WATERHOLE! Independent Bar Drama is Available on AMAZON!
Hey-oh!
Latino Review has moved to Latino-Review.com. That’s a hyphen! A hyphen meant for speed and unity of purpose and less rambling from Da7e. : ).
That means that my 6 Things W/Da7e articles have gone the way of TheBadAndUgly.com.
BUT! Since Waterhole is now available to you easily.
I thought I’d re-print what I had to say about it. So you can see it. Then we can talk about it.
I was sent this independent film, The Waterhole, by the official Twitter account of the movie @WaterholeMovie. I was intrigued by this particular slice of independent cinema because of a producing experience I’ve had in my past, namely, shooting in a bar for The Four-Faced Liar (an indie I did some associate producing on for my college friends).
The Waterhole is about that time in a young person’s life where they realize they need to get their shit together. I guess I’d say quarter-life crisis. It’s between a college movie and that time period currently being discussed on television in Perfect Couples and Traffic Light. It was a Sundance Lab Finalist screenplay about Miller (Patrick J Adams), a guy getting out of a failed relationship and slowly sinking into alcoholism.
It’s one of those indie films that isn’t based on a big premise or hook idea, it’s about watching the three (arguably four, but really three since the bartender is more of a sounding board) friends work through their personal drama. Miller just dumped his girlfriend who cheated on him, another guy just got engaged and that sort of spooks him and the third – memorably named Cracker and memorably performed by an actor named Joey Klein – is really an alcoholic whose disease is destroying his life.
The Waterhole was shot in Reno at an actual bar and is about alcoholism, so occasionally I forgave the indie film “empty bar syndrome.” Believe me, it’s tough scheduling extras to sip apple juice mixed with seltzer water for three hours, repeating the same mimed conversations. So having one character own the bar and the other characters end up at the bar at seemingly bizarre hours had be buying a partially full bar. I had some trouble buying a bar that didn’t have constant music on TVs on, but some things you forgive indie films.
The Waterhole was a pleasant experience, even if the story has trouble integrating all three concepts under a unifying theme. I’m not exactly sure what everyone has learned at the end. We certainly know that alcoholism is dangerous, but beyond that, I just wanted Miller to man up and realize that actions have consequences even if you want them to or not.
And to be fair, I dealt with that reality for half a decade, easy, when I was that character’s age, so the few months covered in this film’s timeline is pretty good timing for emotional growth.
Oh, did I mention there are some really talented and hot women playing the female roles in this movie? (Since it was shot in Reno, they’re probably all LA based, you lucky West Coast bachelors you. ) Their emotional stories take place largely off screen, but to the credit of the women playing the unseen side of these relationships, they came off believable. That goes for all three of them, with their three sets of beautiful eyes.
Last I head, Amazon was sold out of Waterhole DVDs, but I bet you can find more by poking around the official site.
