Man Up, the hilarious new comedy from director Ben Palmer and writer Tess Morris, made its NY debut at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival with the creators and star Lake Bell in a cheerful mood on the red carpet. They along with producers Nira Park and Rachel Prior spoke with me about working on the film.

The film focuses on the awkward Nancy (Bell) accidentally swiping some else’s blind date, Jack (Simon Pegg) and the wild night they have out in London. True to the spirit of Man Up’s main character Nancy, writer Tess Morris was unabashedly honest about how she felt about the premiere, laughing and saying, “First time I’m going to see it with a paying audience–so I’m really excited and also I feel sick!”

Lauren Damon: How did you come up with some of the phrases and strategies that Nancy throws out in this film? The tactical puke? The blowjob paradox?
Tess Morris: Because they’re all actual things in my life! Actually, The Blowjob Paradox is my friend Austin. I have to credit him. That was his theory that I stole. Never be friends with a writer because they’ll just use everything of yours. Tactical puke? Because I’m the least sporty person in the world. So the idea of me actually having to do a tactical puke is sort of like half the joke. But yeah, I just base a lot of stuff on–I have a notebook with me everywhere I go and I just nick everyone else’s…

LD: Like Nancy carrying a notebook.
Morris: Oh yeah! Yeah, she’s very much myself.

LD: Did you write Jack with Simon Pegg in mind?
Morris: No I didn’t, I actually wrote it on spec, but he came on board it quite early and just changed the whole process for me. Because obviously once he was playing Jack, I could just have even more fun with him. And he brought so much to it, obviously. As did Lake. So yeah, that was a very exciting moment when he agreed to do it.
LD: I appreciated how none of your other female characters are mean, how the other date isn’t grotesque or competitive.
Morris: Oh yeah, like she gets her–I just sort felt like it was really important that she didn’t come across as like some young shallow kind of gal. Like she’s really excited for them because she’s a good soul. And I don’t like mean movies, you know? What’s the point?

LD: Can you name some of your favorite romantic comedies?
Morris: Oh yeah! I love Moonstruck. I think it’s underrated a lot. And I obviously love When Harry Met Sally and I also, most recently, Silver Linings Playbook and Crazy, Stupid, Love and Enough Said actually. I really liked Enough Said a lot. I think there’s been a slight resurgance recently.

Producers Nira Park and Rachel Prior had worked with star Simon Pegg throughout his entire “Cornetto Trilogy” with Edgar Wright and even earliar than that on UK sitcom “Spaced.”

LD: Can you speak about your relationship with Simon Pegg since you’ve worked with him dating back to spaced?
Nira Park: Eighteen years, seventeen years…we met on Spaced actually so I’d done something small with Channel 4 with Edgar before Spaced, then Spaced was starting up and Channel 4 actually asked me if I’d just do a couple of days a week initially to just kind of help them get it together. And I remember being really nervous when I met Simon and Jessica [Hynes] and I’m a bit older than them and they said they were terrified of me for the whole of the first series but I was actually quite scared of them! And–cause he’s just so bright and so brilliant and so funny–so yeah, I did a couple of days a week at first and then we all got on so well that kind of within a few weeks they were like ‘will you produce it??’ So okay.

LD:How did you get connected to this particular script?
Park: Well this script came about, we were just saying, because Rachel [Prior]–well we were all completely obsessed with Bridesmaids because we premiered Paul at SXSW and Bridesmaids was the surprise screening at midnight after Paul’s screening and it wasn’t finished at that point and actually [producer] James [Biddle] and Rachel weren’t there but I came back to London and was like ‘Oh my god, I’ve seen this film! It’s amazing! I wanna make this film!’ and we were just like ‘Why are there no more female writers in the UK who are writing this kind of thing??’ And then literally a couple of weeks later, this script, no one in the UK really writes on spec in the same way–it’s not the same as in the States–and this script just arrived through the letter box written by Tess and she’d kind of written it for Big Talk in the hope that we’d like it. Because she liked the films, the other films. And it was like everything we’d been hoping for! So at that point, we picked it up and we developed it for like a year and a half, we attached Simon kind of six months into the development.

LD:When did Lake come in?
Rachel Prior: When Lake came in it was just as we got to the point where we had a script that we were happy with and we were about to sort of start putting together and actually with BBC films and StudioCanal to actually start going into production. And we saw a couple of trailers for In A World and it was like there’s this–we had knew Lake from “Children’s Hospital” but there was something in In a World where we were like ‘Oh my god, she could play Nancy’ It’s obvious she was great at accents. And then we read an interview with her where she had said she studied drama in the UK for four years so we were like ‘Can she do a British accent?’ And she can.
Park: A brilliant one.
Rachel: Some Brits when we tested the film had no idea that she was American!

Lake Bell’s previous film, In a World featured her playing none other than a dialect coach with a great ear for accents.

LD:Was it gratifying going from In A World where the subject matter was doing dialects to this full feature where you’re using your British accent?
Lake Bell: It definitely was. You know accents and dialects are very much an obsession of mine. That is very authentic to In a World. So this was definitely on my actor bucket list of things to do was to play a fully realized British character, so yes. It absolutely satiated a desire to play a British character.

LD: How familiar were you with Simon Pegg before you paired up here?
Bell: You know I had known Simon’s work and certainly upon first meeting him I noticed we had a good sort of comedic chemistry and you know was excited to kind of go down this journey with him because I thought ‘Yeah, this if is gonna work.’ Especially with Tess Morris’s words which are so brilliantly…I really do attribute the brilliant repartee to her script.

Finally, director Ben Palmer comes from having done the feature film of UK TV teen comedy Inbetweeners.

LD: Your previous feature was The Inbetweeners, with just this manic teenage male energy, how was it switching to having a strong female lead?
Ben Palmer: It’s how I respond to a script, to be honest. And so the Inbetweeners was a really big part of my life and when I got sent Man Up, I almost felt they probably had sent it to the wrong person. Because I never thought that I’d be doing a British romantic comedy. But there was something–within the first couple of pages of reading Tess’s script, there’s something in that dialogue that stuck with me. And in a way, it has sort of that sharpness and that speed and the naturalism, I suppose. Those characters are so well drawn that I was a sucker for it, basically. And there’s and edge and there’s a truthfulness and it’s anarchic in its own way. There’s swears, there’s all that sort of stuff that excites me, I suppose. Although it is a romantic comedy, there is a crossover to the Inbetweeners. And it’s nice just to keep shaking it up and do a different thing.

