Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
There is so much stuff here to sort through that I’m just going to shut up and get out of the way...
Sunday turned out to be 80% documentaries. First up was "A Certain Kind of Death". This is a documentary about unclaimed corpses, and one of the most fascinating and unsettling things I've seen. The filmmakers (Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock) rode along with officials from the Los Angeles coroner's office and followed the cases of corpses with no next of kin. They show some rather graphic footage of decomposed corpses (they're usually found only after a neighbor complains of the smell), but the interesting thing is how it really comes across as just a job. It's a job that takes some getting used to, but it's a job that needs to be done. One of the funnier moments (I know, it's weird to think of a movie like this having funny moments) which is quite telling is when one officer pauses at a death scene to take a personal cell phone call and she says, "Oh, I'm just wrapping a body. What are you doing?"
Next up was the sick and twisted shorts program, "Your Warped Mind". Aaah, yeah, this is my kinda stuff. T. Arthur Cottam (whom I met last year when his "Beer Goggles" played at Indiefest) was on hand handing out astroglide and post-coital soap to promote his short "Pornographic Apathetic", which was an improvised deadpan reading of porno "dialogue". Jay Lee, from last years "Noon Blue Apples" (which was one of my favorites last year) was on hand with his "Affairs of God", a deliriously blasphemous comedy about Joseph coming home from a business trip and finding that his virgin wife Mary was 6 months pregnant. There was the stop motion furniture flick called "Roof Sex" (which I had seen at Mill Valley last October). There was "Paper Cut", which was a claymation short about...umm...about how the pen is mightier than the sword, if used right. And there was "Super Bitchin' Muscle Car", with rednecks fighting over Fords vs. "mopars" (Dodge/Chrysler). And there were others, but those were the best.
Next up there was a documentary about amputee wannabes called "Whole". That's right, amputee wannabes - people who want to have a limb amputated. In all cases in the movie, it happened to be legs they wanted amputated (which is the case 90% of the time). And it happened to be men (again, true 90% of the time). Why do the want it? Nobody knows. They can't explain it, other than the feeling that the limb doesn't belong to them. And it's very specific. One guy who sucessfully convinced a doctor to amputate his leg after freezing it in dry ice showed how actually the doctor had cut a little too much off in one spot and left a little too much on in another spot (although he didn't try to fix it, it was close enough). Another guy shot his leg off with a shotgun, several people have died trying to do this. They also interviewed some wannabes who hadn't tried anything yet. One who was thinking of doing it, and the only thing that kept him from it was that his wife said she'd leave him. Another from Holland who ties his leg behind him and walks around on crutches. Interestingly enough, his wife supports him completely. And that became one of the most interesting things about the movie (the director, Melody Gilbert, talked about this). If your significant other wanted to get an amputation, would you stand by him/her? They also interviewed a psychologist who's trying to get this studied better (as it is, the condition doesn't even have a name), and a doctor from Scotland who performed two voluntary amputations and caused quite a scandal. Absolutely fascinating.
Okay, next was more of a fun documentary, or at least fun for me. "Celluloid Horror" is a documentary on Cinemuerte, the Vancouver horror film festival, and its founder, Kier-la Janisse, a video store clerk who's obsessed with horror films, and obsessed with getting them shown. Especially artier horror movies that otherwise can't get seen. I'm not sure how it'd play to a more mainstream audience. I'm a big horror fan and for me a lot of the enjoyment was in recognizing the movies on screen, and learning about ones I haven't seen (or even heard of) before. I'm not sure if there was anything in there to convince someone who's not a genre fan, but it's just comforting knowing there are other people out there who will argue for horror films as legitimate works of art.
