Year: 2009

Writer: Jamie Mathieson

director: Gareth Carrivick

Budget: ?

Gross: ?

we are an audience that has seen it all. we know the conventions of genres and the way things have gone from having been exposed to decades of films and film making. we are a generation that knows it and has no problem telling people that we know it. so what do film makers do for audiences like that? well, they show them that they know it also.

these postmodern films, or is it post postmodern (i don't even know anymore) not only embrace the conventions of their genres, but they directly reference them and tell the audience they are doing it. and when it is done well we get films like Scream and Shaun Of The Dead. and what those two films did to horror and zombie movies respectively, Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel does to movies about... yup, you guessed it... time travel.

this little gem of a film from the u.k. brings us three friends: two are nerds (although, they don't like that word and prefer the term imaginear) and one guy who likes calling them nerds (he watched one Star Wars movie, hated it and hasn't looked back).

one night they are at their local pub talking about the latest piece of crap hollywood film they saw, writing a letter to hollywood telling them how they can fix things when ray, one of the imaginears who is obsessed with time travel, goes up to get three pints and runs into a hot babe from the future.... comedy, science-fiction and time-travel ensue.

the film is only 80-minutes long, but it does in those 80-minutes what many films don't do in 100-minutes or more: tell a good, complete and satisfying story (which is good, because in the letter the guys write to hollywood, they start off by saying that "story is king. always has been and always will be." so if the Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel story had been unsuccessful it would have been some sad irony).

i often take films to task for forgetting about the story or for feeling cut short and not providing enough development of character or plot to make the film feel complete, or the audience emotionally invested. however, FAQ About Time Travel does all that in 80-minutes. and, it will make you laugh all the way through.

given the wierd, random events and internet clicks that lead to me finding out about this film, i am going to assume that most of you haven't seen it, or even heard of its existence. regardless, you should find yourself a copy and enjoy.

Year: 2009

Writer: Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber

Director: Marc Webb

Budget: ?

Gross: $12 357 265 (as of August 9th, 2009)

have you ever met someone and liked them and then after a while they start to like you so you start going out and things are great and you both like each other and you fall in love with them but - and they had told you from the beginning it wasn't going to happen - they don't fall in love with you and then things start to go downhill because you know they like you but you need more and then you break up and......?

well, if you have then 500 Days Of Summer is "your" story, and if you haven't then lucky you, but there are probably going to be parts of the story that you connect with anyway. as the poster so simply puts it: "this is not a love story, it is a story about love."not only is that a catchy tag line, it is also completely accurate.

in case you were worried that i had given something away in that opening way-to-long sentence/summary, don't worry. we are told right at the beginning of the film by our narrator (a separate voice, not one of the characters) that we are not going to get a happy ending for this couple. also, if you pay attention to one of the early shots in the film you can even figure out exactly where it is going in the end.

while the films story takes place over 500 days, we don't get to watch all of them. rather the film keeps jumping around to various days out of the 500 letting us in on the relationship at all its stages and not in order either. with this, we are always watching the good times with a knowledge of what is to come. which is the same thing the film was doing by letting us in, right at the beginning of the film, on the fact that it doesn't work out.

you might think that "knowing" how its going to end would ruin it, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. it just makes you appreciate the good times and see the "bad" signs more clearly. its like going into a relationship with your eyes wide open and yet still completely appreciating each special moment.

director mark webb's previous work includes directing music videos and, rather then this coming through on screen with lots of crazy shots and fast editing, it comes through via the energy that the film exudes. whether the film pauses to present the framed image being drawn over in pencil and then erased around the character, or tom (the main guy, played wonderfully by joseph gordon-levitt) and everyone around him breaks into a joyous dance routine the morning after he has first had sex with summer (a great zooey deschanel) the film allows itself to play and still remain one of the truest stories about love i have seen in a while.

while this summer has been pretty disappointing as far as blockbusters have gone (Terminator Salvation, Transformers, G.I. Joe), it is shaping up to be quite a good one for the smaller films making their way into theatres over the last 3-4 months (Adventureland, Humpday, 500 Days Of Summer).

two guys are at a party. they are old friends who haven't seen each other in a long time. one is the free spirit traveler, never-settled-down guy and the the other has gone a different route and has a wife a house and is trying to make a baby. at this party, everyone gets to talking about the "hump fest" artistic porn festival that they are going to be producing work for and these two guys - pretty drunk and high at this point - decide that it would be great art if they (two very straight dudes) were to make a movie of them having sex with each other.  welcome to Humpday!

although the premise is quite amusing - it is also one that could have gone in may directions, so i really had no idea what to expect when the movie started. what i saw, however, was one great film.

this low-budget flick was dramatic, really funny, smart, witty, interesting, engaging and a whole lotta fun to watch. the direction is great and the film is given a very documentary-type feel with the hand held - and almost constantly moving - camera work, which works great with the naturalistic voice that the actors and their improving brings to the script.

