99 Homes
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Roofless: Ramin Bahrani’s 99 Homes
“America doesn’t bail out losers,” real-estate-loophole master practitioner Rick Carver (Michael Shannon) tells victim-turned-protégé Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield). “This nation is rigged for winners.” He proceeds to milk Noah’s ark for a metaphor. “I’m not going to drown.” With rapid visuals, pounding music, characters constantly in motion, montages of exploiters in action, and his usual astute observations of processes that enable the marring of innocents, Ramin Bahrani (Goodbye Solo, Chop Shop, Man Push Cart) impeccably dramatizes the reality behind this cynical point of view. One that, as the the chasm between the 99% and the 1% widens, is especially valid […]
by Howard Feinstein on Sep 25, 2015 -
Parting Shot
Kentucky-born Michael Shannon has been appearing regularly in television, independent film and studio pictures since the mid-’90s, but it was his Oscar-nominated turn as a bracingly honest, if perhaps mentally unstable, mathematician in Sam Mendes’s Revolutionary Road that made directors see him as a potential leading man. In the years since, Shannon has fulfilled that promise, most notably as another unbalanced seer in Jeff Nichols’s Take Shelter. But it’s in the next 12 months that Shannon will truly explode onscreen in a succession of notable lead and supporting parts. First up is his turn in theaters as a rapacious repo […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 23, 2015 -
Five Questions for 99 Homes Writer/Director Ramin Bahrani
Based on its stellar reviews out of Venice and Telluride, Ramin Bahrani’s “eviction stunner” 99 Homes infuses the sad and infuriating tale of America’s real estate bust with visceral, gut-punching drama. Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon star as the down-and-out construction worker and shady realtor who come up with a get-rich scheme involving, of course, the exploitation of those even less fortunate. Screening Monday, September 8 at the Toronto International Film Festival, 99 Homes is already picking up Oscar buzz. Below, we ask Bahrani about researching real estate, name actors and the decline of Western civilization. Filmmaker: What attracted you […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 8, 2014 -
Wanting to Like Everything: The Telluride Film Festival
The 41st annual Telluride Film Festival kicked off with a packed screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now featuring Coppola, screenwriter John Milius (still recovering from his debilitating stroke but in great spirits), cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, producer Fred Roos, and editor and sound designer Walter Murch in attendance for a post-film Q&A. It was the kind of event that represents what Telluride does best as a kind of summer camp for movie lovers: presenting a great film impeccably projected before an appreciative crowd in a casual, conversational atmosphere. There’s something about the environment of Telluride — both the gorgeous Colorado […]
by Jim Hemphill on Sep 5, 2014
