Review: 'Ass Backwards' at Sundance Film Festival

HOLLYWOOD
 By Matt Patches , Hollywood.com Staff | Tuesday, January 22, 2013

People in the media continue to argue over whether "woman are funny" (OK, mostly Adam Carolla). But sift through the past decade of comedy and it's painfully obvious that when it comes to making us laugh, ladies can bring it. Hollywood is slowly latching onto this, pipelining more and more female-led projects with cross-gender appeal. The only problem is that most of them sideline what makes the actresses spark. A woman is either handed a generic romantic comedy in hopes they will elevate the material, or a high-concept vehicle with a meaty ensemble (Bridesmaids and 2013's Identity Thief fit in here). Can't a lady just be silly, stupid, and funny like their male counterparts?

Yes. Yes, they can. And yes, they should.

Sundance's midnight premiere slate is annually curated with the weirdest and wildest in independent film, and 2013 proved itself worthy with the Monday night premiere of Ass Backwards. Written by and starringHappy Endings star Casey Wilson and June Diane Raphael (NTSF:SD:SUV), Ass Backwards tracks two happily delusional, life long friends in New York City — Chloe (Wilson) is a "rising star" dancing in a glass box at a club, while Kate (Raphael) is the CEO of her own egg donor company — as they hit the road to participate in a 50th anniversary beauty pageant. In their early days, Chloe and Kate were pageant losers, tying for last place after one particularly disastrous competition. Now they aim to redeem themselves — as long as they can actually drive themselves back home.

Ass Backwards is straightforward like a female-driven comedy is rarely allowed to be in big studio movies. The two friends are morons, and Wilson and Raphael never back down from acting like idiots in the name of landing a laugh. Like Dumb and Dumber, or even more appropriate, the last female-pairing to be this fearless in his desire for stupidity, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Ass Backwards pushes buttons and presents ridiculousness that's also familiar. These are the type of girls who sing along to a skipping CD recording of "Take on Me," swoon over the voice of their British GPS system, pay back the hospitality of a lesbian commune by handing out sexual favors, and get star struck when they meet a meth junkie from their favorite rehab reality show. Unbalanced, but relatable.

What makes Romy and Michele forever watchable, and why Ass Backwards could be a breakout hit when it eventually arrives in theaters, is that both sets of space case characters love their lives and love each other. Chloe and Kate face off in a sultry dancing competition at a local strip club and are routinely found squatting on the side of the road, but they're journey bubbles over with friendship. Everyone hates them — minus Chloe's Dad (Vincent D'Onofrio), who hands over every dime from his "backwards hat" store to his daughter — except for themselves. Making it impossible for us not to love them.

Wilson and Raphael have unique comedic voices, as crass as any male counterpart with strong female identity. They go big and physical with Ass Backwards, dressing their alter egos in over the top costumes (or "high fashion," as it's known in New York) and letting loose in a way that recalls the early days of Jim Carrey. It helps that Wilson and Raphael both come from sketch comedy (SNL and a handful of Adult Swim shows, respectively). They're well-versed in hyper-specific characters — and ones we want to spend more time with, just to see what trouble they weasel their ways into. Romy and Michele only returned for a subpar direct-to-DVD sequel. Let's hope Ass Backwards finds a big enough audience that we get a few more rounds with the lovable disasters Chloe and Kate.

[Photo Credit: Prominent Pictures]

Review: 'The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman'

{Vincent has a small role at the beginning of the film as the boyfriend of Charlie's mother}

By Justin Lowe

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

PARK CITY – Commercials director Fredrik Bond makes a promising feature debut with this fanciful crime-drama romance that gratifyingly eschews strict genre classification. The film’s frequent violence and occasional nudity will clearly assure an “R” rating, but within that limited audience there’s plenty here to appeal to both the date crowd and crime-movie adherents, as well as fans of the two appealing leads.

