I don't even know what I'm qualified to do...

*tap tap tap* This thing on?

So, it's been a while. Okay. Maybe more than a while. Real Life got in the way of important things like blogging for a few months, but I never intended to abandon this thing entirely. That said, the reason I'm back to post one more review is because of a movie that's quite a bit like my Real Life: No Footing.

Rowan alum Michael Licisyn screened his film for current students and faculty last night in an event hosted by the Cinema Workshop. No Footing tells the story of Madison (Jensen Bucher), a 23-year-old art school graduate trying to get her life on track. Despite her Bachelor's degree, she finds herself working in a copy shop for an unbearably absurd boss (a perfectly over-the-top performance by Derek Lindeman). She can barely pay the bills and is far too drained at the end of the day to paint for herself, let alone pursue the dream of making a living with her art.

She feels stuck and alone when she finds herself continually bumping into Christopher (Jake Matthews), a kindred spirit of sorts who gave up the theater in order to get a steady job as a high school guidance counselor. Their relationship is refreshingly complex; this is not a love story, despite one very suggestive dream sequence. Instead they are not quite even friends. Their dynamic is one of a mentor and protegee. Madison latches onto him in the hopes that he can teach her how to cope with what she perceives as failure. In turn, he teaches her to take responsibility for her own happiness.

In a Q&A session after the film, Licisyn stated that Madison's journey was based largely on his own, when he was struggling to establish himself after graduation. This may be why the film rings so true. Madison's world is the same one that I'm living in, as are many of my peers, and Licisyn explores the myriad of ways in which we all cope with it. Like Madison's best friend Kylie, I chose to extend my undergraduate education by an extra year (although I didn't fail any classes in order to do it). Like Madison herself, most of my friends who have already graduated are working low-wage jobs unrelated to their majors. Madison's parents are my parents, down to the mother pushing for a career in teaching as a back-up plan. And of course everyone has a Cory (Michael Bower, better known as "Donkeylips" to those of us who were kids in the '90s), that eccentric success story we can't help but look at with envy. This film captures all the uncertainty of entering adulthood at a time when degrees are plentiful but jobs are few, and it does so with a subtlety that is absent from most coming-of-age stories.

Your mom's an architect...

It's been quiet around here -- too quiet. School unfortunately has a way of cutting into my movie-viewing time, but today it made up for that by presenting me with quite a lovely opportunity. I'm going to break here from my usual classic-movie theme to talk about a more current independent film, Happy Birthday, Harris Malden. Why? Well, because one of the actor/writer/director/producers went to my school, and today he and one of his buddies came by the Honors film series to show us their movie and were kind enough to stick around and talk to us afterward.

The movie centers around a man (named, if you can't guess, Harris Malden) who for much of his life has drawn his facial hair. In the shelter of his community on Franklin Street in Philadelphia, this is all well and good; there is a silent agreement among Harris' friends and neighbors to never, ever bring it up. It's left up to Harris' best friend, Paul, to keep him from venturing out of the neighborhood, but when Paul can't keep the outside world -- in the form of his obnoxious girlfriend, Susan -- from intruding on Franklin Street, Harris has the very existential crisis that Paul has spent his entire life trying to prevent.

This is not just a movie about a man and his mustache. I found a lot of different themes running through this movie -- truth, community, the nature of friendship -- but the one that I could relate to most was change. In one of my favorite scenes, Harris says to Paul's grandmother that he feels like he's still talking about the good times he's had in the past, while everyone else is trying to move forward. I think that this is something everyone goes through at some point; I certainly did when I went off to college, in between losing touch with old friends and making new ones. And that, in a nutshell, is why I enjoyed this movie so much. I'm a sucker for films that take a completely off-the-wall premise, and manage to say something meaningful with it.

Now, on to my post-movie experience. Ben Davidow and Eric Levy were both on hand to answer questions after the screening, and they had quite a few interesting things to say. Here's some of what I learned:

This film is independent in every sense of the word. The guys of Sweaty Robot did everything from pre-production to distribution. I happened to have caught this movie on a PBS affiliate from New York last weekend, and apparently that was their doing as well. They're trying to get on PBS stations in other major cities as well, so keep a look out.

Shooting took 20 days. In August. In Philadelphia. From what I gather, it was a little warm. The 'stache kept melting off, so instead of makeup in some scenes they had to use foam latex and glue. Due to budget issues, they had to start buying cheaper, thicker latex, which is why in some scenes the mustache looks 3-dimensional. Nick Gregario, who played Harris, is listed as the Foam Latex Mustache Engineer in the end credits.

For the most part they stuck to the script, but a few scenes were smooshed together and others were added after filming started. The scene between Harris and Grams that I mentioned above, for instance, was filmed when they had a spare minute in between shots of the birthday party.

Many, many thanks to Ben and Eric for coming out and talking to us, and to the Rowan Honors Film Series for sponsoring this event.