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Exclusive: Factory 25 has acquired world rights to Rotterdam competition title The Heirloom from debut filmmaker Ben Petrie.

The company will hand the pic a theatrical release in the U.S. this fall followed by a worldwide digital release in Q1 2025.

Starring Petrie and his frequent collaborator Grace Glowicki (Strawberry Mansion), who also co-produced and shares a story credit, the features an appearance from Matt Johnson (Blackberry), Andrew Chown (Her Friend Adam), and Leah Doz (Adult Adoption). The film follows a neurotic couple whose relationship is brought to the edge by the arrival of a traumatized rescue dog.

Shot in Toronto, Canada, the film debuted at the 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam, and most recently screened at Raindance in London and Filmfest München in Munich.

The Heirloom is produced by Petrie, Glowicki, and Justin Elchakieh. Production companies are Cheekdance Spectacular and Cedar Films. Kelly Jeffrey lensed the film. His credits include...

Exclusive: Brooklyn-based indie film distribution and production company Factory 25 has acquired North American theatrical rights on writer-director Kit Zauhar’s sophomore feature This Closeness, which debuted at SXSW 2023.

The film will begin its theatrical run at the IFC Center in New York City on June 7, with further engagements and a worldwide digital release on Mubi on July 3.

The film stars Zane Pais (Margot At The Wedding) and Ian Edlund with Zauhar also starring as she did on her first feature Actual People, which debuted at Locarno in 2021. Factory 25 also released that film. Actress and singer Jessie Pinnick (Princess Cyd) and multimedia artist Kate Williams round out the cast.

Following SXSW, This Closeness screened at the Philadelphia Film Festival, the Champs-Élysées Film Festival, and the Seattle International Film Festival, where it received a special jury mention for best ensemble cast in the New American Cinema Competition.

This Closeness is produced...

Continuing a series of writers highlighting underseen films available to stream, a recommendation for a warm and humane comedy about an unusual love triangle

When critics talk about the “mumblecore” movement – a catch-all term for the intimate, unadorned and semi-improvisational films that flourished with the rise of the digital camera – they at least have the courtesy to credit Andrew Bujalski as its progenitor with Funny Ha Ha in 2002. Yet in that film and the two deft relationship comedies that followed, Mutual Appreciation and Beeswax, Bujalski was genuinely attempting something new, reproducing the common conversational hiccups that get buffed out of screenplay. The “ums” and sentence fragments and awkward little stops-and-starts not only fed into a distinct naturalism, but underlined the uncertainty at the core of his characters’ lives. He’s a poet of postgrad drift.

Related: My streaming gem: why you should watch The Kindergarten Teacher...

Andrew Bujalski's Mutual Appreciation (2005) is showing June 14 - July 13, 2019 on Mubi in the United States in a new restoration.Andrew Bujalski premiered his second film Mutual Appreciation at SXSW in 2005. Around the same time, his first—Funny Ha Ha—had its official theatrical release, a few years after it had premiered. The two films made their impression on rising independent filmmakers, bringing a focus on naturalistic conversation and self-reflecting portrayals of twenty-somethings that differed from the voicings of Generation X prior. Bujalski also appeared in Joe Swanberg’s seminal Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007), alongside a then-unknown Greta Gerwig, and despite the under-recognition of those early films in the mid-2000s, it’s easy to see how they laid the foundations for the wider success and cultural impact of Swanberg’s Easy (2016–2019) and the Gerwig-penned Frances Ha (2012) and Lady Bird (2017). Bujalski’s most recent—Support the Girls (2018)—earned him and...

Fourteen years later, “Mutual Appreciation” is returning to theaters. Andrew Bujalski’s sophomore feature — preceded by “Funny Ha Ha” and followed most recently by “Computer Chess,” “Results,” and “Support the Girls” — helped him earn the “godfather of mumblecore” nickname, for better and for worse. Arbelos Films is re-releasing the black-and-white drama, which Bujalski co-starred in. Watch the trailer below.

