Notizie

In terms of music and club culture, 1984 was a great time to be young. But what if you were too young? Jeff Roda's big screen début follows a group of 13 and 14-year-olds who really want to get into a nightclub and join the party. One of the bouncers - who may or may not be reliable - has agreed to sneak them in, but not until late, when the place is crowded and nobody will notice. In the meantime, they have to stay out of the way, so they hang out round the back, sitting on walls or kicking at the dirt, exchanging school gossip, bitching and flirting and discussing the big issues in life almost without noticing.

Early on, Roda makes no overt moves to centre any one character. Kids come and go and those with stronger personalities gradually make themselves known. Shel (Tanner Flood) has a classic.

"The Breakfast Club meets Waiting for Godot..." Now that's a funky pitch. But sounds good, kind of? Check out the official trailer for an indie comedy titled 18 to Party, the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Jeff Roda. This originally premiered at the Big Apple Film Festival last year, and also played at the Florida Film Festival this year. It's set in 1984 and takes place outside a small-town nightclub, where a group of 8th graders gather, grappling with a spate of recent suicides, UFO sightings, their absentee parents, and each other. Described by the festival as "a spot-on love letter to Gen X, awkward teenagers, and the transcendent power of friendship." The film stars Alivia Clark, Tanner Flood, Oliver GIfford, James Freedson-Jackson, Nolan Lyons, Sam McCarthy, Ivy Miller, Taylor Richardson, and Erich Schuett. It looks like classical indie filmmaking in a good way - no-budget project with a clever script about a time long gone.

A few Specialty distributors are taking advantage of the young year’s dearth of new titles to roll out smaller features they hope will grab attention away from established awards contenders. Cohen Media Group is opening The Aspern Papers today starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson in a drama set in Venice. The company’s Charles Cohen came on board as a producer early in the process. Paladin is handling theatrical for John J. Budion’s coming of age drama Rockaway starring Keidrich Sellati, opening in New York. Also opening is comedic noir Jobe’z World, which shot mostly guerrilla-style over a week in Manhattan.

The Aspern Papers

Director-writer: Julien Landais

Writers: Jean Pavans, Hannah Bhuiya, Henry James (novel)

Cast: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, Jon Kortajarena, Poppy Delevingne, Morgane Polanski, Alice Aufray, Barbara Meier, Lois Robbins

Distributor: Cohen Media Group

Drama The Aspern Papers,...

In today’s film news roundup, Ansel Elgort is going to high school, “Rockaway” gets a release, and “Suspiria” producer Bradley Fischer is honored.

Casting

Ansel Elgort has come aboard to star in the drama “The Great High School Imposter” for Participant Media and Condé Nast Entertainment.

The project is based on a Daniel Riley GQ Magazine article published this year about Artur Samarin, a young Ukranian man who posed as a teenager so he could be adopted by a childless couple in a small Pennsylvania town and became the top student in his high school. Saramin was five years older than he claimed. His adopted parents turned him into the authorities.

Mike Makowsky is adapting the script. Jeremy Steckler of Condé Nast Entertainment is producing. Makowsky, Elgort, and Emily Gerson Saines will be executive producers. Robert Kessel and Jonathan King are overseeing for Participant.

Elgort starred in “The Fault in Our Stars...

Six episodes were provided prior to broadcast.

I stand by my praise of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt‘s peerlessly bizarre freshman season. Co-creators Tina Fey and Robert Carlock created a world that not only felt weirdly truthful as its characters ran rampant through satisfying emotional beats, but was just plain weird. Robot maids were killed off, Don Draper was a maniacal cult leader, and ATMs gave out negative dollar bills. To put it plainly, Netflix saved a show that undoubtedly would never have seen its due on NBC. The cherry on top was a central theme of individuality, polished to a shine thanks to some welcomely diverse personalities that could have veered into grating stereotypes in lesser hands.

Now that Fey and Carlock have the canvas to run rampant with Netflix’s nebulous time restraints, not to mention a newly devout fanbase that knows the ins and outs of every Peeno...

This review is based on the first six episodes of season one, which were provided to us for review purposes prior to broadcast.

At one point during the endlessly giddy opening episode of Netflix’s new stab at binge-watching, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Ellie Kemper names the leader of the underground cult who trapped her in a bunker for 15 years. His name? Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne Senior Profit and CFO of Savior Rick’s Spooky Church of the Scary-Pocalypse. Who besides Tina Fey and long-time 30 Rock showrunner Robert Carlock could come up with something so flippantly brilliant?

The magical thing about Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt – besides Kimmy herself – is that the show continually merits pausing and rewinding to catch every sight gag, every motor-mouthed punchline, and every exasperated expression. It’s not sheer luck and circumstance that merits its fantastic pilot, but a love and sweetness that permeates every joke on...