My Effortless Brilliance (2008)

Director
Lynn Shelton

Main cast
Jeanette Maus; Basil Harris; Calvin Reeder; Sean Nelson

Genres
Comedy, Drama

Description
Lynn Shelton's "My Effortless Brilliance" is a study in the relationship between cocky, fussy, thoroughly-city-mouse author Eric (Sean Nelson) and his ex-best-friend, the tersely powerful journalist and wood-chopper Dylan (Basil Harris). Dylan, fed up with Eric's self-involved antics, dumps him and disappears to live in a log cabin in the woods of Eastern Washington; two years later, Eric arrives (sporting a Prius, white sneakers, and a fear of spiders) to mend the friendship.


Similar movies

Recently released from a mental hospital, Ricky ties up Marina, a film star he once had sex with and keeps her hostage.
Cannes, 1999. Alice, an actress, wants to direct an indie picture. Kaz, a talkative (and maybe bogus) deal maker, promises $3 million if she'll use Millie, an aging French star. But, Rick, a big producer, needs Millie for a small part in a fall movie or he loses his star, Tom Hanks. Is Kaz for real? Can Rick sweet-talk Alice and sabotage Kaz to keep Millie from taking that deal? Millie consults with Victor, her ex, about which picture to make, Rick needs money, an ingenue named Blue is discovered, Kaz hits on Victor's new love, and Rick's factotum connects with Blue. Knives go in various backs. Wheels spin. Which deals - and pairings - will be consummated?
Lovelife is a 1997 romantic comedy film written and directed by Jon Harmon Feldman. The ensemble cast includes Matt Letscher, Sherilyn Fenn, Saffron Burrows, Carla Gugino, Bruce Davison, Jon Tenney and Peter Krause. Lovelife was nominated for a Feature Film Award at the 1997 Austin Film Festival, and won an Audience Award at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. The film was winner of the screenplay award at the L.A. Indie fest.
As single mom Grace juggles work, bills, and her affair with a married doctor, her daughter, Ansiedad, plots a shortcut to adulthood after finding inspiration in the coming-of-age stories she's reading for school.
Stephen, an international trader, tracks down his ex-wife Patricia in some Amazonian backwater. He needs her consent to a divorce so that he can marry Charlotte. Unfortunately, he discovers a son he didn’t know he had – Mimi-Siku. The young jungle boy yearns to see Paris so Stephen reluctantly agrees to take him back home with him for a few days. How will Mimi-Siku react to life in the great metropolis?
An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.
Victor Bukowski is an out-of-work actor with problems. He's got a lousy agent, he has a habit of falling out with directors and he's still in love with his ex-girlfriend. However, Victor is about to embark on an unexpected emotional journey which will make him confront his future and his past mistakes.
Two French Canadian ne’er-do-wells travel to New York City with a scheme to a get rich quick selling Christmas trees. Easygoing charmer Rene (Paul Rudd) clashes with misanthropic ex-con Dennis (Paul Giamatti), whose wife Rene just stole. Still, this odd couple must make an honest go of it in this fresh buddy comedy co-starring Sally Hawkins, by the director of the indie breakout hit Junebug.
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
This is a comedy about people who work in the theater, live for the theater, think of nothing but the theater. The director seems crazy, the art director has idiotic ideas, and the acting coach is eccentric: they even look like brothers, related by their common obsession for the theater, linked as one with the actors. The new project is Mozart's Don Giovanni, in which the director insists to give it a brand new interpretation and an avant-garde treatment. Now, he has to deal with the violent objection from the actors, the musicians, the singing coach, the stage manager, and even the cafe bar attendants and the cleaners. The situation is further complicated as the director is such a womanizer like Don Juan... and his lovers and kids keep bugging him throughout the rehearsal...
Apathy, technology, paranoia, disease and medication. Meet Arin. Arin is a shy videographer who finds it too much to handle to go out and meet girls, so he sets up an account on meester.net. The flood of responses never comes, save for one email from Susan, a struggling artist who finds her job as a waitress stifling her creativity. Susan is also on the shy side and is seeking an alternative to the classic dating situation. When Arin and Susan finally meet, that alternative dating situation comes to life as the two refuse to communicate verbally with each other, wanting to avoid bs small talk.