Here’s the logline: “An instant critic’s darling upon its release in 2006, ‘Mutual Appreciation’ is at once an utterly timeless and distinctly mid-aughts portrait of the ebb and flow of twenty-something life in New York City. Richly observed and deeply humanist, the film follows Alan (Justin Rice), an aspiring musician, who crash-lands in town following the breakup of his band in Boston, immediately taking up with his old friends Ellie (Rachel Clift) and Lawrence (Bujalski) while negotiating the affections of a local radio DJ (Seung-Min Lee). In the tradition of Éric Rohmer,...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’re highlighting the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

Disobedience (Sebastían Lelio)

It starts with a London-based rabbi speaking from his heart about the complexities of life. He stammers through — obviously ailing — until collapse. Suddenly we’re in New York City watching a photographer in-session with tattooed seniors. The phone rings and we know. She (Rachel Weisz’s Ronit Krushka) is the daughter of that rabbi and he has passed away. The assumption is that both these worlds will subsequently collide in reunion. Tears will be shed and hugs had. But that’s not quite the case with Sebastían Lelio’s Disobedience. Ronit has been gone for some time and the leaving wasn’t under good terms.

To those of us who have toiled at fast food joints designed to be as alienating and as profitable as possible, the feeling is a painfully recognizable one: After eight hours of working on your feet, peddling here and there—but mostly staying in the same, agonizingly static position—your knees begin to give, your back to seize, and your feet to cramp. Lisa (Regina Hall), the manager of a Hooters knockoff located somewhere between the highways and byways of Austin, Texas, knows the physical cost of streamlined labor all too well. On the single day portrayed in Andrew Bujalski’s Support the Girls, this tenacious yet tender middle-aged black woman mostly pulls off the virtuosic juggling act demanded of her. As new recruits are hired (to keep up with the accelerated turnover at low-income jobs) and long-standing ones wrangled, the troupe of young, scantily-clad waitresses prepare for the day ahead.

Though Andrew Bujalski’s budgets have deservedly improved over the long sixteen-year span in which he has been active, his films still retain that unique and almost inexplicable sense of honest humanity present in his debut film “Funny Ha Ha.” That film wooed even the most stubborn critics and launched an entirely new subgenre of American independent filmmaking and earned the filmmaker the title of “Godfather of Mumblecore.” Bujalksi has certainly grown as a filmmaker in this time but, amazingly, never at the cost of his D.I.Y.

Continue reading Andrew Bujalski’s ‘Support The Girls’ Is A Sincere, Optimistic Film Filled With Career-Best Performances [Review] at The Playlist.

Regina Hall is best known for broad comedies like the “Scary Movie” franchise and the studio-backed “Girls Trip” and “Think Like A Man,” but she’s ready to take an indie movie gamble later this year as the star of Andrew Bujalski’s “Support the Girls.” Bujalski, the mumblecore director best known for “Funny Ha Ha” and “Computer Chess,” carves out a feminist comedy-drama from the story about a group of local waitresses at a Hooters-inspired restaurant.

The official synopsis from Magnolia reads: “Lisa Conroy (Hall) is the last person you’d expect to find in a highway-side ‘sports bar with curves,’ but as general manager at Double Whammies, she’s come to love the place and its customers. An incurable den mother, she nurtures and protects her girls fiercely, but over the course of one trying day, her optimism is battered from every direction. Double Whammies sells a big,...

Double Whammy is the kind of roadside “breasturant” that sells escapism alongside their fried food and burgers. They may in fact be a dying breed as those damn millennials are choosing to eat healthy, fresh, local, and artisanal; or as we’re told by Double Whammy’s national competition, Man Cave – millennials prefer booties. This is the kind of place with “big ass” or “man size” beers, big screen TVs, and “cute” young waitresses instructed to flirt with clientele. And it’s the setting for the most mainstream comedy yet from Andrew Bujalski, a founding member of Mumblecore. Director of pioneering films of the sub-genre like Funny Ha Ha and Beeswax, Bujalski’s latest film, Support The Girls, is a very funny drama following a day in the life of manager Lisa, as played brilliantly by Regina Hall.

The day starts like any other at an establishment along an Austin...

“Life keeps throwing you bullshit,” says Lisa (Regina Hall), in Andrew Bujalski’s remarkable “Support the Girls,” a thoughtful and touching look at the day in the life of a woman running an Austin sports bar, and her maternal support of the scantily clad waitresses who answer to her. Lisa has to put up with a lot of bullshit: an attempted robbery, unruly sexist customers, the bar’s obnoxious owner (James LeGros), marriage troubles, and her own staff. But she juggles each new challenge with a steely resolve that makes her one of Bujalski’s greatest characters, the indefatigable creation of a filmmaker who excels at exploring the nuances of human behavior.

