If you don’t know who the Pistol Shrimps are, you’re going to want to very soon.
Brent Hodge’s new documentary “The Pistol Shrimps” follows the eponymous all-women recreational basketball team, led by players like Aubrey Plaza, model/actress Melissa Stetten, comedian Molly Hawkey (who you may know as “‘The Bachelor’s oldest-ever contestant”) and many other incredible players just might be one of the funnest and funniest films of the year. During the film’s Los Angeles premiere, the laughs never slowed, but it also became apparent that this documentary isn’t about basketball. It’s about what basketball means and can do for these women as individuals and as a group of friends, empowering them, inspiring them, encouraging them and much more.
After screening Wednesday night at The Theatre at Ace Hotel, the Shrimps, their coaches, their announcers and director Hodge sat down for a Q&A. Like their team name implies — and they would suggest to look up what a pistol shrimp is — each woman’s personality popped like the crack of a pistol shrimp claw. They laughed at many of the high jinks that unfolded the season depicted in the doc, but also got real about how, no matter the small scale, the team is vastly important to them. That’s something that’s also evident in the documentary, as the film makes sure to highlight many of the team members, their personalities and how the team affects their lives.
Read More: SXSW: 10 Totally Random Minutes with Aubrey Plaza
The team itself came together in a rather interesting way. According to the film, it was a bit tough to get the league together, as there wasn’t really a league at all before they came along. In the Q&A, Shrimp Amanda Lund explained how the struggles of making a web series sparked the idea in the first place. “I remember the moment when Maria [Blasucci] realized she needed to start a sports team. We had made this web series ‘Ghost Ghirls’ that no one was watching. So we made our own flyers and started flyering in the streets, saying, ‘You got ghosts? Watch this web series.’ So we were handing out these flyers and Maria was like, ‘This is so fun being out and doing an activity.’ And then she was like, ‘I’m going to start a sports team.’”
But why basketball? Recounting a rather momentous and crazy achievement in her early life, Shrimp founder Blasucci said, “I used to play in grade school and one time, I was dribbling the ball in the park league on the Pacific Palisades Sparks and I lost my shoe at halfcourt as I was dribbling the ball. And I went to shoot the basket and I made it, but my shoe was still at halfcourt. It was a real whirlwind.”
Unfortunately, the ragtag group didn’t start off with success, with only a few members ever having played the sport, let alone in an organized way, and others not entirely knowing how the sport works. Originally, they came together with a shared sense of trash talking and putting down their haters to offset this lack of success. But during the documented season, the Shrimps went on to win the championship.
This did, however, come at a cost to their original skills. One of the Shrimps said, “I think it goes to the root of self confidence and when you don’t have a lot of self confidence, it’s very easy to talk trash. So when we finally got the skills, the trash talking went away. It’s like when you don’t dress for the job you have, you dress for the job you want and so we talked trash when we couldn’t play basketball.”
Read More: The 22 Most Anticipated Films Of The 2016 Tribeca Film Festival
After seeing the original trash talking chemistry, filmmaker Hodge knew he had to make a movie about them, telling the crowd, “One of my friends went to the games and he was like, ‘Dude, this whole thing’s a film. There’s a coach with a unicorn costume on, you’ve got to film this.’ And then we just started filming.”
He even theorized that the crew is why they won, explaining that “this is the only season you guys have won, so we’re like your lucky charm. And I don’t think we would’ve had a film unless they won.” Shrimp Molly Hawkey pleaded, “I was wondering if you could come out to the rest of our seasons because we didn’t do so well this season.” This past season, the Shrimps won only three games and lost seven.
But it wasn’t always easy for Shrimps. There were a lot of antics and even drama between teams during the season, exemplified in the documentary when Aubrey Plaza tore her Acl playing undercover in a second game on her sister’s team. The recovery, which Plaza described as taking “a couple steps forward, a bunch of steps backwards and I’m trying to just get forward again,” and the taste of the other team led her to test the market.
“I’m going to be playing for the Spice Squirrels in the fall. After my injury, I had a lot of time off and I just decided to test free agency,” she said. “I had to make the best choice for my family and my basketball career. And I just felt like the Spice Squirrels have a lot to offer me.”
Toward the end of the Q&A, founder Blasucci touched on an empowering point about the team, an aspect that was the documentary’s most lasting impression.
