REVIEW: Some Velvet Morning [2013]

“When has love ever been fair?” It’s official: Neil LaBute is back. I know that’s a horrible thing to say considering he’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever talked to in the industry and never actually went anywhere creatively where the theater scene’s concerned, but a decade of watching him direct other people’s scripts (two of which were remakes) can take its toll on a fan. It’s therefore with immense pleasure that I confidently announce Some Velvet Morning is everything I’ve missed and hoped I’d experience again. Whether the…

Read More

REVIEW: Some Girl(s) [2013]

“Guys always mean well right before they screw someone over” Often labeled a misogynist misanthrope, Neil LaBute has made a career of writing self-absorbed characters completely ruining the lives of those around them for the fleeting second of giddy happiness resulting from knowing they’re in absolute control. Whether its two men actively seeking to destroy a handicapped coworker or a woman obsessed with proving she has the ability to manufacture the perfect man, his plays shed light on the shadowy corners of human nature in a heightened, darkly comic way.…

Read More

REVIEW: Denise [2012]

“I get along with girls better …” As evidenced by In the Company of Men and The Shape of Things, no one does scathing social commentary like Neil LaBute. So, after the rather questionable decisions to helm remakes of The Wicker Man and Death at a Funeral, it’s good to see the playwright going back to what made him a filmmaker to keep tabs on over a decade ago. His script for the short film Denise—a part of the WIGS series from Jon Avnet and Rodrigo García—takes a discerning look…

Read More

REVIEW: Death at a Funeral [2010]

“Always thought he had a little sugar in his tank” It does not take long to show just how exact a remake Neil LaBute’s Death at a Funeral is compared to Frank Oz’s original. Right from the opening credits, an animated journey of the hearse bringing the deceased to his home for final goodbyes, altered mainly by being more literal than its abstract cousin, everything is just as it was. Once the cartoon fades away to leave reality beneath, however, we get to see just where the differences lie. I…

Read More

REVIEW: Death at a Funeral [2007]

“My father was an exceptional man” And now it takes just three years for a remake of an English language film, that stays in its native language, to happen. Chris Rock may have gotten Neil Labute—it appears he has assimilated into the Hollywood machine for good now—to direct a new version, from the same screenwriter no less, but it is Frank Oz’s British Death at a Funeral that came first. Don’t be afraid of the accents and give the original a shot. I’ll admit that it gets pretty dark there…

Read More