There’s nothing subtle about Lisa’s place of an employment, the crudely named Double Whammies, where she oversees a sexist operation with an unusual amount of dignity. The movie unfolds as a succession of small moments, with...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

The Big Sick (Michael Showalter)

From start to finish, The Big Sick, directed by Michael Showalter, works as a lovingly-rendered, cinematic answer to the dinner party question: “So how did you two meet?” Based on comedian Kumail Nanjiani‘s real life (he co-wrote the screenplay with his wife Emily V. Gordon), we meet Kumail (Nanjiani) as he finishes a stand-up set in Chicago. He becomes fast friends with a...

A cinematic guide to confronting postgrad malaise.Fox Searchlight Pictures

It’s getting to be that time of year where if you listen closely, you can hear millions of parents asking soon-to-be graduates about their plans for the future. Transitioning out of an academic setting can be tricky. And with it comes a very specific kind of funk; a strange and aimless limbo aggravated by the dreaded…so — now what?

I’ve heard that millennials are adult babies and back in the day dinosaurs walked uphill both ways and payed for their entire tuition with the quarters they earned selling lemonade during the summer. Which is to say: the financial and social pressures shouldered by recent graduates are very real existential threats. Thankfully, small comfort though it may be, the disenchanted former student has more than a few cinematic role models to choose from. The postgrad film, older sibling to the high school coming-of-age-movie, concerns...

There are some very fine films about emotionally and/or financially flailing college grads — think Reality Bites, The Last Days of Disco, Funny Ha Ha, Adventureland and Tiny Furniture. Get a Job, an unfortunate new comedy starring Miles Teller and Anna Kendrick, isn't one of them. To put things in starker context: The mediocre recent How to Be Single, in which Dakota Johnson and Rebel Wilson gal-palled around Manhattan, positively sparkles in comparison to this dimwitted and grindingly tedious chronicle of millennial angst. Get a Job was shot in 2012, and you can feel those four dust-collecting years

read more...

An avid student of the depiction of youth in movies, I’ve taken to calling the twenties, as we live them nowadays, the benties, after the British word “bent,” for messed up. And, while I realize not everyone will have found this decade of late adolescence / imposed maturity as disconcerting as all that, I know for a fact that most Millennials will be hard-pressed to argue this point. It’s why we’re called the Me-Me-Me Generation after all: for us, the top-down pressure to grow up, move out and settle down rarely takes before the big 3-0 starts looming large. Perhaps, with a little less “luck” on our side, we too might look to the extraordinary lives of, say, Kelly Reichardt’s young female characters, and strive to fight adversity to heroic results. But, for the purposes of this list, we’ll concern ourselves with the simpler, not necessarily brighter,...

When "Arrow" kicks off its new season Wednesday, fans will undoubtedly notice that Star City's crime-fighting archer has turned over a brand new leaf -- an emerald one, to be precise.

Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) spent the first three seasons of his successful CW series battling his inner demons by shooting holes in them with arrows, but after screening the superb Season 4 premiere, Moviefone is happy to report our hero has finally learned healthier ways to cope.

Last season ended with Ollie jumping into a convertible with his ladylove Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) as the two of them quite literally took the long and windy road toward happily ever after. A few months have passed by the time Season 4 picks up, but Oliver's shiny new disposition still holds strong. He eventually winds his way back to Star City, of course, but not before rebranding himself as the Green Arrow, complete with his greenest suit yet.

Meet some of the best directors working today, who haven't gone down the blockbuster movie route...

Ever find it a bit lame when the same big name directors get kicked around for every high profile project? Christopher Nolan, Jj Abrams, maybe the Russo Brothers? With so much focus on blockbuster films these days, getting a major franchise job seems like the main acknowledgement of success for a filmmaker. And yes, both the financial and creative rewards can be great. But there are plenty of other directors out there, doing their own thing, from art house auteurs to Dtv action specialists.

Here are 25 examples.

Lee Hardcastle

Even if you don’t know his name, you’ve probably seen Lee Hardcastle’s ultraviolent claymations shared on social media. He first started getting noticed for his two-minute remake of The Thing, starring the famous stop motion penguin Pingu. Far from just a cheap one-joke mash-up,...

Though he dislikes the term himself, Andrew Bujalski is widely regarded as the linchpin of the nebulous mumblecore scene that spawned the likes of the Duplass brothers, Joe Swanberg and Lynn Shelton. Whilst his first three features possess the low budget and shaggy tone that define the scene, Bujalski's films have always been more keenly and delicately observed than many of his peers and the likes of Funny Ha Ha (2002), Mutual Appreciation (2005) and Beeswax (2009) possess a tenderness and interest in their characters that few filmmakers are capable of.

Read More: Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders Take Center Stage in Posters for Sundance Hit 'Results' Almost exactly 10 years ago, Andrew Bujalski was being interviewed by Indiewire contributor Michael Koresky when the filmmaker made an off-the-cuff remark that would haunt him. Shortly after the premiere of Bujalski's sophomore feature "Mutual Appreciation" at the South by Southwest Film Festival, the same week that his debut "Funny Ha Ha" landed on DVD, Bujalski was asked about other contemporary filmmakers whose work — as Koresky put it — "harmonized" with his own. Bujalski recalled rumblings of a "movement" at SXSW, the same year that Joe Swanberg's debut "Kissing on the Mouth" premiered and the Duplass brothers' "The Puffy Chair" won an audience prize. "My sound mixer named the movement 'mumblecore,'" Bujalski said, "which is pretty catchy." In short order, Bujalski wouldn't think so. Two years...

Results came out of Sundance this year, and shows director Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation) moving into more polished comedy than the very low-key films that originally made his name. This one stars Guy Pearce, Cobie Smulders, and Kevin Corrigan as an unlikely trio who are united by Corrigan’s neediness and depression after a divorce. And that […]

The post ‘Results’ Trailer: Cobie Smulders Runs Circles Around Kevin Corrigan appeared first on /Film.

Read More: Exclusive: Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders Take Center Stage in Posters for Sundance Hit 'Results' Writer-director Andrew Bujalski is best known as the "Godfather of Mumblecore" thanks to low budget indies "Funny Ha Ha" (2002) and "Mutual Appreciation" (2005), but he's following in the footsteps of contemporaries Joe Swanberg and Lynn Shelton by making the jump to more accessible mainstream comedies in his latest project, "Results." A critical and fan favorite at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, the film stars Cobie Smulders, Guy Pearce and Kevin Corrigan. The official synopsis reads: "Recently divorced, newly rich, and utterly miserable, Danny (Corrigan) would seem to be the perfect test subject for a definitive look at the relationship between money and happiness. Danny's well-funded ennui is interrupted by a momentous trip to the local gym, where he meets self-styled guru-owner Trevor (Pearce) and irresistibly...

"You really do sound married." There's plenty of potential indie darlings hitting theaters this summer among the normal blockbuster fare, and one film coming from the 2015 Sundance Film Festival to the big screen is Results. The comedy stars Guy Pearce, Cobie Smulders and Kevin Corrigan in both a professional and romantic love triangle. Mumblecore director Andrew Bujalski steps up to more polished filmmaking with his latest effort, and the first trailer has just arrived. This was one I missed at Sundance, and while the trailer looks amusing, it also looks like it meanders quite a bit, so I'm not sure what to think. Here's the first trailer for Andrew Bujalski's Results, originally from Apple: Results is written and directed by Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation). Recently divorced, newly rich, and utterly miserable, Danny (Kevin Corrigan) would seem to be the perfect test subject for a definitive look...

Mumblecore filmmakers are really breaking out of that limited ghetto as of late. Joe Swanberg has tapped into something great with actors like Anna Kendrick and Jake Johnson, with films like “Drinking Buddies” and “Digging For Fire.” The Duplass Brothers have long since had success in the mainstream world, including their terrific new HBO show “Togetherness.” In the last few years, Lynn Shelton and Drake Doremus have also graduated into, how should we put it, more polished filmmaking. Next in line is Andrew Bujalski, once dubbed “the godfather of mumblecore,” who made two key entries in the genre, “Funny Ha Ha” and “Mutual Appreciation.” At Sundance 2015, Bujalski stepped up with his most mainstream effort to date, “Results,” with quite the name cast, including Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders. And he did so with some pretty hilarious, well, results. The sometimes delusional culture of self-improvement — actualizing your dreams and achieving your goals to instant happiness.

If you couldn't tell from the reactions on social media, It was a very good year in Park City (well, at least on the narrative side). The 2015 Sundance Film Festival featured a dramatic competition with far fewer bad eggs than usual, a Next slate which once again got people excited, a number of the noncompetitive premieres that surprised (we're looking at you "Brooklyn"), two closing night films that were reportedly pretty good (a rare occurrence for any film festival) and acclaimed movies that landed distribution deals which you'll be talking about all year long.   While we endeavored to post as many individual reviews as possible the intensity of Sundance often makes it quite difficult to review everything.  Especially, when you've seen 23 1/2 movies over 8 days.*  Therefore, this post will include a number of capsule reviews for films HitFix has not individually reviewed, my thoughts on films Drew McWeeny and Dan Fienberg...

"Set in the world of Texas fitness instructors and starring some big-name actors, Andrew Bujalski’s Results looks at first like a concerted attempt to cross over into the world of mainstream rom-coms," begins Bilge Ebiri at Vulture. "But look again." We're collecting reviews of Bujalski's followup to Computer Chess and before that, Beeswax, Mutual Appreciation and Funny Ha Ha. Results features Guy Pearce, Kevin Corrigan and Cobie Smulders. "A perfectly chosen cast sells this unhurried comedy," finds John DeFore in the Hollywood Reporter. » - David Hudson...

"Set in the world of Texas fitness instructors and starring some big-name actors, Andrew Bujalski’s Results looks at first like a concerted attempt to cross over into the world of mainstream rom-coms," begins Bilge Ebiri at Vulture. "But look again." We're collecting reviews of Bujalski's followup to Computer Chess and before that, Beeswax, Mutual Appreciation and Funny Ha Ha. Results features Guy Pearce, Kevin Corrigan and Cobie Smulders. "A perfectly chosen cast sells this unhurried comedy," finds John DeFore in the Hollywood Reporter. » - David Hudson...

Austrian-born cinematographer Matthias Grunsky has been a steady collaborator of director Andrew Bujalski from his 2001 debut, Funny Ha Ha to the more recent Computer Chess, for which Grunsky was nominated for Best Cinematography at the Independent Spirit Awards. From grainy black-and-white to what appears to be a slicker look for their latest, Results, Grunsky has adapted his technique to Bujalski’s desire for small crews and low-key environments. Below, Grunsky discusses that process as well as the detailed testing process he undertakes on his pictures. Results premieres Tuesday, January 27 in the Dramatic Competition of the Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: […]...

Austrian-born cinematographer Matthias Grunsky has been a steady collaborator of director Andrew Bujalski from his 2001 debut, Funny Ha Ha to the more recent Computer Chess, for which Grunsky was nominated for Best Cinematography at the Independent Spirit Awards. From grainy black-and-white to what appears to be a slicker look for their latest, Results, Grunsky has adapted his technique to Bujalski’s desire for small crews and low-key environments. Below, Grunsky discusses that process as well as the detailed testing process he undertakes on his pictures. Results premieres Tuesday, January 27 in the Dramatic Competition of the Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: […]...

“Even when you’re falling in love with somebody, even when you’re having a beautiful kiss that you’ll remember for the rest of your life, something could still be terribly wrong.” That’s Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha, Computer Chess) in this brief video teasing his fifth feature Results, which premieres later this month at the Sundance Film Festival. We still don’t have all that much detail on Bujalski’s first film to feature honest to goodness name actors: Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders topline, with Anthony Michael Hall and Giovanni Ribisi also part of the improbable cast. We know it’s a drama about gyms, working out, […]...

“Even when you’re falling in love with somebody, even when you’re having a beautiful kiss that you’ll remember for the rest of your life, something could still be terribly wrong.” That’s Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha, Computer Chess) in this brief video teasing his fifth feature Results, which premieres later this month at the Sundance Film Festival. We still don’t have all that much detail on Bujalski’s first film to feature honest to goodness name actors: Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders topline, with Anthony Michael Hall and Giovanni Ribisi also part of the improbable cast. We know it’s a drama about gyms, working out, […]...

Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess turned out to be the feel good film of Sundance and that’s not because the early gamers are particularly charming, but rather, better things come in small packages. Following Funny Ha Ha (2002), Mutual Appreciation (2005) and Beeswax (2009), this 30-something filmmaker, who in some circles is known as the godfather of the Mumblecore movement didn’t waste much time between the ’13 Sundance Film Fest Alfred Sloan Feature Film Prize winning micro-feature and his fifth, more macro-type budgeted ensemble project. Guy Pearce toplines alongside Cobie Smulders, Kevin Corrigan, Giovanni Ribisi, Brooklyn Decker, Anthony Michael Hall, SXSW Special Jury Prize Best Actor winner Tishuan Scott (The Retrieval) and Boyhood‘s Zoe Graham. Filming began in mid-summer on Results, and we’re assuming correctly by the first glimpse (see pic above) we got in September that this will bow in Park City with the director’s habitual stopover at SXSW.

