Jeff, Who Lives at Home

Written & Directed by: Jay & Mark Duplass
Full credits at IMDb

This shaggy-dog comedy-turned-melodramatic weepie—about fate, interconnectedness and the desire for meaning—opens with a monologue by the title character in defense of Signs, an apologia for meandering films whose narrative ramblings reflect our own unsteady pas de deux with fate. The plotty Jeff asks us not only to bear with its own tortuous storytelling, but to accommodate and appreciate the twists in our own life stories. Everything happens for a reason, follow your destiny—all that bunk.

Keep reading my review at The L Magazine

Watch the trailer:

Event: Geoff Dyer on Tarkovsky's Stalker

To promote the release of his new book Zona, jack of all genres Geoff Dyer hosted a panel discussion around a DVD-screening of Tarkovsky's Stalker in front of a spillover crowd on Saturday at the New School's Tishman Auditorium. People sat in the aisles, in partial-view alcoves, in folding chairs carried in by a custodian. The book is about—or, roots its digressions in—that 1979 movie, an obsession of Dyer's since he saw it in his twenties, the film he's seen more than any other ("except When Eagles Dare," he said); it's part novelization, part critical history, and part memoir, an idiosyncratic exploration of an idiosyncratic film.

Occupying a space between Jarmusch's lanky hep and Lynch's preternatural nerdiness, Dyer headed an impressive roster of guests: Walter Murch, Dana Stevens, Phillip Lopate, Francine Prose, and Michael Benson. They offered "commentary and banter" throughout the evening, before and after the film and at least three times during, when Dyer pushed pause on the MacBook Pro on stage. (The event was called "Tarkovsky Interruptus," one of several Tarkovsky-related, Dyer-hosted events last weekend). "It's a unique way to see Stalker," Dyer said. "A uniquely irritating way." But perhaps a good way for the half of the audience that had never seen the movie before—those who might resist Tarkovsky's deliberate rhythms. "You're not gonna have a chance to get bored, because of the interruptions," Dyer said. "It does not move at the pace of a James Bond film."

Keep reading this article at The L Magazine

Attenberg

Written & Directed by: Athina Rachel Tsangari
Full credits at IMDb

This latest addition to the Greek New Wave is about the future—specifically, Greece's unpreparedness for it. News reports have detailed that country's economic troubles, but this film explores some of their underlying causes, digging into cultural generalizations in a way journalism can't. Ariane Labed starts as Bella, an awkward twentysomething maladjusting to society as her father dies from an unspecified ailment. She is sexually inexperienced—the first scene features some of the least erotic making out in movie history, as she attempts to learn kissing from her best and only friend, played by Evangelia Randou—but she's also generally socially ignorant. Writer-director Athina Rachel Tsangari codes her as a child: she skips arm-in-arm with her biffle; they spit out of windows onto the street below and imitate wild beasts. (Bella and her father enjoy David Attenborough nature specials; the film takes its name from a Greek mispronunciation of his name, a twisting of the naturalist as Bella is a twisted bit of nature.)

Keep reading my review at The L Magazine

Watch the trailer: