Telluride Film Festival 2002 8/30-

Once again I was allowed to grace the white-bred, po-dunk, white-trash, one-horse, kick-ass mountain town of Telluride, Colorado for their film festival. This year, though, I didn’t get to dig any ditches (which is good), had the distinct honor of shaking the hand of Peter O’Toole (which was a chance of a lifetime…and much funnier if you’ve seen Lawrence Of Arabia), had brake problems in the mountains (which wasn’t nearly as dangerous as it sounds) and had a brush with Python greatness (I walked right by Terry Gilliam and didn’t say a damn thing. FUCK!). And through it all I got to see some films. Some great, some middling and some more shocking than great. In fact, this seemed to be the year of shock cinema at TFF. There were two films that were sexually shocking in one way or another and one that caused people to walk out because their political beliefs were a little different from the filmmaker’s. (Guess which resident of Flint, Michigan made that one.)

Let’s start with the only tribute I saw this year: Peter O’Toole.

Back in 1962, when Lawrence Of Arabia was released, the cinema going public had a blue-eyed, blond-haired rebel thrust upon them and the world has never been the same. Mr. O’Toole has since been in some hits (The Lion In Winter, The Ruling Class, The Stunt Man, My Favorite Year) and a lot of complete blunders (Caligula…Supergirl…Creator, anyone?), but he is always dignified and ends up being just about the only redeeming quality of those foul-ups.

The clips that they showed weren’t always of his best films (Lord Jim looks a lot like the studios trying to put him in another Lawrence Of Arabia), but they made me want to see a lot more of his films.

When the clip show was over Leonard Maltin interviewed him and he told a lot of stories about the old days of Hollywood. One was a very sad and touching story about Katherine Hepburn while they were filming The Lion In Winter. While in his dressing room he could hear her making some kind of vocal noises in her room. Wondering what the hell was going on in there he found a hole in the ceiling with some pipes running through it. He climbed up there, crawled over and peeked in on Kate. (Ok, keep your minds out of the gutter.) She was sitting in her chair with her hands out in front of her, head down and eyes closed singing the song that Spencer Tracy sang in Captains Courageous.

On the other side of that was John Huston on the set of his last film, The Dead. When asked how he was feeling at age 80 he replied, “Can’t drink. Can’t fuck. Better make a good movie.”

But the big events for the tribute were, of course, the films. They showed Lawrence Of Arabia (which I unfortunately missed, but imagine seeing it outside in the cold night with snow-capped mountains in the background), the new video-taping of a play that Peter directed called Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell (which I also unfortunately missed) and the one I did see, a British TV movie from 1976 called Rogue Male, which I will now get to.

ROGUE MALE (1976)

In his childhood, Peter O’Toole was obsessed with Hitler. (He still is, but at the time it almost seemed unhealthy.) He wasn’t a fan, but he wanted to know the entire history of this man who could cause so much death and destruction. He even drew out a plot to kill him, which is why when, years later, his wife brought him this book by Geoffrey Household he knew that he was destined to play the lead role.

It’s the story of Captain Robert Thorndyke (O’Toole), a man who has decided to break off from the British Army and try to kill Hitler. (The title, if you’re wondering, comes from an elephant who has broken off from the heard. He becomes very dangerous.) Unfortunately he is caught, beaten and nearly killed. But he escapes and, with some help from his uncle (Alastair Sim) he goes underground. Literally.

There are some flashbacks with Thorndyke’s wife (I think) who was killed by a Nazi firing squad. Why? We don’t really know. That whole bit is kind of left unexplained. (Of course, that could have been one of the times I nodded off.)

The story is great. I’d love to read the book sometime. The problem is that it is very obviously a British tv movie. It’s slow, boring and not very intriguing. But, seeing as how it has probably never been seen in the States except for possibly late night PBS and it was kind of a dream project for Mr. O’Toole, I was glad to have seen it.

There was also a good story about Alastair Sim, whose last role this was. He and Peter were very good friends and, when he heard that Peter was playing the lead role he asked his wife from his hospital bed who was playing his uncle. She told him that they hadn’t cast the part yet. “I’m the only one who can play his uncle.”

