Streaming a missed movie by Joe Swanberg: Jane Adams in ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY

He is prolific, that Joe Swanberg. Since the film under consideration here first appeared (2012), he has made three more full-lengthers, one short film and an episode for a series. All told, since his debut film just over a decade ago, he has directed (and often written) 16 full-length films, seven shorts, a couple of TV series episodes and a segment of the horror omnibus V/H/S. Some of these are even good films -- especially the last two: Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas. Which now makes watching his slightly older work a bit of a strain/disappointment.

ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY, streamable now on Netflix, does have a couple of nice perks: the actors Jane Adams and Larry Fessenden. Ms Adams has long delighted us older NYC theatergoers, as well as adding immeasurably to certain not-so-hot movies (Little Children, for one). Mr. Fessenden, for his part, has long been a enjoyable actor in various genre films (I Sell the Dead), as well as a good writer/director (The Last Winter and his earlier work, Habit).

Both actors (shown above, with Larry on the left) acquit themselves well in this little trifle, but unfortunately the "script" often leaves them hanging out to dry. Swanberg (shown two photos up) is working once again in his most "mumblecorish" mode, with so little at stake or at risk that his actors are mostly stranded, having to create their "moments" practically out of whole cloth.

Adams (above, and below, right) plays a aging actress named, Marie, who is having trouble finding work. When her young niece (Sophia Takal, below, left) comes for a visit to her aunt's Malibu pad, also wanting to be an actress, the age thing bubbles up. That's about it. And it is all handled with about as much creativity and pizazz as my description above manages.

Fessenden plays Marie's Malibu neighbor who enjoys surfing with her. He may or may not be attracted to her. And that's about that, too. Marie meets a new fellow who might make a possible partner; her niece has some friends over and gets high. Conversations and a little sex ensue.

If you've sat through many of Swanberg's oeuvre, you'll know what you're in for, and there are a few good scenes here. But mostly it's same-old same old. His latest work shows infinitely more strength and power (not to mention humor and fun) -- in the scripts, situations and performances. So we'll hope that this continues apace.

Meanwhile, for fans of Adams and/or Fessenden, the movie is streamable here and probably elsewhere, too.

Joe Swanberg's HAPPY CHRISTMAS: holiday mumblecore & the screen's most adorable baby

After the enormous success (everything's relative, right?) of his Drinking Buddies, Joe Swanberg offers up another surprise with his latest effort, a charming little trinket titled HAPPY CHRISTMAS. Catering to ever starrier casts, the filmmaker toplines Melanie Lynskey, Mark Webber, Lena Dunham and Anna Kendrick (making her second appearance in a Swanberg film) -- plus a newcomer who steals the picture right out from under the rest of the cast. That would be Joe's own kid, little Jude Swanberg, a "natural," if I've ever seen one.

The "plot" has Jeff (Swanberg, at right) and wife Kelly (Lynskey) and baby Jude preparing for the holidays, as Jeff's sister Jenny (Kendrick, below) arrives to move in with them. Somewhat irresponsible, Jenny causes problems big and small as she reunites with old friend Carson (Dunham), romances with new friend Kevin (Webber, below), and helps Kelly write her romance novel. That's pretty much it. But the actors are so nicely attuned to each other that watching and listening to them is great fun. And any and every chance we get to observe adorable little Jude proves beyond pleasurable.

Mr. Swanberg has now moved mumblecore into the hipster mainstream; each new his film of his grows more fun. Here, he keeps his m'core bona fides bright and sharp, while adding mainstream sure-fires like children and dogs.

I am not certain that this is quite the way best-selling books are created, but as shown here -- with Lynskey, Kendrick and Dunham doing pro work -- it sure makes for a lot of fun. (Do stay all the way to the end of the end credits for an extra helping.)

Swanberg himself (shown above, right, with Lynskey) is growing into an actor of surprising charm and low-key sex appeal. He carries this movie as easily as do his better-known co-stars, while drawing completely natural performances from every one of them.

