Nice Guys Sleep Alone won the Silver Audience Award at the Las Vegas International Film Festival
Easter Egg: To read the Pre-Relationship Agreement, click on the Lunacy Logo in the Main Menu
Stu Pollard's debut feature is based on the 1986 book “Nice Guys Sleep Alone: Dating In The Difficult Eighties” by Bruce Feirstein (an author perhaps better known for his recent contributions to several James Bond films).
Director Pollard assembled a good mix of independent and high profile names – the latter actors certainly good for marquee value, but in this instance, they're well cast in their respective supporting roles. Morgan Fairchild makes an amusing appearance as the hopeful mother of Carter's former girlfriend; and Las Vegas and former General Hospital star Vanessa Marcil shows her comedic skills as Carter's sharp-toothed, former step-sister. Newcomers Sean O'Bryan, Sybil Temchen, and co-star Blake Steury also have a first date/phone call scene that's just plain hysterical.
Pollard's DVD – initially self-distributed at www.niceguysmovie.com, and now available through Vanguard Cinema – offers an attractive widescreen, non-anamorphic transfer, which showcases the rich cinematography by Nathan Hope. Shot in Kentucky, the colour schemes are really well balanced, and expertly coordinate the film's precise art direction and set decor. Achieving a curious retro-eighties feel, the warm cinematography really embraces deep primary colours, and the DVD's transfer offers a similarly good balance of blacks and dark blues during night scenes.
The extras include a collection of outtakes and deleted scenes, both shown in widescreen, with burnt-in time code; and Pollard provides brief introductions to scene extracts, explaining their original purpose and reasons for elimination. The “Behind the Scenes” featurette combines several production moments during filming, with short interview comments from a few cast members.
Joined by star Sean O'Bryan, Pollard provides a lighthearted commentary track that largely consists of production anecdotes, with some details concerning the deleted materials, and the good fortune enjoyed by the production from Kentucky natives. The gritty nuts and bolts of independent cinema aren't really the focus here – perhaps a bit of a missed opportunity – and director Pollard doesn't discuss in great detail adapting the novel, nor his career before the cameras rolled on his feature film; but taken as a leisurely recollection of making an independent movie, the track's quite satisfying. (There's also a funny motif, courtesy of sound editor Bryan Franklin in the sound booth, who extols the virtues of Marcil's real life looks vs. her celluloid recreation).
Pollard also provides an amusing intro that should be played before the film, and the “Pre-Relationship Agreement” used in the movie (and designed by author Feirstein) is also available at the film's website.
Note: to read an interview with writer/director Stu Pollard, click HERE.
© 2002 Mark R. Hasan
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