Acquisitions – Indie Films

When Life Gives you Lemons, make O.J; Magnolia Fill Three Cups Worth with Alverson’s “Entertainment”

Published on April 2, 2015

As discussed in our recent post Sundance Film Festival assessment of the NEXT section distribution deals, we noticed that there was some fine fruit at the top of the tree that had yet to be picked. Well, the Magnolia Pictures folks have just picked themselves a tarty, sour lemony number in Entertainment. Starring Gregg Turkington in the violently unfunny lead, after a quick round of American film fest premieres in Park City, SXSW and a closing night spot at the New Directors/New Films series in New York, Rick Alverson‘s unsettling, yet satisfyingly bold number uproots formula and Americana.

Gist: Written by Rick Alverson, Gregg Turkington and Tim Heidecker, en route to meet his estranged daughter and attempt to revive his dwindling career, a broken, aging comedian (Turkington) plays a string of dead-end shows in the Mojave desert.

Worth Noting: This was filmed in glorious 2:35:1 widescreen.

Do We Care?: Following in the footsteps of his pleasantly agitating seminal film, The Comedy, Alverson’s fourth feature will be the most talked about, critically most decisive items for 2015. Worth revisiting for the introductory sequence alone.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).