list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Momma's Man 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/Momma_s_Man/359922/default.aspx Title: Momma's Man
Year: 2008
Director: Azazel Jacobs
Plot: A grown man locked into an extended state of arrested adolescence returns to the nest while concocting a series of excuses as to why he cannot return to his wife and child in this existential comedy drama from filmmaker Azazel Jacobs. Mikey was preparing to board an airplane bound for California when he suddenly found himself fleeing from the airport and returning to the comfort of his parents' New York home. Even Mikey isn't sure exactly why he made the snap decision not to go home, all he knows is that he can't quite muster the courage to go back and assume the responsibilities of your typical family man. Of course Mikey's doting mother is more than happy to enable her son's indecision - and his father remains as emotionally distanced as ever - but as time goes on the grown-up man-child finds it increasingly difficult to make the choose between going back to reality, or drifting ever further into his second adolescence. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 1
Number of Lists: 1
Number of blog posts: 12
SpoutRating: 4
]]>Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:00:43 GMTMomma's Man2008Azazel JacobsA grown man locked into an extended state of arrested adolescence returns to the nest while concocting a series of excuses as to why he cannot return to his wife and child in this existential comedy drama from filmmaker Azazel Jacobs. Mikey was preparing to board an airplane bound for California when he suddenly found himself fleeing from the airport and returning to the comfort of his parents' New York home. Even Mikey isn't sure exactly why he made the snap decision not to go home, all he knows is that he can't quite muster the courage to go back and assume the responsibilities of your typical family man. Of course Mikey's doting mother is more than happy to enable her son's indecision - and his father remains as emotionally distanced as ever - but as time goes on the grown-up man-child finds it increasingly difficult to make the choose between going back to reality, or drifting ever further into his second adolescence. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide1Slightly Tagged (1-5)1124http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s359922.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Momma_s_Man/359922/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/8/22/34260.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 8/22/2008 11:00:43 AM
Body: This review originally appeared in slightly different form during Sundance 2008. For further thoughts on Momma’s Man and the work of Azazel Jacobs, see these notes on his recent BAM retrospective. When a filmmaker casts his own parents as parents––in a film about an adult and his relationship to his parents upon returning to his childhood home, a film which said filmmaker shoots *in* his childhood home––you’d expect (or maybe fear) that the result would be meta-personal to the point of solipsism. But what’s really surprising about Azazel Jacob’s Momma’s Man, which stars his experimental filmmaker father Ken Jacobs and mother Flo Jacobs and was shot in the Manhattan loft in which the family has lived for decades, is that it feels completely universal. The story of a 30-something husband and father of a newborn who extends a stay at his parents’ ramshackle New York apartment indefinitely, it’s an incredible portrait of the final phase of coming of age, the transition from being parented to parenting. First telling both his parents and his wife back home that the airline is giving him the runaround about rescheduling a canceled return flight, then tailoring his excuses for each discreet party as he needs to buy time in increments, Mikey (Matt Boren) takes advantage of his parents’ bemused hospitality to take a winter vacation. He spends his days visiting with old friends (including a recent parolee with unexpected musical passions) and trying to make new ones, his nights combing through boxes of old notebooks, love letters and comic books. In a lofted bed just feet from his sleeping parents, Mikey pulls out a guitar and plays a love song he apparently wrote in high school. Overhearing the lyrics, “Fuck fuck fuck you/I hope you die too,” his parents exchange a worried glance; maybe there’s more to this visit than they’ve been led to believe. The real-life Jacobs family loft is all narrow passages, lofted overlooks and sharp corners, with convex mirrors violating depth perception and walls more often than not formed by stacks of stuff. It’s as far away from any traditional idea of a childhood home as you can get, but it’s the perfectly surreal environment for the younger Jacobs to visually portray the intertwined comfort and claustrophobia of returning after a decade and a half to the parental embrace Mikey’s in a prickly state of limbo, with the sense of peace that comes from rejecting responsibility and lapsing into his former self progressively undermined by his natural instinct for adult autonomy. At one point, Mikey listens to and promptly deletes an answering machine message that destroys the alibi he’s given his parents for staying in New York. His body has just de-tensed with the sense of a potential crisis averted, when he looks up and sees his dad has been a few feet away, silently watching for who knows how long. Later, Mikey escapes to the tiny bathroom for some alone time, but can’t escape his mother’s call from the other side of the door, ever fishing for an opportunity to tend to her son’s needs. And yet, when Mikey actually tries to leave the house, he gets no further than the top of the staircase, stuck with his foot actually hovering above the next step. This is a contentious scene, even amongst the film’s biggest fans, and it’s one of a handful of shots and set pieces that verge on the overtly literal. But I think it might be dangerous to take a scene like this at face value and leave it at that. This is, after all, a film in part about paralyzing confusion, and there’s so much going on in the margins of every action that even when Jacobs appears to be spelling something out, there are also several things left unsaid. Such physical illustrations of Mikey’s state of mind often resolve themselves in a gentle slapstick, balanced on a microthin precipice between poignancy and punchline. In fact, there’s a lot of comedy in Momma’s Man––Ken Jacobs, so deadpan he’s almost sinister, is particularly fun to watch––but as it slinks towards a sweet/sad climax between mother and son, it’s devastatingly melancholy. Jacob’s smartest trick is allow us to laugh at his characters without ever turning them into walking jokes. They take themselves extremely seriously, and that’s good for a laugh, but ultimately Jacobs seems to deeply empathize with every person on screen. He’s thus able to hook the audience with the deconstructed-sitcom premise, primes them with recognizable nostalgia, and then goes in for the kill, plumbing the mother/son relationship until grown men are reduced to tears. Momma’s Man is, essentially, a chick flick for cool, bridging-30 boys. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:00:43 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog8/22/2008 11:00:43 AM This review originally appeared in slightly different form during Sundance 2008. For further thoughts on Momma’s Man and the work of Azazel Jacobs, see these notes on his recent BAM retrospective. When a filmmaker casts his own parents as parents––in a film about an adult and his relationship to his parents upon returning to his childhood home, a film which said filmmaker shoots *in* his childhood home––you’d expect (or maybe fear) that the result would be meta-personal to the point of solipsism. But what’s really surprising about Azazel Jacob’s Momma’s Man, which stars his experimental filmmaker father Ken Jacobs and mother Flo Jacobs and was shot in the Manhattan loft in which the family has lived for decades, is that it feels completely universal. The story of a 30-something husband and father of a newborn who extends a stay at his parents’ ramshackle New York apartment indefinitely, it’s an incredible portrait of the final phase of coming of age, the transition from being parented to parenting. First telling both his parents and his wife back home that the airline is giving him the runaround about rescheduling a canceled return flight, then tailoring his excuses for each discreet party as he needs to buy time in increments, Mikey (Matt Boren) takes advantage of his parents’ bemused hospitality to take a winter vacation. He spends his days visiting with old friends (including a recent parolee with unexpected musical passions) and trying to make new ones, his nights combing through boxes of old notebooks, love letters and comic books. In a lofted bed just feet from his sleeping parents, Mikey pulls out a guitar and plays a love song he apparently wrote in high school. Overhearing the lyrics, “Fuck fuck fuck you/I hope you die too,” his parents exchange a worried glance; maybe there’s more to this visit than they’ve been led to believe. The real-life Jacobs family loft is all narrow passages, lofted overlooks and sharp corners, with convex mirrors violating depth perception and walls more often than not formed by stacks of stuff. It’s as far away from any traditional idea of a childhood home as you can get, but it’s the perfectly surreal environment for the younger Jacobs to visually portray the intertwined comfort and claustrophobia of returning after a decade and a half to the parental embrace Mikey’s in a prickly state of limbo, with the sense of peace that comes from rejecting responsibility and lapsing into his former self progressively undermined by his natural instinct for adult autonomy. At one point, Mikey listens to and promptly deletes an answering machine message that destroys the alibi he’s given his parents for staying in New York. His body has just de-tensed with the sense of a potential crisis averted, when he looks up and sees his dad has been a few feet away, silently watching for who knows how long. Later, Mikey escapes to the tiny bathroom for some alone time, but can’t escape his mother’s call from the other side of the door, ever fishing for an opportunity to tend to her son’s needs. And yet, when Mikey actually tries to leave the house, he gets no further than the top of the staircase, stuck with his foot actually hovering above the next step. This is a contentious scene, even amongst the film’s biggest fans, and it’s one of a handful of shots and set pieces that verge on the overtly literal. But I think it might be dangerous to take a scene like this at face value and leave it at that. This is, after all, a film in part about paralyzing confusion, and there’s so much going on in the margins of every action that even when Jacobs appears to be spelling something out, there are also several things left unsaid. Such physical illustrations of Mikey’s state of mind often resolve themselves in a gentle slapstick, balanced on a microthin precipice between poignancy and punchline. In fact, there’s a lot of comedy in Momma’s Man––Ken Jacobs, so deadpan he’s almost sinister, is particularly fun to watch––but as it slinks towards a sweet/sad climax between mother and son, it’s devastatingly melancholy. Jacob’s smartest trick is allow us to laugh at his characters without ever turning them into walking jokes. They take themselves extremely seriously, and that’s good for a laugh, but ultimately Jacobs seems to deeply empathize with every person on screen. He’s thus able to hook the audience with the deconstructed-sitcom premise, primes them with recognizable nostalgia, and then goes in for the kill, plumbing the mother/son relationship until grown men are reduced to tears. Momma’s Man is, essentially, a chick flick for cool, bridging-30 boys. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/8/22/34259.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/22/2008 11:00:32 AM
Body: This review originally appeared in slightly different form during Sundance 2008. For further thoughts on Momma’s Man and the work of Azazel Jacobs, see these notes on his recent BAM retrospective. When a filmmaker casts his own parents as parents––in a film about an adult and his relationship to his parents upon returning to his childhood home, a film which said filmmaker shoots *in* his childhood home––you’d expect (or maybe fear) that the result would be meta-personal to the point of solipsism. But what’s really surprising about Azazel Jacob’s Momma’s Man, which stars his experimental filmmaker father Ken Jacobs and mother Flo Jacobs and was shot in the Manhattan loft in which the family has lived for decades, is that it feels completely universal. The story of a 30-something husband and father of a newborn who extends a stay at his parents’ ramshackle New York apartment indefinitely, it’s an incredible portrait of the final phase of coming of age, the transition from being parented to parenting. First telling both his parents and his wife back home that the airline is giving him the runaround about rescheduling