Professor Wagstaff

Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written by: Christopher Nolan

What is a dream? Well, that’s a pretty heady concept for a normal action movie, but Christopher Nolan isn’t into normal action movies. He goes quite a bit deeper.

First, though, let’s check out a preview or two.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK–I actually wasn’t all that interested in this until I saw who directed it (David Fincher) and wrote it (Aaron Sorkin). Other than that, it’s just the story of how Facebook got it’s start and it stars stunt Michael Cera, Jesse Eisenberg. (Not to take anything away from Jesse. I like him and all, but I really feel like Michael has the market cornered on this character.)

I dunno. I’ve never been very interested in the story of the guys who invented Facebook. It’s not particularly compelling. But with Fincher behind the camera and Sorkin behind the computer, I’m there.

THE TOWN–”From the director of Gone Baby Gone.” That’s one of the first lines of this trailer for a film that stars Ben Affleck…THE DIRECTOR OF GONE BABY GONE! Why do they not use his name?

Anyway, this is the story of a thief who falls in love with a bank teller who was traumatized by hast last heist. As the truth gets closer to her, things get more intense in his life, too. I’m up for this one. Gone Baby Gone was great and I can’t wait to see if Affleck can direct himself.

Ok, let’s get back to those dreams.

The less you know about Christopher Nolan’s latest mindfuck of a movie going in, the better, so I’ll do my best to keep plot points under wraps. All you really need to know is that Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the leader of a gang who go into peoples’ dreams to find out their secrets. The team includes Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Eames (Tom Hardy, the new Mad Max) and, in a way, Saito (Ken Watanabe). He manages to get a new team member out of his father in law (Michael Caine). This new member is college student Ariadne (Ellen Page).

The crew has been hired to do one last job by Saito on a young man named Fisher (Cillian Murphy). If they succeed, then Cobb gets something that he’s been trying for for about a year. If they fail, they could all lose their minds.

And what the hell is Marion Cotillard doing popping up in all of the dreams?

This is a pretty typical “one last job” movie, but with such a twist that it rises FAR above that rather low-concept plot and becomes something much more complex and deep. Something that only a star psych major could truly understand, but laymen such as myself can really enjoy a lot.

As the plot (and the dream world) gets deeper, so we get deeper into Cobb’s life and psyche. It’s an amazing journey and is full of tension and intrigue. We’re so invested in Cobb and his band of merry dream stealers that it’s hard to watch as things get harder and harder for them and they go deeper and deeper.

I loved pretty much everything about this movie. It’s an action movie with more brains than most brainy indie movies lately. It’s proof that, not only should Nolan be given however much money he wants when he wants to make a film, but he should be allowed to collect actors for his repertory along the way. It was nice to see familiar faces from the Batman movies pop up throughout the film.

Most likely, this will end up being the best live-action film of the summer. (Toy Story 3 MAY edge it out as the best film overall.) We can only hope that it gets the box office and accolades that it deserves. So far it seems like it is. The film world may be redeemable yet.

By the way, listen for a lot of Edith Piaf music. Har har har.

Disney deciding girls aren’t worth marketing their films to (or if the trailer is at all accurate, making movies for) is not a victory. It’s a reshaping of children’s culture into a more male-centric place. This is Disney deciding to consider girls about as worthless as Hollywood considers women.
http://www.feministing.com/archives/021498.html

Directed by: Lee Unkrich
Written by: Michael Arndt/Andrew Stanton/Lee Unkrich

I wanna be a toy!

But before I do that, let’s see some previews.

TANGLED–I’m gonna go ahead and tread on dangerous ground here and say that I kinda want to see this one. It’s basically Rapunzel, but Disney has changed the focus from the girl to the guy. Why would they do such a thing? Maybe because even little girls are tired of princesses. They’re kinda boring. All they seem to do is get in trouble.

I’m not defending Disney’s decisions because, many times, they’re dumb. They haven’t made a truly classic film without Pixar since The Lion King back in 1994 (and even that wasn’t particularly original). What I saw in the trailer, though, was a dumb guy being put down by a much stronger and smarter girl. Without seeing the movie (or the trailer, I have a feeling) the movie has already been deemed sexist. This is much like people saying that Dogma was sacrilegious before seeing it. At least with that, though, there was a poop monster to complain about. Now it seems that we’re complaining because the princess is strong, but we don’t see her. Maybe Disney wants boys to want to see this one, something they haven’t had since maybe Emperor’s New Groove 10 years ago. And maybe they realize that little girls want to see action movies, too. They’re not so hung up on movies about sex, shoes and shiny vampires.