LD: The film takes place over the course of one night, but has so many locations, what was that shoot like?
Palmer: I loved that hook, that it happened over sort of 24 hours, in one night really. So within that…the challenge is to try and liven it up and move it around and the fluidity and the speed that they’re hammering through this city. It’s trying to find locations, not the easy locations to shoot in, but to go well ‘this is where this would happen.’ And so with that, when you’re doing a low budget film, there’s problems there. Because you can’t close down whole blocks, so you’ve gotta sort of work around general public in a way. But that’s how you achieve something that feels real and honest.

LD: Bowling features heavily in Nancy and Jack’s date, was there a best bowler on the set?
Ben: (Laughs) Simon. Simon’s a pretty good bowler. I’d say he’d edged it.

Man Up opens in UK cinemas on May 29th, while Saban Entertainment has recently acquired US distribution rights. You can read my review from Tribeca here.

Slow West held its New York premiere on April 19th at the SVA Theater during the 14th annual Tribeca Film Festival. Writer and director John Maclean joined stars Kodi Smit-McPhee and Ben Mendelsohn in speaking with me about the Michael-Fassbender-lead western on the red carpet.

Ben Mendelsohn is a renowned Australian actor who in Slow West takes on the larger-than-life role of Payne. Payne, in his oversized furry coat, is the leader of a vicious gang that Fassbender’s character Silas used to run with, and like his character, Mendelsohn seemed a bit bitter at the abandonedment of his gang-mate…

Lauren Damon: Can you discuss the relationship of Silas and Payne
Ben Mendelsohn: Okay, so Silas and Payne rode together back in the day and Silas essentially decided he was gonna go his own way–you know, he’d had enough, like ‘Yeah yeah, I’ve got what I wanted, I’m off doing my own thing’ Which, when you think about it is sort of a really punk move, you know? Because essentially Payne you know, gave this guy A LOT. Now, I’m not saying Silas isn’t a talented man, he is. But basically, he packed up and he got his tail between his legs and off he ran. And you know, time’s come now where our paths  have crossed again and [Silas]’s got this fine little bounty he’s traveling around with and really I just wanna know what’s up with that? Are we gonna share this spoil? Or are you gonna TRY and take it all for yourself? Or are you gonna try and be “a good boy”? So that’s a lot of what that’s about.

LD: And how did you all develop the look of Payne?
Ben: Oh the coat is genius. The very talented wardrobe lady [Kirsty Cameron] had it made and showed me all the pictures of trappers and what not from that period with these massive coats on. So once you put that coat on and that hat and you’ve got the tattoos, the rest of it’s a cake walk.

LD: How was it to shoot in NZ and with that wardrobe?
Ben: It was…yeah, it’s really crazy open wide spaces. It’s very desolate, it’s harsh. It’s a harsh sort of enviroment but very beautiful too. New Zealand’s a great place to shoot, it’s really got an extraordinary array of you know, locations and looks and feels…it’s all there. It’s a beautiful place to shoot.

LD: What attracted you to the film? I mean for a western it had a sense of humor about it too that I didn’t expect at all.
Ben: Yeah, I wasn’t sure how that would go. Michael Fassbender had started with John Maclean and they’d done a couple of short films and essentially the fact that you know that Michael Fassbender had sort of backed this to the degree he did was a very good sign. I’d seen his short films that John Maclean had done and they had something. You know, you could feel there was something there, western, it felt pretty cool. It felt like a good bit of fun with a decent chance of it working.

Director John Maclean had previously worked with Michael Fassbender on the short film Pitch Black Heist, which was shown at the 2012 Tribeca Film Fest.
LD: Can you talk about how you initially came to work with Michael Fassbender, what drew you to him or him to your work?
John Maclean: I think it was around the time that he was shooting with Tarantino [on Inglourious Basterds], I knew his agent. And his agent had given Michael some of my early short films I was making on my own. Michael saw something in them, came to me and said you know, if you want to do something, I’ll give up a day. So we started working together there.

LD: And when you approached this script, there’s a lot of dark humor in it—did you primarily come at it as a comedy or a western first?
John: I think, like my favorite films—I mean you look at a film like Fargo and it’s not a comedy, it’s not a thriller—I think some of the films I’m interested in, I think you just have to try and be truthful. And like life, comedy comes in to sad moments and sadness comes in to comedy moments.

LD: And it’s unconventional that your young romantic lead, his love interest doesn’t actually like him like that back!
John: I think “spoilers” here!

LD: I know, I’m sorry, my review says he’s been friend zoned
John: I just I mean, maybe that was from personal experience (laughs) when I was younger. But that’s what happens with young boys, I think. I guess it was for personal experience actually but um, I think he was never right for her. I think she was always more practical and he always too much of a dreamer. So from the beginning, I guess it’s doomed.

LD: How do you describe the back story between Payne and Silas?
John: Yeah, I think that’s the hard thing with wanting to make a shorter film—you can’t branch out into too many of the backstories but…I just imagined that the wild west, there wasn’t that many people at that time. So people sort of crossed paths much more often than you’d expect. I imagine they travelled together and [Silas] was part of Payne’s gang and then didn’t like the senselessness of some of the violence and left and went to go alone and Payne’s trying to draw him back into it.

Kodi Smit-McPhee was recently cast as Nightcrawler in next year’s X-men: Apocalypse, seeing as his previous film co-starred Nicholas Hoult (“Beast”) and this one he shared the screen with Fassbender (“Magneto”) I had to ask about joining them as mutants.

Lauren Damon: Have you contacted your past coworkers here for advice on joining the X-Men?
Kodi Smit McPhee: I haven’t contacted them yet. So we got Nicholas Hoult, Ty Sheridan and Michael Fassbender whom I know well. And I really can’t wait to get on set and work with them. And I haven’t said a word to them.

LD: What’re you most looking forward to about playing Nightcrawler?
Kodi: I really love the warmth that comes with the passion behind his character. And the novelty within just the tradition of him. I don’t necessarily have a desire to bring new things to it, but just show the world that they love.

LD: And are you familiar with Alan Cumming’s take on it from X2?
Kodi: Yes, absolutely. Usually, I mean if I don’t need to–like for Let Me In, I didn’t look at Let the Right One In–but for something like this, I thought it  was right to just find all the roots, you know, see how Nightcrawler evolved into who he is now.

