list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Off the Black on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Off_the_Black/275998/default.aspx Title: Off the Black
Year: 2006
Director: James Ponsoldt
Plot: When the growing divide between a troubled teen and his emotionally distant father finds the boy seeking the friendship of a disheveled and temperamental high-school umpire, the bond shared between the unlikely pair leads both to realize things about themselves that they never knew in an affecting coming-of-age tale starring Nick Nolte, Timothy Hutton, Trevor Morgan, and Sally Kirkland. Ray Cook (Nolte) is a gruff, hard-drinking ump whose questionable call has recently cost a high-school baseball team one of the season's most crucial games. When Ray discovers his house being vandalized one evening and manages to capture vengeful young baseball player Dave (Morgan) in the act, the fundamentally decent boy agrees to return to the house and repair the damage. A lonely and terminally ill teen whose relationship with his father (Timothy Hutton) has gradually disintegrated following the death of his mother, Dave is offered the option of foregoing his daily clean-up sessions if he will agree to pose as Ray's son for the grizzled elder's upcoming 40th high-school reunion. Despite Dave's initial hesitation to take part in the plan, he soon agrees, and what was once a simple business plan gradually blossoms into something much more meaningful. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Number of Lists: 2
Number of blog posts: 2
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Sun, 12 Oct 2008 06:18:32 GMTOff the Black2006James PonsoldtWhen the growing divide between a troubled teen and his emotionally distant father finds the boy seeking the friendship of a disheveled and temperamental high-school umpire, the bond shared between the unlikely pair leads both to realize things about themselves that they never knew in an affecting coming-of-age tale starring <a href="/players/P____52916/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Nick Nolte</a>, <a href="/players/P____34188/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Timothy Hutton</a>, <a href="/players/P___237591/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Trevor Morgan</a>, and <a href="/players/P____38510/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Sally Kirkland</a>. Ray Cook (Nolte) is a gruff, hard-drinking ump whose questionable call has recently cost a high-school baseball team one of the season's most crucial games. When Ray discovers his house being vandalized one evening and manages to capture vengeful young baseball player Dave (Morgan) in the act, the fundamentally decent boy agrees to return to the house and repair the damage. A lonely and terminally ill teen whose relationship with his father (<a href="/players/P____34188/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Timothy Hutton</a>) has gradually disintegrated following the death of his mother, Dave is offered the option of foregoing his daily clean-up sessions if he will agree to pose as Ray's son for the grizzled elder's upcoming 40th high-school reunion. Despite Dave's initial hesitation to take part in the plan, he soon agrees, and what was once a simple business plan gradually blossoms into something much more meaningful. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide223http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s275998.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Off_the_Black/275998/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/8/20/34144.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/20/2008 9:00:54 AM
Body: Relaxed and genteel with a disarming smile and quick wit that strike you immediately upon meeting him, James Ponsoldt, the Athens, GA native who made a big impression at Sundance 06′ with his tragically underseen Nick Nolte high school baseball umpire drama Off The Black, is a well-rounded guy. He has a masters degree from Columbia, was the president of his class at Yale, edited the student paper, was a receiver on the varsity football team and reads modernist literature with regularity. Perhaps more importantly, the Filmmaker Magazine contributor and Sundance Institute Lynn Auerbach Screenwriting Fellow for his adaptation of Benjamin Percy’s Iraqi war short story Refresh, Refresh was also one of the founding members of Yale’s Porn n’ Chicken club, where students gathered to watch XXX films and eat fried chicken. We caught up with James to discuss his desire to adapt Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, why the protagonist of Mike Leigh’s new film out to be an iconic screen character and why Branford Cox is a genius. What films or television shows have you seen recently? The Strangers, Happy-Go-Lucky, I’m Not Scared, Three O’Clock