the puffy chair

among the tuesday releases for tomorrow, january 23rd, is the dvd wide release of the puffy chair, a film by the duplass brothers. starring and written by mark and directed by jay, the film is an unflinching, brutally honest take on relationships (romantic and otherwise), from creation to maintenance to--well, i won't spoil it for you. the performances are exquisite, with mark duplass and real-life girlfriend kathryn aselton playing their on-screen counterparts josh and emily, and rhett wilkins playing josh's brother rhett in a turn that can only be described as 'rad'. the title chair is the objective of a journey that takes the three on a bumbling series of travails that expose rifts and fissures in josh and emily's relationship that threaten to destroy them both. the dialogue and interaction between the three main characters are at times sharp and precise to the point that it is sometimes disconcerting how closely to home it hits. these are three people so obviously relationship-inept, and yet they are still so highly recognizable...could it be? everyone has a little of this inside of them, so yes, it be.

the movie also works because it is just teeming with indie pop gems. the unreleased soundtrack for the movie includes death cab for cutie (used in the movie as a lloyd dobler update for the 00's), spoon, decibully, saturday looks good to me, matt pond pa, and of montreal.

death cab for cutie : "transatlanticism" mp3
from the lp transatlanticism (barsuk records, 2003)

spoon : "the way we get by" mp3
from the lp kill the moonlight (merge records, 2002)

decibully : "meg and magill" mp3
from the lp sing out america (polyvinyl records, 2005)

saturday looks good to me : "alcohol" mp3
from the lp all your summer songs (polyvinyl records, 2003)

matt pond pa : "closer" mp3
from the lp the nature of maps (polyvinyl records, 2002)

of montreal : "disconnect the dots" mp3
from the lp satanic panic in the attic (polyvinyl records, 2004)

visit