Fortunes (2005)

Director:

Parker Cross

Writer:

Matt Salzberg (writer)

Release Date:

20 December 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

Fate is a funny thing.

Plot:

After an impulsive visit to a fortuneteller, three friends discover that the power of suggestion has forced them to consider the reality of "fate." |

Plot Keywords:

Independent Film

Cast

Mike McGlone	...	James Daugherty
James Urbaniak	...	Lewis Croshere
Tony Hale	...	Phil Yount
Diana Henry	...	Karen Yount
Kristopher Scott Fiedel	...	Marlon Yount (as Kristopher Fiedel)
Laura Poe	...	Ruth Simon
Brette Taylor	...	Jessica
Ellen Barber	...	Ms. Venidera
Michael Etheridge	...	George (Gizz)
Ted Sutton	...	Mr. Croshere
Maya Israel	...	Nadia
Shannon Parr	...	Billy
Stuart Rudin	...	Streetmen
Peter Dinklage	...	Mike Kirkwood
Corina Katt Ayala	...	Katie

MPAA:

Rated R for language, some sexual content and brief drug use.

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:R

Filming Locations:

Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, USA

Company:

Golden Fried Productions

Soundtrack:

Catch the Sun

Blanchot and Fortunes

Over the course of a weekend, I started reading Maurice Blanchot's The Space of Literature, had a bad case of flu and writer's block, and then watched this movie. Three states of being, three characters, a few fortune cookies... FORTUNES, the movie, ostensibly offered a great escape: a light/dark comedy, full of boys, beer, a dwarf. Just what I needed to shake French postwar criticism, a stalled novel and other pressing issues into oblivion. Instead, my preoccupations immediately took shape around the characters in the movie… biological and existential angst (Phil), the practical and spiritual perils of being an artist (Lewis) and the empty drive for money and acceptance (James). It was only after the movie was over that James' role as the real artist in the picture—filmmaker himself—became clear to me. The clarity came from re-reading Blanchot's concept, "Noli me leg ere: do not read me." Blanchot says, "No one who has written the work (made the film) can linger close to it. For the work is the very decision which dismisses him, cuts him off, makes of him a survivor without work. He becomes the inert idler upon whom art does not depend." This is James at the end of the film… the only guy of the three who didn't get to sit down in the same space with inspiration (the fortune teller), who, in the end, beats the pavement, effectively homeless (gel-less), glimpsing/misrecognizing inspiration in diner windows… wandering outside the editing booth after the film has been shot, after the work has been written, cut off, a survivor. Bravo FORTUNES!