Solondz, Todd

Happiness

At times brilliant and insightful, at times repellent and false, Happiness is director Todd Solondz's multistory tale of sex, perversion, and loneliness. Plumbing depths of Crumb-like angst and rejection, Solondz won the Cannes International Critics Prize in 1998 and the film was a staple of nearly every critic's Top Ten list. Admirable, shocking, and hilarious for its sarcastic yet strangely empathetic look at consenting adults' confusion between lust and love, the film stares unflinchingly until the audience blinks. But it doesn't stop there. A word of strong caution to parents: One of the main characters, a suburban super dad (played by Dylan Baker), is really a predatory pedophile and there is more than an attempt to paint him as a sympathetic character. Children are used in this film as running gags or, worse, the means to an end. Whether that end is a humorous scene for Solondz or sexual gratification for the rapist becomes largely irrelevant. Happiness is an intelligent, sad film, revelatory and exact at moments. It's also abuse in the guise of art. That's nothing to celebrate. --Keith Simanton

When a young woman (Jane Adams) rejects her current overweight suitor (Jon Lovitz) in a restaurant he unexpectedly places a curse on her. The film then moves on to her sisters. One (Cynthia Stevenson) is a happily married woman with a psychiatrist husband (Dylan Baker) and three kids. Unfortunately the husband develops an unnatural fascination for his 11 year old sons male classmates fantasizes about mass killing in a park and masturbates to teen magazines. One of his patients (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has an unrequited fascination for the third sister (Lara Flynn Boyle). Meanwhile the apparently stable 40 year marriage of the sisters parents (Ben Gazzara Louise Lasser) suddenly unravels when he decides he has had enough and wants to live a hermits life in Florida. Obviously the whole movie is slightly warped in its viewpoint and certainly presents abnormal relationships among all of its parties. System Requirements:Directed by Todd Solondz Writing credits Todd Solondz Cast overview first billed only: Jane Adams (II) Jon Lovitz Philip Seymour Hoffman Dylan Baker Lara Flynn Boyle Justin Elvin Cynthia Stevenson Lila Glantzman-Leib Gerry Becker Rufus Read Louise Lasser Ben Gazzara Camryn Manheim Arthur J. Nascarella Molly Shannon Also Known As: Todd Solondzs Untitled (1997) (USA: working title) Runtime: 134 Color: Color (DuArt) Sound Mix: Dolby Certification: France:-12 / Italy:VM18 / Norway:15 / Sweden:15 Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating:  UPC: 031398702337

Welcome to the Dollhouse

What is junior high school but a strange, disorienting pastiche of black comedy, tragedy, soap opera, and (most of all) horror movie? Well, that pretty much describes Todd Solondz's astonishingly honest and clear-sighted film, Welcome to the Dollhouse. Like Solondz's even more controversial follow-up--the acclaimed and despised Happiness (1998)--Dollhouse unflinchingly looks deep into its characters' souls (and their embarrassing desires, and their floundering sexuality) in ways that can be simultaneously disturbing and liberating, appalling and hilarious. Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo) is a hapless seventh-grade geek whose cruel and contemptuous schoolmates have nicknamed her (what else?) "Wiener Dog." Everything about Dawn is so awkward--the way she looks, talks, moves--that it's no wonder other kids dump on her. They're most likely so insecure about themselves that they're terrified of the Wiener Dog they know lurks somewhere down inside themselves, too. So, the best social and psychological survival tactic is to distance themselves from Dawn by relentlessly reminding her of her "place" at the bottom of the junior-high pecking order. Solondz's vision is hardly sentimental, and you wouldn't even call it "compassionate," but it is a moral vision: authentic, undiluted, and, in the end, understanding. --Jim Emerson

Storytelling

From Todd Solondz the critically acclaimed director of Welcome to the Dollhouse comes a film comprised of two separate stories set against the sadly comical terrain of college and high school past and present. Following the paths of its young hopeful/troubled characters it explores issues of sex race celebrity and exploitation.Running Time: 87 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 794043554421

