Tag: saint louis

SLIFF 2015 Review : FOUR WAY STOP

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Nationwide news media seems to be filled with tales of urban violence (for those living in the larger cities, these stories can fill the first third of local newscast). How do these neighborhoods become powderkegs waiting to ignite and explode? Is it from tensions and frustrations simmering to a boil just under the surface of society? That’s the question posed by the new drama FOUR WAY STOP. The film’s focus is 17 year-old Allen (Paul Craig), who is going through the interview section of another fruitless job search. He’s got a part job at a corner snack shack, but his tardiness and absences (looking for a better gig) has raised the ire of his unsympathetic boss. Things aren’t that great at home since his folks split quite a while ago. His sickly mother (Mary K Casey) needs his wages to support them and her new live-in beau (of course this bully constantly clashes with him). Several blocks away is Allen’s drug-addled dad (Jaan Marion) who repeats tales of his former glory days while also hitting up his boy for cash. Well, Allen’s old childhood pal Tay (Jason J Little) can offer him some work, but it’s not really, you know, legal. But Allen’s determined to resist that route even as every door slams in his face while his anger builds until…

Director Efi Da Silva inspires terrific performances from this energetic cast. Particularly memorable is Marion as he rambles and rants about the better times while resisting the urge to collapse after his latest bender. There’s also very effective use of St. Louis locations, best showcased in an early sequence of Allen and Tay racing down the gritty blocks, lit by rows of street lamps under twilight and darkness. There are scenes that crackle with tension as Allen keeps butting heads with uncaring employers and their staff. FOUR WAY STOP is an unflinching, raw tale of tough times on the still very mean streets.

FOUR WAY STOP screens at Webster University’s Winifred Moore Auditorium on Sunday, November 15 at 1PM as part of the 24th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival. Purchase tickets here

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2014 St. Louis Film Critics Awards Announced

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With just a few days left in 2014, the St. Louis Film Critics have released their annual list of the best in cinema. After submitting entries over the first of this month, the critics got together on December 14 to narrow down the nominations to five per category (in cases of a tie, some had six ).

Here is the press release with the list of winners:

“Boyhood,” writer-director Richard Linklater’s 12-year chronicle of a young boy and his family’s life, won Best Film while ​”Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance),” Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s imaginative blend of backstage drama and cinematic fantasy, was honored with four awards from the St. Louis Film Critics Association ​.

​Patricia​ ​Arquette won Best Supporting Actress  for ​“Boyhood,” ​with ​“Gone Girl,” “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and “Whiplash” ​also receiving ​two​ nods​

Jake Gyllenhaal (“Nightcrawler”) and Rosamund Pike (“Gone Girl”) won top acting honors​ for dark and twisted performances​.​ Veteran character actor J.K. Simmons was cited as supporting actor for “Whiplash.”

The SLFCA Annual Awards announcement Monday named winners in 19 categories. “Birdman,” won for director​ Inarritu​; original screenplay​ by Inarritu, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolas Giabone, and Armando Bo;​ cinematography ​by ​​Emmanuel Lubezki; ​and music score​ by Antonio Sanchez​.

Organized in 2004, the association includes 20 professional critics for media outlets and prominent established websites.

The winners are:

SLFCA 2014 AWARDS

Best Film: “Boyhood”
Best Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu “Birdman”
Best Actor: Jake Gyllenhaal “Nightcrawler”
Best Actress: Rosamund Pike “Gone Girl”
Best Supporting Actor: J.K. Simmons “Whiplash”
Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette “Boyhood”
Best Original Screenplay: “Birdman”
Best Adapted Screenplay: “Gone Girl”
Best Cinematography: “Birdman”
Best Visual Effects: “Interstellar”
Best Art Direction: “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Best Music Score: “Birdman”
Best Music Soundtrack: “Guardians of the Galaxy”
Best Foreign Language Film: “Force Majeure”
Best Documentary Film: “Citizenfour”
Best Animated Feature: “The Lego Movie”
Best Comedy: “Guardians of the Galaxy”
Best Arthouse Film: “Whiplash”
Best Scene: “X-Men: Days of Future Past” – Quicksilver Escape from the Pentagon

Visit the website www.stlcritics.org.

New Trailer for CASUALTIES OF THE STATE

The fourth and final trailer for Corner Film Production’s second feature length film ‘Casualties of the State.’ A thriller set in the current political landscape, ‘Casualties of the State’ tells the story of two FBI agents and an NSA agent assigned to investigating the murders of high level government officials.

