indieWIRE
Actress Katie Aselton is taking the Sundance stage next week with The Freebie, her first film as a director. Her husband, Mumblecore royalty Mark Duplass, encouraged Aselton to do what he and his brother did several years ago with The Puffy Chair. And like Puffy, Aselton’s film is debuting at this year’s Sundance in its new NEXT section. The film was shot by local cinematographer Benjamin Kasulke (Humpday, Walking to Werner, Brand Upon the Brain!) and edited by Nat Sanders (Humpday, $5 Cover: Seattle) Click the above link to read the full interview.
“BASS ACKWARDS” DIRECTOR LINAS PHILLIPS ON HIS NON-ROAD MOVIE ROAD MOVIE
Indie Wire
Director Linas Phillips is back with a new Seattle-based feature, Bass Ackwards, screening in Sundance’s new NEXT section. He previously directed and starred in the documentary “Walking to Werner,” which screened at HotDocs and the Austin Film Festival, and he also has a few acting credits under his belt. His latest follows a man, played by Phillips, driving a ‘76 VW van across America. When humble Linas, kicked off of his friend’s couch and spurned by his lover, finds a forgotten van on a llama farm outside Seattle, he begins lurching east with nothing to lose. Sundance beams that “his utterly original, lyrical, and visually exciting adventure has such a light touch that it quietly sneaks up and tugs you into an overpowering appreciation of being human.” Click the above link to read IndieWIRE’s interview with Phillips.
AV CLUB NAMES HUMPDAY SEVENTH BEST FILM OF 2009
The AV Club
The AV Club praised the local film saying, “Duplass, Leonard, and director Lynn Shelton succeed in making an outrageous premise utterly plausible, while scoring consistent laughs out of the tension between two men who truly love (and secretly envy) each other.”
HUMPDAY REVIWED BY SEATTLE TIMES
Seattle Times
Critic Moria McDonald calls Humpday a “beautifully acted” film that “is, at its heart, about friendship.” The made-in-Seattle film, a third feature for local writer/director Lynn Shelton, has two men at its center. Ben (Mark Duplass) is that guy in the mirror, married to Anna (Alycia Delmore) and living a responsible if somewhat uneventful life. Andrew (Joshua Leonard) is his buddy from wilder college days, an artsy drifter who turns up unexpectedly on Ben and Anna’s doorstep one night. Their friendship is rekindled, and a night of partying leads to a dare.” For more of this review click the above link.
LYNN SHELTON PROFILED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES
New York Times
On a recent rain-slogged morning, seated against the scarlet banquette of a restaurant in the westernmost reaches of Chelsea, Lynn Shelton pondered the number of public screenings of the festival sensation “Humpday” she has attended — not graced, mind you, in the mode of many a nerve-jangled director, but sat through to the film’s talky, halting, bittersweet end. A rough count was abandoned somewhere in the double digits. “The payoff for me is to be able to watch the film with an audience,” Ms. Shelton said. “I know that a lot of directors are obsessed with the things they wish had gone differently, so they find it painful because they see all the flaws. I was in the edit room for ‘Humpday’ the whole time, and I know all of the issues and problems that we overcame, so the flaws don’t scream to me. It’s the accomplishments that scream out.”
