Happiness (1998) - Solondz's presentation of American dysfunction is a great if bleak work

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+ Best Feel-Bad Movie of the Year 

 

A comics-styled poster of an assortment of the film's anxiety-ridden, secretive, unhappy characters beneath a sun-colored background for Todd Solondz's Happiness

Extreme loneliness and its ramifications, unaddressed pedophilia, substance abuse and permanent identity crisis are some of the problems of modern America that are probed in Happiness.

 

Happiness is written and directed by Todd Solondz (Fear, Anxiety & Depression (1989)).

The dialog in the film, - and in fact the entire script and the handling of suspense in its mostly separate character-centered stories, - are incredibly intelligent and pregnant with meanings and subtext. The film has a bold use of compositions, music, language and issues.

There are also fantastic performances, among others from Dylan Baker (Two Days in New York (2012)) as a child-rapist father, for most people the film's most disturbing character. There appears to be no taboos for Solondz here. My only reservation towards the film is that it leaves its audiences in a radical state of hopelessness and despair about the human condition - and nothing else.

 

Related post:

 

1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 2.2 mil. $

Box office: Reportedly 5.9 mil. $

= Uncertain but likely a box office success (reportedly returned 2.68 times its cost)

[Happiness premiered 15 May (Cannes Film Festival, out of the main competition) and runs 139 minutes. Shooting took place from August - October 1997 in Florida and New Jersey. The Sundance Film Festival found the film's portrayal of pedophilia "too disagreeable" and refused to accept it. The film's original US distributor dropped the film, which was eventually released unrated, after having gotten an NC-17 rating from the MPAA. It opened #15 to a 130k $ first weekend in 6 theaters in North America, where it widened to 60 theaters but didn't attain a higher ranking, grossing 2.9 mil. $ (49.2 % of the total gross). The-Numbers.com claim that the film made 3 mil. $ internationally (without any details to back it up), and if true, this makes it a box office success. It won a prize in Cannes, was nominated for 3 Independent Spirit awards and a Golden Globe, and it won a National Board of Review award, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Solondz returned with Storytelling (2001), and later made the semi-sequel to Happiness, Life During Wartime (2009). Baker returned in Oz (1998, TV-series) and theatrically in Celebrity (1998). Happiness is certified fresh at 81 % with a 7.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Happiness?

A Texas Funeral (1999) - Stars shine in Herron's under-seen and underrated dramedy

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+ Best Box Office Disaster + Best Independent Movie of the Year + Best Texas Movie of the Year + Most Under-Appreciated Movie of the Year  

 

A Camel and an old Buick on the flat plains of Texas on this sepia-toned poster for William Blake Herron's A Texas Funeral

The patriarch of the Whit family has past away, so the family gather in the house in Texas around the time of the funeral with their time there and engagement with the old man's will laying bare some secrets, resentments and envies - among the family's virtues.

A Texas Funeral is written and directed by great Illinoisan filmmaker William Blake Herron (Skin Art (1993)).

It is a refreshing, thoroughly well-made, Texan yarn, which both has the child's perspective (the boy is enormously well acted by Quinton Jones (Walker, Texas Ranger (2001, TV-series))) on the incidents in the strange family, along with adult issues concerning race, wealth, abortion and sexuality. From being a realistic drama about a colorful family, A Texas Funeral turns into a condensed boiler-room type story in the vein of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), when all the characters stay together one night, but it is still managed to feel natural, when dawn breaks, and Herron ties several very satisfying ends together on his funny and moving, worldly story.

There's outstanding performances from the fine cast: Robert Patrick (Kill Speed (2010)), Chris Noth (Crossing Jordan (2001, TV-series)), Grace Zabriskie (Psycho Sushi (1997)), Jane Adams (Wonder Boys (2000)), Isaiah Washington (Hurricane Season (2009)), Martin Sheen (Badlands (1973)); and particularly Patrick and Sheen are masterly. Michael Bonvillain (Felicity (1999-01)) has done the excellent photography. A Texas Funeral is a thoroughly pleasurable nightcap kind of movie.

 

Related post:

 

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Watch a 2-minute scene with Chris Noth from the film here

Cost: Unknown

Box office: Unknown

= Uncertain - likely a box office disaster

[A Texas Funeral premiered 7 September (Venice Film Festival) and runs 98 minutes. Shooting took place in October 1998 - ? in Texas. It was released in Italy and Germany in 2000 and 2001, and it is unclear whether the film was ever released more widely than at a couple of minor film festivals in the US. Its gross is unreported. Most likely this points to the independent film being a box office disaster. Herron withdrew from directing but did return as a screenwriter with The Bourne Identity (2002). Patrick returned in The Angry Beavers (1999, TV-series) and theatrically in Shogun Cop (1999); Sheen in 3 TV credits prior to his theatrical return in A Stranger in the Kingdom (1999). 678 IMDb users have given A Texas Funeral a 6.3/10 average rating.]

What do you think of A Texas Funeral?

Hung - season 1 (2009) - Ray Drecker overcomes bad circumstances in mostly promising dramedy

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The simple poster for Colette Burson and Dmitry Lipkin's Hung S1 gets its basic premise across effectively

Hung season 1 is a ten episodes long dramedy series, with each episode averaging 28 minutes, from husband-wife creator team Dmitry Lipkin (The Riches (2007-08)) and Colette Burson (Permanent (2017), writer-director). 

The series focuses on high school basket ball teacher, divorcee and middle-aged father Ray Drecker from the Detroit area, his struggles and exploits as a gigolo.