Happy Christmas is a little holiday bauble, bright and assured and silly as can be. And very enjoyable.  The film, from Magnolia Pictures and running just 78 minutes, opens this Friday, July 25, in Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, and here in New York City (and elsewhere) the following Friday, August 1 -- after playing VOD since the end of June. You can view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters by clicking here.

DRINKING BUDDIES: Joe Swanberg's new best; ditto Olivia Wilde's starmaking perf

If TrustMovies hadn't already known that Joe Swanberg was the writer/director behind the new film DRINKING BUDDIES, he'd have never guessed. So focused is this film in terms of its screenplay and dialog and so attuned to that screenplay is Swanberg's tight direction that this film pretty much wipes the floor with the rest of this mumble-core movie-maker's oeuvre (some of which -- Alexander the Last and his episode from V/H/S -- TM has actually enjoyed).

Mr. Swanberg, shown at left, has often given us characters on the cusp of assuming responsibility for their lives and careers, but never before have the stakes seemed so high nor the price so steep. Nor have Swanberg and his previous casts appeared so heavily invested in the goings-on. (Too often, they -- and finally we in the audience -- have seemed most ready to take a nap.) This, more than anything else, is what gooses the movie out of the mire of mumblecore into the light of action. Holy hell: There's something important going on here!

Another first: While it can be said that all Swanberg's movies have involved a kind of character study, here at last we have characters worth studying. This seems to have energized Joe and his movie. Granted, he has his most professional and attractive cast to date, beginning with the woman who is in control of the movie (and not simply because she is one of its executive producers), Olivia Wilde.

Ms Wilde (above, left) has long been one of our most beautiful young actresses (those catlike eyes set into a face of such planes -- not to mention the alabaster skin -- all put me in mind of a young Gene Tierney) who only occasionally gets an opportunity, as in last year's Butter, to really surprise us. Drinking Buddies offers another of those surprises, as Wilde's character, Kate, a smart woman with an important job at the local brewery (home to several of the film's characters), who initially appears to have it all, slowly unveils herself as someone who has almost nothing -- except a too-strong craving for alcohol.

This role, which becomes less and less attractive as the movie rolls along, was a brave on for Ms Wilde to take on, but she does it more than justice, creating as full-bodied a character as we've seen all year. If small, independent movies were regularly viewed by Academy members, this performance would certainly be considered "Oscar" material.

Surrounding Wilde are several fine actors, including Jake Johnson (above, left) as Luke, her best friend at work, a fellow with whom she shares a rapport that is striking and quite wonderful. The pair seems made for each other -- except that Luke already has a sweet girlfriend named Jill (Anna Kendrick, above, right), and, in fact, Kate, too, has a significant other (Ron Livingston, two photos below). For awhile at least. Also on tap is Jason Sudeikis as the brewery's owner.

Swanberg's sense of pacing, along with his ability to tell a story, have grown exponentially. This movie remains as off-the-cuff and full of what sounds like spontaneous dialog as do the rest of his films, yet here our minds do not wander. There's too much at stake, and thanks to the smart accretion of detail and the fine performances from the entire cast, we care very much about these people, especially Kate, Luke and Jill.

Beer figures into the movie prominently, and each day, after brewery closing, our happy family of workers heads out to the local pub for some more carousing. Swanberg doesn't hit us with the wagging finger, but what with James Ponsoldt's evils-of-drink movie also currently making the rounds, American independent cinema may have a lesson or two to teach us.

Drinking Buddies, released via Magnolia Pictures and running 90 minutes, opens tomorrow, Friday, August 23, at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema in New York City and Landmark's Century Centre Cinema in Chicago. The following week it hits another ten cities, and then spreads out in a nationwide limited release over the following couple of months. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates with cities and theaters.