LD: If you could choose your own X-power what would it be?
Kodi: I would love to physically, and within my own body, be able to travel back and forth and time. See how the history and the future plays out.

LD: Back onto Slow West, I was rewatching The Road recently and I saw your character there sort of as the young optimist to an older guide, like Jay in this film, did you feel that connection there?
Kodi: Absolutely and maybe in fact this whole story itself and the concept of a western story, it was very much like that. Like desolate and moving towards something hopeful. So yeah I really loved that idea and that was never intentional, but I guess it’s something that I’m just great at expressing and hopefully with Nightcrawler, I can move onto other things.

Next week: A more in-depth discussion with John and Kodi, meanwhile, you can check out my review of Slow West here.

“Sonic Highways”
Starring: Foo Fighters
Director: Dave Grohl
Rated: Unrated
Studio: RCA/Roswell
Run Time: 9 hrs

Series: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Special Features: 4 out of 5 stars

“Sonic Highways” directed by Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl is an 8 part series devoted to various musical landmarks from around the United States. While documenting these sites Dave and his band would record one song in each location while utilizing the artists and scenes that developed out of the areas they were in. Over the course of the 9+ hour series the viewer is taken to places such as Chicago, Washington D.C. and Nashville to Austin, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Seattle and New York City. The mini-series not only documents one bands attempt to make a new album but it goes much deeper than that. Through candid interviews and a mixture of both new and archival footage “Sonic Highways” makes the viewer feel like they are actually there with the band during this tremendous undertaking.

Whenever I hear the word “concept” in relation to a music album or film I tend to shudder a little bit as more times than not these concept ideas don’t fair to well often  leaving the listener/viewer severely underwhelmed with the end results. This couldn’t be further from the truth with the latest documentary from former Nirvana drummer/Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl. “Sonic Highways” not only captures the bands creative process in a way we have never seen but also showcases the idea of this “concept” based album. Over the 8 episodes you gain an in-depth appreciation for each city visited and the musicians who have come from those places while at the same time seeing how these places impact the creation of a specific track that the band works on throughout the episode. As the band zigzag’s across the country Grohl digs deep in to the memories of artists like Dolly Parton, Rick Neilson and Joe Walsh to help paint a picture of just how important an artist’s surroundings are and how those same surroundings directly influence/impact that artists sound and/or style. This common theme is something that is carried on throughout the 8 episodes. Though this gives each episode a touch of redundancy each episode is unique and somewhat different.

If the mini-series wasn’t enough to keep your interest peeked then tap in to the Special Features portion of the release. Here you will find a treasure trove of extended interviews and never before seen footage not included in the initial release of the film on HBO. The over 3 hours of footage in this section alone made the purchase of this DVD extremely worth it.

From start to finish “Sonic Highways” is everything I want from a documentary of this type. You get stories and experiences directly from those who lived them along with new footage which in this case all add up to the creation of new material. Coupled with a great accompanying soundtrack, this is a film I will certainly be watching multiple times.

Actors: Paul McGillion, Mike Mizanin, Curtis Caravaggio, Matthew MacCaull
Rated: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: April 21, 2015
Run Time: 91 minutes

Film: 3 out of 5 stars
Blu-ray: 4 out of 5 stars
Extras: 1.5 out of 5 stars

WWE has definitely been busy in the film industry. They have been cranking out movies non-stop starting their WWE Superstars. “The Marine” series started back in 2006 with John Cena taking on the lead role. The Miz took the lead in “The Marine 3” and is returning in sequel and also features the film debut for WWE Diva Summer Rae. So the two play well off each other. Honestly, who knew that this would turn into a four film franchise that is actually not that bad. In terms of scale, this is a not a scale film but the action is there and is it definitely entertaining.

Official Premise: WWE Superstar Mike “The Miz” Mizanin is back as American hero Jake Carter in an all-new thrill-packed Marine adventure. Now in the private sector, Carter is assigned to protect a “high-value package” – a beautiful whistleblower trying to expose a corrupt military defense contractor. But a heavily armed team of mercenaries has been hired to kill her, along with anyone who gets in their way, and it’s going to take a fearless one-man fighting machine to stop them.

“The Marine 4: Moving Target” comes as a combo pack with a Blu-ray and Digital HD copy. The 1080p transfer is quite impressive, especially for a direct-to-video release. The picture is clear and sharp. Same goes for the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, which captures the action very well. In terms of special features, there is not much at all given to us through besides three short featurettes. “Firepower” looks into the weapons in the film and it’s authenticity. “The Franchise” looks into the series and its appeal. Lastly “Beauty is Dangerous” focuses on the film’s cast and their makeup.

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If you’re a fan of this site then you know that the Mike’s are huge “Jaws” fans. Horrorhound magazine knew this and they asked our own MovieMike to write a “Jaws” retrospective article for their 40th Anniversary Cover story. Look for it on newsstands soon!

Director: Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, James Spader and Samuel L. Jackson
Running Time: 141 minutes
Marvel

Our Score: 4 out of 5 Stars

We’re already ten movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe when we wade into the battlefield with Ultron this first Summer Movie weekend so I think it’s a pretty fair assumption that most people have taken a stance on whether or not they’ll be grabbing a ticket for this latest offering. I know I’m betraying the idea of a critic’s ‘power’ here, but honesty’s the best policy. And honestly, we’re seven years in here and I’m on board despite it not always being the smoothest of rides. That said when it comes to this, the culmination of Marvel’s “phase 2”,  I was a bit overwhelmed. Age of Ultron is more of everything. How could it not be on the heels of its predecessors? There’s more characters, more back stories, and inevitably more destruction.  The former two will always play better than the latter for me but I can’t deny that Whedon’s film is an often wow-inducing spectacle that leaves our heroes on intriguing and unstable grounds.

As we learned from Iron Man 3, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is capable of accidentally creating some demons. In that solo story, it just happened to be a slighted science colleague, but in Ultron he really steps up his screwup game. The Avengers have been tracking down the scattered physical remnants of their 2012 outing, Loki’s mind-controlling scepter included. With that ‘glowstick of destiny’ finally in the capable hands of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Stark’s vision of utilizing Artificial Intelligence in his technology to protect the Earth from off-world threats can be realized. But faced with the prospect of the scepter being returned with Thor to Asgard, he does a rushed job of instilling his AI, Ultron, with a peace-at-ALL-costs mentality. And after raiding the internet and all the digital files of humanity, Ultron notices that it’s really the humans who always are in the way of peace. Oops, our evil robot threat is born. When Ultron beams his programming across the globe to the HYDRA facility from whence the scepter came, he picks up two ‘enhanced’ twins (read: evilly experimented on to the point that they’re super. Or as Cobie Smulders’s Agent Hill sums them up, “he’s fast and she’s weird”) in the form of Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who have their own axe to grind with Mr. Stark, a former weapons dealer lest we forget.

