American Gun

TeeJay · 23 Jul 06 :: 18:23

Synopsis

Three stories of how America's obsession with firearms impacts its citizens are explored in this independent drama. Carl Wilk (Donald Sutherland) runs a gun shop in Virginia that has been owned and operated by his family for generations. Carl sees the shop as his family's legacy without paying much mind to what happens with the weapons he sells. When his granddaughter Mary Ann (Linda Cardellini) needs money for college, Carl gives her a job in the store, and while she's hesitant at first, she becomes fascinated with the merchandise as time passes. On the West Side of Chicago, Carl Carter (Forest Whitaker) is the principal of a high school where violence has become a sad fact of life. As Carl and his wife, Sara (Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon), fear for their young son as they worry he could either fall prey to the violence of their community or embrace it himself, Carl receives a severe emotional blow when Jay (Arlen Escarpeta), one of his most promising students, is discovered carrying a pistol. And in Oregon, Janet (Marcia Gay Harden) is a single mother still troubled by the death of her teenaged son three years before, who took his own life after killing a handful of his classmates in a violent incident at a high school. As Janet deals with sharp words from the community, many of whom believe she should be held responsible for her late son's actions, she is unsure how to handle her surviving son, David (Christopher Marquette), who is now of high-school age. American Gun was the first feature film for writer and director Aric Avelino. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Source: http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie.aspx?m=574006

-TeeJay

domesticelefant · 23 Jul 06 :: 21:33

Definitely his best performance so far!

TheCentralScrutinizer · 25 Jul 06 :: 03:38

You know what, it's definitely one of the most powerful performances he's given to date. But I think one hour of television kind of dwarfs everything I've seen so far. It's why were all here, pretty much, isn't it? I mean how we all got here originally, when you get right down to it. I guess if I had to make a Top 5 Performances Chris Has Given So Far, it would go like this...

1) Joan Of Arcadia - Trial & Error (robbed of a Best Supporting Actor Emmy)
2) American Gun (should have been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor American Spirit Award, may still be eligible)
3) The Tic Code (should've won every award possible for a kid actor in a feature film)
4) Miracles - The Bone Scatterer (just agonizing)
5) TIE: Touched By An Angel - An Angel On My Tree (hey, we don't write this stuff folks, but he rocked) and Judging Amy - The Beginning, The End And The Murky Middle (I wish I did write this stuff, he blows me away in his last scene)

And I don't want to undercut his comedic gifts either. As we all know, Eli is classic and The Girl Next Door rules!

Deb

PS: I don't have any avatars small enough to upload here so if anyone wants to pass some along, they're welcome. And I don't have the web address for my banner at home. I will email it to myself from work though and put it in my signature tomorrow.

domesticelefant · 25 Jul 06 :: 13:18

I think I just figured out the next thread we need!

TeeJay · 05 Aug 06 :: 15:44

Movie comes out on DVD on August 29, 2006. You can (pre-)order it at amazon.com here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FZ … UTF8&s=dvd

Already pre-ordered my copy. Cool, this will get us a lot of great screencaps for the website.

-TeeJay

domesticelefant · 15 Aug 06 :: 13:58

Aaaaawwwww!!! I wanna have a copy too!!!

My Top 1 Performance!!! :o:o

TeeJay · 15 Aug 06 :: 14:11

Relax, I'll get you one in September.

-TeeJay

domesticelefant · 22 Aug 06 :: 21:51

Aric Avelino's 'American Gun' Casts Handguns as the Villain

By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: March 22, 2006
Put the word "American" in front of almost any noun, and you have a title that trumpets its own self-importance. And when that noun is "gun," and the project is a movie, the title implies an imminent bloodbath. But "American Gun," the debut film of Aric Avelino, who wrote the screenplay with Steven Bagatourian, is nothing like that. A stridently sorrowful polemic against the proliferation of handguns in the United States, it consists of three fictional vignettes, of which only one ends in a shooting death. Preferring to throw up its hands rather than shout itself hoarse, the film sustains a mood of paranoia faintly tinged with hope.

