“Narrative Jackass.” That’s the genre shorthand Micheal Tully has invented to describe Benny and Josh Safdie’s latest short film, There is Nothing You Can Do, and it’s pretty fitting.
The film was shot by Josh on a tiny prosumer video camera on a real-life, New York City bus crowded with both actors and unknowing actual riders. It stars Eleonore Hendricks from The Pleasure of Being Robbed as a young mother, and Benny Safdie as an irate businessman who complains that the noise coming Eleonore’s baby is distracting him from reading his newspaper. Various regular Safdie associates, including Ronald Bronstein, are planted around the bus, and when Benny starts harassing Eleonore, some of them rise to her defense.
The Safdies and crew pull off the street theater element so flawlessly that I’d love to see them turn this into a regular series––but not so regular that average New Yorkers start to recognize their troupe.
You can watch the short here.
Is Yeast a movie, or a dare? Its official synopsis contains this brag about director Mary Bronstein’s level of experience: “Conceived and made by an actor with no concept of the language of filmmaking, takes traditional dramatic structure and throws it out of the window to be swept away by the street cleaners.” It’s less a pre-emptive defense than a come on, a tease designed to seduce a certain kind of audience into stepping up to the plate. But it’s not pure provocation. Even fans of Frownland (which Bronstein starred in under the direction of her husband Ronald) may not be ready for Yeast’s full-on assault on the senses. This is a film that not only seeks to dodge the audience’s comfort zone, but it actually, actively mocks it. It’s not just abrasive; it’s restless, punishing, totally juvenile in its humor and indifferent to narrative flow or niceties of image. It appears to offers moments of genuine redemption or closure, and then undermines those moments with prankish punchlines. It is resolutely indelicate, and often absurd. It’s a nasty little stink bomb of a film that’s going to instigate a fierce tug of war between supporters and detractors––if it doesn’t completely clear the room. I think it’s a laugh riot and a must-see. Consider yourself warned.
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The worm turns and squirms in Frownland, an aptly named film made on the cheap in and around New York. An up-close, painfully intimate portrait of a hapless, manipulative schlub, a Loser with a capital L, the film offers for our horror and our empathy a creature whose very existence is a rebuke to the stultifying uniformity (the niceness, the neatness) of what now often passes for American independent cinema. Written and directed by Ronald Bronstein, making his feature-film debut, this is personal cinema at its most uncompromising and fierce.
The first paragraph of Manohla Dargis’ rave review of in the New York Times. Read the full thing here.
Joe Swanberg (Hannah Takes the Stairs) and Ronald Bronstein (Frownland) talk about turning private detective movie convention on its ear with Butterknife, their new webseries presented on spout.com January 28.
Aaron Hillis and Keith Uhlich argue–REALLY argue–over the critical acclaim gay critics gave to I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. I really don’t know what to make of their face-off, but it reveals staunchly different ways that gay and straight people watch a gay themed movie, especially one starring Adam Sandler.
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FilmCouch 52
When I head to NY in a few days to finish the remaining production on the first season of Butterknife, I will not find Ronald Bronstein. He will be in Austin, TX, attending the already sold-out screening of his multiple-award winning film, Frownland, which hours ago claimed a victory at the Gotham Awards for “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You.”
A few years ago, Caveh Zahedi called this award a backhanded compliment, after receiving it for I Am a Sex Addict, and I’m not sure I disagree. But in Ronnie’s case, it’s just the beginning of a wave of attention he will be receiving over the next year for his film. He worked on Frownland for several years before presenting it at SXSW in March, and the 9 months it has taken everyone to catch up will have been worth the wait, as he should never have to suffer another rejection letter from a cowardly Festival programmer who needs external validation to justify presenting this excellent film to an out-of-shape audience.
The big movie/little movie dichotomy at extremes. Kevin calls in the biggest Simpsons fan he knows–his big brother–to talk about The Simpsons movie. We interview Ronald Bronstein about his movie, Frownland, a super low budget movie that completely polarizes audiences wherever it has the fortune to be screened.
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FilmCouch #31 [27:25m]:
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Ronald Bronstein has an indescribable film, Frownland. Some of the best films can’t be described, but Ronald tries anyway, for Paul’s sake.
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