Ultron himself is menacingly played by James Spader via motion capture that is really chilling, especially in his zombie-like entrance. I hadn’t bought into a CG villain like this since Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. As a character born of quip-master Stark, he has a wicked sense of humor that these films always benefit from, even if he’s not as clever or fun to watch as Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. Furthermore, it’s always a risk with comic book franchises to load their sequels with new characters but for me the twins were completely welcome additions. Olsen is particularly compelling as Scarlet Witch, whose powers to access the minds and darkest fears of her opponents induce some emotional, trippy visions for our core heroes. Later we’re introduced to the sublime Vision (played by Paul Bettany, on screen in the flesh, finally! Rejoice!) whose amazing origins are a bit too spoilery to divulge here but he is really a marvel (sorry) to behold. His introduction is one of the quietest sequences and winds up being the most entrancing. I suspect he, more than Ultron, will be what gets the most people talking in the category of new characters.

What’s interesting about Ultron as the chief villain is the gray area he thrusts the Avengers into. It’s all well and good when a mysterious army descends upon New York to be defended by the group, but when they are the creator of the threat, the onus to protect civilians is that much greater. Thus for better or worse, much of our battle sequence time is dedicated to getting the innocent populous out of range. A novel concern for a blockbuster really, though one wonders how much care they receive from the Stark Relief Fund in the aftermath what with their country destroyed…This responsibility is what causes the most strife amongst our original team. With the next Captain America film being Civil War—a comic book conflict that saw Cap and Stark fighting over a government registration of the super powered— it’s really exciting to see that seed of disagreement take root, evencoming to blows in a way they hadn’t since Thor was still a stranger to humans.

As you may have guessed with all my talk of hero in-fighting and quiet sequences being the best, I truly believe that the real power in these films ultimately comes from the scenes where things aren’t exploding. These actors have lived in these characters for years now and Whedon wisely gives them a couple extended sequences in which they just get to be human for a while. Of course they would all try and lift Thor’s hammer (side note: Thor in a red sports coat? Four for you wardrobe department), and hey, maybe some of them even have a family life, how crazy. There’s especially touching exchanges between Ruffalo’s Banner and Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanov, both damaged in their own ways, that remind you just what an amazing caliber of actors this cast contains. Not to mention it’s especially pertinent to highlight their humanity in the face of legions of evil robots. I came away wishing for more of this in fact, since as far as I counted the film had four major city-leveling sequences to the first film’s two. Still, the destruction-fatigue continues to be offset by the cleverness embedded in the action—Cap’s shield certainly is a team player, even if that Hammer isn’t—and the cool new players in the field.

The 14^th annual Tribeca Film Fest was held from April 15^th to 26^th in lower Manhattan. Media Mikes had the opportunity to speak to many of the creative minds behind the films making their premieres over the course of the Fest. You can read my coverage by clicking on any of the posters below and check back to see more additions:

“The Tribeca Film Festival helps filmmakers reach the broadest possible audience, enabling the international film community and general public to experience the power of cinema and promote New York City as a major filmmaking center. It is well known for being a diverse international film festival that supports emerging and established directors.

Founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff in 2001, following the attacks on the World Trade Center, to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of the lower Manhattan district through an annual celebration of film, music, and culture, the Festival brings the industry and community together around storytelling.

The Tribeca Film Festival has screened more than 1,600 films from more than 80 countries since its first edition in 2002. Since inception, it has attracted an international audience of more than 4.9 million attendees, and has generated an estimated $900 million in economic activity for New York City.”

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Iconic British comedy group Monty Python reunited at New York’s Beacon Theater on April 24th to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of their film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The showing was part of a celebration of all things Python, including screenings of Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life and the new documentary The Meaning of Live at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Beacon Theater attendees were treated to a showing of the classic comedy and a post show discussion between group members Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, John Cleese and Eric Idle with moderator John Oliver. Along with the Pythons themselves, other famous audience members that came out for the group included original Broadway Spamalot cast member Hank Azaria, comedian Rachel Harris and A Fish Called Wanda co-star Kevin Kline.

On the carpet outside the theater, I got the chance to speak with the always-animated director, Terry Gilliam who braved the crowded carpet to share his tongue in cheek thoughts on his co-conspirators, New York audiences and comedy at large.

Terry Gilliam: Hello this is a nice quiet part of the carpet.
Lauren Damon: How are you doing?
Gilliam: I’m doing fine, it’s nice down here. They’re all [the assorted Pythons] just making fools of themselves. It’s awful when you’re past seventy and they’re just desperate for any attention!
LD: How does it feel to be here with the film in this festival?
Gilliam: Well. It feels like I’m here for the festival. That’s what it feels like, nothing more, nothing less!
LD: When you were making the film back then–
Gilliam: Yeah we knew we were gonna be here. We knew we were gonna be here 40 years on. Every day we were shooting we said ‘I CAN’T WAIT! Forty years from now, we’ll be at the Tribeca Film Festival! C’mon boys, action! Cut! Action! Cut!’ We’re ready to go. And here we are. We were right.

LD: Having debuted Spamalot here [Eric Idle’s smash 2005 Broadway musical based on the film]–
Gilliam: Spamalot? Horrible! It was a terrible thing! Eric did that, he ripped us off. He ripped us off and he’s made a fortune on our hard work. Yeah.
LD: But it capitalized on a whole New York audience that you’re back with tonight.
Gilliam: I love taking advantage of New York audiences. They’re fantastic. They’re too rich. They’re too smart. They MUST be taken advantage of!

LD: How did working in Monty Python help you with your directing career?
Gilliam: Well it taught me never to work with the other Pythons. That was the most important thing to my career. Because they’d been obviously holding me back for all those years Python was alive. And luckily once I got away from them, my career shot. Pew!

