't say more than that but Ted has been a tremendous champion of shaping the new models of distribution and fighting for indie filmmakers to make $$$ from their work, rather than today's convention of selling it to a distro for less than it cost to make.

And what are these "artificial" indie pictures you're talking about? Trust, Simple Men, Amateur, Safe, Happiness, Tao of Steve, In The Bedroom, American Splendor, The Savages, etc. What's artificial about these?

btw, Ted hope has an awesome blog over at http://trulyfreefilm.blogspot.com

[jpp]

And what are these "artificial" indie pictures you're talking about? Trust, Simple Men, Amateur, Safe, Happiness, Tao of Steve, In The Bedroom, American Splendor, The Savages, etc. What's artificial about these?

We'll leave Hal Hartley's films out of it to keep things simple. "Safe" is also something of a special case, given the co-producing arrangement with Killer Films, which tended to be more venturesome than Good Machine. But I'd say that Happiness, Tao of Steve, In The Bedroom, and American Splendor are good examples of the phenomenon under discussion.

That doesn't necessarily mean they're unwatchable. It's just that, for this viewer, they're a poor excuse for art cinema, and we can look to the financing and producing arrangements for the reason this middle-brow hybrid stuff, not quite art and yet not quite commercial, gets made (or *got* made--the situation today is far more difficult). And there will always be differences in taste, I can only answer for mine.

[Tom Lowe]

Looks like this thread is about to get serious.

*grabs popcorn*

[Jeremy Torrie]

Especially when I have to say I didn't care for this film when I saw it at Sundance. To me it was emotionally unsatisfying. It was just...nice. Tonally it felt like Knocked Up -trying to satisfy two genres while not sticking with the right one and nailing the tone, but with $15 Million at the box office so far, it must be working.

I recall reading about the budget being in the sub $10 Million range, but cannot recall exactly where it landed. There was a write up in one of the several pieces of literature at the festival about the choice of location based on tax credits (Philly).

At least it didn't suck as badly as The Informers. This was supposed to be my highlight of the festival, and instead I left pissed off.

Cold Souls on the other hand was a great surprise. Giamatti was awesome.

[Jay Voutour]

At least it didn't suck as badly as The Informers. This was supposed to be my highlight of the festival, and instead I left pissed off.

Cold Souls on the other hand was a great surprise. Giamatti was awesome.

Maybe your expectations were too high? :confused1:

And imo Giamatti is usually awesome.

Back on topic, does anyone else think that if an indie generates enough profit to not only recoup costs/pay back investors, but also to get the ball rolling on the filmmakers' next project, that it could be seen as a success, no matter the scale?

EDIT: I said "back on topic", but really, it wasn't. :D
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[Omar Saad]

Looks like I'm a bit late to the conversation but...

Tom, I think you're right on with Adventureland. I thought it was a great personal film. I went to go see it with my wife and a couple of friends and we are all expecting something with the overall tone of Superbad, being that it is many of the same filmmakers. It ended up being more Freaks and Geeks...which is ok with me. That was a great show.

I thought Kristen Stewart did a great job...easily her best performance from that stuff that I've seen her do in the past. Also being a Freaks and Geeks fan, I was stoked to see Martin Starr finally get a role that encompasses more than 2 or 3 lines.

[Jonathan Stevenson]

Also being a Freaks and Geeks fan, I was stoked to see Martin Starr finally get a role that encompasses more than 2 or 3 lines.

He's pretty much the man :cool:

[jpp]

Looks like this thread is about to get serious.


That's for sure, I just had a $.99 store revelation: films are apt to look like the business model which produced them, or films will *reveal* the business model which produced them.

But, unlike Hollywood, where the the mass-media coverage and promotional events are an extension of the movie itself, the business model revealed by the typical indie today can be of no interest to anyone. What it reveals is -- we need a star, we need Sundance, we can't offend anyone, we've found the ideal synthesis of art and commerce, our next project is Hollywood, they'll beg us -- and tends, accordingly, to be a huge self-important bore, because the films reveal the cheapest fantasy going, whether it's held by the producers, the funders or the filmmakers themselves: I'm a Great Artist and I'm Going To Make A Lot of Money.

