by Emily Hubley
photo credit: film poster image - from AcA webpage
Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers
7:30pm AcA Lafayette, LA
descript/blurb from local newspaper calendar...
"From Bible-belt to Iron Curtain, the movies featured in this year's ongoing tour will transport viewers into new worlds with these extraordinary dramas & documentaries..."
Link to the movie's webpage...
http://www.thetoetactic.com/
Cast & Crew...
includes noteables or ones I noted...
Jane Lynch - as Honey Strumpet (& she's one of the animated dogs come to visit in human form) - in the bar scene as the waitress/MC for Standup/Talent night...
Mary Kay Place - as Mona's Mom - who at one point gets to sing on the doorsteps of her daughter's apt (the lost lunch song - often I forget she sang first, then acted wasn't it...)
Daniel London - as the Elevator Man, whose face I kept thinking I should know (but was it because of Patch Adams I can't say for sure...)
The Rest - I thought I should note, as the faces looked familiar & they moved/spoke well as actors but I just couldn't place them from where they had come...
Kevin Corrigan
Lily Rabe
Jon Glaser
Sakina Jaffrey
Novella Nelson
Ann Dowd
Animated voices - of course I couldn't put a face to...
the dogs: Andrea Martin, David Cross, Marian Seldes, Don Byron
the maestro (the bird) - Eli Wallach
photo credit: copyright The Toe Tactic 2008 - but used in a number of articles/blogs/reviews...photo still/image/photo is all over Google images...again how to properly give credit to this 'still' of the animated dog girl & the real girl, caught in a flash in the same scene with each other...
(my note: what's the best about this image is that this dog girl will morph into an actress you'd recognize right off & love her 'foxy' ways - think more of the trickster fox rather than anything else...like all other animated parts to the film, they are fleeting - so in other words this animated character does not stand there & talk to Mona, she as animation flashes on/off/changes finally into the real character in the bar scene...(this was a misconception that I had from reading the description/summary they had at the AcA about the film...)
my notes after viewing the film - The Toe Tactic...
About these drawings/these animated dogs & bird - to me they are a bit god like as they play their card game - then they're also a bit 'spoken word' poetics...along with them there is the music, on piano or guitar, the songs, as well poetic & then the actual poetry in snippets at times, in words...especially lovely when they show up on scraps of paper in a box, pulled at random in the Poloroid Lady's apt when Mona is there on her secretarial assignment - I would of loved to have had such an assignment as a Kelly Girl myself, back when I was nearly a girl & by then I'd already lost both my parents & a grandparent in relation to Mona having lost her father whom she played the most marvelous game with - in a tic tac toe fashion but with symbols of different meaning than just an 'X' or an 'O' in the squares...
The Toe Tactic - title
a play on Tic Tac Toe - as the game in part, to say us who've played it...but for Mona & her Father, he's given another explanation for this toe in the sand at the beach - where the photo was taken of her waving in front of their game in the sand, her & her father who's gone in the present day...I'd like to replay the movie again, to that part & hear him explain it all again - relating that toe in the sand for digging into a space, to find a space, as a philosophy of life & then along with this what could be considered seriousness he adds something like "find your beef jerky" - outta the blue, a random comment, but you could probably make more of that than the "toe tactic" - either way it makes you think & I like that, the whole movie makes you stop to think awhile...
Randomness - or is it...
there are all the drawn items on the cards that the god like dogs retrieve along the way, from the real life following Mona...which are then embelished with poetics, they're changed into symbols, as was her game with her father, those spirals & such....
there is for instance the mention of 'find your beef jerky' followed by an empty package of beef jerky on the ground - this however you know is 'not' her 'beef jerky' (her 'meat' of life, of sustenance...)
there are those drawn birds in frames of the Poloroid Lady's apt, that move, that answer her, that are not actually a part of Mona's world, curious that - Mona is 'not' the only one being overseen by god like creatures, in her case dogs, in the other's birds (but then the maestro of the dogs, is a bird - who keeps the order, who keeps the card game going, that game of symbols...)
more & more randomness - there is a wallet lost & a wallet found, there is a cell phone taken & there is a cell phone returned, etc...but they tend to tie the characters together in a thread, as Mona weaves her way thru them, thru her day, thru her coming to her terms with her father being gone & she coming to the point of forgetting him...
In talking with the filmmaker after the film showed - the Q&A session...
Personal items in the background - they abound in this film, we are told that for instance all the paintings in the Poloroid Lady's apt are actually paintings that Emily's mother painted...I began to ask myself then how much more was hers, is that cement mushroom under the old porch of their old/sold house from their garden, are those chairs in the apt they fall asleep on from the old family house, the file box with the scraps of papers/drawings/poems/words in them something else from her household...was there need for a 'props dept' as she put together her scenes - if not at the houses or the apts, then perhaps the bar scene...which we were told Emily's brother edited & it was one of her scenes she remembers when asked what parts she liked or that came together better than expected maybe...
