Senior Escort Service

In the twilight of our lives.

(2019) Comedy Doc (Random) Shaina Feinberg, Dave Hill, Chris Manley, Marshall York, Naomi Blecher, Paul Feinberg, Mary Feinberg, Evan Kaufman, Hannah Maria Wood, Ikechukwu Ufomadu, Jeff Seal, Marguerite Stern, Chris Roberti, Prudence Lipkin, Meg Griffiths, Jon Cunningham, Hannah Roze, Montalto Sweet Manley, Daniel Lipkin, Melissa Dougherty. Directed by Shaina Feinberg

 

Death, as has been noted in these pages and elsewhere, is a fact of life. Sooner or later, we all have to deal with death – our own, at the very least. Most of us will see our parents pass away at some point in our lives.

New York filmmaker Shaina Feinberg’s father Paul has passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. One moment he was doing push-ups, then later he’s found dead in his apartment. Shaina, who was close to her dad, is having a hard time dealing with it.

She decides to make a movie about her grief and includes her friends and family, discussing their stories about ghostly encounters with loved ones, dealing with their own grief and generally supporting one another. There is some genuine warmth throughout, interspersed with the kind of ribbing that people who really like each other will share. Three of her friends, including her husband, follow her around throughout like a kind of Greek chorus.

The title isn’t about what you might think it is. In the last couple of years of his life, Shaina’s dad wanted her to create a website with that name – not anything sexual, but a kind of means of hooking up people willing to take seniors from point A to point B and offer platonic companionship while doing it – such an encounter is used as a kind of linking device.

Blessedly short at 60 minutes, the movie is kind of a stream-of-consciousness affair, leaping from one point to the next sometimes with whiplash-inducing abruptness. Feinberg is the very image of the manic pixie dream girl and makes for a compelling guide. Interest in her friends will vary as determined by what you find interesting in people.

There are some moments that are touching and moments that are downright weird. Much is made about singing her father’s favorite song, Leonard Cohens “Hallelujah” at the grave-site but as Feinberg wryly notes, they can’t afford the licensing fee of ten grand. They get around it by humming bits of it and uttering a line or two of the lyrics. You’ll get the drift if you’re not familiar with the song (which is one of the most beautiful Cohen ever wrote, by the way).

I can’t really recommend this because it’s so scattered. Sure, there are some insights but in trying to keep things light it sometimes reduces the impact of them. The film could have used a bit of structure and maybe a bit of self-editing. At the end of the day, this is something like a podcast with delusions of grandeur (which most podcasts have anyway) or more to the point, a home movie with a theme.

REASONS TO SEE: There are some interesting observations. Feinberg is fascinating.
REASONS TO AVOID: Very disjointed and almost aimless. Morbid and full of non-sequiturs.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some adult themes and sexual references.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is a follow-up to Feinberg’s short film Shiva, which followed the same format and also dealt with her grief over her father’s passing.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Google Play  PlayStation, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/18/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 93% positive reviews: Metacritic: 80/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The End
FINAL RATING: 4.5/10
NEXT: What They Had

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Adult Life Skills

Jodie Whittaker feels at home in the shed that is as cluttered as the TARDIS.

(2016) Dramedy (Screen Media) Jodie Whittaker, Lorraine Ashbourne, Brett Goldstein, Rachel Deering, Eileen Davies, Alice Lowe, Edward Hogg, Ozzy Myers, David Anderson, Andrew Buckley, Christian Contreras, Alfie Wheeler. Directed by Rachel Tunnard

 

In 2018, British actress Jodie Whittaker made history becoming the first female Doctor in the beloved sci-fi series Doctor Who. Before that, she was largely unknown other than appearances on the British TV show Broadchurch and the independent sci-fi flick Attack the Block. She also did indie films like this one which opened in the UK two years ago.

Anna (Whittaker) is days away from her 30^th birthday and she’s stuck in a garden shed. Not literally; she’s been using it as a studio for her short films of her thumbs made up as astronauts on a doomed space trip in which they are crashing into the sun. Life must feel a lot like that to Anna; she used to make little videos with her twin brother Billy (Hogg) until he passed away unexpectedly. She essentially lives in the shed which sits on her mother’s property in West Yorkshire. Occasionally, she forgets to bring in clean clothes with her and so has to make a mad dash to the house half-naked to get some.

