20th Annual Philadelphia Film Festival Coverage 2011 Part 2 of 3

JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME

Family stuff and life in general is getting in the way of seeing as much as I want, and writing as much as I see. Which is why as great as it is to have a big film festival in your own backyard, it would be better to be here on vacation and experience all the films without so many interruptions.

I was glad to make the second screening of Jeff, Who Lives at Home, particularly since the director was available for another Q & A. Well, co-director, this film is by another team of writer/director brothers. Not the Farrelly Bros. or the Coen Bros. It’s the Duplass Brothers – Mark and Jay (The Puffy Chair, Baghead, Cyrus).

Jeff, Who Lives at Home is a good bit more out and out comedy, compared to Cyrus. Mostly due to its lead, a bigger and dopier than usual, Jason Segel. Segal plays a 30-something pothead who still lives in his mother’s (Susan Sarandon) basement. He hasn’t had a girlfriend in years and no mention is made of the last time he held gainful employment.

He is however, still hopeful about his life. He’s not lethargic, just unsure what he wants to do. He belives in waiting for a sign. That sign comes in the form of a wrong number for someone named Kevin; which sets Jeff off on a days adventure that winds up involving his brother Pat (Ed Helms) who’s rather an ass, but let’s say vexing, and Pat’s on the rocks marriage to Linda (Judy Greer). Intersperesed is a side story involving Jeff & Pat’s mom (Sarandon) finding out she has a secret admirer at work.

On the whole, it’s an entertaining quasi-road-buddy-comedy with heart. At the Q & A an audience member asked if Mark and Jay have a spiritual center? Do they believe in fate, destiny signs etc… Mark replied (paraphrased) that he wished he was a bit more like the character of Jeff in some ways, but personal philosophy wasn’t the origins for the story.

Watch the below Q & A video of Mark Duplass as he also answers the questions of going from small budget films like Baghead to their last two films with bigger budgets and bigger named actors and also which of the brothers does the bulk of the work.

Part of the fun of a film festival is talking to people after a screening. I met this couple Andy and Sandy Ehrlich on the bus as we were all traveling from The Prince after Jeff, Who Lives at Home to the screening of Butter at Ritz East. Last year, they were part of Ruth Perlmutter’s team of screeners to decide on jury prize for best new director. This year they are just enjoying the festival at their leisure.

Butter stars Jennifer Garner as Laura Pickler, a woman obsessed with Mid-western social status and being the cream of the crop; the cream she uses to get and stay at the top – butter. Well, butter carving, a competition her husband Bob (Ty Burrell from Modern Family) has won for 15 years in a row. And in those 15 years, Laura has been by his side cheering at regionals and basking at state fairs, using his victories to further her social and political agenda.

When the butter committee feels Bob should bow out of this season to allow someone else a chance at the “Blue Bonnet” 🙂 I mean blue ribbons. Laura decides she’s not about to let all her ambitions melt away and signs up to compete herself. Two of her competitors includes an African American 10 year-old foster child named Destiny (Yara Shahidi) who narrates most of the movie. And Brooke, the stripper Laura’s husband is boffing on the side (Olivia Wilde).

Unfortunately, Butter veers off course of being a Christopher Guest-type satirical, parody and meanders into sickeningly sweet, corny territory too often. Jennifer Garner gets it. She shines as a scarily intense, Republican housewife; but the rest is folly. Particularly, Hugh Jackman in the role of a car salesman, seduced by Laura to sabotage the competition.  He must have owed someone a favor to have even entertained doing the insipid and small role.
 
Personally, I don’t see Butter spreading to a wide-release.

Director: Jim Field Smith /Writer: Jason A. Micallef 
 

Butter stars Jennifer Garner as Laura Pickler, a woman obsessed with Mid-western social status and being the cream of the crop; the cream she uses to get and stay at the top – butter. Well, butter carving, a competition her husband Bob (Ty Burrell from Modern Family) has won for 15 years in a row. And in those 15 years, Laura has been by his side cheering at regionals and basking at state fairs, using his victories to further her social and political agenda.

