One of the Top Ten Films of 2010

J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

Amy Taubin, Film Comment

David Fear, Time Out New York

David Ehrenstein, L.A. Weekly

Gerald Peary, The Boston Phoenix

Ian Buckwalter, DCist

One of the 30 Best Films of 2010

Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

The New York Times

"An enchantingly sincere romance." - Manohla Dargis

Click here for the full article http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/movies/19dargis.html

"Visually distinctive and aurally delightful, 'Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench' has style to burn... It can take your breath away... The film evokes a time when every love affair came with its own soundtrack, and every song seemed to be written only for us." - Jeannette Catsoulis

Critics' Pick

Click here for the full article: http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/movies/05guy.html

The Los Angeles Times

"You might want to tuck Damien Chazelle's name into your memory bank if his filmmaking debut, the terrific jazz improvisation that is 'Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench,' is any indication of what his future might hold. How many 25-year-old indie directors choose to channel 1930s B-grade Hollywood musicals into a contemporary, tap-dancing love story, with nearly all of its very limited budget poured into paying the Bratislava Symphony Orchestra (yes, you read that correctly) to play the smoky original score created by a talented friend? And - and this is a big one - actually make it work? I think there might be just one." - Betsy Sharkey

Click here for the full article: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-guy-and-madeline-20101210,0,5942001.story

The Village Voice

"No movie I've seen this year has given me more joy." - J. Hoberman

Click here for the full article: http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-11-03/film/great-cinema-for-a-song-in-guy-and-madeline-and-ne-change-rien/

Entertainment Weekly

"Grade: A. Extraordinary black-and-white retro dream of a feature debut... Gloriously personal." - Lisa Schwarzbaum

Click here for the full article: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20442867,00.html

The Chicago Tribune

"Four stars. Marvelous... This is a real filmmaker, with a real ability to express feelings through song and dance, sometimes ironically, sometimes straight from the heart." - Michael Phillips

For the full article, click here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/ct-mov-0108-guy-madeline-park-bench-20110107,0,84862.story

The Boston Phoenix

"Stunning... Bursts open, unexpectedly, with the jazziest, most joyous musical numbers ever in an independent film. Here's the little Boston movie that could." - Gerald Peary

Click here for the full article: http://thephoenix.com/Boston/movies/112839-guy-and-madeline-on-a-park-bench/

The Boston Globe

"Of the many movies set in or near Boston in 2010, the black-and-white one about kids who erupt spontaneously into song might be the most exciting." - Wesley Morris

Click here for the full article: http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2010/12/17/guy_and_madeline_on_a_park_bench_movie_review___guy_and_madeline_on_a_park_bench_showtimes/

"The most buzzed-about movie at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival... A gritty, no-budget love letter to Beantown, from its opening shots of Fish Pier to its climactic lovers' confrontation in the parking lot of the Alewife T station. And, yes, the characters sing and dance, at house parties near Harvard Square, alone in the gardens of the Old North Church, atop the steam tables and bar of Cambridge's beloved clam shack. The movie is a kind of tribute to the secret Broadway show we each carry within ourselves, and to a softer, sweeter Boston than movie audiences often see." - Ty Burr

Click here for the full article: http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2009/04/26/a_hub_love_letter_from_a_park_bench/?page=full

Time Out New York

"Easily the best first film in eons." - David Fear

Click here for the full article: http://newyork.timeout.com/arts-culture/film/537537/take-five-damien-chazelle

NPR

"This is a kind of cinema that no one really makes anymore - yet Chazelle demonstrates a stunning natural fluency in its outdated grammar. It's as if he's spontaneously started writing gorgeous poetry in a long-dormant language." - Ian Buckwalter

Click here to read the full article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131006976

Click here to listen to Pat Dowell's "All Things Considered" piece on Guy and Madeline: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyld=131187467

Guy and Madeline on NPR Music: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/2010/11/10/131220369/jazz-musicians-in-a-jazz-musical-plus-eight-cellos-play-jazz