Yes, I’m saying it. Disney is actually being LESS sexist than the makers of Sex And The City 2 and Twilight. They’re at least making a movie that will probably end up appealing to boys and girls. (Although, the guy in charge did specifically say that he wanted to appeal to boys. Meh. All movies have a target audience.)

Or neither, which is probably closer to the truth. Unless there’s a huge uproar about the movie, it will probably not do well. If there is a protest, then it should do really well. Make your choice carefully.

Anyway, let’s move on.

THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE–I actually don’t know how I feel about this one. A lot of people seem to really like the trailer and think that it’s part of Nic Cage’s comeback. I think it looks pretty silly. Jay Bucharel finds out that he’s a wizard after years of living under a staircase…oh…wait. Huh?

Ok, nevermind about the staircase, but he is a wizard and Nic Cage is going to teach him the ins and outs of the wizarding world, including pointy shoes. I’ll see it, but I really don’t expect much out of it. Although there is a mop bit in there, so maybe…

So, how are the toys doing these days?

In 1995, a little animation studio partnered up with a big animation studio and made a movie that no one though would do any business at all. Sure, it had a great cast and a few appealing characters, but were there any to latch onto? Did the story intrigue the audience? Did they really feel for these characters? And would audiences be interested in a fully CGI world?

The answers ended up being resounding and emphatic YESes. Toy Story went on to make millions for Pixar and Disney while shortsighted retailers did not order enough dolls to meet demand.

Then it all happened again in 1999 when Toy Story 2 came out. Bigger, better and more award-winning, it was an even bigger hit.

So, why did it take so long for Pixar to make a third Toy Story movie? My guess is that they wanted to do it right. This is their tentpole and, if they screwed it up, the fans would never forgive them.

What they went with was fucking brilliant.

Andy is growing up and leaving for college. What’s to be done with all of his toys? Donate them? Trash them? Take them with him? Or put them in the attic?

Andy makes his decision. He wants the bulk of them in the attic, but he’s taking Woody (Tom Hanks) with him. Woody’s his best friend, after all. Unfortunately, he gets distracted and the bag of toys ends up being taken to Sunnyside Daycare. Woody, being the loyal guy he is, goes with them.

Most of the rest of the movie is a great prison movie. Woody breaks out and back in to Sunnyside, Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) tries to lead, but is a bit too complex for his own good. Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head (Don Rickles and Estelle Harris) get bigger roles. Rex (Wallace Shawn) is scared of everything. Jessie (Joan Cusack) is just as brave and loyal as Woody. Slinky Dog (Blake Clark taking over for his late friend Jim Varney) is always useful. Hamm (John Ratzenberger) is as snarky as ever.

Sunnyside is ruled by Lotso (Ned Beatty), a big Teddy bear that smells like strawberries. Unfortunately, he rules it with an iron paw with help from Ken (Michael Keaton). Ken falls hard for Barbie (Jodi Benson, voice of Ariel) when she shows up with our heroes. It’s as if they were made for each other!

Toy Story 3 is that strange thing: a third film in a series that’s also the best. Pixar always manages to outdo themselves in ways that we just can’t fathom. As much heart and soul as there is in the first two Toy Story films, this one has more. Woody and Buzz and all of their friends are real people, even if their made of CGI plastic. There’s a point in the movie where I’m sure the entire audience was holding their breath and tearing up at the same time. It was most definitely the end for our favorite toys!

Luckily, all’s well that ends well and this is the best possible ending for the story of Woody and the gang. It’s an epic the likes of which Pixar has never done before (although Wall-E and Up come pretty damn close…they’re pretty epic). If Pixar keeps raising their own bar, we won’t be able to stand it when they finally make their last film. We won’t survive such orgasmic glee!

So, yes. I loved everything about this movie. It’s big. It’s smart. It’s sweet. It’s heartbreaking. And, best of all, it’s like the embrace of old friends.

Directed by: Noah Baumbach
Written by: Noah Baumbach/Jennifer Jason Leigh

It’s been a while since Ben Stiller has done anything that more “indie” minded people have liked. Tropic Thunder was probably the last one…maybe. I might have to go back to The Royal Tenenbaums, actually.

Before I get into this one, though, let’s hit a couple of previews.