V/H/S: Found-footage, hexagonal horror movie (six directors), will scare you shitless

If you follow my reviews at all closely, you'll already know that I am not a big fan of hand-held camera-work, supposedly "found footage" (dat ol' Blair Witch agin!), and a lot of the other stuff that goes along with DIY movie-making. That said, if ever all the annoying-to-unnerving techniques used to "create your own movie" have managed to work together, often brilliantly, in one weird film, that would be V/H/S. This new compilation scare-movie, using six different directors and telling a bunch of jumbled-together tales, proves at once supremely old-fashioned and absolutely up-to-the-minute in the way it pulls us in, alternately amuses, bores and scares the bejeesus out of us, then finally kicks us into oblivion. All using the tried-and-true -- along with the brand-new.

I am now going to do something I almost never have done: using the film's press release to describe the framework here. "In V/H/S, a group of misfits are hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house in the countryside and acquire a rare tape. Upon searching the house, the guys are confronted with a dead body, a hub of old televisions and an endless supply of cryptic footage, each video stranger and more inexplicable than the last...." I do this for you because I found the framework the most confusing part of the film and probably would not have understood much of the above from what I saw in the film itself.

Once I got into the individual stories, however, I could -- sometimes barely -- get my bearings enough to enjoy what was going on. If this sounds off-putting, don't worry: It works better than you'll imagine because confusion is actually part of the enjoyment here. When we're off balance, the only slightly scary can become much more so.

Other than the wrap-around framework, there are five stories contained in the film. While some work better than others, not a one falls flat and at least a couple are supremely creepy. The directors include, from beginning segment to end, Adam Wingard (A Horrible Way to Die), David Bruckner (The Signal), Ti West (The Innkeepers), Glenn McQuaid (I Sell the Dead), Joe Swanberg (Alexander the Last) and Radio Silence. (That final "name" is actually a group made up of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez and Chad Villella, so I guess you could properly say that this movie has nine directors.)

Bruckner, McQuaid, West and Wingard all have bonafides in the fright department; Swanberg, who doesn't (though some people find his films horrors of a sort), fits into things perfectly well, while the Radio Silence guys, reasonably new to film-making, come through just fine. I'll leave each plot for you to discover, but will say that, for sheer off-balance fear, Bruckner and the Radio Silence Boys got me where it hurts. Ti West, of all people, manages to scare us on a deeper psychological level, with Swanberg (below) one of the stars in his segment.

Not all of this 93-minute movie works, but when it does, it has you, one claw around your throat, the other caressing your balls. And as annoying as those hand-held moments can be, I think you'll agree that, over all, you ain't seen nothin' quite like this one.

V/H/S, via Magnolia Pictures' Magnet division, opens Friday, October 5, all over the country, in a limited release and in a surprising number of cities. In New York City, it will open at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema, and you can take a look at all other currently scheduled playdates (with cities and theaters) by clicking here. Meanwhile, as is often the case with Magnolia's movies, it has already been playing via VOD for nearly the past two months.

Joe Swanberg's back with AUTOEROTIC -- at IFC Center & its Midnight series on VOD--and a co-director, Adam Wingard

Is Joe Swanberg ever far away? I mean, come on: This guy, one of the daddies of mumblecore, since 2005 has made a film or two each year (three already this year!), acting as (off and on) director, writer, producer, cinematographer, editor, and actor. (Can you "act as actor"? Sure you can!) He's fertile, give him that, even if his films are generally disposable entities that do not exactly hit profundity's G-Spot. And yet, as a filmmaker, Swanberg is likely to stick in your mind, as much for the positive things (energy, consistency, and a kind of weird formalism within the m'core genre) as the negative (repetitiveness, telling us stuff we already know, and the general inability to put a bunch of loose scenes into a thoughtful whole).

His best work so far has been 2009s Alexander the Last, in which, using a first-class actress for a change (Jess Weixler) and a story that actually went somewhere, he rose above, for the first time, the typical mumblecore longueurs. With AUTOEROTIC (not his newest work -- that would be Uncle Kent -- but the latest to be released), Swanberg (shown at right) is firmly, as per usual, into sexual territory, exploring, as previously, the continuing estrangement of men and women via video, the internet, inanimate objects--and the need to watch & compare rather than to be & do.