A fidgety, wisecracking video store clerk develops a fixation on a particularly reclusive customer, a frequent visitor to the pornography section of Cinefile, the video store where he works in Los Angeles. After multiple failures to impress her during their brief daily transactions, he finds her street address in the store's database, drives to her apartment building and initiates an unconventional campaign to win her affections.
A down and out young punk gets a job working with a seasoned repo man, but what awaits him in his new career is a series of outlandish adventures revolving around aliens, the CIA, and a most wanted '64 Chevy.
Womanising, right-wing Dan Hanson and quiet, liberal Lorie Bryer work for the Baltimore Sun. Rivals for the job of new writer of a vacant column, the paper ends up instead printing their very different opinions alongside each other, which leads to a similarly combative local TV show. At the same time their initial indifference to each other looks like it may evolve into something more romantic.
About a working class woman climbing her way up the corporate ladder and scoring a hot, rich boyfriend along the way, this romantic comedy is based on the same-name popular novel.
Josh's life is pretty much in the toilet. He's a failed NYC indie rocker, and a failing booking agent. But he finds the potential of a small victory in a really bad idea. He decides to purchase a 1985 Lazy Boy on eBay, just like the one his dad had when Josh was a kid. He'll drive cross-country for the chair, staying with Emily at his brother's house on the way, and deliver it to his father as a surprise birthday gift. But when Rhett ends up coming along for the ride, it's three people and a giant purple puffy chair in a too-small van... and one of them has to go before the trip's end.
The story is freely inspired by the life and work of Jan Saudek, who is probably the most well-known Czech photographer internationally and has indisputably been involved in the development of international photography. He has exhibited and sold his work in the largest galleries and art houses, he has earned international recognition and awards, he enjoys great popularity and interest - he is a true phenomenon.
Kenya McQueen, a corporate lawyer finds love in the most unexpected place when she agrees to go on a blind date with Brian Kelly, a sexy and free-spirited landscaper.
Two college roommates -- prim and proper Grace (Cat Taber) and wild and woolly Casey (Soleil Moon Frye) -- find themselves in a tense rivalry when Casey's conduct almost destroys Grace's engagement to preppie heartthrob Charlie (Wil Wheaton). Not too high-minded to seek revenge, Grace cozies up to Casey's pal Joey (Gary Wolf), setting off a cycle of envy and mistrust that may destroy both women's lives in director Irene Turner's well-paced indie.
Martin, an ex-Parisian well-heeled hipster passionate about Gustave Flaubert who settled into a Norman village as a baker, sees an English couple moving into a small farm nearby. Not only are the names of the new arrivals Gemma and Charles Bovery, but their behavior also seems to be inspired by Flaubert's heroes.
The film's protagonists get an opportunity to make a wish. Consequently, their lives take the path they themselves ordained. Several "coincidences" bring them everything they wanted and they have the chance to experience their wishes. We are not only responsible in our lives for everything that we do, but also for everything we say, we think and desire.
Patti Petalson is a promising writer, but her marriage and conventional job keep her from her dream. She longs to return to her writing, especially after running into her first love Brian Callahan, a successful crime novelist. Kate is Patti's best friend since college; she's a tough-talking schoolteacher who plays therapist to all Patti's problems, while she's got a few of her own.
The Chen family contagiousness extends to taking on an extra-marital affair. Gua Ah-leh is at the movie's centre: she shines as Lung's wife, who finds she has a thing or two to learn from the gigolo after Lung blithely. Lang Hisung plays old dentist for broad comedy he is sixty years old.
A small group of friends experience relationships which grow and stumble, involving everything from straight, gay, lesbian, and bisexual relationships. The speed with which these relationships last leads to the Goldfish memory effect, the belief that a Goldfish only has a 3 second memory is a metaphor for the transient nature of the characters relationships.
Things have been tough lately for Amelia. Her best friend moved out of the apartment, her cat got cancer, and now her best friend, Laura, is getting married. She copes with things, from the help of Andrew, Frank, Laura, and a brief romance with Bill "The Ugly Guy" Written by Rose Hilburn
A struggling actor comes from Delhi to Bombay and enters the Hindi film industry. This gives the audience an in sight into what sometimes happens when making a movie and what happens in the industry and more when it involves the opposite sex and when you are working together. Zoya Akhtar, sister to Farhan Akhtar and daughter of Javed Akhtar, has done a superb job in her directorial debut in showin
A chic jewel thief in England falls in love with one of her marks.