“I went to an all girls high school and I learned that girls can be the best of friends if they allow themselves to kind of let go of all the claw,” she said. “You know, ‘Ah, I need to get ahead of you!’ If you could just let that go, you can have such deep relationships with girls and I feel that with all of you girls and I, at no point, ever feel jealous or envious or anything. I just feel 100% support and I feel grateful and it’s wonderful. I suggest any girl out there that doesn’t have a tight group of girlfriends to really search for that, because as hard as it may be, you find these people that are so important to you and I feel that with all of these girls and I’m really grateful.”
Read More: Morgan Spurlock on Why Documentaries Matter More Than Ever
“Pistol Shrimps,” which is the first original feature film released by Seeso, an ad-free comedy streaming service, premieres today, June 16, on seeso.com. The film was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year and was executive produced by Morgan Spurlock, the filmmaker behind “Super Size Me.” Check out the trailer below!
Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Festivals newsletter here.
Related stories'Life, Animated' Trailer: Young Boy Unable to Speak Finds Words in Disney ClassicsWatch: 'Hamilton' Star Lin-Manuel Miranda Busts Out A Ramen-Inspired RapReview: 'The Witness' Throws Shocking New Light On New York's Most Infamous Murder...
Brent Hodge’s new documentary “The Pistol Shrimps” follows the eponymous all-women recreational basketball team, led by players like Aubrey Plaza, model/actress Melissa Stetten, comedian Molly Hawkey (who you may know as “‘The Bachelor’s oldest-ever contestant”) and many other incredible players just might be one of the funnest and funniest films of the year. During the film’s Los Angeles premiere, the laughs never slowed, but it also became apparent that this documentary isn’t about basketball. It’s about what basketball means and can do for these women as individuals and as a group of friends, empowering them, inspiring them, encouraging them and much more.
After screening Wednesday night at The Theatre at Ace Hotel, the Shrimps, their coaches, their announcers and director Hodge sat down for a Q&A. Like their team name implies — and they would suggest to look up what a pistol shrimp is — each woman’s personality popped like the crack of a pistol shrimp claw. They laughed at many of the high jinks that unfolded the season depicted in the doc, but also got real about how, no matter the small scale, the team is vastly important to them. That’s something that’s also evident in the documentary, as the film makes sure to highlight many of the team members, their personalities and how the team affects their lives.
Read More: SXSW: 10 Totally Random Minutes with Aubrey Plaza
The team itself came together in a rather interesting way. According to the film, it was a bit tough to get the league together, as there wasn’t really a league at all before they came along. In the Q&A, Shrimp Amanda Lund explained how the struggles of making a web series sparked the idea in the first place. “I remember the moment when Maria [Blasucci] realized she needed to start a sports team. We had made this web series ‘Ghost Ghirls’ that no one was watching. So we made our own flyers and started flyering in the streets, saying, ‘You got ghosts? Watch this web series.’ So we were handing out these flyers and Maria was like, ‘This is so fun being out and doing an activity.’ And then she was like, ‘I’m going to start a sports team.’”
But why basketball? Recounting a rather momentous and crazy achievement in her early life, Shrimp founder Blasucci said, “I used to play in grade school and one time, I was dribbling the ball in the park league on the Pacific Palisades Sparks and I lost my shoe at halfcourt as I was dribbling the ball. And I went to shoot the basket and I made it, but my shoe was still at halfcourt. It was a real whirlwind.”
Unfortunately, the ragtag group didn’t start off with success, with only a few members ever having played the sport, let alone in an organized way, and others not entirely knowing how the sport works. Originally, they came together with a shared sense of trash talking and putting down their haters to offset this lack of success. But during the documented season, the Shrimps went on to win the championship.
This did, however, come at a cost to their original skills. One of the Shrimps said, “I think it goes to the root of self confidence and when you don’t have a lot of self confidence, it’s very easy to talk trash. So when we finally got the skills, the trash talking went away. It’s like when you don’t dress for the job you have, you dress for the job you want and so we talked trash when we couldn’t play basketball.”
Read More: The 22 Most Anticipated Films Of The 2016 Tribeca Film Festival
After seeing the original trash talking chemistry, filmmaker Hodge knew he had to make a movie about them, telling the crowd, “One of my friends went to the games and he was like, ‘Dude, this whole thing’s a film. There’s a coach with a unicorn costume on, you’ve got to film this.’ And then we just started filming.”