a canceled return flight, then tailoring his excuses for each discreet party as he needs to buy time in increments, Mikey (Matt Boren) takes advantage of his parents’ bemused hospitality to take a winter vacation. He spends his days visiting with old friends (including a recent parolee with unexpected musical passions) and trying to make new ones, his nights combing through boxes of old notebooks, love letters and comic books. In a lofted bed just feet from his sleeping parents, Mikey pulls out a guitar and plays a love song he apparently wrote in high school. Overhearing the lyrics, “Fuck fuck fuck you/I hope you die too,” his parents exchange a worried glance; maybe there’s more to this visit than they’ve been led to believe. The real-life Jacobs family loft is all narrow passages, lofted overlooks and sharp corners, with convex mirrors violating depth perception and walls more often than not formed by stacks of stuff. It’s as far away from any traditional idea of a childhood home as you can get, but it’s the perfectly surreal environment for the younger Jacobs to visually portray the intertwined comfort and claustrophobia of returning after a decade and a half to the parental embrace Mikey’s in a prickly state of limbo, with the sense of peace that comes from rejecting responsibility and lapsing into his former self progressively undermined by his natural instinct for adult autonomy. At one point, Mikey listens to and promptly deletes an answering machine message that destroys the alibi he’s given his parents for staying in New York. His body has just de-tensed with the sense of a potential crisis averted, when he looks up and sees his dad has been a few feet away, silently watching for who knows how long. Later, Mikey escapes to the tiny bathroom for some alone time, but can’t escape his mother’s call from the other side of the door, ever fishing for an opportunity to tend to her son’s needs. And yet, when Mikey actually tries to leave the house, he gets no further than the top of the staircase, stuck with his foot actually hovering above the next step. This is a contentious scene, even amongst the film’s biggest fans, and it’s one of a handful of shots and set pieces that verge on the overtly literal. But I think it might be dangerous to take a scene like this at face value and leave it at that. This is, after all, a film in part about paralyzing confusion, and there’s so much going on in the margins of every action that even when Jacobs appears to be spelling something out, there are also several things left unsaid. Such physical illustrations of Mikey’s state of mind often resolve themselves in a gentle slapstick, balanced on a microthin precipice between poignancy and punchline. In fact, there’s a lot of comedy in Momma’s Man––Ken Jacobs, so deadpan he’s almost sinister, is particularly fun to watch––but as it slinks towards a sweet/sad climax between mother and son, it’s devastatingly melancholy. Jacob’s smartest trick is allow us to laugh at his characters without ever turning them into walking jokes. They take themselves extremely seriously, and that’s good for a laugh, but ultimately Jacobs seems to deeply empathize with every person on screen. He’s thus able to hook the audience with the deconstructed-sitcom premise, primes them with recognizable nostalgia, and then goes in for the kill, plumbing the mother/son relationship until grown men are reduced to tears. Momma’s Man is, essentially, a chick flick for cool, bridging-30 boys. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:00:32 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/22/2008 11:00:32 AM This review originally appeared in slightly different form during Sundance 2008. For further thoughts on Momma’s Man and the work of Azazel Jacobs, see these notes on his recent BAM retrospective. When a filmmaker casts his own parents as parents––in a film about an adult and his relationship to his parents upon returning to his childhood home, a film which said filmmaker shoots *in* his childhood home––you’d expect (or maybe fear) that the result would be meta-personal to the point of solipsism. But what’s really surprising about Azazel Jacob’s Momma’s Man, which stars his experimental filmmaker father Ken Jacobs and mother Flo Jacobs and was shot in the Manhattan loft in which the family has lived for decades, is that it feels completely universal. The story of a 30-something husband and father of a newborn who extends a stay at his parents’ ramshackle New York apartment indefinitely, it’s an incredible portrait of the final phase of coming of age, the transition from being parented to parenting. First telling both his parents and his wife back home that the airline is giving him the runaround about rescheduling a canceled return flight, then tailoring his excuses for each discreet party as he needs to buy time in increments, Mikey (Matt Boren) takes advantage of his parents’ bemused hospitality to take a winter vacation. He spends his days visiting with old friends (including a recent parolee with unexpected musical passions) and trying to make new ones, his nights combing through boxes of old notebooks, love letters and comic books. In a lofted bed just feet from his sleeping parents, Mikey pulls out a guitar and plays a love song he apparently wrote in high school. Overhearing the lyrics, “Fuck fuck fuck you/I hope you die too,” his parents exchange a worried glance; maybe there’s more to this visit than they’ve been led to believe. The real-life Jacobs family loft is all narrow passages, lofted overlooks and sharp corners, with convex mirrors violating depth perception and walls more often than not formed by stacks of stuff. It’s as far away from any traditional idea of a childhood home as you can get, but it’s the perfectly surreal environment for the younger Jacobs to visually portray the intertwined comfort and claustrophobia of returning after a decade and a half to the parental embrace Mikey’s in a prickly state of limbo, with the sense of peace that comes from rejecting responsibility and lapsing into his former self progressively undermined by his natural instinct for adult autonomy. At one point, Mikey listens to and promptly deletes an answering machine message that destroys the alibi he’s given his parents for staying in New York. His body has just de-tensed with the sense of a potential crisis averted, when he looks up and sees his dad has been a few feet away, silently watching for who knows how long. Later, Mikey escapes to the tiny bathroom for some alone time, but can’t escape his mother’s call from the other side of the door, ever fishing for an