A Z What makes Storytelling stand apart from other Solondz works is that it is a more explicit commentary on film-making, documenting, any kind of storytelling. With this film, we get a meta-presentation of the craft (Mulholland Drive comes to mind here).In the "fiction" portion, we have a student writing about a personal experience in a college writing class. The experience is explicitly shocking in its racial and sexual questioning, but even the 'shockingness' of it is questioned by Solondz. Unsurprisingly, Solondz beats us to the punch, already mapping our responses. The writing class responds to the story much like many of the reviewers here, using language like "self-indulgent" and "shock with no substance". Solondz then brings up the question, "how can this be if it really happened?" What Solondz is depicting the grimy underbelly of suburbia, true in character, only appearing absurd and contrived when high in density. But once again, Solondz jabs us with the theory that "once you begin writing it all becomes fiction." Within this first short section of this movie, Solondz has set everything up for us: an impenetrable, self-referential mobius strip of a movie.In the second portion of the film, we are told the story of the documentary. Despite the family being documented in a "non-fictional" way, we get caricatures of their beings. The director generally does 'care' about his subjects but like the typical Solondzian ending "don't be sorry, your movie's a hit", we see the struggle of a filmmaker seeking to please his audience as well as 'staying true' to the art.What is ironic here is that Solondz' characters aren't really "mean-spirited" and "banal" people. It is more likely that these adjectives can be applied to the audience who doesn't see 'the truth', who overlooks the diluting processes of documentation; the writing class, the test-audience, you and me. Self-referential paradigms are often over-deterministic and thus seemingly unnecessary, but Solondz has a more lighthearted manner to his display. He isn't really misanthropic; he understands the value, the necessity of discussion, enough to create characters and movies of an accessible complexity. He may be a bit bitter, shrugging his shoulders and saying "don't listen to me, what I know?", but what he really means is "C'est la vie, so what are you going to do about it?"

fedor8 The best thing about Solondz's films is that they're utterly unpredictable. You never know what to expect, hence along with the steady stream of very funny gags and situations, there is a certain tension, almost like watching a "comedy thriller". (A new genre perhaps?) Solondz veers away from the clichés of both mainstream Hollywood rubbish and lethargic/pretentious/mindless indie crap, hence keeps the viewer on his toes for the duration. In a sense, he is the "anti-Ephron". A deaf-and-blind person could foretell you how a Nora comedy proceeds - in every successive scene - in her terrible noraphronic cinematic turds.I'm not quite sure what Solond'z political leanings are. Chances are that he is yet another movie-making liberal (hint hint: he's a vegetarian, and his films are about middle-class suburbia), but he isn't a black-and-white, narrow-minded, dogmatic liberal who never analyzes anything, never digs below the surface, simply sponging in everything Michael Moore tells him - i.e. the stereotypical intellectually catatonic Leftist: lazy, smug, gullible, unable to learn. His cynicism regarding humanity isn't misanthropic, he simply tells is like it is (more-or-less).Besides, what's so bad about misanthropy? Marxism might seem (I underline "might") people-friendly on the surface, but deep down it hates every man, woman, and child. And because a skeptical view of man's alleged "inherent goodness" is NOT the foundation of all Marxist/Leftist beliefs, eventually Solondz might actually connect the dots and realize finally that left-wing ideology has no scientific basis, no roots in logic whatsoever, and contradicts his own views. He'll come around... if he isn't afraid to face the consequences of "switching sides". Of course, a problem is that most Americans only see two (extreme) sides they can join: either that of the Socialist, clueless, overly idealistic liberal whiner, or the side of the Christian fundamentalist wacko who considers abortion the burning issue of this millennium. There IS a middle road, you know... (well, a middle road that tilts toward the Right - naturally.) "Storytelling" has two parts, and while both are very good, it is somewhat of a pity that the first story was so brief. I got a great kick out of those English Lit class discussions, with all those hypocritical, cowardly, unimaginative, brainwashed college girls listening to the second essay, but pretending awkwardly not to know what or whom it's really about. It was extremely funny; these characters alone have the potential for a mini-series, let alone a 90 minute full-length film. However, these exploits end after a mere 10-15 minutes, to be followed by an entertaining saga of a Jewish family, their mentally unstable Putzfrau, and a nerdy, confused filmmaker wannabe. Great dialogue.One of the highlights is certainly the youngest Goodman son telling Consuela that the execution of her murdering/raping grandson was "possibly for the best".

