Friday, August 18, 2006




Miklos' film goes international, and another film rec...

Hi all,

Mother of Invention alum Miklos Philips' short film The Enfolding has been accepted into two more festivals, one the NewFilmMakers NY festival in October, and a festival in Tricase, Italy. Congrats Miklos! Best of luck at both! This makes six festivals for this film!

Also, I saw a movie last weekend called Quinceañera that I wanted to pass the word about. "Quinceañera" is the Spanish word for a kind of religiously-tinted debut that a young girl makes on her fifteenth birthday. It's a a big family event, and, well, let's say that the girl in this movie gets some upsetting news just prior to hers. She leaves home to live with a benevolent great-grandfather, who is also sheltering a gay Latino hood cast out from his home. It's a simple story about the double-edged sword that is tradition, that is carefully and patiently developed. It takes place in Echo Park in L.A., and the camera work beautifully captures the life of that neighborhood. Some fine acting. Won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, I believe I read somewhere. Worth catching.
Posted by Andrew Wood Acting Studio at 12:01 PM 0 comments




Sunday, August 06, 2006




the movie everybody wants to have seen

On Saturday night, I went with a friend to see a new indie flick called Little Miss Sunshine, which seems to have generated some buzz at Sundance this year. Well, I guess everybody had heard the buzz, because when I got to the theatre at Stonestown mall on Saturday night to see the movie, it had sold out, and a long line of hipsters were just turning away in dejection. So my friend and I hurtled across town on 280 to try to catch the next show at the Metreon, which was also sold out. So we shot some pool at Jillian's (that's another story: billiard hall, restaurant, and night club all in one!) until the NEXT show.

And we saw what all the fuss was about.

The premise is that the 11-year old daughter in a (very) dysfunctional Arizona family has been named a finalist in a national pageant called Little Miss Sunshine. So the family : mom, pop, a heroin snorting grandad, a recently suicidal uncle, and the brother pile into the VW bus to drive from Arizona to Redondo Beach, where the pageant is to be held. The script is savagely funny, in a way that is a little reminiscent of Howard Korder's plays, which we sometimes work on in the class. There is some first-rate acting as well. The story is not without some flaws and misfires, but the piece as a whole has great heart and inventiveness, and an anarchic streak a mile wide. My vote: not to be missed!
Posted by Andrew Wood Acting Studio at 7:17 PM 0 comments




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