I'll admit that I was very biased for this film going in, I was rooting for it to be great. They shot the film in my home town of Ashland, Oregon. I know many people that worked on it behind the scenes. The director and I both had films in a block of shorts in the Ashland Independent Film Festival about five years ago. His film, Wow & Flutter was by far the best of the bunch. I could tell that he was on his way on to better things. It wasn't a surprise when he returned with Steve Zahn in tow to make his first feature a few years later. All that said, I am still judging this film on its own. Thankfully, it turned out to be pretty wonderful.

The titular character Calvin Marshall loves baseball more than anything in life. He wakes at the crack of dawn to hit off a tee, to run the bases and take diving slides in an empty ball field. He donates his time to a little league team, teaching the kids proper technique in how to field and throw the ball. He lives and dies for America's game. The only problem is, he really isn't that good.

At least not good enough to make the team for his junior college Bayford Bisons. His coach, Doug Little, played brilliantly by Zahn, really likes Marshall, loves his hustle and determination so much that he can't bring himself to cut the poor kid. Instead telling him he's "injured" and needs to "get better" first. Which leaves poor Calvin even more deluded, thinking that he's made the team. Calvin puts himself on an imaginary DL list, biding his return to the team by broadcasting the Bison sports show and announcing for the girls volleyball team. His world is rocked by the arrival of Tori Jensen, a beautiful volleyball ace with a dark secret. Although Calvin's pursuit of Tori is fun, the film doesn't offer anything new in the romantic-comedy genre. There is one hilarious scene where Coach Little gives Alex love advice completely in baseball analogies.


Where the film does do something new is the sports aspect. Most sports films tell a similar story, they will either follow somebody destined to be great, think The Natural or The Rookie, or they'll follow a cast of misfits who bring it together to win it all, ala The Bad News Bears or Major League. Calvin Marshall tells a new story, something I don't remember seeing in any other sports film. Having a character who is dead set on becoming great, he'd even settle for good, but simply not having the skill set to get it done. It's heartbreaking to let your dreams go, especially when we're told all our lives that if you work hard enough you'll make it in the end. Calvin works and works and works at baseball, but it isn't to be. The film mirrors his story, with that of Coach Little, he's been the great baseball player, the team star, making it as far as the minor leagues, but not quite all the way. Now that he's older, his skills have diminished and he's crushed that his glory days are over.

Steve Zahn is a bit of a revelation here, he usually doesn't get to show this kind of depth. He's in his comfort zone when he's the hilarious, foul-mouthed coach ragging on his players, but it's in the quiet moments, when he's drinking with the local burnouts or trying to pick up sad and lonely girls, that he shows a whole new side. The entire cast is very good. Newcomer Alex Frost is charismatic, holding his own as Calvin among a cast of recognizable faces. Such as Andrew Wilson as Alex's step-uncle and male-role-model, Jane Adams as Alex's aunt, and Diedrich Bader as the coach of a softball team, the only guy who truly appreciates Calvin's baseball skills. Michelle Lombardo, of Californication fame, looks the part and gets to flex a bit of acting muscles as the volleyball goddess Tori Jensen.

But really, the true star of Calvin Marshall is writer/director Gary Lundgren. For a first film and for the budget that the film was made for, it is an amazing feat. There is a definitive "Gary Lundgren style" at work here. He gets good performances out of a range of actors from veterans to rookies. He knows just how to move the camera and the film looks amazing for it. He understands how to set a scene to music and the exact moments in which to use slow-motion. While Calvin Marshall may not make much of a splash in the film world, and I only say that, because it's such a small film, I believe that Lundgren's career will be prosperous. His debut feature most reminds me of Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket, only because you can instantly tell that here is a filmmaker that despite the small budget knew exactly what they wanted to do.

Sadly you'll most likely see Calvin Marshall on video shelves, with Steve Zahn's over-sized head staring out at you. When instead it deserves to be the toast of Sundance. I bet that over the years it will gain a cult following, because the story and the filmmaking are undeniably there and eventually that will get noticed. I'm here writing this review in the small hopes that my words will encourage a few more people to see this little gem. Do yourself a favor and seek out this film.