The Elevator Man had to make up his songs, with his guitar, his guitar with an amp in the case - which at the Sundance Institute, I think it was, came in handy when there was no such equipment...the filmmaker/Emily had made up the words to the songs, say Wrong Building or 'a new one' (which was what the Poloroid Lady had told him in an earlier elevator ride...) but she not made the music for the songs - they fit so perfectly together in the end & for him to be doing a Standup/Talent night at the bar...it was wonderfully random in turn that he'd taken the words for his poetry/music from his elevator rides/the people in them/translating them into his own spoken word poetry of sorts, but spoken along with music played on his guitar (again another less an item for the props dept to find for him, as it was his own...)
The Lost Lunch song - by Mona's Mom, by Mary Kay Place, again the words were there but she had to make them into a Mother's song, a made up, playful song, one that a mother would of made up with her/for her daughter when she was a girl...a melancholy one, sung missing her daughter, as she sat in the present day time on her daughter's doorstep at her apt bldg, having missed her again, her daughter avoiding her at her apt & on the phone as well...the filmmaker/Emily admitted that Mary Kay Place wanted another part, but when she was told she had to sing this song, as it was known she could sing & did that before her acting then she finally agreed (now don't quote me on this, but this is what I gather from the Q&A session - Emily rambled along randomly as well, with an off center answering of the questions, as perhaps she did in her film as well...)
When asked if it was the real world or her real world made into imagination/animation she answered back that it was the reverse & it was the imaginary world that was brought back to/was rooted into the real world - I like her view of the world, it's a thinking outside the box if ever there was such a view... & she did dispel that 'crazy' idea lingering, that she does not walk around seeing animated dogs pop out everywhere...but compared it to being alone & walking along & thinking quietly & having your imagination working in your head - she does not admit to seeing in shapes, as synethesia maybe, but I'd say she thinks in poetry & draws (in both senses) from that to create her creatures, in this case dogs/birds/symbols (but then I've not seen any of her other short animated films to compare...)
Her next project? to set up a theatre experience - the real characters in the foreground & in the background on the screen the animated ones...so that the audience can experience it all as they will, they can focus on whatever parts they want to, either the real or the imaginary on the screen...I for one will look forward to her next project, this was perhaps her longest film - this part real/imaginary or animated world/story at 90 min's...which started I think from what she said with less the animated figures & poetics going on, at first they were to be a break, a breathe, along the way, but soon took over & rooted themselves into more & more until they were entwined all the way through (keep in mind these are my words & not hers for the most part, as I do not have a photographic memory or whatever you would call one from hearing someone & remembering everything rather than seeing it...)
When the director/producer of the Hurt Locker had her to lunch - to ask 'why animation' - as if animation were to be separate, would ruin the film, imagine this from someone who is perhaps strongly focused on the real life, not the imaginary & that film took on death in a very different way - Oh to have been a fly on the white linen at that lunch...now sadly I cannot recall her full answer, The Toe Tactic filmmaker/Emily's answer, but she brought up her Dad working for Disney (which right off made me think "she has it in her blood") & that type of cartoon/animation - am guessing she was trying to bring up the historical aspects of animation, but what she's done in this film is not cartoon, it's also not live people put into a cartoon or a movie either, as some others have done (that last part my 2 cents) - in any case, no matter I didn't remember her long rambling answer in total, I just liked what she'd done with her real/animated combination in this particular storytelling & I agreed with a fellow in the audience who said at first they thought they might find it distracting, but it wasn't, it just all somehow fit the story, her story, Mona's story (if it can be taken apart from Emily's story...)
Other links for the film - The Toe Tactic...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0969348/
note: in the User Reviews section after this webpages Storyline summary - someone mentions what I didn't notice before...more plays on words & on the game Tic Tac Toe with the 'X's & 'O's in the criss cross grid - it's been done in reverse Toe Tac Tic for the title - why I didn't see that before, which is yet another reason I need to rewatch the film to catch all that I missed the first time 'round...of course the Dad takes it further with his 'toe' 'tactic' reference - of a toe in the sand, a further play on the word & a game of a different color, that game called life...
A 2009 review in the NYTimes...
http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/movies/28tact.html
note: a bit bitter review, but am taking that as a person who could be an 1/2 empty type in life in general...but I did catch that it's Open Mike Night I should of referred to earlier & not StandUp Night, tho they are standing up & now I'm wondering what's the difference? there are people standing up, speaking words or poetry or music, there is music, there is at least one guitar, plus there is humor... nevermind, not that point to argue with this reviewer...I would take them up on this last line of their review: "...you have a saccharine-sweet, intermittenly irritating fable about the salve of creativity. Or something like that."
