HUMPDAY

I just got home from a screening of fellow Northwest native and SVA graduate filmmaker Lynn Shelton's new film, HUMPDAY.

It screened at the Portland Art Museum as part of the Northwest Film Center's ongoing Northwest Tracking series, which showcases great work by filmmakers from the Northwest.

You probably have at least heard of HUMPDAY. Since it's premiere at Sundance, this little film has gone on pick up quite a bit of mainstream press, and is seeing a good sized release.

It's the one about two straight guys who decide to make a "art porn" movie, starring themselves as two straight guys having sex. It's got a sex comedy premise that the dudes who shell out cash to see Judd Apatow movies might love, but all the humanity and honesty and subversiveness that those movies don't have.

You can read a more detailed premise on a million other sites and reviews, but to sum it up- Ben (Mark Duplass) and Andrew (Joshua Leonard) are two thirty-something friends who have gone on to lead two very different lives since their college days. Ben is married, has a job and a nice house, and is nearing the point where having a baby is an idea just over the horizon. Andrew is something of a Simon Yugler (sorry, personal friend, no one will get that)- a scruffy free spirited type, back in town from his enlightening world travels.

During a drunken party the two buddies somehow end up agreeing to have sex on film for an amateur porn festival. It's an internal and external challenge for both of them- for Ben it's to prove that despite the appearance of his married lifestyle, he is still a man with as much freedom as Andrew. For Andrew, it's to prove that his free spirit image is not a fluke (even though it is), and a desire to follow through and complete something, anything, in his life.

The film transcends any and all preconceptions of it's gimmicky outer appearance. It resembles nothing of a raunchy commercial sex comedy and everything of an intelligently crafted relationship piece that provokes thought and emotion. And yet, in 22 years of living, I have NEVER heard an audience roar in laughter as hard as I did tonight. I have also never heard an audience explode into applause during the middle of a film to compliment a brilliant scene. No potty mouthed Hollywood toilet humor flick I've seen has ever evoked half of the response HUMPDAY received tonight.



http://www.humpdayfilm.com/

Read my review of Lynn's first film WE GO WAY BACK here: http://www.mattjayblog.com/2008/12/we-go-way-back.html