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Feeling The Philadelphia Draw
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| Lauren Karl, left, appears with Brandon T. Jackson in “Cuttin Da’ Mustard.” (Courtesy of Philadelphia Film Festival and Cinefest) |
By Jonathan L. Fischer, The Bulletin
Although she’s been a Left Coaster since attending college at the University of California, Berkeley, Lauren Karl keeps feeling the Philadelphia pull.
The actress grew up on the Main Line, and two of her upcoming films — “Our Lady Of Victory” and “Bottleworld” — have local, Pennsylvania settings.
She also appears in director Reed R. McCants’s “Cuttin’ Da Mustard,” a light-hearted (and occasionally heavy) comedy that screens tomorrow (6:45 p.m. at International House) and Friday (7:45 p.m. at Ritz East) as part of Cinefest. It stars Brandon T. Jackson (“Tropic Thunder”) and a large ensemble, who portray a Queens, N.Y., acting troupe with a hip-hop flavor. Well-known names like Sinbad and Charles S. Dutton also appear.
In the film, Ms. Karl plays a character who surely could support her own film: a woman who works on Wall Street and raps at night.
“A lot of what I took away from the character is, by her looks she might look differently ... but [the film] shows how dynamic people can really be,” Ms. Karl told me yesterday in a phone interview.
She said the film takes a familiar theme of overcoming adversity — in this case, one of the characters can’t read — and avoids the usual cinematic clichés. One antidote is comedy.
Another might be fraternity — not a bad theme in a film about acting. “The chemistry that you see on screen is the same you see off screen,” she said.
As for her other projects, the biographical “Our Lady Of Victory” stars Carla Gugino, David Boreanaz and Ellen Burstyn, and recounts the story of Cathy Rush, the basketball coach in the 1970s at all-female Immaculata College in Malvern (now co-ed Immaculata University). Ms. Rush took the team, then no basketball powerhouse, to win national championships in 1972-74. Ms. Karl appears in a supporting role as the student government treasurer.
“Our Lady Of Victory” was filmed in West Chester and at Immaculata, and will have a theatrical release later this year.
“Bottleworld,” meanwhile, was filmed in Bristol, and is an indie comedy set in a liquor store. It will hit the festival circuit later this year, Ms. Karl said.
At first glance, it’s not a terribly compelling premise. But as Pennsylvanians well know, there’s plenty of humor to be found in the state’s arcane liquor laws.
p
Generalist that I am, I try to see as many different kinds of movies as possible. But the tense Belgian movie “Left Bank,” which I watched Monday, didn’t exactly make the case for smart exercises in horror: It is a variation on Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby,” and unlike most horrors, devotes much time to its characters. That’s a start, but the film loses sight of its fairly compelling premise (involving an archers’ guild, witchcraft, holes in time and human sacrifice) with shaky execution and the genre’s most frequent shortcoming: sexual exploitation. A classy horror film? That’s what filmmakers find scary.
Jonathan L. Fischer can be reached at jfischer@thebulletin.us
The actress grew up on the Main Line, and two of her upcoming films — “Our Lady Of Victory” and “Bottleworld” — have local, Pennsylvania settings.
She also appears in director Reed R. McCants’s “Cuttin’ Da Mustard,” a light-hearted (and occasionally heavy) comedy that screens tomorrow (6:45 p.m. at International House) and Friday (7:45 p.m. at Ritz East) as part of Cinefest. It stars Brandon T. Jackson (“Tropic Thunder”) and a large ensemble, who portray a Queens, N.Y., acting troupe with a hip-hop flavor. Well-known names like Sinbad and Charles S. Dutton also appear.
In the film, Ms. Karl plays a character who surely could support her own film: a woman who works on Wall Street and raps at night.
“A lot of what I took away from the character is, by her looks she might look differently ... but [the film] shows how dynamic people can really be,” Ms. Karl told me yesterday in a phone interview.
She said the film takes a familiar theme of overcoming adversity — in this case, one of the characters can’t read — and avoids the usual cinematic clichés. One antidote is comedy.
Another might be fraternity — not a bad theme in a film about acting. “The chemistry that you see on screen is the same you see off screen,” she said.
As for her other projects, the biographical “Our Lady Of Victory” stars Carla Gugino, David Boreanaz and Ellen Burstyn, and recounts the story of Cathy Rush, the basketball coach in the 1970s at all-female Immaculata College in Malvern (now co-ed Immaculata University). Ms. Rush took the team, then no basketball powerhouse, to win national championships in 1972-74. Ms. Karl appears in a supporting role as the student government treasurer.
“Our Lady Of Victory” was filmed in West Chester and at Immaculata, and will have a theatrical release later this year.
“Bottleworld,” meanwhile, was filmed in Bristol, and is an indie comedy set in a liquor store. It will hit the festival circuit later this year, Ms. Karl said.
At first glance, it’s not a terribly compelling premise. But as Pennsylvanians well know, there’s plenty of humor to be found in the state’s arcane liquor laws.
p
Generalist that I am, I try to see as many different kinds of movies as possible. But the tense Belgian movie “Left Bank,” which I watched Monday, didn’t exactly make the case for smart exercises in horror: It is a variation on Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby,” and unlike most horrors, devotes much time to its characters. That’s a start, but the film loses sight of its fairly compelling premise (involving an archers’ guild, witchcraft, holes in time and human sacrifice) with shaky execution and the genre’s most frequent shortcoming: sexual exploitation. A classy horror film? That’s what filmmakers find scary.
Jonathan L. Fischer can be reached at jfischer@thebulletin.us
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