This has been her living arrangement for some 18 months since her brother died and her mum (Ashbourne) is sick of it. She desperately wants her remaining daughter to move on and start living her life again. Anna’s grandmother (Davies) is a little less frantic about it than her daughter who seems bound and determined to make matters worse but still she knows her granddaughter needs to make changes, although the grandmother thinks a good shagging is all Anna needs.

Brendan (Goldstein), a work colleague (Anna works at an outdoor activities center part time) would dearly love to supply Anna with just that but Anna has decided in her head that Brendan is gay. Brendan is not but he is a realtor who is enlisted by Anna’s mum to find a cheap flat for her daughter which turns out to be a disaster; most of the properties that Anna can afford are absolutely hideous.

When Anna’s best friend Fiona (Deering) returns from travelling, she also tries to kickstart Anna’s life with some success but things really start to change when she meets Clint (Myers), a young cowboy-obsessed boy who is just as quirky as Anna who is undergoing a similar trauma to the one that Anna suffered and the two begin to identify with each other but Anna is an expert at pushing people away. Will she ever find her way back to the land of the living?

The film not only serves as a treatise on grief but also as a paean to the deliberately weird. Nearly all the characters here are off-kilter in one way or another not unlike certain American indie films that star Greta Gerwig. Like those films, sometimes the quirkiness wears on the viewer and becomes almost forced but the good news is that it does only to a lesser extent. However, the thick Yorkshire accents used by the character can be incomprehensible at times; home viewers should definitely watch this with subtitles turned on. The dialogue though when you can understand it is actually quite clever; lines like one in which Fiona, exiting a pub, exclaims “It’s like The Wicker Man in there” can be quite brilliant.

A lot of Whovians are going to want to see this because of Whittaker and to be honest her performance is worth seeing whether you’re a fan of the series or not. It’s a very different role and some of her fans from the venerable BBC sci-fi show may not be able to accept her in a role like this. Anna is far from the self-assured and brilliant Doctor; she is a woman-child coping with an overwhelming tragedy and not always doing it well. In the hands of a lesser talent viewers might just shut down watching Anna make terrible choices and do things that are weird in an eye-rolling sense but Whittaker’s charm carries the day. Like other actors who have taken on the role of the Timelord, she has enough screen presence to continue with a career that transcends the TARDIS; I wouldn’t be surprised if she eventually gets lead roles in franchise films or maybe even some Oscar bait films. She’s truly an incredibly versatile talent.

Like a lot of British films, the soundtrack is absolutely brilliant. The supporting cast is solid and the production design gives the film a cluttered but lived in tone. At the end of the day my recommendation is going to depend on your ability to tolerate quirkiness; those with low tolerances should probably skip this one but those who don’t mind a little off-beat with their independent cinema may well find this delightful.

REASONS TO GO: The film is blessed with a terrific soundtrack. Whittaker is sublime in a very different role.
REASONS TO STAY: The film rapidly goes from quirky to annoying. The dialogue is occasionally incomprehensible.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of profanity as well as one sexual scene. There are also some fairly adult themes.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The feature film is based on a 2014 short that also starred Whittaker.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, iTunes, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/19/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 74% positive reviews: Metacritic: 49/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Rabbit Hole
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Burning

Dean

Life is a day at the beach for Demetri Martin.

(2016) Dramedy (CBS) Demetri Martin, Kevin Kline, Gillian Jacobs, Mary Steenburgen, Ginger Gonzaga, Luka Jones, Briga Heelan, Levi MacDougall, Rory Scovel, Drew Tarver, Barry Rothbert, Meryl Hathaway, Nicholas Delany, Kate Berlant, Asif Ali, Florence Marcisak, Pierce Minor, Michael Oberholtzer, Victoria Vitkowski-Bennett, Reid Scott, Jamila Webb, Jessica Ruane. Directed by Demetri Martin

You never know when your life is going to change irrevocably – or how. It could be the death of a loved one. It could be a romance that will turn out to last a lifetime. When it comes right down to it, life is a roller coaster ride we take while blindfolded.