opportunity to tend to her son’s needs. And yet, when Mikey actually tries to leave the house, he gets no further than the top of the staircase, stuck with his foot actually hovering above the next step. This is a contentious scene, even amongst the film’s biggest fans, and it’s one of a handful of shots and set pieces that verge on the overtly literal. But I think it might be dangerous to take a scene like this at face value and leave it at that. This is, after all, a film in part about paralyzing confusion, and there’s so much going on in the margins of every action that even when Jacobs appears to be spelling something out, there are also several things left unsaid. Such physical illustrations of Mikey’s state of mind often resolve themselves in a gentle slapstick, balanced on a microthin precipice between poignancy and punchline. In fact, there’s a lot of comedy in Momma’s Man––Ken Jacobs, so deadpan he’s almost sinister, is particularly fun to watch––but as it slinks towards a sweet/sad climax between mother and son, it’s devastatingly melancholy. Jacob’s smartest trick is allow us to laugh at his characters without ever turning them into walking jokes. They take themselves extremely seriously, and that’s good for a laugh, but ultimately Jacobs seems to deeply empathize with every person on screen. He’s thus able to hook the audience with the deconstructed-sitcom premise, primes them with recognizable nostalgia, and then goes in for the kill, plumbing the mother/son relationship until grown men are reduced to tears. Momma’s Man is, essentially, a chick flick for cool, bridging-30 boys. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/8/21/34223.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 8/21/2008 11:01:55 AM
Body: With the movie opening in New York tomorrow, Kino has posted a trailer for Azazel Jacobs’ Momma’s Man on YouTube. If you haven’t seen the film, I think this clip is a pretty strong encapsulation of its overall mashup of slapstick and melancholy. Also, the reviews a starting to roll in, and J. Hoberman’s got a must-read take at the Village Voice. “Although my most vivid memories of Aza Jacobs are as the unnamed infant installed in a crib in a Johnson City apartment and called, for what seemed like a very long time, “Mr. Baby,” I’ve known his parents for nearly 40 years,” he writes. “And so, while I cannot evaluate Momma’s Man with an outsider’s clarity, can vouch for the authenticity…” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:01:55 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog8/21/2008 11:01:55 AM With the movie opening in New York tomorrow, Kino has posted a trailer for Azazel Jacobs’ Momma’s Man on YouTube. If you haven’t seen the film, I think this clip is a pretty strong encapsulation of its overall mashup of slapstick and melancholy. Also, the reviews a starting to roll in, and J. Hoberman’s got a must-read take at the Village Voice. “Although my most vivid memories of Aza Jacobs are as the unnamed infant installed in a crib in a Johnson City apartment and called, for what seemed like a very long time, “Mr. Baby,” I’ve known his parents for nearly 40 years,” he writes. “And so, while I cannot evaluate Momma’s Man with an outsider’s clarity, can vouch for the authenticity…” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/8/21/34222.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/21/2008 11:01:44 AM
Body: With the movie opening in New York tomorrow, Kino has posted a trailer for Azazel Jacobs’ Momma’s Man on YouTube. If you haven’t seen the film, I think this clip is a pretty strong encapsulation of its overall mashup of slapstick and melancholy. Also, the reviews a starting to roll in, and J. Hoberman’s got a must-read take at the Village Voice. “Although my most vivid memories of Aza Jacobs are as the unnamed infant installed in a crib in a Johnson City apartment and called, for what seemed like a very long time, “Mr. Baby,” I’ve known his parents for nearly 40 years,” he writes. “And so, while I cannot evaluate Momma’s Man with an outsider’s clarity, can vouch for the authenticity…” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:01:44 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/21/2008 11:01:44 AM With the movie opening in New York tomorrow, Kino has posted a trailer for Azazel Jacobs’ Momma’s Man on YouTube. If you haven’t seen the film, I think this clip is a pretty strong encapsulation of its overall mashup of slapstick and melancholy. Also, the reviews a starting to roll in, and J. Hoberman’s got a must-read take at the Village Voice. “Although my most vivid memories of Aza Jacobs are as the unnamed infant installed in a crib in a Johnson City apartment and called, for what seemed like a very long time, “Mr. Baby,” I’ve known his parents for nearly 40 years,” he writes. “And so, while I cannot evaluate Momma’s Man with an outsider’s clarity, can vouch for the authenticity…” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/8/15/34036.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/15/2008 9:01:01 AM
Body: Tropic Thunder is taking heavy fire, not for Robert Downey Jr.’s blackface performance, but rather for Ben Stiller’s spoof movie-within-a-movie, Simple Jack. Is this a case of political correctness gone too far? Or does Hollywood have serious flaws in how it portrays people with disabilities? The latter may have been Stiller’s point all along… Our friend Kevin Kelly shares the tale of his journey to the fabled Skywalker Ranch to see Clone Wars and meet the elusive George Lucas. The film, essentially a two hour trailer for the upcoming animated series, gets into some pretty wonky territory when it asks the question we’ve all wondered: What would Truman Capote be like as a Hutt? Karina checks in with what she’s watching. An Elliott Gould retrospective sheds some light on Little Murders and Jean-Luc Godard’s refusal to direct it. Also, Azazel Jacobs, director of the upcoming Mamma’s Man, Doris Day in Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, and soft-core porn sci-fi web show, The Fold. Note: Due to a Wordpress upgrade, our audio player will not display. Click the link below to hear this week’s show. Play FilmCouch 83 4:07 - Tropic Thunder 16:50 - The Clone Wars, Skywalker Ranch 25:30 - Karina’s Media Diet (Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday) Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:01:01 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/15/2008 9:01:01 AM Tropic Thunder is taking heavy fire, not for Robert Downey Jr.’s blackface performance, but rather for Ben Stiller’s spoof movie-within-a-movie, Simple