KICK-ASS–You have no idea how fucking much I want to see this movie again. I can’t wait. Go see it with me. PLEASE!!!!

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS–I still don’t understand who was clamoring for a continuation of Gordon Gecko’s story. Maybe Oliver Stone who’s had nothing but failure for a while. This could have been interesting…back in the 90s. Now it just kind of seems like old news. Who knows, though? Maybe it’ll kick Stone in the stones and make him do something good again. I doubt it, though. It just doesn’t look very compelling.

Now onto a movie that actually mentions the original Wall Street.

Roger Greenberg (Stiller) is an asshole. Not only that, but he’s an aging hipster who doesn’t really see himself that way. He thinks that he’s much cooler than any of the “cool” people these days.

He’s been in New York for a few years now, but he’s sick of it. He’s moved back to LA to take care of his brother’s place while he and the family are in Vietnam on vacation. Roger figures that he’ll just sit around and do nothing for a while. Hang with the old crew, watch videos and do nothing.

That’s when he meets Florence (Greta Gerwig), his brother’s personal assistant. She’s 25 and pretty vulnerable. She can’t seem to stand up for herself on any issue. That makes her perfect for Roger because he can just kind of abuse the shit out of her without her saying “Boo!”

He doesn’t really mean to be abusive. He just has so much pent up rage that it’s hard for him to not abuse everyone in his life. Roger and Florence’s relationship starts off awkward and gets more awkward as time goes on.

Noah Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh are, themselves, kind of aging hipsters. Jennifer has been on the edge of hip since the early 80s. She’s never had the mainstream success of her 80s cohorts, but she seems to be fine with that. She’s an amazing actress who takes great roles. Noah has made a few films, but his last two are the only ones that have gotten him any kind of box office. (Although his first, Kicking & Screaming, got the Criterion treatment.) He hangs out with people like Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman. His movies are quiet indie darlings with better casts and stories than money potential.

Could this be Noah and Jennifer telling the rest of us to not be such assholes to younger generations of hipsters? People in their 40s automatically look down on the younger crew of people who are now in the same place that they were in twenty years before. I’m not 40 yet, but I see it happening with my own friends. Austin is and always has been a town for hipsters. Those of us who grew up here in the 80s and 90s now see it being taken over by the current crop of 20 year olds and we’re not just jealous. We’re desperately trying to hang on to what we had. How DARE these kids come in and make the whole town into what THEY want?

Greenberg isn’t a bad guy. He’s just angry and doesn’t know how to channel that anger into something positive. That makes him human. He’s an asshole that only a movie goer could love. If we knew this guy in our real lives, we would probably hit him and never look back as he laid in the alley, broken and bleeding. He treats his friends like crap and he potential girlfriend even worse. This could be Stiller’s best performance.

Greta Gerwig is part of that younger indie film crowd that Noah and Jennifer are trying to make sure that they don’t hate on. She and Mark Duplass (who is also in the film) and Joe Swanberg have been making mumblecore films for the last few years. They’re coming up in the world and the fact that they are in Baumbach’s latest pretty much means that they’ve been accepted into the older generation’s fold.

For someone of my generation or slightly older, this is a pretty significant film. Is it amazing? Maybe not. Is it really good? Yes. Absolutely. It’s a movie that had to be made by someone in his early 40s who has been on the outskirts of the mainstream for a while. It’s worth a look and it could be a movie that reveals more layers the more you watch it.

Directed by: Simon Rumley
Written by: Simon Rumley

I missed this one at the actual festival, but Tim League was kind enough to show it again after the festival for those of us who wanted to see something else in the same time slot. Of course, he had ulterior motives as it’s the first (I think) film that he produced.

And, true to form, it wins my vote as “Mist Disturbing Film That I Saw At SXSW.” Then again, I didn’t see Serbian Film, which apparently included baby rape…on screen.

Anyway, Erica (Amanda Fuller from Americanese and a couple of episodes of Buffy) is a bitch. Not only is she a bitch, but she’s a promiscuous bitch. Her first line of the film is, “Look, I don’t stay the night, I don’t fall in love and I don’t fuck the same guy twice.” O….k…. Fuck you, too.

She spreads her legs around Austin, but finally meets her match in Nate (Noah Taylor from Almost Famous). His reason for being nice to her involves pulling the wings off of flies and torturing birds just to see what happens. So…again…why is he being nice to her?