He even theorized that the crew is why they won, explaining that “this is the only season you guys have won, so we’re like your lucky charm. And I don’t think we would’ve had a film unless they won.” Shrimp Molly Hawkey pleaded, “I was wondering if you could come out to the rest of our seasons because we didn’t do so well this season.” This past season, the Shrimps won only three games and lost seven.
But it wasn’t always easy for Shrimps. There were a lot of antics and even drama between teams during the season, exemplified in the documentary when Aubrey Plaza tore her Acl playing undercover in a second game on her sister’s team. The recovery, which Plaza described as taking “a couple steps forward, a bunch of steps backwards and I’m trying to just get forward again,” and the taste of the other team led her to test the market.
“I’m going to be playing for the Spice Squirrels in the fall. After my injury, I had a lot of time off and I just decided to test free agency,” she said. “I had to make the best choice for my family and my basketball career. And I just felt like the Spice Squirrels have a lot to offer me.”
Toward the end of the Q&A, founder Blasucci touched on an empowering point about the team, an aspect that was the documentary’s most lasting impression.
“I went to an all girls high school and I learned that girls can be the best of friends if they allow themselves to kind of let go of all the claw,” she said. “You know, ‘Ah, I need to get ahead of you!’ If you could just let that go, you can have such deep relationships with girls and I feel that with all of you girls and I, at no point, ever feel jealous or envious or anything. I just feel 100% support and I feel grateful and it’s wonderful. I suggest any girl out there that doesn’t have a tight group of girlfriends to really search for that, because as hard as it may be, you find these people that are so important to you and I feel that with all of these girls and I’m really grateful.”
Read More: Morgan Spurlock on Why Documentaries Matter More Than Ever
“Pistol Shrimps,” which is the first original feature film released by Seeso, an ad-free comedy streaming service, premieres today, June 16, on seeso.com. The film was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year and was executive produced by Morgan Spurlock, the filmmaker behind “Super Size Me.” Check out the trailer below!
Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Festivals newsletter here.
Related stories'Life, Animated' Trailer: Young Boy Unable to Speak Finds Words in Disney ClassicsWatch: 'Hamilton' Star Lin-Manuel Miranda Busts Out A Ramen-Inspired RapReview: 'The Witness' Throws Shocking New Light On New York's Most Infamous Murder...
- 6/16/2016
- by Kyle Kizu
- Indiewire
Returning to the form of feature-length documentary to chronicle a subculture and the people that take pleasure in it, Brent Hodge’s third feature The Pistol Shrimps follows a recreational basketball team with a starting line-up that includes comediennes Aubrey Plaza and Molly Hawkey. The Shrimps, started as an impromptu team, inspired the league to grow into something somewhat serious — the team is even required to hold practices now. Oddly the team and the league inspire a podcast (Pistol Shrimp Radio) hosted by Matt Gourley and Mark McConville mixing alt comedy, geeky fandom and sports talk radio as the men become experts on all things Pistol Shrimps. This of course requires more energy, dedication and mental bandwidth than most men would have and, although they’re not the focus, their passion is reminiscent of the men that love My Little Pony, the subject of Hodge’s first feature A Brony Tale.
- 4/27/2016
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
Fans of The Bachelor: Who has Molly in the top spot on their Bachelor pool to win that final rose from Ben Higgins this season? You don't remember Molly Hawkey? She's the contestant who manages to miss most of the awesome dates and keeps reminding people that she's 37-years-old. The Los Angeles comedian has been editing herself into scenes from season 20 of the ABC reality show, every so subtly, and releasing the clips on YouTube—and the results are hilarious. In her "Meet the Contestants" video, Molly, a "retired actress," tells us that she's the oldest contestant on the show but says she has a "young spirit." "I know I'm somewhat...
- 1/22/2016
- E! Online
On a cross-country flight yesterday evening, I watched "Sleeping with Other People," a really sharp romantic comedy starring Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis. In one scene, Brie, high on Molly while attending a birthday party, leads a group of kids in a dance to David Bowie's "Modern Love." Across the aisle at the time, another of the passengers was watching "The Martian," and had just gotten up to the montage scored to Bowie's "Starman." I took note of the coincidence, but only long enough to note that Bowie's music had appeared on a whole lot of movie and TV soundtracks over the decades, as you might expect from an artist with a career as long, brilliant, and varied as Bowie's. A few hours later, I was on the ground, and the news was out that Bowie was dead of cancer at 69. Unable to sleep, I began combing his IMDb page,...
