Away We Go link fest

I'll continue to talk about Sam Mendes' Away We Go until I actually see it, at which point I'll no doubt be disappointed and write a bitter review. For now here's a summary of the mixed reaction to the film and an interview with screenwriters Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, who seem to have their hearts in the right place as far as influences go. (The Daily/AV Club)

DE: Yeah. Our first draft—actually, the draft Sam must have read—was really broad. There were like six more scenes at the level of the stroller scene, just really big and loud. We had a lot of fun writing it. We were thinking of anything from Hal Ashby movies, like The Landlord in particular, this movie that really has some big scenes that are approaching farce, and then it’ll go deep, deep into social realism in a way that some of those ’70s movies did. Even Dog Day Afternoon has some pretty broad comic moments, and then it’ll get really serious. So in the ’70s, they veered around a little more. Maybe I’m putting those two movies together and generalizing. But what was funny was, through the process, we deepened the relationship between Burt and Verona. It started out—when we wrote it, it was deeply political. It was kind of a reaction to the Bush years.