But part of what makes Ham on Rye special is how dutifully it avoids the lack of depth that usually accompanies utilizing deliberately generic settings. And I think we took that philosophy and mindset and applied it to everything. Press J to jump to the feed. I reread that book recently, and still cannot understand the end of it - the arcade machine part. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Like a hoagie sandwich filled with meat and lettuce, thats a quintessential American suburban item., Over 100 Cast Members and No Permits: How I Shot, in Los Angeles, the films faceless neighborhood locations were stolen from various spots across that cityso for example. But I am really interested in seeing how these objects flow from person to person, and then get cast out into space.. His life never became better. I doubt if it would be published in modern times (first published in 1982). Jake tries to persuade Louisa to spend the night at the house. Interesting view into the life of a boy who just never caught a break. The kids have phones, but they seem to be flip-tops, seldom used, and when later some of the older boys glide off into the night on more modish electronic hoverboards, somehow the contradiction doesnt disrupt the films own little enclosed continuum. Then the ba-boom of a Phil Spector-ish anthem kicks in (by a 60s girl group called The Teardrops), and things get serious. Afterwards, you get a sense of the sadness and defeat of the people who are left behind. fandango. [Bodell and I] worked on Suburban Legends, then a short film Wild Flies, and finally Ham on Rye, Taormina said. But what other shorthand would you use for this strange, atmospheric work, which is 100 percentnot a comedy but does share a spiritual connection refracted through art-film aesthetics and anomie with the aforementioned landmarks? Well come to identify most with Haley (Haley Bodell), a mild-mannered girl who, like her two friends (Audrey Boos and Gabriella Herrara), is more dressed for a conventional school dance than most attendees. Though calling them characters is a bit of a stretch. Not sure why, but I really liked this. This deliberately coy prologue begets the opening credits sequence (introducing characters with more close-ups of little details, like a tie being fastened or a nail being painted), which then feeds directly into the films real first section, where for about 20 minutes small cliques of seemingly high school-aged kids walk through various neighborhoods on their way to an unspoken happening thats eventually revealed to be a literal ceremony at the center of Taorminas debut feature. A longtime film critic for Slant Magazine among other publications, he began writing reviews for our paper earlier this summerthough I first met him long before that, in 2014, when we had a conversation at the Harvard Film Archive regarding the films of director Wojciech J. The parents dramatically age and regress throughout the evening. It focuses instead on the vaguely insidious side of life that we not only tolerate, but embrace. The reader eventually follows Chinaski to college and reads of Henry's attempt to find a worthwhile occupation. Without giving away too much, lets say the rest of the plot recalls the great Shirley Jackson story The Lottery. But theres no overt horror element, or violence, here. , which starred Haley Bodell as Poll Flowerpot, a 12-year-old cynic [who] discovers the absurdities of the world; the site is down now, but if you search around you can still find all three episodes on certain video-uploading hubs. , Taormina said. and come away with a pretty fair understanding of the film. As Lund has written about himself in an indispensable piece for Filmmaker Magazine headlinedOver 100 Cast Members and No Permits: How I Shot Ham on Rye in Los Angeles, the films faceless neighborhood locations were stolen from various spots across that cityso for example Ham on Ryes semi-decontextualized meeting spot Montys is in real life actually Berges, a deli in the La Caada Flintridge area of Los Angeles County. Though Haleys one of the prettier girls here and has no apparent social shortcomings, shes still unchosen as the room empties out. First time director Tyler Taorminas landscape in Ham on Rye (85 minutes) is both smaller and larger than Kaufmans Im Thinking of Ending Things. 1985. The mood is now fairly forlorn, best embodied by Sloan (Cole Devine), a 20-something cook at Montys whos mourning some kind of loss. In a varied ensemble of more than a hundred (many of them nonactors), just a few of them get names, and only a few more get to say or do enough things to project any kind of identity beyond their appearance. My writing partner Eric Berger was very, very keen on being as cryptic and removed as possible from mentioning what is essentially the basic premise of the film, explained Taormina, whos from Long Island and based in Los Angeles, during a zoom call that also included the films producer/first assistant director David Croley Broyles and its cinematographer Carson Lund. 6 reviews. Like Henry, the rest of the Chinaskis are modeled after Bukowski's own family. Like for instance, one boy carries around this strange pig toywhich of course aligns with the films title as well as with another scene where someone refers to porking [as] the ultimate purposethat eventually lands in the hands of an older character, who discards it with some disgust. A puzzling but artful look at teenage alienation. They literally haunt my dreams.. Boston Celtics well represented at 2023 NBA All-Star game. He never experienced love. As a prequel to Bukowski's previous novels, Ham on Rye depicts the origin and development of many of the reoccurring themes of his work as well as the persona of Henry Chinaski. A few clumps of friends are slowly making their way to the nights festivities (why are they practically all on foot? 