Sounds like the offerings at the Los Angeles Film Festival this year were varied and interesting, and I’m glad Geiger decided to weigh in with another report on what he saw there:
Geiger back with my second of two reports on the LA Film Festival. It’s been a great week! The highlights have definitely been the documentaries, namely Billy the Kid and Prison Town, USA. Check those out if you can.
Kabluey
Here is one of the strangest, funniest surprises of the festival. Salmon, played by the film’s writer-director Scott Prendergast, has it rough—he’s homeless and broke. To make ends’ meet he has to stay with his brother’s sister Leslie (Lisa Kudrow) and baby-sit her kids, which sounds far easier than what occurs on-screen. They are the biggest brats on the planet, and they’re bound and determined to kill him any chance they get. To make matters worked, he finds and takes a part-time job that is just about the most ridiculous, pointless position on the planet.
I had trouble at first trying to accept a movie that had serious undertones about the Iraq war but also tried to make us laugh from beginning to end with other subject matter, but the combination works surprisingly well. The comedic aspect of the movie definitely works better than the serious aspect, because the tone of the movie is just so absurd. There is a fairly powerful moment when Leslie takes a long walk and starts breaking down crying over her current stressful situation. This moment, while fairly powerful in this movie, would’ve worked a lot better in a more serious movie. However, it’s commendable for Prendergast to even attempt the kind of comedy-drama dance he does here, for the most part, effectively.
It’s also just a treat to see Kudrow again. Since Friends ended, she’s only appeared in one film—Don Roos’s Happy Endings. She is a welcome addition to any movie, and it’s a delight to see her again here.
How to Rob a Bank
Fast-moving but instantly forgettable, How to Rob a Bank nonetheless offers two solid performances from stars Nick Stahl and Erika Christenson. Almost the entire movie takes place inside a bank vault, in which Jinx (Stahl) and Jessica (Christenson) have been thrown into a situation out of their control and locked themselves in the vault. A bank heist has commenced, and they have to talk it out between each other what they need to do to get out.
There’s nothing in this movie we haven’t seen before, and there is nothing to really stick around for. The pay-off isn’t all that satisfying, and the characters outside of the vault are fairly one-dimensional. The joy of the movie, which isn’t quite enough to recommend it but enough to not come down too hard on it, is watching Stahl and Christenson chew the scenery, and each other. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Christenson this good or this sexy, and Stahl, who looks happy to take a break from more action-oriented films like Sin City and Terminator 3, is immensely watchable. Together they make a pedestrian movie far more entertaining than it would’ve been with lesser actors not up to the challenge.
Trigger Man
The big giant turd of the festival, Trigger Man gives horror a bad name. The film tells of a group of three friends who go out to the woods to hunt for deer, when, suddenly, they become the hunted, with a sniper taking shots at them. Okay, I know what director Ti West is trying to do with the movie, trying to capture the reality of the situation through long takes and moments where people don’t talk and nothing seems to be happening. And I’ll even give West a little credit for succeeding as much as he does with the limited resources.
But this is a bad film. It’s a 10-minute movie stretched to 80 minutes. You don’t care about any of the three main characters, so it’s hard to get worked up when they started getting whacked. West seems more interested in having the audience member put himself in the position of the characters’ struggle for survival, but that noble idea can only go so far. There is a moment toward the end where we follow a character walk with his gun at his side, in one very long take, where nothing happens except for noises behind heard here and there. This is an effective visual and auditory idea for the scene in question, but it goes on FOREVER, and after awhile, the suspense starts to dissipate and all we’re left with is boredom. This can’t possibly be the strongest horror film that the Los Angeles Film Festival has to offer. There’s no fucking way.
Great World of Sound
This well-acted but rather mundane and visually blasé movie doesn’t really leave much of impression. Pat Healy plays Martin, who answers an ad about training to become a record producer and sign musicians who come off the street to audition for him and his partner. Even though he does fairly well at the job, it starts to become a little too much, and he soon realizes that the enterprise for the most part is a complete scam. Great World of Sound would’ve worked better as a short film or in written form, because as a full-length movie, the whole thing just gets monotonous after awhile. Healy does a pretty solid job, and Kene Holliday, who plays his partner Clarence, is by far the best thing about the movie. When the movie ends, however, you’re left with next to nothing, and overall, the journey is not worth taking.
The Hottest State
I won’t lie, I expected very little from this movie. I always get worried when actors become directors, especially one who is tackling material based on his very own novel. Thus, it is with great surprise to say that Ethan Hawke’s new film The Hottest State is a terrific movie.