Apologies to Adam Wingard, shown at left, whom I completely left out of my original post, as both co-director and co-writer, as well as editor of this film. He also looks a lot like the fellow who plays the lead in the film's final story (see below), but as he is not listed in the cast, I may very well be mistaken.

Several sets of partners inhabit Autoerotic, and as you might expect from the title, their sexual habits trend toward the solo and masturbatory. Even when there's a twosome, you can bet one that one party of the pair is nearly unaware of the other -- and her needs. The first of these is a video spanking session, above, that makes voyeurs of both its participants and us viewers.

After the next coupling, above, the guy buries himself under a pillow, as his significant other tries to coax him out of himself. No good: The poor guy suffers from that terrible male bugaboo, I-think-my-dick's-too-small syndrome. Whether it is or not, the filmmaker and his actor give us no chance to judge, but when the girlfriend finally tells the guy, "You're a fucking asshole," few viewers will disagree. Then, entering unusual (for Swanberg) fantasy territory, the tale gets an odd and not-too-believable twist, resulting in the first of several autoerotic endeavors.

Another story lets us watch a horny young girl (above) who can't seem to stop masturbating until a friend suggests she might be a "gasper" -- one who auto-eroticizes via asphyxiation. She does try this at home to dismal affect until her boyfriend (played by the director) hits upon a way in which they can both enjoy the game.

The best of the tales spins around a couple (she's pregnant, unable to orgasm; he's helpless/hopeless, in bed and out) who invite over a girl who promises to help with that orgasm. In the film's funniest scene, his threesome fantasy goes unrequited. In the role of the wife, an actually pregnant Kris Swanberg (above, top, and the director's wife, I am assuming) proves the sexiest maternity mama I've yet seen: fun, funny and sensual as hell. Eat your heart out, Demi Moore.

The final segment offers a dolt (above, left -- and I am pretty sure that is Mr. Wingard in the  role), who likes to make videos of his own couplings. He is paid a visit by a former partner about to marry and who now wants him to delete all their video love-play. What transpires proves, as Swanberg loves to do again and again, that men are exceedingly dumb boys, and that their women, unfortunately, deserve them. The visual/verbal punchline to this segment enables the movie to end with a good joke.

Swanberg continues his penchant for formality in odd places, connections and disconnections, and his struggle to prove that, where sex is concerned,  "I caint get no satisfaction!" The fellow surely makes his point, yet he can't do much with it or go anywhere beyond it. As a result, the 72-minute movie entertains, off and on, but breaks little new ground.

Autoerotic, from IFC Films, opens theatrically this Friday, July 22, in New York City at the IFC Center (late-night only), and has been playing on VOD via the IFC Midnight series since June 29, and continuing through September 29.  Your move... 

Swanberg's return to m'core, UNCLE KENT, inaugurates this year's Sundance at home

They're back.  And if I am not mistaken, there are more of 'em this year than last. Yes, it's time once again for the Sundance Film Festival and--for those of us who can't get to Park City--Sundance Selects, the theatrical and on-demand film label that today begins it's second annual partnership with the not-for-profit Sundance Institute and the 2011 edition of the film festival. As part of the "Direct from the Sundance Film Festival" initiative, five films being screened at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival that will simultaneously be available nationwide, on-demand, through Sundance Selects. The films include four world premieres recently acquired by Sundance Selects -- Brendan Fletcher's MAD BASTARDS, Michael Tully's SEPTIEN, Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton's THESE AMAZING SHADOWS, and Joe Swanberg's UNCLE KENT -- and one U.S. premiere: Gregg Araki's KABOOM. (Last year, as I recall, Sundance Selects showed only three titles.) The films featured through the Sundance Institute and Sundance Selects partnership will begin screening on video-on-demand at the same time as their premieres at the Sundance Film Festival, and will be available to approximately 40 million homes on most major cable systems including Bright House, Comcast, Cablevision, Cox, and Time Warner Cable.