And finally, there was the self-described "docu-dramedy" about the martini called "Olive or Twist". It was directed by and starring Peter Moody, a San Francisco martini enthusiast. He's the type of guy who would paint his head olive green and wear a fake glass around his neck so he could dress up as a martini (okay, I'm nut sure there's such a thing as that "type" of guy, but he did that in the movie). I think it's entirely appropriate that he dresses up as a martini, because his love for martinis looks an awful lot like a form of self-love, if you know what I mean. But it's mildly informative (of it's "happy hour" length running time, maybe 30 minutes is actually information), going into the history and uncertain origins of the martini. Whether it was invented in SF, Martinez California (it was originally the "Martinez Cocktail", or NY. How it was originally a much sweeter "girly" drink. How during prohibition it turned into something that men learned how to make at home rather than going to a speakeasy. The rest is filler, with varying levels of humor. I particular liked that his wife was not a martini fan, she preferred champagne. And the debate between martinis and the tiki drinks which rose to prominence after WWII (one of the point/counterpoints: "The martini is Sinatra, the Blue Hawaii is Elvis). And it was also interesting learning important tips about how many martinis is appropriate to drink (like breasts, one is not enough and three is too many). But the most important thing is that afterwards the entire audience went to a local bar where the ticket stubs were redeemable for free martinis. Being a pass holder instead of a ticket buyer, and being a friend of the festival staff, I managed to get a small handful of tickets (oops, no one was supposed to know). So I broke the etiquette and had 3, not 2 martinis. But it was for a good reason - there were 3 varieties they were serving for free. A vodkatini with an olive, a dry martini with an olive, and a Beefeater Wet martini with a twist. So I confirmed what I already knew - I'm a dry gin martini with an olive guy (normally with Tanqueray Ten gin, but that wasn't free). Then I jumped on the second to last BART train home, and slept for about 3 entire hours before I had to get up for work.
So after sleepwalking through work on Monday, I was back up in SF for the 5 pm show.
The first film was "The Last Horror Movie". Oh man, I don't know how to start reviewing this. I don't think I can tell you anything about the plot, just that you absolutely have to see this. Better yet, when it comes out on video rent it--on VHS. I've already given too much away. Let me just say, from now on when people ask me why I'm a horror fan, I'm going to tell them to see this movie. If you're a horror fan and you're constantly being asked why, go see this movie. If you're not a horror fan, but you know one and you're constantly asking why, go see this movie. If you're going to be in San Jose on midnight on March 6th (or 9:30 pm March 10), and you're not afraid of a little gore, go see this movie at Cinequest (hint, hint, Dad). In three years of going to Indiefest (as well as Cinequest, the SF International Film Festival, and other festivals in the area), and seeing countless Q&A sessions with the filmmakers, I've only been moved to ask a question myself three times. And two of those were at this movie. The director, Julian Richards (a big horror fan who talked about laughing at "Haute Tension" last weekend) and the writer, James Handel were both on hand, and both very engaging. One scoop I bring you - "The Last Horror Movie" is the first horror movie to be released independently by Fangoria magazine. They're trying to do like "Bubba Ho-tep" and build up a good word-of-mouth (I only mention "Bubba Ho-tep" because they specifically mentioned it as their model for a "word-of-mouth" release). They'll be doing the festival circuit and releasing it in the 4 markets that have the highest Fangoria subscribership. Those are (in no particular order): SF (woo hoo!), Seattle, Boston, and Philadelphia. I was surprised there was no NY or LA there. Interesting. As a final thought, I'll just say my only regret is that it was the first film of the night instead of the last, because although I could concentrate on the other movies just fine while they were playing, as soon as the lights came back up I was back to thinking about "The Last Horror Movie".
Anyway, up next was "Undermind", a very well done alternative reality thriller. This movie boasts probably the strongest story I've seen in the festival. It's the story of Derrick, a spoiled rich kid with a trust fund and Zane, a small time punk and con artist. Both roles are played superbly by Sam Trammell. One day Derrick wakes up and he's Zane, and vice-versa. Apparently they don't exist in the same reality, and every major (and even minor) character has a double in the other world. Anyway, Derrick now has to survive as Zane, and vice-versa. Derrick has more trouble adjusting to the quite deadly world of Zane, while Zane has a great old time as Derrick, once he learns that he has a trust fund and doesn't have to take any sh*t from anybody. Ultimately, it all centers around an event - a murder of a police officer by a junkie who was set up as a patsy. This event seems to take place in both realities pretty much the same way (perhaps exactly). Ultimately, it might turn off a lot of the mainstream audience who want some cheesy explanation for why the switch happened. But, as they say, movies are about emotional — not literal - truth. And the emotional truth - that seeing the world from the other point of view is essential to success - rings true. Or, at least, it's a well told story that's consistently entertaining.