Meanwhile, one of Erica’s conquests, Franki (Marc Senter from Wicked Lake and The Lost), is practicing with his band and taking care of his cancer-riddled mom. His girlfriend, Sarah (Lauren Schneider), just told him that she cheated on him once. He, however, doesn’t tell her that he cheated on her, in a foursome with his band, no less. But he stays with her.

Here’s where the spoilers start, so you may want to skip the next few paragraphs if you ever plan on seeing this movie. I have a feeling, though, that you may never get a chance unless you live in Austin and go to the Drafthouse while Tim is trying to make his money back. I’ll let you know when the spoilers are over.

<———SPOILERS!!!!———–>

Franki has been giving his mom blood for the last six months. When they check his blood the last time, they find out that he has HIV…from the one time that he had sex with Erica. This, of course, means that his mom has it, too. He and his buddies run around town trying to find her. When they finally do, they kidnap her, unfortunately leaving a credit card behind. She ends up telling them that, yes, she knew that she was spreading HIV and she doesn’t care. She was raped the day after her fourth birthday by her mom’s boyfriend, so she’s taking it out on the whole male population.

Eventually, Nate finds out where one of the guys lives and absolutely disturbing, bloody havoc ensues, complete with lots and lots of torture.

<———SPOILERS END!!!!———–>

Ok, it’s safe…for the most part.

From the above spoiler, you would almost think that this was an action film. Some kind of Harry Brown-esque vigilante film. But it’s not that cut and dry. There’s no action in it, but it does get very gory, more in suggestion than what it actually shows. (There are some quick cuts of some pretty awful stuff, but it’s so close-up that it would be hard to tell what was going on if that was all you saw. But you know. Oh, you know.)

This is one of those movies that you just can’t unsee. It’s also one that is incredibly hard to review because you know that it means something…you just can’t really be sure what. One of my friends took it to be a “look what can happen right next door” kind of thing. That could be because it takes place in places that we know: The Broken Spoke, Toy Joy, Spider House…all Austin hang-outs. These people could be the people sitting next to you, drinking a cup of coffee.

There’s certainly some of that. Erica’s past and what she does is certainly a cautionary tale. “Be careful who you fuck around with,” literally and figuratively. But there’s something else at work here. The title is Red, White And Blue. Nate, throughout the end of the film, is wearing an American flag on his back.

Yes, this is a political film. What does America do to its enemies? Even the ones that aren’t as evil as they seem? Franki was the protagonist here. He does an terrible thing at the end, but can you blame him? Erica basically killed him. But Nate swoops in and…well…there you go. Nate (America) ends up being the baddest bad guy around.

Funny that it takes a Brit to make this movie and an Australian to play the role. Simon Rumley’s last film was pretty damn good. (It also looked like it had a MUCH higher budget than this film.) The Living And The Dead played Fantastic Fest a few years back and I thought it that it was great. Much like this film, though, it had an ending that could use a little explanation. I would have loved to have been at a screening during the festival to hear what he had to say about it.

Speaking of Q&As, this film had an interesting one, so I heard. A lady accused Simon and Tim of making a film that exploited molestation and rape and kind of made fun of it. I’m not sure what film she saw, but the one I saw made those things out to be the horrible acts that they are. Acts that changed a woman’s life and the lives of everyone that she encountered, and not for the better.

It’s a film that has to be seen to be believed, but it is NOT for everyone. There were some people at my screening who happened to be in the film because they were at The Broken Spoke the night it was being filmed. I don’t think that they quite knew what they were getting into. It was a pretty devisive film at the festival, too. It was either one of the best or the absolute worst film of the festival.

I would absolutely be interested in hearing other peoples’ thoughts on the film. Leave a comment if you saw it.

RIDE, RISE, ROAR

Directed by: David Hillman Curtis

David Byrne is kind of a genius. His work with the Talking Heads is among the best rock music ever made, especially after they started working with Brian Eno. Since leaving Tina, Chris and Jerry behind, David has never quite made as fulfilling of music, but it’s still been very interesting and, at times, extremely good.

His latest album, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, is his first collaboration with Brian Eno since 1981’s My Life With The Bush Of Ghosts, still one of his best solo albums. He knew that he needed a tour to live up to that legacy.

Ride, Rise, Roar is a film of those concerts. But David Hillman Curtis didn’t want to just show the concert and leave it up to the audience to figure out how it was all done like the classic Stop Making Sense. He wanted it to be a backstage document, too. He filmed the dress rehearsals as well as the shows and put together a documentary that is just as interesting as that older movie without sacrificing the music or the shows themselves.

