Rebecca Thomas‘ feature film debut is a touching and visceral journey through a young girl’s reassessment of her faith and discovery of all the secular world has to offer. Beginning on Rachel’s (the angelic Julia Garner) 15th birthday, the film documents her discovery of a mysterious cassette tape containing a song so enticing that she believes it’s the source of her subsequent pregnancy. “Pregnant by music”, Rachel escapes her her fundamentalist Mormon home to seek out the source of the tape and, on the way, meets Clyde (Rory Culkin), a delicate misfit who finds his home in their unconventional relationship.
The king of 90s misfit teen roles chose K.L. Going’s novel about an obese outcast finding his place in the world as the source material for his directorial debut. Matthew Lillard‘s adaptation of Fat Kid Rules the World is a heartfelt ode to unlikely friendships and stars Jacob Wysocki (Terri) as Troy, a teenager whose life is given purpose when punker and junkie Marcus (Matt O’Leary) thwarts his suicide attempt. At the world premiere, Lillard acknowledged SLC Punk!director James Merendino as inspiring his quest to tell true stories about teens on the outside, something he’s achieved in earnest here.
After the success of their independent features The Puffy Chair and Baghead, sibling directing duo Mark and Jay Duplass answered the call of Hollywood and invited star power into their follow-up efforts Cyrus (starring Jonah Hill, John C. Reilly, Catherine Keener and Marisa Tomei) and Jeff, Who Lives at Home (Jason Segel, Ed Helms, Susan Sarandon and Judy Greer). To mark their return to this year’s SXSW film slate with The Do-Deca Pentathlon, a comedy about two brothers who compete in a series of tests and events in secret during a family reunion, we chatted briefly with the brothers to ask them questions inspired by both their film and others in this year’s festival
What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen online?
People having sex. Have you ever seen that? It’s like… woah!
Who would you least like to happen upon your Cabin in the Woods on a weekend away?
A desperate annoying filmmaker like ourselves.
If the US became a fundamentalist Mormon community tomorrow, what would you miss most?
See question #1
What was the best music gig you’ve ever seen?
Bangles opening for Cutting Crew, summer of ’87. Seriously.
What are the Duplass family get-togethers like? Strawberry Shortcake on the television, frequent wardrobe changes, mind-games aimed at getting certain people to eat vegetables, and “tinkle” parties (we each have a daughter).
If you had a time machine, where/when would you go first?
We wouldn’t. Have you not seen Somewhere in Time? Don’t fuck with the time-space continuum, people.
What is the worst thing your sibling/s ever did to you?
Jay: Mark took 5 years off my life when he pulled a Psycho style attack on me in the shower.
Mark: Jay did not retaliate, and 28 years later, I’m still terrified of the payback.
After the success of their independent features The Puffy Chair and Baghead, sibling directing duo Mark and Jay Duplass answered the call of Hollywood and invited star power into their follow-up efforts Cyrus (starring Jonah Hill, John C. Reilly, Catherine Keener and Marisa Tomei) and Jeff, Who Lives at Home (Jason Segel, Ed Helms, Susan Sarandon and Judy Greer). To mark their return to this year’s SXSW film slate with The Do-Deca Pentathlon, a comedy about two brothers who compete in a series of tests and events in secret during a family reunion, we chatted briefly with the brothers to ask them questions inspired by both their film and others in this year’s festival
What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen online?
People having sex. Have you ever seen that? It’s like… woah!
Who would you least like to happen upon your Cabin in the Woods on a weekend away?
A desperate annoying filmmaker like ourselves.
If the US became a fundamentalist Mormon community tomorrow, what would you miss most?
See question #1
What was the best music gig you’ve ever seen?
Bangles opening for Cutting Crew, summer of ’87. Seriously.
What are the Duplass family get-togethers like? Strawberry Shortcake on the television, frequent wardrobe changes, mind-games aimed at getting certain people to eat vegetables, and “tinkle” parties (we each have a daughter).
If you had a time machine, where/when would you go first?
We wouldn’t. Have you not seen Somewhere in Time? Don’t fuck with the time-space continuum, people.
What is the worst thing your sibling/s ever did to you?
Jay: Mark took 5 years off my life when he pulled a Psycho style attack on me in the shower.
Mark: Jay did not retaliate, and 28 years later, I’m still terrified of the payback.
What kind of world would this be if we didn’t understand the complexities of language? We’re surrounded by such a vast variety that sometimes we get lost and need translation. Luckily, comedian/writer Mike Lacher of Wonder Tonic understands this predicament perfectly and has managed to bridge the language gap between “Classic Film Dialect” and “Brospeak.” Breathe a sigh of relief, boys—you can finally understand classics like Gone With the Wind and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Meant as nothing more than a humorous, post-modern take on classic cinema, “Classic Movies Subtitled for Bros” combines film images and moments we’ve come to know well and given them an entirely new twist, because we’ve all heard the Bro dialect once or twice and can probably recognize it at the drop of a hat. Take heed while watching this video, for you may never see the films in the same way again.