Directed by Jeremy Cropf
Produced by Alex Shirley, Alan Lamberg
Written by Alan Lamberg
Starring: Alex McCormick, Ted Jordan, David Mueller, Lauren Yates, Portia Secor, Paul Russell, Neal McCluggage, Collins Lewis, Scott Stotlz, Matt Kemmerer, John Lewis, Rhonda Husak, Jan Carson, Sandi Leicht, Carl Overly, Andrew Keller, Carlos Hagene, Gary Wells, Robert Ashton, Erik Williams, Aleh Neliubin, Nathan Gemayal, Adam Fry, Matt Shea

Coming Winter 2011 from Corner Film Productions

Casualties of the State – Trailer 4 from Jeremy Cropf on Vimeo.

CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP – The Review

Wow, has it been a year already since the late night war was resolved? I suppose I should specify Late Night War II. The first war happened when Johnny Carson vacated The Tonight Show throne nearly twenty years ago. This was well chronicled in Bill Carter’s book “The Late Shift” which was also the basis of an HBO original movie. Carter’s released a new book about the new battles if you want some more background information ( or wait for the inevitable cable TV movie ). The focus of the new documentary by Rodman Flender, CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP, concerns this war’s aftermath. As part of his NBC settlement, O’Brien must stay off TV, radio, and the Internet for several months. So is Coco gonna’ ride the couch? Not a chance! He’s going across the country ( and Canada ) to thank his loyal fans by putting on a live stage show! But this is far from Mickey and Judy using the old barn  to put  on a musical.

In this new film we get to follow the evolution of this big tour. We’re in the writers’ room as O’Brien and his staff put the act together before taking it on the road. Of course loyal sidekick Andy Richter is right on board as is Jimmy Vivino’s band. Because live music will be a huge part of the show, auditions are held to find two female back-up singers. The company rents a rehearsal space. The show dates and cities are announced online and quickly sell out. Tension mounts as they prepare a test show performed before an audience of ex- show staffers. The first tour stop is Eugene, Oregon. We get to see O’Brien deal with pre-show jitters. Chicago, Las Vegas, Austin, and Atlantic City follow. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert join him for a skit on stage in NYC. Jim Carrey does the same in LA. Celebrity well-wishers fill up the backstage area before and after the shows. There’s major tension at the Bonnaroo Music Festival as O’Brien is pressed into introducing various musical acts.

As for the shows themselves, we don’t get to see much before some brief snippets. Maybe there’s a DVD concert set coming out soon. Like many rock band documentaries we experience some of the travel tedium along with the energy rush after a well received show. You can almost smell the sweat after his last bow. O’Brien should be exhausted, but feels an obligation to greet his fans. That interaction may be the real heart of this film. A couple of times,fans say to him, ” You got the shaft!” to which he quickly replies, ” Oh no. Not at all!”. O’Brien signs endless items ( beer cans, flesh ) and poses for countless photos. Amazingly he doesn’t lose his cool when a clueless teenage fan says an offensive religious slur in front of him ( “Don’t ever use that phrase again.” is O’Brien’s retort ). The film concludes shortly after the tour ends as he settles into his new home on cable super-station TBS proving not only that Conan O’Brien can’t stop , he won’t let anyone ( or any network ) stop him.

Overall Rating: Four Out of Five Stars

HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN Comes To St. Louis Next Weekend!

Destroy The Brain’s LATE NITE GRINDHOUSE program returns to the Hi-Pointe on June 3rd and 4th with the St. Louis Premiere of the exploitation, 80’s genre film tribute, HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN!

This entry into complete cinematic anarchy will inhabit the Hi-Pointe for two nights only. Don’t dare watch this film on your computer or on-demand, see it with an audience as it was intended! Arrive by 11:30pm for their special, one of a kind preshow that includes vintage trailers and other zany videos displayed on the big screen. Also, DTB will be hosting the theatrical premiere of the trailers for Wicked Pixel Cinema’s Ratline and the locally made The Bloodfest Club.

Friday, June 3rd and Saturday, June 4th
Preshow starts at 11:30pm & the film starts at Midnight.

RSVP for Friday Night’s Show on Facebook
RSVP for Saturday Night’s Show on Facebook

Director Stanley Nelson in St. Louis for “FREEDOM RIDERS” Event

Award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson will be the featured speaker on Tuesday, April 26, during a program on his latest documentary, “Freedom Riders,” from 2 to 4 p.m. in the theater at St. Louis Community College at Meramec, 11333 Big Bend in Kirkwood.

