Well gosh... the Virginia Film Festival is apparently conducting a festival dedicated to a love of mine... COOL CINEMA. Well gee, how could we not have spies and agents and undercover types all over this one? Well we got at least one person filling us in. And I don't know about you people, BUT I would love to hear about the vintage screenings with a particular ear to what the filmmaker's had to say about their films. Just because they aren't about to come out doesn't mean they ain't cool. (The previous sentence is an example of why someone should break my keyboard in half)

Just thought I'd file a quick report on some interesting indie flicks I caught at this weekend's Virginia Film Festival. As you may know, the VFF is a combination of unreleased pictures and older films, typically grouped under a yearly theme. This year's theme was (oddly enough) "Cool"-a collection of films about music, the counterculture, and the iconic hipness of method actors like Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. Each film is followed by a discussion, led either by a college professor or someone who was involved in the making of the film. (Example: A screening of "The Manchurian Candidate" was followed by a discussion led by the film's composer, David Amram).

In addition, there are always panel discussions about the theme, as well as trends in contemporary cinema. You would have been especially interested in a panel about "hip irony and the new geek cinema"-led by Roger Ebert, who has written recently about films like "Very Bad Things" and "Thursday" as examples of a new trend in cinema where human degradation is exploited for its own comic sake, rather than to make a larger point about society. Everyone acknowledged that it's a fine line between Tarantino's appropriation of exploitation cinema and a lesser director's indulgence in it.

At any rate, to the movies! There's no reason to discuss or rate the older films I saw, except to make classic film fans salivate over the prospect of seeing "Mickey One" and "Alice's Restaurant" (and hearing director Arthur Penn talk about them afterwards), "Payday" and "The Cincinnati Kid" (with post-show conversations with Rip Torn), "From Here to Eternity," "The Fugitive Kind," and a host of great films I didn't have time to check out on the big screen, including "Anatomy of a Murder," "West Side Story," "Rebel Without a Cause," "The Chelsea Girls," "Last Tango in Paris," and short films by Pixelvision diarist Sadie Benning.

What did I see, that you might want to know about?

THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION III

This is the latest in a series of documentaries about LA punk and metal from director Penelope Spheeris (who herself has gone from underground faves like "Suburbia" to Hollywood pics both cool ["Wayne's World"] and unforgivable ["The Little Rascals"]). Her first "Decline" was shot at the end of the 70s, and showed the desperate conditions that bands like X, Black Flag, and Fear were willing to endure in order to remain true to their art and their fans. "Decline II" (my favorite) was about the less hip world of heavy metal, but showed a heartbreaking contrast between the wannabes on Sunset, each convinced that they're gonna be rock stars, and the legitimate stars (Gene Simmons, Ozzy Ozbourne, Lemmy, some guy from WASP) whose lives are still pretty pathetic. It was the only one in the series that earned its title, thematically. "Decline III" is a major letdown. Spheeris focuses on "gutter punks," homeless alcoholic runaways who maintain some small measure of dignity by clinging to their communal identity as true, no-sell-out punks. There are three main problems with this:

1. The kids are a pretty unlikable bunch, who seem to suffer by choice. Granted, a lot of these kids came from broken homes, but I've known and befriended lot of abused punks in my life, and my sympathy for them extends about as far as the first time they rip me off. These guys are experienced rip-off artists, living like filth because they don't care enough to do otherwise.

2. Spheeris makes no real attempt to contextualize this despair. We don't see the suburban punks, who listen to platinum rockers like Green Day. We don't see much of the history of the music, or the difficulty in maintaining relevance. And we don't really learn why these kids are such losers. They themselves imply that they dropped out because the world is lousy, but Spheeris never challenges these conceptions. Instead, she lets them express their fatalism, and then she asks "Doesn't that make you sad?" like some slacker Oprah.

3. The music sucks. I'm a punkophile from the old school, but I've never believed that musical development equaled selling out. These new bands-whose names I've already forgotten-have no riffs, no melodies, and no dynamic. They just bash and scream, artlessly. Of course, "Decline III" may have suffered from the fact that I saw "Alice's Restaurant" and the sublime "Hard Core Logo" (more in a minute) in the 24 hours before I saw Spheeris's film. Compared to those deeper works, "Decline III" is a repetitive bore.

I rate films on a dual, Art/Entertainment scale. I score from 1-5 based on filmmaking skill and thematic depth (Art), and 1-5 based on watchability and emotional pull (Entertainment). To put in "Ain't it Cool News" terms, "Star Wars" is an A:3-1/2, E:5, while "Empire" is an A:4-1/2, E:5, and "Jedi" is an A:2-1/2, E:3-1/2.

"Decline of Western Civilization III" is an A:2-1/2, E:2.