Year 1977. Punk and new wave rock´n roll has arrived to remote Finland and a bleak small town Oulu where increasingly odd-looking youths began to appear in the street with a message. Their rebellion speaks to Välde (17). Välde dreams of joining a rock band and becoming famous. He wants to get drunk for the first time, and to win the love of Pike, the most beautiful girl in the class. When Pike wins the Miss Blue Jeans contest organised by the country´s leading (and only) pop music magazine Suosikki and takes as her boyfriend the bourgeois Henri Hakala, Välde puts all his eggs in one basket. He abandons his former self and begins purposefully constructing a new persona for himself. But everything doesn’t go as Välde wanted … The film is based on a novel by Kauko Röyhkä, an author and indie rock musician.
The actual experiences of New York City subway riders are dramatized in a collection of 10 intriguing and very different vignettes. The tales showcase an ensemble of familiar faces, and range from stories of compassion and love to reflections on violence and loss. Among them: a disabled beggar quarrels with a woman and ruins her shoes with his wheelchair, provoking onlookers to wrath and pity; a skittish tourist proves to be her own worst enemy; a newlywed trysts with a mysterious sexpot; a commuter helplessly witnesses a suicide attempt; and, in the most affecting segment, a young woman grieves over her mother's imminent death.
The dorkiest thing in the world, according to feminist poet Sigrid, is the movie cliche of the young woman who in the morning dons her male lover's shirt, looking adorably "indie cute". But when she begins a relationship with Kåre Tryvle, a writer twenty years her senior, she has difficulties living up to her ideals. Meanwhile, pregnant performance artist Trine is planning to give birth in a cage, dressed up as Marie Antoinette, on camera, and factory worker Astrid is looking for the son she had adopted. Yngvild Svee Flikke's directorial debut, based on Gunnhild Øyehaug's celebrated feminist novel "Wait, Blink", is an elegant, energetic and extremely funny portrait of three women struggling with the patriarchy as well as themselves.
"Let Me Borrow Your Wife". This is a light comedy from Edith Carlmar, Norways first woman director. It takes place in a company that sells baby toys. It is time to fill a leading position, and it is known the owner of the company only places married men on leading positions. This leads a young bachelor to "borrow" his best friends wife to have a chance at the position. This leads to a lot of comic misunderstandings, not the least because the owner of the company himself falls for the new young wife.
When once-up-and-coming indie film starlet Halley Feiffer loses her boyfriend, her agent and her career in one fell swoop she finally realizes that something in her life has got to change... she has to become WAY MORE FAMOUS! Armed with a stolen script and two pitchers of sangria, Halley enlists the help of her brother Ryan and his boyfriend to make her own movie, starring herself (of course) as herself, and any A-list celebrity she can land along the way.
A married, indie band duo regretfully takes a job on a children's show ("Rumperbutts"). Despite the money & success, they are miserable. However, on one magical evening, a mysterious man appears & gives them a second chance.
Monsieur Cinema, a hundred years old, lives alone in a large villa. His memories fade away, so he engages a young woman to tell him stories about all the movies ever made. Also a line of movie stars comes to visit him giving him back the pleasure of life - but amongst them there are also some young students only striving after his money for the realization of their film projects. The two stories - Monsieur Cinema's and the young people's life - are told in parallel until they come together in the end when the old man plays a role in the film made by the students.
The story revolves around a Spring, a hitman from mainland China who is on a mission in Hong Kong with his partner Setting Sun. However, Spring falls ill and comes under the care of a screenwriter by the name of Soya and they find themselves developing into a tight and everlasting friendship.
Writer/director/star Alex Karpovsky, a familiar face to indie filmgoers, reveals his sterling comic chops in this close-to-the-bone comedy. Teasing the line between fiction and reality, he plays an indie filmmaker named Alex Karpovsky who, dumped by a longtime girlfriend fed up with his refusal to marry, takes to the road with a reluctant old pal for a misbegotten mini tour screening his movie on college campuses and independent cinemas.