New York City may not want for nascent filmmakers, but said filmmakers are certainly in need of more grassroots screening venues. Fortuitously, The Tank, a Midtown West arts presenter that specializes in comedy, dance, music and storytelling, is rebooting its film program, dubbed Filmmaker Breakthroughs, this October. Headed up by critic Nick McCarthy, the programming seeks to showcase exciting new talent across short and long form narrative, documentary and animated formats. A one-time haven for Andrew Bujalski’s Funny Ha Ha, as well as Hal Hartley and Jem Cohen’s early works, McCarthy hopes the latest iteration of The Tank’s film arm […]...

New York City may not want for nascent filmmakers, but said filmmakers are certainly in need of more grassroots screening venues. Fortuitously, The Tank, a Midtown West arts presenter that specializes in comedy, dance, music and storytelling, is rebooting its film program, dubbed Filmmaker Breakthroughs, this October. Headed up by critic Nick McCarthy, the programming seeks to showcase exciting new talent across short and long form narrative, documentary and animated formats. A one-time haven for Andrew Bujalski’s Funny Ha Ha, as well as Hal Hartley and Jem Cohen’s early works, McCarthy hopes the latest iteration of The Tank’s film arm […]...

Directed by the godfather of the American mumblecore movement, Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation and Beeswax), and selected by The New York Times last summer as one of 'Twenty Directors to Watch', Computer Chess (2013) is poignant, absurd and downright hilarious. To celebrate the Dual Format release of Bujalski's new film this coming Monday (20 January), we have Three copies of Computer Chess to give away to our readers, courtesy of UK distributors Eureka. This is an exclusive competition for our Facebook and Twitter fans, so if you haven't already, 'Like' us at facebook.com/CineVueUK or follow us @CineVue before answering the question below.

★★★★☆An alumni of the mumblecore school for young American filmmakers, Andrew Bujalski is generally regarded as having made the first 'official' film of this demonstrably divisive sub-genre with Funny Ha Ha (2002). His fourth feature, Computer Chess (2013), successfully utilises this minimal and heavily naturalistic approach to tell the tale of a fictional chess competition between competitive computer programmers in the early 1980s. It may only be recent history, but in this tablet-obsessed world the sight of a computer the size of a washing machine being wheeled around for chess feels truly ancient.

The experiment seems healthy enough. Take 10 incredible performers from 2013, get random lines of dialogue from 10 other creatives, snag some shoot time with Janusz Kaminski and deliver something poetic for the end of the year. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the results of The New York Times Magazine “Making a Scene” project are an eyebrow-stretching blend of unintentional hilariousness and forced high art importance. Make no mistake, Kaminski knows how to shoot. We’ve known that since (at least) Schindler’s List, and a reminder is always welcomed, but it’s disheartening to see so much talent utilized in the pursuit of whatever is going on here. In one scene Cate Blanchett sits down to a delicious fish in a pristine setting, utters a line provided by mumblecore maven Andrew Bujalski, then throws herself back against the bench with Norma Desmond-esque gusto. In another, Bradley Cooper rage dances in a puddle. Thanks to Greta Gerwig and Adele Exarchopoulos there are...

Geeks struggle to make grandmasters out of computers, and to connect with the real world too, in an eccentric mock-doc

The fascinating spectre of the "Mechanical Turk", a chess-playing automaton that hid a real player, rears its head in the opening moments of this mock-doc-cum-existential-comedy from Funny Ha Ha director Andrew Bujalski.

Shot on authentically grainy early 80s video cameras, the film follows a conference of socially inept geeks struggling to teach bulky computers to play a game once considered the very index of human intelligence, only to discover that the machines are becoming moody.

Crossing paths with a self-awareness couples group sharing the conference hotel, the programmers are variously prodded into (artificial?) interaction with profoundly awkward results. Odd, but in a good(ish) way.

Rating: 3/5

ComedyComedyMark Kermode

theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our...

While fellow mumblecore alumni the Duplass brothers and Joe Swanberg have brought their intimate, stripped-down style to a larger audience, frontrunner of that short-lived movement, Andrew Bujalski, has taken his work in a decidedly more esoteric direction. The result is the wonderfully weird and playfully dreamlike Computer Chess. Bujalski has actually taken that lo-fi template he once helped create and he’s managed to drag it back to its even fuzzier roots. Imagine an episode of The Office, crossed with George Lucas’ visually-stark monochrome 1971 debut Thx 1138 and you’re still not even close to the eccentric charms on offer here.

Set sometime in the early 80s, a devoted, socially-awkward group of software programmers take over a bland hotel for a weekend dedicated to a series of computer chess tournaments. Tempers occasionally run high as contestants struggle with bug-ridden chess programs and the increasingly bizarre and inexplicable incidents which occur...

