Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: (Untitled) (2009)

6/27/2016

(Untitled) (2009) - Parker's clever NY art world satire

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Satire of the Year


A funny, elegant poster for Jonathan Parker's (Untitled)

(Untitled) is the fourth feature from co-writer-director Jonathan Parker (Bartleby (2001)). He has written it with Catherine DiNapoli (The Architect (2016)).

A co
ntrary avant-garde music composer gets professionally pummeled by his successful artist brother as he meets and falls for the gallery owner who sells his art and uses the proceeds to finance her experimental gallery.

Adam Goldberg (No Way Jose (2015)) is perfect as the dour protagonist, who makes compositions that involve kicking a bucket and rubbing a plastic dress. Marley Shelton (Planet Terror (2007)) is equally auspicious as the cool and ambitious but also likable gallery owner. Eion Bailey (Ray Donovan (2014), TV-series) is good as the brother whose commercial art is harmonious and colorful to look at but doesn't speak much to the characters (and me and maybe also my fellow audiences?) In smaller parts, Lucy Punch (Dinner for Schmucks (2010)) as a sweet clarinet player, Vinnie Jones (Throwdown (2014)) as an exponent of the adulated contemporary male artist and Ptolemy Slocum (Rock Jocks (2012)) as a weird minimalist are all good.
There's much good to be said of the film, whose title in Denmark and Sweden - A New York Love Affair - takes some of the edge from the film's look and also isn't a very inventive or appropriate title.

Marley Shelton in Jonathan Parker's (Untitled)

From the artful intro credit sequence to the film's end, it feels like a perfectly controlled film, not one in which any unexpected magic seems to seep in but a clever satire of the contemporary art world. It will especially appeal to audiences interested in art, artists and the art world. It poses questions of our definition of art and having some laughs at the expense of the whimsical art created by some today, while itself also seeming to be entirely for an inclusive approach to the issue.
Someone at one point in the film asks gallery owner Shelton how to distinguish between entertainment and art, and she gives a sharp answer that I'll let round off the review here:
"Entertainment never posed a problem it couldn't solve."

Related posts:

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 230k $ (North America)
= Unknown (likely a huge flop)
[(Untitled) was released October 23 and runs 96 minutes. Parker was inspired to the project from his own experiences as a sound artist in his youth and from his immediate family, which counts an art collector mother and an art student son. The film was shot in New York. It had a small release in the US, making 18k $ its opening weekend, and also played in Finland and the Netherlands. It was likely made for around 1 mil. $ and so theatrically looks like a huge flop. (Untitled) is fresh at 65 % at Rotten Tomatoes with a 6 critical average.]

What do you think of (Untitled)?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

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Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (17-24)

6/27/2016

(Untitled) (2009) - Parker's clever NY art world satire

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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (16-24)

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