Jump Tomorrow is the first in an occasional series exploring classic films made in the Buffalo-Niagara region. To recommend a Buffalo classic for review please contact us at BuffaloMovieBlog@gmail.com or comment below!
From British born (American educated) filmmaker Joel Hopkins, Jump Tomorrow (released in 2001) is a quirky Buffalo-Niagara shot indie boasting a few recognizable locations in the region including the Buffalo skyline, the rear of the convention center off Franklin, and of course Niagara Falls. The film is a strange study in design as you’ll see in any still – contrasting funkadelic colors – green and orange and minimalist design (often characters pass through spaces, crossing frames as directed by arrows).
Tunde Adebimpe plays George, a shy Nigerian American about to get married to a women he hasn’t seen in two years. Picking up his fiancé from the airport, he arrives a day late and runs into Alicia (Natalia Verbeke), a beautiful Spanish woman who invites him to a funkadelic party in a white room full of 90’s hipsters. Alicia is the kind of women that could derail his whole miserable life – George is a sweet guy who is either depressed or incapable of feeling.
Contrast that with Gerard (Hippolyte Girardot) – a passionate (and suicidal) Frenchmen – they are all trying to get to Niagara – George to get married, Alicia to move to Canada, and Gerard because it’s allegedly both the “love and suicide capital of America”. Taking the form of a road comedy for its second act, they set out proving Western New York can double for almost anywhere in America we get shots of landscape (probably out by Tonawanda), the rare mix of industry next to residential (my guess is Lackawanna right beyond the skyway), and seedy themed "romance" hotels.
Jump Tomorrow is an odd, Europian screwball comedy: I’ve seen it twice now and I’m still not sure what to make of it, perhaps flawed is one way of putting it. It scores a few big laughs – but its reflexive of a greater trend in the 1990s I think: somber films about somber characters who allegedly should have their lives together (this was made in prior to 9/11 of course and so its’ so easy to cross the boarder). Jump Tomorrow – an anti-suicide message George uses to pled with Gerard while on the ledge seems to sum up that whole era of 90’s indie – just like Dante and Randall in Clerks, they’re doomed to a life they might not like but will take action tomorrow.
As a Buffalo film Jump Tomorrow shows just how versatile a setting the region can be: you’ll notice a few locations along the way but its by no means a major travelogue – it’s instead a culturally mixed up comedy that could only take place in America, the use of a border town is especially apt.
Jump Tomorrow is available for purchase and rental on iTunes.
No comments:
Post a Comment