It doesn’t hurt that Hawke got Catalina Sandino Moreno, one of the most beautiful and talented up-and-coming actress, to play the lead female of the role. The film is about an actor named William (Mark Webber) who meets a local singer (Moreno), and the two begin a tumultuous relationship that will put them both through a variety of emotions. She goes to him with Mexico on a film shoot and has an amazing time, but she starts to pull away after she gets back, fearing his ultra-fast and intense commitment to her.
The beauty of the film is in its rich dialogue and attention to detail. The film is clearly semi-autobiographical to director Hawke, and he allows the story to unravel slowly and take its time. The performances are all solid, with Webber and Moreno believable romance that becomes more and more tortured as the film goes along. Laura Linney pops up later in the movie in a glorified cameo that marks another great turn from her, especially in a dinner scene that feels reminiscent to many other dinners we all have experienced with our mothers. Hawke appears in the movie, too, and he gladly dials down his performance to suit the apathetic nature of the father character. Visually Hawke doesn’t go overboard a la Kevin Bacon in Loverboy, and he smartly allows for an ambiguous ending that doesn’t make any promises for either of the two main characters. The Hottest State is being released by ThinkFilm later this summer, and it’s definitely worth checking out.
The Buffy Musical: Once More, With Singing!
Okay, Buffy fans, this is a little something called Heaven on Earth. We have waited for an event like this for years, in which fans of the show could finally come together and unite as one! The Buffy Musical Extravaganza, which is touring the country and not just playing this once in Los Angeles, is a lot of fun and a real delight for any fans of the show.
The festivities begin with the receiving of a goodie bag, which has such treats as poppers, kazoos, and monster finger puppets. When everyone was seated, the master of ceremonies, Mr. Clinton McClung, introduced the pre-show. Comprised of two music videos, a trivia section, and a clip that comprises seven seasons of Buffy down into about a minute, the pre-show flew by in a jiffy. McClung then went step by step outlining the rules of the Buffy Sing-a-Long. For Example, when Tara reaches her climax of her song, “I’m Under Your Spell,” use the popper. During Dawn’s ballet, fill the air with bubbles. Holds hands with a neighbor during “Where Do We Go From Here.” This audience interaction during the episode, my favorite of the series, was a blast, and it completely lent itself to making the episode all the more entertaining. I’ve never taken part in any sort of Buffy communal activity, so it was a real kick to finally sit in a room filled with rabid fans of the show, all there completely out of love.
After the show, McClung announced that a special guest was in the audience, and he brought writer Marti Noxon to the front of the stage. One of the better writers of Buffy, she also appears in Once More With Feeling, as the parking ticket lady. As much as I love Noxon, I was a little disappointed nobody else could be there. I was hoping for at least a cast member to show up. What about Amber Benson? What’s Emma Caulfield up to? It was then with great shock when Noxon announced, “ladies and gentlemen, Joss Whedon.” I jumped up out of my seat along with everyone in theatre and broke out into loud screams and applause. It was truly touching to see Mr. Whedon look clearly emotional (and baffled) at the rabid fan support for not just the Buffy sing-a-long but for him and the show in general. He made the night a truly memorable one. The Buffy Sing-A-Long was a blast!!
Wizard of Gore
Oops, I spoke too soon. Trigger Man isn’t the worst movie of the festival.
Wizard of Gore is one of the most unpleasant movies… scratch that… experiences I’ve had in a long time. This is an ugly, repulsive movie with absolutely no redeemable value. How director Jeremy Kasten attracted such actors as Kip Pardue, Bijou Phillips, and Crispin Glover is beyond me, and whoever thought this would be any good?
The script is TERRIBLE. There is nothing to keep you interested on a story level, and there isn’t one interesting thing about any character. Glover is entertaining for about thirty seconds, and then his schtick gets old real fast. I still can’t discern Phillips from other actresses. And Pardue, more bland here than ever, tries to make his character three-dimensional by dressing up as Clark Kent the entire movie.
The plot of the movie, involving a gory magic show that seems to culminate in the “fake” victims actually getting killed later on, could’ve lent itself to a fun guilty late-night pleasure. Instead, we get a disgusting, sexist, boring movie that pushes Trigger Man out of the way to become the bad seed of the LA Film Festival. Wizard of Gore is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, and you can be so lucky to never see it in a theatre near you.
