{"id":31028,"date":"2012-08-31T07:47:05","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T14:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/?p=31028"},"modified":"2012-08-31T09:49:40","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T16:49:40","slug":"rethink-reviews-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/2012\/08\/31\/rethink-reviews-2\/","title":{"rendered":"ReThink Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"inline-playlist playlist\" title=\"\"><li><a href=\"http:\/\/archive.org\/download\/DailyDigest083112\/2012_08_31_rethinkreviews.mp3\">Listen to this segment&lt;br \/&gt;\n<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n<p><a href =\"http:\/\/www.rethinkreviews.net\"><img decoding=\"async\" align=right width=55% src=\"\/home\/graphics\/rethink_reviews_small.jpg\" alt=\"Rethink Reviews\" \/><\/a><strong>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. <\/strong>  <\/p>\n<p><em>Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. <\/em>  <\/p>\n<p> Read his reviews online at <a href=\"http:\/\/ReThinkReviews.net\">ReThinkReviews.net<\/a>. Watch his videos at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim\">www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim<\/a>, and follow him on Twitter at <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews\">twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews<\/a>. ReThink Reviews&#8217; theme song is by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/restaurantmusic\">Restavrant<\/a>.    <\/p>\n<p><strong>Sleepwalk with Me<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Some of you may know that I&#8217;ve been doing stand up comedy for a few years as an open mic-er. During that time, I&#8217;ve learned a lot about the amazing people who are aspiring and succeeding in doing comedy for a living, and one of the best voices out there belongs to Mike Birbiglia, who started as a straight stand up but has made the unique transition to doing very personal, true, but still hilarious one-man shows, as well as several appearances on NPR&#8217;s \u2018This American Life\u2019. His first and most well-known show was &#8216;Sleepwalk With Me&#8217;, which he performed off Broadway, and has now been turned into a film of the same name starring and directed by Birbigs himself.<\/p>\n<p>The film is a chronicle of Birbiglia&#8217;s early years as a stand-up comic, though his character goes by the name Matt Pandamiglio, as well as his relationship with Abby, his first serious girlfriend who he met in college and played by Lauren Ambrose. As Matt attempts to be a full-time comic, crisscrossing the east coast doing crappy, low-paying gigs with weak material, Matt starts feeling serious pressure to get married, which coincides with the troubling discovery that Matt has an unusual sleep disorder that causes him to physically act out his dreams in ways that are harmful to himself and possibly others. But as Matt struggles to make sense of his disorder as well as his increasing reservations about marrying Abby, his jokes and stories became more personal, revealing, funny, and closer to his true self, a process known as &#8220;finding your voice&#8221;, which many comics feel takes a decade or more to accomplish.<\/p>\n<p>As a big fan of the original live show, it was sometimes pretty jarring watching the movie the first time, since all I saw were the differences. The funny parts come much more quickly in the live show, which also focuses more on his relationship with his dad, a doctor who always kept his personal feelings hidden and encouraged his kids to do the same.<\/p>\n<p>But before I wrote this review, I watched \u2018Sleepwalk With Me\u2019 a second time, and I\u2019m really glad I did. Because the second time, I was able to just watch the movie for what it is, not the thing it isn\u2019t. And \u2018Sleepwalk With Me\u2019 is a really wonderful, poignant, funny, and very original film from a unique and honest voice that shows its main character not as a hero, victim, or saint, but as a real person who makes mistakes, and sometimes big, hurtful, avoidable ones. And while man-boy characters have become common in comedy, Matt isn\u2019t juvenile. He\u2019s a guy trying to figure out his life while avoiding important issues he really needs to deal with. And I think all of us have been there.<\/p>\n<p>The most welcome addition in the movie is that we finally get to see Abby and the fantastic job Ambrose does of portraying her as a wonderful, sympathetic person who isn\u2019t pushy or nagging, but actually deserves everything she\u2019s asking for, even if her boyfriend isn\u2019t yet at the stage where he can give it to her, which leads to some difficult, truly heartbreaking moments, which are made even more so when you remember that this stuff actually happened to Birbiglia in real life and we\u2019re watching him reenact some of his lowest moments.<\/p>\n<p>If I had to choose just one, I\u2019d probably go with the live show. But thankfully, you don\u2019t have to choose \u2014 I\u2019d recommend seeing the movie, then heading over to iTunes or Spotify to listen to the original, since I think they can both be enjoyed on their own merits. \u2018Sleepwalk With Me\u2019 is a personal, intimate story of a consciously flawed man attempting to be an adult, both professionally and emotionally, and trying to take responsibility for himself, his career, his relationships, and his health before he\u2019s ready for it. And it\u2019s a real treat to see Birbiglia once again taking stand up comedy into another exciting realm.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Sleepwalk With Me\u2019 is rated PG-13 and opens today across California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}