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They are as uneasy with the past as they are nervous about the future. But it is also Inauguration Day 2021 and Ham on Rye is heartening evidence that even throughout the last few years of permanent, screeching crisis, there have been filmmakers paying attention to the smaller things, to the more mundane cruelties of our world, that will require much more than a change of administration to address. has successfully conjured up a cinematic space where all those aforementioned experiences have been quite purposefully blended together, forming a sunlit anxiety dream of a generic suburban upbringing. Fontana, Ernest. Twayne Publishers, New York, 1997. p. 36, 42, 43. and I read PO, HOR, Women in that order, personally, just because I found PO first. Transgression becomes even more unfathomable when an entire global generation seems to share the same path in gentrifying the cities, Taormina wrote for an interview published by Film Comment (also suggesting one of his films many productive contradictionsthat its a lament for the loss of a suburban experience produced almost exclusively in urban spaces). special is how dutifully it avoids the lack of depth that usually accompanies utilizing deliberately generic settings. Whats established instead are countless signifiers of a semi-contemporary American upbringing: from overarching universal stuff like scenes of characters preparing for something like a prom (three girls in frilly dresses being photographed by their overexcited parents, see above), and then carpooling there (the parents now waving at the door like the first day of school, another ceremony) to smaller details seen in briefer shots like the decor of a longhair musicians car (beads on the rear view, bandana on the passenger seat), or a particularly rebellious-looking kid scraping a stick against a fence (which in this context cant help but recall Tom Sawyer, ur-text of the American coming-of-age storya narrative lineage that Ham on Rye is of course very much bound up in). works to give young adulthood some of its ceremony back. Chinaski relates that he has an abusive father, and his mother does nothing to stop his father's abuse. Its also about the inherent strangeness of rituals like the prom, though the prom is not whats about to unfold here, and few participants seem to think its very strange. Its held at a local sandwich shop called Montys, and begins with everyone dining quietly. To most patient eyes, it will look like a gentle ode to those who seemed part of the crowd in high school, then simply didnt transform into the kind of adults their peers chose to be. Ham on Rye is a 1982 semi-autobiographical novel by American author and poet Charles Bukowski. Calonne, David Stephen. Henry agrees to teach little kid how to play a game and by the end of it he just walks out. As Henry begins High School, his father, who is experiencing downward inter-generational socioeconomic mobility, makes him go to a private school where he fits in even less amongst all the well-heeled, spoiled rich kids with their flashy, colorful, convertible sports cars and beautiful girlfriends. But with all these signifiers, as well as the title, which sends us back to Charles Bukowskis coming-of-age memoir of the same name, which itself refers to The Catcher in the Rye, pretty soon the references multiply to the point you have to give in and call Ham on Rye its own, pretty unique thing. People who were on heroin. One also notices that while before the dialogue was ambiguously foreshadowing, now its ambiguously looking backwards (the way Lund put it is, in the second half the dialogue becomes more textural than expository.) And this all leads to a backyard cookout populated by a large group including some faces at least vaguely familiar to viewers of the millennial demographic: Lori Beth Denberg of All That (1994-98), Danny Tamberelli and Aaron Schwartz of The Mighty Ducks (1992) and The Adventures of Pete & Pete (1992-96), and Clayton Snyder of Lizzie McGuire (2001-04). This was a book I would rather not have read. Taormina has an unusually firm grasp on the intangible uneasiness of bland middle-class Americana, and in his debut feature, he drags into the foreground the kind of stuff that usually happens in the corner of your eye. Today is David Lynchs birthday, so its appropriate to be thinking about rotting picket fences right now. We were pulling from those reference points a little bit. Haley (Haley Bodell), the closest the film has to a protagonist, flees the deli ceremony, casting herself off as Amy Irving's character was cast off in Carrie. He has only slightly better results in baseball. 5 (3): 6. The first part of the picture bounces around in an unnamed town (it was shot in the San Fernando Valley) that is dubiously situated in time: We see cellphones only a few times, and nothing about costumes, hair or background music roots us firmly in the present. Cinematic didacticism has given way to filmmakers content to raise questions they wont or cant answer. 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