New York Magazine

"It catches you off-guard... The melodies - in both the songs and the lyrical orchestral sections - are so easy and infectious you'd swear they were classics... The showstopper comes near the end, a fluid, gorgeously choreographed diner number where busboys dance with their mops and waitresses tap on counters and the camera hurtles along with the exuberantly charming Garcia as she leaps off stools and twirls among the fryers... Like the movie itself, it's using raw, limited resources to reach for the stars." - David Edelstein

Click here for full article: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/11/guy_and_madeline_on_a_park_ben.html

Variety

"A magical amalgam of Jean-Luc Godard, Miles Davis, Morris Engel and 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,' helmer Damien Chazelle's 'Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench' catches you off-guard and keeps you there... A surprise, a delight and a whimsical experiment, it could, despite its rigorous efforts to be noncommercial, end up a bona-fide cult hit... There are moments here that are simply transcendent." - John Anderson

Click here for the full article: http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117940100.html?categoryid=31&cs=1

The Hollywood Reporter

"A beguiling musical that's modest in budget but audacious in its aspirations and achievement... Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench has the expansive spirit of a big city romance, though it was made for a song... It manages to be both low key, downtown cool and exuberant at the same time... Chazelle may have inhaled the heady influences of the French New Wave and the smoky atmospherics of jazz clubs he frequented, but he has forged something very much his own... With the right distributor, Guy could develop a following." - Sura Wood

Click here for the full article: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/guy-and-madeline-on-a-park-bench-film-review-1004022761.story

Film Comment

"An ingenious, enchanting hybrid of an old-fashioned Hollywood-style musical and a vérité cityscape… The most erotic subway scene since Richard Widmark lifted Jean Peters’s wallet in Pickup on South Street… Chazelle is an exceptionally talented filmmaker. Let’s hope the independent film world has enough life left in it to do him justice.” - Amy Taubin

Click here for the full article: http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/ma09/guyma.htm

The Globe and Mail

"A decidedly modern film, whose frightened, impulsive, charming characters could walk into our lives tomorrow. Madeline might serve us coffee at breakfast; Guy, music in a club after work. We'd be lucky if they did." - Stephen Cole

Click here for the full article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/movies/guy-and-madeline-on-a-park-bench-two-strangers-and-all-that-jazz/article1822482/

The Toronto Star

"Delightfully idiosyncratic... An intimate and deeply felt portrait of 20-something romance at its most hesitant, conflicted and - when it all comes together - rapturous." - Jason Anderson

Click here for the full article: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/article/900739--guy-and-madeline-on-a-park-bench-a-grown-up-glee

Filmmaker Magazine

"This is the finest U.S. indie movie of the past year." - Howard Feinstein

Click here for the full article: http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog/2009/11/things-to-do-in-denver-when-youre-dead.php

"Chazelle's mash-up of downtempo slacker relationship drama with high-spirited '50s movie musical...is of course a formal construction, but the thrill of this movie is that it doesn't play like one. Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench is by turns joyful, melancholy and hard-eyed, and it's the kind of unexpected festival discovery that you really shouldn't know much about before seeing..." - Scott Macaulay

Click here for the full article: http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog/2009/04/tribeca-quick-take-guy-and-madeline-on.php

Les Inrockuptibles

"A sensation... At 25 years of age, the director has instantly imposed himself among the most important new faces in American independent cinema."

Click here for the full article: http://www.lesinrocks.com/cine/cinema-article/t/51825/date/2010-10-06/article/guy-and-madeline-le-renouveau-arty-du-musical/

Hammer To Nail

"Just when you start to hate what 'independent' film has become (better to re-brand it 'trustfunded' film), something like Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench comes along... Unable to contain its joie de vivre, old school/aware of its influences and yet unlike anything you've ever seen before, this is the type of picture that can give you faith in the creative vision of privileged twenty-somethings yet again... The film reveals a major directorial talent in the making." - Brandon Harris

One of Hammer to Nail's "Top 13 Films of 2010"

Click here for the full article: http://www.hammertonail.com/genre/drama/guy-and-madeline-on-a-park-bench-review/

Best of 2009

Amy Taubin (Film Comment), John Anderson (Variety), David Fear (Time Out New York), and Elizabeth Weitzman (New York Daily News) all name Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench the "Best Undistributed Film of 2009."

