Pitchfork

Yesterday, we called up former Sleater-Kinney singer-guitarist Carrie Brownstein to talk about the songs she recently unearthed from a 2000 recording session with the Spells, her long-lost collaboration with Mary Timony. During the course of our chat, Brownstein filled us in on the story behind the Spells, and what she's been up to lately. We'll post the full interview tomorrow, but she dropped one piece of news that we just had to let you know about today: Brownstein and the Shins' James Mercer will both appear in a forthcoming feature film titled Some Days Are Better Than Others, which is tentatively slated for a fall 2009 release.

Some Days Are Better Than Others is directed by Portland experimental filmmaker Matt McCormick, who has helmed videos for both Sleater-Kinney and the Shins as well as YACHT and Patton Oswalt, and it's currently in post-production. This is the director's first feature; previous works include the 2008 shorts Light Tiger Eye starring Brownstein and Mercer and The Problems With Machines (That Communicate), starring the Shins' Marty Crandall and Crandall's ex-girlfriend Elyse Sewell. McCormick's 2004 short Towlines featured original music by Mercer as well. Neil Kopp and David Cress, the producers of Some Days Are Better Than Others, also produced Gus Van Sant's film Paranoid Park and Kelly Reichardt's Will Oldham-starring Old Joy.

"Overall, I'd say that the film is about lonely people trying to create their own abstract forms of communication. You could call it a charmingly melancholy look at abandonment," McCormick says. Brownstein and Mercer play the lead roles, characters named Katrina and Eli, respectively. Various other Portland indie rock luminaries also appear in the film, including Brownstein's former Sleater-Kinney bandmate Corin Tucker, YACHT (who perform in the movie), Corina Repp, and Matt Sheehy. Matthew Cooper of Eluvium is slated to contribute to the flim's music as well.

Although McCormick had worked with both Brownstein and Mercer in the past on their bands' music videos, he says that "both of them went through a drawn-out series of auditions before I was sure they were right for
the parts." He continues, "With James, the character he plays is in many ways an extension of the character that I created for him in the the Shins' 'The Past and Pending' video I did awhile back. While writing the script, James sort of became this character by default. The character isn't necessarily based on James, it was just James' face that was in my head when writing this character. And then after I did the 'Australia' video I was just completely impressed with his poise and ability to take direction, and eventually decided to give him a shot at playing this role.

"With Carrie, I had had her in mind for a smaller supporting role that I knew she would just be perfect for, but for formalities' sake we brought her in to audition. While there we also had her read for the lead role of Katrina just to see what would happen, and she completely blew us away."

So, should we expect to see Carrie Brownstein in more roles? Is she headed to Hollywood? "That's a mere hobby," she explained. "I told Matt that I was probably a liability for his film, but he cast me anyway. I auditioned; he didn't hand the roles to either of us, we auditioned. That's not where my future lies. I'd rather do spontaneous and silly work like ThunderAnt [Brownstein's comedy duo with "Saturday Night Live"'s Fred Armisen--Ed.] than have somebody's film on my shoulders. But it is challenging.

She continued, "I think one of the reasons I haven't been doing music is because I think that some of my performance needs are being taken care of in other mediums. I mean, a lot of music for me was about-- I mean aside from the fun and challenge of writing and being really good friends with my bandmates-- getting to perform. It's not the same, doing a movie or doing ThunderAnt, but it definitely is akin to that kind of challenge. I get to sleep in my own bed at the end of the day. And my back doesn't hurt as much."

Stay tuned tomorrow for a lot more from Carrie Brownstein.