Tiny Furniture is a 2010 American independent comedy film written by, directed by, and starring Lena Dunham. ^[1]

It premiered at South by Southwest, where it won best narrative feature,^[2] and was released theatrically in the United States on November 12, 2010.

Plot[link]

This section requires expansion.

Aura returns home from her Midwest liberal arts college to her artist family’s TriBeCa loft with nothing but a film studies degree, a failed relationship, and a lack of direction. She takes a job as a hostess at a restaurant and falls into relationships with two self-centered men while struggling to define herself.

Cast[link]

• Lena Dunham as Aura
• Laurie Simmons as Siri
• Grace Dunham as Nadine
• Jemima Kirke as Charlotte
• Alex Karpovsky as Jed
• David Call as Keith
• Merritt Wever as Frankie
• Amy Seimetz as Ashlynn
• Garland Hunter as Noelle
• Isen Ritchie as Jacob
• Mike S. Ryan as Homeless Man

Production[link]

Filming[link]

Filming took place in TriBeCa and Lower Manhattan. The film was shot in November of 2009.^[3] Tiny Furniture shares many aspects of the mumblecore movement—loosely defined as an indie, low-budget, mostly digital video movement of dialogue-heavy films about the personal experiences of young adult characters utilizing amateur actors and improvised dialogue. But Dunham does not consider the film mumblecore, because she wrote a "tight script" the actors were faithful to.^[4]

Music[link]

The soundtrack includes music by Teddy Blanks of The Gaskets, Domino (band) (Domino Kirke, and Jordan Galland), Rebecca Schiffman and Sonia's Party! & The Everyone's Invited Band.^[5] The Soundtrack is downloadable for Free on the movie website. ^[6]

Home media[link]

Tiny Furniture was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in 2012 as part of the Criterion Collection.^[7]

Awards[link]

Lena Dunham won Best First Screenplay at the 2010 Independent Spirit Awards.^[8]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Tiny Furniture at the Internet Movie Database
• Tiny Furniture at Rotten Tomatoes
• Tiny Furniture at AllRovi
• Tiny Furniture at Box Office Mojo
• Tiny Furniture at Metacritic
• Criterion Collection Essay "Tiny Furniture Out There" By Phillip Lopate

Mark Kermode
Kermode performing with the Dodge Brothers in 2009.
Born	Mark Fairey (1963-07-02) 2 July 1963 (age 48) Barnet, North London, England
Residence	Brockenhurst, New Forest, Hampshire, England
Nationality	British
Citizenship	British
Education	PhD (English)
Alma mater	University of Manchester
Occupation	Film critic, presenter, musician
Employer	BBC, The Observer, Sight and Sound
Known for	Kermode and Mayo's Film Reviews, The Culture Show, The Dodge Brothers

Mark Kermode (born 2 July 1963) is an English film critic, musician and a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He contributes to Sight and Sound magazine, The Observer newspaper and BBC Radio 5 Live, where he presents Kermode and Mayo's Film Reviews with Simon Mayo on Friday afternoons.^[1] He also co-presents the BBC Two arts programme The Culture Show and discusses other branches of the arts for the BBC Two programme Newsnight Review. Kermode writes and presents a film-related video blog for the BBC.

Early life and education[link]

Kermode, born Mark Fairey^[2][3] in Barnet, North London, England,^[4] attended Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, an independent boys' school in Elstree, a few years ahead of comedians Sacha Baron Cohen, Matt Lucas and David Baddiel and in the same year as actor Jason Isaacs.^[5] He was raised as a Methodist, and is now a member of the Church of England.^[6]

Mark Fairey's parents divorced when he was in his early 20s and he subsequently changed his surname to his GP mother's maiden name by deed poll.^[7] (Neither of them is related to the literary critic Frank Kermode.^[8])

He earned his PhD in English at the University of Manchester in 1991, writing a thesis on horror fiction.^[4] Kermode has stated that "I was a revolutionary communist affiliate in the 80s", but that "none of us had any respect for Stalin".^[9]