The Trailer on YouTube...
http://youtu.be/u4LYmGlfYww
note: from the beginning of the trailer...
Take a Journey
to a Magical Place
where imagination
& the physical world
become one
and about the game...
her Dad says, telling her about the 'toe tactic' in the film..."I have a new trick for you...I call it the Toe Tactic...and I promise you, you will be able to deal with whatever it is--in time..."
Music was by: Yo La Tengo
Synopsis from Kino Lorber - experience cinema...
http://www.kino.com/video/item.php?film_id=983
note: a curious personal note, as the theaters/movies in Norway were called "Kino" - I lived there for 2 yrs a yr ago & haven't seen that word since...
"Writer-director-animator Emily Hubley’s feature length debut The Toe Tactic is a “highly emotional fable” (Gillian Reagan, New York Observer) that imaginatively fuses live action and animation (in the style Hubley memorably brought to life in Hedwig and the Angry Inch). "
Another YouTube - an interview of the filmmaker/Emily Hubley, at South by Southwest/SXSW in Austin, TX Film Festival
http://youtu.be/sy38HznJqRg
note: you get to hear/see the filmmaker/Emily & her film - as she says: it's complicated, a layered thing...& I find I still love her smile, to be that happy to smile like that would be wonderful I think or to make something creative in life to make you want to smile like that would be special...
YouTube from the 60's called The Hole by John & Faith Hubley, Emily's parents (remember the one mention of her Dad working for Disney) - it won the short subjects Academy Award in 1962...
"The film uses improvised dialogue from Dizzy Gillespie and George Mathews"
http://youtu.be/bz90dvQbcIk
note: went off to Google to read the Wiki about the family, I find that not only did her brother eidting work on her film - The Toe Tactic - but that her sister, Georgia Hubley, plays/sings in the band that did all the background music for the film too - Yo La Tengo...(which you know I'll have to look up next on YouTube--has anyone said how amazing YouTube is lately?!)
image credit: from Contact tab on Yo La Tengo webpage...
am guessing someone in the family likes to draw...hmmm...wonder who that can be?!
(I'm betting Georgia Hubley's sister Emily Hubley had something to do with it, unless other's in the family besides Mom & Dad can also draw/animate...)
Yo La Tengo - official site...
http://www.yolatengo.com/
YouTube Yo La Tengo - Green Arrow...
http://youtu.be/IkwpmS4wd0Q
note: for a taste of background music for The Toe Tactic...
YouTube Yo La Tengo - Sea Urchins - from the album: The Sounds of the Sounds of Science (2002)...
http://youtu.be/yaSbBKa3sSw
note: right now I can't find the soundtrack for the film - The Toe Tactic...another reason to rent/upload/rewatch/relisten to the film...
Movie Info/Reviews on Rotten Tomatoes - plus 3 photos, including the animated dogs/people...
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1213274-toe_tactic/
Local - AcA - Acadiana Center for the Arts - Lafayette, LA...
http://acadianacenterforthearts.org/PageDisplay.asp?p1=8061
photo credit: black & white headshot on her webpage on her Bio page...see link below this...
(I really like black & white images, maybe I should do my headshot this way...hmmm...Yes, I know I am 'not' a filmmaker--but so...so what--will ask my photog friends what they think then...)
Emily Hubley's webpage link...
http://www.emilyhubley.com/bio/bio.html
http://acadianacenterforthearts.org/PageDisplay.asp?p1=8061
(how do I properly give them credit, either of them--this is the conundrum in blogging...)
Animation World Network - Emily Hubley Talks Toe Tactic...
http://www.awn.com/articles/emily-hubley-talks-itoe-tactici
Southern Circuit - Tour of Independent Filmmakers - Blog...
http://southerncircuit.blogspot.com/2012/02/introducing-emily-hubley.html
Photo Credit Note: if I need to remove any/all of these photos someone in the know please tell me so - I use them not for profit or abuse, but who would you contact to say Hey I write a blog on blogger that hardly 10 people read so is it OK I borrow/use a few photos/images to add to all my writing randomness stream of consciousness about the reaction to the film The Toe Tactic after viewing it on the Southern Circuit Tour here in Lafayette, LA at the AcA - or to at least go along with the links I found about the film so it won't all look so boring?! Thank You Much, Emily Hubley!!
RE: Beef Jerky
If you don't know what beef jerky is - you must live under a rock/in a foreign country that doesn't import/grew up vegan (hint: I'm trying to be funny) & if you care to you can go to this link & read more about what it is & see some photos of the stuff (something that for sure tastes better than it looks...) Link: www.JackLinks.com - they make Beef Jerky/Meat Snacks, but then so can you with a recipe & a drying method...(I'd have to find a way of making it/keeping it w/o MSG in it tho...) Better yet, let Wiki explain it to y'alls... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerky
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