The kids may be alright, but the title is horrible, it did nothing to entice me to watching this best picture Oscar nominee. When I heard the title, the kids are alright, I imagined a children’s comedy where unruly ten to twelve-year-old kids go on adventures and get themselves into trouble, all the while outwitting adults, and in the end their childish fantasy and games make them heroes. That is not this movie; this is a family drama with conflict between the two teenage kids and their lesbian parents as the kids seek out their sperm donor dad.

The movie opens well with establishing the family characters and the inciting incident, but from there it looses focus and as the run time hastened toward the climax, the story arc runs out of breath and limps toward the end. Without the properly defined conflicts and consequences, it is simply hard to get excited for the storyline or its characters.

The cast is strong, but several of the conflicts are poorly illuminated and there is a distinct lack of any resolution. It is in essence a 2 hour window into a family and its conflicts, but when the window shuts, we are left wondering why we were peeping. The director should have either taken the story more seriously and put one of the conflicts in focus, or lightened up the mood. The family drama has several humorous moments, but not enough to warrant comedy status. The lacking focus and resolution would have been more excusable, if the movie had leaned more toward a comedy, and perhaps been entitled “Daddy Issues”.

-In LRP we trust-

January 31st 2011, this is a shortened rough cut of the sequence.

November 12th 2010, our skeleton crew hikes into the desert of Red Rock Canyon to shoot. We rented an RV, made the 8 hour drive, filmed a night scene, slept for a few hours, filmed from morning through sunset, and drove home.

November 8th 2010, we filmed at A Divine Affair in Healdsburg and were kindly joined by a group of extras to fill the restaurant.

Eve

25 to 35 years of age, she is a very caring and thoughtful woman. She comes from a successful business family, but has chosen to focus her life on experiences and happiness rather than establishing a career. She is joyful and curious and values good company and food. She is accepting and empathetic of people’s differences often trying to compromise to diffuse conflicts. Eve is the girlfriend of Dillon, and she, with her charm and joy for life, has unknowingly helped change his perspective on the world, and the coming Catharsis.

What we have here is a compilation of ‘Behind the scenes’ of ‘Catharsis’. ‘Catharsis’ is the fourth film coming out Last Rockstar Productions, and it will mark our first feature length film. It’s a science-fiction thriller, a time-travel adventure where two brothers are at odds, where one is saving the life of a woman and the other is saving the world from her.

The first clip is from November 2008 after reading one of the drafts to the screen writing class I was part of.

The second clip is a meeting with our Director…although as CEO of LRP I have ALL the power!

The third clip is another reading with part of the cast and crew, we were still waiting to hold auditions.

The fourth clip is location scouting and if you wait for it…FIGHT training!

And the last clip is, some behind the scenes stuff and the Redneck biker dude.

LRP HQ out!

P.S. Find Last Rockstar Productions on Facebook and friend us!

Saturday, May 2nd From 1pm to 6pm
Petaluma’s Theatre District

For the address or additional information, please email : marco@lastrockstarproductions.com or kimoj@lastrockstarproductions.com, or call Marco @ 707-975-7984

Movie Summary:

Two brothers have impatiently awaited the creative destruction of Catharsis, which would give birth to their civilization. But the brink of man’s new dawn is dark with death, and the winds of change set the brothers against each other in a battle for the way of the future.

Eve

25 to 35 years of age, she is a very caring and thoughtful woman. She comes from a successful business family, but has chosen to focus her life on experiences and happiness rather than establishing a career. She is joyful and curious and values good company and food. She is open and accepting of people’s differences often trying to compromise to diffuse conflicts.

Eve is the girlfriend of Dillon, and she, with her charm and joy for life, has unknowingly helped change his perspective on the world, and the coming Catharsis.

Virginia

25 to 35 years old, she is a strong independent woman with a confident yet casual attitude. She is a successful professional, but cherishes her private time, which she fills reading, crafts, hiking and camping.

Virginia is Benito’s neighbor, and she has taken an interest in him. She can feel the mutual attraction, and keeps up her advances, though Benito has been meekly defusing her.

We are independent film-makers from Northern California. Estimated length of the film will be an hour, once the film is completed we are planning on submitting the film to multiple film festivals. This is a non-paying and non-union film.
Head shots and prepared monologue are welcomed, but not necessary.
Previous acting experience a plus.

We spend a lot of time discussing the issues internally in the core production group, and especially how to address them without stepping on the story. James and Jim gave valuable input for Marco and I to work with in the rewriting process. Though we were not always in agreement about the tools to use and direction to take, suggestions got worked into compromises that benefited the overall script. When the fourth draft was finished, we had a read through at a production meeting, and identified a few last additions and edits. If you want to see a few clips from inside the production meetings, take a look over at our facebook page.

Now we have the finished script as will be used in the production of Catharsis. In my humble opinion it is vastly superior to the third draft. A lot of the mystery has been taken out and replaced with character development and suspense. Subplots have been added which make the story richer and gives it a better flow.

“Two brothers have impatiently awaited the creative destruction of Catharsis, which would give birth to their civilization. But the brink of man’s new dawn is dark with death, and the winds of change set the brothers against each other in a battle for the way of the future.”

I recalled from the film "The Five Obstructions", that Lars von Trier was trying to force Jørgen Leth to make a bad film by giving him obstructions. Apparently Trier thought there was a kind of Cathartic value to producing shit. As a fan of much of Trier’s work, it was a consolation to think that my piece of shit film might in some way enrich me for future work. It least it was enough of an excuse to keep going with an acceptance of the inevitable result. I had my obstructions without needing Trier to invent new ones for me. There was the time constraint, which had not become easier when they announced the topic, which nullified most of the ideas I had hoped I would be able to use. On top of that I was alone thousands of miles from my usual production crew.

Now I am back in California working on a thirty minute plus short film, we just postponed our shooting schedule by one month to allow for more thorough script work. Though I am no longer standing alone in the rain, there are still limitations to work around. How do you make the story work when you cannot afford to block off a city block for filming, or get a helicopter for that perfect aerial panorama shot? You have to write fitting your resources, which at times strains the imagination. I am glad I am not back in the rain. It was a fun game, and I brought lessons from it, the most useful probably being identifying resources and limitations. I finished my film in the alloted time, something I know will not be the case with the next one. There are still story nuts to crack and cracks to mend. I added subtitles to the film, and you can check it out below. I would also encourage you to check out "The Five Obstructions".

Quality Control Systems from Kim OJ on Vimeo.