And finally, there was "9 Souls" by Toshiaki Toyoda, whose "Blue Spring" was the closing film at Indiefest two years ago. This is a comedy/drama about a prison break, and the adventures of the 9 souls who escape. It was always entertaining, and Toyoda has a great flair for storytelling which can be both flashy and introspective. My only problem was that the 9 fugitives were introduced so quickly that I had trouble remembering them all. But that just means that I have to see it again, and that's something I'd be happy to do. I hope it gets released in the United States. Toyoda was present to introduce his film and for a Q&A afterwards. Actually, his opening comments were very interesting, talking about how Japan has been in the movies a lot lately, but that this is a different Japan from the one you see in "Lost in Translation" or "The Last Samurai". And he mentioned that after visiting SF he wanted to make a movie there, and he wanted to call it "The Last Tom Cruise".
Okay, that's it for now. I've reached the halfway point and I'm still going strong. Two more films tonight, "Funny Ha Ha" and Takashi Miike's "Gozu". Looking forward to that one!
***
Okay, so I got four movies (2 bad, 2 good) from Wednesday, and 3 (all good) from Thursday.
First up on Wednesday was "The Corner of Your Eye". This was only scheduled at 2:45 on Wednesday, or opposite the closing night film. So I was forced to take the day off work in order to see it (and to get a good night's sleep for the first time in a week). It's totally worth sacrificing my carreer for. The festival program describes it as a "take-no-prisoners mind-f**k that’ll turn your head inside out." [letters substituted with asterisks by myself]. That's a pretty good start. There are eyeballs in the corner of rooms, there are weird amateur magic shows, there are shared dreams, there's crotch-honking, and there's no way to tell if it's all a dream or if it's all real. Best line - "Either I dreamt it, or I remember being here while in another dream, or maybe I’m only dreaming now that I remember it being here." And then, surprisingly enough, about a third of the way in the dream/reality logic starts making sense... I think. I need to get the DVD and watch it about 5 times to make sure. But what I do know is it starts making sense to the characters, and the movie evolves from a weird-for-weird's sake acid trip, to a surprisingly thoughtful and subtle relationship movie. My only regret is that I stuck around for the next movie instead of going out for beers with the director (Jesse Spencer).
The second movie of the night was "Nobody Needs to Know". An experimental voyeurism piece, set in the streets of New York, and which follows a young actress and a young director casting a movie by making all the actresses perform a death scene. All the while it's narrated by a young black man, who is unseen by the people onscreen. Imagine, if you will, an all-pervasive network of surveillance cameras in New York, which this man has somehow managed to tap into (sort of like Sir Mix-a-Lot's short lived UPN show, "The Watcher"). But he can step out of the cameras at will, and occasionally does. Later on other people find out how to step into the camera, and it becomes downright crowded. Actually, the more I think about, I guess there is something to be said for the movie, but honestly I think it sounds more interesting than it is. I guess I just prefer my movies to be more "slice of cake" than "slice of life" (to borrow Hitchcock's phrase). The death scene auditions are amusing, though.
Moving on, the next film was "Outpatient". To employ the cake/life dichotomy, this one is definitely a slice of cake, which means I liked it. I've also started noticing that I like movies about writers. The hero of this story is Morris Monk (Justin Kirk, recently in "Angels in America"), a writer diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Which means that he's not crazy enough to stay institutionalized, but he's maybe not sane enough to function well on the outside. So his doctor, Patricia (Catherine Kellner) is forced to release him and see him regularly on an outpatient basis (hence the title). Morris is writing a mystery novel about dancing. His mother was a dancer, and we find out later she was murdered by her boyfriend. The movie expertly cuts between real life, flashbacks to Morris and his mother when he was a child, and scenes from his novel, in which he as the hero is a dashing, dancing, romantic hero. Raven, the girl who lives next door, becomes the heroine in his novel, and so in order to know how to write her, Morris has to start dating her and teach her how to dance. Best lines in the movie:
Morris: I'm writing a novel about you.
Raven: But you don't even know me.
Morris: I've only written one chapter so far.