So he got out of his bed, went to the studio, filmed his two scenes, went back to the hospital and died a few days later.

I feel bad for not liking this movie because it’s one of Peter’s favorites of his works. I even heard that at the first tribute (I saw the second) he said that it was too intense for him to watch. That must be because it’s such a dear subject to his heart, because I didn’t really find it very intense at all. Just very slow with a very interesting story. But Peter did a great job in it. Maybe even one of his finest performances. Too bad it wasn’t for a better film.

Let’s move on to the shocks, shall we?

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE

Ok, this wasn’t necessarily shocking to me, but a lot of people walked out of the theatre because they didn’t agree with the politics. Yes, this is Michael Moore’s new film and he really goes for the jugular.

His question this time is, Why are Americans so violent? Why can other countries have more guns and yet we have more murders. (Canada has something like 2-3 guns for every citizen and yet they only have a few hundred murders a year. We have a few hundred THOUSAND.)

Is it movies? Music? Guns? TV news? Government?

He takes a moment in time that is, of course, very frightening for Americans, but Coloradans in particular: the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. This is why he chose the Telluride Film Festival as it’s American debut. (That coupled with the fact that it was the TFF that got his first film, Roger & Me, it’s start.) Why would these two kids take guns to school and just start shooting everyone? Some blamed Marilyn Manson, so Moore interviewed him. Turns out that the guy (who I personally think is a totally untalented asshole) happens to be a very smart asshole. He had a lot to say about why these kids probably did it and, guess what? It had nothing to do with his music and made a lot of sense. When asked what he would say to the kids, he said, “Nothing. I would just listen to what they had to say because that’s what no one else did.”

At least Marilyn had the good sense to cancel his concert in Littleton after the shootings. Another icon of pop culture, Charleton Heston, would have none of that. A few days after the shooting he and his NRA bandwagon showed up with guns in tow. The same thing happened after a little girl in Flint, Michigan (Moore’s hometown) was killed by her six year old classmate. Amazingly enough, Chuck granted Moore and interview. After Moore showed him his NRA card (yes, Michael Moore is a card-carrying member), ol’ Chuck warmed up to him a little bit. Then we get to see the real man behind the face. Turns out Moses is a racist asshole who has no cares for anyone but himself. Go figure.

After two hours (his longest yet, but it never seemed too long to me) of fights with corporations (Mike had his first victory in a film that I can remember) and interviews with Canadians (they have a very frightening view of America) and Matt Stone (I think he even contributes a very funny animated bit), Mike comes to a very frightening conclusion.

This is one of the best docs I’ve seen in years and it’s sure to piss people off. But, ya know what? Those people need to be pissed off. Hell, I agreed with just about everything he said and it pissed me off. Not at Michael or any of his views, but at the views of people like Charleton Heston and George W. Bush. And the fact that no one seems to want to do a damn thing about the violence in America. And the fact that it made me want to move to Canada! That’s what pissed me off.

With his usual humor and grace, Michael Moore has pulled off another triumph. He is one of my cinematic heroes. Everytime I see one of his films it makes me want to pick up a camera and shoot a documentary as inflammatory as his. And, with any luck, it would change at least one person’s mind about what his station in life is as Moore’s films do. And that, my friend, is what makes a great filmmaker.

Now, from something politically shocking to something a little more explicit.

AUTO FOCUS

Paul Schrader is a hero of 70s cinema. He wrote some of the greatest scripts of the decade (Taxi Driver, Obsession, Blue Collar, Hardcore) and even kept it up through the 80s to some degree (Raging Bull, Mosquito Coast, Last Temptation Of Christ). His directorial output has been pretty hit (Affliction, Light Sleeper) or miss (Cat People, Touch), but his films are always interesting.

Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear), on the other hand, never made a good film. Actually, he never really made good tv, either. He was the star of Hogan’s Heroes, the cheesy-ass 60s sitcom set in a Nazi POW camp. Yes, they actually did that. And, believe it or not, the show was a HUGE hit and Bob Crane became a star. So much so, in fact, that he could get any woman that he wanted in bed and actually get her to consent to being video taped. This was, of course, his downfall. You see, in the 60s and 70s this wasn’t seen as “good form,” especially if you’re a happily married man, which Bob was…twice. In fact, he wasn’t even supposed to be carousing at strip clubs playing the drums (he was apparently very good) because if the press caught wind of it his career would be over. With the help of his technical buddy, John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe–by the way, this isn’t supposed to be the sometimes cool as hell horror director), Bob was able to get ahold of all kinds of new gadgets and gears to make his films even better than he ever imagined.

Strangely, in a film about sex and degradation, the most interesting and fun thing is watching video technology progress throughout the years of Bob’s life.

Kinnear and Dafoe actually do a great job in their roles and make the degeneration of their characters very fascinating. They go from almost reluctant friends (at least in Bob’s case) to nearly a couple (they even jerk off together to Bob’s films…creepy). Their lives are very sad and that’s what makes the film interesting. It would seem like being able to get pussy any time you want and even video tape it would be a dream come true for any heterosexual guy, but for this guy it was an addiction. He couldn’t have sex with his wife anymore because he was having so much of it outside the home.

But the film is edited so strangely (it fades out sometimes just as the scene is getting interesting…and I don’t mean in THAT way, I mean the conversation is getting interesting) that we’re too distracted to get into any of the characters. They almost don’t seem real. And we never get a hold of the “why”s. Bob Crane just seems to be this guy who likes sex a lot and it eventually ruins him and his family.

Not to mention the fact that, in today’s world it’s just not very shocking to see a celebrity tape himself while having sex with different women. Hell, we all saw Rob Lowe’s video on Entertainment Tonight and he’s still a star. And he was having sex with an underage girl! Who cares if this guy had sex with thousands of women and taped them all? It’s just not news anymore.

I guess I just expected more from Paul Schrader. I certainly expected something a little more shocking. (Although it was strange to see Greg Kinnear getting blown in a mirror–cool shot, actually. The break in the mirror hid all of the naughty bits.) Maybe it’s because he didn’t write it. Yeah. That has to be the reason.

Now let’s move on to something ruder.

KEN PARK

Holy fucking shit in a handbasket full of dead puppies.

Every movie that Larry Clark has done has gotten a little more explicit. Kids was an expose about what kids are “really” like. (At least the kids that he knew growing up in a skate punk community.) There was only one crotch shot that I remember (Chloe Sevigny who, of course, has gone on to do bigger and better things) and a lot of butt shots. But there were plenty of kids having sex. The reason for the modesty is probably because most of the kids were underage. (I’m guessing, anyway. I’m not sure.)

Then came Another Day In Paradise. A little more of a mainstream flick than we thought would come next for him, but still had kids having sex. And there was a lot of nudity from Natasha Gregson Wagner, not that there’s a damn thing wrong with that. There was also some near nudity from Vincent Kartheiser. Oh, and the movie opens with him jerking off while thinking of Natasha.

Bully had LOTS of naked crotch shots of Rachel Miner. (In fact one of them looks like the camera IS her crotch and is looking up at her.) Once again, nothing wrong with that, but it’s a bit exploitive. And there’s a lot of shots of Brad Renfro and Nick Stahl’s ass and pubes. Didn’t want to see it, but whatever turns you on, Larry.

I haven’t seen Teenage Caveman, so I’ll leave that one blank. But I hear there’s a lot of sex in it, too.

What’s the common thread here? Naked and sexual kids. Is this really something that interests a lot of people? It obviously interests Larry a great deal. And this makes his movies interest people who want to see just how far he’ll go.

Well, with Ken Park we see exactly how far he’ll go.

The movie opens with Ken Park killing himself at a skate park. Why? We don’t know. We just know that it affected the narrator even though he wasn’t really one of the gang. He was just a kid. And that’s what hit him so hard.

Then we see some short bits that will set up the story of each of the four kids we follow for the rest of the movie. Shawn (James Bullard) is visiting his girlfriend’s house strangely when his girlfriend isn’t there. Her mom (Maeve Quinlan) tells him to come on up to the bedroom where she’s doing laundry. The talk for a bit and then he asks her, “Can I eat you out?”