David is, as far as I know, working with dancers for the first time in his career. Instead of just having nameless, faceless dancers, though, he wanted something interesting going on onstage with him. He wanted people who looked real. What he ended up with was a well-choreographed show that looks like it wasn’t choreographed at all to me. It was less about moving simultaneously and more about making the movement look like the music. They even brought the back-up singers into the dancing fold. (The choreography of I Zimbra was brilliant, with the singers often laying on the floor with the dancers holding their mic stands for them.)

Hillman Curtis did something amazing: He made a concert film that was different from one of the most well-known concert films ever, but made it almost as good. It’s very Talking Heads heavy, but producer Will Schluter said that they had more of the new stuff in there for a while, but it slowed the movie down. The new stuff is very good, but it’s slower and more introspective. In order to make the 90 minute film move, they had to take some of the new songs out and replace them with more upbeat and well-known songs.

It’s not a bad choice, really. It made the movie more accessible than it would have been otherwise. Check it out. I think that, even if you’re not a Byrne fan, you might find something to like in the film.

AMERICAN: THE BILL HICKS STORY

Directed by: Matt Harlock/Paul Thomas

Bill Hicks is a name that not a lot of people know. Hell, I’m from Austin and I only know him by reputation. I’ve seen bits and pieces of his acts, but I’ve never seen an entire show. When he died in 1994 at the age of 32, the world lost one of its shining lights in comedy.

He would hate that, most likely. He would rather be known as the guy who told people the best truth that he could, just in a really funny way.

Directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas got him. They got him in a way that, for some reason, most Americans didn’t. He worked a lot of podunk places in America, but in England he was selling out stadiums.

American: The Bill Hicks Story isn’t just a biodoc. It’s an examination of why he never truly made it in America. It shows just enough of his shows to tell us why so many Americans thought that he was just a nut that needed to be tightened.

But it’s also a loving tribute to a man who did his very best, not just on stage, but in his life. He got himself addicted to just about every drug that it’s possible to get addicted to, then he just stopped…and he got funnier.

Matt and Paul had unprecedented access to private pictures and videos that Bill’s family handed over to them. Over 100 hours of video were boiled down into a little over an hour and a half and the pictures were brought to life in a pretty amazing way. It never looked cheesy or wrong in any way. (There were a couple of times where it looked awkward, but that was because of the angle of the original picture.) It was almost an animated documentary.

Bill Hicks was an amazing talent who was cut short FAR before his time. American is a great intro to his work and a nearly perfect tribute to his life. As someone said either in the documentary or at the Q&A, Bill was a true American. He knew that the best thing that we can do for our country is to be a voice of dissent.

Be on the lookout for new releases from Bill in the next year or so. His brother said that they are getting a bunch of his early footage together for a compilation and they are going to be releasing some of his music soon. I can’t wait.

That’s it for SXSW2010. Honestly, I think it was a bit of a weak year. There were some great films, but the selection overall was just kind of underwhelming. I think I missed the two best movies (Kick Ass and MicMacs), but I had already seen them somewhere else. And The Runaways opened the day after I saw it.

Oh well. It was still fun and I can’t wait to do it all again next year.

See you in line.

WHEN YOU’RE STRANGE

Directed by: Tom DiCillo
Written by: Tom DiCillo

Tom DiCillo hasn’t really been around in a while. The last film he made was Delirious in 2006, but I don’t even remember it coming out. It’s interesting that he chose to (sort of) come back with a documentary about The Doors.

I really don’t have to tell you the story of The Doors. Just about everyone on the planet knows about Jim Morrison and his decent into his eventual alcoholic death in Paris. We all also know all about Oliver Stone’s Dionysian fantasy of a film starring Val Kilmer as Jim. It wasn’t history (not really), but it was good entertainment.

So, what can Tom possibly have to say about The Doors and Jim Morrison that hasn’t already been said?

Not a lot, really. But he did it with a pretty amazing style. First, he eventually made the decision to tell the entire story with films that were made between 1966 and 1971 when Jim died. There are no talking heads and no new footage. That really confused some people at Sundance who thought that the framing films with Jim driving through the desert included a stand-in for Jim. What it actually was was footage from a film that Jim was working on with a friend that would lead to the song Riders On The Storm. The footage is Jim: surreal and beautiful. The cleaned up print, actually, is amazing. It looks like it was filmed yesterday.

