Nat Faxon
42 connections found
Filmography
View:
Connections, in both directions
Owen is like a funky update of the Bill Murray character in “Meatballs,” a manic mentor who teaches the troubled protagonist that it just doesn’t matter.
Channeling Bill Murray from “Meatballs,” Owen is the kind of guy that everyone wants to be around, and it’s easy to see why thanks to Rockwell’s immensely charming and hilarious performance.
Wheeling up to a water park, he comes under the wing of the manager, a breezy, don’t-give-a-damn lifer named Owen (Sam Rockwell, channeling the motormouth Bill Murray of “Meatballs”).
Faxon & Rash said their inspiration for Rockwell’s character was Bill Murray in Meatballs, but in Rockwell, at the risk of blasphemy, dare I say they’ve found something even better.
Seeking escape, Duncan ends up hanging around the nearby Water Wizz water park, where he’s adopted by wisecracking man-child manager Owen ( Sam Rockwell , echoing Bill Murray in Meatballs) and his long-suffering girlfriend ( Maya Rudolph ).
Think Bill Murray in Meatballs.
Put another way, Greg Mottola covered similar territory with his far superior ‘80s flashback Adventureland.
It has its charms, most notably in Rockwell's wise-cracking put-on artist, but it never goes for anything really deep as 2009's similarly themed "Adventureland" did, while taking a few missteps along the way.
Not a great deal happens that is likely to surprise you, and the whole finding-yourself-while-working-at-an-amusement-park idea is likely to draw comparisons to Adventureland (2009).
Besides, moviegoers have seen nearly all this on-the-job stuff before, whether in Greg Mottola’s similarly autobiographical “Adventureland” or in corny ’80s movies that take place when this story clearly ought to.
A kindred cousin to 2009's amusement park-set " Adventureland ," "The Way Way Back" features a younger, but equally inexperienced, protagonist while following him during a summer of eye-opening internal growth.
Its time-warped sensibility invokes Pac-Man, Buick station wagons, and REO Speedwagon in subtle homage to The Flamingo Kid and other Eighties-era movies in which teenaged boys experience transformative summers on their way to adulthood.
We’ve certainly seen this comedy before (the movie is incredibly reminiscent of ’80s comedies like “The Flamingo Kid” and “The Sure Thing”) but it’s all about the execution here.
On a Memphicentric note, "The Way, Way Back" may be the first movie to actually include a reference to director Craig Brewer's remake of " Footloose ."
The terrific Farmiga, who doubles as Norman Bates' unstable mom on A&E's "Psycho"-centric "Bates Motel," apparently already has signed on to star in a few more Warren-based tales for the screen.
We’ve certainly seen this comedy before (the movie is incredibly reminiscent of ’80s comedies like “The Flamingo Kid” and “The Sure Thing”) but it’s all about the execution here.
Liam James (who plays Mirielle Enos’ son on AMC’s The Killing) is virtually silent for the first half of the movie, as his world keeps getting worse and worse.
As Duncan, Liam James (he also plays Jack, Mireille Enos's son in The Killing) conveys the sweet vulnerability of a kid just past the cusp of childhood, old enough to observe and judge the adults' dangerous liaisons without quite being there himself.
Liam James from “The Killing” stars as Duncan, a kid dragged on a summer vacation with his mom (Toni Collette) and her horrible new boyfriend (Steve Carell).
Shy 14-year-old Duncan (Liam James of "The Killing") would much rather be with his dad in California than spending the summer in a northeastern beach town with his mom (Toni Collette) and her boyfriend Trent (Collette's "Little Miss Sunshine" co-star Steve Carell), whose emotional abuse of Duncan is as casual as it is damaging.
In the hands of other screenwriters the familiar plot – 14 year-old boy forced to holiday with mum and her new boyfriend in an unfamiliar seaside location – would give us just another teen angst movie, but Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (who picked up Oscars for their writing on The Descendants and who co-direct this film) create a palette of quirky characters and load the dialogue with gems of sharp banter – especially for Rockwell & Janney.
Wait. "The Way, Way Back" has been written by Jim Rash and Nat Faxon (who won a screenplay Academy Award with Alexander Payne for 2011's "The Descendants"), making their auspicious co-directorial debut.
