Ghosts of Sundance Past #1: Brittany Runs A Marathon (dir by Paul Downs Colaizzo)

Posted on January 27, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As we all know, this year’s Sundance Film Festival started last week on Thursday.

To me, Sundance has always signified the official start of a new cinematic year. Not only is it the first of the major festivals but it’s also when we first learn about the films that we’ll be looking forward to seeing all year. It seems like every year, there’s at least one successful (or nearly successful) Oscar campaign that gets it start at Sundance. This year, for instance, people are already intrigued by Zola, Minari, Shirley, and Ironbark and it’s almost entirely due to how those films have been received at Sundance.

My initial plan for this year was to spend the last few days of January looking at some of the films that have won awards or otherwise created a splash at previous Sundance Film Festivals. I was planning on starting last Thursday but then I came down with a terrible cold, from which I’m still recovering.

So, instead, I’m starting today. It happens. In the past, I would have beaten myself up over not starting on time but, if I’ve learned anything from my 10 years of writing for TSL, it’s that sometimes you just have to accept that life can be unpredictable. Sometimes, you just have to embrace the mystery.

Anyway, to start things off, I want to take a look at one of my favorite films from last year, Brittany Runs A Marathon.

When we first meet Brittany Forgler (Jillian Bell), she is a 28 year-old New Yorker who works at a theater. She’s single. She’s funny. She’s irresponsible. She usually either drunk or hungover. In many ways, she’s the ideal friend. You wouldn’t necessarily want her to be your best friend, of course. But she’s still someone who seems like she’d be the perfect member of a group, in that she can make a joke but, at the same time, she doesn’t have much of a life so you don’t have to worry about her attracting attention away from you. Add to that, Brittany has an Adderall prescription, which she tends to abuse. (It happens.) Everyone loves someone who can provide them easy access to prescription medication.

In fact, it’s while she’s trying to get her prescription updated that Brittany is given some very serious news. Her doctors informs her that she’s not very healthy. She’s overweight and rarely gets any exercise. Her doctor tells her that she needs to change that. And since Brittany can’t afford to be a member of even the cheapest of gyms, it seems like the only option left is to start running.

In public.

In New York City.

Now, you can probably guess from the title that Brittany eventually comes to love running and decides that she wants to run in the New York marathon. And you can probably guess that, about halfway through the movie, Brittany faces a crisis that causes her to consider just giving up. As far as the running is concerned, this is a likable but occasionally predictable film.

Fortunately, Brittany Runs A Marathon is about more than just running. It’s about growing up and taking responsibility for your life but it’s also about loving who you are, regardless of who that might be. What makes this film so special is that Brittany doesn’t automatically become an Olympic class runner. Nor does her life magically come together just because she manages to complete a 5k. Instead, what makes this film so special is that it’s about Brittany finding her own happiness and accepting who she is. When Brittany struggles, it’s impossible not to feel for her. When Brittany succeeds, it’s impossible not to cheer.

It helps that this is also a terrifically funny film. The dialogue is sharp and witty and Jillian Bell is one of those actresses who can make even the simplest of lines hilarious. (She can also make them heart-breaking when she needs to.) While Brittany is running, she’s also working as a pet sitter. When she discovers that another pet sitter, Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar), is essentially squatting in their employer’s house while she’s out of town, Brittany ends up moving in with him. Everyone tells Brittany that she’s eventually going to end up sleeping with Jern. Brittany says it will never happen. Jern says it will never happen. We know it will happen because Bell and Ambudkhar have such a wonderful chemistry. They’re like a 21st century version of Tracy and Hepburn.

I wasn’t expecting much from Brittany Runs A Marathon but it’s a good film, a funny comedy with a good heart and serious points to make. Not surprisingly, it was also loved at Sundance, where it won the Audience Award.

Playing Catch-Up With The Films of 2017: Fist Fight (dir by Richie Keen)

Posted on December 25, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

While I wouldn’t begin to argue that it’s been a great year for movies, there were still some really good movies released in 2017.

Unfortunately, there were also some really bad ones.

Which do you think Fist Fight was?

If you answered really bad, congratulations!

Actually, I don’t think anyone was expecting Fist Fight to be a classic or anything like that. Basically, the film is about a conflict between two teachers, a conflict that seems destined to end with the event promised by the title. The two teachers are played by Ice Cube and Charlie Day. Of course, in the movie, they have different name but it doesn’t matter. Neither character has an identity outside of the actor who plays him. Charlie Day is nerdy and quick to yell. Ice Cube is tough and intimidating and not the type to back down from a fight.

Now, at the risk of losing all credibility, I’m going to be honest about something. When I first saw the trailer for Fist Fight, I thought it might not be as bad as it turned out to be. Charlie Day is hilarious on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. One of the more appealing things about Ice Cube is his willingness to poke fun at his tough guy image. More often than not, I tend to like movies about teachers acting like children because, when I was in school, I always suspected that was the way teachers actually behaved when they were safely in the teacher’s lounge. Charlie Day desperately running around the school, hyperventilating while Ice Cube pops up to remind him that they have a fist fight scheduled? Seriously, it sounded like it could be funny in a dumb way.

Well, I was wrong. Fist Fight is one of the most painfully unfunny films that I’ve ever seen. This is a movie that should have been focused on one thing: the fist fight at the end of the day. The entire movie should have been Charlie Day preparing for a fight that he knows he can’t possibly win. Instead, the movie kept getting distracted with unnecessary subplots. For instance, because it’s the last day before summer, all of the students are pulling pranks on their teachers. In fact, the entire student body is out-of-control. But who cares? We’re here to see Charlie Day try to throw a punch at Ice Cube. We don’t care about a bunch of obnoxious students pulling pranks that seem like they were directly lifted from a Crown International high school movie. If we want to see that, we can rewatch The Pom Pom Girls or Joy of Sex. And if we want to watch a teacher stand up to his students, we can watch Class of 1984.