Jim Kirchherr of KETC-TV (Ch. 9), the St. Louis PBS affiliate, will moderate the event. Following short clips of the film, Nelson will answer questions from the audience. The documentary airs on PBS from 7 to 9 p.m. on Monday, May 16 as part of the “American Experience” history series.

Based on Raymond Arsenault’s book, “Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice,” Nelson’s documentary is the first feature-length film about a band of nearly 400 civil rights activities – black and white, young and old, male and female, Northern and Southern – who risked their lives by deliberately violating Jim Crow laws and traveling together on buses as they journeyed through the Deep South. Greeted by mob violence and bitter racism along the way, many endured savage beatings and even imprisonment. They called themselves the Freedom Riders, and they managed to bring the president and the entire American public face-to-face with the challenge of correcting civil rights inequities that plagued the nation.

Best known for his films focusing on African-American experiences, Nelson received the Contemporary Cinema Award from the St. Louis International Film Festival last November. The award honors filmmakers in mid-career for their challenging and innovative work. “Freedom Riders” was selected as one of the top five documentaries shown at the festival by the St. Louis Film Critics Association.

Nelson has had five films in competition at the Sundance Film Festival during the past 10 years, including “Freedom Riders.” He has won dozens of industry awards, including the Emmy and the Peabody. “A Place of Our Own” is another of his acclaimed works.

The event is free and open to the public. However, seating is limited. To reserve a seat, call 314-984-7167. For more information, visit pbs.org/freedomriders.

48 Hour Film Project Returns!

Registration is now open for the St. Louis 48 Hour Film Project (48HFP.) The 48HFP is a thrilling challenge where filmmakers must rely on pure adrenaline and little sleep to complete a short film in just 48 hours. From June 3 through June 5 teams from around St. Louis will write, shoot and edit a short film incorporating a required genre, prop, character and line of dialogue. Completed films will screen at the Tivoli Theatre with the winner going on to screen at Filmapalooza, a national gathering of 48 Hour filmmakers.

Registration is now open.

Early Bird Deadline: May 9, 2011
Regular Registration Deadline: May 23
Competition Dates: June 3-5
Screenings: June 7-9
Best of St. Louis Screening: June 16

It’s fast, filmmaking fun at its finest.

Sign up your team today at 48hourfilm.com/stlouis

James Gunn Brings SUPER to St. Louis

On Friday April 15, director/screenwriter James Gunn returned to his hometown of St. Louis to screen his sophomore feature film SUPER. The above photo is from an interview our own Melissa Howland conducted earlier that day with Gunn. SUPER played to a packed auditorium at the beautiful Tivoli theatre at 7 PM that evening. At the film’s conclusion St. Louis Post Dispatch film critic Joe Williams introduced Gunn. After a few opening remarks, Gunn took questions from the audience for close to thirty minutes. He talked about filming in Shreveport, Louisiana during the coldest winter there in recent history. Kudos to Ellen Page for braving the temps while just dressed in her undergarments. Gunn applauded the actors who worked for scale. A couple traveled to the shoot on their own expenses. He revealed that his ex-wife Jenna Fisher was instrumental in getting her TV co-star Rainn Wilson to take the film’s lead role. Gunn introduced his mother and father and joked about directing them as extras in a scene. He then discussed his internet “dust-up” with Roger Ebert after the critic had revealed a major plot spoiler in the opening lines of his review. Gunn had high praises for his film’s distributors who released the film unrated. He believes the stigma of unrated films no longer exists. Then he revealed that his next big screen release will be a seven minute segment starring Josh Duhamel and Elizabeth Banks in the Farrelly Brothers production of MOVIE 43. Thanks again to the Tivoli for a great evening  with James Gunn.

QFEST 2011 Review: FISHNET

Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Brian Pelletier, FISHNET tells the story of Sulie and Trixie, a lesbian couple from Los Angeles working as dancers in a burlesque club. A tough, full-figured woman named Lady Jeanette, played by Emma Messenger, runs the club. Everything is going just fine, until a mobster shows up trying to muscle Lady Jeanette. In an impulsive effort to save the day, Trixie shoots the mobster and the two young women flee for safety to Sulie’s parents’ house in Texas.

Jillian Easton (VIRUS X, MEGA PIRANHA) plays Sulie, a woman from a conservative rural Texas upbrining, drawn to L.A. where she first met her creative passion and her romantic love. Rebekah Kochan (HOMEWRECKER, EATING OUT Series) plays Trixie, a wild, fun-loving L.A. woman and Sulie’s romantic partner. These two actresses offer the better moments in FISHNET, comfortable delivering the lines in a way that lifts the words just enough out of absurdity to be fun.