WEDDING PALACE has been called the Korean-American “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” Abandoned at the altar, Jason’s (Brian Tee) family approaches bridal replacements, but to their horror, he rejects them all. On a business trip to Korea, he meets the girl of his dreams, Na Young (Kang Hye-jung). They embark on a cyber love affair fueled by imagination and video chats. Jason proposes and his family is delighted. When Na Young arrives, Jason’s wacky family screws things up at every turn causing a roller coaster of ups and downs to this modern romance. Jason will have to bridge the gap between family expectations and true love. Award winning indie trail blazer, WEDDING PALACE is the first ever US-Korea indie co-production and was shot in Los Angeles and Seoul.
In this action-comedy, four twenty-something friends are looking for love and having no luck. While on a ski trip, one of them finds passion with a beautiful girl after a random accident on the icy slopes. The others quickly conclude that the extreme circumstances of the accident were what caused love to bloom. They decide that the path to true love is to purposely set each other up on "extreme dates" with the objects of their affections...
In a last-ditch effort to break through in the crowded and convoluted indie film world, a husband-wife producing team make a film especially designed to win a regional film festival and attract the attention of actor Bill Murray.
An immature, newly unemployed comic must navigate the murky waters of adulthood after her fling with a graduate student results in an unplanned pregnancy.
Jay Brooks is that black guy who digs indie rock, graphic novels, and dates white chicks. After a slew of bad break-ups, Jay gives up white women, "cold turkey," and he goes on a mission: "Operation Brown Sugar". But because Jay doesn't fit the "brotha" stereotype, he fails miserably with the "sistahs." Then he meets the dynamic Catherine, a misunderstood "Half-rican Canadian", who's as righteously quirky as he is. To win her heart, Jay must confront his fears as he realizes commitment is a bigger issue than race.
A high-powered New York publicist finds herself in Montana promoting a charity calendar after being betrayed by her boss and fiancé. Unfortunately, matters of the heart are just as complicated in the wilds as they are in the big city.
Follow the story of Jesus in this slapstick satire. With a name like "Jesus, the Total Douchebag" the movie should only be seen by people who enjoy blasphemous comedy, and as such, the comedy is focused on targets that are usually exempt. Director Bill Zebub explains, "Indie movies should revel in their freedom. They are not confined to the same boundaries as the big budget movies. They should give what Hollywood can't."
The documentary, Kingdom Come follows a first-time director (Daniel Gillies) as he tries to raise a million dollars to finance his first film, Broken Kingdom. This emotionally-charged journey is interwoven with over 30 rare interviews from acclaimed indie darlings including Mark Ruffalo, Illeana Douglas, Don Cheadle, Kevin Smith, Edward Burns, Tim Roth, Morgan Spurlock, Selma Blair, Robert Townsend, Bill Pullman and many more.
Quotas for women, parking spaces for women, online shopping, small talk and gossip. Software developer Erol, porta-potty rep Lars, and commercial pilot Helmut are licking the wounds of their masculinity – a female-free zone is what’s needed! In the boiler room of their recently built housing complex, the three stressed husbands create a secret refuge where they can watch football, eat fast-food, drink beer and curse the opposite sex undisturbed. When Aykut, the complex’s facility manager, discovers their last bastion of masculinity, he threatens to close it down. One thing is for sure, the men are not going to give up their little slice of paradise without a fight. Based on the stage play bearing the same name, director Franziska Meyer Price allows men to return to rebellious ladhood.
Camille was only sixteen and still in high school when she fell in love with Eric, another student. They later married and a child and were happy for a while. But now twenty-five years have passed and Eric leaves her for a younger woman. Bitter and desperate Camille drinks so much liquor at a New Year Eve's party that she falls into an ethylic coma and she finds herself... propelled into her own past! Camille is sixteen again when she wakes up this morning, her parents are not dead anymore and she must go to school, where she will meet her schoolmates and, of course, Eric. Is she going to fall for him again and... be miserable twenty-five years later? Or will she avoid him with the result never having her beloved daughter? Who ever said that time traveling was fun?
Jose Stern, an erstwhile indie-rocker relegated to playing children's birthday parties, is on the verge of turning 40 and at a crossroads in his life.
Esteban and Maxime are inseparable. Their families have always lived in the same Parisian building and Maxime, who has lived alone with his mother, a hard-working attorney, since his father died, has always felt part of Esteban's happy, friendly family. The boys have known each other since birth and consider themselves more than friends, they are brothers. The two friends have secretly made a small attic room the center of their world, where they invent characters and store their disguises and most treasured possessions. But their friendship is threatened when Maxime learns to his dismay that Esteban and his Spanish-born family are moving back to Spain. The two boys dream up a plan that they must soon put into action.
