Modern Love Is Automatic

This past Friday Night, I had a chance to view Zach Clark's Modern Love is Automatic. I've been itching to see this since I first read about it at the SpoutBlog. I won't be staying for the entire duration for the festival this year, so when I got a message in my inbox about getting a free press screener, I jumped at the chance.

Modern Love tells the story of Lorraine Schultz, a nurse at a podiatrist's office (I believe), who after a series of unfortunate events, decides to channel her pain and anger by becoming a dominatrix. The movie also follows her new roommate, Adrian, as she tries to launch a modelling career.

Clark worked as an editor on Aaron Katz's Dance Party USA, and Modern Love has a stylization usually absent from this type of motion picture. (Not that stylization is necessary most of the time.)   "No Wave Douglas Sirk" isn't a bad description for this movie, but I see shades of Wes Anderson here, too; not only with the stylization but also with the characterization of Adrian and the sadness underneath it all.  Leading lady Melodie Sisk is a curvy, husky-voiced leading lady in the vein of Susan Hayward and Kathleen Turner, and Maggie Ross' comical performance conceals the innate desperation of Adrian.  The only bone I had to pick, really, was the death-metal music, which came off loud on my DVD player (but maybe sounds better in a theater setting).  Even that, however, seems to be compliant with The Yeah Yeah Yeahs production values of Modern Love.

I'm not a very good critic, but if you're going to SXSW this year, check this one out if you have the opportunity.  You can see it where and when at:

7:30 PM, Sunday March 15th - Alamo Ritz 2
9:00 PM, Thursday March 19th - Alamo Lamar 2
7:15 PM, Saturday March 21st - Alamo Lamar 2

Catching Up

I've been incredibly busy the last few days. Thursday and Friday were in the 50s, and I took advantage of that by doing a lot of walking. Thursday, I put some finishing touches on Are You From Bingo?, and yesterday I taped an introduction that will go on the on-demand and the video download of the movie.

This morning and in the early afternoon, I readied the Ry Russo-Young interview for The Film Panel Notetaker, and I plan on posting it Monday morning.

Last night, I watched a press screener of Modern Love is Automatic, which is premiering at SXSW this year. (I'll write more about it soon.) This afternoon, I saw The Wrestler, which was very good, but the wrestling scenes were pretty gruesome. Good to see Mickey Rourke back in the game, though. Tonight, I'm going to watch Luis Bunuel's Simon of the Desert, which looks really good.

When I found out that they were cutting all temps at Emerson, I was a little disappointed. Two months later, I realize that it may have been for the best. I've gotten a lot of stuff done that may have been very difficult to do otherwise, like Bingo, and the other projects I'm starting on now. The time off has given me a real chance to clear my head, and I'm in a much better place now.