Shot at 60i fps on the Sony HDW-700A HD video format digital camera, which proved problematic for theatrical distribution, this film was originally intended to be a Dogma 95 movie.

It’s a rough satire on Hollywood, filled with booze and excess, and comes from director Bernard Rose, who you may know from Candyman and Paperhouse. It’s also based on Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, so if you have a low tolerance for art films, you may not enjoy this. We sure did.

Danny Huston (half-brother of Anjelica Huston) plays Ivan Beckman, a doped up and driven agent who starts the film by dying. We go back to see just how he got to the grave — thanks to an early cancer diagnosis — and the lives he’s touched along the way, including Peter Weller as his sleazy client, SLC Punk director James Merendino as a director (typecasting?) and numerous hangers-on. Writer and producer Lisa Enos acted is in this as well and look for an appearance by Tiffani Amber-Thiessen.

Huston is the main reason to show up for this, as he makes you care despite the grainy looking footage and grabs you directly by the collar and forces you to watch.

Like most Arrow releases, this is packed with extras, like extended party sequence outtakes, a new documentary on the movie called Charlotte’s Story,  interviews, trailers, and two cuts — the preferred director’s version and the producer’s version — with brand new commentary for the Extended Cut with co-writer/producer/ actor Lisa Enos and filmmaker Richard Wolstencroft.

You can get this from Arrow, who were kind enough to send us a copy.