APART FROM THAT profile picture

APART FROM THAT

apartfromthat

About Me


"an original and resonant feature debut...fashioned by young artists with a defiantly personal sense of visual design and pace, along with considerable sympathy for their exceptionally human characters." -Robert Koehler, VARIETY
"Randy Walker and Jennifer Shainin have created a work that, both in its form and content, is organized entirely differently from a conventional film. Their universe is a fragmented, cubistic one where characters' identities won't be reduced to cinematic sound bites and their relationships with each other keep shifting and changing. Characters move through a half-comical, half-absurdist dreamscape of crowded gatherings, surprising parallels, uncanny linkages, and altered perspectives-as if the shape-shifting of the masks we wear and identities we assume on Halloween were able to liberate the magic in the mundane"- Ray Carney, author of CASSAVETES ON CASSAVETES
"its characters are more akin to the American grotesque of Raymond Carver and Flannery O'Connor than any film precedents, save perhaps early Cassavetes."-Isla Leaver-Yap, THE LIST
APART FROM THAT is about how everyone wants to be liked. How people will go to any length to be accepted, and how denial and unmet expectations play a part. In this character-driven drama/comedy, the little moments and everyday lives surrounding three sets of strangers living in the Pacific Northwest coalesce into an examination of this human desire to belong. One story follows the path of Ulla, an introverted student beautician who rents a room in the home of Peggy, an elderly exhibitionist who has made a habit out of placing false phone calls to local fire departments. The second story is that of Leo, a Native American striper for the department of transportation who is in constant search for any distraction that might allow him to forget that his best friend is dying. Running concurrently with these stories is the tale of Sam, a Vietnamese banker who must make a decision at the office that initiates a seemingly irreconcilable divide between himself and his adopted American son. The common thread that binds these stories together is the emotional landscape that silently governs them all. Its an honest look at human vulnerability and the similarities between very different people.

My Interests

I'd like to meet:

GET THE SPECIAL EDITION DVD + CD SOUNDTRACK + ART + PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK
AT THESE FINE ESTABLISHMENTS:

The Elliott Bay Book Co. (Seattle, WA)
Skylight Books (Los Angeles, CA)
St Marks Bookshop (New York, NY)
Scarecrow Video (Seattle, WA)
The Lucky Dumpster (Edison, WA)
20 Twenty (Ballard-Seattle, WA)
Reading Frenzy (Portland, OR)
Quimby's Bookstore (Chicago, IL)
Village Books (Bellingham, WA)
The Business (Anacortes, WA)
Watermark Book Company (Anacortes, WA)
Book Tavern (Augusta, GA)
Unknown (Scranton, PA)
Ninth Street Book Shop (Wilmington, DE)
Twice Told Tales (Crystal Lake, IL)

Movies:

SLOW DAYS (Klukovic)
WINDOWS ON MONDAY (Kohler)
KINETTA (Lanthimos)
MANHATTAN, KANSAS (Wray)
FIVE MORE MINUTES (Decola/Wandner)
FINALLY, LILLIAN AND DAN (Gibisser)
ROZ (Voulgaris)
A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (Cassavetes)
THE SACRIFICE (Tarkovsky)
UNDERGROUND (Kusturica)
NOSTALGHIA (Tarkovsky)
LA NOTTE (Antonioni)
WANDA (Loden)
STROSZEK (Herzog)
FACES (Cassavetes)
HUSBANDS (Cassavetes)
THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE (Bunuel)
THE DECALOGUE (Kieslowski)
GREY GARDENS (Maysles Bros.)
STRANGER THAN PARADISE (Jarmusch)
3 WOMEN (Altman)
WITHNAIL & I (Robinson)
PARIS, TEXAS (Wenders)
HENRY FOOL (Hartley)
OPENING NIGHT (Cassavetes)
THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE (Cassavetes)
DOWN BY LAW (Jarmusch)
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Wong Kar Wai)
FRIDAY NIGHT (Denis)
NASHVILLE (Altman)
SECRETS & LIES (Leigh)
WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (Nichols)
DR. STRANGELOVE (Kubrick)

My Blog

Filmmaker Magazine’s review of the DVD/CD/Photo book

2006, written, directed and edited by Jennifer Shainin and Randy Walker.Sometimes if you want your film to come out on DVD, you've got to do it yourself. And if you are DIY, then why not make it such ...
Posted by APART FROM THAT on Fri, 26 Oct 2007 06:21:00 PST

Tim’s DVD/CD/Photo Book Review

Just a few weeks ago the new release of Apart From That landed in my mailbox and what a nice surprise it was.In this, the first foray from film-makers Jennifer Shainin and Randy Walker into the land o...
Posted by APART FROM THAT on Fri, 26 Oct 2007 06:07:00 PST

HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE "Under the Radar"

Randy Walker and Jennifer Shainin have created a work that, both in its form and content, is organized entirely differently from a conventional film. Their universe is a fragmented, cubistic one where...
Posted by APART FROM THAT on Tue, 12 Jun 2007 02:33:00 PST

review-VARIETY

VARIETY REVIEWBy ROBERT KOEHLERThe everyday mysteries of ordinary folk in a rural Washington State town form the substance of "Apart From That," an original and resonant feature debut by co-directors-...
Posted by APART FROM THAT on Mon, 07 May 2007 12:27:00 PST

RAY CARNEY on APART FROM THAT

I am posting my correspondence with Randy Walker, the co-writer and co-director, with Jennifer Shainin, of the wonderful but so far undistributed Apart from That. Both exchanges throw light on the cha...
Posted by APART FROM THAT on Sat, 05 May 2007 02:39:00 PST

INDIEWIRE: UNDISCOVERED GEMS SERIES

APART FROM THAT has been selected to be one of the 10 films of the INDIEWIRE: UNDISCOVERED GEMS SERIES, sponsored by the New York Times and Emerging Pictures in association with the California Film I...
Posted by APART FROM THAT on Sat, 07 Apr 2007 05:24:00 PST

introduction-EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

EDINBURGH INT'L FILM FESTIVALBy SHANE DANIELSEN, Festival DirectorThere has for a few years now been a dominant strain in American independent cinema: call it domestic gothic. It departs-if one is tak...
Posted by APART FROM THAT on Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:05:00 PST

review-CINEMATICAL

CINEMATICAL REVIEWby KIM VOYNARWhen a film at a festival is labeled "experimental", you're never quite sure what you're going to get. You might sit through 90 minutes of wild visuals, or you might get...
Posted by APART FROM THAT on Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:13:00 PST

review-THE LIST

THE LIST REVIEWBy ISLA LEAVER-YAPGreat suburban America - vast, twisted, scary, and an obsession of indie filmmakers as diverse as Hal Hartley and David Lynch. But far from Lynch's baroque sensational...
Posted by APART FROM THAT on Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:14:00 PST

review-FILMTHREAT

FILM THREAT REVIEWby MICHAEL FERRAROApart From That is an incredibly rich portrait of a group of various characters living their lives in a rural area of Washington. The opening credits sequence sets ...
Posted by APART FROM THAT on Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:10:00 PST