I find it hard to believe, but I think this movie hasn't been mentioned here before. Twelve and Holding is director Michael Cuesta's new film (his previous film was L.I.E.). It gets a limited release in New York on May 19. Presumably it will then get a wider release in the weeks that follow. IMDb says it comes out in France in September.

Plot summary from IMDb:

RUDY and JACOB CARGES are two twin boys who are best friends, yet completely different. Rudy is athletic, brave and charismatic while his twin Jacob is quiet, timid and deeply affected by the unsightly birthmark on his face. MALEE, a precocious only-child of a single, emotionally detached mother, and LEONARD, an overweight boy from an obese family, make up the twins' close-knit group of friends. When Rudy dies protecting his tree house that the local trailer park boys, JEFF and KENNY, set on fire, Jacob, Malee and Leonard each deal with this tragic event in different ways. Malee, who thinks that she is mature enough to deal with her feelings on her own, becomes obsessively fascinated with one of her mother's patients, GUS. Leonard, who was injured while helping Jacob in the tree house fire, loses his sense of taste and proceeds to adopt a strict diet and exercise regime, which he tries to force onto his family as well. Jacob, who feels that he let his brother down by not going with him that night to the tree house, must deal with his own guilt, anger and feelings of inadequacy and betrayal when his parents cannot deal with Rudy's death and even adopt a new son. Spurred on by these feelings, Jacob, unbeknownst to anyone, vows to overcome his timidness and avenge his brother's death by befriending the juvenile killers while they are still in prison. In the end, Jacob, Malee and Leonard's coping strategies affect not only their own lives, but also their families' lives as well. When Malee breaks into Gus' house and confesses her feelings for him, she helps him deal with his haunting memories and forces her mother to open up and realize that she has not been the best parent to her young daughter. Although Leonard's drastic plan to lock his mother in the basement so she will lose weight fails, his earnest attempts show her that she must change her lifestyle to save her life.

You can also watch the trailer there: (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)
And it's not in Quicktime, for those of you who have dinosaurs instead of computers. :p

When I first heard that Cuesta was making another film and that it also starred children, I was very excited. Paul Dano's performance in L.I.E. was one of the best that I've ever seen, and it's obvious that Cuesta has a real talent for working with young actors. I was also happy to find that the subject matter of this film was a little dark, cause my favourite films tend not to be "happy happy joy joy" type of films.

I have to admit that the trailer is awful. The music they choose and the way it was edited is very conventional and boring. It makes it look like a bad clichéed movie, but I think Cuesta is more talented than that. It won't be the first time that a good movie gets a bad trailer, so I'm still looking forward to it.

I added it to my want to see list after it screened in Toronto. As poor as the trailer may seem, Variety did give it a positive review so it's probably not too bad.

Thanks for the alert. When I get a chance to see it I will. L.I.E. was an incredible movie with one of the best boy performances I ever saw.

(I wonder what happened to Davis Sweatt who appeared in 'Leo'?)

Quote:


What would be even nice is if that the websites themselves were a little more navigable and didn't overuse their Java so much - I don't know why a lot of these indie moviea have to have their sites like that.

A similar site is the Wild Tigers I Have Known site, where a lot of things go off the side and you can't navigate to them - or it takes you forever to discover those skinny pushbars where you have to move the little handle to navigate/scroll text.


MJ

Review:

Well, I'm not sure how I feel about this movie.  Yes, it was dark and pretty disjointed.  Yes, it dealt with 12-year old angst.  But, even considering all that...

My favorite character was Jacob.  His brother, the more athletic and charismatic one, didn't really impress me (too much bravado for me).  Melee had an interesting character, too, but... if her problems could have been given to Jacob, well, THAT might have made for some intrigue!  Leonard's whole part was less interesting for me, personally...

I do feel sad for Jacob's character, and I understand his anxiety and sorrow.  I even understand his "forgiveness" of the two kids who killed his brother - it WAS an accident after all.  I'm NOT so sure I agree with how he eventually handled the problem, and I'm not so sure the movie ever really resolved Jacob's turmoil.  A shame, because I think it would have been interesting to carry the story a little bit further.

