10/22/2009

Jason Wiener's Review

WIENER: “I should make it clear—I feel for Morty. I see a lot of my insecurities, fear, self-loathing, and simple poor social behavior in Morty, and I understand him. […] It has occurred to me that this movie has made me want to reveal more about myself than I usually do. I don’t know what to make of that.”

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10/08/2009

Michael Leary's Review

LEARY: “There is a great coherence here in Whaley’s filmmaking that is able to swap interior and exterior focal points, to let us see Morty from a lot of angles at once and then connect so many shots together that would otherwise feel a bit discordant. Hell is other people, but so is cinema. Because of films like this, I haven’t ever been able to go all the way with Sartre on this point.”

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5/26/2009

Chuck Tryon's Review

TRYON: “This is a small, intimate story, suggested in part by Whaley’s judicious use of close-ups and extreme close-ups that seek to track down the inner life of these struggling, awkward characters.”

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Reactions:

"An existential nautilus shell wound as tightly as it is loose."
--Sara Schieron, BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE

"HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE functions as a seeming farewell to a place where the vistas aren't as large as they might be."
--Richard von Busack, METRO SILICON VALLEY

"Deft portrait of morally decaying figures surrounded by that same urban decay in the rundown South."
--Sam Ippolito, PITTSBURGH INDIE MOVIE EXAMINER

"Whaley has launched a counter-movement [...] that now just needs a catchy name to spread like wildfire."
--Brian Darr, HELL ON FRISCO BAY

HIOP On Twitter:
Director's Statement:

What is it about financial poverty that so often impoverishes the inner lives of those who suffer from it? Does the relationship even operate in this fashion, or does emotional poverty precede—even serve as a primary cause of, in some cases—the pecuniary variety? ... [This] is a private story whose movements could only be written by one man holding one camera.

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On Limitation:

Don’t get me wrong; I love Chattanooga. ... I have learned to make large things from small nothings. My resolve has been permanently strengthened. I have been taught to know what I want and to aim only for that[.]

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Director's Bio:

Jarrod Whaley is a Chattanooga, TN filmmaker who has, to this point, worked primarily with digital video. Whaley graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a double-major B.A. in English and French. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Shaking Ray Levi Society, a non-profit arts organization which has been bringing non-traditional creative work (such as improvised music, video, film, and performance arts) to Chattanooga, TN and elsewhere for over 20 years. In 2005, Whaley was one of several individuals appointed to the Chattanooga Film Commission by Mayor Ron Littlefield.