High, The Dark Night, Picnic at Hanging Rock, and YouTube clips. Which ones stuck with you and why? The Strangers was such an impressive debut–so minimal, the camera was always in the right place, and the patient opening created two fairly empathetic lives. Then the next 70 minutes was just about great sound design and a slow march to something inevitable but still a bit shocking. I hope the director’s next films are just as bare-bones. I really love Mike Leigh’s new film. I’m a sucker for everything he does, but Happy-Go-Lucky is, on the surface, just a character study about a youngish-acting woman on the wrong side of 30 who happens to be so blindingly positive in her outlook that she unnerves some of the people in her life. I think this film is actually really transgressive, and is an much a commentary on the corrosively cynical attitudes that run through contemporary culture as was Naked–a film about a ranting nihilist that Leigh made 15 years ago. Those two films–Naked and Happy-Go-Lucky–actually make great companion pieces, I think. They’re two sides of the same coin. Both of the films depict people who’re reacting to the dehumanizing effects of their culture–though in radically different directions. I hope that when Happy-Go-Lucky opens in the U.S., “Poppy”–the character played by Sally Hawkins–is championed as an important, almost iconic character in film history (a more intelligent, modern-day Chance Gardener?)…it’d be a better world if there were more people trying to live like Poppy (even if they’d annoy the hell out of you every now and then with their obsessively sunny outlook). It’s nice to see a famous curmudgeon like Mike Leigh make this film at this point in his career. Does your interest in them have anything to do with your own work as a filmmaker? I appreciate The Strangers just as a great, (relatively) cheap genre film. Though it’s hard not to admire how lean the script is. Mike Leigh is an inspiration in every way–not only in his modes of creative collaboration with his actors, but also in the personal, funny, sad, humanist stories he manages to birth into the world every couple years for several decades now. How often do you read fiction? Do you wish you read more? Everyday. Absolutely. What would be your ideal literary adaptation and why? The Moviegoer. I read it for the first time at an impressionable point in my life (freshman year of college), and I’ve managed to read it once a year ever since then. It’s like checking back in with an old friend. I begin to miss Binx Bolling. How, if at all, has reading informed your filmmaking? Hopefully, novels and short stories have given me a point of access into the consciousness and secret desires of characters. There’s no pretty images–just thoughts. Beautiful, contradictory, sometimes base, sometimes inspiring…thoughts. What are you listening to recently? Boris, No Age, Lil Wayne, Atlas Sound, X, Rick Ross, Brian Eno, Fuck Buttons, Madlib, Dark Meat, The Roots, The Shangri-Las, Black Mountain, Shuggie Otis, Yeasayer, Black Lips, Pere Ubu, Nas, Titus Andronicus, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Liars, Moondog, Bodies of Water, Hope for Agoldensummer, The Feelies, Harvey Milk, MGMT, Can, Fleet Foxes If you could collaborate with one musician on a film, who would it be and why? Bradford Cox (of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound). Bradford is musically omnivorous, and his taste bridges various sonically textural periods/areas of music, from lo-fi fuzz to art rock to shoegazer to 60’s girl groups with Wall Of Sound production. His music is never boring, always challenging, yet he’s got a innate sense of catchy melody (just like his Atlanta peers, The Black Lips). I think Bradford has a foot in both the experimental and mainstream music worlds–like Brian Eno 35 years ago–and could actually change the way we think about popular music. Fawning, right? Well…what can I say? I’m a fan. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:00:54 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/20/2008 9:00:54 AM Relaxed and genteel with a disarming smile and quick wit that strike you immediately upon meeting him, James Ponsoldt, the Athens, GA native who made a big impression at Sundance 06′ with his tragically underseen Nick Nolte high school baseball umpire drama Off The Black, is a well-rounded guy. He has a masters degree from Columbia, was the president of his class at Yale, edited the student paper, was a receiver on the varsity football team and reads modernist literature with regularity. Perhaps more importantly, the Filmmaker Magazine contributor and Sundance Institute Lynn Auerbach Screenwriting Fellow for his adaptation of Benjamin Percy’s Iraqi war short story Refresh, Refresh was also one of the founding members of Yale’s Porn n’ Chicken club, where students gathered to watch