- 1/11/2016
- by Alan Sepinwall
- Hitfix
CBS changed up its Thursday slate this week with the arrival of an Angel From Hell. Was the Jane Lynch/Maggie Lawson “buddy” comedy Heaven-sent in the laughs department?
RelatedJanuary Premieres, Returns, Finales and More: Save the 120+ Dates!
Even upon my [Counts fingers…] third viewing of this pilot, I still found myself laughing out loud at the jokes I’d hear twice before, so in my opinion there’s something here to build on. As Amy, the titular guardian angel, Lynch is obviously having a field day, getting to deliver her zingers with a bit more, yes, glee than she did as drill sergeant-like Sue Sylvester.
RelatedJanuary Premieres, Returns, Finales and More: Save the 120+ Dates!
Even upon my [Counts fingers…] third viewing of this pilot, I still found myself laughing out loud at the jokes I’d hear twice before, so in my opinion there’s something here to build on. As Amy, the titular guardian angel, Lynch is obviously having a field day, getting to deliver her zingers with a bit more, yes, glee than she did as drill sergeant-like Sue Sylvester.
- 1/8/2016
- TVLine.com
Chicago – The subject of religion in America is rarely portrayed honestly in the movies, with its power to both inspire or offend. Vera Farmiga makes her directorial debut and plays the lead character in the religious-themed “Higher Ground.”
Rating: 3.0/5.0
Points are immediately given to Ms. Farmiga for taking on the story, based on a memoir by Carolyn Briggs. No matter what you feel about organized religion, whether a church goer or secularist, Higher Ground is a thought provoking message film, and relevant to today. The story is uneven, but the sincerity of Farmiga’s direction is in every frame.
Farmiga plays Corinne, a woman who is shown at the beginning of the film being baptized in a river. She is a new convert to a small Evangelical Christian church and her path to that moment is shown in flashbacks from her 1960s childhood to the present, around the 1980s. Her...
Rating: 3.0/5.0
Points are immediately given to Ms. Farmiga for taking on the story, based on a memoir by Carolyn Briggs. No matter what you feel about organized religion, whether a church goer or secularist, Higher Ground is a thought provoking message film, and relevant to today. The story is uneven, but the sincerity of Farmiga’s direction is in every frame.
Farmiga plays Corinne, a woman who is shown at the beginning of the film being baptized in a river. She is a new convert to a small Evangelical Christian church and her path to that moment is shown in flashbacks from her 1960s childhood to the present, around the 1980s. Her...
- 9/2/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Vera Farmiga / Molly Hawkey, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics Vera Farmiga is best known to mainstream audiences for her turns in Martin Scorsese's The Departed and Jason Reitman's Up in the Air, with the latter earning her an Oscar® nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 2010. But by that point, she had been working steadily for over a decade, garnering critical acclaim in films such as Down to the Bone and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Now Farmiga is stepping out in a new role: as both director and lead actress in the spiritual drama Higher Ground (Tff 2011), which also stars Joshua Leonard (Humpday, The Blair Witch Project), John Hawkes (Winter's Bone, Deadwood), and Farmiga's younger sister Taissa Farmiga, making her feature film debut as the adolescent version of the lead. Based on Carolyn S. Briggs' memoir, This Dark World, Higher Ground follows the path of one woman's spiritual journey,...
- 8/23/2011
- TribecaFilm.com
Vera Farmiga in Higher Ground. Photo by Molly Hawkey. Those already looking past this awards season to 2012 got their first bit of critical-darling chum yesterday when Sundance announced its 2011 lineup. While we’re pretty sure we know who will dominate Oscar 2012 (hint: the title rhymes with Schmlincoln), last year’s festival boasted a surprising number of films that have endured through to awards season: The Kids Are All Right, Blue Valentine, Restrepo, Animal Kingdom, and last year’s festival winner, Winter’s Bone. However, Sundance 2010 was brightly burnished with such household names as Ryan Gosling, Natalie Portman, James Franco, and Kristen Stewart, while this year’s competition films feature indie-catnip candidates such as Thomas Haden Church, Terrence Howard, and John C. Reilly.
- 12/2/2010
- Vanity Fair
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