Dean (Martin) is a cartoonist (and by the way, Demetri Martin drew the New Yorker-style cartoons seen throughout the movie) who lives in New York City. He has just broken up with his fiancée (Vitkowski-Bennett) and he is having trouble finishing his second book of toons. One of the reasons for that is he is still grieving for his mother (Marcisak) who recently passed away unexpectedly.

His life is in a bit of a stall. His relationship with his father Robert (Kline) is tenuous to say the least; neither man approves of how the other is grieving. When Robert drops the bombshell that he plans to sell the family home that Dean grew up in, Dean refuses to even discuss the matter and when Robert insists that he start clearing out his room, Dean flees to Los Angeles, ostensibly to listen to a job offer (that he never really took seriously to begin with) but more to hang out with his buddy Eric (Scovel) who takes him to a party where he meets Nicky (Jacobs), an Angelino whom he falls head over heels for – literally. His first act when he makes eye contact with her is to do a face plant on the floor.

Nonetheless their relationship starts to take off. Meanwhile, back in New York City, Robert is developing feelings for his real estate agent Carol (Steenburgen) that he’s not ready to act on, or at least thinks he isn’t. They do go out but the date ends disastrously. Both men are at a crossroads and need to get on with their lives, but do they have the will to move on?

If the movie sounds like something Woody Allen might have done back in the 70s, you’re probably right. Martin’s sensibility as a writer seems to fall in line with that of the Great Neurotic. However, this isn’t straight rip-off by any means; while Martin is almost certainly influenced by Allen, he isn’t slavish about it. Dean is certainly somewhat neurotic (his cartoons since his mother passed all have to do with the Grim Reaper) but not of the “ohmygawd he needs therapy” variety, which was where Allen mined much of his best material.

Martin is definitely a multi-threat performer; not only is he a terrific stand-up but he shows that he has the ability to be a lead in a theatrical narrative. Yes, the Beatles haircut is distracting but no more than some of the crazy hair-dos of comic actors we’ve seen of late. Martin’s delivery is a little sad sack (which fits the circumstances) but he has a kind of puppy dog cuteness that will certainly win him some fans. As a director he’s still learning his craft, but this is an effort that is impressive for a first full-length feature.

While Martin has a promising future, there are some cast members who are terrific now. Casting Kline and Steenburgen – so wonderful together in My Life as a House – was inspired and the two still have tons of chemistry. Some critics have found the storyline involving the two of them more interesting than the one between Martin and Jacobs and I can’t say as I disagree. I wouldn’t mind seeing more movies with Kline and Steenburgen in them. I would also like to see Jacobs’ role a little more fleshed out. Like Martin, she also has a bunch of screen presence and could be an onscreen force someday.

While the film wasn’t as consistently funny as I might have liked, it had enough humor in it to tickle the funny bone yet didn’t sink into parody or low comedy. The humor is, like Martin’s stand-up act, intelligent and a bit off-kilter. While this isn’t a movie that is going to make big waves on the Hollywood ocean, it should get enough notice to further the careers of everyone involved, or at least I hope so. It certainly is worth indie film lovers taking the time to check out.

REASONS TO GO: Martin has a whole lot of potential. A stellar supporting cast helps power the movie.
REASONS TO STAY: The film comes off in places as a knockoff of Woody Allen.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s a fair amount of profanity as well as some sexually suggestive material.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Jacobs and Heelan also star together in the Netflix series Love.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/17/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 63% positive reviews. Metacritic: 58/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Sleepwalk With Me
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: The Journey

Somewhere Beautiful

If you’re going to dump someone anywhere, you may as well dump them somewhere beautiful.

(2014) Drama (Bueno) Maria Alche, Anthony Bonaventura, Pablo Cedrón, Albert Kodagolian, Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, Dominique Pinon, Robyn Buck, Zoe Kodagolian. Directed by Albert Kodagolian

 

The end of a relationship can be full of noise and fury, or a quiet exit. Just as no two relationships are exactly alike, no two break-ups are exactly alike either.