Sam Emerson/IFC Films
Marcia Gay Harden as Janet, and Christopher Marquette as David.

Forum: Movies
Each story is set in a different part of the country. In an Oregon town, three years after a Columbine-like high school massacre, the community hasn't recovered from the trauma, and its crude attempts to address the tragedy only succeed in rubbing fresh salt in still-open wounds.

At a Chicago high school in a gang-plagued neighborhood, the principal, driven to his wits' end to maintain order, threatens one of his most promising students with expulsion after catching him with a handgun. In the weakest vignette, a troubled Virginia college student works part time in her grandfather's gun store and develops a fascination with firearms.

If "American Gun" avoids the most obvious kinds of sensationalism, it has the flaw common to many editorial broadsides of overstuffing its episodes with melodrama and symbolism. Its agenda is similar to that of "Crash" but not as fully realized. Nor does it try, like "Crash," to gather its stories into a tightly woven schematic fabric. "Crash" leaves you feeling almost pummeled; the residue of "American Gun" is a nagging sense of hopelessness.

In the richest of the three stories, Marcia Gay Harden plays Janet Huttenson, the financially strapped working-class mother of David (Christopher Marquette), the younger brother of one of the two killers in the Oregon massacre. Working two jobs, she had been able to send David to a private school. Now she can no longer afford it, and he faces the unbearable prospect of attending the same public high school as his notorious brother, who shot himself.

Desperate for money, Janet agrees to do a paid interview on local television and finds herself pelted with hostile questions about her responsibility for the shootings. A pariah in her neighborhood, she already lives in an emotional prison of self-doubt made worse by David's hostility toward her. Ms. Harden, bravely refusing to soften her character, fully inhabits Janet, a shrill, overstressed single mother who is as baffled by the tragedy as all those who assume she is the repository of guilty family secrets.

Dwelling in a similar hell, Frank (Tony Goldwyn), the police officer who was the first on the scene of the massacre, is pressured by his bosses to go on television and face a similar interrogation, but his story is too sketchy to have much impact. Examining a community where everyone is looking for a scapegoat, the episode settles on a too convenient one: crass local television.

The Chicago section revolves around Principal Carter (Forest Whitaker), who moved there from Ohio specifically to help inner-city students. But the task is so draining that he has no time left over for his wife (Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon) and young son, and the marriage is strained to the breaking point. After Carter catches one of his best students, Jay (Arlen Escarpeta), with a handgun, the movie leaves him to follow the boy to his job in the cashier's cage at a gas station and convenience store where he needs the gun as protection against robbers. The film's most unsettling image finds Jay cowering in his cage to avoid being shot.

In the most undeveloped story, Mary Ann (Linda Cardellini), a troubled freshman at the University of Virginia, working in the gun shop of her recently widowed grandfather Carl (Donald Sutherland), learns to shoot after witnessing the drugging and near rape of her best friend at a fraternity house.

For all its seriousness, "American Gun" falters on the contradictions at the core of most issue-oriented dramas. The movie's attempt to make a strong statement involves simplifying and ultimately falsifying its characters and situations to score polemical points.

"American Gun" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has violence, strong language and a scene of near rape.

American Gun

Opens today in Manhattan.

Directed by Aric Avelino; written by Mr. Avelino and Steven Bagatourian; director of photography, Nancy Schreiber; edited by Richard Nord; music by Peter Golub; production designer, Devorah Herbert; produced by Ted Kroeber; released by IFC Films. At the Landmark's Sunshine Cinema, 139-143 East Houston Street, East Village. Running time: 94 minutes.

WITH: Donald Sutherland (Carl), Forest Whitaker (Carter), Marcia Gay Harden (Janet), Linda Cardellini (Mary Ann), Tony Goldwyn (Frank), Christopher Marquette (David), Nikki Reed (Tally), Arlen Escarpeta (Jay), Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon (Sarah), Amanda Seyfried (Mouse), Melissa Leo (Louise) and Schuyler Fisk (Cicily).

domesticelefant · 22 Aug 06 :: 21:55

Where There's Gunsmoke, There's Gunfire
by Donald Levit

Unhysterical, sobering, yet warm, American Gun is better and more accurate than look-at-me Bowling for Columbine, which raises a dozen gut questions while managing to answer none of them. Fiction derived from traumatic happenings, it is also superior to Gus Van Sant's Elephant, a film less successful in considering the same events than arresting for its bold returns -- at different times, angles and viewpoints -- to the same corridor scenes.

