Just got home from this. Larry David, Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley Jr., Evan Rachel Wood, Megan Mullally, Lee Pace, Christian Slater, and many more were there.
This, after going to the taping of the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien earlier.
It was an amazing day.
Meeting amazing people aside, last night was a great experience. It was my very first screening with panel discussion afterwards. And Away We Go was a great movie. Like, I wish I could watch it again right now. I think a lot of my favorite movies are ones in which the character(s) take a journey of some kind: The Darjeeling Limited (through a nation), Eternal Sunshine (through memories), Lost In Translation (through a city), Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (for munchies), Little Miss Sunshine (for family), Children of Men (for the future of mankind), The Fall, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Princess Mononoke, Slumdog Millionaire even. As director Sam Mendes said, a journey makes for a wonderful (and easy) narrative form—it has a clear beginning, middle, and end, with chapters along the way.
In Away We Go, soon-to-be parents Burt and Verona (played by John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph) take a journey to find a home where they can start a family. Along the way they see extreme caricatures of families that are hilarious, shocking, embarassing, and heartbreaking. It’s a through-the-looking-glass sort of journey, except it’s just as much about Alice as it is about Wonderland (if not moreso). Maya and John give top-knotch performances, proving that they can lead a feature. The supporting cast is brilliant. The cinematography is excellent. The soundtrack (by Alexi Murdoch) is perfectly fitting.
I gave Away We Go 5 stars on Netflix and I’ll stand by that rating.
Oh, and we met John Krasinski. I know the pic looks blurry, but it’s not. We were all so excited that we became blurry.
Dave Eggers, Vendela Vida, Catherine O’Hara, Maya Rudolph, John Krasinski, and Sam Mendes at the 826LA screening of Away We Go!
Incredible collection of people. That was a helluva lot of fun :) And such a good movie!!
About Me
My name is Lawrence Denes.After spending 5 years studying Japanese language, culture, literature, and history in St. Louis and Kyoto, I now live in Japan, in a town that most Japanese people have never even heard of, lost amid the rice fields and vending machines.
Please feel free to ask me anything, or send me an email.