I was talking to someone afterwards about the ending. I won't go into details, but it's possible that the general descriptions might be considered spoilers, but I'll try to avoid that. Anyway, he hated the ending, and I thought it was just fine. The crux of the debate is in whether it should've had a "Hollywood ending" or an "indie" ending (i.e., sad, ambiguous, etc. Anything but Hollywood). Let me just say, I don't think "Hollywood" is a bad word. Nor do I (obviously) think "indie" is a bad word. As far as choosing which ending to use, I think this is a good start to the gound rules: 1) the ending should make sense, at least in the internal logic of the movie, and 2) the ending should not be forced and predictable. And let me just say, again without details, that there were clues inserted for multiple possible endings, any of which would have made sense, and none of which I could've definitely predicted. I was guessing all the way to the end, so for me the ending totally worked. I think this guy was just pissed because he guessed early and guessed wrong.
Okay, then there was the biggest disappoinment of the whole festival. And I don't just mean this year. I mean of the nearly 3 years and 106 shows I've seen at indiefest, "Bettie Page: Dark Angel" was the worst. It's a shame, there was a huge crowd of Bettie fans, many in full-on bondage gear, and many of whom couldn't get tickets, for this biopic. With such talent on screen as Paige Richards (Whorespank from "Lord of the G-strings: The Femaleship of the Ring") and Dukey Flyswatter ("Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama"), you figure this would be can't-miss. But I have never seen a biopic that had so little interest in finding any insight whatsoever into it's subject. I've seen plenty that asked the question "What makes (person X) tick?" and have failed to answer it, but I've never seen one that doesn't even ask the question. You know what this felt like. Back in elementary school, when you had to write a report on Guatemala, and instead you just copied the encyclopedia article on it. It just hits the main points of her career - she's a pin-up model, makes bondage videos, is employed by Irving Klaw (Mr. Flyswatter), they're hassled by the feds on a pornography rap, she finds religion and retires. But it gives absolutely no reason why she did what she did. I feel bad for the Bettie fans who showed up in such huge numbers for it. And I feel bad for the director, Nico B. He was in attendance, but instead of doing the Q&A in the theater, he did it out on the sidewalk (I think he could see the movie wasn't working, and decided he'd be less likely to get ganged up on out in the street). I didn't stick around to talk to him, but I heard a rumor that he had just cut the movie and rushed it up to the theater that day, so he will be re-editing it, and it might improve. But I really don't see how much he can fix in editing.
So I only batted .500 on Wednesday. That's a shame. But now on to Thursday, where I batted 1.000.
First up was the shorts program "Won't You Be My Neighbor". Top to bottom, I think this was the strongest shorts program I've ever seen. So while I normally gloss over the shorts, this time I beg your indulgence to hit each of them individually.
First was "Fast Film", by Virgil Widrich, the director of "Copy Shop" which played at Indiefest (and Cinequest) 2 years ago and was nominated for an Oscar. Here he superimposes scenes from famous action movies onto stop-motion animated origami in order to create the action short to end all action shorts. The thrill of recognition is enough to make me enjoy this movie, but even if you don't catch all of the references, it's a clever action movie in it's own right, and well worth watching multiple times. I'm sure you can catch new things each time (and I've talked to people in the audience who had seen it before and who were back just for this movie).
Next up was the hilarious "Subway Salvation". It's a stop-motion claymation movie with a subway full of anthropomorphic animals, and a wise-cracking God, who appears in the form of half of a turkey sandwich. Yeah, cool!
Then there was "Only You Can Be Me", about the genetic superiority of twins. In particular, there's a company that will breed twins for you, so that your children need never be alone. 100 years in the future, there's only one individual woman left, and she's pretty darn depressed and lonely. Then there's a pair of twins who work in the twin breeding lab. On of them becomes fascinated by her, and starts trying to take walks alone. But he can't stand to be alone for even 30 minutes. It's fascinating and funny. And I now know that singles like me are soon to be extinct. The twins will take over, as they are genetically superior.
Next was "The Watchers". A pretty straightforward title, about paranoia and homeland security. We must all spy on each other to be good citizens. A housewife hires a maid, who of course is spying on her, but the housewife is spying back, and a battle of wits ensues. A funny, fantastic take on a deadly serious subject.
And then there was "Nummer Twee" ("Number Two"). A guy gets run over by a car. Then a team of ballet dancers jump out of a van and start dancing around. WTF? I like to think it's a parody of arty, nonsensical films. It certainly made me laugh.