Director/co-writer (with Steven Bagatourian) Aric Avelino's first feature is actually not about that central event, anyway. Rather, it takes the wise step of looking, not at a particular school massacre, but, three years afterwards, at those intimately affected, at how they live on with repressed guilt and failure. In fact, there are five stories here, crossing America, two in Oregon, the same in Chicago, and one in the Shenandoah Valley, and though characters touch within each of the three separate locales, and though all are kindred in overcoming individual isolation, those in the Pacific Northwest, Midwest and East do not come across one another, as frequently happens in such mosaic films.

Nor, finally, and as evidence that the goal is neither a superficial look at causes nor at immediate bloody consequences, is there a high graphic body count, as current movies go. Two brief un-gory single-bullet shootings, a few missed shots at a gas station, one vague attempted date rape, one barely glimpsed body in a school parking lot, and a bitter but unphysical neighborhood row. Important for their effects on the protagonists, none of these distracts with the usual loving slow-motion voyeurism, and the one great violence is aural and not visual at all, heard against simple white credits on black as, opening and especially closing, an unidentified hysterical Rebecca screams to a would-be calming 911-operator as murderers close in and officers rush to the scene.

In Ellisburgh, Oregon, Newsline interviews a nervous, abstracted Janet Huttenson (Marcia Gay Harden) about her son Robbie's participation with another in the random shootings and killings at public Ridgeline High School. Answering insensitive but probing questions, she is evasive, never saw it coming and, though naturally grieving for the dead and their families, is not responsible. She has consented to this televised torture because, working two jobs, she is alone and needs money to keep surviving son David (Chris Marquette) at the St. Anthony's prep school and out of Ridgeline. Three years younger, so now at the same age as his infamous dead brother at the time of the rampage, David is withdrawn, uneasy with his protective mother and resentful of her boyfriend Barry (Todd Tesen), and explodes when the private academy decides it's better for all concerned that he should withdraw. That leaves the public institution, the only saving grace of which is sympathetic new fellow student Tally (Nikki Reed), whom he arranges to meet one evening.

Nosey Newsline intimates police responsibility and failure, and inserts clips of the catastrophe and of Officer Frank Essel (Tony Goldwyn), who phones the station to object to this unauthorized invasion of his privacy. Assuring him that "you have a job here," superiors on the force ask that he appear on television to rebut the insinuations and also see a department psychologist (Lee Garlington).

Half-a-country away, Carter (Forest Whitaker, who also executive produced) is devoted to helping students and parents at Chicago's West Side ghetto Taft High School. A predecessor's metal detectors are succeeding at keeping guns and violence relatively at bay, but Principal Carter is losing his young son and wife Sara (Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon). The thankless job gives no time to talk or pal around with the boy, and the wife objects to his late hours and laments the better position she left behind in bucolic Ohio. Personally removing litter from the steps, he catches academic ace Jay (Arlen Escarpeta) stashing a handgun which he got from a friend for protection while studying at a night job in the cashier's cage of a gas station-liquor store. Though the firearm technically did not enter the school, the penalty should be expulsion for the serious, goal-oriented boy.

Five-hundred miles further east, Maryanne Wilk (Linda Cardellini) is an unhappy freshman at the University of Virginia, her family's traditional college. She now feels estranged in what was her childhood hometown and is silent working in grandfather Carl's (Donald Sutherland) King's Gun Shop. White-haired and –bearded, he terribly misses his deceased wife and the closeness once shared with this granddaughter. Shaken by friend Cicily's (Schuyler Fisk) fraternity-house drugging and near rape, Maryanne learns to shoot and is fascinated when her own hand is used to model a pistol grip.

