The holidays are winding down and that means we at Ioncinema.com are gearing up for our annual pilgrimage to Park City where an A-list of documentaries is now set to premiere. Earlier this month Tabitha Jackson and the Sundance doc programming team let the cats out of the bag, unsurprisingly announcing much anticipated Us Doc Competition titles such as the Ross Brothers’ Western, Louie Psihoyos’ Racing Extinction, Marc Silver’s 3 1/2 Minutes and Lyric Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe’s (T)Error, along with some surprises like Bryan Carberry and Clay Tweel’s bizarro Kickstarted doc Finders Keepers (see trailer below). Having been produced by the fine folks behind The King of Kong and Undefeated, the film bears all the markings of its well regarded pedigree, yet appears to be of even odder ilk, following the story that unfolded when a severed human foot was discovered in a grill bought at a North Carolina auction.
- 12/30/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
One can only imagine that something was lost in the translation when first-time filmmaker Susan Skoog turned her vision for "Whatever" into a movie. Meant as an unvarnished look at what it's like to be a teenage girl growing up in America, it's gritty and depressing without being illuminating or the least bit memorable.
Set in a style-less, nowheresville burg in blue-collar New Jersey, the film gets its only real energy from a ballsy, loud and liberally used soundtrack that distributor Sony Pictures Classics has clearly sprung some bucks for, with 1980s gems by the Ramones, David Bowie, Patti Smith and others. That and the title -- which is more clever and contemporary than the movie -- are likely to be the sole marketing points when this low-budget indie makes its brief theatrical appearance.
"Whatever" is one of those movies that bungles the first few scenes and only rarely redeems itself during the rest of its running time. Two girls in their final year of high school spend a lot of time together but seem to have nothing in common except downbeat prospects and plenty of attitude. Brenda (Chad Morgan) is bound for big-time trouble as a nymphomaniac who spends all her free time in search of fast company and more sex; Anna (Liza Weil) is her dazed, passive pal who's meant to be more sensitive and creative, based on her androgynous clothing and her application to art school in Manhattan.
But if art is at all exciting and inspiring to her, it doesn't come across; she merely falls for losers who babble about painting and passion, while her friend falls for losers who babble about motorcycles and drugs. Social life consists of teenagers in divey houses getting blasted on drugs and booze, all of which is graphically depicted.
But while Richard Linklater captured these rites of small-town passage with wit and enjoyment in "Dazed and Confused", Skoog directs with a much heavier hand and a sense of desperation and doom. There's no denying that this can be "what it's like," especially for young people as directionless and contemptuous of adults as these. But Anna, the central character, is too adrift to provide much hope for escape; what little redemption the movie offers comes as too little, too late.
WHATEVER
Sony Pictures Classics
Writer-director: Susan Skoog
Producers: Ellin Baumel, Michelle Yahn, Kevin Segalla
Executive producers: Circle Films, Irwin Young
Directors of photography: Michael Barrow, Michael Mayers
Editor: Sandi Guthrie
Casting: Adrienne Stern
Cast:
Anna Stockard: Liza Weil
Brenda Talbot: Chad Morgan
Mr. Chaminsky: Frederic Forrest
Eddie: Gary Wolf
Running time -- 112 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Set in a style-less, nowheresville burg in blue-collar New Jersey, the film gets its only real energy from a ballsy, loud and liberally used soundtrack that distributor Sony Pictures Classics has clearly sprung some bucks for, with 1980s gems by the Ramones, David Bowie, Patti Smith and others. That and the title -- which is more clever and contemporary than the movie -- are likely to be the sole marketing points when this low-budget indie makes its brief theatrical appearance.
"Whatever" is one of those movies that bungles the first few scenes and only rarely redeems itself during the rest of its running time. Two girls in their final year of high school spend a lot of time together but seem to have nothing in common except downbeat prospects and plenty of attitude. Brenda (Chad Morgan) is bound for big-time trouble as a nymphomaniac who spends all her free time in search of fast company and more sex; Anna (Liza Weil) is her dazed, passive pal who's meant to be more sensitive and creative, based on her androgynous clothing and her application to art school in Manhattan.
But if art is at all exciting and inspiring to her, it doesn't come across; she merely falls for losers who babble about painting and passion, while her friend falls for losers who babble about motorcycles and drugs. Social life consists of teenagers in divey houses getting blasted on drugs and booze, all of which is graphically depicted.
But while Richard Linklater captured these rites of small-town passage with wit and enjoyment in "Dazed and Confused", Skoog directs with a much heavier hand and a sense of desperation and doom. There's no denying that this can be "what it's like," especially for young people as directionless and contemptuous of adults as these. But Anna, the central character, is too adrift to provide much hope for escape; what little redemption the movie offers comes as too little, too late.
WHATEVER
Sony Pictures Classics
Writer-director: Susan Skoog
Producers: Ellin Baumel, Michelle Yahn, Kevin Segalla
Executive producers: Circle Films, Irwin Young
Directors of photography: Michael Barrow, Michael Mayers
Editor: Sandi Guthrie
Casting: Adrienne Stern
Cast:
Anna Stockard: Liza Weil
Brenda Talbot: Chad Morgan
Mr. Chaminsky: Frederic Forrest
Eddie: Gary Wolf
Running time -- 112 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 7/10/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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