The Boston Globe Magazine names Damien Chazelle's debut "One of the Best of the New: 2009."

Film Comment critics' poll names Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench one of the "20 Best Unreleased Films of 2009."

Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench is #3 on indieWIRE critics' poll of "Best Undistributed Film of 2009."

The Village Voice and LA Weekly name Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench one of the Top Undistributed Films of 2009.

Artforum names Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench one of the Top 10 Films of the Year.

Artforum

"One of the top 10 films of the year."

NBC New York

"If swirling, twirling musicals from the 1940s make your heart beat a little faster, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench may be the best movie ticket you buy all year."

Click here for the full article: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/around_town/nightlife/Todays-Tribeca-Fest-Picks-Exploding-Girl-Guy-and-Madeline-.html

New York Daily News

"Could become this year's 'Once.'"

Click above for the full article.

Time Out New York

"Blissful, brilliant... One sequence involving a tap dancer, a jam session and a house party is arguably the most joyous five minutes you're likely to experience in a theater this year... This is the true gem of 2009; don't miss it."

Click here for the full article: http://www3.timeoutny.com/newyork/theframeup/2009/04/todays-tribeca-pick-guy-and-madeline-on-a-park-bench/

"Awards season starts in New York": http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/film/80762/awards-season-starts-in-new-york

"Nine bizarre musicals you should see instead of Nine": http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/film/81514/nine-bizarre-musicals-you-should-see-instead-of-nine

The Village Voice

"This charming Boston-set, black-and-white 16mm musical from Damien Chazelle is the kind of movie a young Cassavetes might have made were he working for MGM's Freed Unit. The romance and breakup of the titular sweethearts (Jason Palmer and Desiree Garcia) make up the film's first 10 minutes, leaving the remaining time for Guy's trumpet solos, Madeline's tap dance at the tourist-trap resto where she works, and the possibility, as in all great musicals, that adventure lies just around the corner."

Click above for the full article.

The L Magazine

"Mishmashing myriad influences — Cassavetes, Godard, Bujalski, Woody Allen, Astaire-Rogers — writer-director-editor-lyricist Chazelle fashions something new: the first Mumblecore Musical. It’s a black-and-white, naturalistic, 16mm exploration of young people and their romantic affairs that plays out on Boston streets and in apartments. But instead of awkwardly stammering their way around What They Mean, Guy (Jason Palmer) and Madeline (Desiree Garcia), respectively, play the trumpet and spontaneously slip into song. It’s affecting, endearing, and, even better, toe-tapping."

Click here for full article: www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/the-tribeca-film-festival/Content?oid=1147153

AMC's Filmcritic.com

"The success of Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, the striking debut from 24-year-old Damien Chazelle, was completely unforeseen. Like a renegade jazz riff off of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg directed by Andrew Bujalski... This is the fun, energetic, and completely unencumbered indie musical I had hoped Once might have been."

Click here for the full article: http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/reviews/RelapseRemit-Tribeca-Film-Festival-2009

Chicago Public Radio

"Involving, entertaining, moving, and humorous... Once upon a time, young French filmmakers made their exhilarated versions of the Hollywood musicals they loved. Now, a young American filmmaker offers his take on the French versions of these films. The profusion of talent on display in this work -- acting, directing, scoring -- seems crowded in the confines of a 16-mm frame. Imagining what Chazelle and his collaborators might do with a larger budget inspires dreams of the millenial-generation cineastes imbuing new life into a spectrum of different genres and giving birth to new recombinations."

Click here to listen to the full review: http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=41850

All Movie Guide

"An auspiciously confident debut... Chazelle's got you right where he wants you."

Click here for the full article: http://www.answers.com/topic/guy-and-madeline-on-a-park-bench

Interview Magazine

Interview with Damien Chazelle.

Click here for the article: http://www.interviewmagazine.com/blogs/film/2010-11-15/damien-chazelle-guy-and-madeline-on-a-park-bench/

Chicagoist

"A complete original... Shot in beautifully grainy 16mm, it has the effect of M-G-M splashing down in the middle of a Cassavetes film. It's exhilarating... When [Jason Palmer] takes an extended solo during the utterly charming finale, you realize what a special movie this is."