CitizenCaine Todd Solondz' follow-up film to Happiness and Welcome To The Dollhouse is not as successful as those two films. Solondz divides the film into two sections: fiction and non-fiction. Selma Blair stars in the fiction section which turns storytelling on its ear when a creative writing student borrows from real life experience to tell a story, only to have her peers criticize her for its pretentiousness and unbelievability. The story opens with Blair being manipulated by her college lover who has has cerebral palsy. When his story is ripped by the class as well as the professor, He breaks up with Blair. Blair, whose own story was trashed off camera, is determined to succeed in the class, so she goes home with her instructor and subjects herself to a degrading sexual escapade in order to write something honest fiction. While doing so, she discovers the class intellectual has been involved in kinky sex with the instructor as well. The non-fiction portion of the film stars Paul Giamatti as a loser, would-be documentary filmmaker who attempts to portray a suburban family with a troubled high school senior, played by Mark Webber. The portrait turns into an exercise in self-indulgence for everyone involved, including the Giamatti character. Giamatti of course is acting as Solondz' alter ego. He vacillates between making a "meaningful" documentary and accepting changes along the way as it suits the would-be success of the film. Initially, the film attempts to get at what makes the teenager click, but we discover there isn't much to explain it. He's just another typical teen slacker. We also discover the ignorance and bankrupt values of average America. Some of the dinner table conversations are sure to remind some viewers the banality and stupidity of their own experiences with family and friends.As in the fiction section, Solondz seems to be saying that storytelling, whether fiction or non-fiction, is entirely subjective and the success of any story told often relies upon luck and/or factors out of one's control. In fiction, the author's attempt to fictionalize a true story went awry, possibly due to the limited, politically correct mind-set of her peers. In non-fiction, the documentary's focus was modified as other events occurred throughout filming: the teenager being an inappropriate focus, his family's lack of character, his brother's accident, etc. Mike Schank from American Movie fame has a cameo even, underlying the notion that luck plays a part in any storyteller's success, just as it did with the film American Movie. The audience must be willing to accept the storyteller's premise. In American Movie, the audience accepted the premise of a loser filmmaker with no talent thinking he could produce a film. In this film, audiences failed to accept the premises in the fiction and in the non-fiction sections.Both sections of the film indicate the role of the audience as one of the chief determinants of the storyteller's success. The creative writing class reacted negatively to Selma Blair's "true" story. The class intellectual was revealed to be a sell out herself for yielding to the instructor sexually. What price are storytellers willing to pay to succeed? The test audience trashes Giamatti's documentary and finds it unexpectedly funny, contributing to a series of cataclysmic events. The film is funny at times but less entertaining at other times. It is not as successful at illustrating the storyteller's dilemma in creating as it is at illustrating the mind-numbing ignorance of today's youth and the lack of character and direction in their lives. **1/2 of 4 stars.

Joseph Sylvers At first viewing I though this was the weakest of director Todd Solondz films, however like all of his works, it's impossible to forget once seen. Todd Solondze absorbed criticisms about exploitation, showing misery for misery's sake, and just generally being a "meanie", and turned them into the cinematic equivalent of a "dis song"(rap term for song made specifically as an attack or "beef" with another rapper), with Solondz against critics, carefully trying to explain the notions of "Storytelling". Our first story deals with sex, political correctness, race, and fiction writing, as a young liberal college girl has unpleasant and ironic sexual experience with her Black writing professor. Our second well...with the same subjects just this time with non-fiction in place of fiction. Here Solondz shows us yet another dysfunctional upper middle class Jewish family in chaos, but this time as a "documentary", which shows us the pathetic film maker, the cruel or otherwise ignorant family, and the audience who laughs and scoffs, at it all. This is a rare film, because it's a film maker addressing his critiques, himself, and his audience all at once. And it has plenty of Solondz trade mark cringe scenes, that veer drastically from comic to dramatic in a matter of breaths. The results are absorbing but like all Solondz it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and makes you honestly question your own moral compass. They say satire is dead if the audience cannot be shocked, but it's also dead if the audience cannot be shamed, in the days where South Park and Family Guy, are on non cable TV any afternoon (l love both shows), shock and shame are concepts so familiar they've lost some of their power. Thankfully just when we've seen it all and were sure that nothing matters and nothing can surprise, startle, or offend us, Todd Solondz will be there to show things can always get worse.