The next scene pretty much shows us exactly where this flick is going. The camera sits on her chest looking down at Shawn licking her between her legs.

that’s when we know that this movie is going to be porn. With kids.

Yes, Larry Clark has finally made a kiddy porn. Sure, all the actors are over 18, but they’re playing 15 year olds.

From Shawn we meet Tate (James Ransone), who is living with his grandparents (Patricia Place from Outbreak and Harrison Young who played Old James Ryan in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN!!!! What a come down!). Problem is that Tate is a very violent young man who can’t control himself from doing anything and he seems to hate his grandparents with a passion.

Claude’s parents (Amanda Plummer and Richard Riehle) at first seem like an ok family, if a bit white trash. But after Claude (Stephen Jasso) refuses to lift weights his dad accuses him of being gay. Things just get worse from there.

Peaches (Tiffany Limos who has had small roles in both Bully and Teenage Caveman) seems to actually have a normal life, too. Her mom died a few years ago and her dad hasn’t gotten over it and is a bit on the overly religious side, but otherwise he’s a very nice and gentle man. When Peaches brings her boyfriend over he shows him all kinds of pictures of the family and seems like the nicest man in the world.

Needless to say, each of these kids end up in some sort of predicament that involves violence and sex. Hardcore sex.

We see blowjobs, handjobs, masturbation and a threesome in extremely graphic scenes.

I have no problem with pushing the envelope and I’m not really shocked by much. In fact, I like to be shocked by movies. That’s part of what makes them fun. As soon as art is not longer shocking then it ceases being art and becomes corporate shit. But this is just shock for shock’s sake. This is Larry Clark, co-director Edward Lachman (DP on The Limey, Erin Brokovich and The Virgin Suicides) and writer Harmony Korine (Kids, Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy) saying, “Let’s see how many times we can show a full screen shot of an erect penis with a girl licking it!”

The answer to that is more than you would think.

Because of Lachman, it’s a very well shot porn, but it’s still porn even if it’s not very erotic. (There isn’t really an attractive person in the whole film except for Peaches, Shawn’s girlfriend and her mom.)

The story is pretty interesting, though and could have benefited from some restraint. Up until now we’ve only seen the kids in Larry’s world. Now we get to see that the parents are just as fucked up as their kids and, in fact, cause a lot of the kids’ problems. In fact, there isn’t one un-fucked up character in the whole movie.

But, since there’s just so much hardcore sex going on with these kids, I felt the urge to use steel wool on my skin while chanting over and over, “Must get clean. Must get clean!”

Someone said that it did its job: it got people talking. Unfortunately, it got them talking about the wrong thing. We were talking about what we saw on the screen, not what we saw in the story.

By the way, if you’re wondering who the hell this Ken Park guy is and why the movie is named after him, there is an epilogue with him and his girlfriend and he, in fact, gets the best part of the whole movie. It really sums the whole thing up.

How about a story about some real art?

FRIDA

I don’t know dick about art. Sure, I can recognize a Dali from 50 paces (for the most part), but I don’t really understand him. (And really I guess that’s the point of Dali: to not understand him.) I can understand Van Gogh a little bit more and I like his stuff, too. Pollack I’ll never understand. (Maybe I should see THAT movie.)

Basically, I know what I like and what I don’t like and that’s about it.

Before about a year or two ago I had never heard of Frida Kahlo. Then suddenly there were two movies trying to get made about her. One with Salma Hayek in the role and I can’t remember who was supposed to be in the other one. Obviously it’s the one with Salma that got finished.

Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist whose entire life was pain. When she was very young she was in a bus accident that left her back broken. Every few years or so the doctors would come in and re-break her back trying to get it to heal up right.

On the more personal side she fell in love with older fellow artist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina from Maverick and The Impostors). The two got married with the understanding that Diego couldn’t (and wouldn’t) keep his dick in his pants. He was also a political activist who leaned towards the Communist side going so far as to have Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush) and his wife stay in his house. He even painted a mural for Nelson Rockefeller (Edward Norton) with a picture of Lenin in it. Big mistake.

Frida and Diego go through their ups and downs, the world changes and, oh…they paint some, too.