Jack. Is this a case of political correctness gone too far? Or does Hollywood have serious flaws in how it portrays people with disabilities? The latter may have been Stiller’s point all along… Our friend Kevin Kelly shares the tale of his journey to the fabled Skywalker Ranch to see Clone Wars and meet the elusive George Lucas. The film, essentially a two hour trailer for the upcoming animated series, gets into some pretty wonky territory when it asks the question we’ve all wondered: What would Truman Capote be like as a Hutt? Karina checks in with what she’s watching. An Elliott Gould retrospective sheds some light on Little Murders and Jean-Luc Godard’s refusal to direct it. Also, Azazel Jacobs, director of the upcoming Mamma’s Man, Doris Day in Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, and soft-core porn sci-fi web show, The Fold. Note: Due to a Wordpress upgrade, our audio player will not display. Click the link below to hear this week’s show. Play FilmCouch 83 4:07 - Tropic Thunder 16:50 - The Clone Wars, Skywalker Ranch 25:30 - Karina’s Media Diet (Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday) Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/8/11/33862.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 8/11/2008 1:01:41 PM
Body: At age 35, with just three features under his belt, Azazel Jacobs seems like an unlikely candidate for a retrospective, but if such an endeavor pumps up the profile of his first two, lesser-seen films whilst effectively promoting his soon-to-be-released Momma’s Man, I’m not going to argue against it. BAM will devote five nights of programming to Jacobs this week, with all three of his features shown alongside two films selected by the director: the 1980 Clash vehicle Rude Boy, and Aki Kaurismaki’s La Vie de Boheme. The series opens tonight with a screening of Jacobs’ second film, The GoodTimesKid. A punk rock fantasia shot on 35mm stock infamously stolen from a Hollywood feature, the film stars Jacobs as Rodolfo, a scrappy brooder who kicks his way out of domestic complacency with girlfriend Diaz (played with an irresistible mix of strength and eccentricity by Jacobs’ drop-dead real-life GF, Sara Diaz). In order to join the army, Rodolfo steals the identity of another man named Rodolfo (Gerardo Naranjo), a loner who lives on a liquor-littered little boat. When the first Rodolfo walks out of Diaz’ life on the night she’s throwing a party for his birthday, the second Rodolfo walks right in. Diaz, hungry for the attention and affection that she can’t squeeze out of her Rudolfo, is open to a replacement Rodolfos, at least for a night. Naranjo, who also co-wrote the script, came out of the same AFI class as Jacobs and filmmakers Georgina Riedel and Goran Ducik. Shot on the streets (and buses!) of the residential enclaves around Downtown Los Angeles, GoodTimesKid has a vibe that’s reminiscent (if decidedly lower-concept) to the dystopian romanticism of Ducik’s Wristcutters: A Love Story. It’s my favorite of Jacobs’ films thus far. If you can’t make it to Brooklyn tonight, keep an eye out for GoodTimes’ upcoming DVD release, courtesy of the ubiquitous Benten Films. Also very much of note is Jacobs’ first feature, the rough but bizarrely fascinating Nobody Needs to Know. Shot in black and white in New York City, the film begins with a director (played by Momma’s Man star Matt Boren) auditioning a series of eager young actresses for a role requiring them to improvise a death scene whilst wearing lingerie.  When it comes time for the Jean Seberg-like Iris (Tricia Vessey) to audition, she finds herself unable to go through the motions. The narrative splits to follow both the director who, beguiled by Iris’ refusal to play ball, is desperately trying to get in touch with her; and Iris herself, who studiously ignores her agents persistant calls and drifts into an existential crisis that manifests itself in semi-aggressive inaction. Both stories are filtered through the narration of a young black male who “cuts” between characters and locations as if he’s watching it all via surveillance cameras–taking the power back, he says, from a world that watches him suspiciously regardless of his actual behavior or intent. It’s this aspect of the film’s construction that both elevates Nobody into something really risky and different, but also precludes any real engagement with Iris and her issues. Though the film features performances from a number of name actors (Tricia Vessey, Norman Reedus and, in a funny self-mocking cameo, Emily Mortimer), it never really found an audience or an interested distributor. In notes prepared for the BAM series, Jacobs admits that he got a little bit in over his head with it, as “writing, shooting, cutting and raising funds for years,” led to a loss of focus. “Guess I had dreams of changing cinema, somthing I won’t attempt again, but proud that I tired.” Jacobs eventually put it online for free streaming. You can watch it at the Internet Archive. Showing Jacobs’ three films together (Sundance hit Momma’s Man will screen on Friday, a week before its theatrical release via Kino) reveals much about how Jacobs has grown as a filmmaker while sticking to relatively consistent themes. At the risk of being reductive, these are three films about going into isolation, of people at ill-defined psychic crisis points attempting to force change by going into withdrawl. In Nobody and GoodTimes, our glimpse into the lives of the characters––or as the narrator of Nobody would put it, our power over them––concludes before that change starts to fully take hold. Less concerned than either with formal style Momma’s Man is the more universally satisfying film in part because it’s more conventional––it’s got a true sense of catharsis and emotional closure that the other films lack, it lets the audience exhale before the go home. It’s about somebody who isn’t sure what he’s looking for, but ultimately finds it, and then appears to be able to move on. The same could be said of it’s filmmaker––Momma’s Man feels like the the period on the end of the first paragraph of a career. Maybe it’s the perfect time for an Azazel Jacobs retrospective after all. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:01:41 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog8/11/2008 1:01:41 PM At age 35, with just three features under his belt, Azazel Jacobs seems like an unlikely candidate for a retrospective, but if such an endeavor pumps up the profile of his first two, lesser-seen films whilst effectively promoting his soon-to-be-released Momma’s Man, I’m not going to argue against it. BAM will devote five nights of programming to Jacobs this week, with all three of his features shown alongside two films selected by the director: the 1980 Clash vehicle Rude Boy, and Aki Kaurismaki’s La Vie de Boheme. The series opens tonight with a screening of Jacobs’ second film, The GoodTimesKid. A punk rock fantasia shot on 35mm stock infamously stolen from a Hollywood feature, the film stars Jacobs as Rodolfo, a scrappy brooder who kicks his way out of domestic complacency with girlfriend Diaz (played with an irresistible mix of strength and eccentricity by Jacobs’ drop-dead real-life GF, Sara Diaz). In order to join the army, Rodolfo steals the identity of another man named Rodolfo (Gerardo Naranjo), a loner who lives on a liquor-littered little boat. When the first Rodolfo walks out of Diaz’ life on the night she’s throwing a party for his birthday, the second Rodolfo walks right in. Diaz, hungry for the attention and affection that she can’t squeeze out of her Rudolfo, is open to a replacement Rodolfos, at least for a night. Naranjo, who also co-wrote the script, came out of the same AFI class as Jacobs and filmmakers Georgina Riedel and Goran Ducik. Shot on the streets (and buses!) of the residential enclaves around Downtown Los Angeles, GoodTimesKid has a vibe that’s reminiscent (if decidedly lower-concept) to the dystopian romanticism of Ducik’s Wristcutters: A Love Story. It’s my favorite of Jacobs’ films thus far. If you can’t make it to Brooklyn tonight, keep an eye out for GoodTimes’ upcoming DVD release, courtesy of the ubiquitous Benten Films. Also very much of note is Jacobs’ first feature, the rough but bizarrely fascinating Nobody Needs to Know. Shot in black and white in New York City, the film begins with a director (played by Momma’s Man star Matt Boren) auditioning a series of eager young actresses for a role requiring them to improvise a death scene whilst wearing lingerie.  When it comes time for the Jean Seberg-like Iris (Tricia Vessey) to audition, she finds herself unable to go through the motions. The narrative splits to follow both the director who, beguiled by Iris’ refusal to play ball, is desperately trying to get in touch with her; and Iris herself, who studiously ignores her agents persistant calls and drifts into an existential crisis that manifests itself in semi-aggressive inaction. Both stories are filtered through the narration of a young black male who “cuts” between characters and locations as if he’s watching it all via surveillance cameras–taking the power back, he says, from a world that watches him suspiciously regardless of his actual behavior or intent. It’s this aspect of the film’s construction that both elevates Nobody into something really risky and different, but also precludes any real engagement with Iris and her issues. Though the film features performances from a number of name actors (Tricia Vessey, Norman Reedus and, in a funny self-mocking cameo, Emily Mortimer), it never really found an audience or an interested distributor. In notes prepared for the BAM series, Jacobs admits that he got a little bit in over his head with it, as “writing, shooting, cutting and raising funds for years,” led to a loss of focus. “Guess I had dreams of changing cinema, somthing I won’t attempt again, but proud that I tired.” Jacobs eventually put it online for free streaming. You can watch it at the Internet Archive. Showing Jacobs’ three films together (Sundance hit Momma’s Man will screen on Friday, a week before its theatrical release via Kino) reveals much about how Jacobs has grown as a filmmaker while sticking to relatively consistent themes. At the risk of being reductive, these are three films about going into isolation, of people at ill-defined psychic crisis points attempting to force change by going into withdrawl. In Nobody and GoodTimes, our glimpse into the lives of the characters––or as the narrator of Nobody would put it, our power over them––concludes before that change starts to fully take hold. Less concerned than either with formal style Momma’s Man is the more universally satisfying film in part because it’s more conventional––it’s got a true sense of catharsis and emotional closure that the other films lack, it lets the audience exhale before the go home. It’s about somebody who isn’t sure what he’s looking for, but ultimately finds it, and then appears to be able to move on. The same could be said of it’s filmmaker––Momma’s Man feels like the the period on the end of the first paragraph of a career. Maybe it’s the perfect time for an Azazel Jacobs retrospective after all. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/8/11/33861.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/11/2008 1:01:29 PM
Body: At age 35, with just three features under his belt, Azazel Jacobs seems like an unlikely candidate for a retrospective, but if such an endeavor pumps up the profile of his first two, lesser-seen films whilst effectively promoting his soon-to-be-released Momma’s Man, I’m not going to argue against it. BAM will devote five nights of programming to Jacobs this week, with all three of his features shown alongside two films selected by the director: the 1980 Clash vehicle Rude Boy, and Aki Kaurismaki’s La Vie de Boheme. The series opens tonight with a screening of Jacobs’ second film, The GoodTimesKid. A punk rock fantasia shot on 35mm stock infamously stolen from a Hollywood feature, the film stars Jacobs as Rodolfo, a scrappy brooder who kicks his way out of domestic complacency with girlfriend Diaz (played with an irresistible mix of strength and eccentricity by Jacobs’ drop-dead real-life GF, Sara Diaz). In order to join the army, Rodolfo steals the identity of another man named Rodolfo (Gerardo Naranjo), a loner who lives on a liquor-littered little boat. When the first Rodolfo walks out of Diaz’ life on the night she’s throwing a party for his birthday, the second Rodolfo walks right in. Diaz, hungry for the attention and affection that she can’t squeeze out of her Rudolfo, is open to a replacement Rodolfos, at least for a night. Naranjo, who also co-wrote the script, came out of the same AFI class as Jacobs and filmmakers Georgina Riedel and Goran Ducik. Shot on the streets (and buses!) of the residential enclaves around Downtown Los Angeles, GoodTimesKid has a vibe that’s reminiscent (if decidedly lower-concept) to the dystopian romanticism of Ducik’s Wristcutters: A Love Story. It’s my favorite of Jacobs’ films thus far. If you can’t make it to Brooklyn tonight, keep an eye out for GoodTimes’ upcoming DVD release, courtesy of the ubiquitous Benten Films. Also very much of note is Jacobs’ first feature, the rough but bizarrely fascinating Nobody Needs to Know. Shot in black and white in New York City, the film begins with a director (played by Momma’s Man star Matt Boren) auditioning a series of eager young actresses for a role requiring them to improvise a death scene whilst wearing lingerie.  