Lacher has certainly made something of this classic English to Brospeak translation concept–he has publishedOn the Bro’d, an entirely Brospeak version of Jack Kerouac’s classic novel On the Road. The book is set to be released April 15.
Here is a nifty idea brought to you buy the tech design crew over at Breakfast—Instaprint, an Instagram printing photo booth. It revolutionizes the popular iPhone photo application by giving it full printing potential. So just in case you were saddened by your pictures’ inability to break from the interwebs, fret no longer: a door has been provided so that they can step out into the physical world.
The Instaprint photo booth is small and easily assembled. It also works as a location-based wireless printer, so cables are a non-issue. Once your iPhone and Instaprint have been configured, printing your Instagrams will be a mere click away and you’ll have enough vintage-effected prints to cover your walls with, throw into the air like confetti, or scatter strategically around the house.
As perfect as this all might sound, Instaprint is a concept on the verge of fruition. Breakfast have started a Kickstarter campaign to give it legs to stand on (s0 to speak, of course) and once their goal has been reached, Instaprint production can begin. They hope to reach this goal by the end of April and start shipping at the end of summer 2012.
I don’t know about you, but I live by the philosophy that the more greasy and unhealthy food in my life, the better. Hello curly fries! Good morning deep fried bacon! So what better way to celebrate everyone’s favorite food group than to wear its proudest member—the hamburger—on your precious feet?
Almost too many hip people worked on this (literally) drool-worthy collaboration, to bring about a limited edition of hamburger sneakers styled across the classic #95 Vans Era: first up is the one and only Mark Hunter, aka the CobraSnake, who designed these beauties in honor and memory of his obsession with hamburgers before he became a vegetarian ten years ago. Everything that dude does is frustratingly awesome, and this is no exception. To launch the Vans in an appropriately elitist fashion is the French haven of cool, Colette.
Watch some moments from the launch above, and be prepared to get very jealous knowing that with such a limited run, you’ll probably never get to wear fast food on your feet. Undoubtedly one of the most significant bummers of your lifetime.
Since its invention in the 1940s (that’s right, before then the space between childhood and getting yourself hitched was so tiny that it wasn’t even classified as an era until those darn kids started skipping out on the war and wearing bikinis and driving hot rods and getting into knife fights and whatnot), the teenager has caused excitement and fear in all of our lives.
Arguably the greatest and most widely-beloved films are those that take place outside history class. Through them we’re able to gain delight from the antics of the in-crowd, the behavior of the bitches and the adorability of the outcasts. From the early 80s, the canon of teen movies expanded and exploded, and we were introduced to some of the best and worst pubescents to ever be written.
This week, Portable’s resident GIF creator Emma Ableson chronicles cinema’s most terrifying teenagers—those perfect, popular creatures we avoid when walking towards them on the street for fear of public observations of our flaws.
A man once explained to me that he could not understand what I was saying because of what he described as my “female pitch”. At first I was offended and taken aback but the man went on to explain that it wasn’t my fault and that he had the same problem with the octave, pitch and tone of both his wife and daughter’s speech.
I never quite grasped this apparent phenomenon…until I watched photographer, illustrator, blogger and general fashion daah-ling Garance Dore and her friends pow-wowing about the recent New York and Paris fashion weeks. From what I grasped of episode three of Dore’s latest fashion series, Pardon My French, presented by Net-A-Porter and Garance Dore studios, they may as well have been speaking in tongues—or fashion royalty Swahili.
Somewhere amidst a whirlwind of cupcakes, “I love Derek Lam!” and school girl giggles I gathered that all grown up posse Amanda, Caroline, Lisa-Marie, Holly and Marina felt that many wearable designs came out of fashion week, brocade was heralded the next big thing and Diane Von Furstenberg reigns supreme. Oh, and Maria Sharapova finds Fashion Week intimidating as everyone is sitting around, “concerned about, like, their eyebrows.” Hash tag first world problems, immediately. Despite potential ear drum damage, Dore’s enthusiasm remains, as always, infectiously adorable.
By now we’re well aware of Odd Future’s relentless ability to make us cringe with each released track. This reaction is usually brought about by their lyrics, but now it’s due more to the imagery in their newest video for NY (Ned Flander), a song from the upcoming second volume mix tape, ‘OF Tapes Vol. 2′, out March 20. It doesn’t quite take us down a dark and angry alley, but it is slightly unsettling. The song’s ominous tone—similar to the rest of Odd Future and Tyler, The Creator‘s sound—certainly adds to this feeling.
Directed by Tyler, The Creator’s alter ego Wolf Haley, the video takes us to a broken down home. OF rappers Tyler and Hodgy Beats live here, playing the role of impoverished baby and balding baby daddy, respectively. They each have a verse in the quick, two-minute track, held together by a somewhat demonic child-like background melody.
