Little Athens (2005)

Really Surprised!

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

I watched this film because someone whose opinions I respect told me it was terrible and I needed to see for myself. He was wrong. But not entirely.The acting, camera work, script, locations, sound track etc reflect decent production values and an honest intention on the part of the filmmakers, but on the other hand, the main characters are all pathetic losers (which is not the same as saying the acting is bad, which it isn't).There are some brilliant moments like when Jimmy discovers the dead guy on the sofa (and what he does next), and when we discover just who Steve is cheating with, and when Aaron chases his girlfriend out of the house as she escapes with her friend Carlos. But overall it looks like it's going nowhere...it seems pointless...like the lives of those it portrays.At first I was constantly trying to work out how the 4 threads were supposed to interconnect, but they really don't, not even at the end. It's just a day in the lives of 4 sets of people who happen to know each other and whose lives occasionally cross paths either on purpose or by chance as they go about what they have to do. When I realised that and simply watched it for what it was it got more interesting.Some reviewers have panned it for a 'contrived' final scene. I disagree. We have little clues all through that these characters have all known one another, at least in passing, for years and it should be no surprise that they go to the same parties together.This is not the kind of movie I would normally seek out but I'm glad I did.

Tom Zuber has great credentials in Law but seems to prefer to dabble in the territory of cinema. Having not seen his debut film LANSDOWN (2001) it is difficult to judge from LITTLE ATHENS (2005) if he is improving with age, but looking at LITTLE ATHENS on its own merits it seems a bit sparse in idea and in production.Athens, Arizona is the bleak setting of this day in the lives of some fairly bored (and boring) youngsters, ne're-do-wells attempting to infuse sparkle into an otherwise glitterless place. Zuber creates four story lines, spottily interweaves them, and finally connects the dots in the last reel. The main problem is that comedy is funny because we care about the facilitators and here there really aren't any folks in which to invest. The cast tries hard and succeeds in giving us a taste of life in the flatlands of nothingville. D.J. Qualls (a character type who is very good, as in 'Hustle and Flow'), Michael Pena, John Patrick Amedori, Shawn Hatosi, Tory Kittles, Eric Szmanda, Jorge Garcia, Erica Leerhsen, and Michelle Horn are particularly fine and do their best with the material they are given.Tom Zuber has a style, a sense of non-scripted spontaneity incorporating the gross with the sadsack, and given time he may make a fine little film. This one just misses. Grady Harp

Not the worst indie film I've ever seen.And it does have it's moments of being funny.Rachel Miner was DECENT as the best friend of Erika leerhsen's character where she's cheating with her cop boyfriend cause she's willing to give him anal sex that he so craves. Then you've got Jorge Garcia who is awesome on Lost but in this film just seem wasted as a character.It was stupid the way he'd speak Spanish words mixed in with mostly English.It's like he's trying to say "I'm Mexican though i look like a fat white dude."And, once again DJ Qualls gives a decent quirky character performance & once again shows why he's one of the truly ugliest actors I've ever seen. Is reminiscent of the party scene in Dazed & Confused but that film is wayyy better. Too dark in parts to see much of what's going on, i feel this film would've been better had they had less characters. ** out of *****

I'll start with the things that didn't work; Jorge Garcia – I am a fan of his character in "Lost", and I have respect for the job he does for that series. In Little Athens he plays a person of Spanish decent (I believe Mexican), thus he has to use a "Mexican" accent for the duration of the film. To say his accent is bad would be a complete understatement. His accent was so bad, I couldn't believe his character at all. It honestly resulted in the worst acting performance I saw during the entire Toronto Film Festival. At first I thought he was trying to mock Mexicans, until his character stated that he was in fact a Mexican. What makes it worse is that his characters ethnicity HAS NO BEARING ON THE FILM AT ALL! The Ending – Sometimes when people try too hard, it results in something that no longer feels natural, but forced. That's what I felt happened here. When watching a film like Amorres Perros or Magnolia, separate stories found in the film intersect for a brief moment. When doing so, they do so well. I believe this is the type of ending Little Athens tried to come up with, but it fell short. The move is actually a few separate stories/segments running in parallel that in turn meet in the end. For one, I'm surprised they tried to take the character that had the least amount of emotional draw and place the most unfortunate event on them. What makes for a good dramatic scene is the fact that the viewer becomes attached to a specific character, thus in a sense "pulling" for that character or hoping for that characters well being. The one question I wanted to ask the director but couldn't (I had to leave) was why he chose a character with such little dialog and impact on the film to have this fate? But wait, I'm not done with that "surprise" just yet...This "surprise" is apparently a "surprise" because the character is affected at that moment by an incident from one of the other stories in the film. This is where the director tried to "bring it all together". The problem is it was forced, and would have been better if common sense was used. To make it worse, the scene prior to this actually had it set up so that characters fate could have been tied back to family issues, and something that occurred earlier on in the film! It would actually have been a stronger message! Not only that, but ALL THE CHARACTERS could have had the EXACT SAME END RESULT if gone the other direction. The fact that the "simple" end would have made more sense and actually had a stronger overall message is why I call the end forced. I don't think the director wanted me to laugh at the moment, but I had to.This feeling of being forced doesn't only stop here, and that is part of the problem. They always had to go that one extra step to the point where it becomes laughable. They just had to make situations "that much worse" The reason for why the police came to the party at the end for example. They could have come just because of the fact there was a party, or from the loud music. It would have worked just fine. Instead they had to find something from one of the segments to make it work, and again "bring it all together".At a high level, I'd probably suggest DJ Qualls did the best overall job. They decided to be very typical and pair the skinny guy with the big guy (they paired him with Jorge Garcia), but I could still believe in his character, even when Jorge Garcia was on the screen.It seemed to me that the film stock changed at some point in the movie. I don't know how to confirm this, but I'd swear they went down to a lower stock at the end. The granular look was amazing, and for parts of the ending that did work, it was a nice touch. It was probably the highlight of the film for me. The fact the stock changed.At a high level it would be easy to make a statement that with the cast it had, it underachieved. There were moments when the acting wasn't convincing even outside of Jorge Garcia, but I'm not so sure that was the problem. The real problem was the end. It may be a result of the fact people are marketing this film through it's end, I'm not sure. Even the program director at the TIFF suggested "Wait until you see the end!!", leaving the audience in anticipation. Maybe the end didn't live up to its hype, but I can't believe I'd respect this end even without expectations or anticipation. It was just that forced. Sadly, this movie could have been such a better overall result with two changes, one of them being very minor; #1 Remove the fake accent from Jorge Garcia #2 Use the more obvious events for some of the characters, especially the "surprise" at the end You could have had the exact same fate for every character. You could have had practically the same movie outside of 3 minutes worth of dialog to be honest. You could have re-shot a 10 second scene in which the camera pans a character, and it would have made for a much stronger message...Unfortunately for me it doesn't work, and the people I attended this with felt the same. An average film with an ending that was forced.The movie opens with "The following events happened in Ahtens but could happen anywhere"I don't think so, unless you try really hard ;)