The first under consideration here is Swanberg's Uncle Kent, arriving On-Demand on Saturday, January 22, which pretty much coincides with its Sundance Fest debut. With last year's Alexander the Last, it seemed to TrustMovies that Mr. Swanberg (shown below) might finally be expanding beyond his mumblecore roots (along with Aaron Katz and Andrew Bujalski, he's considered one of the daddies of this mini-genre). In Alexander, he made good use of Jess Weixler, an actress whose energy and charisma can wipe the floor with most m'core leading ladies (Greta Gerwig may be an exception: time will tell), while the story he chose had more incident and variation than some of his earlier films.

With Uncle Kent, we're firmly back in the land of the mumble: wishy-washy characters who don't know what they want or need and in any case barely have the energy to go after it. This does not make them or their movie a failure exactly: Interest is maintained and decent performances given by the five main actors on view. But it is all so loose and unstructured and tentative and, well, mumblecore, that -- for every moment that perks there are another few that don't.

The situation here -- that of a firmly middle-aged guy (Kent Osborne, below) who's unattached and can't seem to change that status -- is probably not at all unusual in today's world.  That's he's a bit of doofus and somewhat socially inept doesn't help. (His best friend gets him to entertain party guests by doing "cock tricks": molding his scrotum and penis into various forms, only one of which -- a hamburger between two buns -- we get to see here.) When an online acquaintance (female) has business in the L.A. area and spends the weekend in his home, things might be looking up. If you buy that, you've seen far too few films of the m'core variety.

Characters shamble, physically and emotionally, until stasis is achieved. Along the way we get a few bits of what passes for wisdom dropped in our lap (women's biological clocks are ticking too hard and fast for Kent to handle: oooh, that's a new one!), along with a lot of explanation/exposition, mostly told but little seen or experienced. The characters here are not uninteresting. They could be explored for some depth and resonance, but Swanberg (shown below) seems content to just let them rub shoulders and words. Even the sex is piddling and unproductive. If the filmmaker's point is that modern life, relationships and sex found via the internet is unproductive, well, it would be, given characters like these. Yet characters like these seem to provide the raison d'être de mumble-core. You either love being with them. Or they put you to sleep.

Uncle Kent comes to VOD today. Check your local TV-reception provider or click here for further help.

I'll have a review of Septien up soon -- and one for Mr. Araki's delightfully loopy and invigorating Kaboom, when that film makes its theatrical debut on Friday, January 28.

OPEN FIVE, new love-&-music mumblecore movie, opens at Bklyn' reRun/Gastropub; Q&A with filmmaker Kentucker Audley

TrustMovies is extremely pleased to be able to advise readers in the NYC and especially Brooklyn areas that a film he's recently enjoyed is getting its theatrical debut at one of our more interesting new venues, the reRun/Gastropub theater in the DUMBO area of Brooklyn, starting this Friday and continuing for one week. That movie would be OPEN FIVE, the most recent film (though it's the first TM has seen) from Memphis-based filmmaker Kentucker Audley -- a name with great provenance: like Maxine Audley, were her family from Kentucky instead of London.

The post that you're reading has been taken, and edited slightly, from my original post on the film, which was published exactly one month ago on October 23.

Open Five is about love and music and is, I say this with as much trepidation as excite-ment, pretty much mumble-core. In my definition, anyway. Not only did m'core master Joe Swanberg shoot the film (more on this in the short interview with the filmmaker, further below) but the movie has, to my mind, one of the hallmarks of this johnny-come-lately genre: its characters appear to be drifting rather aimlessly toward... whatever. No one exhibits much energy toward any objective.