Personal life[link]

Kermode lives in Brockenhurst with his wife, Linda Ruth Williams, a professor who lectures on film at the University of Southampton and has written The Erotic Thriller in Contemporary Cinema and co-edited Contemporary American Cinema.^[10] In October to November 2004, they jointly curated a History of the Horror Film season and exhibition at the National Film Theatre in London.^[10] Kermode and Williams have two children.^[7] Kermode has been described as "a feminist, a near vegetarian (he eats fish), a churchgoer and a straight-arrow spouse who just happens to enjoy seeing people's heads explode across a cinema screen".^[11]

Career[link]

Horror specialisation[link]

Kermode is a visiting fellow at the University of Southampton, having gained a PhD at the University of Manchester in modern English and American horror fiction.^[12] He has also contributed to Fangoria magazine,^[13] authored the monograph The Exorcist (BFI Modern Classics), and worked on film-related documentaries like The Fear of God; 25 Years of the Exorcist, Hell on Earth: The Desecration and Resurrection of Ken Russell's The Devils, The Edge of Blade Runner, and The Cult of The Wicker Man.^[14] He calls The Exorcist (1973) "the best film ever made".^[15] He recommends The Witch Who Came From the Sea as one of the best video nasties of the 1970s.^[16]

Kermode is sometimes critical of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), the censor for film in the UK, calling for horror films from abroad to be shown in their uncut versions. However, in recent years, he has stated on numerous occasions that the BBFC do a good job in an impossible situation, and expressed his approval of their decisions.^[17]

Print media[link]

Kermode began his film career as a print journalist, writing for Manchester's City Life, and then Time Out and the NME in London. He has also written for The Independent, Vox, Empire, Flicks, Fangoria and Neon.^[18] Until September 2005, Kermode reviewed films each week for the New Statesman.^[19] Since 2009 Kermode has written "Mark Kermode's DVD round-up" for The Observer, a weekly review of the latest releases.^[20] He sometimes writes for the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound magazine.^{[citation needed]}

In February 2010, Random House released his autobiography, It's Only a Movie, which he describes as being "inspired by real events".^[21] Its publication was accompanied by a UK tour.^[22] In September 2011 he released a follow-up book entitled The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex, in which he puts forth his opinion on the good and bad of modern films, and vehemently criticizes the modern multiplex experience and the 3D film craze of the early 2000s.^[23]

Radio[link]

Kermode began working at BBC Radio 1 in 1993, on a regular Thursday night slot called Cult Film Corner on Mark Radcliffe's Graveyard Shift session.^[24] He later moved to Simon Mayo's BBC Radio 1 morning show. He also hosted a movie review show with Mary Anne Hobbs on Radio 1 on Tuesday nights called Cling Film.^[25] Between February 1992 and October 1993, he was the resident film reviewer on BBC Radio 5's Morning Edition with Danny Baker.

Kermode also co-hosted an early 1990s afternoon magazine show on BBC Radio 5 called A Game of Two Halves alongside former Blue Peter presenter Caron Keating.^[26]

He currently reviews and debates new film releases each Friday afternoon with Simon Mayo on Mayo's BBC Radio 5 Live show, which is also available as a podcast.^[27] The programme won Gold in the Speech Award category at the 2009 Sony Radio Academy Awards on 11 May 2009. The judges' citation was:^[28]

The winner of the Gold Award made the judges laugh out loud. They found this programme witty and entertaining, cheeky and irreverent, and they admired the sustained passion and energy of its presenters who made listening an effortless and rollercoaster pleasure.

His derisive review of the Christopher Columbus film Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief inspired the Australian comedy film Benjamin Sniddlegrass and the Cauldron of Penguins.

Television[link]

Kermode is currently a regular presenter on BBC Two's The Culture Show. He also appears regularly on Newsnight Review and Film 24 on BBC News. It was during a 2006 interview with Kermode for The Culture Show in Los Angeles that Werner Herzog was shot by an air rifle. Herzog appeared unflustered, later stating "It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid".^[29][30] On 19 May 2007 he was featured on the show playing with his skiffle band, The Dodge Brothers, in which he plays the double bass.