LD: Do you think comics are too nervous about offending people these days?
Gilliam: Offense is a very important part of life. And people who are afraid to offend obviously aren’t saying what they really think. I think people have got to learn to develop thicker skin and start learning to laugh again. That’s what’s so funny. People are frightened of saying what they think anymore and offense is crucial. People gotta just learn to live with it–“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me…It a dangerous business, comedy. Just because there’s lunatics out there, you shouldn’t change the way you think about life. I mean the fact that there are more religious lunatics out there than there were when we did “Life of Brian” is not my fault! [laughs]

LD: If you had to cast a “Holy Grail” or “Life of Brian” with today’s comedy stars, who would you choose?
Gilliam: Oh, I don’t even know what’s going in the world anymore. I’m in my own little world, I’m a hermit now. I live at the bottom of the garden and I’ve got a nice little place. I only am allowed out every ten years like this! [laughs]

Jeppe Rønde’s harrowing new drama Bridgend made its debut during the Tribeca Film Festival this past week with both the director and star Hannah Murray (“Game of Thrones”) in attendance. Bridgend is based on the true story of a massive series of teen suicides that occurred in a small town in Wales. The suicides received media coverage at a point where seventy-nine young people had taken their lives between 2007 and 2012. In the film, teenager Sarah (Murray) moves to Brigend with her police officer father and quickly finds herself running with the pack of local teens who’ve recently lost some of their peers to suicide. They are a wild bunch who borderline worship the deceased and memorialize them in an anonymous online chat. All the while Sarah’s father, like the rest of the community, seeks to find what is causing this horrible phenomenon.

This mystery intrigued director Rønde who spent time in the actual community and eventually shot the film there on location. Rønde and Murray both spoke to me on the red carpet about how important it was to dramatize the town’s story in a respectful manner.

Lauren Damon: You spent time in the actual community of Bridgend, what was that like and did you go there with the goal of developing a film about it?
Jeppe Rønde: I went there with the–a goal is a strong word–but I went there to try and find out what is this about? And why is this tragedy happening? Which is of course may be a mystery, because it doesn’t make sense. Why do so many youngsters kill themselves? So I was trying to figure out how can this happen? And how can it keep on going?

LD: Was Hannah’s character influenced by a particular story that you found there?
JR: Not particular, but I wrote the whole script through all the characters that I met there. Many of them. And I mixed them into, you know, one character. So you couldn’t do like a one-to-one, ‘oh this is that character’, because I would never be able to do that. Because that would be morally incorrect. So I built it on the reality I met but also making it a fiction which was important to me. Because it cannot be too close to the real people living there…

LD: How did you find filming in the actual location?
JR: Actually to film on the location was very important to me. Because you feel the presence of what is there. The geography is specific. There’s a fog coming, you know every day it rains a lot. And it can feel depressing. And at the same time it is extremely beautiful. And it was easy for me to get the actors into this state of mind that I wanted them to be in.

LD: How much preparation went into your work with the DP to get this very ominous atmosphere?
JR: Of course we wanted to push forward a feeling of something that would be this collective subconsciousness. Something that’s within us that’s a darkness. So we wanted to put that also into the shot.

LD: What would you want audiences to take away from the ending of the film?
JR: I hope that they will take away from the ending that this is something that is beyond understanding of who we are as human beings. That there’s something in us that we don’t know what it is…that if we do look into it carefully, then we can maybe choose one or the other. Because it is an open ending.

LD: Is this still going on? All the suicide statistics associated with the town seem to come from 2007 and 2012.
JR: Because that’s the only figures that you can find officially. But unfortunately yes, it is still happening. From what I heard and no one really knows, but the media was shut down in 2010. So it’s difficult to say, but you would have to ask the authorities there.

Hannah Murray, who currently plays Gilly on “Game of Thrones” had a breakout role in the UK teen TV drama “Skins” but saw the role of Sarah as a wholly different teen.

LD: What was your initial reaction to the script?
Hannah Murray: I’d never done something that was based on you know, based loosely on true events. I felt a huge sense of responsibility and I didn’t really want to get involved unless I thought things were going to be done sensitivly and respectfully. And when I had been offered the part I had a meeting with Jeppe to ask him why he wanted to make this film because I was worried about someone, I don’t know, wanting to do it in a kind of half-hearted way or taking advantage. So when I understood how long he’d taken to research it and how dedicated he was to the subject matter, and how involved he’d become with the community, I thought ‘Oh, you’re going to do this right and you’re going to do this honestly and bravely and compassionately.’ So that made me decide that it was something that it was worth jumping into.

LD: How was it shooting in that location?
HM: I don’t think we could have made the movie anywhere else. When you go there, you feel something very unique about that place and it’s beautiful. It’s incredibly beautiful but in a very bleak way. And there’s something kind of almost mystical and strange about it. I loved being there but it was, yeah you do feel a sort of sense of darkness in the air. Maybe that was because of the story we were telling though, I’m sure.

LD: You have this background coming from “Skins” of acting in the midst of a bunch of wild teens, did you feel a little like you were tapping into that again?
HM: I mean I feel like they’re incredibly different projects in sort of every way. Skins shows a dark side of teenage life but it also shows an incredibly fun and comedic side of teenage life. And in this, I mean, one of my friends saw this movie and described it as a gangster movie. Which I think is a really really interesting way of looking at it. And I think there’s a kind of, there’s a level of tribalism in this world that is so much more severe than anything that related to my teen experience. Whereas “Skins” I could kind of go like ‘Oh yeah, it was fun, we went to parties.” It was very different.

LD: How was it different on set with between the days you had you just acting with the pack of young actors versus the more intimate, intense scenes of just your character and her father?
HM: I mean that was one of the most amazing things about the project was all the different people I was working with were so different in terms of experience they’d had and the types of things they’d brought to these characters. So yeah, I remember every day we had the gang there it was just like this injection of energy and they were so exciting and would throw all these amazing lines that they’d improvised…And they would talk a thousand words a minute. And when I was working with Steve [Waddington] I felt like a child and when I was working with the kids I felt more like an adult because I felt sort of more responsible for them. And then I also had the love story with Josh O’Connor, which was a whole other element to play out…but I love everyone who worked on the film. It was such an amazing group of people.

LD: Finally, congratulations of continuing with Game of Thrones–especially this season’s opener being their highest rated–
HM: Oh was it?
LD: Apparently
HM: Oh that’s great!

LD: Why do you think the audience just keeps growing for it?
HM: I think it’s a REALLY good TV show. I think people put an incredible amount of hard work into it. The production values are really high and I just think David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] and George [RR Martin] are geniuses. I just think they’re so smart…And George created this amazing world in the books and these incredible characters and then the way David and Dan have adapted it is beyond. I think they’re so so smart.

