Here it is, my last review for the Phoenix Film Festival. It was a fun ride, folks, as always. It’s always a blast to spend a few days basically watching really good films non-stop. I highly advocate everyone that likes movies at all to come out and join me next year. My friend Haley tagged along this year on Saturday and Sunday, and I think she had a really good time checking out the films with me.

Sleeping with Other People was the closing movie on Sunday night at the festival. There’s always a movie to close out the weekend, since that’s when the awards are given out and a lot of the filmmakers start heading back to their respective homes. While the festival technically goes on through Thursday, the rest of the week is basically a re-showing of the award winners and other good films from the weekend.

So, Sleeping with Other People. This movie stars some pretty big names like Jason Sudeikis, Alison Brie, Natasha Lyonne, Amanda Peet, and Adam Scott. And first of all, I have to admit that I spent the better part of the movie building up a pretty big movie star crush on Jason Sudeikis. His character comes off as a pretty likable guy (even in a movie called Sleeping with Other People), and he plays him pretty darn well. Makes me wonder what the guy is like in real life… is he actually this cool for real?

Let’s talk about the plot. Sleeping with Other People is kind of a more modern retelling of When Harry Met Sally. A guy and a girl meet in college (admittedly under some somewhat strange circumstances), have sex – well, actually lose their virginity to each other, and then don’t see each other for years. When they run into each other on the street one day, they end up becoming best friends. And then trying to maintain that friendship.  You can kind of guess what happens from there.

Although you know how Sleeping with Other People will likely end, it’s still quite a fun ride. And pretty freaking hilarious along the way. I ended up reading some comments about the film on other review sites, and one word I kept seeing about it was “charm”. Yep, that’s a good thing to say about this movie. It definitely has its charm. Predictable, yes, but also just a cute, fun ride. It’s nothing too deep, and honestly When Harry Met Sally did do the “guys and girls can’t be friends” bit much better, but what other movie are you going to see where a guy shows a girl (using his finger and a jar, no nudity needed) how to pleasure herself, and actually has some good tips?

If you’re a fan of romantic comedies, Sleeping with Other People I’d recommend.  You won’t have to think too deep about relationships, but you will get quite a few laughs in.

So originally my plan for reviewing movies at the Phoenix Film Festival was going to be to pick my favorite each day and review that one.  Then Saturday happened, and while Listening was definitely my favorite film that day, I also really liked Seven Hours In Heaven as well.  So guess what that means?  Yep.  I’m reviewing both of them!

Seven Hours In Heaven reminded me of a couple of different films.  The first part of the plot is not that unusual, and has been done several times before.  A group of couples go on vacation together, or on some kind of retreat, and stuff happens.  Sound familiar?  If it does, it’s because that’s how Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married and Why Did I Get Married Too both start out.  It’s also not unlike how the comedy Grown Ups begins as well.  But where Seven Hours In Heaven differs and where it also takes its name from is where the originality shows up.  The group of eight people (four couples) ends up deciding to shake up the weekend a bit and get somewhat daring by splitting up for one night.  They draw names and go into separate bedrooms… with the couples mixed up and partners NOT in the same bedroom as the partner they came with, but someone else’s partner (of the opposite sex) instead.  A takeoff on the teenage game of “Seven Minutes in Heaven”, the plan is to spend the night with someone else, doors closed, no questions asked, no discussions about it later.  You can almost instantly see the drama this can (and of course, did) cause.

I loved this concept for Seven Hours In Heaven as soon as it was explained.  You could just see this going so many different ways.  Would they show any of the seven hours?  (They didn’t.)  Easy to guess that there would be some faithful and some unfaithful.  But who would it be?  And how would they find out?  Who would be the first to break down and talk about?  All stuff you knew would likely happen, but when or who it would be was the big question.  That’s what made this movie good to me and why I liked it almost from the beginning.  You knew some things would probably happen, but instead of feeling like it was predictable, it made you excited to see how it all played out.  At least that’s how I felt.

Films like Seven Hours In Heaven tend to be high up on my list, for the reason of how they delve into the human psyche.  One of my favorites from last year’s Phoenix Film Festival was The Trouble With The Truth, for the same reason.  I love the exploration of humans and relationships and how we all exist together and the mistakes we make.  People are fascinating, and there are some really good movies out there that dig deep into that and confront it head on.  Seven Hours In Heaven is one of those films.

The actors in Seven Hours In Heaven were every bit as good as the plot, and they worked well with it.  Colleen Hartnett, who wore quite a few different hats while making the film (including both co-producer and one of the lead actresses), was especially excellent as Lisa.  I don’t want to give away too much about her character.  You definitely just need to see it to see how great she is.

If you are into movies about humans and how we treat each other, and you get the chance to, definitely go see Seven Hours In Heaven.  This film takes a great concept and runs with it, giving you a chance to see how far some people are willing to go in their interactions with others.  Definitely one of my favorite films at the festival this year.

Finally, time to review one more from the Phoenix Film Festival!  Last year, I reviewed quite a few films from the festival, but I think this year I’ll just pick the best one from each day.  Except Saturday, there were two I really liked, so I might just review both of them.  The first of those two is a movie called Listening.  Listening was the first film I saw on Saturday, and probably my favorite.  It’s also probably my favorite out of all the films I saw at the entire festival, honestly.  I just really liked it.

Listening is about these two college students, Ryan and David, who have been working on a project to try to listen to and decode human thought.  They meet another student, Jordan, who joins the project and has some ideas that put a whole new twist on it – humans listening directly to each other’s thoughts instead of using a computer to decode them.  Listening is the story of what happens when their project starts to take off.

Listening really has it all.  It’s a very intelligent movie, but not so intelligent that the average movie-goer can’t follow it.  The premise may sound like sci-fi, and it basically is, but the film also has touches of comedy, romance, and drama as well.  It really was just a very interesting and entertaining feature.  It covers quite a bit of territory, but never strays from the main premise of the power of telepathy.

I’m never too disappointed in most of the films I see at the Phoenix Film Festival, and in general, they are all a step above most of the ones I find in mainstream movie theaters.  Listening was definitely one of those films.  With deep and interesting characters that you end up caring about, it takes you into their personal lives alongside the project they are working on.

Listening is also not a predictable film, at least it wasn’t to me.  One complaint I had about a couple of the films I saw this weekend was that they followed patterns that had just been done before and weren’t original enough.  Listening definitely broke the mold.  The premise may have been thought of before, but I’ve not seen it done like this, and it was a very enjoyable adventure to witness, one I would highly recommend if you get the chance to see it.