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Frownland [trailer]

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Scott Macaulay reminds that Ronnie Bronstein’s Frownland begins a one-week run at the IFC Center in New York this Friday. More than that, he explains why it’s a must see:

If you’re someone who follows and cares about American independent cinema, you’ve noticed that what passes for independent film today is often markedly different from what we thought of as independent film 20 years ago. In films today, scenes have buttons. Second acts have set pieces. Characters are given “petting the dog” moments to make them more likeable. Films are crafted to appeal to quadrants. In other words, many of them are forced by the brutality of the marketplace to assimilate the same storytelling logic as a studio film. More so than just about anything I’ve seen in the last year, Frownland defies all of this.

I wish I was going to be in town this weekend––I’ve only seen a screener of Frownland, and have been trying in vain for a year to see it on a big screen. Alas, I’ll be at SXSW, where Mary Bronstein’s Yeast premieres on Monday. If you’re in New York and not making the trip to Austin, you can buy Frownland tickets here. And if you’re only familiar with Mary and Ronnie’s work in Butterknife, definitely check out the Frownland trailer above.

Under discussion:

The Kentucky Fried Movie  (1977)

Run Ronnie Run!  (2002)

The Onion Movie  (2005)

The Darjeeling Limited  (2007)

Epic Movie  (2007)

Meet the Spartans  (2008)

I had nearly forgotten about The Onion Movie. The sketch-comedy-formatted film spin-off of the brilliant newspaper satire was made about four years ago and then was abandoned by original distributor Fox Searchlight. According to Wikipedia, it performed badly with test audiences, and when it was shelved and then dropped by the studio, the filmmakers — co-directors Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire and screenwriter Robert Siegel (formerly editor of The Onion) — also walked away from the project. It spent the next few years involved in attempted rescue operations by New Regency and actor-writer Scott Aukerman (Run Ronnie Run!). Now, finally this trailer has shown up on the DVD of Fox Searchlight’s The Darjeeling Limited, implying that the studio will be dumping it to DVD sometime this year.

As you can see, there was good reason for Fox to have initially distanced itself from the movie. It makes the similar-structured The Kentucky Fried Movie look like a masterpiece (I understand it’s considered a classic for some, but it’s by no means a masterpiece). And, well, it even makes the recent parody films like Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans seem like masterpieces. Considering that after 20 years in print and 12 years online, the actual newspaper is consistently intelligent, cutting-edge, relevant and, most of all, hilarious, it’s quite disappointing to see how stale are the gags in the film. While it may be funny to see the decapitation caused by a neckbelt, the concept as a whole is illogical and unimaginative. And the smoking ban joke? Maybe topical in 2004, but even then the gag would have been put to better use in a Tonight Show monologue.

(more…)

• Warner Independent Pictures has picked up adaptation rights to Beautiful Children, the hot-right-now literary debut of Charles Bock. Bock, who was the subject of much high-profile press earlier this year, managed to finish his novel in just ten years by ignoring his girlfriend five nights a week.
• Trumbo, a documentary on blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, in which the writer’s letters are read by stars like Joan Allen and Paul Giamatti, will open the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival on April 3.
• IFC has picked up Fear(s) of the Dark, a French animated film which “presents the stylized interpretations of nightmares from six graphic artists and cartoonists.”
• Bob Marley’s ex-wife wants Lauryn Hill to play her in the biopic she just sold to The Weinstein Company. Oddly, the adaptation of Rita Marley’s autobiography is being handled by Working Girls director Lizzie Borden who, according to IMDb, hasn’t worked since directing an episode of Red Shoe Diaries a dozen years ago.