ME AND WILL

This was described in the program as an "Easy Rider" meets "Thelma and Louise" road picture, created by and starring Melissa Behr and Sherrie Rose, two B-movie actresses who wanted to make a movie that would showcase more than their cleavage. (Though they share a full frontal nude bathing scene in "Me and Will," it's less erotic than naturalistic, comparing beautiful naked bodies to the rugged landscape of Montana).

The characters they play meet in an LA rehab, and decide to escape from their Viper Room milieu and look for the bike that Peter Fonda rode in "Easy Rider." This leads to episodic adventures in which they share their past, fight to stay off drugs, and enjoy the thrill of the open road.

The dialogue is fresh and believable in "Me and Will," but the plot creaks like a Junior High gymnasium. In addition to half a dozen feminist fiction cliches (sexual abuse, spousal abuse, insanity), you know as soon as somebody coughs in the film that they're soon to be following Cap'n America to the pop culture boneyard. There are also underdeveloped bit parts for Patrick Dempsey, M. Emmet Walsh, and Keanu Reeves's crappy band Dogstar. Still, despite some dry spots, I found the two leads compelling, and by the end I could even tell them apart. (Not so easy at the start of the film). Look for it at festivals throughout the year, and perhaps a limited release before video next year, but don't feel obligated to look very hard.

A:2-1/2, E:3

MELTING POT

From screenwriter Tom Musca ("Stand and Deliver," "Little Nikita"), comes this low-budget directorial debut, about two minority candidates for LA City Council trying to court the white vote. Paul Rodriguez plays a grass-roots community leader, up from his roots as a house painter. CCH Pounder (_very_ good, by the way) is a career politician with a crack staff of African-American supporters. Cliff Robertson is the incumbent, forced out of a job when his district is rezoned to include more Blacks and Hispanics. This is an entertaining if not very insightful film, about at the level of a good TV movie. The interesting twist is that we start out rooting for the novice Rodriguez over the slick Pounder, but as we get to know Pounder and as Rodriguez gets corrupted by money, our allegiances switch. The movie goes in for a rather ham-fisted finale, with less shades of gray than the film had supported earlier, and it only glosses over important issues of race, gender, and ethnicity. It's as if Musca couldn't decide if he wanted to make an issue film or a broad satire.

What saves the movie is that the two leads are very real, and their dilemmas engaging. I really wanted to see who won, and I cared about the outcome. The film doesn't currently have a distributor, but has played a few festivals. If the producers are smart, they'll trim the three curse words out of the film and try to sell it to TNT or some other basic cable outlet.

A:2-1/2, E:3-1/2

HARD CORE LOGO

This is easily the best "new" film I saw at the festival, one of the best films I've seen this year, and maybe the best rock and roll film ever made (not that there's much competition). The director is Bruce McDonald, a Canadian whose only previous film that I've seen is "Highway 61," a shambling road comedy that was too quirky for my taste (despite a great Don McKellar performance), and whose been trying to make one of my favorite comics into a movie for almost a decade now ("Ed the Happy Clown"). "Hard Core Logo" is based on a novel, and is shot as a fake documentary in the "Spinal Tap" style. The difference is that "Tap" is a spot-on satire, well-loved by rockers and would-be rockers. "Hard Core Logo" is an often very funny comedy, but the band is more realistic. Anyone whose ever been in a band or hung out with a band will recognize the macho games of insults and screw-overs, but it may hit too close to home for real rock musicians. The story follows the reunion of a none-too-successful Canadian punk band, who get together after three years apart to tour five Western Canadian cities. Joe Dick is the self-destructive singer-songwriter, Billy Talent is the virtuosi lead guitarist, courted by bigger name alternative rock bands, Pipefitter is the lunkhead drummer, and John Oxenburger is the schizophrenic bassist, who loses his medication on the first night of the tour. Their episodic adventures through drinking, drugs, and constant fighting are pretty hilarious, but what makes the film soar is that it's interesting even when it's not being funny. The insight into rock band dynamics (the way the members hate each other but are afraid to separate) is phenomenal, and the band is actually good. (The music is by an actual band called Swamp Baby). The tag line of the film's poster is "The Last Shot," which refers to the band's final stab at stardom, and to the shocking closing image. It's about the disillusionment of aging musicians who made their reps on anger and now can't figure out how to grow up, especially when they pull each other back to their bad old habits. I can't wait to see this again. Tarantino's Rolling Thunder is distributing it in major cities this fall, and then rolling it out elsewhere in early '99. Don't miss it, especially if you're a rock fan.

A:4, E:4

That's it, though I heard good buzz about a regional film called "Thirteen" (Ebert loved it). I'm trying to score a screener, and I'll let you know if it's worth pursuing. I'm also going to dig into screeners for "Modulations" (a documentary about electronica from the director of the overrated "Synthetic Pleasures") and "Six String Samurai," both of which also played at the festival.

Hope this is informative to you and yours. I'll file again if I see anything cool.

Peace,

-McCabe and Mrs Miller