Kodagolian, a first-time feature director, took his inspiration from Atom Egoyan’s critically acclaimed 1993 film Calendar as he details the ends of two relationships. The first is set in Patagonia as a nameless American photographer (Bonaventura) takes his girlfriend Elena (Alche) to act as translator for his Argentinean guide (Cedrón). The photographer is so immersed in his work he scarcely notices the beautiful vistas he’s given to photograph or that his girlfriend is falling hard for the guide.

In the meantime, Albert (A. Kodagolian) who works in the film industry in Hollywood, is shocked when his wife Rachel (Buck) leaves him abruptly without explanation. He is an instant single dad, caring for his toddler Zoe (Z. Kodagolian), To help out, he hires a nanny (Lutz) who herself begins to see hidden depths to Albert that maybe his wife missed. As Albert and Elena start moving towards different chapters in their lives however, they must first deal with the end of the previous chapter.

The two relationships don’t intersect other than only in marginal ways – Albert is preparing to make a movie of the goings-on in Patagonia, but beyond that the characters have little in common. At times the tenuous connection between the two stories leads to some pretty rough cuts jumping from one to the other; the effect is jarring and takes the viewer out of the movie by reminding them that they are watching a movie, a cardinal sin of movie making.

There is some beautiful cinematography here, from the natural beauty of Argentina to the angular interiors of designer L.A. homes and sun-dappled drives down Sunset. This is a beautiful film to watch and sometimes the images are so mesmerizing that one can forgive the dialogue which can be pretentious at times. There is a distinctly 90s art house vibe to the film which may or may not invoke a sense of nostalgia depending on your opinion of 90s art house films.

What really saves the film are the performances, from the lustrous Alche who allows the emotions of her character’s situation to play upon her face and in her gestures. The photographer character she is with is so emotionally shut off that Elena’s feelings are like rain in the desert. We find ourselves needing to experience them. One of the more heartbreaking moments in the film is when she is saying goodbye to the photographer, trying to express some affection towards him but he stolidly turns his back on her and refuses to engage. It symbolizes all that must have been going on in that relationship and yet as a man, I could certainly empathize with the photographer who being dumped wants nothing to do with the woman dumping him. It feels very real – and very sad.

Veteran French actor Dominique Pinon, who plays a friend and colleague of Albert’s, also reminds us why this eminently likable actor is one of the most beloved stars in France. Here he plays something of a Greek chorus for Albert, at length telling him to get off his ass and start living, soldering in the device with his own experience. Pinon has always been an engaging character actor but he shows he can pull out the stops and deliver some worthwhile dramatics as well.

The soundtrack is full of indie rock songs and the filmmakers are to be commended to getting some good ones. The music is strangely upbeat for a movie that is portraying such discordant relationships but the juxtaposition is at least interesting and it truly never hurts to have good music on the soundtrack regardless of the scene that’s playing along with it. I didn’t get a chance to catch the soundtrack listing but there are certainly quite a few songs there that I wouldn’t mind adding to my digital collection.

There is a lot going on here but although Kodagolian sometimes goes for art house tropes that fall flat, for the most part this is extremely watchable and the relationships failing or not feel genuine. I don’t know how autobiographical the Los Angeles portion is – the fact that Kodagolian used his own child to play Zoe is telling – but Kodagolian, who might be a little bit too low-key here, projects some real emotional commitment.

This isn’t for everyone. Cinemaphiles will enjoy the Egoyan references and those who like slice of life movies will relish the peek into these lives. Those that need a bit more emotional release will probably have issues with this as the movie essentially begins in media res and ends that way as well. Still, it is a worthy feature that might be worth seeking out at your local art house or on VOD when it arrives there.

REASONS TO GO: The film is beautifully shot. The soundtrack is tres cool.
REASONS TO STAY: The film jumps a bit from scene to scene. A wee bit pretentious in places.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a bit of mild profanity and some drug use..
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The Patagonia sequences were shot in 16mm while the Los Angeles sequences were shot in standard 35mm.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/23/17: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Calendar
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Dave Made a Maze

Truly, Madly, Deeply

Holding on to the last remnants of the dead.