With fewer loose ends than normal -- though a spray-painted plastic gun leaves unanswered worries -- each of these related but separate tales moves toward a renewal of communication. If a resolution to great grief exists, it lies not in fashionable public ceremonies of closure, but in open contact with others' hearts and the re-forging of what Nathaniel Hawthorne saw as the great magnetic chain of humanity.

(Released by IFC Films and rated "R" for violent content and language.)

domesticelefant · 22 Aug 06 :: 21:58

Tracking Shots
'American Gun'

by Michael Atkinson
March 21st, 2006 12:55 PM

American Gun
Directed by Aric Avelino
IFC, opens March 22, IFC Center

The first entry in the Crash subgenre sweepstakes, Aric Avelino's ambitious dependie follows the Paul Haggis award magnet's business plan pretty slavishly: Take on a contemporary social crisis (here, gun control) by way of multiple story lines, each illuminating different perspectives on the problem, and each juiced with frustration, melodrama, and mid-level-cast acting fireworks. An angsty breeze in the tradition of old Playhouse 90 issue dramas, Avelino's film occupies three states, but holds its ground best in Oregon, where a Columbine- like massacre still plagues a town several years later. In a structural gambit that's easy to underestimate, the protagonists there are a working-class mother (Marcia Gay Harden) of one of the dead shooters and his younger brother (a teen–John Cusack–mopey Chris Marquette), both of whom bristle with mis- placed guilt in a social whorl that considers them somehow responsible. The film's crescendo happens out of nowhere: A passing activist plants a black flag in Harden's lawn, precipitating a spitting word-fight in the street with her brutally accusatory neighbors.

(LOL on the Cusack referrence!)

Otherwise, Avelino seems timid about conflict, and not all of his concepts (co-written with Steve Bagatourian) are eloquent. The other tangents (Linda Cardellini's Virginian coed getting edgy after a friend is date-raped, Forest Whitaker's Chicago principal losing his grip on his job) are aimless, seemingly de-ruddered by Avelino's desire to belie story expectations; you're buckling up for an Inspirational Death once promising but streetwise student Arlen Escarpeta resorts to painting a toy gun black to defend himself, but it's a feint. All of the stories are conceived as ongoing plights, and have no third act. Which would be an improvement on Haggis's hyperbolic civics lesson if Avelino had the chops to master realism and embrace ambivalence. The acting is pro enough to keep your blood up, but the reverb is minimal.

TeeJay · 02 Sep 06 :: 00:06

The DVD has a different cover than the black one we've seen so far. Amazon.com now shows this cover:

B000FZEU42.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V58804696_.jpg

I think I like the black one better, although this one's not so bad. Oh, and Deb? The DVD shipped yesterday. You should get it in a day or two, probably some time next week. Can you please put a spoiler warning for if you talk about the specials? I don't really wanna know what's on there before I get the chance to see it for myself.

-TeeJay

TheCentralScrutinizer · 02 Sep 06 :: 09:19

Well, if I get it tomorrow, by chance, Steph will be seeing some meltdown action. Fingers crossed. BTW, she just went to crash and I'm still up. We've been giggling our asses off. I told her the story about my "Adam" - you know, how I accidentally let it spill and how much you and Dave have been teasing me about it ever since. We laughed so hard, I literally had to change my pants from over-giggling. Great start to the weekend.

I'm crashing in a minute myself, but I wanted to check in on you guys.

The thing that bugs me about that AG cover is the lack of Chris. He's the emotional center of his storyline and they can't squeeze his face in on the cover? It's The Tic code all over again.

Deb

TeeJay · 02 Sep 06 :: 18:45

Deb, I think you'll like the German Tic Code DVD cover much better, then:

B00005B3PA.03._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V1056687310_.jpg

A lot of Chris in that one. Yeah, I was also a little disappointed not to find Chris on the AG cover. Ah, well, that's the film industry for you. Put the faces of the people that might be recognized more easily on the cover, it'll attract more buyers. Which is probably true, but a little pic with Chris would totally have fit on there too.

I'm glad that "Adam" was the origin of much laughter. Have a great weekend, you two! I hope Anne is having a good weekend away as well.