Following here is a short recap of the developments through the episodes of the season:

1. Ray Drecker's life has taken a downwards turn: His wife has left him, he has suffered kidney stones. His uninsured house burns down due to sketchy electric wiring, and his teenage children move away to live with their mother and her new husband Ronnie, while Ray lives in a tent on his property.
2. Ray meets unsuccessful poet Tanya Skagle in a motivational class for becoming a millionaire that he attends. She wants to conquer the world with her 'poetry bread', and the idea of prostituting Ray comes up. Ray accepts Tanya's former colleague Lenore (Rebecca Creskoff (Bates Motel (2014), TV-series)) as his first customer, a domineering woman whose job is to shop for rich people, but she loses his wallet during the commanding encounter. A firing round is announced at Ray's workplace, but he is only cautioned to stop cursing. His twin children Damon and Darby express a wish to move back to their dad.
3. Ray's ex-wife Jessica buys a sick dog for her family. Ray has a beef with his affluent neighbor. His pimp Tanya struggles with first customer Lenore, who refuses to pay for the sex and has even given herself a 400 $ commission. In exchange she gives Tanya some numbers of possible future clients.
4. Ray's students donate their earnings from a charity car wash to their down-on-his-luck teacher, but he is still unable to purchase the pillar that is necessary for the renovation of his home. Ray's second client (Margo Martindale (Beautiful Creatures (2013))) at first makes him ill, because she isn't immediately attractive, but on their second try, they achieve success.
5. Ray's third client, complicated blond Jemma (Natalie Zea (Under the Dome (2013), TV-series)), wants something with love and fate involved, which Ray finds difficult to improvise into existence on the spot. Jessica and Ron have the sick dog put to sleep, and Tanya gets rejected by motivational teacher Floyd (Steve Hytner (Should've Been Romeo (2012))), who is himself a major failure.
6. Jemma is proving to be a rather strange client; she pays Ray to accompany her to her therapist, and he is intrigued. - To the point where he kisses her in public, when his basketball team reap a rare victory, and Jessica and kids Damon and Darby stand gazing at them.
7. Tanya is in low spirits and hooks up with a photo artist, who hangs around the following day for two visits to her mother, while she also attempts to write poetry again. Meanwhile Ray tries to make it as his own pimp. Jemma is not interested in a conventional relationship, and Ray's neighbor's hot wife has sex with him but her payment turns out to just be to keep her husband from writing any more citations of complaint with Ray's property and behavior to the city authorities.
8. More troubles, as Ray visits Jessica and Ron for dinner. He also contracts a new, well-paying customer (Lauren Weedman (Looking: The Movie (2016), TV movie)), and Tanya continues to struggle with life.
9. Ray and Tanya are unsure of how to get more clients. Lenore suggests raising the prizes, and takes Jessica shopping (without realizing she is Ray's ex-wife), while Tanya suggests lowering them. Ray's son Damon might be gay, and he talks to Darby about it in a really funny scene on a climbing wall.
10. Tanya is very discouraged and freaks out about flies in her home and her runaway artist boyfriend. Ray discovers that he is up for a budget-dictated layoff from work and gives in to Lenore's continued offer of assistance, prompting that Ray and Tanya's 'Happiness Consultants' gigolo business becomes a three-person venture. Ray fucks his neighbor again. Lenore unknowingly books Jessica as a client for Ray, who ultimately leaves the appointment, before he would have revealed his new job to his ex-wife.

Hung begins very successfully with a hilarious, well-written and well-directed pilot that reveals that it has more content than its title, which refers to Ray's natural-born gift of being well-endowed between his legs, indicates.
Thomas Jane (The Buzzer (2006)) and Jane Adams (Silver Bullets (2011)) are both eminent and perfectly cast as Ray and Tanya, and Anne Heche (Nip/Tuck (2005), TV-series) is also quite good as Jessica, although her character isn't as fleshed out as theirs and talks a bit strange at times.
The show loses some of its freshness about half way through the season and becomes, at times, somewhat humdrum. It isn't above throwing in some gratuitous but not too lengthy shots of eroticism during some of its sex scenes, and it picks up again towards its last episode, ending in a very good and vibrant place. Hung has a couple of good leading characters (Ray and Tanya) and creates many funny situations. The first season is a mostly promising start.

Best episode:

1: Pilot - written by Burson & Lipkin; directed by master filmmaker Alexander Payne (The Descendants (2011)), who also served as an executive producer on the show
Ray's life is in a bad way. He attends a self-help class and locates his personal "winning tool".

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Alexander Payne: 2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]   
Nebraska (2013) or, Father and Son
Top 10: The best big hit movies reviewed by Film Excess to date  
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
The Descendants (2011) - Payne and Clooney score with a Hawaiian story of heartbreak, loss and family  
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] 
About Schmidt (2002) or, Dear Ndugu ...  
Election (1999) - Payne's high school politics dramedy

Cost: Unknown
Box office: None - TV-series
= Uncertain (but should likely be counted as a cable TV hit)
[Hung S1 premiered 28 June and ended its first run 13 September, totaling an estimated 280 minutes. Shooting took place in Michigan, including in Detroit. The season was nominated for a Primetime Emmy award and two Golden Globes (for Jane and Adams). I haven't been able to find the season's average HBO ratings, only that they were higher than season 2 and 3's average. The series declined in viewership until it was canceled after season 3. Season 2 boasted 2.46 mil. viewers, so S1 was at least higher than that. Hung was definitely not a highly expensive series in HBO's context, so its first season should probably be counted as a cable TV hit. Hung S1 is the series' highest rated on Rotten Tomatoes: It is rotten at 56 % with a 5.79/10 critical average.]

What do you think of Hung S1?