FILM REVIEW: BESIDE STILL WATERS By: Faiz No comments

A "Whiskey Slap" scene in Beside Still Waters.

Drunk slap love

By Miranda Inganni

A group of friends gather for a final weekend at Daniel's (Ryan Eggold) recently departed parents' lake house in Chris Lowell's flick, Beside Still Waters. Drunken revelry ensues.

Despite having been close as kids, the clique has not convened since high school, not even for Daniels's parents' funeral. Self-pitying Daniel, who insists that he is fine with his parents' accidental (potentially violent) deaths, reunites the whole (easily categorized) gang: Tom (Beck Bennett), the class clown -- gay, drunk joker recently fired from his dad's law firm; Martin (Will Brill) and Abby (Erin Darke), the high school sweethearts -- unhappily married couple who are not having sex; Charley (Jessy Hodges), the bohemian --  fun-loving, free spirited, "anything goes" hippie chick; James (Brett Dalton), mister popular -- the Porsche-driving star of a crappy "reality" show; and Olivia (Britt Lower), the object of Daniel's unrequited love, and her fiancé, Henry (Reid Scott).

Using Henry as the fall guy (obviously he is a bad person, as he stole Daniel's true love and must be punished and stopped!), the gang gets extremely wasted, playing a terrible sounding and violent "game" called whiskey slaps, capturing the moments on Super 8 film, skinny dipping, etc. How they do not all end up drowned or in the hospital I do not know. Old flames are rekindled and crushes re-explored. Feelings are hurt. Relationships are damaged. But like most mainstream ensemble buddy movies, it all works out in the end.

Look, the acting is fine, the writing (by Lowell and Mohit Narang) is commendable in parts (I admit I chuckled here and there), namely the genuinely cleverly written/edited scene recollecting the previous night's adventures. But there are some oversights too. After Olivia yells at Daniel to stop acting like a child, he goes out and follows in his father's footsteps, or, more accurately, car tracks. Not exactly a mature way to handle his emotions. It would have been nice (and responsible!) if some mention had been made about alcoholism (a disease that, according to the NCAAD, affects over 17 million Americans) and the effects it can have. I am not asking for some preachy conversion conversation, but it goes completely unrecognized.

SLAMDANCE 2013: DIAMOND ON VINYL By: Faiz No comments

Charlie (Sonja Kinski) in Diamond on Vinyl.

Sexy talk

By Don Simpson

Henry (Brian McGuire) is addicted to collecting audio recordings of conversations no matter if they are albums from the 1950s or conversations clandestinely recorded on his portable recorder. This is all research and practice because Henry strives to record the perfect conversation.

It sounds innocent enough, right? Yeah, but the habit gets him in trouble when his fiancée (Nina Millin) discovers that he has been recording their lovemaking -- so much trouble that Henry is promptly kicked out of the house.

Enter Charlie (Sonja Kinski -- Klaus Kinski's granddaughter), an attractive, young, voyeuristic photographer who is excited by the possibility of creating audio recordings with Henry; except when Charlie says that she wants to "record something" her words drip with sexual innuendo.

Charlie and Henry begin to play make believe, recording improvised conversations together. Sometimes they develop new characters for their role
playing, other times they attempt to mimic various people they have met. To further their "research," they begin to engage unsuspecting strangers, secretly recording the resulting conversations. Charlie and Henry approach their lives as if performing a series of acting roles, attempting to achieve a greater level of realism by pretending they are someone else. It seems as though we never see the real Charlie or Henry, we only see whichever characters that they choose to play. The problem is that they do not always know when and where to draw the line. Boundaries are repeatedly crossed as voyeurism mutates into obsession.

Writer-director J.R. Hughto's cinematic chamber piece questions the authenticity of our selves -- specifically, what we say. Are we all just playing roles in this world? Do we sometimes adopt false personas in order to fit into certain situations? Do we sometimes over-think (mentally rehearse) what we are going to say? Do we, like Henry, strive to have the perfect conversation?