The Rare Graduate Film, Babysitter, Now Viewable Online!

It's been hard to find much info on Solondz's graduate film, Babysitter. It was listed on some of his early bios, and Solondz once personally confirmed for me that it exists, but that's about it. The IMDB even removed their listing for it. But any mystery surrounding Babysitter can now be considered solved, as the entire nine-minute short has been uploaded onto Vimeo for Le CiNéMa Club!

It's a surprisingly high quality transfer, and for a student film with no synced sound, it's also surprisingly entertaining. As opposed to Feelings, which comes off as more of an interesting early exercise by the filmmaker, this one's engaging in its own right. You can feel his distinct writer's voice in the work; and it's entertaining enough that it's really worth the watch even if you're not a die-hard Solondz fanatic. Maybe the next time Criterion or another high end label gives one of his films the special edition treatment, they could include this and his other short films as bonus features.

The Wiener-Dog Trailer!

Love & Friendship is getting a pretty wide theatrical release from Amazon this weekend, so hopefully this bodes well for Wiener-Dog, too. If Amazon gets them into roughly the same theaters, this could be Solondz's biggest theatrical opening ever. But we still don't know what there plans are, let alone for home video/ DVD/ blu-ray down the line...  Anyway, some very promising material in this trailer - can't wait to see the film!

In theaters June 24th.

Wiener Dog Bought By Amazon

According to Variety, Amazon has just bought Wiener Dog. This makes sense, since the new head of Amazon Pictures is Ted Hope, who produced past Solondz features Dark Horse, Storytelling and Happiness. Apparently, to secure the film, Amazon has "committed to a significant theatrical release." This would then, or perhaps simultaneously, lead to the film streaming on amazon.com. There's no mention of any physical media, but hopefully somebody in that mix will remember DVD and blu-ray.

This isn't Amazon's only deal coming out of the recent Sundance Film Festival. They'll also be picking up distribution of Whit Stillman's Love and Friendship, his long awaited adaptation of Jane Austen's epistolary novel, starring Chloe Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale and Stephen Fry. So they've got two of my most anticipated films of 2016 on their roster - pretty impressive!

Wiener Dog Is Loose!

Todd Solondz's new film, Wiener Dog, just had its debut screening at Sundance Film Festival. Reviews are flooding in, which pretty much answer all our Wiener Dog questions about what to expect.

Apparently it's essentially an anthology in four parts, connected by a literal wiener dog that appears in all four stories. Yes, one of the four (the second) is a sort of sequel to Welcome To the Dollhouse, with Greta Gerwig as an older Dawn Weiner, who goes on a road trip with Brendan Sexton III's character, now played by Kieran Culkin. The first segment stars Julie Delpy as a mother of a cancer survivor who buys her son the dog. The third stars Danny Devito as a screenwriter forced to make a living teaching filmwriting to students. And finally, the dog winds up with Ellyn Burstyn as a woman who gets an unwelcome visit from her granddaughter.

I've just read ten reviews in a row (Variety, Vulture, Indiewire, The Guardian, Crave, Film Stage, Screen Daily, The Wrap, Gulf News and Madison) and they've all sort of run together in my mind, but they were all positive, ranging from high to mixed praise. and they all seem to agree that tonally, it's in keeping with Solondz's past work, which is always nice to hear as fans.

Now, let's just hope it's not a whole year before it breaks out of the festival circuit and us industry outsiders get to see it.