He also had the foresight to get Johnny Depp to narrate the film, telling the real history of The Doors from inception to Jim’s death. Johnny is just as good at narrating films as he is as an on-screen actor. There are times when Jim does something stupid and you know that Johnny thinks it was stupid, too. The narration is almost sardonic at times, although there’s definitely an affection for the subject.

With the cooperation of Robbie Krieger, the film really tries to show both sides of Jim: Friend Jim and Crazy Jim. It tells of how Jim was a writing mentor to Robbie and a really good friend to all of them and how sad it was to see him degenerate into a wacked out, often incoherent lunatic. (One thing that they don’t say that they did in the panel is that the lyrics for the last couple of albums were often pieced together from Jim’s poetry because they couldn’t get him to write new ones for the songs.

This, most likely, is the last word on the legacy of The Doors. No more reissues, no more movies or documentaries are necessary. This is The Doors basically in their own words. A book would probably be a better way to get the full story across, but, as far as visual/aural media, this is it. It’s the best doc that I’ve seen about them and, while I really like Stone’s film (and so does Krieger), it is full of a lot of “stupid stuff” (Krieger’s words) that is more 60s fantasy than truth. See this film and you’ll know most of the story the way it actually happened.

STRUMMERVILLE

Directed by:Don Letts

Joe Strummer was one of the more pivotal figures in rock history. He’s not as well known as Lennon or McCartney, but he probably did just as much to change where rock music was going as they did. The Clash, for a while, were absolutely “the only band that mattered.”

When Joe died in 2002, it looked as if the dream truly was over.

But a few friends and fans decided that it couldn’t be over. They put together enough money to start up a studio for underprivileged artists and kids who have the talent to get off the streets. If someone who happens to have something to do with Strummerville happens to hear them or hear about them, they could get pulled in to record. Hell, even if they don’t show any real talent, the crew will help them hone something that could help them out.

It’s an amazing service that is helping get kids off the streets and into the studio. Some great music is coming out of it, too, which is making at least a small dent in the British pop charts. Bands like Beans On Toast, Shatter The Hotel and The Riff Raff are gaining followings as I type. All of them were kids pulled off the street.

This movie really is the anti-Harry Brown. That film showed how violent the kids in London have gotten and really offers no hope to anyone except for people who fight back with violence. The kids, though, are screwed. They can’t be changed, only killed. It makes for a great vigilante film, but there’s not much hope there at all.

Strummerville shows us the real people behind that violence. These kids only know that violence, but many of them don’t want anything to do with it. They want out as much as they are wanted out of it. Strummerville is just one organization that wants to help them.

The movie itself is very much a PBS “inspirational” doc. It’s only about an hour long and seems very light and cheery with bright lighting and nothing very interesting visually. Anyone could have made it. Don Letts, though, is a great friend to The Clash and Strummerville. He made all of The Clash’s videos and, without them, he would be no one. He feels that he owes his entire career to them, and he’s probably right. He’s a very engaging fellow, too. He jumped down off the stage at the Paramount and had the Q&A among the audience. During the intro, I thought he was just a cocky dude who happened to make a movie. At the Q&A, I figured out that he’s just super-passionate about his work and the work that Strummerville is doing.

I can understand why, too. They’re doing a lot of good, a little bit at a time. It would be amazing if someone would do that over here. I’m sure that there are a lot of kids on the streets right now whose lives could be changed by something like Strummerville.

TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL

Directed by: Eli Craig
Written by: Eli Craig/Morgan Jurgenson

Now, back to the funny.

Tucker and Dale (Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine) are on their way to their vacation home out in the Appalachian Mountains. Unfortunately for them, a bunch of college kids are also on their way out there to camp, drink, smoke and have sex. When the two worlds collide, blood and body parts fly.

Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil shows the other side of the hillbilly horror genre. What if the hillbillies were just misunderstood and the kids kept accidentally killing themselves?

Apparently, hilarity ensues when that happens. The only kid with any real sense is Allison (Katrina Bowden). She hits her head while swimming and Dale rescues her, eventually falling in love with her. She finally understands that Tucker and Dale aren’t trying to kill her, but she just can’t quite get that point across to her friends.

Luckily, the other kids are all obnoxious people who, as characters, deserve to die, so seeing them impale themselves on sticks and throw themselves into wood chippers is hilarious.