Then there was "David Mamet's Gilded Stones". Early on in his career, David Mamet directed a short film called "Gilded Stones", about a tupperware saleswoman whose babysitter cancels at the last minute. Thought lost, it was recently discovered. Unfortunately, the middle part was destroyed in a fire, and Mamet was unavailable to recreate it, so Martin Scorcese helpfully filled in. Unfortunately, creative differences arose, so Scorcese left and John Woo stepped in to shoot the final scenes, which connect "seamlessly" back to David Mamet's ending. Hilarious, but you have to be enough of a film buff to recognize the styles of Mamet, Scorcese, and Woo (which isn't that hard).
And finally there was "Mrs. Meitlemeihr", starring Udo Kier. Udo Kier should be enough to get anyone interested, but if that's not enough how about Udo Kier in drag? Still not enough, how about Udo Kier as Hitler in drag? And how about Udo Kier as Hitler in drag being hit on by a jewish man in post-war England? Needles to say, wacky hijinx most definitely ensue.
Okay, back to feature films now. Up next was "Moving Malcolm". What did I say about liking movies about writers? Well, Benjamin Ratner in his directing debut also stars as Gene Maxwell. In the beginning, he's left at the altar by Elizabeth Woodward (Elizabeth Berkley, in the role she was meant to play - a bad B-movie actress who gets the parts that Carmen Electra turns down). Over a year later, he's finished his novel, inspired by their breakup. Problem is, he's a bit of a chickensh*t about submitting it to publishers. In one hilarious scene he drops off several copies in the mailbox, only to return ten seconds later with a crowbar to pry it open and get his packages back, leaving mail spilled all over the sidewalk. Just as it seems like he's about ready to move on with his life, Elizabeth shows up at his door. She needs him... to help her father move. You see, she was going to help him but then she got a call to go shoot a movie in Prague, so she was wondering if he could help her, and her dad, out. Her dad is the titular Malcolm, played wonderfully by John Neville. The supporting cast is wonderful, too, including Gene's parents (Jay Brazeau and Babs Chula) and his retarded sister Jolea (Rebecca Harker). The one weak part is Elizabeth Berkley, whom I just don't like. But it kinda works in this movie, because she's a manipulative little bitch and you don't want Gene to end up with her. All in all, an interesting relationship story well told.
And finally, there was "2LDK". The two word review would be "woo hoo!". But I might as well go into a little more depth. First off, this is the first half of the "Duel Project". At a film festival in Germany, Japanese directors Yukihiko Tsutsumi and Ryuhei Kitamura made challenge to each other. Each would make a movie with two characters, fighting to the death in a confined space. Kitamura's result, "Aragami" I will see tonight, but Tsutsumi's entry was "2LDK". Two aspiring actresses, one new to Tokyo fresh from Sado Island, and one jaded ex-pornstar, share an apartment with 2 bedrooms, a living room, dining room, and kitchen (2LDK). They're also up for the same role and pursuing the same man. So of course, tensions are bound to boil over. Little things like borrowing shampoo escalate to a slap fight, and it's wonderful how soon after the slapping the chainsaw is introduced. Excelllent! Brutal chickfight extreme overload!
By the way, Indiefest played the Duel Project movies back to back last weekend, and took a vote. "2LDK" won by one vote, 64-63.
Okay, until next time. I have 11 movies left in the festival, and don't know if I'll have much time to write until it's all over. But I'll at least try to send you a quick line tomorrow morning to let you know who really won the duel project (in my opinion, which is the only one that really matters).
Oh, and happy Valentine's Day everybody. Here at work (and I work for a large multi-national company), they're serving free snacks, which consist of (and I swear I'm not making this up) donuts, bagels, and bananas. Odd thing is, I seem to be the only person noticing the symbolism. Maybe next year on Valentine's day I can get them to serve hot dogs and tacos.
Okay, you've given me a little encouragement by posting my first reviews, time to pay the price. Oh, and if you think this is too much, feel free to cut out anything you don't think is interesting. Somewhere down there are my reviews of "Running on Karma" and "Haute Tension", but I think the most interesting bits are the movies you haven't heard of (you know, the ones you're skimming over to find my "Haute Tension" review).
Big weekend, lots of movies. Let's get to it.