Many of the characters are ridiculous to a fault, possibly by design. Olga, played by Zabeth Russell, is a plump Russian burlesque dancer with an entirely different and undesirable interpretation of what her audience considers sexy. Annie the bartender, the two mobsters, Officer Dick, and even Sulie’s little brother Junior are all exaggerations by design. The filmmaker is poking fun at the various ways we see each other in real life, especially the ultra-conservative Christian right, but comedic license is also taken with just about every other perspective as well.

A great deal of attention is placed on Sulie’s relationship with her family, and how the secrets she and Trixie are keeping from them affect her decisions. Sulie is torn between the life she had and the life she hopes to have, blurred by the dangerous pickle that Trixie has put them in with both the law and the mafia. The story itself is one that’s been told many times, a story of a character waking up to their own truth, which occurs not just with Sulie but with other supporting characters as well. This awakening of self is an underlying theme in FISHNET, clouded by comedy.

FISHNET is a film billed as a comedy/musical. Upon seeing the film, I clearly got that the attempt was to be funny. At times, the humor poked through, but the overall result proved otherwise. The film gets bogged down in clichés, bad jokes and poorly executed comedic acting. Stereotypes run rampant in FISHNET, and whether are intentional or not, they simply don’t work. The silly nature of the firth two acts contrast directly with the third, which attempts to salvage a meaningful, heart-felt ending. After spending the first two-thirds of the film wading through cheesy dialogue, its difficult to take the outcome seriously.

In an effort to be fair and honest, I truly don’t believe FISHNET was meant to be taken seriously. The overwhelming impression I had was that this is a film meant to have fun with, even meant to be made fun of… I can see FISHNET developing a cult following, something along the “so bad its good” lines of Tommy Wiseau’s THE ROOM or TROLL 2, combined with an element of ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. For this expectation, an audience may just eat FISHNET up. Only time will tell. However, my reaction to seeing this film billed as a musical comedy is that this is not a musical. Aside from the opening credits sequence, the film is merely built around a style of musical theatre, that being burlesque, but lacks the trademark choreography and musical outbursts necessary for the genre billing.

FISHNET will screen at 4:30 PM on Saturday, April 16th, 2011 at the Hi-Pointe Theatre in Saint Louis.

QFEST 2011 Review: LEADING LADIES

LEADING LADIES is a quirky but charming comedy with a classical sensibility. Co-directed by Daniel Beahm and Erika Randall Beahm, the film is about two sisters and their overbearing stage mother, once a champion dancer. The light, playful nature of the film is evident from the opening credits. Great care was taken in staging, choreographing and staging the entire film to work whimsically with the musical score.

Shannon Lea Smith plays Tasi Campari, the younger sister and something of a wild princess. Tasi is also the dancer of the two sisters, her mother’s protégé. Laurel Vail (THE ECHO GAME) plays Toni Campari, the introverted and calm sister who often serves as the voice of reason in their family. Melanie LaPatin, a choreographer and actress in real life, plays the Campari girls’ mother Sheri. She’s a colorful, energetic handful of a woman with passion for what she does, whether her daughters always appreciate it or not.

While Tasi’s relationship with their mother grows more strenuous, Toni’s gay best friend Cedric (Benji Schwimmer) takes her out to a gay club where she meets Mona, but her sudden, unexpected revelation is dampened by Tasi’s bombshell announcement that she’s pregnant.

There’s an authenticity to Toni that draws the attention to her very aura, a sort of glow to her presence and personality that says “I’m a real person.” Vail scales back her performance as Toni, resulting in a very relatable character with real emotions and real insecurities.

Tasi’s pregnancy comes about abruptly, but LEADING LADIES is primarily Toni’s story and the pregnancy serves as the elastic waistband that pulls the Campari sisters’ relationship back into shape as Toni’s newly found romance is revealed to those around her, but the sisters’ secrets prove harder for their mother to swallow.

The Beahm’s have incorporated a wonderful attention to detail into LEADING LADIES. The viewer’s focus is immediately engaged by the richness of color and detail in the set design, the lighting and the wardrobes. The varied styles of music pair nicely with the film’s visual mood shifts, while the stunning confidence with the camera and composition is impressive for these first-time filmmakers.

LEADING LADIES is a feel good movie with a message and a joy to watch, and quite possibly one of the most endearing and sincerely uplifting movies I’ve seen in 2010 so far.

LEADING LADIES will screen at 7:00 PM on Friday, April 15th, 2011 at the Hi-Pointe Theatre in Saint Louis.