As thin as the premise really is, the movie is pretty amazing. It does a great job of showing both sides of the story. Sure, we know that the hillbillies are good guys, but that doesn’t keep director Eli Craig from using creepy music and good storytelling to make us see them as creepy dudes when the kids see them.

It also really helps that Tudyk and Labine are awesome. Tudyk, especially, is hilarious as the smarter of the two who has a great line for everything that happens to them.

I fuckin’ loved this movie. It’s one of my favorites of the festival and, hopefully, it will find a really good audience when it’s released…eventually. I have no idea when it’s finally be released, but keep watching your favorite movie sites to find out.

AIN’T IN IT FOR MY HEALTH

Directed by: Jacob Hatley

The Band is one of the most important bands in rock history…all basically off of two albums: Music From Big Pink and The Band. After that, they started to fall apart, still putting out the occasional good music (their third album, Stage Fright, is actually really good), but never matching the majesty of those first two albums.

Although they were at their best as a collaborative unit, most of that can be attributed to Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson. As the only American in the band, Levon gave Robbie all of his ideas for those first two albums. Robbie, however, wrote the songs, so he got all of the royalties. Meanwhile, Levon has to have a fundraiser every year to pay his mortgage, taxes and medical bills.

He doesn’t live his life in bitterness, though. There’s certainly some of that there, but it only shows its ugly head when he’s talking about how the music industry ignored his good friends and former bandmates, Richard Manuel and Rick Danko until after they died. He is (finally) given a lifetime achievement Grammy, but what of Richard and Rick?

Director Jacob Hatley obviously has great affection for Levon and was given amazing access to the man’s life. Levon has been battling throat cancer for a few years now and Jacob followed him to some doctor’s appointments. We also see some of his performances in his house and home studio, including an amazing rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s Atlantic City.

So far, this is the best film I’ve seen at the festival. It may even be better than Scoresese’s Last Waltz, the concert film of The Band’s last concerts. While The Last Waltz was an amazing film, it was also self-indulgent and very self-congratulatory. Ain’t In It For My Health is just a portrait of a very important musician in the twilight of his life still doing some amazing things and doing his best to come to terms with a turbulent past. It’s a great, great film.

THE RUNAWAYS

Directed by: Floria Sigismondi
Written by: Floria Sigismondi
Based on book by: Cherie Currie

Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, Lita Ford, Sandy West and Jackie Fox. Only a couple of those names mean very much to most people, but real music fans know them as The Runaways. Although they only made a blip on the charts and were, basically, prefab, they were an extremely important step on the road to real women rockers. Before them there were some female role-models in rock, but no all girl bands at all that anyone cared about.

Then, all of a sudden, there was Cherry Bomb. These five little girls (and they were little, all around 16 at the time) recorded an ode to sex and teasing that exploded out of the speakers of an unsuspecting society. The girls and their manager/promoter/producer, Kim Fowley (played perfectly in the movie by Michael Shannon) kept it up for a little while with some pretty constant personnel changes, but the formula never changed until they broke up in 1979 with Joan going on to international fame with the Blackhearts. (The Runaways didn’t do much, chart-wise, in America, but the Japanese caught on big time.)

Now, there’s a movie.

Floria Sigismondi’s film is a VERY condensed version of what actually happened and is basically The Joan And Cherie Show. Joan (Kristen Stewart) is the rebel. She pretty much lives on the streets (we never see her family), huffs paint and really wants to play music. Cherie (Dakota Fanning) is the princess who is in love with glam rock. She rocks out a school talent show with Bowie’s Lady Grinning Soul. The school, of course, had no idea what to do with her. Neither did her mom (Tatum O’Neal). Joan meets Kim. Joan and Kim meet Cherie. History is made.

A lot is made of Joan’s bisexuality and Cherie’s eventual descent into pills and coke, but we never get a sense that it’s an actual band. Lita Ford made a name for herself, but she’s barely in the movie. (She’s played by Scout Taylor-Compton from the Halloween remakes.) A big part of this problem is the fact that the other three band members didn’t give full permission for their characters to be in the film, strangely enough. In fact, Jackie is now “Robin,” played by Alia Shawkat from Arrested Development.

Like Backbeat and Control before it, the movie tries its hardest to make a case that the other band members don’t really matter in the story. For Backbeat it worked. For Control, it may have been a better film if they had focused at least a little bit on the other guys, but it’s still a very good movie. For The Runaways…I don’t really know. I feel like we were really cheated out of another story this time. Sure, Joan and Cherie were very good friends and, possibly, the backbone of the band…but they went on without Cherie for a while. I would have liked to have seen more of Lita, since she’s more of a name than Cherie.

