Reel Girly

A diligent effort in indie improv filmmaking, Alejandro Adams’ Around the Bay intelligently plays at the disintegration of family in the face of struggling business in the Silicon Valley.

Disaffect and self-absorption play a central role in this story about a wayward Los Gatos family. Daisy (very well played by Katherine Celio) lives in an unnamed town, works at a grocery store, and casually missed fall’s college enrollment deadline. Fortunately (or unfortunately) her errant father, Wyatt (glassily portrayed by Steve Voldseth) whom she hasn’t seen for the last decade, has just lost his girlfriend and his presumably high paying Silicon Valley job in the same week. Ill equipped to care for his nearly unbearable and yet empathy inspiring son Noah (also well played by Connor Maselli) he invites daughter Daisy to give Noah his ‘three meals a day’. She concedes and comes to stay in his guest house, beautifully attired and poetically divorced from the hollow, family nest. Wyatt contends that five-year-old Noah is self-governing and “knows himself,” a view that accounts for Noah’s aggression and unwillingness to befriend kindly Daisy.  

Like a lot of improvised dialogue, the conversations take on an inchoate air of meaninglessness, saying much and saying nothing at the same time. This paired with Adams’ repeated use of Steven Soderbergh style (or should I say “Lindsay Anderson” style?) non-sync sound gives the characters and their messy attempts at communication a feeling that everyone is at sea with no anchors in sight. Adding further to weightlessness and the volatility is Adam’s metaphorical use of water. Noah swims, Daisy reads by the pool, Wyatt spends endless moments in the overly attired shower. Captured largely in mediums and close-ups one even senses a dreadful sort of floating when Daisy takes the train with Noah to unknown destinations, or when Wyatt’s traveling in his car towards but another ill fated meeting with investors. 

 Performances are consistent and dialogue, though sometimes a bit thin, is really intelligent. Voldseth’s Wyatt is a perfect shell of a man. Trying little he seems to have made his fame skirting reality and Daisy, who turned out well (raised by her mother), is the only person willing to call him on his disingenuiness. Though his last moments are ones of remorse, one can’t feel as though his justice is one he’ll really aim to grow from – and cued by Celio’s response to him, it’s pretty clear that whether or not he mends his ways, the damage is pretty well done. 

Alejandro Adam’s Around the Bay will be doing fest runs shortly beginning with CineQuest ] in March and he’ll be appearing on SF360 Movie Scene, with Rod from the Film Society and the ever-glamorous Cheryl Eddy of the SF Bay Guardian.

Note: Monsters will see you at the Sephora so beware. 

This action film has such high saturation advertising that if you know about it, you probably already know if you care to see it. Which is just as well because I’m not writing this review to help you make a sound financial investment: I’m a film critic, not a stock broker. However as the work of the film critic has slowly devolved from “cultural commentator” to “box office investment advisor ” most every review has become commentary to aid a financial proposition: “Spend $10 here” or “don’t waste your money.” This is part of why film criticism is slowly damaging the tiny movie. So, I’m hoping to offer some tiny criticism for this massive movie that likes to look small.

An aside about the blog: There’s a tricky thing that happens when you review indie films or documentaries. The tiny filmmaker may or may not get many reviews to put in his press kit and in many instances, the number of reviews amount to the number of records of screening. Which is to say, if you don’t have reviews, it’s almost like your film hasn’t screened, and nearly like it doesn’t exist. My favorite film of 2007 was Jessica Yu’s Protagonist. One of the most brilliant pieces of art I’ve maybe ever seen, and it had a medium sized opening (for a doc) and ridiculously few saw it. My second favorite film was Heddy Honigmann’s Forever. I dare you to hit the street and find someone who’s even heard of it. Maybe you see where I’m going. Cloverfield directed by Matt Reeves and produced by J.J. Abrams (fellow Sarah Lawrence Alum) is going to be reviewed so extensively, this one bad review can hardly do damage. This doesn’t mean we should launch all out assaults on blockbusters and molly coddle the little films, not at all, but these market factors can’t help but influence the ultimate outcome of our involvements with the films. So, this is why I’m starting the blog again.

At my day Job at Rottentomatoes.com, we often have to limit our scope of film coverage to the biggest box office films. The idea is that people in Mythic Middle America, film fans who would likely go out to see something like Forever if they only could, have no access. As a result it’s almost alienating to tell them all about how great it is. As journalists, we all struggle to create balance. On the one hand we have to speak to our audience, on the other hand if we talk about Protagonist maybe, just maybe, theatre owners will get requests and maybe, it’ll play in Omaha. At work, I’ve begun creating these little alliances with doc makers. They send me photos and screeners and it’s occurred to me recently, that I can do something with this alliance. So I will. There’s lots we can do in this world. But this is about Cloverfield, which will likely play all over Omaha, and won’t suffer terribly from this bit of monster-movie indigestion.

Cloverfield strikes me as a non-event, however, it will be historical for one contribution: It is the death knell of first person spectator handheld. It was great in Blair Witch, enlightening in Peter Watkins’ The War Game and it’s had its bright spots in other films too, but here, it was fundamentally done to death. The gimmick in Cloverfield is that the end of the world, well, technically, the end of Manhattan, comes at the hands of a beast of unknown origin, best documented by this posthumously found video of a going away party gone grisly. The brightest spot of the film in its entirety is the fellow behind the camera. TJ Miller  like the rest of the film’s cast is still categorically “unknown” which will change soon, I think. However, not because of his part in Cloverfield. Miller plays gawky oddball Marmaduke on Bruce McCulloch’s (of Kids in the Hall Fame) new sitcom Carpoolers and he’s got magnificent, dry delivery. It’s a big credit to Miller that he’s so memorable given his character (Hud, the cameraman) is so infrequently on camera he could just as soon be credited as a voice actor.

The other characters in the film are sort of ridiculous. They’re supposed to be bourgie 20 somethings in their parents’ apartments. The notion that our record of the disaster comes from the recent grads of Gossip Girl sounds a bit too fortunate. Like if I had the occasion to psychically channel a character from the French Revolution and was lucky enough to tap into Josephine’s handmaiden. It’s just kinda…dumb. There are tons of working class people in New York, plenty of them with dv cams…before the looting started.

There are certain ways the film could stand apart as a monster/disaster flick. The ending is pretty beautiful – a little predictable – but worthy nonetheless, and possible political readings (Lady Liberty’s head flattens nest of baby Neo-Cons) could be taken in worthy directions. If J.J. Abrams is still feeling his highly argumentative Sarah Lawrence Oats, there’ll be something from lefty field to read in this one. So though it is a worthy thing to do with your time and money, (note: sacred few films aren’t) it’s still tragically hollow – even for a film that critics foresee as the big iPod download for summer. You know what they say, merchandise, merchandise, merchandise. However else will the culture machine go on?