(Anna Kendrick and George Clooney, above, in Up In The Air.)
By Terry Keefe (Currently appearing in this month's Venice Magazine.)
Anna Kendrick has always excelled at playing the smartest person in the room, and one who you definitely want to watch your back around. We were introduced to Kendrick in her big-screen debut, Todd Graff’s Camp in 2003, when she played young teen actress wannabe Fritzi Wagner in a notable supporting role. Described by one adult character in the film as a “scary little girl,” Wagner begins the story as a mousy sidekick to blonde theater star diva Jill (Alana Allen), but then manages to quite literally push Jill off the stage in a fierce All About Eve-style turnaround. In 2007, Kendrick won critical acclaim for her work as manipulative high school debate champion Ginny Ryerson in Rocket Science. Like Fritzi Wagner, Ginny Ryerson had a freaky air of intelligence well beyond her years,...
By Terry Keefe (Currently appearing in this month's Venice Magazine.)
Anna Kendrick has always excelled at playing the smartest person in the room, and one who you definitely want to watch your back around. We were introduced to Kendrick in her big-screen debut, Todd Graff’s Camp in 2003, when she played young teen actress wannabe Fritzi Wagner in a notable supporting role. Described by one adult character in the film as a “scary little girl,” Wagner begins the story as a mousy sidekick to blonde theater star diva Jill (Alana Allen), but then manages to quite literally push Jill off the stage in a fierce All About Eve-style turnaround. In 2007, Kendrick won critical acclaim for her work as manipulative high school debate champion Ginny Ryerson in Rocket Science. Like Fritzi Wagner, Ginny Ryerson had a freaky air of intelligence well beyond her years,...
- 12/21/2009
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Screened
IFP Los Angeles Film Festival
Inspired by his stint as a camper and then a counselor at the upstate New York theater camp Stagedoor Manor (not to mention a certain 1980 movie set at New York's High School for Performing Arts), screenwriter Todd Graff makes his directorial debut with "Camp", a film that, intentionally or not, succinctly reflects the title's various connotations.
Although certainly not the smoothest run of operations, the clunky transitions and less than fluidly staged musical numbers aren't the deal breakers they might have been thanks to the picture's genuine affection for its milieu and its committed ensemble of fresh-faced teen talent.
But even with the on-camera endorsement of musical theater deity Stephen Sondheim, backing from Jersey Films and specialty pros Killer Films ("Boys Don't Cry", "Far From Heaven") and the marketing savvy of IFC ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding", "Y Tu Mama Tambien"), the closing-night selection of this year's IFP Los Angeles Film Festival isn't exactly sleeper material.
With its arsenal of in-jokes, the picture will likely have to settle for an audience demographic limited to musical theater buffs overlapping with those who felt they never fit into a more traditional summer camp setting.
Shot on the actual site of Stagedoor Manor, whose campers have included Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh and an 8-year-old Robert Downey Jr., "Camp" introduces the current fictional crop after a dispensable opening musical number.
Among those arriving for an artistically expressive summer at Camp Ovation: newbie Vlad (Daniel Letterle), a certified player with boy-band looks who wastes no time in seducing several female campers -- including sweet but insecure Ellen (Joanna Chilcoat), her bunkmate Dee (Sasha Allen) and the conniving seductress Jill (Alana Allen) -- while managing to find a little time to flirt with sensitive Michael (Robin De Jesus), who still bears the physical and emotional bruises of being beaten up when he attended his high school prom in drag.
Unlike regular summer camps, which might mount one major production at the end of each month, Camp Ovation puts the kids through the rigorous task of putting on a new show every two weeks, complete with costumes, sets and a resident house band.
Adding to that challenge is the arrival of this year's guest director, the cynical, hard-drinking Bert Hanley (musician Don Dixon), who had a hit show on Broadway a decade ago but hasn't been able to finish anything since.
Will Bert ever put down the bottle and get those creative juices flowing anew?
Will Vlad ever learn to stop playing people like they were strings on his guitar?
Will the evil Jill get her well-deserved comeuppance?
Will everybody get their encore?
Actually, in Graff's hands, nothing feels quite like a sure thing. The awkwardness experienced by the group of adolescents also extends to the construction of sequences and the uneasy juggling of characters, which keeps throwing the film out of balance.
And while the script has no shortage of tart, knowing wit, too often scenes seem set up solely to pay off some sight gag, undercutting key emotional credibility in the process.
But Graff, whose writing credits include "Coyote Ugly" and "Dangerous Minds", at least has his heart in the right place, and those expressive, talented kids are the real deal.
Mr. Sondheim aside, Graff also manages to round up some heavyweight support in the persons of composer Stephen Trask ("Hedwig and the Angry Inch"), musical director Tim Weil ("Rent"), songwriter Michael Gore ("Fame") and lyricist Lynn Ahrens ("Ragtime"), but somehow, rather than summoning "Fame", many of the group performance pieces end up having all the infectious energy of a musical interlude on "The Partridge Family".