This bittersweet bonbon was co-written and co-directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, who won Oscars for the screenplay of “The Descendants” and have cameo roles as employees of the water park.
The deep bench of funny supporting players includes Faxon and Rash, who won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for "The Descendants."
The infusers-in-chief are co-writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (“The Descendants”), who also team together as first-time directors and pace this thing perfectly.
Unlike the pair’s Oscar-winning script with Alexander Payne for “The Descendants,” “Back” effortlessly blends the good with the bad of family and friends without using laughs to shy away from the hard stuff.
The performances are solid throughout but Rockwell steals it, doing a riff on the characters Bill Murray played in movies like “Stripes” — the fast-talking, smart guy who really has a bigger heart than he likes to let on.
Any movie that lifts from both "This Boy's Life" and "Meatballs" is a rarefied creation, and in this case a pretty wonderful movie.
What’s unexpected is how deeply the actors — who are as comfortable to us as they are with each other — go into roles that, in 1995’s “Before Sunrise,” seemed to be nothing more than romantic-dramedy fixtures.
Speaking of anticipation, Michael Polish has produced a lot since he broke through with “Twin Falls, Idaho” and “Northfork”.
Long after James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, we reveled in Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me.
But the mad, stream-of-consciousness clown has always been his particular specialty — "Box of Moon Light," "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," "Seven Psychopaths."
Long after James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, we reveled in Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me.
The terrific Farmiga, who doubles as Norman Bates' unstable mom on A&E's "Psycho"-centric "Bates Motel," apparently already has signed on to star in a few more Warren-based tales for the screen.
Janney is a scene stealer as a motor-mouthed souse, while Collette and Carell evoke memories of “Little Miss Sunshine,” which had a similar feel for the foibles of its characters.
Advertised as being “from the studio that brought you ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ and ‘Juno,’” this 2013 dramedy starring Steve Carell and Toni Collette (who also worked together in “Little Miss Sunshine”) shows that filmmakers aren’t afraid to work the other way as well—infusing an essentially indie film with “slick” formulaic elements from mainstream cinema.
Shy 14-year-old Duncan (Liam James of “The Killing”) would much rather be with his dad in California than spending the summer in a northeastern beach town with his mom (Toni Collette) and her boyfriend Trent (Collette’s “Little Miss Sunshine” co-star Steve Carell), whose emotional abuse of Duncan is as casual as it is damaging.
It isn’t quite “Little Miss Sunshine,” but it’s close enough.
Duncan’s mother Pam (Toni Collette, who played Carell’s siser in Little Miss Sunshine) doesn’t see any of this.
It certainly hasn’t much relation to Little Miss Sunshine (2006) or Juno (2007), despite the poster claiming it’s “from the studio that brought you” those films (not that any single studio made all three).
Ping Pong Summer (2014)
Directed by Michael Tully
influenced by The Way Way Back (2013)
Visuals Themes
It’s more interested in those flashing arcade games, those goofy dance moves, those Icees, all that candy-colored runoff of teenage materialism — as if Kenneth Anger tried to remake The Way Way Back.
But its relatively uninvolving story, starchily directed by Tully and given little zing by an uneven cast, makes “Ping Pong Summer” an okay-not-great addition to a canon that has been elevated most recently by films like “ The Way, Way Back ” and “ The Spectacular Now .”
Warmly written and directed by Michael Tully, "Ping Pong Summer" is an affectionate coming-of-age comedy in the vein of 2009's " Adventureland " and 2013's " The Way Way Back ," one that feels for every moment like a film shot in the very decade in which it is set.
From moment to moment, it feels as if Faxon and Rash are crafting their own take on One Crazy Summer (they even play oddball park employees, along with the always welcome Maya Rudolph).
An unexpected yet irresistible cross between Meatballs and The Ice Storm, The Way Way Back just may be the best movie of the summer.
The center doesn’t hold in The Way, Way Back, and neither does the bulk of the movie, a coming-of-age comedy-drama that’s part The Ice Storm, part The Graduate, and wholly workshopped to death.