Father Geek here with Art Snob and his take on a couple of films he caught this past weekend at TIFF...
I'm back in Rochester on a brief hiatus after taking in ten movies at TIFF on a Saturday-to-Monday swing. Lining up tickets from out-of-town is quite a task, but every year more Americans seem to be making the trek. I really lucked out this year . I got all 20 of my first requests, so for ONCE, I don 't have to go through the rat race of trying to line up same-day tickets to fill out my itinerary. A good thing . with the July temperatures hanging over the city, I would have wilted from an hour-plus mid-day wait in one of the rush ticket lines. Sales of beverages at the concession stands have been VERY brisk.
Other AICN members have covered most of the films that I've seen fairly accurately. I'm in almost total consensus with Anton's piece about Michael Moore's BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, which would get my "audience favorite" vote were I to cast it at this time. He's SO right about that three-minute "South Park"-style cartoon depicting American history being hysterical! And yet the film can seamlessly maneuver between a flippant section like this and a deadly, riveting, four-part screen of security footage from the actual Columbine incident. Brimming with irony (Moore's gift for giving gun fanatics enough rope to hang themselves with is undeniable) and eschewing simple answers, this is thought-provoking cinema of a sort that American producers can't reject FAST enough. Be thankful that Canadian money was willing to bankroll it, or it could NEVER have been made.
I was particularly delighted to hear Moore announce that the film is going to be released in the states in mid-October. (When it got excluded from the NY Film Festival, I was afraid that NRA money and influence was going to keep it out of release until after the November elections, at the very least.) One thing to be listening carefully for when you see it: when Moore goes to the intercom at the gate to Charlton Heston's Beverly Hills estate and Heston's voice comes out, you can hear Moore's voice trembling slightly as they converse. He swears that he was literally shaking to actually be talking to "Moses" when all he was expecting was a security guard! Also notice how Heston lets his white supremacist nature slip out during the actual one-on-one interview.
An absolute not-to-miss. I can't WAIT to see how it plays to an American audience!
As for actual "Hollywood" fare, the best I've seen so far is Paul Schraeder' s AUTO FOCUS. If you've ever endured "Hogan's Heroes" - one of the pinnacles (or nadirs, depending on your POV) of insipid 60's sitcoms - prepare to be rewarded in the form of this tell-all biopic about sex-crazed star Bob Crane and his long-term relationship with a geek of early videotape technology named John Carpenter (not the director).
The casting - especially the supporting cast - had me wary going in that this was going to be a softball treatment of the subject. (Names like Michael McKean, Ed Begley Jr., Rita Wilson and Ron Leibman don't exactly spell "hardball"). Plus how can you get excited about a film with Greg Kinnear in the lead role? There was Willem Dafoe as Carpenter in the co-starring role, but his walkthrough performance in SPIDER MAN had led me to believe that he was abandoning his "edge" for safer, higher-paying fare. My main faith was in Schraeder's impressive track record as a director and screenwriter.
Thankfully, the casting fears turned out to be unfounded, and the film DEFINITELY plays hardball. Portraying Bob Crane is admittedly a far lesser challenge than George C. Scott taking on Patton, but DAMN if Kinnear doesn't NAIL the part! He simply IS Bob Crane . the grin, the voice, the easygoing likeability . they're all there in spades. And whereas there's no frame of reference for Carpenter, this part marks a welcome return to form for Dafoe . in terms of sex drive and "wild man" persona, this character is a close cousin to the one he played in Oliver Stone's BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY.
The film follows Crane's life from 1964 -- when he was a church-going, model husband with a wife of sixteen years, three children, a successful career as a Los Angeles D.J. and a carefully guarded fetish for skin mags -- through to his "unsolved" (as in "Nicole Simpson") murder in an Arizona hotel room in 1978. Successful guest appearances on THE DONNA REED SHOW lead to him being offered the lead role of Hogan in the POW camp sitcom ("Oh . the nice Nazis?"), which in turn brought him into contact with Carpenter, an "AV geek to the stars" who was only too happy to indulge Crane's fascination with amateur pornography as long as it meant easy access to the babes that a hot, likeable TV star was able to attract. Both shared the philosophy that "a day without sex is a day wasted," and as long as Crane got "dibs" on the women, things were fine between them.
The film doesn't dwell excessively on the easy target that is "Hogan's Heroes," but OH, are the bits involving the show delicious! The character actors rounded up to portray the cast are spot-on in both looks and personas, especially Kurt Fuller's Werner "Klink" Klemperer and Michael E. Rodgers' Richard "Newkirk" Dawson. The highlight: a "daydream" that Crane has during filming with the characters acting as his personal demons.
It was very interesting to learn in the Q&A that followed the well-received screening that what Schraeder was aiming for here was a "hetero" version of Stephen Frears' biopic of 60's British playwright Joe Orton and his unsuccessful hanger-on companion Ken Halliwell, PRICK UP YOUR EARS. I'd say that he succeeded QUITE nicely on this score. It's a well paced, thoroughly engaging, well-acted treatment of the mighty brought low that should appeal to the prurient interests of everyone familiar with Crane and the show. (The lack of familiarity among younger viewers will probably limit it to art house release, however. It's going to be a Sony Pictures Classics release.)
Not to make anyone jealous (perish the thought), but it turns out that the version of the film that I saw was the "NC-17" version. Two scenes - one with Crane getting head and another featuring a "Crane sandwich" are going to be pixilated for the final R-rated theatrical cut. Schraeder said that the film went through five MPAA screenings and that he doesn't have a problem with the final demands. It's still a "hard" R, with PLENTY of skin on display.
When channel surfing, over the years, I've always instinctively passed on Hogan reruns. Next time, I'm going to linger. You can NEVER see the show in the same light again after seeing this movie!
Art Snob