Friday night, first up was the shorts program, "The Ongoing Wow". These are the "weird" shorts of the festival. Actually, Molli, the programmer for the shorts has a unique sensibility so all the shorts are pretty weird, but this was the specifically peculiar shorts program. There were penguins vs. ducks playing soccer in "Fowl Play", claymation and cannibalism in "Baby Eat Baby", freaky children and a freakier mother stuffing them in "Why the Anderson Children Didn't Come to Dinner", a quietly unsettling look at religion and proselytization in the "The Christmas Party", a bit of light-hearted and literal fun with the bible in "Extreme Bible Stories: Don't Dis Elisha", Werner Herzog giving a voice-over to a college professor disturbed by telephones in "The Strange Condition of Professor DeGroot", murder and prostitution in "Objects in the Mirror are Further than They Appear", and finally an odd music video featuring scenes from Rashomon cut in half with a mirror. I could take forever to review them all, but I won't. I'll just say my favorite was "Extreme Bible Stories: Don't Dis Elisha" which was a crudely animated retelling of 2 Kings 2:23-24:
23 And he (Elisha) went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. 24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
Up next was "Echelon: The Secret Power". During WWII, the USA and UK formed an espionage alliance, UKUSA, to decipher the German code Enigma, which helped win the war. Since then, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand joined this alliance, which now monitors nearly every piece of electronic communication in the world (e-mail, cell phones, land lines, faxes, etc.) This secret network is called Echelon. At least, that's the point of the documentary. And I'm sure by writing this and sending it out I've probably added a few pages to my file. Big deal. I don't really go in for these conspiracy theories. I'm more than willing to believe there are people (or actually, huge networks of supercomputers) listening in on everything we say or write. I find it harder to believe that anyone cares what I say or write. And at the end of the movie they had to tack on 9/11 and the massive intelligence failures. It's kind of hard to reconcile the fact that our intelligence is so poor and yet supposedly they're intercepting everything on the planet. Sorry, I don't buy it. But still, it was an entertaining movie.
Next up was the documentary "Bruce Haack: King of Techno". I'd never heard of Bruce Haack, but he was an early pioneer in synthesized music, building his own synthesizers. His music was primarily for children, with albums such as "Captain Entropy" and "The Way Out Record for Children", and he appeared on "Mister Roger's Neighborhood" to show off his "musical computer". The movie didn't have much insight into his life, but was an intriguing introduction to a guy who appears to be very, very cool.
And the last film of the night was the midnight showing of "Running on Karma", starring Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau ("Infernal Affairs" and "Fulltime Killer" among many, many others). As the movie opens, he's working as an incredibly buff (think Schwarzenneger in his "Pumping Iron" days) male stripper named Big. He's busted for indecent exposure by a female undercover cop (Cecelia Cheung). Wacky hijinx ensue as she becomes enamored with him, but he can see people's karma and sees that she will be murdered. Meanwhile, he uses his incredible martial arts skills (which he learned back when he was a monk) to help her fight crime, in hopes that he can save her and change her karma. Ummm... and then things get weird. It was pretty cool. Whether you're a fan of Hong Kong wackiness, or just wanna see a male stripper in a muscle suit, it's a fun movie.
Okay, and then Saturday was the marathon, 6 movie day.
First up was "Value Added Cinema", the anti-consumerist program. The feature was simply a compilation of product placements from about 70 movies (from E.T. to Minority Report), cutting out all the "filler" like plot and characters and getting to the real point - putting the product in the center of the frame. The director was on hand and said his inspiration was when he saw "Minority Report", in which product placement was heavily featured, and found out that corporations basically underwrote the movie to get product placements (Spielberg, by the way, really started the whole trend when he got Reeses and M&M's into a bidding war for placement in "E.T."). This would actually have Phillip K. Dick spinning in his grave. I just started reading Phillip K. Dick, and haven't read Minority Report yet. But in Dick's stories, product placement is meant to be ironic, obnoxious, and intrusive (read his short story "Sales Pitch" to get a pretty clear idea of his point of view). Anyway, as for the movie, 45 minutes of product placements is pretty darn annoying. Which I guess was the point.
It was preceded by several like-minded shorts, such as a trailer for a plotless T&A flick "12 Hot Women", an dystopic future adventure into buying contraband ice cream in "Ice Cream", a look at the future of fetal advertising in "Hardcore Action News", Henry Kissinger on Fox News re-edited to talk about killing everyone in "30 Seconds of Hate", and my personal favorite - "American Rash", which made "I'm sitting in my own urine" the official catchphrase of the day.