Todd Solondz, director of the acclaimed Welcome to the Dollhouse and the controversial Happiness, continues pushing the envelope of social decorum with the merciless and casually cruel Storytelling, his most ruthless satire of suburban complacency. Broken into two unrelated chapters, "Fiction" follows college girl Selma Blair through a degrading encounter with her resentful writing teacher (Robert Wisdom), while the more sprawling and scattershot "Non-Fiction" circles around the mutual exploitation of a fumbling documentary filmmaker (Paul Giamatti doing a near-parody of director Solondz) and his clueless subject, a suburban high school slacker named Scooby (Mark Webber). The squirmy laughs are laced with humiliation and the satire is acidic and cynical; in the world of Solondz, victims and victimizers alike are petty, selfish, vindictive, and thoughtless, and empathy is strictly rationed. Though sharply written and well directed, this misanthropic vision is strictly for daring filmgoers and Solondz fans. --Sean Axmaker

Palindromes

Writer/director Todd Solondz has no patience for formulas or safe choices. Most filmmakers, after making a movie as commercially unsuccessful and critically slammed as the underrated Storytelling, would strive to broaden their appeal. Solondz, instead, made Palindromes, a movie about a troubled young girl named Aviva whose only goal in life is to have children--a goal that leads her through abortion, religious extremism, pedophilia, and more. But for many viewers, the plot isn't as off-putting as the casting: Over the course of the movie, Aviva is played by eight very different actresses (including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rush). Like Solondz's other movies (including Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness), Palindromes initially seems emotionally brutal and absurd, but gradually grows engaging and even moving, albeit in strange and unexpected ways. Palindromes is given an extra boost by a hypnotic, emotionally unleashed performance by Ellen Barkin (The Big Easy, Drop Dead Gorgeous) as Aviva's mother. --Bret Fetzer

Palindromes is a fable of innocence: 13-year old Aviva Victor wants to be a mom. She does all that she can to make this happen, and comes very close to succeeding, but in the end, her plan is thwarted by her sensible parents (Ellen Barkin and Richard Masur). So she runs away, still determined to get pregnant one way or another, but instead finds herself lost in another world, a less sensible one, perhaps, but one pregnant itself with all sorts of strange possibility. Like so many trips, this one is round-trip, and it's hard to say in the end if she can ever be quite the same again, or she can ever be anything but the same again. Palindromes features an all-star supporting cast including Debra Monk, Stephen Adly-Guirgis, Jennifer Jason Leigh and seven different and equally brilliant, risk-taking actors of different ages, races and sizes to play the young heroine. Acclaimed writer/director Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness, Storytelling) once again presents a film of moral complexity, and while this may be his most political and philosophical film yet, it is, in many ways, his most tender.

Happiness

At times brilliant and insightful, at times repellent and false, Happiness is director Todd Solondz's multistory tale of sex, perversion, and loneliness. Plumbing depths of Crumb-like angst and rejection, Solondz won the Cannes International Critics Prize in 1998 and the film was a staple of nearly every critic's Top Ten list. Admirable, shocking, and hilarious for its sarcastic yet strangely empathetic look at consenting adults' confusion between lust and love, the film stares unflinchingly until the audience blinks. But it doesn't stop there. A word of strong caution to parents: One of the main characters, a suburban super dad (played by Dylan Baker), is really a predatory pedophile and there is more than an attempt to paint him as a sympathetic character. Children are used in this film as running gags or, worse, the means to an end. Whether that end is a humorous scene for Solondz or sexual gratification for the rapist becomes largely irrelevant. Happiness is an intelligent, sad film, revelatory and exact at moments. It's also abuse in the guise of art. That's nothing to celebrate. --Keith Simanton

The search for happiness connects lonely lives in this subversively funny new film from Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse). Meet three sisters at the center of a struggle with the secret demons of middle class perfection. There's Joy who is rebounding from a break-up with her latest loser boyfriend (Jon Lovitz); Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle) a glamorous writer looking for drama in a relationship with a slovenly obscene phone caller (Philip Seymour Hoffman); and then there's Trish (Cynthia Stevenson) the housewife who appears to have it all including a shrink husband (Dylan Baker) who has a secret obsession which he manages to hide from his family and friends.System Requirements:Starring Jane Adams Elizabeth Ashley Dylan Baker Lara Flynn Boyle Ben Gazzara Jared Harris Philip Seymour Hoffman Jon Lovitz Camryn Manheim Rufus Read Cynthia Stevenson Directed by Todd Solondz Running time: 140 minutes Copyright Lion's Gate 2003Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: UNRATED UPC: 031398826620 Manufacturer No: VM8266D