Emotional laissez-faire is the law of this land, particularly where relationships are concerned: Everyone seems hesitant to put any pressure on anyone else. After watching this movie and musing a bit on past mumblecore examples, the characters and particularly the actors who essay them, I had a thought: Can you imagine for a moment actresses like Bette Davis, Susan Hayward or Joan Crawford making a mumblecore movie? (Now there's a skit that might bring back Mad-TV.)  In fact, in Swanberg's most recent film, Alexander the Last, his use of the vital, high-energy performer Jess Weixler helped lift his movie from the some-times-morass that mumblecore can become. That's sounds like a slur, I know, but part of the problem with the m'core genre is that, without some variation in the pacing, events, dialog, action and energy-level, it can too easily put an audience to sleep. (There are wonderful exceptions: Aaron Katz's Quiet City is one such.)

This doesn't happen in Open Five, though at times the film comes a tad too close. Audley and his co-writer Jake Rabinbach (shown two photos above) tell the story of two guys, musicians named Jake and Kentucker (yes, this is "sort of/sort of not" autobiography) and the two young women from New York City who visit the guys in Memphis. The movie begins with a nice NYC-based necking-on-the-fire-escape scene (just above) between Jake and Lucy (the lovely Shannon Esper), after which Lucy and her friend Rose (the equally enchanting Genevieve Angelson, below) pay a visit down south. The women here are more open and immediate than the guys -- whether this is due to the filmmakers telling their own story and so keeping closer to the vest regarding the males, or to the women being the more gracious and appealing characters, I'm not sure. We also see and hear a lot more from Jake than we do Kentucker, perhaps because the director wanted to be more generous to his co-star/co-writer, who really is the main focus of the film.

In any case, the usual male-female dance of first getting closer then farther apart ensues, and along the way the ladies (and us viewers) get to see (and hear) some of Memphis -- its music, scenery, churches (below), fireworks and fairs --  in an easy-going, never-pushed manner (well, this is m'core, after all). Little is resolved by the end, unless I missed something. In Jake's speech to his band, he seems to contradict himself rather thoroughly regarding these musicians and their music -- in the same way the guys send out mixed signals to their girls (and to a lesser extent, as do the girls to their guys).  

Visually, the movie seems to me to be better filmed than some other in this genre that I've seen. It looked quite good in the streaming format I viewed, and a couple of  scenes -- the four-some's walk along the riverbank on some gorgeous green grass, as anothe couple plays with a dog, is lovely, and so is a long take of Ms.Esper sprawled across a couch (below -- but you really have to see this in the film itself to appreciate its voluptuous beauty).

As usual, after finishing a film, I had a bunch of questions at the ready. This time, having the filmmaker's email address, I was able to ask them.  Below is our conversation, with TrustMovies' questions appearing in boldface and Kentucker Audley's answers in standard type.

OK: Here we go…Your film was shot by Joe Swanberg! How’d he get involved in this?

Joe and I have been friends for a couple years. We hooked up after my first film Team Picture and he shot that film's epilogue, Ginger Sand. The collaboration went great, so I enlisted him again.

What’s the meaning of the film’s title? (A music industry term, maybe?)

Open five is something incomplete, the time when there's four slashes on a chalkboard before you diagonal slash over them to close it up. If you're in open five, you're in a state of lingering, something needs to give. When it does, you can slash (close the five) and then you can start worrying about the next set of five. You might say: "I'm kinda caught up in this open five," meaning this girl I thought was gonna come to Memphis and be with me seems to have changed her tune. We made up an elaborate open five system.

Would you call your film mumblecore? If so, why; if not, why not?

Why not? I've always been on the mumblecore fringe. There's no deciding committee for it, so history will have to work that out. But I certainly am proud to be associated with the bulk of what's considered mumblecore. For me, it's an exciting set of films, of course not exciting in the way you normally use exciting.

Very funny (and true).  M’core or not, it’s definitely DIY. What did it cost to reach the level it has.

Very little. Our entire budget was raised through an online fundraiser, around $15,000.