The film is full of funny people but it never really takes advantage of them. Actors like Tracy Morgan, Kumail Nanjiani, and Christina Hendricks pop up but just as quickly disappear. Charlie Day does his best but the level of writing never rises to the level of It’s Sunny In Philadelphia. (I personally would love to see “The Gang Gets In A Fist Fight With Ice Cube.”) Compared to Fist Fight, even something like Horrible Bosses looks like nuanced and subversive humor. There’s a lot of screeching in Fist Fight but very little of it is funny.

Film Review: Inherent Vice (dir by Paul Thomas Anderson)

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

One of the best things about Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, Inherent Vice, is that Doc Sportello, the private detective played by Joaquin Phoenix, is a real stoner. He’s not one of those weekend smokers, who gets high on Saturday, brags about it on Sunday, and then spends the rest of the week interning at Vox. For the entire 2 hour and 20 minute running time of Inherent Vice, Doc is stoned. From the minute we first meet him to the end of the film, there is never one moment where Doc is not stoned. Most stoner comedies feature a scene where the main character shocks everyone by turning down a hit because he’s dealing with something so important that he has to “keep his mind straight.”

Not so with Doc!

And, in Doc’s case, it definitely helps him out. Inherent Vice tells a story that is so full of paranoia, conspiracy, and random connections that only a true stoner could follow it. Much like Doc, the film often seems to be moving in a haze but occasionally, out of nowhere, it will come up with a scene or a line of dialogue or a detail that is so sharp and precise that it will force you to reconsider everything that you had previously assumed.

To be honest, if you are one of the people who watched Inherent Vice this weekend and could actually follow the film’s plot, then you’ve got a leg up on me. (That said, I’ve still got pretty good legs so it all evens out.) But, that’s not necessarily a complaint. As befits a film based on a novel by Thomas Pynchon and directed by one of the most idiosyncratic filmmakers around, the twists and turns of Inherent Vice are deliberately meant to be obscure and confusing. Characters appear and then vanish. Clues are discovered and then forgotten. Connections are hinted at but then never confirmed. Inherent Vice ultimately serves a tribute to stoner’s paranoia and, as a result, the plot’s incoherence leads to a certain contact high.

The film takes place in California in the 1970s. Doc is both a hippie and a private detective. His current girlfriend (Reese Witherspoon) works for the district attorney’s office and doesn’t seem to like him much. His ex-girlfriend, Shasta (Katherine Waterston), reenters his life and asks him to help protect her new boyfriend, real estate developer Mickey Wolfman (Eric Roberts). Mickey has disappeared. Shasta disappears. As Doc investigates, he wanders through a psychedelic Los Angeles and deals with an ever growing collection of eccentrics.

For instance, there’s Hope Harlingen (Jena Malone), a former heroin addict who now runs a group that aims to promote “responsible drug use” among children. She believes that her husband, Coy (Owen Wilson), is dead but actually Coy is a government informant who keeps popping up in the strangest places.

There’s Rudy Blatnoyd (Martin Short), a decadent dentist who may or may not be responsible for all of the heroin entering California.

There’s Sauncho Smilax (Benicio Del Toro), Doc’s lawyer who specializes in maritime law.

There are Nazi bikers, new age doctors, a formerly blacklisted actor turned right-wing spokesman, a black revolutionary whose best friend was a member of the Aryan brotherhood, three FBI agents who keep picking their noses, the decadent rich, and, of course, the endlessly clean-cut and bullying officers of the LAPD.

And then there’s Detective “Big Foot” Bjornsen (Josh Brolin), a celebrity cop and occasional television extra who seems to admire Doc, except for when he’s trying to frame Doc for everything from murder to drug smuggling. Bjornsen is probably the most interesting character in the entire film and Brolin plays the character perfectly. His scenes with Phoenix crackle with a comedic energy that bring the film to life.

As for the movie itself, it’s not for everyone. A lot of very smart people are going to dislike it, much as many of them did with The Master. In some ways, Inherent Vice truly is an endurance test. Speaking as someone who enjoyed the film, even I occasionally found myself saying, “Okay, does everyone have to have a silly name?” Inherent Vice is a long, rambling, and occasionally frustrating film but, for me, it still worked because of the strong cast and Anderson’s attention to detail.

Unbroken is a film that seems to take place in an entirely different world from Inherent Vice but these two films do have one big thing in common. Both of them have been victims of the expectation game. Many of the same people who thought Unbroken would be a surefire Oscar nominee also assumed, sight unseen, that Inherent Vice would be right there with it. Much as how Unbroken has suffered for merely being good as opposed to great, Inherent Vice is also suffering for failing to live up to the expectations that were thrust upon it. Inherent Vice is not an awards movie. Instead, it’s a fascinatingly idiosyncratic film that was made by a director who has never shown much concern with playing up to the audience. While Unbroken is enough of a crowd pleaser to still have a shot at some Oscar glory, Inherent Vice is the type of film that will probably never get nominated. (I do have some hope that Brolin will get a supporting actor nomination but, even there, it appears likely that Brolin’s spot will be given to The Judge‘s Robert Duvall.)

Well, no matter! Flaws and all, Inherent Vice will be a film that people will still be debating and watching years from now.