LD: And how many times a day does Kit Harrington have to hear he knows nothing?
HM: He gets told quite a few times. Not by our crew, but I’ve seen people come up to him in the street and that’s allllways the thing they want to say to him.

LD: How about you, do you get fan recognition out and about?
HM: Um, a bit. Less so than I think some of the others. I think because I’m–well, now I have red hair, but I’m normally blond in real life whereas I have dark hair in the show so I can kind of be a little bit more under the radar. But I still, I’m surprised how many people still spot me. I think because there are so many fans of the show.

Stephen Fingleton’s post apocalypse drama, The Survivalist held its NY premiere at the Tribeca Film Fest on Thursday April 16th with the stars and director in attendance. Martin McCann takes center stage in the film as the survivalist who has a small farm in the woods and a strict solitary routine to keep himself alive.

Lauren Damon: Was it daunting for you to receive a script where your character spends so much time in silence?
Martin McCann: No no, I just think when you’ve got a silent script, you’ve got more of an opportunity to appear a better than you actually are. Because most actors mess things up when they’ve got lines! [laughs]

The Survivalist’s routine is broken by the appearance of mother-daughter travellers, Milja and Kathryn, played by Olwen Fouere and Mia Goth.

LD: Did you two have a backstory worked out for this pair of characters?
Mia Goth: Well you know, you never actually find that out in the movie either so you sort of, you know–which was a lot of fun–you get to create your own idea of what that character was and who she was as we lead up to where we meet her in our story. And I think I kind of just got the sense that she was just a normal girl, an ordinary girl, thrown into like extraordinary circumstances. And she, I don’t know, just shows great bravery and resiiliance and that was one of the things that I found most compelling and [made] me wanting to be involved in this. I thought it was very empowering.   
Olwen Fouere: We sort of did, yeah. We sort of did together and seperately. You know, I think what I thought was important was that we would each have a very strong internal life. So we would have individually worked towards that…And I think that it was also important that there was sort of a distance between the two of them as well, you know, because one of the points of the film is how it overthrows societal norms and the whole idea of family values, which of course is a whole idea that’s falling apart now anyway.

LD: The Survivalist adds to a long string of recent bleak post-apocalyptic views of the future on film, what do you think the appeal of that genre is?
McCann: Sometimes the truth hurts. And even though it’s a science fiction idea, you know post-apocalyptic and in the future, the inevitability of the life we’re living is that resources will run out. So I think there’s a weird sort of effect that that has.
Fouere: Well I think perhaps the world is starting to question the fact that with the explosive of our population, of the human race, and that the human race is becoming the greatest virus on the face of the Earth. So I think maybe people are beginning to realize that and you know, I think that’s what happens at a critical time is people start to envision what might happen. What the future might hold and how you might address things.

You can read my review of The Survivalist here.

RiffTrax Live! took the stage at the Tribeca Film Festival for their first ever New York show on April 17th. The crew consisted of the talent behind classic TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000, Mike J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett. Although MST3K went off the air officially in 1999, their particular brand of humor, consisting of running commentary on classic terrible B-movies got a new life in the form of RiffTrax. With RiffTrax, the guys have shed their MST3K alter-egos (Bill as Crow T Robot, Kevin as Tom Servo and Mike as…Mike) and have broadened their scope to include live shows and downloadable tracks riffing on mainstream studio films. For their Tribeca audience, the guys presented Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 “disasterpiece” The Room. I caught up with the trio on their red carpet. In true RiffTrax fashion while Mike posed in front of photographers, Kevin and Bill stalled off ­to the side to riff on his technique before all heading over for a hilarious chat about what they do:

Lauren Damon: So…why The Room?

Mike Lawrence: Have you seen it?
LD: Yep
Mike: Yeah. I mean it’s the weirdest movie ever, it has to be done.
Bill Corbett: It is the Citizen Kane of bad movies.

LD: Have you guys ever met Tommy Wiseau, does he know what you’re up to?
Mike: Oh yes.
Bill: Yeah, he has to agree to this, believe it or not.

LD: Does he think the movie is good?
Kevin Murphy: I think he was confused at first. He didn’t know exactly—He thought we were stealing his film at first—
Bill: He thought we were stealing his soul!
Kevin: But then he realized we were just having fun with it and he already knows people have fun with the film.
Bill: Yeah
Kevin: He’s accepted it and he’s embraced it so—
Bill: He decided to call it a comedy.
Mike: He’s a good sport about it.
Kevin: He’s a very good sport about it.

LD: And you’ll be doing this again live?
Kevin: We’re doing it live, May 6th, Rifftrax.com for all the information
Bill: Across the land!

LD: And you’ll have new material on this same film every time?
Bill: Yeah, this will probably change, yeah. This is very different from the one we recorded before, yeah, it’ll change a lot.

LD: Can you also talk about how with Rifftrax you switched from Mystery Science 3000 riffing on B-movies to now these downloadable tracks for mainstream movies?
Mike: Well we’ve never had a chance to do them, since we can’t get the rights to them, and the technology allowed it was just like there’s a whole bunch of movies out there that are opened up by doing it that way.
Kevin: It helped us to get some of these big, more recent films for our live shows. Like we’re doing Sharknado 2 in July. Yeah and then what’s that big blockbuster? Santa and The Ice Cream Bunny. [laughing]
Bill: George Lucas’s, I believe?
Kevin: [laughing] I think so, yes, in December.

LD: I enjoy downloading your tracks on my favorite movies. I have all your Marvel universe ones, because I’ve seen them a ton of times and I like to get a ‘new take’ on them.
Kevin: Yeah [all laughing] I’m glad we can provide that for you!
Bill: If we can do NOTHING else, it’s talk about the Hulk’s schlong.

LD: Do you miss your Mystery Science Theatre 3000 alter-egos, your robots?
Bill: I miss being Mike. I played Mike, you realize that don’t you?
Kevin: It’s amazing.
Mike: Make up. Hours in the chair.
Kevin: And Mike was Crow but he wasn’t a puppet, it was make up. It was just all make up. No, I had the opportunity to bring one of the show puppets home after the show was over and I said I don’t want that thing around my house. It would be like Anthony Hopkins in Magic [in presumably a demon puppet voice] “Chop your head off Kevin, CHOP YOUR HEAD OFF!”
Bill: KEVIN! KEEEEEVIN!

