Little Shots Of Happiness

LITTLE SHOTS OF HAPPINESS

"Bonnie Dickenson's performance is what legends are made of."
- Detour Magazine

A FILM BY TODD VEROW
STARRING BONNIE DICKENSON, ERIC SAPP, LEANNE WHITNEY, BILL DWYER, P.J. MARINO, MAUREEN PICARD, LINDA EKNOIAN, ERIC ROEMELE, RITA GAVELIS AND CASTALIA JASON.

WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY JIM DWYER AND TODD VEROW EDITED BY JARED DUBRINO AND TODD VEROW

"A young woman lies in bed, a drop of blood welling under one nostril. "Frances," She says, in voiceover. "Frances Collins. I’ve been married five years and that still sounds like someone else’s name." So begins Todd Verow’s "Little Shots of Happiness." After showering and rehearsing happy faces in front of the mirror, Frances leaves her wedding ring on top of the medicine cabinet, throws some clothes into a suitcase, walks out the door, and goes… well, she goes to work. Work for her means drearily manning the phones at a Boston collection agency, where she is a long-term employee in a job fit for no one. Apparently, she’s a glutton for punishment, faithful beyond reason - - which is why, perhaps, she can’t bring herself to leave Boston altogether or even find another apartment. Still tied somehow to husband and home, she lives out of an office bathroom, sleeping wherever, with whomever, she can. She sticks around, but she goes wild, as if to purge herself of her marriage through excess. She starts smoking. She drinks. Heavily.

With a start like that, "Little Shots of Happiness" could have been no more than your run-of-the-mill good-girl-gone-bad flick, were it not for Verow’s fine direction and an excellent performance by Bonnie Dickenson as Frances. Verow sets his characters in front of the camera, almost Warhol-like, and lets them interact. There are no easy or contrived encounters here, only awkward, cautious meetings, as the characters awkwardly try to discover themselves in relation to the people they meet. The result is intimate Cassavetes-like realism, full of tenderness and honesty. Dickenson subtly plays Frances as both vulnerable and brassy, fragile yet resilient. We see her fumble through flirtatious lies and clumsily try on different versions of herself, wearing different outfits, using different names. Above all, we see her willfully losing control, cracked and wounded, staggering towards emancipation."
-Chris Cook, New England Film

View an interview with Bonnie Dickenson at IFILM

SELECTED SCREENING HISTORY

WORLD PREMIERE
Berlin International Film Festival 1997
US PREMIERE
New York Underground Film Festival 1997

NOTABLE FESTIVAL SCREENINGS
Chicago Underground Film Festival
New England Film & Video Festival
Long Island Film Festival
Cleveland Film Fest '98
South By Southwest Film Fest in Austin, Texas
20th Mill Valley Film Festival
38th Thessaloniki International Film Festival
Singapore International Film Fest
Brisbane International Film Festival

QUOTES AND CRITICS

"Bonnie Dickenson's performance is what legends are made of." - Detour Magazine

"...this unsettling study of a Boston woman drinking her way to nowhere recalls the similar "Ticket of No Return," Ulrike Ottinger's 1979 tale of a woman dissolving her old self in alcohol."
-Chicago Sun-Times

"...one of those films that a smile cracked on my face, and I said to myself "Wow! and who made this and who are these actors? and who wrote this? This is great, phenomenal."
-Ain't It Cool News at the SXSW Film Fest

"...the magic works... a jazzy film that skips and swings between light and dark."
-Dana Harris for the Independent Film & Video Monthly

"...a real gift to the festival."
-Ulrich Gregor, Forum Section, Berlin International Film Festival, Variety, February '97

"...a new 'Breathless'"
-Bruce Benderson, author,
"Towards the New Degeneracy"

"Not since Susan Seidelman’s “Smithereens” made a noise like breaking glass on the indie film scene has there been a heroine as defiant or a movie as grimly funny as this one."
-Cleveland International Film Festival Notes

"It's a vivacious film, gritty and yet still dreamy."
-N. Tangborn, Mill Valley Film Fest Catalogue Notes.

"...beautiful...amorphous...trembling...rapturous moments."
-the Berliner Zeitung

"...deliciously witty and amusingly insightful."
-Anne Démy-Geroe, Artistic Director Brisbane International Film Festival

"Todd Verow and his company, Bangor Films, have been pushing the boundaries of video moviemaking with their eclectic, comical, deeply moving features. Bonnie Dickenson is heartbreaking as a confused young woman running away from her life to live in her office. That's right! She works during the day, then ventures out on nighttime adventures, some sassy and others downright pathetic, on the streets of Boston. Not lapsing into kooky sight gags or faux-pretentious imagery, Verow finds the right observational note with his handheld cinematography, and this is the stuff that gives handheld a good name -- it's appropriately curious... this is the start of a hopefully long and undeniably impressive career. already at over a dozen features -- he's prolific and good!"
-FilmCritic.com

(Rip us off! Please!)

Let Forever Be:
Todd and I fell outta our seats. The Chemical Brothers music video for the track "Let Forever Be" is strikingly Little Shots-esque.

