Cold Weather

Katz further validates my initial suspicion that he is the most talented young American filmmaker to emerge from the so-called "mumblecore" school of no-budget cinema. Leaving behind all the woeful stylistic trappings his peers seem unable to transcend, Katz has made a visually astute, genuinely cinematic genre mashup that actually works (one need only compare it to the Duplass brothers' unfortunate Baghead to see how well the director manages to pull this off).

Aaron Katz seems to be improving with every film, and growing more distinctive as an auteur. Mumblecore filmmakers are foraying increasingly into genre cinema: Quiet City was already a mystery, but with Cold Weather, Katz takes the style to the new ground of a vigilante detective story. And he makes it work. It is nicely shot when not too shaky, and the acting is good. It's a laid-back but enticing film, with sprinkles of both humor and suspense.

Solid but somewhat slight. With the application of hardboiled archetypes to the mundane world, basically what Brick would look like if it weren't obsessively beholden to the noir genre's roles and dialogue. Surprisingly funny, surprisingly suspenseful. Feel like I might be overrating it a bit, but I really did enjoy its mood.

A gripping thriller with a fantastic atmosphere. Awful shame about the script. The quality dives considerably about an hour in, when Katz throws a particularly poorly executed curve ball and several characters you thought were major players become sidelined without explanation. And I promise that will be the last baseball metaphor I ever use in a movie review.

eh, it's just some portland hipsters playing around, nothing to write home about. the first half hour is painful but after that it settles into a not very exciting but not unpleasant low-stakes mystery.

The melding of mumblecore and noir yields an unexpectedly glorious result.

The idea of mixing mumblecore with mystery is good. The humor in the film is based on recognizing that the characters are ordinary people in genre situations. It's never quite funny enough, though, nor particularly tense. Initially refreshing; ultimately underwhelming.

The originality of mixing indie and a subjective thriller feel is absolutely brilliant, and it's done brilliantly by Aaron Katz with a slow start that lets us in on the characters with all their strengths and weaknesses. The tempo is slow, but never boring, and it just adds to the whole realistic and subjective manner in which we join the solving of the crime. Beautifully shot and a must-see for people that like indie films.

Mumblecore is a plague on creation.

I regret smoking the last of my weed to this

Interesting but I did not understand some parts of the plot, the ones with the briefcase involved.

strangely enough the closest recent comparison point for me was probably GIMME THE LOOT, 'cept that movie is black as fuck (& even better) while this is oh so very white. both are slight, amiable little genre films which somehow generate more tension, investment and fun than 90% of the movies they're dorkily riffing on. helps that both leon & katz know how to shoot a film too. probably the best mumblecore offshoot i've seen aside from THE COLOR WHEEL (although i admittedly haven't seen many).

What we learn about characters through mundane-but-real conversations is deeper and more revealing, than sixteen lines explaining the backstory, and Katz has enough faith in the characters he's written and in the actors who are portraying them that he doesn't feel the need to fill in all the blanks. What we take away about these characters might not be something we can list in bullet points, but there is a realness to the characters that makes everything else in the movie feel like real life.

What Katz lacks in ambition he makes up for with tasteful storytelling: the acting that's being done feels so natural that it's easy to forget the actual acting. The story itself evolves quite fluidly from a plotless domestic drama into a disarmingly relaxed mystery (with its fair share of tension) that feels as whimsically natural as the exposition heavy first act. Katz certainly has talent, the cinematography is beautiful but is low-key enough to never overwhelm the narrative arc.

Pleasant. I was a little peeved at first because I was expecting a mystery, and although one does slowly develop as the film progresses, it isn't really the main focus of the film. Despite that, the characters are all likeable, it has a nice bittersweet atmosphere and some genuinely funny moments (the relationship and the dialogue between the brother and sister is spot on). Overall, nothing groundbreaking, but a nice watch.

Hated the guy progressively less as the movie continued. I guess that means it works? Thoroughly enjoyable.

Mumblecore indie and mystery blended together shouldn't work. But for some inexplicable reason, this kind of does. At its heart, it's a refreshingly accurate and subtle portrayal of brother-sister relationship. Portland is visually breathtaking. And it's good to see the characters react very realistically to the mysterious incident. See it if you want a break from all those dumb and empty thrillers moviegoers often get, when we (well, at least the discerning ones) deserve much more.

I liked the concept of overlaying a detective/film-noir-ish style over a "mumblecore" relationship film, but the film ultimately didn't work for me for one main reason--the relationship between the brother and sister. (Trieste Kelly Dunn's performance didn't work for me.) However, the two buddy "detectives" do have decent chemistry and some nice low-key comic moments.

Not so much a melding of mumblecore and thriller as it is a schoolyard scuffle between the two. The dialogue attempting to tie them and provide plot points is weak enough to be distracting, especially as delivered by torpid hipsters. Rikoon brings in a breath of life at least, nervy and other and intriguing despite her bum lines and frequent absences from the screen. Really, it's Andrew Reed's camera (along with whoever did the beautiful Oregon location scouting) that deserves top billing.

Slowly this study of aimless youth in cloudy Portland turns into an investigative mystery that is not so much concerned with a resolution but with the ties between siblings. I found it even more absorbing the second time around.

"The strange moments are patiently drawn out and sometimes beautiful, but it's tough to open a film like this without establishing a character framework to build on." - Robert Tumas