Everything Strange and New (2009) watch online HD

For the first half hour, I really thought this film was going to knock me out. It's combination of disturbing experimental elements; strange, loud Glenn Branca like rock music that banged in and out, long shots that were just studies of faces or rooftops, etc. It seemed like it would be a portrait of working class life that was more poetic and surreal than literal.

But gradually the film gets more 'normal', and a regular story comes into play; the familial relationships and romances of three working class buddies. There are some striking moments of honesty and surprise, but some serious problems, first among them being that these unknown actors aren't quite up to the delicate complex task of taking these people and making us believe them as real. Under-acting alone isn't enough to ground a character film. That under-acting still has to be filled with interior life. But here, too often, the performances just feel a little amateurish and monotone. There's also a running fantasy element that's a bit sophomoric.

That said, there's enough strength and originality in the visual style, and a number of unexpected story points that overall I still found this worthwhile, and will be very interested to see what Mr. Bradshaw does in future. It's just too bad this is just a good, somewhat awkward film, rather than the transcendent film the opening minutes promise.

If you are in your twenties and are currently looking at life from the perspective of the glass being half empty, then you will probably like 'Everything Strange and New'. For older folks such as myself, this slow-paced, virtually plot less tale of an angst-ridden pseudo-blue collar worker will not impress you at all. The writer/director is Frazer Bradshaw. Mr. Bradshaw has 41 titles as a cinematographer and 4 as a writer (3 shorts and this one lone feature), listed on IMDb. Judging by the kind of story he's come up here with 'Strange', I feel certain that the film industry will be better served if he opts to continue in his career as a cinematographer, instead of as a screenwriter.

It's a bit difficult to describe what happens in 'Everything Strange and New'. The protagonist is Wayne who lives in Oakland, California and works as a carpenter. Wayne is married to Beth and they have two small children. Bradshaw overly relies on narration to flesh out his character. We learn that Wayne is disillusioned as he concludes that marriage isn't what it's cracked up to be. There's an early scene where Wayne argues with his wife about whether his friend Leo should have visited his wife when she was in the hospital. Wayne takes the position that Leo didn't have the time to visit the wife since it could have placed his job in jeopardy. Beth feels Leo should have been there with his wife no matter what. This argument is about the biggest dramatic moment between husband and wife in the entire film.

Much of the rest of the film is taken up with utterly pointless shots of traffic and buildings as Wayne is heard in voice overs, bitching about his unexciting sex life and his general lack of contentment. Interspersed are snatches of weird Phillip Glass-like music as well as glimpses of Wayne with makeup covering his face as a birthday clown (the meaning of which escapes me). Wayne has two buddies that he does interact with: there's Manny, who upsets Wayne a bit after he catches him doing cocaine inside his car and the friend alluded to before, drinking buddy Leo, who ends up giving a disinterested Wayne, oral sex.

Believe it or not, the film's big climax doesn't even happen on screen. Wayne ends up receiving a phone call informing him of the death of a friend (I will not reveal who it is or the circumstances) and this causes him to finally emote. The moral I suppose, is that it takes a shattering event to finally wake up those who have been merely sleep-walking through life, in some kind of existential stupor.

While the lack of any substantial plot reversals and over reliance on narration to flesh out a character is to be expected from a first-time feature writer, I found that the crude language, constantly emanating from the mouth of the main character, to be highly off-putting. Even those who have a penchant for indie dramas may find this turgid, meandering narrative, below their minimal standards of acceptable indie fare.

This is a low-budget, dialogue-driven movie. That being said, it's a 100-times better than the movie 'Noah'. This film is about the trying and reflective times of a blue-collar carpenter and his family and friends in urban Oakland. The focus is on the boring tedium of the lead character's manual labor job, his wife, and her loss of income and relative importance, and their two children and how they/he has not achieved the things he wanted out of life. There are some quite unusual experiences that happen along the way. Drugs, lots of alcohol consumption and even a gay 'experience'. All-in-all, this movie represents what seems like a 1st-time film makers foray into making a movie. Non-recognizable performers with no frills type acting. I wish more movies were like this, and I wish there were fewer films were like the big-noise-big-special-effects Hollywood blowout. This movie is easy to watch and overall, an enjoyable film. I got a lot more out of this movie than the basic 'epic' genre film.