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VOD Pick of the Week

The Puffy Chair
The Duplass brothers have become somewhat ubiquitous (at least in an indie sense), making larger scale indie films such as Cyrus and Jeff, Who Lives at Home, as well as appearing in television shows like The Mindy Project and The League. They are also scheduled to get the Lena Dunham treatment as executive producers of an HBO series (Togetherness), in which Mark Duplass will star. In 2005, they debuted their first feature film at the Sundance Film Festival, The Puffy Chair.

Jay and Mark Duplass co-wrote, Jay directed and Mark starred in this independent road trip drama. Mark Duplass plays Josh, a 20-something at a turning point. His band has recently broken up and he is now working independently as a concert booker, which is his step towards responsibility and adulthood. He is also at a crossroads with his girlfriend Emily (Katie Aselton). She is ready to settle down and move on to the next phase of her life with him, but he is still stuck in a state of extended adolescence. She wants him to be more romantic, but he still refers to her as “dude.”

The night before Josh is scheduled to leave on a road trip to pick up a purple recliner chair that he bought online as a gift for his father, the two get into a fight. To make up with her, the next morning Josh invites her to join him on the trip. Along the way they drop in on Josh’s brother Rhett, and he decides to tag along. The stress of the trip and close quarters forces Josh and Emily to confront the issues in their relationship that are preventing them from moving forward.

The Puffy Chair has a goofy, whimsical charm and a naturalistic atmosphere that gives it a light hearted feel. This has the effect that when the film does go for more serious moments, the impact is amplified. A fight that occurs when Emily pushes Josh into that age-old corner of “where is this relationship going” is particularly raw, and the chemistry between the two actors, who would later become real life husband and wife, is apparent.

A lot of the Duplass brothers style is evidenced in this first film, and if you’re being introduced to them through their most recent work, The Puffy Chair provides an opportunity to see the genesis of what developed later.

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New releases for March 7th

Bethlehem: Set in the midst of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Bethlehem revolves around an Israeli secret service officer named Razi and his teenage Palestinian informant Sanfur. The two have something of a father-son vibe though it is questionable as to how much of that is manufactured by Razi to get the information he wants. When Sanfur’s brother Ibrahim is found to have been involved in a suicide bombing, the relationship is tested as Razi asks Sanfur to lure his brother out of hiding.

The Face of Love: Annette Bening stars as Nikki, a widow who meets a man named Tom (Ed Harris) who looks exactly like her dead husband. Tom reignites feelings that Nikki has not felt in years, but at the same time she worries that she can not distinguish whether she is trying to recreate something from her past or build a relationship for the future.

The Grand Budapest Hotel: Wes Anderson’s latest creation revolves around Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), a concierge at a famous Eastern European hotel, and the hotel lobby boy Zero Moustafa (newcomer Tony Revolori) during the period between the two Great Wars. When a rich heiress dies and bequeaths a highly valuable painting (Boy with Apple) to Gustave, he becomes suspected of offing his rich paramour and it is up to him and his loyal companion to prove his innocence.

Journey to the West: Director Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle) returns after a five year layoff with Journey to the West, a loose adaptation of a famous 16th-century Chinese novel. Xuan Zang is a Buddhist monk who battles demons with a passive approach by trying to bring out the goodness inside them. He teams up with Miss Duan, a demon-fighter of the more kick ass variety. Together the two fight demons in director Chow’s zany cartoon style martial arts film.