When the butter committee feels Bob should bow out of this season to allow someone else a chance at the “Blue Bonnet” 🙂 I mean blue ribbons. Laura decides she’s not about to let all her ambitions melt away and signs up to compete herself. Two of her competitors includes an African American 10 year-old foster child named Destiny (Yara Shahidi) who narrates most of the movie. And Brooke, the stripper Laura’s husband is boffing on the side (Olivia Wilde).

Unfortunately, Butter veers off course of being a Christopher Guest-type satirical, parody and meanders into sickeningly sweet, corny territory too often. Jennifer Garner gets it. She shines as a scarily intense, Republican housewife; but the rest is folly. Particularly, Hugh Jackman in the role of a car salesman, seduced by Laura to sabotage the competition.  He must have owed someone a favor to have even entertained doing the insipid and small role.
 
Personally, I don’t see Butter spreading to a wide-release.

Director: Jim Field Smith /Writer: Jason A. Micallef 

 

 Intellectually, I know the beauty of a film festival is to see small films, those without distribution yet, documentaries and foreign films.  I always have good intentions of puttting these things in my schedule, but for me, it’s kinda like doing laundry – I love fashion and I want to wear clean clothes, but I don’t feel like sorting the wash and going to the basement.

Seeing all the bigger, glitzy, star studded films, that yes, will be released in a couple of months, but I get to see them before the average movie-goer, is my favorite part of a film festival; this I compare to going shopping!

So to make my point, I wasn’t going to see the documentary I Am Caroyln Parker: The Good, The Mad and the Beautiful, until I learned that noted filmmaker Jonathan Demme would be present for a Q & A.

I don’t want to come across as desensitized and self-involved; but going into the theater, although excited about Demme, I was thinking, come on, yet another displaced Katrina victim – I’m tired of New Orleans reconstruction, the lower 9th Ward, the corruption, the politics, the destruction, the housing crisis… But if I’m tired of it, can you imagine how weary someone would be who truly has been living the nightmare for the last 5 or 6 years. 

Which is why the documentary I Am Carolyn Parker is compelling, because Carolyn Parker was, and is, anything but weary.  Her sense of humor, sense of pride and sense of madness makes for a fascinating character study. A woman determined to get back into her home and church. She didn’t always know the way or the means, but she never stopped believing.

When Jonathan Demme started this project in 2006, he didn’t have a plan for the documentary; he only felt compelled to want to lend a hand to the Katrina victims in some manner, so he did what he does best, took a camera to the lower 9th Ward and started shooting.  Originally, the piece was going to feature several families who were trying to have their homes restored to livability, but obviously the other families didn’t possess the presence of Carolyn Parker, who just took to the camera like she’d been being filmed her whole life. She has a way of expressing herself that is humorous, determined and unexpectedly wise all at once.

The film, shows the progress and more often defeats that Carolyn and her family endure over 5 years following Hurricane Katrina, with Demme and crew coming back several times a year to check in and get more footage.

One thing I should have asked during the Q & A was whether Carolyn was aware that an Oscar winning director was coming back time and again to film her. Did she or at least her daughter Google him? Cause they just invited him in like family each time, feeding him and the small crew and talking like old friends. You also wonder, did Demme ever offer her any financial assistance? Can you be paid to be a subject in a documentary, or does that taint the whole project?

Someone asked if he planned to continue to visit Carolyn now that the documentary is complete. He replied, he didn’t have plans to go back. I wonder if that meant just no more plans to film her progress, or no more plans to see her? Because you truly got the feeling a genuine bond was created.

I’m including the link to the Q & A I uploaded to You Tube, but I warn you, other than flashes of light from photographers, Demme is in the dark through the entire conversation. However, the audio is good.