There will be an informal, open-to-everyone party after the premiere of Hell Is Other People on Feb. 27: 9:00PM at The Loft. Everyone is welcome.
2/22/2010
KFJC interview
Here I am on the radio discussing the film. Also being interviewed is Campbell Graham, writer/director of Anyone You Want, which is also premiering at Cinequest.
2/12/2010
Tassoula Kokkoris' Review
KOKKORIS: “Chattanooga, Tenn. provides a perfect backdrop for the slow pace and discussions of the characters in this film. The mood feels Southern; polite with a natural tendency to get heated. All of the friends and acquaintances talk to and about one another just as we all do in real life. The women also appear to talk a lot more. Fair enough.”
earlier...
Richard von Busack's Review
VON BUSACK: “There’s an acuteness to this home-brewed movie that contrasts nicely with the sheepishness of Morty. Although he is not mean, this shambling boy-man possesses a wily streak. He shows off a humiliating yet really clever method of dodging a bill that was a new one on me, and I didn’t think I could learn any new ones. One thing I like about the year 2010 is that it’s potentially a heyday for the kind of movies that celebrate what Leslie Fielder called ‘The Bum as American Cultural Hero.’ The mainspring-free life—demonstrated so memorably by Morty—is perfect for an economy that has let so many millions know that their services will no longer be needed.”
2/04/2010
5 Questions: CQCentral.com
1Q: Tell us a little about the origins of HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE, from writing to financing.
The core concept of the film–that it would be built around an inscrutably shady character who makes his meager living by working out of his vehicle–came out of a conversation I overheard somewhere. The details of the conversation elude me given that this took place nearly four years ago now, but one of the “conversationalists” was telling the other about an experience he’d had with a weird computer repairman who would only meet his customers in liquor store parking lots in a beat-up old van. Something about that scenario suggested to me the potential for some rather dark and awkward humor. That being the kind of humor I’m attracted to, I stole the idea and started trying to flesh it out with my own details.
1/31/2010
Sara Schieron's Review
SCHIERON: “This gently paced comedy, indistinctly set in Chattanooga, Tennessee, feels like a marriage between Richard Linklater’s early work and an inversion of Mumblecore (trading emotional vagueness and verbal clarity for emotional clarity and totally incomplete sentences). However what first time feature director Jarrod Whaley (an acquaintance of this critic) has done here is distinct; a hyper-specific take on regional cinema, a subset of film that is itself already hyper-specific. The rhythms are often dysplastic, the characters dyspeptic and while the title invokes a well-known quote by Sartre, the existential angle of the film takes such a subtle and semi-literal tack on the matter you hardly know you’re thinking philosophically.”
1/27/2010
“Single, unemployed and forever scrambling for money and love, Morty specializes in finding new ways to make his friends feel uncomfortable. Whether being talked into posing for an eccentric artist’s photo project or vainly trying to romance an ex-girlfriend with lines like “You’re beautiful when you’re indignant,” he seems to have taken Sartre’s titular adage to heart. But is he really Chattanooga’s biggest loser, or a forlorn psychiatrist who just can’t seem to take his own advice? That’s the question at the heart of Jarrod Whaley’s deadpan treat. Charting the different relationships within a group of friends with lucid emotion and dry wit, the film manages to be both a wise comedy and a look at the characters’ often painful need for human connection.”
— Fernando Croce, Cinequest Program Guide
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