Better Late Then Never

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

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

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

No, I don't like it.The summary makes reference to the main character's (Ellen) insertion of the word "like" in just about every sentence! It's a common,annoying California verbal tic that once you hear it, you can't stop hearing it! And she's got it bad! "So he's, like, "I don't know," and I'm, like, "Why not?" so they like, got up and left, and we, like, got up and left, too..." Pretty much every time she speaks..No one involved with the movie noticed this? Totally unwatchable! Also, what's with the guy jerking off in the shower? What was the reason to subject us to that? My guess is the guy was horny and, this being such an amateur attempt at movie making, said, "Let's use it - it's edgy!"

Joe Swanberg was bold to make Kissing on the Mouth his directorial debut. Everything about it is a risk, and in 2005, do-it- yourself filmmaking had not gained the incredible momentum it has in recent time. This is the kind of film you make your fifth or sixth film, after you've established a name for yourself and your work and have created your own style of filmmaking. This is an uncommonly ambitious directorial debut from a man I admire quite heavily and have made an effort to pay attention to for the last couple of years. Since Kissing on the Mouth, Swanberg has predicated his film career off of making extremely low- budget films that often explore the themes of sexual exploration, technology, communication, the filmmaking process, and post-college life and his entry into the film world is one that steadily prepared us for what was to come. Ever since Swanberg entered film, he has been met with a sizable fire-storm of criticism for his low-budget style, which is often billed as mumblecore, a subgenre of film that is heavily defined by character, cheap production values, and excessive amounts of naturalistic dialog.The film follows Ellen (Kate Winterich), a twentysomething who has just had sex with an ex-boyfriend while currently seeing Patrick (Joe Swanberg), a fellow twentysomething currently invested in a personal project he's constructing that includes commentary on modern relationships and personal feelings on love. Patrick is the jealous type, while Ellen is the type of girl who possesses an "I don't care, you shouldn't care" attitude when it comes to issues in her life, and when the possibility of her cheating comes into question by Patrick, she increasingly becomes more closeted and alienating in her attempt to try to piece together what she wants without her entire love-life crumbling.A large part of this already short film (seventy-eight minutes) is sex, and by a large part, I mean roughly forty percent. However, the sex here is unconventional. It has an unpolished, imperfection to the way it is filmed, with Swanberg using extreme closeups on pubic hair, nipples, and unclear parts of the body. This style provoked intrigue as well as frustration for me because while I get a subversively shot sex scene I am also greeted with a shot that doesn't have accurate placement nor clear distinction of what exactly is occurring. Some will undoubtedly find this annoying and irritating, and, for that, it's almost too easy to dismiss everything the film has housed in it. Admittedly, Swanberg relies too heavily on these sex scenes, which scarcely come off as erotic more-so than as an anarchic attempt at creating style. Where Swanberg shines is in filming heavily-improvised dialog between the cast members, which is always a great time in my book. Because of the naturalism and inherent authenticity to the material based on its lack of gloss and polish, the actors could very well be expressing their own opinions to us and with that we naturally take away what we want from their monologues and discard whatever we don't want. While forty percent of the picture is made up of extended sex scenes shot with varying uses of the closeup camera shot, the remaining sixty is dialog or music montage. Obviously, the dialog takes prominence here because then we really can get a sense of what these characters are about and what their opinions on love are. The film's most revealing attribute is Patrick's audio montage of several different unseen people weighing in on subjects from marriage to hookups to relationships. This provides for a pleasantly relativistic look on other people's opinions of popular subjects. If sex/ relationships were political topics, Kissing on the Mouth would be the ultimate debate film.Just a few days ago I viewed Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless for the first time, a film that fundamentally and aesthetically changed the ideas of cinema by shamelessly bending the rules and toying with conventions that were long carried out by new as well as veteran directors. When Godard's directorial debut hit the scene in 1960, a breakthrough movement in cinema history was born. To compare Swanberg's Kissing on the Mouth to Godard's Breathless, to some, would seem like comparing trash and art but if one looks at how they fearlessly shatter all preconceived judgments and convention, one could view them as birds of a feather. It just so happens that one feather went on to leave an irrevocable watermark while the other left something of a lesser marking. For one of the pioneering films of the mumblecore subgenre in cinema - a subgenre I adore and simply can't get enough of - it's still quite fascinating and, at times, moving in its insights.Starring: Kate Winterich and Joe Swanberg. Directed by: Joe Swanberg.

I expected to hate this movie. I had a friend who saw it, who had told me about it and mentioned there was ridiculous amount of nudity that seemed uncalled for and that the plot didn't really go anywhere. I've heard quite a bit about the mumblecore group of filmmakers with much criticism, and was still excited to see this movie and most likely tell everyone how much I hated it. Hated it I did not. Quite impressed, was what I found myself to be. To start off with first, there is a ridiculous amount of nudity in this movie. However, I didn't find it to be uncalled for at all. I felt that the director was showing us sex as it is. So often we see glamorized images of sex in Hollywood movies and it is so far from what sex really is. In this movie we see it plain and simply as what it is: two people having sex on a bed, a guy masturbating in the shower (which I could have done without but I feel it was done with purpose), or a girl putting deodorant on her crotch. I found all the nudity to be less tittalating than a typical Hollywood movie. When we watch Hollywood flicks the intention is usually to tittalate, this is to show people really having sex (and I honestly think they were) without all the gloss and glamour. And yes the movie is about sex, dealing with sex with an ex post relationship and how people feel about sex in general which we hear in the voice over questions that Swanberg records. From as far as I can tell these interviews seem very genuine and were unscripted, much like most of the movie. These are real people talking about both life and sex. This movie reminds me of Greg Araki's first film Totally f--ked up. Whereas that film was more of an examination of homosexuality, this is an examination of heterosexuality, and in my opinion Swanberg's film is much better (However, Araki's film was speaking to a different generation and I'm sure this will feel the same way years down the line). As for the plot, I wouldn't say it's the most original idea I've seen. It's basically about a girl who is still sleeping with her ex, and her friend who has a crush on her. Does it go somewhere, yes. At the end the two both move on and the friend seems to make peace with our protagonist (I also loved the little touch of the money in the envelope. Perfect). It's a simple plot, but the way it is executed is done very well and feels very real. I applaud Swanberg for this first attempt and look forward to seeing the work he will produce in the future. I have yet to say LOL and Hannah, but will be soon. Anyone interested in checking out the latest on the indiest of indie check out this piece with an open mind and you may be surprised at what you will find.

I spend a lot of time with the films of young filmmakers. Sometimes I'm completely blown away, because of all the ordinary values and risk that youth carries. A life with film needs this, it really does.But its an investment that along the way brings a whole lot of disappointment. This is one such.You may take my view with qualification because one value I hold dear is the "long form," the ability to not just present a world but have something happens therein that matters. It isn't enough to merely display, you have to engage, transform, penetrate.These kids have some promising intuitions about this: there are within the story two guys: one is a photographer and the other apparently a sound editor. Also, the film alternates between interviews — ostensibly for the sound guy's project — and an ordinary watching of a certain young woman. We learn a few things about her, and along the way see a couple things not often seen in films. So there is structural folding in the thing.And the performances are natural. But that's not saying much because these characters are only half-people. We learn through DVD extras that this is who they actually are. There's some sex and nudity here. Commentors note that this also is natural. It didn't seem so to me, instead as artificially posed as usual. Yes, I presume that sex we see is "real," at least once. And the camera seems to be casual and lingers on odd trash as much as on bodies, something that mirrors the offhand Gen Y sense of awareness.But there's nothing done with this at all. One wonders why it was made at all, other than the four involved were bored.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.