PRESS
“What I see is a social media influencer before social media
a person who did whatever it took to keep us looking, especially if that meant she didn’t have to look too deeply at herself.”
Johanna Schneller
Globe and Mail
“Co-directors McKenzie and Parker offer an
absolute treasure trove of vintage film footage
shot in, around and about San Francisco’s North Beach as they chronicle the parallel lines of her career and the cultural sea change that it precipitated.”
Todd Gilchrist
Variety
“A sharp picture of the inimitably cool Doda as more than just a symbol of both exploitation and cultural change, but also as an ambitious entertainer, a caustic wit, and a melancholic enigma.”
Marya E. Gates
RogerEbert.com
“Doda” comes most alive when depicting the bustling ‘60s-’70s S.F. nightlife scene. But this will be enjoyable for anyone interested in the history of San Francisco and its colorful inhabitants.
Randy Myers
San Jose Mercury News
Carol Doda Topless at the Condor is a buoyant tribute to a life of exposure.
From her perch at the Condor in the lively North Beach entertainment scene, Doda’s celebrity was a bridge too, to a new era of sexual liberation. The story of her rise from waitress to wowza in a turbulent era — and all the ways her revolution excited and was exploited — is engagingly told in the frisky, funny, archive-rich look-back “Carol Doda Topless at the Condor” from filmmakers Marlo McKenzie and Jonathan Parker.
Robert Abele
Los Angeles Times
“A lively, nostalgia-fueled documentary.”
Carla Meyer
San Francisco Chronicle
“McKenzie and Parker raise questions about female bodily autonomy and the price of being a trendsetter.”
Odie Henderson
The Boston Globe
“A comedy worthy of the best Woody Allen…
(Untitled) wittily skewers the conventions and traditions of the avant-garde scene.”
Roger Ebert
(Untitled) takes on the New York art and music world in one smart and funny swoop.
LA Times
Jonathan Parker curates a collection of fictional artists, composers, and assorted New York scenesters in (this) very funny, tolerant satire of contemporary art and its discontents. The whole cast is museum quality and the “music” performances are pitch- perfect in their dissonance.
Entertainment Weekly
“Acutely witty… This brave little film deserves an audience… Ms. Shelton gives a bright screwball performance that recalls the young Diane Keaton.”
The New York Times
“Intelligent and provocative, (Untitled) is consistently surprising and funny without pandering for laughs.”
Huffington Post
“***** Five stars… A very funny satire of the art world… A comedy of intelligence and wit with strong performances…A film of shrewdness and sophistication.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“A comedy surprise!
A simply terrific ensemble cast… This spoof on the state of contemporary art is full of bright actors and witty dialogue…”Box Office Magazine
“Rousingly funny…A gem of a movie.”
MTV
“A smart and funny satire of the contemporary New York art scene.”
Washington Post
“A charming, satirical poke at the ostensible contradictions regarding the state of modern art.”
Juxtapoz Magazine
“(Untitled) is a smart, funny film that looks at the world of contemporary art with enough edge to make it credible and enough compassion to make it loveable.“
Artworks Magazine
“The impressive aspect of Parker’s latest is an evident grasp and respect for what’s worthy and worthless in the fecund present-day scene…Marley Shelton, in a sparkling performance, superbly embodies the passions and raw ambitions of a young New York gallerist.”
Variety
Critics’ Pick
New York Magazine
“The best film of 2009! A mature and complete film about the perspective of art that resides in each of us, with a script that is like literature.”
hollywoodchicago.com
Mr. Parker has brilliantly updated his source and grasped its essence, composing a sorrowful and hilarious tone poem about alienated labor… Parker has done his job beautifully, using the literature of the past to make the present look as strange as it really is.”
New York Times
“Jonathan Parker’s adaptation of ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener’ gets to you. Crispin Glover is an impressive Bartleby… The veterans who round out the cast provide the needed comic relief, especially Glenne Headly as the firm’s hyper-cordial secretary, a sexpot with flawless diction.”