I don't think it's fair to compare this film to L.I.E, though, or even "Whole New Thing."  The subject matter is completely different...  it should probably be compared to "The Client."

Is it worth seeing?  Sure.  Was it phenomenal? No.  Was it atypical, absolutely.

Well, I finally got around to seeing it.

I'm confused by Swede's lukewarm comments in the thread, considering his rating of 8/10 on the database. I always find it weird when people are like, "Yeah, it's all right I guess," but then they give it an 8/10, which to me is a rating that I reserve for very good films.

Anyway, I thought this was a very good film, and I gave it a rating of 8/10.



It's not quite as powerful as L.I.E., and I would say no performance in this film has the same kind of emotional impact that Paul Dano's did. But that was quite a performance to live up to...

Conor Donovan did quite well I thought. I loved the twisted relationship that developed between him and the boy who killed his brother.



PS: Would it be possible to change the title on the database to Twelve and Holding, instead of 12 and Holding? I know the poster says "12," but the title in the actual credits says "Twelve." That's also what IMDb has as a main title, and it's the correct way of treating numerals when they appear as the first word of a title. Right now if you search for "twelve and holding" on the database, it doesn't bring up any results.

josephk wrote on 23. Jun 2009 at 04:40:


fixed

TheSwede wrote on 23. Jun 2009 at 10:16:


Everyone is of course absolutely free to come up with their own rating system, so I'm not trying to tell you to do things differently. But I really don't understand why people don't balance out their votes more. Do you really need 5 different degrees of "atrocious," when you only have 2 degrees of "great"?

I consider everything from 5 and above "watchable" and I still find it difficult to tell the difference between a 4 ("bad") and a 3 ("really bad").

I try to spread out my votes evenly across the scale, so that the bottom four ratings are for unpleasant viewing experiences, the middle two are for neutral ones, and the top four are for pleasant ones.

7-10: pleasant viewing experience (4 degrees)
5-6: neutral viewing experience (2 degrees)
1-4: unpleasant viewing experience (4 degrees)

More precisely:

10: Outstanding. Reserved for either a cinematic masterpiece or a strong personal favourite.

9: Excellent. Still highly recommended, falling just short of a perfect score.

8: Very good. Still very much above average and recommended - but perhaps a few minor flaws in acting, writing or directing; or it somehow just lacks that spark of originality or visionary quality to really make it stand out as a great film.

7: Good film. I enjoyed it. This is the rating I give to decent, well-made, mainstream Hollywood productions, for example. Because I'm very critical, a 7 from me usually equals an 8 or more from lots of other people.

6: Average/neutral, leaning slightly towards positive. This is for films that really do nothing for me, that leave me somewhat indifferent, but that I didn't find irritating enough to really call them "bad." They're run-of-the-mill, watchable, mildly entertaining, but nothing special.

5: Average/neutral, leaning slightly toward negative. This is pretty much the same as a six, but at this level I'm starting to get annoyed. Maybe the acting is really bad, or the premise is stupid, or it's got made-for-tv production values, or whatever. But still tolerable.

4: Bad. At this point, I'm really starting to consider watching the film a generally unpleasant experience. But there are probably still some redeeming qualities. Maybe a character appeals to me, or the general premise, or there's just some interesting elements that make it worth watching, even if I consider it a very weak film.

3: Very bad. Irritating. Now this feels like a real waste of time. Redeeming qualities are almost non-existent and I might not even make it to the end.

2: Atrocious. I'm starting to get the violent urge to throw the remote control at my TV. I'm starting to form theories about how this movie is an example of what's wrong with the world and how it represents everything that I hate about the society we live in.

1: Profoundly offensive garbage. An insult to anyone's intelligence. Harmful. Absolutely zero redeeming value. Should never have been made and the world would probably be a better place if all copies were destroyed.