A high-powered attorney duct tapes her adulterous husband to the toilet ... right before their home is invaded by burglars.
A decade and a half after their seminal indie film launched meteoric filmmaking careers, Splick and Jason find themselves staring at their own individual, pre-midlife crises. Having not spoken to one another since a late-nineties falling out, they're each grappling with the challenges of stalled careers and relationships, as the hands of time creep ominously past forty-o'clock. Splick's most recent TV show, centered around his character's perverse relationship with dessert foods, is unceremoniously cancelled by the network, forcing a return to his childhood bedroom at his mother's apartment in New York. Frustrated by a barrage of comments about the "good," "funny," movies he used to make with his old partner, Jason, Splick determines to seek him out and attempt a reunion.
Set in contemporary Los Angeles, this fast-paced indie flick stars Mexican wrestler Atomic Blue as a man trying to put his past behind him. Young Nick Rodriguez, devastated by his brother's death and worried about a land developer who wants to destroy his neighborhood, is looking for a knight in shining armor -- and thinks he's found one in former wrestling champ Atomic Blue. Trouble is, the aging athlete isn't anxious to be a hero anymore.
The movie opens as the two protagonists, Rodrigo and Rocco join their families to hold a birthday party for their grandfather, Rodrigo Carnicero, which through most part of the movie is only referred to as "El abuelo" (Spanish for Grandpa). Rodrigo is a regular middle-class teenager, while Rocco (who, in fact, is also named Rodrigo but shortens his name to Rocco) is rather more unconventional, a marijuana user and indie magazine writer, and has deep conflicts with his father Luis.
A lonely plumber poses as a director to meet women, and the writer whose script he's stolen builds on his ruse to get her movie made.
The film focuses on the tumultuous romance in the lives of four women in The Hague. Teenage daughter Eva, her mother Judith, aunt Barbara and older sister Anna make it under one roof Hague together a nice game of. They are beautiful, courageous and sensible, but sometimes they just do not know in a world full of tender love, serial dating, slaked lust, affairs, children's desires and indestructible old loves.
Playboy Thomas Fuentes has so far been able to skate by in life on good looks and charm alone. But when his duplicitous relationships with three women -- impassioned waitress Cici, meticulous lawyer Lorena and bored socialite Patricia -- spiral out of control, he suffers a mental breakdown. His doctor recommends that he choose just one girlfriend -- but can he choose in time before they discover his deception?
Robert, a fan of three French actresses is a bald-headed, potbellied man on the fifties, but fully devotes himself to them, and sometimes works for them without being recognized. But those star actresses find him a simple stalker fan and make fun of him, but later recognize he is sincere and genuine.
In this indie comedy from helmer Bob Byington, dry wit and deadpan humor abound as aptly named lyricist Harmony (Justin Rice) insists on wallowing in misery eons after being unceremoniously dumped by his girlfriend, the lovely Jessica (Kristen Tucker). While the members of Harmony's family are long over his antics, that doesn't stop him from milking his heartbreak and telling his tale of woe to anyone who will listen.
In writer-director Nick Whitfield's black indie comedy, a pair of "exorcists" (Ed Gaughan and Andrew Buckley) with the power to rid people of their secrets agree to help a woman (Paprika Steen) whose daughter (Tuppence Middleton) is mute -- and whose husband is missing. Jason Isaacs co-stars as the mysterious Colonel, who seems to be calling the shots from the sidelines of the duo's shadowy enterprise.
After seizing an English ship, buccaneer captain Anne Providence spares Pierre LaRochelle from walking the plank - as he's in irons he is presumably no friend of England. He signs on as a pirate and she is increasingly drawn to him, a feeling that seems to be reciprocated. When fearsome Captain Blackbeard, her teacher in the ways of pirating, sets eyes on LaRochelle he recalls him as a French navy officer. Anne sticks by her man but the truth, when it is uncovered, is even more painful.
Corky, a tough female ex con and her lover Violet concoct a scheme to steal millions of stashed mob money and pin the blame on Violet's crooked boyfriend Caeser.

© Valossa 2015–2024