(1990) Romantic Fantasy (Goldwyn) Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman, Bill Paterson, Michael Maloney, Jenny Howe, Christopher Rozycki, Stella Maris, Deborah Findlay, Ian Hawkes, Arturo Venegas, Richard Syms, Mark Long, Teddy Kempner, Graeme Du-Fresne, Frank Baker, Tony Biuto, Nitin Genatra, Heather Williams. Directed by Anthony Minghella

Grief is never easy under any circumstances but when the person you’re grieving is the person you expected to spend the rest of your life with, it’s a special kind of agony. It’s like not only is the person you love dead, so is a part of you. You go from having everything figured out to having no future.

Nina (Stevenson), a translator from Italian to English, is going through that. Her man Jamie (Rickman), a cellist, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly – one day he woke up with a sore throat and the next day he was gone. She is having trouble dealing with it; she feels his presence everywhere she goes, hears his voice. Oddly, he’s speaking Spanish – a language he didn’t know in life and which he’s speaking with an atrocious accent.

Then one night, when she is playing piano he is there in the flesh. Well, as in the flesh as ghosts get – he’s most definitely dead. Nina isn’t sure that she hasn’t gone mad but frankly she doesn’t care – she has what she wants and needs. The two caper about at first like mad teenagers, with the only real difference being that Jamie is perpetually cold and needs the heat turned up to nearly unbearable levels.

Nina’s support group of her amorous building super, the plumber, the pest-control guy she calls to deal with a rat problem and her boss are….well, supportive but not understanding of everything but they give her a lot of leeway. Then she meets Mark (Maloney), a social worker who is deeply caring, just a little zany and sweet on children. In short, the perfect guy…and Nina really likes him. The trouble is that Jamie is still around, even though he’s begun to act like a real twit, bringing his fellow ghosts to Nina’s flat to watch videos. “Was he always like that” Nina wonders about her dead boyfriend. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t but can she let go of him either way and move on?

I love love LOVE this movie. Not just because it deals with grief in a fairly realistic fashion despite the fantastic nature of the plot (ghosts aside) but because it utilizes the talents of its leads so perfectly. We get the sense of how deeply compatible Nina and Jamie are, literally harmonizing in a scene where they sing pop love songs together, but we also see the other side – Jamie can be a right demanding bastard sometimes.

Stevenson is much better known across the pond than she is over here but she is a truly gifted comedic actress and musician (she plays her own piano here). There is a scene early on where she is talking to a therapist about her grief and breaks down – it’s so well done that your heart literally breaks for her and you just want to give her hugs.

Minghella, who’d later go on to direct The English Patient (and win an Oscar for it) as well as The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain ,lays it on a bit thick in places here. Mark, for example, is so dang perfect that you half expect him to walk across the Thames – and not on a bridge either. What I do like here is that this isn’t a silly mindless supernatural love story like Ghost was – a film that quite frankly I loathe. There are layers that I appreciate. For example, one thing you should keep in mind while you watch is that there’s a reason that Jamie comes back and it may not be the reason you think. The movie’s last scene is absolutely perfect in a subtle way when you think about what’s going on. At the time I saw it I scarcely thought twice about it but when I thought back upon it later and realized what it signified, I was floored. That’s truly impressive when an ending is actually better after thinking about it than when you first watch it.

WHY RENT THIS: Treats grief as a real thing and doesn’t marginalize or trivialize it. Rickman and Stevenson harmonize well together, figuratively and literally.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: A little mawkish and too-good-to-be-true in places.

FAMILY VALUES:  There is a smidgeon of bad language and some fairly adult themes going on here.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The working title for the film was originally Cello, not only referring to Jamie’s instrument of choice but also a play on the Italian word cielo, meaning Heaven. It was originally made for British television.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: There’s an interview with the late Anthony Minghella as well as an introduction by him to the DVD package.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $1.6M on a $650,000 production budget.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Ghost.

FINAL RATING: 8.5/10

NEXT: Getaway