This is another way of making the case I'm always making here: commercial finance alone will never produce a viable alternative to Hollywood, because that cinema will always reflect its origins, it has no choice, that's exactly what the producing and fund-raising process accomplishes. Unless something slips through the cracks, what's left is a synthesis of the collective worst deficiencies of everyone involved. Sometimes the writer's deficiencies are quite enough. But, if not, there's always the producers and funders. And the finished film proceeds to reveal those deficiencies, exhaustively and at great expense. As therapy, it's extremely expensive. And only the audience gets it. But still irresistible, apparently.

[Tom Lowe]

Then, jpp, as ever, we can only hope to be the ones who slip through the cracks. How else can you explain Malick's current "Tree of Life" project? I mean, who is shoveling him all this cash for 15-perf IMAX cameras and special effects and god knows what else. As long as there are cracks still open, there is hope, my friend.

[Eren Ozkural]

Amen, Tom.
It can be daunting to look at what we do from a statistical point of view. Sometimes you just have to hold your breath and plunge right in.

...after careful prep ofcourse :)

[jpp]

Then, jpp, as ever, we can only hope to be the ones who slip through the cracks. How else can you explain Malick's current "Tree of Life" project? I mean, who is shoveling him all this cash for 15-perf IMAX cameras and special effects and god knows what else. As long as there are cracks still open, there is hope, my friend.

I can't explain how Malick gets funding, but we do know his model is not that of indie film. He's famous, for one thing. He brings prestige to the projects. His films receive free media coverage and Oscar nominations, and he probably gets A-list actors at cut rates. All this is worth money to producers. How they swallow the losses, I don't know. Or maybe somehow or other, over the course of years, his films do pay for themselves. Or maybe the blow is lessened by pre-sales (the grief is shared).

But he's one of a kind. And his funding challenges are not those of an American indie. The more interesting question (to me) is whether he could ever, in a million years, get Badlands made today. I doubt it.

There's a larger question here, I think, about the nature of cinema itself today, but another time....

[Zak Forsman]

We'll leave Hal Hartley's films out of it to keep things simple. "Safe" is also something of a special case, given the co-producing arrangement with Killer Films, which tended to be more venturesome than Good Machine. But I'd say that Happiness, Tao of Steve, In The Bedroom, and American Splendor are good examples of the phenomenon under discussion.

That doesn't necessarily mean they're unwatchable. It's just that, for this viewer, they're a poor excuse for art cinema, and we can look to the financing and producing arrangements for the reason this middle-brow hybrid stuff, not quite art and yet not quite commercial, gets made (or *got* made--the situation today is far more difficult). And there will always be differences in taste, I can only answer for mine.

:) okay, but you don't "keep things simple" by picking and choosing which of Ted Hope's films you are going to include as to validate your assertion that he is part of the problem that gave rise to 'little miss sunshine' and 'napoleon dynamite'. Everyone knows that the golden age of american independents (aka the 90's) is over and that there is a very real struggle to determine a new model of sustainability. I may not like the films he produces (my tastes fall more in line with arthouse/foreign than american independent) his words here, at the 'art house convergence'...

http://workbookproject.com/2009/01/video-ted-hope-art-house-convergence-closing-remarks/

...seem to fly in the face of how you are pigeonholing him. i'd say he's uniquely aware of the path we are on collectively to discover new ways that we as artists can fund, create, distribute and sustain our work.

[Jonathan Stevenson]

:jacked:

[jpp]

:) okay, but you don't "keep things simple" by picking and choosing which of Ted Hope's films you are going to include as to validate your assertion that he is part of the problem that gave rise to 'little miss sunshine' and 'napoleon dynamite'.

It seemed simpler to exclude Hal Hartley films because, as far as I know, Ted Hope was never his prime or sole producer, the funding came from elsewhere, Good Machine had little or nothing to do with the development of the films, and Hartley was not Good Machine's "discovery". Most indies have multiple producers out of necessity, and Hartley was no exception.

Same with "Safe". It was Christine Vachon's project (and Haynes'), though James Schamus, who had a prior association with Todd Haynes, was a producer on it, along with Ted Hope.

But these atypical projects (for Good Machine) did not originate with the company, occurred quite early on, and don't reflect the direction it chose to go.

The inevitable result of Good Machine probably *was* "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Napoleon Dynamite" -- or, for that, "Adventureland" -- though nobody can blame them for keeping the company solvent. Difficult or formally challenging films wouldn't have sold, and they would have had far more difficulty raising money for such productions. A number of films in their catalog were also works for hire, and Good Machine had little to do with them -- thematically.