★★★★☆Indie darling Andrew Bujalski is widely considered to be the 'godfather of mumblecore', a movement that proffers amateur actors and slender plots designed primarily to examine personal relationships. His films to date, beginning with 2002's Funny Ha Ha, have been widely lauded for developing that sub-genre to explore themes grander than its minimalism might suggest. With several of his fellow alum bursting into the wider cinematic consciousness recently, the stage is set for the original trailblazer to follow suit. Caïssa willing, this could happen with his unconventional but endearing Computer Chess (2013).

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Reviewed as part of the 27th Leeds International Film Festival (6-21 Nov, 2013)

It is no coincidence that, for a film concerned with the consequences of pitching man against machine, Computer Chess tries to outsmart its audience from the outset. Its most immediate trick is in posing to be a found-footage documentary; precisely how you’d imagine an early ’80s chess convention held in a blandly anonymous Us hotel would look. Indeed, the effort with which this illusion is maintained is certainly commendable; everything from the technical jargon to the period setting strives towards authenticity. You might have your suspicions when our cameraman, shooting on a ’67 black- and-white Sony Portapak, somehow appears in the frame – but by then the game is already up.

Rather uniquely, the competitors are all chess software programmers pitting their computers against each other for a weekend tournament, vying for both the prize money and,...

As mumblecore legends Andrew Bujalski and Joe Swanberg release new films, Computer Chess and Drinking Buddies, Ryan Gilbey talks to them about the meandering legacy of a movement that irritated as many as it, um, inspired

Cinema history does not want for new waves. But the batch of lo-fi American movies referred to during the past decade as "mumblecore" may be the first example of a no-wave: a movement without movement, a revolution only in the sense of something going round and round with little discernible progress. All of the artists associated with it have moved on to some extent. Andrew Bujalski, the most skilful of the mumblecore group, has made the playful, experimental Computer Chess, released later this month. The prolific Joe Swanberg, whose loosey-goosey methods on early movies such as Hannah Takes the Stairs extended to living with his cast and crew in one apartment during production, directed...

DVD Release Date: Nov. 5, 2013

Price: DVD $29.95

Studio: Kino Lorber

It's man vs. machine in Computer Chess.

Set during a weekend-long computer chess tournament circa 1980, auteur Andrew Bujalski’s (Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation, Beeswax) 2013 comedy Computer Chess depicts a group of programmers engaged in a game of man vs. machine, and their chance collision with another subculture of aging New Agers in a touchy-feely encounter therapy workshop being held in the same hotel.

The movie, which is shot in Eighties video-styled black-and-white, transports viewers to a nostalgic moment when the contest between technology and the human spirit seemed a little more up for grabs. We get to know the eccentric geniuses possessed of the vision to teach a metal box to defeat man, literally, at his own game, laying the groundwork for artificial intelligence as we know it.

The winner of the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Award at the Sundance Film Festival,...

Moviefone's DVD of the Week:

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"

What's It About? The first installment of Peter Jackson's three-part adaptation of the beloved J.R.R. Tolken novel, "The Hobbit," follows an epic quest to retain a treasure. Martin Freeman stars as the titular Bilbo Baggins hobbit (the younger version of Ian Holm's Bilbo), who travels with a pack of dwarves to reclaim their stolen treasure from the vicious dragon Smaug.

Why We're In: While Jackson's "The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey" is in no way as grand or as incredible as his "Lord of the Rings" films, it is still a fun and worthy visualization of the book.

Moviefone's Top Blu-ray of the Week:

"James Dean: The Ultimate Collector's Edition"

What's It About? This collection features the three films that spanned the iconic actor's short career. In Elia Kazan's 1955 "East of Eden," Dean plays Cal,...

Director Adam Wingard has received rave reviews for his R-rated, home invasion horror-comedy You’re Next, which screened at several film festivals over the past couple of years and will be released August 23. But his often gore-drenched creative sensibility — and twisted sense of humor — is not everyone’s cup of Darjeeling. In the spring of 2007, for instance, the then just the 24-year-old Wingard appeared on the premiere episode of Fox TV’s On The Lot, a much-hyped but now little-remembered, Steven Spielberg-produced filmmakers’ competition with the first prize of a million-dollar development deal at Dreamworks. As Wingard recalls, he...

