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Uncle Kent
A film by Joe Swanberg
From IMDB: “A pothead kid’s show cartoonist in Los Angeles spends a weekend trying to sleep with his visiting house guest - a woman from New York who he met on Chatroulette.”
You either love Joe Swanberg films or you hate them. I seem to be of the former persuasion. Starring Kent Osborne, Uncle Kent is one of Swanberg’s funniest films. If you like Swanberg, don’t miss this one.
Watched via Netflix Instant.
Marriage Material
A medium-sized film by Joe Swanberg. Starring Kentucker Audley, Caroline White, Joe and Kris Swanberg.
At a running time of 55:30 mins, why the hell wouldn’t you watch Joe Swanberg’s new movie for FREE online. I did.
From Vimeo: “Emily and Andrew, a young couple living in Memphis, agree to babysit their friend’s 6-month-old for a day. The experience causes them to examine their own relationship and their feelings about marriage and children.”
Watched via Vimeo on my iPhone4.
Photo reblogged from Kentucker Blog +++++ with 2 notes
The Zone a film by Joe Swanberg starring Kentucker AudleyWorld premiere of The Zone next Tuesday at AFI fest.
Source: kentuckeraudley
3 by Joe Swanberg
Joe Swanberg’s latest film Alexander the Last is next up on my Netflix queue, so this is not a review of that. Instead, this IS a review of three of his previous efforts, starting with his first feature Kissing on the Mouth (2005), that I’ve most recently watched.
KOTM a sexual adventure chronicling the shortcomings of Ellen (Kate Winterich) as she struggles not to rekindle her relationship with old flame Bucket (Kevin Pittman) while she searches for her calling in life.
Although only 78 minutes in length, Kissing on the Mouth is a daring first feature that tackles sexual tensions and frustrations coupled with twenty-something post college angst.
In LOL (2006), Swanberg again takes on twenty-something sexuality, this time conveying his characters’ inability to connect physically with dependence on social media. When LOL was made Twitter didn’t exist and Facebook was in its infancy, so most of the disconnect comes from addictions to text messaging, email, and online porn. A little rough around the edges, but LOL is a poignant portrait of post college life in the 2000s.
Finally, in Nights and Weekends Swanberg takes the lead opposite longtime collaborator Greta Gerwig in drama that follows a long distance relationship for one year. James (Swanberg) lives and works in Chicago. He only sees Mattie (Gerwig) once a week, on weekends, hence the title, and that’s if he’s lucky because she lives in New York. Their story unfolds over 80 minutes broken up into one meeting at the character’s apartments in their respective cities and then cuts to one year later. The tension and stresses of being in a long distance relationship build and crumble as the pair struggle to make it work. Throughout the improvisation string seems to be pulled at every opportunity allowing Swanberg and Gerwig to shine. Little events like new sneakers, haircuts, or the comfort of a partner’s familiar scent, the things that couples take for granted, are in the forefront in Swanberg’s best to date.
Born in 1981, Joe Swanberg has pumped out five feature films in as many years, not to mention his collaboration with filmmakers like Aaron Katz, the Duplass Brothers, Andrew Bujalski, and Noah Baumbach, or his web series Young American Bodies. In all of his films, there always seems to be a side project, usually something artistic (an amalgamation of sounds people make with their mouths, real stories from college grads documenting their anxieties of finding careers, or the creation of a new video game), that one of his characters is working on that never distracts from the plot but always makes his world that much more believable.
Perhaps a master filmmaker in the digital age, Swanberg has no fear of nudity and attacks the moral dilemmas of young sexuality and promiscuity while letting his actors find their characters and play out their post-collegiate anxieties; that, coupled with his hand-held cinematography, give his films a raw, very real-life feel.
If you’ve never seen a Joe Swanberg film before, you’re missing out on the work of a true digital auteur.
*His one film that I did not mention here, Hannah Takes the Stairs, is a must see. It stars Gerwig, along with Mark Duplass, Andrew Bujalski, Kent Osborne, Todd Rohal, Tipper Newton, and Ry Russo-Young. It’s probably the only other one, besides Nights and Weekends, that should be available at Blockbuster. But if you have Netflix, then you have no excuse not to see them all.
