Adrienne Shelly - THE BLUES

[@BF-up5xw]

She was a very promising director, and good already. I liked her as an actor as well. I haven't seen these two films, but these clips are very suggestive. It reminds me a little of a cross between Hal Hartley and Woody Allen, but she had her own voice.

[@ReidRosefelt]

People did talk about "Sudden Manhattan" as being influenced by Woody Allen, but what is striking to me is her female voice. The way men in her films are presented is both critical and comical. She was observant, but not angry. She thought these hapless men were funny. I would also say that what people think of as "Hal Hartley" has a lot to do with her. I posted these videos a long, long time ago, when I had a blog that tied them all together. She was my best friend and even co-starred in a short film I directed. I was also her publicist. She desperately wanted to be taken seriously as a writer/director, but she never got the respect she yearned for. People just wanted her to be an actress. So I felt driven to talk about her work in my blog in the same terms she had expressed to me hundreds of times. Give her work the critical appraisal she never got. Since she died in 2006, all her pre-"Waitress" films have been out of circulation. If you want to see "Sudden Manhattan," it's not available for streaming, but the full movie can be seen free on KZbin.

[@BF-up5xw]

@@ReidRosefelt I certainly agree on her voice and perspective. She had so much more to give, I think.