Storytelling

Todd Solondz, director of the acclaimed Welcome to the Dollhouse and the controversial Happiness, continues pushing the envelope of social decorum with the merciless and casually cruel Storytelling, his most ruthless satire of suburban complacency. Broken into two unrelated chapters, "Fiction" follows college girl Selma Blair through a degrading encounter with her resentful writing teacher (Robert Wisdom), while the more sprawling and scattershot "Non-Fiction" circles around the mutual exploitation of a fumbling documentary filmmaker (Paul Giamatti doing a near-parody of director Solondz) and his clueless subject, a suburban high school slacker named Scooby (Mark Webber). The squirmy laughs are laced with humiliation and the satire is acidic and cynical; in the world of Solondz, victims and victimizers alike are petty, selfish, vindictive, and thoughtless, and empathy is strictly rationed. Though sharply written and well directed, this misanthropic vision is strictly for daring filmgoers and Solondz fans. --Sean Axmaker

Happiness [Region 2]

At times brilliant and insightful, at times repellent and false, Happiness is director Todd Solondz's multistory tale of sex, perversion, and loneliness. Plumbing depths of Crumb-like angst and rejection, Solondz won the Cannes International Critics Prize in 1998 and the film was a staple of nearly every critic's Top Ten list. Admirable, shocking, and hilarious for its sarcastic yet strangely empathetic look at consenting adults' confusion between lust and love, the film stares unflinchingly until the audience blinks. But it doesn't stop there. A word of strong caution to parents: One of the main characters, a suburban super dad (played by Dylan Baker), is really a predatory pedophile and there is more than an attempt to paint him as a sympathetic character. Children are used in this film as running gags or, worse, the means to an end. Whether that end is a humorous scene for Solondz or sexual gratification for the rapist becomes largely irrelevant. Happiness is an intelligent, sad film, revelatory and exact at moments. It's also abuse in the guise of art. That's nothing to celebrate. --Keith Simanton

Storytelling [Region 2]

Todd Solondz, director of the acclaimed Welcome to the Dollhouse and the controversial Happiness, continues pushing the envelope of social decorum with the merciless and casually cruel Storytelling, his most ruthless satire of suburban complacency. Broken into two unrelated chapters, "Fiction" follows college girl Selma Blair through a degrading encounter with her resentful writing teacher (Robert Wisdom), while the more sprawling and scattershot "Non-Fiction" circles around the mutual exploitation of a fumbling documentary filmmaker (Paul Giamatti doing a near-parody of director Solondz) and his clueless subject, a suburban high school slacker named Scooby (Mark Webber). The squirmy laughs are laced with humiliation and the satire is acidic and cynical; in the world of Solondz, victims and victimizers alike are petty, selfish, vindictive, and thoughtless, and empathy is strictly rationed. Though sharply written and well directed, this misanthropic vision is strictly for daring filmgoers and Solondz fans. --Sean Axmaker

Happiness [Region 2]

At times brilliant and insightful, at times repellent and false, Happiness is director Todd Solondz's multistory tale of sex, perversion, and loneliness. Plumbing depths of Crumb-like angst and rejection, Solondz won the Cannes International Critics Prize in 1998 and the film was a staple of nearly every critic's Top Ten list. Admirable, shocking, and hilarious for its sarcastic yet strangely empathetic look at consenting adults' confusion between lust and love, the film stares unflinchingly until the audience blinks. But it doesn't stop there. A word of strong caution to parents: One of the main characters, a suburban super dad (played by Dylan Baker), is really a predatory pedophile and there is more than an attempt to paint him as a sympathetic character. Children are used in this film as running gags or, worse, the means to an end. Whether that end is a humorous scene for Solondz or sexual gratification for the rapist becomes largely irrelevant. Happiness is an intelligent, sad film, revelatory and exact at moments. It's also abuse in the guise of art. That's nothing to celebrate. --Keith Simanton