Kermode is also a film critic and presenter for Film4 and Channel 4, presenting the weekly Extreme Cinema strand. He also writes and presents documentaries for Channel 4.^[18] Once a week, he reviews films for BBC News at Five.

Kermode rarely watches television, calling it "trivial" and stating that "I have been doing my best to avoid [TV] for the last 20 years."^[31] On being challenged by The Observer to watch TV, he admitted "if there's one thing I've learned from agreeing to take up the Observer's TV challenge this summer, it's that an awareness of what's going on in television is probably helpful to an understanding of movies. Worse, it may even be essential".^[31]

Kermode appeared in a cameo role as himself in the revival of the BBC's Absolutely Fabulous on January 1, 2012.^[32]

Other work[link]

As of April 2008, Kermode has started a twice-weekly video blog hosted on the BBC website, where he posts clips of himself talking about films and telling anecdotes.^[33]

Kermode has recorded DVD audio commentaries for Tommy, The Ninth Configuration, The Wicker Man^[34] and (with Peter O'Toole) Becket.^[35] He also appears in the DVD extras of Lost in La Mancha, interviewing Terry Gilliam. Kermode has written books, published by the BFI in its Modern Classics series, on The Exorcist^[36] and The Shawshank Redemption^[37][38] and his documentary for Channel 4, Shawshank: The Redeeming Feature, is on the film's 10th anniversary special edition DVD.^[39]

Opinions[link]

Kermode's appreciation of genre cinema is not always in line with popular taste. He dislikes all four Pirates of the Caribbean films,^[41] all of the live action Transformers films, and considers the Star Wars series to be a "gross infantalisation of the dark hearted 'serious' sci-fi" that he grew up with.^[42] Kermode has also expressed his dislike of director Chris Columbus, labelling him an "accountant director" and producing a negative analysis of the first two Harry Potter films, which Columbus directed. However, Kermode says he has "grown into the Potter story" as the films have advanced in their mature themes and content.^[43] He dislikes 3D films, and is particularly disdainful of the trend for what he calls "retrofitting" 2D movies into 3D,^[44] and he also detests the Cannes Film Festival. Kermode's emphasis on genre cinema has also meant he often expresses a liking for films panned by other critics, such as Basic Instinct 2 (2006)^[45] because it follows genre expectations. Kermode has been critical of documentary maker Michael Moore (despite praising Capitalism: A Love Story on his radio show), accusing him of "feeding his own ego".^[46]. However he expressed his admiration for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, directed by David Slade, a film dismissed by the majority of critics. Kermode has very strong views and is well known for his rants against certain blockbuster movies such as the Michael Bay films mentioned above, often citing the director as a bad example of filmmaking.

Music[link]

Kermode played double-bass for a skiffle/rockabilly band called The Railtown Bottlers in the early 1990s. The Railtown Bottlers were also the house band on the BBC show Danny Baker After All for a series, starting in 1993,^[47][48] where he performed with Madness lead singer, Suggs.^[49] He currently plays bass in skiffle quartet The Dodge Brothers.^[48]

Awards and other recognition[link]

Kermode is 75th on The Guardian's Film Power 100;^[52] According to The Screen Directory, Kermode is tenth in the list of the best film critics, in company that includes Alexander Walker, Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert, David Thomson, and James Agee.^[40]

Kermode is a patron of the Phoenix Cinema in North London.^[53]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Profile of Mark Kermode at the University of Southampton
• Archive of selected articles by Kermode in Critics / Authors Review and Articles at Rotten Tomatoes
• Mark Kermode at BBC Programmes
• Kermode Uncut: Mark Kermode's Movie Blog at BBC Online
• Interview with Mark Kermode at subtitledonline.com
• Video interview with Mark Kermode regarding The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex at subtitledonline.com