Without doing any research I'm guessing that writer/director Chris Lusvardi is a child of the 80's. Man Maid an independent film made in 2008, feels exactly like a stereotypical 80's comedy. There's the so-called weak and/or nerdy lead male character, this time personified by Vincent, a cleaning man who works in a small town hotel. At the beginning of the film we see him taunted and teased by the hotel's customers. There's Chloe the beautiful girl he desires, who doesn't notice him for who he is, because of her no-good boyfriend. There's his stud best friend who can get any girl he wants. And finally there's the good girl Torry, who nobody pays attention too because she's boring and "plain" looking. Although obviously beautiful, outside the film. Then there's the array of goofy side characters who show up in the lead character's life to either help or hinder him along his hero's path.

With the help of one of those kooky side characters, here portrayed by a gum smacking maid and hotel prostitute, Vincent comes up with a plan to win the beautiful girl's heart by dating the plain girl. Of course he starts to fall for Torry, but doesn't want to admit it, only does so when his plan explodes in his face. He then comes up with a gigantic 80's movie plan to get her back; he's going to produce a benefit concert to raise $40,000 and save the hotel from evil developers. Don't think that I'm giving away anything with this review, if you've seen more than five movies, you know exactly where this story is going the whole time. This film might as well have been set in a high school and produced by John Hughes.

Being a huge fan of 80's comedies, I wouldn't have had a problem with Man Maid if they'd used a few of these old plot devices to bring us into the film, then turn them on their head and created something new. But this script was written long before the filmmakers ever picked up their first camera. There are the music montages; one showing us the love growing between Vincent and Torry and a couple more reminding us of what happened in the last thirty minutes, with inspirational quotes and all. We instantly know who the bad guy is because he wears a suit and hits on Torry in obnoxious ways. We're given Vincent's backstory about why he wants to be a maid, through cheesy soft-focus flashbacks. The film goes from A to B to C with nothing new in between.

I'll admit I was enjoying the movie for the first act. Most of the actors all do a decent job with their cliché roles, they keep it fun for a while. (The film won best ensemble cast at the Ashland Independent Film Festival, where I saw it.) But once they get to the third act, and they're posting concert fliers around town and building a stage on Vincent's property, even they seem to get bored with the story, and the film ends with a thud. It's all put together with as little panache as possible. There's one moment where Vincent floats down the halls of the hotel behind his maid's cart, but beyond that, the camera angles are as plain as possible. The lighting of the film is too bright and flat, the editing as standard as possible. Man Maid is a film produced two decades too late. - Grade: C+

I decided to see Happy Birthday Harris, Malden because it was one of the few comedies playing at my local fest, the Ashland Independent Film Festival. My main reason for seeing it was the trailer below, which I thought made the film look funny in an offbeat way. With the idea of a guy who's psychologically compelled to draw on a mustache every day being something I hadn't seen before. I'm always looking for anything new in film.

The film started off promising, with some fun credits created by animated cardboard cutouts, that tells us Harris's back-story. Unfortunately that proved to be the highlight of the film. I was into Harris for about 10 minutes, they quickly introduce us to the cast of characters; Harris, his brother Melvin, best friend Paul and Paul's girlfriend Susan. Each of their introductions made them seem like interesting characters that would be fun to follow for the next 90 minutes, but unfortunately none of them really grew beyond their first impression. With all of them suffering from major cases of arrested development.

Harris is supposed to be the most messed up because he wears a fake mustache, which his friends and family have been letting him live with, because they believe it helps him deal with the death of his father. Beyond that, he may be the most steady man in the group. (Which now that I'm thinking about it, may have been the point of the film.) Paul is a 25-year-old, somewhat successful architect, who still lives with his grandmother, and is scared of moving in with his girlfriend. When he and Susan get in a fight, he acts like a toddler throwing a fit. Harris's brother Melvin lives in a completely delusional world, which is made worse when a commercial director "discovers" him and constantly refers to him as a future superstar. The scene where they're shooting a commercial in front of a green screen, with imaginary dragons attacking Melvin and two scantily-clad girls, is one of the funniest in the film. Susan plays the stick-in-the-mud girlfriend who wants to pull Paul into the adult world, she causes a major rift in the boys world when she tells Harris his mustache is fake. Paul's grandma, who everybody calls Grams, is also a significant character, she's the kooky voice of reason.

