In Memory of My Father (2005)

the audience applauded

How sad is this?

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This film was touted as a comedy, but I really hated it. It's just a series of self-obsessed conversations that immature people are having after their father dies. I don't know who these people represent, the Hollywood jet-set I suppose. They are a really sorry bunch. If anthropologists look at this film in a thousand years I can only speculate what conclusions they will reach about the state of civilization.Don't look at this film for tenderness there is none. I didn't laugh and I certainly didn't cry. It's a pretentious bore and a waste of time.

I laughed harder at this movie (bust out loud laughter that just flew out of me) than I have in ages. I'm so tired of movies that try to force humor by creating absurd situations or having everyone act over the top. The humor in this film completely came out of the characters and the events they were dealing with. It is a fascinating group of people who are thrown together in what first seems to be simple and then turns out to be an extraordinarily layered and challenging experience.There aren't many movies that I want to see again, but this is one of them. Is it going to get distribution?

I saw this film at the Santa Cruz Film Festival and it was interesting. Within the first fifteen minutes of the film, I was annoyed, almost angered at the content, found myself actually sort of wanting to leave. Fortunately, I didn't because the way things came together was actually heart-warming in the most unexpected of ways. It gave me similar sensations as the first time I was watching Festen/Celebration and Big Lebowski. It's a different movie, but there are similar qualities. Watch the film if you get a chance, it's worth reaching out for, and be patient through the beginning, and you won't be disappointed.Here is a story about the film: Christopher Jaymes wrote In Memory of My Father, the opening night feature at this year's Santa Cruz Film Festival, in five days and shot it in four. That nearly impossible schedule was a consequence of his friend David Austin (who plays the dying Hollywood mogul in the film's title) asking if James, who had just returned from a three-month trip to Southeast Asia, could write a screenplay for a film they could shoot on location at a mansion once owned by Samuel Goldwyn, which Austin was about to sell. The resulting dark comedy has since gone on to win awards at a slew of festivals across the country.So how did Jaymes manage to produce Miramax-quality results on an Ed Wood schedule?"Well, some people might still think it is Ed Wood," says Jaymes of the famously failed B- movie director, "but hopefully not too many. Yeah, it was definitely out of necessity, not out of trying to prove something. But the payback came in post-production. It was a real challenge to cut the film together because we weren't able to scope every single shot perfectly, and we couldn't go back to re-shoot. So hence, it kind of gives it a little more of that 'Ooh, indie hand-held, let's go and be arty!' kind of thing. But you know, I think it sort of works with the film."Working both sides of the camera, Jaymes plays the brashly impudent youngest of three sons, whose father bribes him into filming his death and the effect it has on his family, who are by and large too self-absorbed to pay much attention to their beloved corpse ex ma-china.Jaymes' skewering of Hollywood industry scions draws upon years of living in Southern California, where he got his start playing guest roles in sitcoms and the odd "enjoyably awful TV movie."Unlike many other young writer/directors, Jaymes has no family connections (he was raised by his mother, a doctor's office manager, in Huntington Beach) and opted to study music at Berklee instead of going to film school.A musician, as well? "Yeah, that's subjective too," he laughs. "I did study and I was kind of obsessive about it for a period of time. And I toured for a little while as a piano player."As it turns out, Jaymes toured backing rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson, who for all intents and purposes is the closest thing this world has to a female Elvis Presley. "Yeah, one night after she decided that she liked me, she took me aside, we hung out and she put Elvis's ring on my hand," he enthuses. But unlike the pink Cadillacs Elvis used to hand out, this gesture wasn't for keeps. "No, she took it back," he admits. "I thought I was special for a minute."Self-deprecating as he may appear, Jaymes' star is clearly rising. He recently signed a distribution deal that will allow him to retain the Belle & Sebastian tracks in the film, and no less an indie film heavyweight than Allison Anders has compared Jaymes' debut to the films of Cassavetes and Altman (although Jaymes claims to be more of a Bunuel fan himself).When two other cinematic examples of men behaving badly--Neil LaBute's In the Company of Men and David Rabe's Hurlyburly--are offered up, Jaymes says that while he enjoyed both films, he feels more of a kinship with the latter."With Hurlyburly, I think you actually can care about some of these people by the end," says Jaymes. "I think with the Neil LaBute film, it was more like, 'Look how awful people are to each other.' But with In Memory of My Father, it's like, 'Look how self-absorbed we are. Jesus Christ, how come we don't know better?'

I can not imagine a funnier or more poignant film than "in Memory of My Father". I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair and I was restrained compared to the audience around me. Eric Michael Cole might be the finest actor of his generation, and I use the word fine to to describe both his performance and his looks. I think I'm in love. I know I am not the first person to compare writer/director/ star Chris Jaymes to a modern day Chekov, and I am sure that I will not be the last. His sense of irony and the outrageous combines flawlessly with his universal understanding of family friendship, and of course "the biz" to create a mix of "The Big Chill" "The Player" and "Dazed and Confused". I couldn't have had a more pleasurable ninety six minutes, and look forward to its wide release. I only hope my funeral will be this exciting.