XXX films and eat fried chicken. We caught up with James to discuss his desire to adapt Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, why the protagonist of Mike Leigh’s new film out to be an iconic screen character and why Branford Cox is a genius. What films or television shows have you seen recently? The Strangers, Happy-Go-Lucky, I’m Not Scared, Three O’Clock High, The Dark Night, Picnic at Hanging Rock, and YouTube clips. Which ones stuck with you and why? The Strangers was such an impressive debut–so minimal, the camera was always in the right place, and the patient opening created two fairly empathetic lives. Then the next 70 minutes was just about great sound design and a slow march to something inevitable but still a bit shocking. I hope the director’s next films are just as bare-bones. I really love Mike Leigh’s new film. I’m a sucker for everything he does, but Happy-Go-Lucky is, on the surface, just a character study about a youngish-acting woman on the wrong side of 30 who happens to be so blindingly positive in her outlook that she unnerves some of the people in her life. I think this film is actually really transgressive, and is an much a commentary on the corrosively cynical attitudes that run through contemporary culture as was Naked–a film about a ranting nihilist that Leigh made 15 years ago. Those two films–Naked and Happy-Go-Lucky–actually make great companion pieces, I think. They’re two sides of the same coin. Both of the films depict people who’re reacting to the dehumanizing effects of their culture–though in radically different directions. I hope that when Happy-Go-Lucky opens in the U.S., “Poppy”–the character played by Sally Hawkins–is championed as an important, almost iconic character in film history (a more intelligent, modern-day Chance Gardener?)…it’d be a better world if there were more people trying to live like Poppy (even if they’d annoy the hell out of you every now and then with their obsessively sunny outlook). It’s nice to see a famous curmudgeon like Mike Leigh make this film at this point in his career. Does your interest in them have anything to do with your own work as a filmmaker? I appreciate The Strangers just as a great, (relatively) cheap genre film. Though it’s hard not to admire how lean the script is. Mike Leigh is an inspiration in every way–not only in his modes of creative collaboration with his actors, but also in the personal, funny, sad, humanist stories he manages to birth into the world every couple years for several decades now. How often do you read fiction? Do you wish you read more? Everyday. Absolutely. What would be your ideal literary adaptation and why? The Moviegoer. I read it for the first time at an impressionable point in my life (freshman year of college), and I’ve managed to read it once a year ever since then. It’s like checking back in with an old friend. I begin to miss Binx Bolling. How, if at all, has reading informed your filmmaking? Hopefully, novels and short stories have given me a point of access into the consciousness and secret desires of characters. There’s no pretty images–just thoughts. Beautiful, contradictory, sometimes base, sometimes inspiring…thoughts. What are you listening to recently? Boris, No Age, Lil Wayne, Atlas Sound, X, Rick Ross, Brian Eno, Fuck Buttons, Madlib, Dark Meat, The Roots, The Shangri-Las, Black Mountain, Shuggie Otis, Yeasayer, Black Lips, Pere Ubu, Nas, Titus Andronicus, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Liars, Moondog, Bodies of Water, Hope for Agoldensummer, The Feelies, Harvey Milk, MGMT, Can, Fleet Foxes If you could collaborate with one musician on a film, who would it be and why? Bradford Cox (of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound). Bradford is musically omnivorous, and his taste bridges various sonically textural periods/areas of music, from lo-fi fuzz to art rock to shoegazer to 60’s girl groups with Wall Of Sound production. His music is never boring, always challenging, yet he’s got a innate sense of catchy melody (just like his Atlanta peers, The Black Lips). I think Bradford has a foot in both the experimental and mainstream music worlds–like Brian Eno 35 years ago–and could actually change the way we think about popular music. Fawning, right? Well…what can I say? I’m a fan. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/moviebabe/archive/2007/7/19/15385.aspx Post By: MovieBabe
Post To: MovieBabe Blog
Post Date: 7/19/2007 11:34:00 PM