The main problem with the film is that is floats somewhere between a realistic drama and a quirky other-world comedy like Napoleon Dynamite. None of the characters rings true as a real person, and while the acting is universally poor, a lot of the fault falls on the dialog. I'm not sure if this film was badly written or badly improvised, either way, the characters often seem to be having their own conversations, with nobody addressing each other in a real world fashion. Their acting style suggests that they're not trying to create realistic characters, but their actions aren't out-there enough to create an alternate universe.

I really don't like bad-mouthing independent films, there is so much love and work that go into making a film, even more so when budgets are extremely low. So I applaud them for putting this film together, unfortunately it is a jumbled mess. One example of this is Harris's mustache, which constantly fluctuates between being drawn-on and a glued-on felt one, which I'm guessing the filmmakers are hoping we wouldn't notice. Happy Birthday, Harris Malden was written, directed and stars a group that calls themselves Sweaty Robot. Although they went down swinging with this film, there's enough here to suggest that they possibly have a good film in their future. There are a few good moments peaking through, a flash of true comedy here, a dash of real drama there, and I also thought that the film was nicely shot and edited for such a low budget feature. Sweaty Robot, I promise to watch your next film, but if it falls as flat as Harris, I'll probably give up. - Grade: C-

I was a little biased the first time I saw this film. I met producer & star Kirk Fox at the Ashland Independent Film Festival, when my short film Lucky Shoes was playing there. He was an incredibly nice guy, we kept running into each other and he made sure to say hello each time. (And for some more name dropping.) I also got to briefly meet director and star Donal Logue a few years back when his film The Tao of Steve was playing at the Seattle Film Festival. So I felt like I had a bit of a personal connection to this film before I saw it, which I ended up really enjoying.

That said, I know that I would have liked Tennis, Anyone? even if I had never met either of these guys. It's a fun indie-comedy, with a good spirit, that reaches beyond the surface ideas to be something more. Donal Logue plays Danny Macklin, an actor on a somewhat successful TV show, not too far of a stretch as Donal used to star on the somewhat successful TV show Grounded For Life. While exaggerated, I'm sure that he used a few of his Hollywood stories for the film. He meets Gary Morgan, played by Kirk Fox, on the set of an indie-film that they're in together.

A while later, they run into each other at a party, and realize that they both have a major interest in tennis. Danny is an okay player, while Gary is a former professional, now a tennis-pro teaching kids how to play. They decide to team up together to play in a few celebrity tournaments and grow to be great friends. Jason Isaacs is hilarious as Danny's nemesis Johnny Green, he's a big time movie star who's old friends with Danny and can't help but rub it in his face every time they see each other; which happens a lot now that they're playing in tournaments together. Johnny gives Danny some terrible advice on how to advance his career, which starts an avalanche of terrible decisions, until finally Danny gets kicked in the face by a stripper and loses his TV show.

Tennis, Anyone?, while having a lot of behind-the-scenes Hollywood stuff, and even more tennis scenes, is ultimately about two men finding themselves. Gary being very good at tennis, really wants to be an actor, but unfortunately isn't very good at it. Danny has made it as an actor, but isn't happy with his lot in life, he has to lose just about everything before he understands who he really is, tennis helps center him. There's a touching scene near the end, when Gary's dad dies and the boys spend a moment honoring him, it's handled with the right mix of humor and melancholy.

The film hasn't had much attention, I didn't hear anything about after the festival, it's disappeared into animosity, I ran across it on IFC. Which is really a shame, it's a nicely made coming-of-age comedy, with some great performances from Donal Logue and Kirk Fox. There's also some fun cameos with Stephen Dorff as a country singer and Paul Rudd as a porn star. Donal Logue proves that he knows what he's doing behind the camera, while the film isn't a directing feast, he also doesn't make a lot of mistakes. If you like indie-comedies with some heart, you should give Tennis, Anyone? a chance.