	LITTLE SHOTS OF HAPPINESS "Bonnie Dickenson's performance is what legends are made of." - Detour Magazine A FILM BY TODD VEROW STARRING BONNIE DICKENSON, ERIC SAPP, LEANNE WHITNEY, BILL DWYER, P.J. MARINO, MAUREEN PICARD, LINDA EKNOIAN, ERIC ROEMELE, RITA GAVELIS AND CASTALIA JASON. WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY JIM DWYER AND TODD VEROW EDITED BY JARED DUBRINO AND TODD VEROW "A young woman lies in bed, a drop of blood welling under one nostril. "Frances," She says, in voiceover. "Frances Collins. I’ve been married five years and that still sounds like someone else’s name." So begins Todd Verow’s "Little Shots of Happiness." After showering and rehearsing happy faces in front of the mirror, Frances leaves her wedding ring on top of the medicine cabinet, throws some clothes into a suitcase, walks out the door, and goes… well, she goes to work. Work for her means drearily manning the phones at a Boston collection agency, where she is a long-term employee in a job fit for no one. Apparently, she’s a glutton for punishment, faithful beyond reason - - which is why, perhaps, she can’t bring herself to leave Boston altogether or even find another apartment. Still tied somehow to husband and home, she lives out of an office bathroom, sleeping wherever, with whomever, she can. She sticks around, but she goes wild, as if to purge herself of her marriage through excess. She starts smoking. She drinks. Heavily. With a start like that, "Little Shots of Happiness" could have been no more than your run-of-the-mill good-girl-gone-bad flick, were it not for Verow’s fine direction and an excellent performance by Bonnie Dickenson as Frances. Verow sets his characters in front of the camera, almost Warhol-like, and lets them interact. There are no easy or contrived encounters here, only awkward, cautious meetings, as the characters awkwardly try to discover themselves in relation to the people they meet. The result is intimate Cassavetes-like realism, full of tenderness and honesty. Dickenson subtly plays Frances as both vulnerable and brassy, fragile yet resilient. We see her fumble through flirtatious lies and clumsily try on different versions of herself, wearing different outfits, using different names. Above all, we see her willfully losing control, cracked and wounded, staggering towards emancipation." -Chris Cook, New England Film View an interview with Bonnie Dickenson at IFILM SELECTED SCREENING HISTORY WORLD PREMIERE Berlin International Film Festival 1997 US PREMIERE New York Underground Film Festival 1997 NOTABLE FESTIVAL SCREENINGS Chicago Underground Film Festival New England Film & Video Festival Long Island Film Festival Cleveland Film Fest '98 South By Southwest Film Fest in Austin, Texas 20th Mill Valley Film Festival 38th Thessaloniki International Film Festival Singapore International Film Fest Brisbane International Film Festival QUOTES AND CRITICS "Bonnie Dickenson's performance is what legends are made of." - Detour Magazine "...this unsettling study of a Boston woman drinking her way to nowhere recalls the similar "Ticket of No Return," Ulrike Ottinger's 1979 tale of a woman dissolving her old self in alcohol." -Chicago Sun-Times "...one of those films that a smile cracked on my face, and I said to myself "Wow! and who made this and who are these actors? and who wrote this? This is great, phenomenal." -Ain't It Cool News at the SXSW Film Fest "...the magic works... a jazzy film that skips and swings between light and dark." -Dana Harris for the Independent Film & Video Monthly "...a real gift to the festival." -Ulrich Gregor, Forum Section, Berlin International Film Festival, Variety, February '97 "...a new 'Breathless'" -Bruce Benderson, author, "Towards the New Degeneracy" "Not since Susan Seidelman’s “Smithereens” made a noise like breaking glass on the indie film scene has there been a heroine as defiant or a movie as grimly funny as this one." -Cleveland International Film Festival Notes "It's a vivacious film, gritty and yet still dreamy." -N. Tangborn, Mill Valley Film Fest Catalogue Notes. "...beautiful...amorphous...trembling...rapturous moments." -the Berliner Zeitung "...deliciously witty and amusingly insightful." -Anne Démy-Geroe, Artistic Director Brisbane International Film Festival "Todd Verow and his company, Bangor Films, have been pushing the boundaries of video moviemaking with their eclectic, comical, deeply moving features. Bonnie Dickenson is heartbreaking as a confused young woman running away from her life to live in her office. That's right! She works during the day, then ventures out on nighttime adventures, some sassy and others downright pathetic, on the streets of Boston. Not lapsing into kooky sight gags or faux-pretentious imagery, Verow finds the right observational note with his handheld cinematography, and this is the stuff that gives handheld a good name -- it's appropriately curious... this is the start of a hopefully long and undeniably impressive career. already at over a dozen features -- he's prolific and good!" -FilmCritic.com (Rip us off! Please!) Let Forever Be: Todd and I fell outta our seats. The Chemical Brothers music video for the track "Let Forever Be" is strikingly Little Shots-esque.

Supporting Shots Cast...

LINDA EKNOIAN	RITA GAVELIS	MAUREEN PICARD	P.J. MARINO	CASTALIA JASON
(not pictured: Eric Roemele)