Body: By Tricia Olszewski To put it plainly, most of Off the Black is simply terrible. Its summary: Gruff, lonely man getting on in years befriends a naive teenage boy, life lessons are learned, and the ending is sad yet hopeful. Think you’ve seen it before? You have, in versions ad nauseam. Off the Black even shares a cast member with one of them. Nick Nolte, whose character, Ray Cook, is based on the actor’s mug shot, also portrayed an unlikely sage to a youngster in this year’s Peaceful Warrior. Here Nolte plays a 57-year-old junkyard worker and high-school-baseball umpire. Ray drinks all the time, is barely intelligible, and doesn’t really know anybody but is often recognized, usually with venom, as the local ump. When he calls a ball on pitcher Dave (Trevor Morgan), a decision that costs his team a championship, Dave and a few teammates vandalize Ray’s yard. Dave gets caught, Ray makes him take responsibility and clean it up—and the mentor–mentee relationship begins. Writer-director James Ponsoldt litters his film with weird lines (“You look like a worm set up shop in your colon”) and scenes of clichéd preciousness (the camera zooms out in steps as Ray sits alone in a stadium, Teacher and Student take pulls on a bottle as they discuss Life). Naturally, Dave has family issues, with a depressed dad (Timothy Hutton) and a little sister who’s annoying but whom he seems to like (Sonia Feigelson, who “acts” by working her big, brown eyes). Ponsoldt’s twist is having Ray ask Dave to accompany him to his 40th high-school reunion and pose as his son. It’s slightly ridiculous—wait ’til you see how Dad reacts to his teenage boy dressing to the nines to go out with a much older, unfamiliar man—but from the reunion on, Off the Black ups its game. While interacting with others, these characters finally start to feel human, and their bond no longer seems forced. Morgan believably conveys the awkwardness of being on the cusp of adulthood, as well as how irritating mouth-breathing kids can be. (Talent or merely good timing?) And though moviegoers may forever think Nolte’s as pathetic as Ray because of that infamous DUI pic, the reality is one can’t just stumble onto a set and evoke soul-crushing solitude and hopelessness, which the vet pulls out of his hat with impeccable timing. Ray confesses to Dave, “No, I’m not happy, but I wear it well.” Nolte does, too, but it’s because the chops are there.
]]>Fri, 20 Jul 2007 03:34:00 GMTMovieBabeMovieBabe Blog7/19/2007 11:34:00 PM By Tricia Olszewski To put it plainly, most of Off the Black is simply terrible. Its summary: Gruff, lonely man getting on in years befriends a naive teenage boy, life lessons are learned, and the ending is sad yet hopeful. Think you&rsquo;ve seen it before? You have, in versions ad nauseam. Off the Black even shares a cast member with one of them. Nick Nolte, whose character, Ray Cook, is based on the actor&rsquo;s mug shot, also portrayed an unlikely sage to a youngster in this year&rsquo;s Peaceful Warrior. Here Nolte plays a 57-year-old junkyard worker and high-school-baseball umpire. Ray drinks all the time, is barely intelligible, and doesn&rsquo;t really know anybody but is often recognized, usually with venom, as the local ump. When he calls a ball on pitcher Dave (Trevor Morgan), a decision that costs his team a championship, Dave and a few teammates vandalize Ray&rsquo;s yard. Dave gets caught, Ray makes him take responsibility and clean it up&mdash;and the mentor&ndash;mentee relationship begins. Writer-director James Ponsoldt litters his film with weird lines (&ldquo;You look like a worm set up shop in your colon&rdquo;) and scenes of clich&eacute;d preciousness (the camera zooms out in steps as Ray sits alone in a stadium, Teacher and Student take pulls on a bottle as they discuss Life). Naturally, Dave has family issues, with a depressed dad (Timothy Hutton) and a little sister who&rsquo;s annoying but whom he seems to like (Sonia Feigelson, who &ldquo;acts&rdquo; by working her big, brown eyes). Ponsoldt&rsquo;s twist is having Ray ask Dave to accompany him to his 40th high-school reunion and pose as his son. It&rsquo;s slightly ridiculous&mdash;wait &rsquo;til you see how Dad reacts to his teenage boy dressing to the nines to go out with a much older, unfamiliar man&mdash;but from the reunion on, Off the Black ups its game. While interacting with others, these characters finally start to feel human, and their bond no longer seems forced. Morgan believably conveys the awkwardness of being on the cusp of adulthood, as well as how irritating mouth-breathing kids can be. (Talent or merely good timing?) And though moviegoers may forever think Nolte&rsquo;s as pathetic as Ray because of that infamous DUI pic, the reality is one can&rsquo;t just stumble onto a set and evoke soul-crushing solitude and hopelessness, which the vet pulls out of his hat with impeccable timing. Ray confesses to Dave, &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m not happy, but I wear it well.&rdquo; Nolte does, too, but it&rsquo;s because the chops are there. http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/highschool/MemberTagFilms.aspxhighschool
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