In terms of marketing, what does it (did it) cost you to get it onto vimeo. (Audley used this means to reach us critics and film bloggers early. Following this, the film was shown free via Audley's  website, previous to the current reRun/Gastropub venue) On my laptop, it looked very good, even when blown up to full screen.

Our marketing budget was $100. $60 for the Plus Vimeo account and $40 for posters and flyers for the Memphis screening. (That put us in the hole $100 bucks because we had no money left from production.) And, yeah, I think it looks absolutely fine on Vimeo. The point for me has never been the picture quality or production value. And I think there's almost an expectation that watching content online will be low-quality. In that way, by focusing on the online release we even the playing field a little because we could never compete with the industry standard of the way a film looks and sounds in a theatre. And if we have a decent image quality online, most everyone will think that's great compared to the quality of most YouTube videos. (Editor's note: It should be interesting, then, to see how the film looks in its current theatrical venue.)

Your characters all seem to be drifting rather aimlessly (I find this a hallmark of mumblecore, actually, which is why I would peg OPEN FIVE as an example of m’core). Is this how you see these characters?

I guess we are focusing primarly on our driftiness. But I don't think its the complete picture. For instance we also show how serious Jake is about his music. Of course the aimlessness doesn't necessary apply to our real life. Jake and I are both very determined and motivated and we're playing ourselves.

Was your script written -- or just outlined and then mostly improvised?

We wrote a full script, well, recited it into our MacBooks. Then I listened back to it, and transcibed it and showed it the actors and crew once then forgot about it. Nothing from the final film was scripted.

I pegged the movie as running 64 minutes. Is this the right length? If so, it sort of hits somewhere between a long short and a very short full-length. Was this intentional, or did you simply say everything you felt the movie needed to say by the end of those 64 minutes?

It's 66 total counting credits. All my films are around 60 minutes. Joe Swanberg's wife dubbed films of this length "future length" because we believe films will become shorter and shorter. Our catch phrase for this is: Movies: too long. The film contains only small scale content so I think it should be shorter than films with big movie things happening.

So far as themes are concerned, the movie seems to me to be about commitment -- or the lack of it. The girls want t it, the guys don’t. This is rather typical of the characters’ ages and genders, I think – and also maybe because those involved in the music industry. But there also seems to be a lack of commitment to music, too – at least on the past of Jake. Care to comment on this?

These are deep issues. I don't think I could answer for Jake or the women as far as if they desire commitment. I don't think commitment even comes up for my character because I just met this women and she's only in town for the weekend. That's a ready-made situation where commitment doesn't need to enter the frame. But I know Jake is completely committed to his music. Maybe you'd have to see more to fully trust that, but there's a larger technique at work in these films -- which is to not show enough.

What you say is interesting, Kentucker, since you (and Jake) did write/speak the original script, but probably you were not going into the girls’ characters deeply at that point, and so you just sort of let the actresses take it from there. And, too, I might be reading more into this than is even there. Yet the women’s initial reluctance to give over to each of you, and the little back and-forth “dance” as I call it, might be, of course, about the women not wanting to seem “too loose” but also, I suspect, from their sense of “Who is this other person and what is the possibility of something more coming out of this?” I believe that women, more often than men, tend to proceed from this standpoint, if only because I believe that many women are programmed genetically to be “family planners” from the get-go. Hmmm… You’re right: These are deep issues. But the fact that we’re talking about them means the movie struck some chords… And when you say “the larger technique at work in these films is to not show enough,” I trust you mean to not show too much.

And finally, was that his/your own music that was used in the film, and was that’s Jake’s voice? If so, he has a good one!

Yeah, Jake is a musician. The band in the film is his real band, Jump Back Jake, and he plays guitar for Francis and the Lights. His life has always been music; films are a new thing for him.

******

That's it. Except to say: See the film, if this post intrigues you. No less than The New Yorker's Richard Brody is on record (on his blog) as touting this little film. You can check out the Open Five screening times for the reRun Gastropub Theater by clicking here.