In 2013, the idea that "mumblecore" is over has finally been accepted with the near-simultaneous theatrical release of Andrew Bujalski's "Computer Chess" and the VOD release of Joe Swanberg's "Drinking Buddies," which hits theaters next month. When Bujalski's "Funny Ha Ha" emerged in 2002, "Sundance movies" were the innocuously quirky, modestly-budgeted norm, which didn't make for a clear new narrative about American indies. Bujalski's "Funny Ha Ha" and its direct descendants provided an easily parsable network of pricklier movies whose relationship to each other was clear both stylistically and in the number of overlapping people acting in or otherwise collaborating on others' work. Here's a look at some of the principle filmmakers from that group and where they are now.   Andrew Bujalski "Funny Ha Ha' marked  the first time I'd seen passive-aggressive conversations in which all involved have the paramount goal of not hurting each others' feelings captured with such.

This is a very strong weekend for indies and docs. In the land of wide releases, James Wan's frightener "The Conjuring" is receiving praise, but other titles are floundering. In the indie arena, Joshua Oppenheimer's "The Act of Killing" is an artful examination of genocide in Indonesia where filmmakers ask a group of former Indonesian death squad leaders to reenact a series of mass murders done upon those who dissented government authority in the 1960s. While there are some wincingly comic moments, this wildly colorful doc is dead-serious, deeply disturbing and, like a bloody car wreck, hard to look away from. Bring a strong stomach. Another doc in limited release is a gripping piece of investigative journalism, Gabriela Cowperthwaite's "Blackfish," about SeaWorld's captivity of orca whales and the lethal consequences that have arisen.  Meanwhile, the new film by "Funny Ha Ha" director and voice-of-the-millennials Andrew Bujalski hits Film Forum in New York.

The first thought upon sitting down for “Computer Chess” might be one of snobby resistance. Director Andrew Bujalski has been credited as the godfather of mumblecore, a movement that has produced a number of interesting pictures but one that still invites scorn for supposedly lowering the discourse of independent filmmaking. As usual, here he’s working with a collection of non-actors, though they may be the least photogenic bunch he’s ever shot: there’s certainly no one as bewitching as “Funny Ha Ha” star Kate Dollenmayer, or even as intriguingly polysexual as Alex Karpovsky in “Beeswax.” It’s a period picture taking place in 1980 and the film is shot on video using the technology of that era, giving the picture a fuzzy cable access look. Movie tickets cost a lot of money so when you see a visual like that, there’s a tendency to blanch, but what does...

In Andrew Bujalski's admirable, vaunted 2002 debut, Funny Ha Ha, the microbudget auteur and occasional actor's nervous temp, Mitchell, ineffectually attempts to seduce an aloof young lady over a bedroom chess match. As if pawns themselves, dependably obeying the established rules of conduct, the characters in Bujalski's films are consistently—um, yeah, like—passive, awkward, and inarticulate. Yet that chessboard is a coincidence, not foreshadowing, as neither that first film nor Bujalski's equally subdued, shaggily droll 16mm quasi-vérité ambles through post-collegiate ennui (2005's Mutual Appreciation and 2009's Beeswax, both slack in ambition but still baby steps forward) could have anticipated the profound leap of Computer Chess....

There is an immediate sense of change afoot in "Computer Chess," Andrew Bujalski's fourth feature as writer-director, visible to anyone familiar with his previous work. While Bujalski's influential "Funny Ha Ha" -- along with follow-ups "Mutual Appreciation" and "Beeswax" -- were almost defiantly shot on 16mm film and focused on the interpersonal relationships of chic (and sometimes not-to-chic) young adults, "Computer Chess" is a period piece set 30 years in the past and shot on low-grade analog video. Experientially, however, "Computer Chess" falls in line with its precedents while achieving much funnier, offbeat results. Focused on a group of proto-computer nerds involved in a tournament to devise first-rate chess software for their clunky machines, the movie relishes the awkward expressions of brilliance from its introverted leads. A savvy ensemble piece set over the course of a weekend-long hotel conference, "Computer Chess" echoes Bujalski's preceding efforts by...

Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess is the most daring feature film of the year. A bewildering and baffling trip back in time (to circa 1980), the movies follows a group of four-eyed super-nerds engaged in a unique chess tournament – in which their carefully designed computer programs face off against each other. Shot on 43-year-old video equipment (the Sony AVC3260, one of the earliest consumer cameras), the movie looks like a lost artifact from another era — with soupy black-and-white images that take on a ghostly pallor. If Bujalski is known for his lo-fi minimalist human comedies Funny Ha Ha, Mutual …...