Press
“…’The Living Wake,’ briefly released via D.I.Y. distribution earlier this year, is one of the most original American movies of the decade. Writer-director Sol Tryon’s whimsical portrait of egotistical scribe K. Roth Binew (Mike O’Connell) and his adoring sidekick (Jesse Eisenberg) explores the notion of life and death with an infectious degree of narrative innovation. As K. Roth nears his pompous bash, the movie sustains a magical and at times brilliantly surreal energy marked by deadpan humor and imaginative song-and-dance sequences.”
-indieWIRE by Eric Kohn
http://www.indiewire.com/article/review_lost_in_the_woods_get_low/
…“one of the funniest, most creative and beyond ridiculous (in a good way) films I’ve ever seen…a refreshing blast…Funny, touching, insane, ridiculous and brilliant are just a few words I would use to describe “The Living Wake.” Films like this need to be seen so seek it out, you’ll be glad you did.”
-Film Threat by Don R. Lewis
http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=reviews&Id=10085
“Set inside the daft world of its eccentric hero, “The Living Wake” could be termed anything from a black comedy to an absurdist/existentialist literary tale. In the end, however, pic defies all categorization, joining a small pantheon of pics including “Withnail & I” and Peter Greenaway’s “Drowning by Numbers” that whistle past the graveyard with aplomb. Marking a stunning feature debut by lead actor and co-writer Mike O’Connell, pic is certain to set tongues wagging at fests and looks primed to do well in theatrical niches and tony ancillary havens.”
-Variety by Robert Koehler
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117933902.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
“If the members of Monty Python scripted an adaptation of Don Quixote and Guy Maddin directed it, it might look something like first-time director Sol Tryon’s willfully absurd tragicomedy…played with euphoric abandon by stand-up comic Mike O’Connell…”
-LA Weekly by Scott Foundas
http://www.laweekly.com/film+tv/film/afi-the-rest-ofthe-fest/17640/
“Starring comic Mike O’Connell in…a star-making role…near-Shakespearean levels of woe…The culmination of his “living wake” is one of the great comedic set pieces of the last decade, a sublimely artdirected and choreographed dirge gone wrong… If it’s not bought by the end of the year, I’m taking out a loan of my own.”
-The Reeler by S.T. VanAirsdale
http://www.thereeler.com/features/from_woodstock_with_love.php
“The kind of movie “Saturday Night Live” regulars have been trying unsuccessfully to make for years now, this absurdist character-driven comedy is a guaranteed future cult classic.”
-Metromix by Geoff Berkshire
http://losangeles.metromix.com/movies/article/bestbets-at-the/243352/content
“Fans of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces and the novels of John Irving (particularly The World According to Garp) will find a kindred mindset in director Sol Tryon’s exceptionally quirky The Living Wake…. any friend of independent comedy should revel in the absurdities springing forth from the mind of cowriter-star Mike O’Connell,…It’s the kind of go for broke performance Jim Carrey might have given early in his career, but with more intellect and less mugging. O’Connell’s work could carry this film through its winding path of final-day truth-seeking. But thanks to some nice details in a town that has slipped out of place and time, it doesn’t have to. One of these is the perfectly cast Jesse Eisenberg…The Living Wake is the kind of whimsical material from which cult classics are built…
-All Movie Guide by Derek Armstrong
http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie-critic-reviews/the-living-wake/
Personal choice for Best Leading Actor of 2007: Mike O’Connell, The Living Wake. Unless you attended the 2007 CineVegas or AFI Film Festivals, you didn’t have a chance to see one of the best performances of the decade. K. Roth Binew is one of the best fictional characters created since Ignatius J. Reilly, and would make O’Connell one of Hollywood’s busiest character actors if any distributor took a chance on this beautifully twisted comedy.
-FilmJerk.com by Edward Havens
http://www.filmjerk.com/news/article.php?id_new=542
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