Hey folks, Harry here... Looks like this is a nice run of movies. THE WOODSMAN with Kevin Bacon got picked up for distribution yesterday, so there's a good chance we'll be able to see it, and from Memento Man's write up, it sounds absolutely fantastic. A bit brutal and raw emotionally, but it sounds like a great Kevin Bacon performance, which is always a good thing. Well, here ya go...
Hi Harry,
I'm not sure why you didn't get my full email last night; my sent box shows that it was fully sent. Maybe some Slamdance people intercepted it! :)
Here are the missing parts:
REDEMPTION (Vondie Curtis Hall, 2004) (***)
Moving film that tells the story of Stan "Tookie" Williams (played by Jamie Foxx), the co-founder of the street gang known as the Crips. On death row in San Quentin for multiple murders, he ponders the term "redemption" in a dictionary and comes to long for that to happen in his life. He soon meets Barbara Becnel (Lynn Whitfield) who interviews him for a book she is writing. Together, they begin to see the power that Williams could have over the current gang crisis. Williams decides to write books for children, encouraging them to turn away from gangs, drugs, and violence. He receives two Nobel Prize nominations. However, this does little to slow the system's executing hand, because, we are told, "people fear what they do not understand."
This biopic is strengthened by its gorgeous cinematography and strong story. However, a tiny bit more about the origin of the Crips (along with such things as their strict code of rules, signals, etc.) may have made this good film even better.
SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER, AND . . . SPRING (Kim Ki-Duk, South Korea, 2003) (***)
Flowing, lyrical film about the spiritual cycles of life. It's set completely at or nearby the floating monastic lake house of a Buddhist master and his apprentice. The film is broken into five sections represented by the five words in the title. "Spring" begins when the apprentice looks to be about 10. After tying a rock to a fish, a frog, and a snake, our little protagonist learns about what it's like to place a burden on another living creature. In "Summer," our protagonist looks to be about 20. When a young woman comes to stay with them in order to get better from a sickness, the two of them fall into full sexual love, which leads to a terrible crime. And so the cycle continues. In "Fall," the protatonist is 30; in "Winter," he's about 40. And in "Spring," the cycle continues over again. Strongly allegorical, this deliberately calm-flowing film taps into multiple mythic and archetypal imageries with serenity and beauty.
SAVED! (*1/2)
I felt like I was saved once this awful movie ended. Extremely simplistic characters and a script that hits you over the head with the same kinds of jokes over and over again make this film almost feel worthy of damnation.
This intended comedy centers around an all-Christian high school where Mary (Jenna Malone) struggles with her faith after thinking the Lord wanted her to sleep with her gay boyfriend as a means of curing him. She becomes friends with other "outsiders" such as the Jewish bad girl (Eva Amurri) and a wheelchair-bound Macauley Culkin who "dances" for coins at McDonald's. Meanwhile, Mary is taunted by the cardboard baddie, Hilary Faye (in such a grating performance by Mandy Moore that you'll long for the very fires of hell after the first few minutes.)
Then - mere hours later I received the following as a series of dots and dashes, which thanks to my Eagle Scout training I decyphered for you good folks, wherever you may be...
Hi Harry,
Still very cold here! I think the temperature got down to about 7 degrees as we were driving home. There isn't enough warm underwear in the world for that!
Here's what I saw today (two of which came from waiting in wait-list lines!):
EDGE OF AMERICA (Chris Eyre, 2004) (**1/2)
HOOSIERS on the res. Mr. Williams, the new, black English high school teacher on the Three Nations reservation takes over the losing girls' basketball team and helps to bring them to the state finals. Chris Eyre's film is at its best when it is examining issues about the intersections of race. It's at its weakest, though, during the basketball scenes when it feels like any number of "pull-together team!" films. The movie could have been better by helping us get to know a few of the girls on the team a little better, as well as not leaving so many loose ends (e.g. What happens to Williams' English class after he brings them into radio station room?) But as for a meditation on some racial issues, EDGE OF AMERICA has a slam dunk.
TARNATION (Jonathan Caouette, 2004)
I'm unable to fairly give a rating for this film because it belongs all by itself. Jonathan Caouette, now 31 and living in New York, took home movies of his life (from his early years in Texas through to the present in New York) filmed on everything from Super 8, Betamax, VHS, to a Fisher Price pixel toy camera. These were transferred to digital videocassettes and edited together on an iMac using Apple's software iMovies. Caouette also used this program to add graphics and sound. TARNATION may be one of the most inexpensive films ever made–it cost about $220, the price of Caouette's digital videocassettes (Horiuchi, Vince. "Images from a Troubled Youth Distilled Into Sundance Film," Salt Lake Tribune, January 20, 2004.)
Jonathan's filmic autobiography of his family is so open, so personal, that it almost feels as though we shouldn't be watching it. But we can hardly turn away. The story overflows with moments of pain. We begin with the wedding of Jonathan's grandparents ("good people," Jonathan's captions read; although the images show something much different.) Jonathan's parents consent for his mother, Renee, to have numerous electric shock therapies. When Jonathan is born, his Dad quickly abandons him. Jonathan is put in a foster home where he is abused until his grandparents take him, being not much better. The story becomes even more sad, but is told with such an energetic willingness to be open, to have this story told, that we almost feel like a part of the family.
TARNATION marks an important turning point in contemporary American independent film. If Jonathan can take $220 and edit his home movies together to make a work this moving that can make it into Sundance, then truly this is still a cinema of the people.
THE WOODSMAN (Nicole Kassell, 2004) (***1/2)
Sure to win the Dramatic Grand Prize. Nicole Kassell's film is one of the bravest films of this year's Festival. Kevin Bacon is Walter, a pedophile who returns home after 12 years in prison to find that nearly everyone, including his sister, now rejects and fears him. He gets a job in a lumberyard where he meets Vickie (Kyra Sedgwick) who learns his secret and eventually continues a relationship with him. But can Walter break the cycle of his destructive behavior? Will anyone be able to look past his past to see anything else within him?
A year from now, we may view this role of Kevin Bacon's as one of the best performances of 2004. There is such an anguish, despair, confusion, loneliness, loss, and struggle coming from his eyes.
The screenplay is uncompromising. Director Nicole Kassell adapted Stephen Fecter's play (along with Fechter) after an immense amount of research into this challenging subject. There are a few times where the screenplay brings us right to the edge of the abyss (for example, the powerful scene where Walter sits with 11-year old Robin on a park bench) but then mercifully holds right there.
Until tomorrow, this is your frozen spy, MEMENTO MAN, signing off!
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