Moving on, was "In Smog and Thunder" which has the distinction of being the first movie in the festival that I went out and bought online as soon as I could. It's a mockumentary on the Californian civil war. You know, the one between San Francisco and Los Angeles? When the hippie brigade fought alongside the web designers and battled the unemployed actors and Mexican gardeners. When Californians killed Californians from Universal studios to the San Francisco poetry bars. Strangely enough, the filmmaker couldn't secure any live footage of the war (odd that none of the film industry soldiers from Hollywood grabbed a camera at the time), so it's all told in extremely detailed and hilarious artist renderings. It plays up all the funniest SF and LA stereotypes, and is the perfect California movie (the director mentioned that audiences in NY didn't really get it). It was really cool. There were several shorts before it, but in the interest of time I'll skip over them. They weren't as good as the feature anyway.
Next up was the shorts program "Righteous Babes", a compilation of shorts about women and women's issues. It was pretty good, although admittedly of less interest to me than most of the movies in the festival. But I did really like "Wet Dreams and False Images", about a guy who works in a barbershop Brooklyn and has several pictures of models from magazines up on his wall. He swears none of them have been airbrushed. They then take the pictures to a photo retoucher who assures him that yes, they have been airbrushed. Everything in every magazine has been airbrushed to conform to an ideal of beauty. The most interesting thing is that usually models aren't airbrushed to look skinnier. They really are that skinny. But they're airbrushed to look less bony, because the original pictures look skeletal and creepy. It was quite amusing.
Next up was the locally made improvisational comedy, "Security". It's about two night shift security guards at a candy factory, who investigate the theft of an experimental prototype chocolate bar. When I say this movie is improvisational, it means that even the plot was improvised, and there are no second takes at all. Given that, it's not surprising that the plot tends to meander quite a bit, but it is impressive that there's any coherent plot at all (especially when the director said that they did not shoot it in order). Anyway, a lot of the individual scenes are pretty funny, but as I said, the plot meanders, although it does hold together. It's the pacing more than the plot itself that doesn't work well. But it was still pretty good, and they milk a lot of humor from the uncomfortable (and completely real) pauses and sidetracks.
Next up was "Piggie". This is the kind of movie that makes seeing everything in the festival worthwhile. It's probably not a movie I would've sought out on my own, but it's a quiet, subtle, disturbing, and peculiarly funny character piece. The title is the nickname given to the main character, Fannie Pogue (played bay an amazing actress, Savannah Haske, who I predict big things for), a 15 year old girl who's just a little odd. It's really hard to describe the plot. A drifter/conman named Nile rolls into town and offers her a ride, which she refuses. But she later becomes obsessed with him, and insists that he's her boyfriend. This is the part of my review where in order to not give away plot I use the stock phrase "wacky hijinx ensue." But I want to stress that what ensues isn't quite as important as the atmosphere in which it ensues. So instead, I'll say "sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes funny, a little heartbreaking, and always unexpected hijinx ensue." Oh yeah, and there's a cameo by John C. Reilly, who's always cool as all hell.
Finally, shifting gears to hard core gore there was the midnight movie from France, "Haute Tension". Literally "High Tension" but when it's released in America (it's been picked up for distribution by Lion's Gate) it'll be retitled "Switchblade Romance" which is a dumb title. Anyway, it's a movie that gets right to the point. About 5 minutes in, there's a scene that makes me sit up and say, "you have my full and undivided attention!" I can't describe the scene here out of respect for good taste, but if you're a little bit sicko and want to know, e-mail me for the details. Anyway there is a psycho stranger who bursts into a house and kills most of the family. He keeps one woman alive and drags her into her truck, and there's a second woman (the first woman's best friend) who escapes and follows them. Bloody hijinx ensue. For about the first 3/4, it's a very straightforward, highly accomplished, over-the-top grizzly slasher flick. Then I don't want to describe what happens, and I don't really understand it myself, but it messes with your sense of reality. I need to see it again, maybe several times, to understand what the heck happened. But I'm looking forward to seeing it again.
Okay, and I think after that, I'll have to owe you Sunday's movies. I have to get some work done today, and I've got three more movies tonight (Monday).
--Jason
Jason, I know I screwed up the chronology of the reviews you sent in, but there were so many. It’s great stuff, and I’m glad you have been enjoying the festival. You do good work, man, and we’re pleased to have you sending the reports to us.
"Moriarty" out.