yup, the entire film is pretty much all improvised by the actors - there was a basic story and they all knew where it was going - but within the scenes, the dialogue was all improved by the performers. thankfully, they are great at it. the film is very "talkie" but i just loved listening to them. the two guys and the guy's wife are all fantastic and their conversations are funny, dramatic, meandering, and very real for who they are and how they interact.

i know there are lots of big budget movies out there vying for your hard earned dollars - but if you are looking for a film that deserves your time and money, Humpday is definitely one of them.

also, on a "six degrees of separation note" - the actor who plays the guy with the wife is mark duplass, who is one half of the duplass brothers who made another film i really liked, and talked about it on a past podcast, The Puffy Chair.

Year: 1987

Writer/Director: Bruce Robinson

Budget: ?

Gross: $1 554 889

Withnail & I is a british comedy about two unemployed actors living in a filthy apartment in 1969 london decide to get away from it all and spend some time in the countryside, but things don't go as planned when the living conditions turn out to be no better than what they were dealing with in their london flat.

if i'm being totally honest with you (and you know that i always am) it took me about 20 minutes or so to get into this film. and not because that is when the "action" starts, because not much happens throughout the film. instead, it took me that while to figure out the characters and just allow myself to go with them for the next 80 minutes or so.

like i said, nothing much happens in the movie. the guys go to the countryside and meet a few "locals" and have some drinks and spend some time with withnail's uncle monty who gave them the cottage in the first place, and who has quite a fondness for "I". the film is a character piece and it is those characters (especially richard e. grant's withnail) that make it so much fun.

it doesn't matter if these two are sitting in an apartment getting high with their crazy drug dealer friend, getting drunk in a bar while pretending to be veterans, arguing about how to kill and cook a chicken or just bemoaning how they can't get any parts and their agent sucks. with these two you just enjoy the watching and the listening as "I" plays the toned-down/"reasonable" one to withnail's pretentious, over-the-top performer who seems to live by the shakespearean motto that all the worlds a stage.

the film is a comedy, but it is also definitely british so not everyone is going to be laughing out loud throughout the movie. rather the humour can be quite dry and character based so that for me it came across as more of a dramedy in its tone and my reaction to it.

speaking of tone. director, bruce robinson throws some great jimi hendrix and beatles music at us that have this great counter-intuitive effect of breaking the film out of the stereotype british countryside comedy that you may have been expecting. this is the 60s after all.

this isn't a film that you will middle-ground on. you are probably either going to quite like it or quite not like it depending on how the dry humour and characters site with you. however, how you feel about it at the start, might not be how you feel by the end of the film after spending some quality time with Withnail & I.

Year: 2008

Writer: Derick and Steven Martini

Director: Derick Martini

Budget: $1.5 million (estimated)

Gross: $209 000 (as of May 2nd, 2009)

Lymelife is a coming of age story. but unlike most such stories, where the sole focus is the kid who is "coming of age", this film takes the approach that all the characters are important.

i heard that the original cut of the film was about 30 minutes longer and that martini decided to cut it down and focus in on rory culkins character (the "coming of age" kid). while he is the "star" of the show, so to speak, i did feel that the other characters got some due - although i think 30 minutes more and a deeper understanding of the people around him would have been the way to go. as it is now it seems a little to simple/quick.

having said that though, i appreciated the look at the people around him - primarily his parents, played wonderfully by jill hennessy and alec baldwin. often in these types of films the parents are made into one-dimensional caricatures presented as foils to the kid. however, in Lymelife - even the edited version - the relationship between the parents themselves, and with their kids gets a little more then the superficial treatment.

with the story itself, martini isn't doing anything crazy original here. you got the suburban angst, first loves, school bullies, infidelity and of course all the period appropriate music and references (in this case, late 1970s music and star wars). however, rather then play up the dark undertones like American Beauty and The Ice Storm (two films that it is getting compared to quite a bit) Lymelife makes their story much more personal. it doesn't feel like it is making grand observations about suburbia or relationships. instead it feels like it is making statements about this family and these people. writers are always told to "write about what you know" and that is what martini did.

p.s. i was going to also comment on the ending of the film, but i learned that the ending i saw might not be the one you see. the ending i saw was the one that was presented at the festivals (toronto and sundance). however, martini re-edited the ending for the films release, which for some reason isn't the version we got here in montreal. i felt that the ending i saw was heavy handed and a little corny, and while the other ending sounded like it might be better i don't know if it would have been a lot better, and i think that it comes back to the missing 30 minutes. spending 30 more minutes with the characters and not feeling like i was being taken through the story so quickly would probably have created the stronger emotional ties to the characters needed to make both endings feel emotionally viable rather then feeling like they were trying to force a reaction from us.