Click here for the full article: http://chicagoist.com/2010/02/22/cimm_fest_guy_and_madeline_on_a_par.php

Hammer To Nail

"A movie of this time and moment... It's a whimsical experience, my favorite film of its kind in some time, and not just because, like the protagonists' favorite song, 'I Left My Heart in Cincinnati.'"

Click here for the full article: www.hammertonail.com/film-festivals/brandon%E2%80%99s-2009-tribeca-film-festival-recap/

DCist

"Damien Chazelle has brought the jazz-inflected intimacy of early Cassavetes filmmaking back to life... A welcome anachronism amid studio maneuvering to get moviegoers to pay more and more for empty 3D digital extravaganzas."

Click here for the full article: http://dcist.com/2010/04/popcorn_candy_49.php

GreenCine Daily

"One of the bona fide treasures at Tribeca this year."

Click here for the podcast: daily.greencine.com/archives/007441.html

Film Monitor

"Breathes new life into the musical... [The] film is an example of a new kind of realist cinema."

Click here for the full article: http://filmmonitor.blogspot.com/2009/11/musical-realism.html

The Epoch Times

"For jazz listeners, it is the must-see film of the festival..."

Click above for the full articles.

"The Year's Best Indie and Festival Films": http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/27193/99999999/1/1/

Sounds, Images

"In the 1970s, Jacques Rivette took the chance meetings and unlikely coincidences of a Hollywood plot to their natural conclusions: paranoia... Damien Chazelle has started there and worked his way back, finding the giddy and the romantic in the most archetypal 'Rivettian' images... There's an element of gleeful perversity to Chazelle's debut."

Click here for the full article: http://soundsimages.blogspot.com/2010/03/some-short-pieces-mostly-recent-for.html

CineScene

"The genius of Guy and Madeline lies in the tension between its boho diffidence and some intense, expressive musical interludes. And Chazelle is an ingenious musical director... One sequence, with a bearded dude dancing all over a crowded party, is particularly brilliant; who knew a first-time director could manipulate space with such virtuosity?... Chazelle is a major new talent."

Click here for the full article: http://www.cinescene.com/Les/adulteducation.htm

Living in Cinema

"Comes straight from the lonely heart... With an ending so beautifully pitch-perfect, Guy and Madeline's final note brings one word to mind. Sublime."

Click here for the full article: http://livingincinema.com/2009/05/09/sam-ks-tribeca-recap-moon-outrage-and-girlfriend

This Week In New York

"Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench has the improvisational feel of a quiet jazz solo, a soft, tender film about love and loss and how fragile meaningful relationships can be."

Getafilm

"One of the Top Ten Films of 2009"

http://getafilm.blogspot.com/2010/01/best-of-2009-part-5.html

"Not only gets your toe tapping, but your spirit soaring... It's a delight that sneaks up on you like a spontaneous jazz solo; you almost don't have time to process the fact that what you're watching is truly special."

Click here for the full article: http://getafilm.blogspot.com/2009/09/300-words-about-guy-and-madeline-on.html

Bay Area Reporter

"My pick for this year's most innovative fiction piece goes to Damien Chazelle's spunky portrait of an interracial couple's complex if lighthearted courtship. Combining the spirit of early Cassavetes with the relationship insights of Woody Allen in his prime, Chazelle plunks us down inside a hipster jazz scene and a luminously B/W Boston, with the charming leads captured in expressive close-ups."

/Film

Matt Singer (IFC News) discusses Guy and Madeline: http://slashfilm.com/2009/05/03/the-filmcast-bonus-episode-iffboston-and-tribeca-wrap-up-guests-katey-from-cinemablend-matt-from-ifc-russ-from-chud/

indieWIRE

"Tribeca '09 Interview," IndieWIRE's Q&A with Damien Chazelle:

http://www.indiewire.com/article/tribeca_09_interview_guy_and_madeline_on_a_park_bench_discovery_section/

WPRB 103.3 FM

Click here to listen to an interview with Damien Chazelle on WPRB 103.3 FM: http://www.wprb.com/news/2009/04/19/546