When it comes time for the Jean Seberg-like Iris (Tricia Vessey) to audition, she finds herself unable to go through the motions. The narrative splits to follow both the director who, beguiled by Iris’ refusal to play ball, is desperately trying to get in touch with her; and Iris herself, who studiously ignores her agents persistant calls and drifts into an existential crisis that manifests itself in semi-aggressive inaction. Both stories are filtered through the narration of a young black male who “cuts” between characters and locations as if he’s watching it all via surveillance cameras–taking the power back, he says, from a world that watches him suspiciously regardless of his actual behavior or intent. It’s this aspect of the film’s construction that both elevates Nobody into something really risky and different, but also precludes any real engagement with Iris and her issues. Though the film features performances from a number of name actors (Tricia Vessey, Norman Reedus and, in a funny self-mocking cameo, Emily Mortimer), it never really found an audience or an interested distributor. In notes prepared for the BAM series, Jacobs admits that he got a little bit in over his head with it, as “writing, shooting, cutting and raising funds for years,” led to a loss of focus. “Guess I had dreams of changing cinema, somthing I won’t attempt again, but proud that I tired.” Jacobs eventually put it online for free streaming. You can watch it at the Internet Archive. Showing Jacobs’ three films together (Sundance hit Momma’s Man will screen on Friday, a week before its theatrical release via Kino) reveals much about how Jacobs has grown as a filmmaker while sticking to relatively consistent themes. At the risk of being reductive, these are three films about going into isolation, of people at ill-defined psychic crisis points attempting to force change by going into withdrawl. In Nobody and GoodTimes, our glimpse into the lives of the characters––or as the narrator of Nobody would put it, our power over them––concludes before that change starts to fully take hold. Less concerned than either with formal style Momma’s Man is the more universally satisfying film in part because it’s more conventional––it’s got a true sense of catharsis and emotional closure that the other films lack, it lets the audience exhale before the go home. It’s about somebody who isn’t sure what he’s looking for, but ultimately finds it, and then appears to be able to move on. The same could be said of it’s filmmaker––Momma’s Man feels like the the period on the end of the first paragraph of a career. Maybe it’s the perfect time for an Azazel Jacobs retrospective after all. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:01:29 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/11/2008 1:01:29 PM At age 35, with just three features under his belt, Azazel Jacobs seems like an unlikely candidate for a retrospective, but if such an endeavor pumps up the profile of his first two, lesser-seen films whilst effectively promoting his soon-to-be-released Momma’s Man, I’m not going to argue against it. BAM will devote five nights of programming to Jacobs this week, with all three of his features shown alongside two films selected by the director: the 1980 Clash vehicle Rude Boy, and Aki Kaurismaki’s La Vie de Boheme. The series opens tonight with a screening of Jacobs’ second film, The GoodTimesKid. A punk rock fantasia shot on 35mm stock infamously stolen from a Hollywood feature, the film stars Jacobs as Rodolfo, a scrappy brooder who kicks his way out of domestic complacency with girlfriend Diaz (played with an irresistible mix of strength and eccentricity by Jacobs’ drop-dead real-life GF, Sara Diaz). In order to join the army, Rodolfo steals the identity of another man named Rodolfo (Gerardo Naranjo), a loner who lives on a liquor-littered little boat. When the first Rodolfo walks out of Diaz’ life on the night she’s throwing a party for his birthday, the second Rodolfo walks right in. Diaz, hungry for the attention and affection that she can’t squeeze out of her Rudolfo, is open to a replacement Rodolfos, at least for a night. Naranjo, who also co-wrote the script, came out of the same AFI class as Jacobs and filmmakers Georgina Riedel and Goran Ducik. Shot on the streets (and buses!) of the residential enclaves around Downtown Los Angeles, GoodTimesKid has a vibe that’s reminiscent (if decidedly lower-concept) to the dystopian romanticism of Ducik’s Wristcutters: A Love Story. It’s my favorite of Jacobs’ films thus far. If you can’t make it to Brooklyn tonight, keep an eye out for GoodTimes’ upcoming DVD release, courtesy of the ubiquitous Benten Films. Also very much of note is Jacobs’ first feature, the rough but bizarrely fascinating Nobody Needs to Know. Shot in black and white in New York City, the film begins with a director (played by Momma’s Man star Matt Boren) auditioning a series of eager young actresses for a role requiring them to improvise a death scene whilst wearing lingerie.  When it comes time for the Jean Seberg-like Iris (Tricia Vessey) to audition, she finds herself unable to go through the motions. The narrative splits to follow both the director who, beguiled by Iris’ refusal to play ball, is desperately trying to get in touch with her; and Iris herself, who studiously ignores her agents persistant calls and drifts into an existential crisis that manifests itself in semi-aggressive inaction. Both stories are filtered through the narration of a young black male who “cuts” between characters and locations as if he’s watching it all via surveillance cameras–taking the power back, he says, from a world that watches him suspiciously regardless of his actual behavior or intent. It’s this aspect of the film’s construction that both elevates Nobody into something really risky and different, but also precludes any real engagement with Iris and her issues. Though the film features performances from a number of name actors (Tricia Vessey, Norman Reedus and, in a funny self-mocking cameo, Emily Mortimer), it never really found an audience or an interested distributor. In notes prepared for the BAM series, Jacobs admits that he got a little bit in over his head with it, as “writing, shooting, cutting and raising funds for years,” led to a loss of focus. “Guess I had dreams