All of this isn’t to say that the movie is bad. It’s not. It’s pretty good. Not amazing, but definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of grrrl power. (They even say, “We put the ‘grrr’ in girl!” Hmmm…) The performances are all fine, with Shannon and Fanning being the standouts. Kristin Stewart is very good, but she’s almost playing the same role that she usually does, just without the lip biting and more kissing of girls. She’s still very broody and quiet. (She’s also painfully shy. During the Q&A, she was constantly trying to make herself as small as possible on that big stage.) She’s good at that, I really hope that she gets to break out at some point and show us that she can do something else.

Dakota, on the other hand, is playing completely against type. She’s no longer everybody’s vulnerable little girl with the big eyes. She still is to an extent, but she’s a drug-addicted, bisexual, rocker girl now, and the role fit her just fine.

The real powerhouse, though, is Michael Shannon. The guy’s amazing, as always. Kim Fowley is a bigger than life character and Michael embodies him with all of his heart and soul. He yells and screams at the girls, but you can see that, underneath it all, he loves them and wants them to be the best that they possibly can be. It’s hard to imagine anyone else taking that role on and doing it as well as he did.

As dark as it gets at times, it is a fun film with a lot of really good music. (The girls play their own music at some points and do a great job of redoing the old songs. Apparently, Joan mistook Kristin for herself when she heard the playback.) It’s a bit more episodic that it maybe should be, but Floria’s background as a music video director probably made that more apparent than it would have been otherwise. (In a circle of fate moment, she directed a couple of videos for David Bowie.)

If you have the slightest interest in mid to late 70s punk, check the movie out. It did its job and made me want to check out some of The Runaways and Joan Jett’s music.

MONSTERS

Directed by: Gareth Edwards
Written by: Gareth Edwards

A few years back, Gareth Edwards got the idea to make a monster movie. Then Cloverfield came out. He knew that he couldn’t do it then, because it would be seen as a copy. So, he waited a while. Then, just as he was ready to try it again, District 9 came out. Dammit! That’s when he decided, to hell with it. I’m gonna do it anyway.

Luckily, he did.

Andrew (Scoot McNairy) is an intrepid photo journalist investigating the “infected area” of Mexico where a bunch of extraterrestrial monsters have been wreaking havoc for the past six years. The US has built a wall all along the border to keep the monsters out, but a lot of people are wondering if that’s enough.

Samantha (Whitney Able) is the daughter of the guy who owns the paper Andrew works for. She’s in Mexico for…um…I’m not really sure why. But she’s there and she needs to get home to her fiancee. It’s up to Andrew to get her there.

When his attempts fail one by one, he decides that he has to go with her to make sure that she’s safe as she crosses the infected zone by land instead of the seemingly safer water route. Along the way, they may be starting to grow on each other.

At first, I wasn’t really interested in seeing this movie. I read the synopsis and saw that a guy named “Scoot” was in it and said, “pass.” Then I started hearing about how good it was, so I figured I’d give it a try. I’m glad I did. Gareth and his tiny crew improvised their way through the entire film, shooting about 400 hours of film. His editor, Colin Goudie, had a LOT of work to do. He worked alongside Gareth who was doing all of the CGI effects…by himself…on his laptop…teaching himself how to do it along the way.

All I have to say to that is, “WOW!” The effects were fucking amazing and there were a LOT of them. Even shots that didn’t seem to have any effects, had them. All of the signs and murals were CGI. A lot of the set dressing was CGI. And, of course, the monsters, which look like HP Lovecraft’s version of octopi.

There is, of course, a lot of political stuff going on here with the wall between Mexico and the US, but Gareth really cared more about the romance than he did the politics. In fact, he and Colin never really talked about politics at all during the making of the film, which is really surprising. But it did help to make the romance very believable. (Something that also helped is that the two leads were falling in love as the filming went on.)

The only problem I had with the film I didn’t even actually notice until a friend pointed it out: the British filmmakers obviously don’t know a lot about Mexico. There are no jungles or pyramids along the US-Mexico border and any sign made by a Mexican citizen would probably be in Spanish, not English.

Other than that, this was a great film. It’s a bit slower than your typical monster movie, but give it a shot. It’s definitely a thinking man’s monster movie.