Also out this week Blades of Glory, Year of the Dog, Altman loved, horror boxed, and more

Glenn Kenny's "The Discophile"
(posted 8/30/2007)

Movements used to be able to name themselves, and they came up with pretty good ones: "Dada." That worked. "Surrealism." Very nice. But a combination of half-assedness on the parts of movements themselves — disinclinations to come up with manifestoes and such — and mass-media mania to tag every inkling of a trend to come down the pike has resulted in an unusually high number of movement names. "Grunge" was much hated by the rockers for which it was putatively named. Similarly, some of the young, DIY filmmakers who engage in frequent collaborations with each other and have been called "members" of "Mumblecore" in venues such as the New York Times aren't crazy about that appellation. But it's too late now. "Mumblecore" began as a joke description of these rough-hewn productions chronicling the slacker anomie of urban 20-somethings, and it's not quite accurate — almost all the people in these films enunciate pretty clearly, being reasonably well-educated and all.

Noiseheads in LOL

I believe in films, not film movements, and some so-called "Mumblecore" pictures leave me decidedly cold. LOL, the second feature from Chicago-based writer-director-actor Joe Swanberg (it's actually credited as a film "by" Swanberg and his costars Kevin Bewersdorf and C. Mason Wells) is one of the good ones. It's a wry, seemingly offhand comedy-drama about that old staple, humans and their failure to connect. The twist here is that the three guys who aren't connecting to the actual or potential women in their lives — played by Swanberg, Bewersdorf, and Wells — are very much connected to their computers and cell phones.

This seems a potentially obvious point, but Swanberg and company make it with droll humor and genuinely sharp observation. A funny scene, complete with IM "subtitles," shows Swanberg and Wells conversing via computer in front of Brigid Reagan's alienated girlfriend Ada. All three are merely inches from each other. The most poignant case is that of Alex (Bewersdorf), who's so obsessed with an internet hottie (frequently flashing Kate Winterich) that he concocts an elaborate lie about touring with a friend's band in order to possibly meet her, and makes a stooge of the flesh-and-blood girl (Tipper Newton) who's practically rolling over in front of him to get his attention.