of changing cinema, somthing I won’t attempt again, but proud that I tired.” Jacobs eventually put it online for free streaming. You can watch it at the Internet Archive. Showing Jacobs’ three films together (Sundance hit Momma’s Man will screen on Friday, a week before its theatrical release via Kino) reveals much about how Jacobs has grown as a filmmaker while sticking to relatively consistent themes. At the risk of being reductive, these are three films about going into isolation, of people at ill-defined psychic crisis points attempting to force change by going into withdrawl. In Nobody and GoodTimes, our glimpse into the lives of the characters––or as the narrator of Nobody would put it, our power over them––concludes before that change starts to fully take hold. Less concerned than either with formal style Momma’s Man is the more universally satisfying film in part because it’s more conventional––it’s got a true sense of catharsis and emotional closure that the other films lack, it lets the audience exhale before the go home. It’s about somebody who isn’t sure what he’s looking for, but ultimately finds it, and then appears to be able to move on. The same could be said of it’s filmmaker––Momma’s Man feels like the the period on the end of the first paragraph of a career. Maybe it’s the perfect time for an Azazel Jacobs retrospective after all. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/6/26/31753.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 6/26/2008 7:00:39 PM
Body: Anthony Kaufman brings news that THINKFilm has given up distribution rights on Azazel Jacobs’ Momma’s Man to Kino International. THINK announced their acquisition of the film in early March, about six weeks after the film was unveiled at Sundance.  Just last week, THINK’s Mark Urman told Kaufmann that they planned on going through with the release of both Momma’s and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, saying that if the company “didn’t think we could get what they deserve, I wouldn’t be proceeding with them. These films are not cash-intensive films. These films will get everything they need.” No word yet on whether or not the troubled company still thinks they can give Marina Zenovich’s doc what it deserves. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:00:39 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog6/26/2008 7:00:39 PMAnthony Kaufman brings news that THINKFilm has given up distribution rights on Azazel Jacobs’ Momma’s Man to Kino International. THINK announced their acquisition of the film in early March, about six weeks after the film was unveiled at Sundance.  Just last week, THINK’s Mark Urman told Kaufmann that they planned on going through with the release of both Momma’s and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, saying that if the company “didn’t think we could get what they deserve, I wouldn’t be proceeding with them. These films are not cash-intensive films. These films will get everything they need.” No word yet on whether or not the troubled company still thinks they can give Marina Zenovich’s doc what it deserves. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/6/26/31752.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 6/26/2008 7:00:30 PM
Body: Anthony Kaufman brings news that THINKFilm has given up distribution rights on Azazel Jacobs’ Momma’s Man to Kino International. THINK announced their acquisition of the film in early March, about six weeks after the film was unveiled at Sundance.  Just last week, THINK’s Mark Urman told Kaufmann that they planned on going through with the release of both Momma’s and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, saying that if the company “didn’t think we could get what they deserve, I wouldn’t be proceeding with them. These films are not cash-intensive films. These films will get everything they need.” No word yet on whether or not the troubled company still thinks they can give Marina Zenovich’s doc what it deserves. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:00:30 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com6/26/2008 7:00:30 PMAnthony Kaufman brings news that THINKFilm has given up distribution rights on Azazel Jacobs’ Momma’s Man to Kino International. THINK announced their acquisition of the film in early March, about six weeks after the film was unveiled at Sundance.  Just last week, THINK’s Mark Urman told Kaufmann that they planned on going through with the release of both Momma’s and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, saying that if the company “didn’t think we could get what they deserve, I wouldn’t be proceeding with them. These films are not cash-intensive films. These films will get everything they need.” No word yet on whether or not the troubled company still thinks they can give Marina Zenovich’s doc what it deserves. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/1/25/24347.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 1/25/2008 4:01:21 PM
Body: photo: WireImage Azazel Jacobs wrote and directed Mamma’s Man, the tale of a grown man who decides to move back in with his parents. Not only did he decide to film the movie in his parents’ apartment, he chose to cast his actual parents in the role, his mother Flo and his father, the famous experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs. In this interview Azazel and star Matt Boren reflect on living with their parents during production, and a chance encounter with the films of John Casavettes that turned a budding experimental filmmaker on to the power of narrative. Also on SpoutBlog: Sundance 2008: Momma’s Man -Karina’s review of Momma’s Man. Momma???s Man Interview Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:01:21 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com1/25/2008 4:01:21 PM photo: WireImage Azazel Jacobs wrote and directed Mamma’s Man, the tale of a grown man who decides to move back in with his parents. Not only did he decide to film the movie in his parents’ apartment, he chose to cast his actual parents in the role, his mother Flo and his father, the famous experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs. In this interview Azazel and star Matt Boren reflect on living with their parents during production, and a chance encounter with the films of John Casavettes that turned a budding experimental filmmaker on to the power of narrative. Also on SpoutBlog: Sundance 2008: Momma’s Man -Karina’s review of Momma’s Man. Momma???s Man Interview Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/LAFF/MemberTagFilms.aspxLAFF
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