The footage of white supremacists and neo-Nazis marching through Charlottesville is horrific, although there’s comic value in the absurdity of racist lunatics trooping to home improvement centers so they could wield tiki torches. Still, for late-night talk show hosts and other comedians, the prospects of mining humor from this peacock display of American bigotry was a strict no-fly zone.
Enter “Lemon.” When it premiered at Sundance in January, writer-director Janicza Bravo’s unnerving first feature was a fascinating deconstruction of white male privilege and racist ideology; in the shadow of Charlottesville, her satire echoes the headlines as it arrives in theaters and VOD on August 18.
Read More:‘Whose Streets?’: For the Charlottesville Resistance, this Documentary is Essential Cinema
In the movie, Bravo (a black woman born in Panama and raised in the U.S.) directs her husband, comedian Brett Gelman, who’s white. Gelman plays Isaac, a disgruntled and alienated playwright.
Enter “Lemon.” When it premiered at Sundance in January, writer-director Janicza Bravo’s unnerving first feature was a fascinating deconstruction of white male privilege and racist ideology; in the shadow of Charlottesville, her satire echoes the headlines as it arrives in theaters and VOD on August 18.
Read More:‘Whose Streets?’: For the Charlottesville Resistance, this Documentary is Essential Cinema
In the movie, Bravo (a black woman born in Panama and raised in the U.S.) directs her husband, comedian Brett Gelman, who’s white. Gelman plays Isaac, a disgruntled and alienated playwright.
- 8/17/2017
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Ever since her 2011 short film “Eat,” filmmaker Janicza Bravo has presented a baffling vision of absurd circumstances that defy simple categorization. Throughout subsequent shorts such as “Gregory Go Boom” and “Man Rots From the Head” (both of which star Michael Cera, in the former as a suicidal paraplegic), Bravo’s peculiar style maintains an unnerving quality that feels like cringe-comedy but often takes a sharp turn into odd and alarming glimpses of angry, pathetic characters.
“Lemon,” her feature-length debut, continues that indelible tendency with its deranged portrait of a self-involved man (Brett Gelman, the director’s husband and co-writer) so ruthlessly unpleasant that everything he does contributes to the destruction of his life. Enhanced by a number of notable comedic actors entering uncharted terrain, it’s the kind of movie that makes you laugh and flinch in equal measures, and despite some messier twists, never ceases to move in surprising directions.
“Lemon,” her feature-length debut, continues that indelible tendency with its deranged portrait of a self-involved man (Brett Gelman, the director’s husband and co-writer) so ruthlessly unpleasant that everything he does contributes to the destruction of his life. Enhanced by a number of notable comedic actors entering uncharted terrain, it’s the kind of movie that makes you laugh and flinch in equal measures, and despite some messier twists, never ceases to move in surprising directions.
- 1/24/2017
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Though officially a part of YouTube's ongoing Comedy Week, Michael Cera's appearance in the new short film "Gregory Go Boom" also works as an unofficial warm-up for this weekend's new season of "Arrested Development." That's not to say George Michael Bluth has suffered a Buster-esque accident with a seal -- the new video from director Janicza Bravo ("Eat") is just one way to get used to seeing 25-year-old Cera after watching so much of 15-year-old Cera during your marathon sessions of "Ad" viewing. (You have been watching, right?) Cera executive produced and stars in the film as a paraplegic looking for love in California's Salton Sea. This bleak premise as well as the ominous trailer hint at some dark themes, but there's bound to be a few laughs -- seeing as it's Comedy Week and all. Cera recently released his directorial debut, the short film "Brazzaville Teen-Ager," that also premiered as a Jash video.
- 5/22/2013
- by Ben Travers
- Indiewire
A major part of the Stratlandia experience is the SXSW comedy shows, so I sat down for an informal chat with Eugene Mirman (Bob's Burgers) and Brett Gelman (Eagleheart, and the SXSW-selected film Eat) about ways in which comedians can "leverage new media platforms" to "create disruptive buzz for their brands" during all the noise surrounding the Interactive, Film and Music festivals. Drill down into the digital convo below.
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- 3/18/2011
- by Alex Blagg
- ifc.com
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