-TeeJay

TheCentralScrutinizer · 02 Sep 06 :: 20:34

Yeah, Anne mentioned that the German cover was nice and it certainly is.

And yep, we're still giggling.

Deb

domesticelefant · 03 Sep 06 :: 18:27

TeeJay wrote:

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B … 04696_.jpg

Nooo! Are they serious about that?
I DON'T LIKE that cover! Boooo! I want the black one!!!

domesticelefant · 03 Sep 06 :: 18:28

TeeJay wrote:

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B … 87310_.jpg

See, Deb? The Germans put at least Chris on the cover. Love that one.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 06 Sep 06 :: 02:05

The DVD arrived today. There are exactly zero extras. But there is a pic of Chris on the back. The box art is actually kind of cheap and crappy-looking, but OK. Who cares? Doesn't diminish the brilliant perfromance from Chris.

Deb

TheCentralScrutinizer · 06 Sep 06 :: 02:20

Girls, I spoke too soon. There is one special feature. I didn't notice because it's printed very small on the back. But I'm not allowed to say what the special feature is per TeeJay. Gonna watch it now. I will let you know whether it's good or not, but I'll keep it secret.

Deb

TheCentralScrutinizer · 06 Sep 06 :: 03:25

AG special feature = very brief and not so special. On the plus side, the movie's picture quality is immaculate so the screen caps will be fantastic.

Deb

PS: The sound quality is excellent too. No muddy dialog now.

TeeJay · 06 Sep 06 :: 07:08

Thanks for the update. Shame we didn't get any good specials. Probably didn't have enough money to do a lot of them. So I take it Chris isn't in the one special? I don't mind knowing we don't have any Chris specials, I just didn't want to be spoiled if there was something really good and Chris-worthy on it that I'm missing out on (at least for another three weeks).

Can't wait to make good quality screencaps!

-TeeJay

domesticelefant · 06 Sep 06 :: 12:45

No special special features? Shame!!! I was hoping for some interviews or something like that. But I am looking forward to the sound/picture quality. I need good sound.

TheCentralScrutinizer · 06 Sep 06 :: 15:32

OK, so I'll spoil it. No Chris in the tiny special making of doc. Only the same 4 people who have been promoting the movie all along - Aric Avelino, Linda Cardellini, Marcia Gay Harden and & Forest Whitaker. I don't think it was a question of money. It's a nice little doc. It was probably a question of availability. When was Chris free to participate in the marketing of the movie? Pretty much never. Oh well. It's wonderful to see a nice, clean print of the film. Though I'd still like to know why the David/Janet story was shot in those washed-out colors while the other storylines were not.

Another possible reason Chris didn't participate in the marketing is that the movie sat on the shelf for so long that he looks completely different now. He doesn't look like a 16-year-old boy anymore. He looks like a 22-year-old man. Maybe Avelino though that it would be too obvious that the movie is a few years old if Chris was interviewed for it. I've seen that happen before.

Deb

TeeJay · 06 Sep 06 :: 17:08

Hm, yeah, the age thing could be a factor, I guess. I mean, his hair is short now, he may have had some face fuzz then. Yes, he would look totally different, even if they'd put him in a toque or something. It's still a shame, but I wasn't expecting much in terms of AG specials anyway. The JoA s2 specials are another matter, though. I hope to report some details soon.

Was Chris at least mentioned in the specials? Did Marcia say anything about him? I don't mind knowing.

You know what I just realized? We three all have different avatars from different things that Chris has done. Anne has AG (i.e. David), Deb has JF (i.e. Mike, or rather Chris himself here) and I have Huff (i.e. James). Nice.

-TeeJay

TheCentralScrutinizer · 06 Sep 06 :: 18:13

No, Marcia didn't mention Chris, sadly. She did in that radio interview I heard her do. She said he played her son, but she didn't go on and on about him or anything. If someone asked her a specific question, though, I bet she would.

Deb

domesticelefant · 06 Sep 06 :: 19:22

I could understand the availability thing. That guy is a workaholic! Or should I say "film-aholic"?

As for our avatars, Tina, I am waiting for the better screencaps. LOL

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