Introduced in voiceover by an unseen Narrator (John Hurt), Charlie Countryman (Shia LaBeouf) is a bit of a lost soul and the death of his mother Katie (Melissa Leo) leaves him completely adrift. After she passes, he sees her in a vision and asks her for guidance – she tells him to go visit Bucharest. Lacking any other direction in his life, Charlie boards a Chicago flight headed for Romania and meets Victor (Ion Caramitru), a Romanian taxi driver on his way home to visit his daughter.

Casual conversation reveals a shared love for the hapless Chicago Cubs baseball team, but their newfound friendship is cut short when Victor peacefully passes away on the flight and Charlie experiences another vision: Victor telling him to deliver a gift that he was carrying to his daughter Gabi (Evan Rachel Wood). Charlie agrees, tracking her down at the airport when he arrives and consoling her as best he can before offering to assist with the disposition of her father’s body.

Later at the opera house where he watches her play cello in the orchestra, Charlie meets Gabi’s menacing ex-husband Nigel (Mads Mikkelsen), who has unfinished business with Victor over a missing videocassette that he now plans to settle with Gabi, but she turns him away. Later that night on a circuitous wander around the city, Charlie’s convinced he’s falling in love with Gabi, but she remains aloof and mysterious about her relationship with Nigel.

By coincidence, Charlie learns more about Nigel and Gabi from Darko (Til Schweiger), another gangster and associate of Nigel’s who runs customer shakedowns at a local nightclub. Darko’s looking for the same videotape that Nigel is seeking, plunging Charlie into a standoff between Gabi and the two heavies, even as the young couple is discovering the first glimmers of romance. Charlie will clearly need to elevate his game if he’s going to help extract Gabi from her perilous situation – if in fact she even wants to be rescued.

Screenwriter Matt Drake reportedly based the script on his personal experiences in Romania, but introduces some fanciful elements to the gritty narrative, such as Charlie’s ability to converse with the recently deceased, as well as the somewhat problematic device of the Narrator’s voiceover. Many of the omniscient observations made by the unidentified character can be directly deduced from the film’s plot and theme, making his rather ponderous pronouncements about love and fate seem almost ridiculously grandiose. Overall, however, Drake manages a taut balance between action and romance that’s consistently engaging.

With a scruffy demeanor and wide-eyed enthusiasm, LaBeouf projects a degree of emotional recklessness that’s both disarming and disconcerting to watch. Woods blends so capably into the role, with her distinctly European bearing and Romanian-accented speech, that she easily conceals her American origins. As her violent and unpredictable ex, Mikkelsen is chillingly proficient and although she appears only briefly, Leo registers strongly.

Supported by a dream team of producers, including Bona Fide Productions’ Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa, as well as Voltage Pictures’ Nicolas Chartier, Bond effectively incorporates the script’s more eccentric elements while keeping them grounded in the principal narrative. Production values are top-shelf overall, supported by a propulsive score and  strategically incorporated special effects.

Venue: Sundance Film Festival, Premieres

Production companies: Voltage Pictures, Bona Fide Productions

Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Evan Rachel Wood, Mads Mikkelsen, Til Schweiger, Rupert Grint, James Buckley, Vincent D’Onofrio, Melissa Leo, Ion Caramitru, John Hurt
  
Director: Fredrik Bond
Screenwriter: Matt Drake
Producers: Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa, Craig J. Flores, William Horberg
Executive Producers: Nicolas Chartier, Patrick Newall, Dean Parisot
Director of photography: Roman Vasyanov
Production designer: Joel Collins
Costume designer: Jennifer Johnson
Music: Christophe Beck, Deadmono
Editor: Hughes Winborne

Sales: CAA

No rating, 107 minutes

'Ass Backwards' with Vincent D'Onofrio screening at Sundance Film Festival in January

SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL OFFICIAL SITE

'Ass Backwards' aka 'Sister Spirit' has been submitted and will screen at the Sundance Film Festival 2013. I couldn't find the exact date as the schedule is not finalized at this time. The festival runs from January 17 - 27, 2013 in Park City, Utah. The festival was founded by Robert Redford.

Vincent on location when the movie was filmed.