The New Yorker
“There is a kind of uncompromising, implacable simplicity to ‘Bartleby’ that inspires admiration.”
Roger Ebert
“…the old boy’s characters (are) more quick-witted than any English Lit major would have thought possible. Glover and Paymer prove to be an acting duo worthy of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.”
LA Weekly
“This movie kicks ass! It’s a genuinely funny picture with a great lead cast and supporting cast.”
Ain’t It Cool News
“A shrewd and effective film from a director who understands how to create and sustain a mood. Parker’s choice of angles and shots are consistently right psychologically (and) are informed by a real understanding of Melville’s story.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“Ambitious, deftly acted…”
LA Times
“Parker’s feature adapts Herman Melville’s eerie 1853 novella…with the kind of fidelity to mood and feeling that’s rare among movie adaptations of literary classics…David Paymer steals the show. (Pick of the week)”
Chicago Reader
“There’s stroke of genius, and then there’s Stroke of Genius.
Brilliant!”The Austin Chronicle
“Jonathan Parker dares to adapt Melville’s struggle of individual will, setting it in modern dress, and he succeeds stunningly in this hilarious yet deeply touching debut feature.”
Museum Of Modern Art And Film Society Of Lincoln Center
“Crispin Glover’s strangeness is more than convincing–and aptly contextualized by an oddball showboat cast and a theremin-heavy score.”
New York Magazine
“Imagine what might have happened if Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams had collaborated with Herman Melville, and you have some idea what to expect from this odd but very funny office comedy.”
Ft. Worth Telegraph
“With a small budget and a brilliant team, director/co-writer Jonathan Parker has brought new relevance to Bartleby’s revolt, and converted an office sitcom format into a damning critique of the way many people spend their days.”
Film Journal International
“Paymer treads a fine line between amusing buffoonery and dead-serious befuddlement, between slow-simmering comic rage and profoundly fearful consternation, carrying off the juggling act seemingly effortlessly. Glover is everything the pic needs, and likely very close to what Melville had in mind.“
Variety
“A darkly comic metaphor about an unspecified brand of existential horror…Stylish…dreamy, trippy…unsettling.”
Miami Herald
“Smart, offbeat humor…Bartleby is hard to resist.”
Houston Chronicle
“This is surely one film that will become an indie cult classic in years to come.”
Real Detroit
“The neat thing about Jonathan Parker’s modern-day Bartleby is that it brings out all the vaudeville undercurrents in Melville’s dark tale and turns it into a surreal tragi-sitcom for our own era…One of the most gifted supporting players in Hollywood, Paymer at last has a chance to show that the determined squirt he usually plays doesn’t have to be smaller-than-life – that even an unimaginative bureaucrat can say to the universe, “Sir, I exist.””
David Edlestein, NPR
“Brilliant ‘Bartleby’ (grade A). This indie gem sparkles. Intelligent and entertaining, clever on so many levels and ultimately posing powerful social questions.”
Tucson Citizen
“Absolutely beguiling…as nerve racking and hilarious as David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead.’”
Tucson Weekly
“There’s plenty of laughs… THE ARCHITECT is a fun, light-hearted ride.”
Clinton Stark Stark Insider
“Parker Posey and Eric McCormack are note-perfect.”
Ken Eisner The Georgia Straight
“If you check out this entertaining film, make time for a drink or two afterwards because you will have plenty to discuss.”
Dana Gee Vancouver Sun
“Parker Posey is a complete delight as Drew as she struggles to figure out what exactly she wants in a home, that would distinguish it from being just a house. Meanwhile, Eric McCormack brings a charming fastidiousness and efficiency to Colin that will please more than just fans of Will & Grace.”
The Seattle International Film Festival
“This satiric pot-boiler stirs healthy controversy by poking fun at one of architecture’s most defining quandaries: the productive tension between artistic liberty and economic constraint.”
The Architecture + Design Film Festival
“Very very funny!”
Martin Strong Roundhouse Radio
“There is a magic and a commentary on relationships and how you make marriages work.”
Riaz Meghji Breakfast Television Vancouver