Though the world of a great movie may feel hermetically sealed while you watch it, all sorts of factors outside of it have decided the manner in which you get to experience it. I’ve made the argument before that the 2008 financial collapse has infiltrated the content of films, yet it probably exerted an even greater influence by limiting our access to a whole world of independently created cinema.
Back in 2009, a small dramedy by Craig Johnson called “True Adolescents” played the SXSW Film Festival. It was well-received and went on to play some smaller local festivals, but it sat around for three years waiting for theatrical distribution. Before the economic malaise (or even now in our platform-agnostic present day), this is the kind of film that would be a no-brainer for a company like Fox Searchlight to pick up. Due to the unfortunate timing of its release, however, it wound up getting a minuscule release thanks to Cinedigm.
Perhaps with “The Skeleton Twins,” Johnson’s second feature which is getting a much wider rollout courtesy of Roadside Attractions, people will begin to discover the joy of which they were robbed years ago. While the production is small-scale, the film pays off big with its richly observed script and properly defined characters.
The man-child is getting a little tired thanks to brute repetition by Seth Rogen and friends, but it feels good as new in “True Adolescents” thanks to a very authentic incarnation by Mark Duplass. His Sam has clearly blown past the twentysomething mark and is well into his thirties, hapless and essentially hopeless.
Hoping for some easy sympathy, he goes to crash with his aunt (played by a pre-Oscar win Melissa Leo) and winds up being forced to work for her charity. Sam gets the distinct pleasure of taking his teenage cousin Oliver and his friend Jake on a camping trip. I’m not too far removed from that adolescent mindset to know that it takes a special kind of person to handle boys of that age; suffice to say, Sam lacks the requisite saintliness.
As with any narrative centering around a journey in the great outdoors, an inner journey takes place in the characters. But that’s pretty much where “True Adolescents” stops falling in line with what you expect it to do. Writer/director Craig Johnson provides a surprising amount of depth within the familiar framework, opting to explore deeper into the complex characters at every turn where melodrama or clichés would be easier. It’s a real treat to watch him embrace the true in the title of his film rather than the latter word.
It seems hard to believe now, but there was a time when Ryan Gosling was not a movie star. Plenty of people acknowledge his Mickey Mouse Club days with Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, just as others recognize how hilarious he is in “Remember the Titans.” But most seem to think that he just came out of nowhere, like a gift from God, to steal their hearts in 2004’s “The Notebook.”
It’s often easy to put a good deal of distance between ourselves and the Holocaust. In no way am I promoting this as a good development, but the continuous passage of time only amplifies our sense of removal from the era of mass extermination. Moreover, Americans in particular can see themselves as the liberators in such a genocidal scenario, not as perpetrators.
It usually takes a director two to three features to work out the kinks in their style and settle into a comfortable groove of filmmaking. That is not the case, however, for Australian director Justin Kurzel. His debut film, “The Snowtown Murders,” has the confidence and assurance of a director with far more experience under his belt.
Xavier Dolan has had quite a run over the past few years. This May, the 25-year-old wunderkind not only cracked the official competition slate at Cannes, but also won the Jury Prize. Just five years ago, his debut feature “I Killed My Mother” announced his arrival on the international scene at the Cannes sidebar Director’s Fortnight.
I’ve always been fascinated by people on the cutting edge of their art, and even more enthralled by those who are forming just what that art will be. (Perhaps this explains my recent fascination with early film history.) One such iconoclast is Marina Abramavic, a performance artist who is pushing boundaries that don’t even exist for her medium yet.
Thankfully, there never seems to be any shortage of documentaries tackling the quandaries and complexities of our livable reality, but at times the sheer volume of non-fiction film can be overwhelming. Even from just a search of what’s available on Netflix, it’s hard to sort out the real deal from the TV special or the DVD extra quality material. Thankfully, the Academy Awards are pretty helpful at shining a spotlight on a selection of high quality documentaries each year.
You’ve seen biopics of complex figures, but director Todd Haynes isn’t interested in presenting his portrait of musician and cultural icon Bob Dylan like anything else ever made. His “I’m Not There” is a bold experiment, manifesting the fragmentation of Dylan’s persona by literally splitting him into six characters. This iconoclasm pays off in a rewarding and challenging experience, leading me to name the movie my pick for the “F.I.L.M. of the Week.”
Marshall and the Movies 
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