When you started MST3K almost 30 years ago did you ever think you’d be doing anything similar all this time later?
Kevin: No
Bill: I thought I’d work as like a bus boy or a porter or be, I don’t know on the Bowery.
Mike: I was sure I’d be back at TGIFridays. I still remember all the codes for extra broccoli.
Bill: Something to fall back on.
Kevin: We kinda were in job transitions and it seemed like fun so we did it and boom, we’re still here.
Bill: Well At this point we have no other discernible skill set. So we kind of have to do it.
Kevin: Yeah we kind of boned ourselves here!

LD: Do you go to see ‘real movies’? Are you in MS3TK mode, how  are you about people talking during films?
All: Oh yeah.
Bill: By all means, oh yeah. I hate people who talk in the movie theater! I’m really a prig and a tight-ass when it comes to that.
Kevin: “SHUSH!!” It’s true.

LD: Do you think, with rights issues, there will ever be a return to the MS3TK characters or that format?
Kevin: Really not up to us because we’re not really controlling—or owners of the company in any way. So…
Bill: I think they will be resurrected on the last days of EARTH. Like…the living and the dead…
Kevin: All the immortal souls.
Bill: Definitely that!

LD: Because it continues to have such life with dvds…
Kevin: Well, wait for the rapture, we’ll see what happens!
Bill: And this movie [The Room] will be the thing that kicks off the rapture.
Mike: Luckily you don’t have to wait very long at all.

Fortunately, the presentation at Tribeca did not bring about the rapture–although I can’t make any promises for the May 6th nationwide broadcast–but it was a hell of a good time. Not only were audiences treated to The Room, but the gang pre-gamed with a black and white children’s safety film, “Live and Learn” that featured more lessons than you can shake a dangerous pointed stick at. My face hurt from laughing and the crowd gave the trio a standing O.

Tickets for the May 6^th broadcast of Rifftrax Live: The Room are available via Fathom Events

Starring: Russell Crowe, Jai Courtney and Olga Kurylenko
Directed by: Russell Crowe
Rated: R
Running time: 1 hour 51 mins
Warner Brothers

Our Score: 5 out of 5 stars

Here’s a little trivia for you. What do these people all have in common: Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson and Ron Howard? The answer is that they are all well-known actors who have won an Oscar for directing. If Hollywood thought like me, this list could also include Paul Newman, Rob Reiner, Barbra Streisand and Penny Marshall. It should already include Ben Affleck and I wouldn’t be surprised if it one day includes George Clooney. I mention all this because there is a very good chance another name could join this group soon: Russell Crowe.

Turkey, 1915. As the incredibly brutal Battle of Gallipoli rages on, the Turkish troops, led by Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan) prepare for their assault on the invading Australian forces. As they charge towards the sea they are shocked to find no resistance. As they overrun the barricades they see that the Aussies have withdrawn. History will tell us that the Australian army lost over 10,000 people here; the Turks 17,000. But it will take a father’s love to begin to give all of those lost souls some sense of peace.

Brilliant in every way, “The Water Diviner” has already been honored in its native country, winning three Australian Academy Awards, including Best Picture out of a total of eight nominations. Incredibly Russell Crowe’s direction went un-nominated. There was a time many years ago when Crowe would have gone out, got pissed and kicked some asses for this slight. And I would have been right beside him! Like Kevin Costner with “Dances with Wolves,” he has taken a prime piece of history and woven it into an epic piece of storytelling. Crowe plays Joshua Connor, a farmer whose three sons went off to battle and never came home. As the countryside is quite dry (we learn that sometimes it doesn’t rain for YEARS at a time), Connor often spends his days with divining rods, looking for a place to sink his next well. It has been four years since the wars ended and Connor’s wife still grieves. She also is in disbelief, insisting that Connor go into the boy’s room before bed and read to them. To appease her, he does, and it’s heartbreaking to watch this father surrounded by three empty beds trying to get through “The Arabian Nights.”

After another family tragedy Connor sets off to Turkey in the hopes of finding his sons bodies and having them buried at home. When he arrives in Istanbul he is greeted by a young lad named Orhan (Dylan Georgiades) who leads him to a hotel run by his mother, Ayshe (Kurylenko). Her husband has also not returned from battle but she refuses to accept his death, instead stressing to her son (and herself) that he is just “away.” This is unsettling to her brother-in-law, who feels he has a duty to take her as a wife and raise his brother’s son as his own. After some red-tape cutting, Connor finds himself in the battle zone, where British troops are constantly digging up new skeletons. Joining the British in this expedition is Major Hasan and his trusted assistant, Cemal (Cem Yilmaz). Learning when the boys died, the Major leads Connor to a section of beach that stretches for miles. When the officers are questioned by others why they should change everything (they’re method of operations) for one father who can’t stay put Major Hasan replies, “because he is the only father who came looking.”

As an actor, Crowe has seldom been better. His devotion to family, his bonding with young Orhan, the growing respect and admiration he has for Orhan’s mother (and she for him) is evident in every frame. As Ayshe, Kurylenko is strong and brave, refusing to give up her husband’s memory. Erdogan and Yilmaz and also excellent, allowing just a bit of decency to creep through their military ethic. Technically, the film is beautifully done. The photography, both during the battle scenes and later, when taking in the beautiful Turkish countryside, is outstanding. Production values are top notch all around and the musical score, by David Hirshfelder (“Shine,” the recent “John Doe: Vigilante”) helps provide the right emotional cues. “The Water Diviner” is a first rate classic that’s sure to be remembered come Oscar time.

Starring: Jakob Salvati, David Henrie, and Emily Watson
Directed By: Alejandro Gomez
Rated: PG-13
Running Time: 100 minutes
Open Road Films

Our Score: 2 out of 5 stars

Good intentions, on a movie’s end, can only mean something if the message is delivered in a clear and concise manner. There’s an awkward juggling act going on in “Little Boy” between one too many themes and one too many outlandish characters. All of them eventually get whittled down to blunt stereotypes. There’s a sentimental message in “Little Boy”, but it’s packaged in so many weird and different ways, it ultimately becomes a turn off by the film’s end. The movie’s good intentions can easily be seen as insensitive manipulation.

