New Solondz we can't see yet
Todd Soldondz: DARK HORSE
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/2784/darkhorsec.jpg
Jordan Gelber and Donna Murphy in Dark Horse.
Shot in 2010, shown at Venice and Toronto in 2011, Solondz's sixth feature will be released June 8, 2012. But I will not see it or review it, because I am not in New York :(
It releases in Ireland and the UK June 29, 2012.
There are already reviews, and its Metacritic rating has gone up from 44 to 52. Armond White has reviewed it here. "Solondz abhors irony in Dark Horse" his title is. Is that true? Or is the irony so deep it becomes something else? Anyway White is more sympathetic than most.
Quote:
[DARK HORSE is] a film about Abe (Jordan Gelber), a 35-year-old Jewish man—overweight, living with his parents, employed in his father’s real estate business yet still playing with toys, desperate to begin his life and enjoy the culture’s empty cheer.
Abe’s not a frontrunner, the sports metaphor used by his father (Christopher Walken). His dim prospects reflect Everyman pessimism through a lower middle-class experience that’s more authentic than Death of a Salesman, yet rarely acknowledged. Solondz, almost alone among Jewish-American filmmakers, presents ethnic uniqueness frankly, with unsmiling mockery. His tough, deadpan compassion is more humane than fashionable cynicism.
White calls LIFE DURING WARTIME "almost masterly." It certailnly is -- I reviewed it as part of the NYFF 2009 (cued on page 4 of this thread), and I hope more people get to see it, because I think Solondz's mastery grows from film to film. Antagonistic critics (of which there are always plenty) say he says nothing in DARK HORSE he has not said effectively in HAPPINESS, etc., but the same message plus greater mastery = a must-see. "At bottom, I am always making the same film" -- Fellini.
White mentions the Coens' A SERIOUS MAN, whose deadpan also most reviewers didn't get, but he did, and I sense a link between the two films, a "tough, deadpan compassion" that "presents ethnic uniqueness frankly" and that viewers don't get because they see an irony that isn't really there, and find it cruel. White also mentions Apatow comedies and so has Solondz himself in an interview; he proposes Abe in DARK HORSE as a humane and civilized take on the Jewish schlubs of the Apatow stable. I'm going to follow Mike D'Angelo's practice and avoid viewing trailers or videos.
New Solondz we can't see yet
Todd Soldondz: DARK HORSE
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/2784/darkhorsec.jpg
Jordan Gelber and Donna Murphy in Dark Horse.
Shot in 2010, shown at Venice and Toronto in 2011, Solondz's sixth feature will be released June 8, 2012. But I will not see it or review it, because I am not in New York :(
It releases in Ireland and the UK June 29, 2012.
There are already reviews, and its Metacritic rating has gone up from 44 to 52. Armond White has reviewed it here. "Solondz abhors irony in Dark Horse" his title is. Is that true? Or is the irony so deep it becomes something else? Anyway White is more sympathetic than most.
Quote:
[DARK HORSE is] a film about Abe (Jordan Gelber), a 35-year-old Jewish man—overweight, living with his parents, employed in his father’s real estate business yet still playing with toys, desperate to begin his life and enjoy the culture’s empty cheer.
Abe’s not a frontrunner, the sports metaphor used by his father (Christopher Walken). His dim prospects reflect Everyman pessimism through a lower middle-class experience that’s more authentic than Death of a Salesman, yet rarely acknowledged. Solondz, almost alone among Jewish-American filmmakers, presents ethnic uniqueness frankly, with unsmiling mockery. His tough, deadpan compassion is more humane than fashionable cynicism.
White calls LIFE DURING WARTIME "almost masterly." It certailnly is -- I reviewed it as part of the NYFF 2009 (cued on page 4 of this thread), and I hope more people get to see it, because I think Solondz's mastery grows from film to film. Antagonistic critics (of which there are always plenty) say he says nothing in DARK HORSE he has not said effectively in HAPPINESS, etc., but the same message plus greater mastery = a must-see. "At bottom, I am always making the same film" -- Fellini. LIFE DURING WARTIME was one of the delights and surprises of the 2009 NYFF for me. I am eager to see DARK HORSE and disappointed that it may be some time before I can.
White mentions the Coens' A SERIOUS MAN, whose deadpan also most reviewers didn't get, but he did, and I sense a link between the two films, a "tough, deadpan compassion" that "presents ethnic uniqueness frankly" and that viewers don't get because they see an irony that isn't really there, and find it cruel. White also mentions Apatow comedies and so has Solondz himself in an interview; he proposes Abe in DARK HORSE as a humane and civilized take on the Jewish schlubs of the Apatow stable. I'm going to follow Mike D'Angelo's practice and avoid viewing trailers or videos.