{"id":1945,"date":"2013-02-11T09:00:53","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T17:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=1945"},"modified":"2013-02-11T10:50:14","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T18:50:14","slug":"mark-watches-amber-bensons-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2013\/02\/mark-watches-amber-bensons-chance\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches Amber Benson&#8217;s &#8216;Chance&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hello, folks! The lovely juniorpan commissioned me to watch something\u00c2\u00a0<em>I did not even know existed<\/em>. In the midst of filming\u00c2\u00a0<em>Buffy<\/em>, Amber Benson wrote, directed, and produced a film.\u00c2\u00a0<em>WHILE FILMING BUFFY<\/em>, Y&#8217;ALL<em>. That&#8217;s amazing<\/em>. So I watched it, and you should, too!<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Okay, video first:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/59282177\" height=\"375\" width=\"500\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"line-height: 16px;\">So, let&#8217;s start with this: Stylistically, this is a bizarre movie, more vignette-based than anything else. It feels\u00c2\u00a0<em>very<\/em> much like the aimless, wandering gen X movies of the mid 90s. So don&#8217;t go into this expecting a linear story or a very defined conflict. There\u00c2\u00a0<em>is<\/em> a story here and there are conflicts the various characters go through, but\u00c2\u00a0<em>Chance<\/em> is a set of character studies more than anything else.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s also Amber Benson&#8217;s first film, and you can tell that. It&#8217;s easier to tolerate it knowing this, but it&#8217;s\u00c2\u00a0<em>very<\/em> rough around the edges.<\/li>\n<li>Amber Benson, David Fury, James Marsters, and Andy Hallet are all in it! And it&#8217;s weird, oh my\u00c2\u00a0<em>god<\/em>. Jeff Rickets (Weatherby on\u00c2\u00a0<em>Buffy<\/em> and\u00c2\u00a0<em>Angel)<\/em> is Chance&#8217;s dad<\/li>\n<li>As I said, this movie has a wandering story. The script drifts from one scene to the next, many times flashing back and flashing forward with no real sense of unity. Depending on your own taste, that&#8217;s either going to work for you, or you&#8217;re going to hate it. For me, I ended up in the middle. I thought it was decent, entertaining, and expressive at times, and then at others I was bored. But it&#8217;s also such a strange film that I was willing to keep an open mind.<\/li>\n<li>The acting is good for the most part, though not very polished. Except Christine Estabrook, who RULES.<\/li>\n<li>I think\u00c2\u00a0<em>Chance<\/em> is inherently about identity and how that relates to attraction. It&#8217;s a love story, for the most part, but it&#8217;s not quite what you would think given the genre. Benson presents a story about two characters who are confused about what they want, but she contrasts Simon and Chance in the way these two seek out their desires. A lot of the time, though, those desires aren&#8217;t exactly spelled out. It&#8217;s unfortunate because the film feels confusing or underwhelming because of this.<\/li>\n<li>I would say this: give it a chance. (l o l) It&#8217;s not going to be for everyone, and it&#8217;s rough around the edges. Know this going into it, but it&#8217;s a fascinating experience to watch someone&#8217;s first attempt at a full-length film.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thank you, juniorpan, for giving\u00c2\u00a0<em>me<\/em> the experience of watching this!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark Links Stuff<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<strong>\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2013\/01\/the-mark-does-stuff-tour-2013-datesinfo\/\" target=\"_blank\">I am going on tour in 2013!<\/a><\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0There are 27 tour dates spread across the eastern half of North America. Please help suggest venues, offer up a place to crash, and RSVP for dates near you!<br \/>\n-\u00c2\u00a0<strong>ALL VIDEO COMMISSIONS WILL CLOSE ON FEBRUARY 9TH SO THAT I CAN WRITE POSTS IN ADVANCE FOR TOUR.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>The only exception to this are any upcoming projects I am doing, so\u00c2\u00a0<a title=\"A note about tour, commissions, and reviews!\" href=\"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2013\/02\/a-note-about-tour-commissions-and-reviews\/\">I have listed all upcoming Mark Watches posts that are missing commissions<\/a>.<br \/>\n-\u00c2\u00a0<strong>You\u00c2\u00a0<em>can<\/em>, however, commission me to read bad fic\/fiction on ANY Mark Does Stuff Tour date. You can claim a specific date to have a live reading\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2013\/02\/a-note-about-tour-commissions-and-reviews\/\">right here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello, folks! The lovely juniorpan commissioned me to watch something\u00c2\u00a0I did not even know existed. In the midst of filming\u00c2\u00a0Buffy, Amber Benson wrote, directed, and produced a film.\u00c2\u00a0WHILE FILMING BUFFY, Y&#8217;ALL. That&#8217;s amazing. So I watched it, and you should, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2013\/02\/mark-watches-amber-bensons-chance\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200],"tags":[452,433],"class_list":["post-1945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mark-does-stuff-2","tag-chance","tag-commissions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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