Camp
IFC Films
An IFC production A Jersey Films/Killer Films/Laughlin Park Pictures production
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Todd Graff
Producers: Todd Graff, Katie Roumel, Christine Vachon
Pamela Koffler, Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher, Jonathan Weisgal
Executive producers: John Wells, Richard Klubeck, Holly Becker, Caroline Kaplan, Jonathan Sehring
Director of photography: Kip Bogdahn
Production designer: Dina Goldman
Editor: Myron Kerstein
Costume designer: Dawn Weisberg
Music: Stephen Trask
Music supervisor: Linda Cohen
Cast:
Vlad: Daniel Letterle
Ellen: Joanna Chilcoat
Michael: Robin De Jesus
Shaun: Steven Cutts
Spitzer: Vince Rimoldi
Petie: Kahiry Bess
Jenna: Tiffany Taylor
Dee: Sasha Allen
Jill: Alana Allen
Fritzi: Anna Kendrick
Bert: Don Dixon
Running time -- 110 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
IFP Los Angeles Film Festival
Inspired by his stint as a camper and then a counselor at the upstate New York theater camp Stagedoor Manor (not to mention a certain 1980 movie set at New York's High School for Performing Arts), screenwriter Todd Graff makes his directorial debut with "Camp", a film that, intentionally or not, succinctly reflects the title's various connotations.
Although certainly not the smoothest run of operations, the clunky transitions and less than fluidly staged musical numbers aren't the deal breakers they might have been thanks to the picture's genuine affection for its milieu and its committed ensemble of fresh-faced teen talent.
But even with the on-camera endorsement of musical theater deity Stephen Sondheim, backing from Jersey Films and specialty pros Killer Films ("Boys Don't Cry", "Far From Heaven") and the marketing savvy of IFC ("My Big Fat Greek Wedding", "Y Tu Mama Tambien"), the closing-night selection of this year's IFP Los Angeles Film Festival isn't exactly sleeper material.
With its arsenal of in-jokes, the picture will likely have to settle for an audience demographic limited to musical theater buffs overlapping with those who felt they never fit into a more traditional summer camp setting.
Shot on the actual site of Stagedoor Manor, whose campers have included Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh and an 8-year-old Robert Downey Jr., "Camp" introduces the current fictional crop after a dispensable opening musical number.
Among those arriving for an artistically expressive summer at Camp Ovation: newbie Vlad (Daniel Letterle), a certified player with boy-band looks who wastes no time in seducing several female campers -- including sweet but insecure Ellen (Joanna Chilcoat), her bunkmate Dee (Sasha Allen) and the conniving seductress Jill (Alana Allen) -- while managing to find a little time to flirt with sensitive Michael (Robin De Jesus), who still bears the physical and emotional bruises of being beaten up when he attended his high school prom in drag.
Unlike regular summer camps, which might mount one major production at the end of each month, Camp Ovation puts the kids through the rigorous task of putting on a new show every two weeks, complete with costumes, sets and a resident house band.
Adding to that challenge is the arrival of this year's guest director, the cynical, hard-drinking Bert Hanley (musician Don Dixon), who had a hit show on Broadway a decade ago but hasn't been able to finish anything since.
Will Bert ever put down the bottle and get those creative juices flowing anew?
Will Vlad ever learn to stop playing people like they were strings on his guitar?
Will the evil Jill get her well-deserved comeuppance?
Will everybody get their encore?
Actually, in Graff's hands, nothing feels quite like a sure thing. The awkwardness experienced by the group of adolescents also extends to the construction of sequences and the uneasy juggling of characters, which keeps throwing the film out of balance.
And while the script has no shortage of tart, knowing wit, too often scenes seem set up solely to pay off some sight gag, undercutting key emotional credibility in the process.
But Graff, whose writing credits include "Coyote Ugly" and "Dangerous Minds", at least has his heart in the right place, and those expressive, talented kids are the real deal.
Mr. Sondheim aside, Graff also manages to round up some heavyweight support in the persons of composer Stephen Trask ("Hedwig and the Angry Inch"), musical director Tim Weil ("Rent"), songwriter Michael Gore ("Fame") and lyricist Lynn Ahrens ("Ragtime"), but somehow, rather than summoning "Fame", many of the group performance pieces end up having all the infectious energy of a musical interlude on "The Partridge Family".
Camp
IFC Films
An IFC production A Jersey Films/Killer Films/Laughlin Park Pictures production
Credits:
Director-screenwriter: Todd Graff
Producers: Todd Graff, Katie Roumel, Christine Vachon
Pamela Koffler, Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher, Jonathan Weisgal
Executive producers: John Wells, Richard Klubeck, Holly Becker, Caroline Kaplan, Jonathan Sehring
Director of photography: Kip Bogdahn
Production designer: Dina Goldman
Editor: Myron Kerstein
Costume designer: Dawn Weisberg
Music: Stephen Trask
Music supervisor: Linda Cohen
Cast:
Vlad: Daniel Letterle
Ellen: Joanna Chilcoat
Michael: Robin De Jesus
Shaun: Steven Cutts
Spitzer: Vince Rimoldi
Petie: Kahiry Bess
Jenna: Tiffany Taylor
Dee: Sasha Allen
Jill: Alana Allen
Fritzi: Anna Kendrick
Bert: Don Dixon
Running time -- 110 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.