“Little Boy” has its heart in the right place, but it goes about showing it’s tenderness in the wrong way. Pepper (Salvati) is an adorable little lad, that has stunted growth, or at the most, a growth spurt that is literally waiting around the corner. His best friend, and only friend, is his dad, James (Michael Rapaport). They play together, they imagine together, and they dream together. Their scenes together are thoughtful, but hammy. When Pepper’s obnoxious brother London (Henrie), can’t go overseas to protect our freedom during WWII, because he’s too much of a flat footed doofus, the government instead hand picks James.

“Little Boy” could be have been complacent with this set-up and followed the story of a boy trying to land back on his feet after the departure, and loss, of his best friend. But instead there’s an exhausting list of confusing story arcs and plot points. There’s the town priest that shamelessly ties in the boys confusion and misery with a path towards spiritual enlightenment. There’s a Japanese immigrant in town that draws the ire of the boy, as well as some wince inducing scenes of a young child using derogatory slurs in a vicious manner. There’s the boy’s comic book hero that, through a live performance of the comic book material, convinces Pepper that he’s magical. Then there’s the shoehorned role of Kevin James as a doctor who does nothing in his scenes but eat and flirt with Pepper’s heartbroken mom.

It’s a confusing mess with no steady focus or fluid plot path. There are also some scenes that seem really inconsiderate to the material it’s handling. One scene that comes to mind involves the moving attempting to draw parallels between Pepper being bullied and his father being captured by the enemy to be forced into a POW work camp for torture and starvation. “Little Boy” treats delicate topics similarly to how Lenny from “Of Mice and Men” pets a rabbit.

This isn’t an outright disaster. Some steady and impressive performances by Tom Wilkinson, Emma Watson, and Cary-Hiroyuk Tagawa keep the movie from completely derailing and their presence adds a nice level of believability to an otherwise silly concept. And maybe it’s because so much is happening without a clear future, but there is a level of uncertainty as the movie progresses. Even if you think you know what will happen, it does manage to throw a few curves, even though they’re very sappy.

“Little Boy” is shot on 35mm film stock, which may be a turn off for some who expect crystal clear clarity, but it does somehow add to the general nostalgia of this WWII era film (although I did spot a 21st century currency being used). The movie may have worked best as a flick about tolerance towards other people and the misconceptions our society still has. Or, as I said earlier, it could be about the trials and tribulations of a boy attempting to grow up while his father fights for our freedom. At the end of the day though, the acting skills of Salvati represent the childish direction of a director who clearly hasn’t grasped the concept of mature, thematic content that is the basis for strong dramas.

Director: Kevin Pollak
Starring: Jimmy Fallon, Freddie Prinze Jr, Judd Apatow, Christopher Guest
Runtime: 94 minutes
Heretic Films

Our Score: 2 out of 5 stars

Watching Kevin Pollak’s new documentary, which held its NY premiere at the Tribeca Film Fest last night, I had a newfound appreciation for Jerry Seinfeld’s web series ‘Comedians in Cars getting Coffee’. On that short series, now in its 5th season, Seinfeld tools around in a carefully selected retro vehicle with a guest comedian shooting the breeze on life and comedy, eventually parking at a cafe to wrap up their conversation with a meal. At roughly twenty minutes an episode that series exerts more visual flair while getting more to the heart of each of its individual guests than the star-studded but tedious, ninety minute Misery Loves Comedy.

In one and two shot setups, Pollak’s interviewees–numbering over fifty and spanning generations and countries–are encouraged to speak of their influences, their best and worst sets and the ostensible thesis, must one be miserable to succeed in comedy? That question, is just one of a dozen or so title-carded themes upon which the editors of the doc loosely tether what must have been days of content into some sort of order. The trouble with this structure is it is exhausting, lacking any sort of commentary or interaction from filmmakers, or even performance footage of standup.

The amount of star power is blinding, but the excitement is tempered when you realize all of its subjects will be exclusively in isolation. This format has been increasingly bested recently by webcasts like Marc Maron’s WTF, Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist, and yes the aforementioned Seinfeld series. While there are a number of laugh out loud anecdotes from the likes of Jim Jefferies, Stephen Merchant and Christopher Guest, the quantity over quality approach of this film lacks the depth suggested by its title.

Starring: Lucien Maisel, Christopher McDonald and Joe Flaherty
Directed by: Jacob Medjuck and Tony Dean Smith
Not Rated
Running time: 1 hour 28 mins
Portara Pictures

Our Score: 4 out of 5 stars

For some people, the start of summer means school is out and you have the next 10 weeks to just do nothing. Unless you were sent to camp. This is where we meet Fetus (Maisel), a very wise-beyond-his-years boy who has once again been sent away for the summer. Staying in a cabin that time forgot, named the Monkey Bin, Fetus is reunited with three other returnees: Grandpa (Jesse Camacho), who spends all day in his bathrobe, puffs on a pipe and often complains about his arthritis; Reckless (Scott Beaudin), the rule breaker and Toast (David Gibson McLean) who is introduced, via the smooth narration of John Cusack, as one who “likes guns.” We also meet New Kid

(Keegan Hiltz), who is given the moniker even though he’s been to camp before. If this all sounds fairly familiar, it’s because I think all of us, whether we went to camp or not, can think back to those few friends we had as kids that we still associate with today.

A cross between “Meatballs” and “Stand by Me,” “Age of Summerhood” makes great use of its outdoor locations to show kids as they are rarely portrayed on screen: as kids. I was certainly reminded of a time when you would leave the house at 8:00 a.m. and not come home until dinner, having filled the time between with adventures you shared with your pals. Be it making new friends or discovering your first love, childhood is that rare part of your life where YOU decide your fate. You can be the troublemaker, the lovesick optimist or, unfortunately, the sleep-walking bed-wetter. The unfortunate part is that he walks in his sleep and then wets in your bed!

The cast is another rarity – actual kids. There’s not a twenty year old playing thirteen in the place! All of the young actors bring an extra sense of believability to their performances just by being themselves. On the adult side, both McDonald and Flaherty deliver the laughs constantly. Also spot on is the film’s musical soundtrack, ranging from the theme from “St. Elmo’s Fire” as the camp’s wake-up music to such good times oldies as “Sweet City Woman.” If I had one problem with the film, which is not rated, is that it features some scenes that might be a little mature for its target audience. Of course, so did “Meatballs,” so “Summerhood” is in good company.

“Age of Summerhood” is currently available on home video and at Amazon and is a fine feature film debut for filmmaker Jacob Medjuck. Keep it in mind when school is out and the kids are looking for something to do.