That’s pretty much how I felt about the film. There was a lot of politics, but not a whole lot about the art. (Others saw it the opposite way, but there was A LOT of political analysis throughout the film.) She goes from painting fairly realistic self-portraits (actually, they look a little like the comic strip Eyebeam if I remember it right) to surrealism seemingly overnight…and it happens long after her accident, so that doesn’t really seem to be the reason. Why does she switch like that? We don’t really know because it’s not talked about at all. We never get to hear what the world is thinking of her art. It’s just kind of there.

But the art is shown VERY well. Director Julie Taymor (Titus) knows how to make art come to life. There are scenes where Salma is depicting the artist in her self-portraits and it’s very difficult to tell where reality begins and the painting ends. These are some amazing shots.

And Salma turns in a passionate performance that could have gone off the deep end into histrionics. She keeps Frida subdued and full of life. Alfred Molina was the perfect foil. He was in pain, too, if only because he loved Frida so much and he could see that he was causing her more pain than her back ever could. (It doesn’t hurt that she gets naked quite a bit and even has a lesbian scene or two. Too bad about that unibrow, though.)

This was a decent film, but I think I liked it less than a lot of people at the festival did. Apparently it was the big “must-see” in Telluride. I think people should see it, but don’t expect an Oscar caliber film. It’s good for a little information on a great artist. I just didn’t get too emotionally involved, which is part of the point of a biopic like this. We’re supposed to care very deeply for the subject and maybe get interested enough to go look for more about her. On the second level it succeeded. I want to know more about her art.

How about another Spanish artist?

TALK TO HER

I’ve never been a big fan of Pedro Almodovar. I’ve seen a couple of his films (Women On The Verge and What Have I Done To Deserve This?) and they just didn’t do much for me. Maybe I just don’t get the humor, but I didn’t find them very funny. But I’ve heard that he’s been on a real upswing lately (I still haven’t seen All About My Mother) and figured I’d give this one a try.

I’m glad I did.

Talk To Her is the story of two men who are in love with comatose women. Marco (Dario Grandinetti) has just gotten into a relationship with a female bullfighter named Lydia (Rosario Flores). Unfortunately she gets gored by a bull and is put into a coma just when he is about to ask her to marry him. Benigno (Javier Camara), however, doesn’t really know Alicia (Leonor Watling). He fell in love with her through his window. They did meet, but soon after she was hit by a car and thrown into the coma. He soon became a nurse and got a job at the hospital that she was in just so he could take care of her. Creepy? Well, a little. But his intentions are good.

Marco and Benigno form a bond that can only be found between two men in the same desperate situation. They become fast friends and decide that their women should be friends, too.

This is probably the best legitimate film about necrophilia since Vertigo. It’s not quite as bizarre as some of Almodovar’s other work, but it still has some of those elements. There’s a great scene from a silent film that he shot involving a very small man and a vagina. I think you can see where that’s going.

I actually really liked this film a lot and it made me think that maybe I should check out some of Pedro’s newer stuff. If it’s all this dark, weird and touching then maybe I could turn into a fan.

Now let’s go to a stranger land.

THE CUCKOO (KUKUSHKA)

Near the end of World War II the Nazis recruited a log of Finnish soldiers who really had nothing to do with them. In fact, they were pretty much completely against the ideas that the Nazis were fighting for, but they would probably be killed if they didn’t fight, so…

Ville (Ville Haapasalo) is one of those Finnish soldiers. He’s being left behind by his unit. He’s tied to a rock and left with only a little bit of food and water. For the first half hour we watch him try to get the hell out of the trap.

We also see Kartuzov (Viktor Bychkov) and his company. He’s a Russian soldier who has been caught by the Nazis and is about to be killed. Fortunately for him a plane comes overhead and kills his captors, but they almost kill him, too. Ville is nearby and sees the whole thing happen.

Enter Anny (Anni-Christina Juuso who is even more beautiful in person than she is on film), a Lapp woman whose husband died a few years before. She carries Kartuzov to safety and nurses him back to health. Soon enough (but not soon enough for most of the audience) Ville finds them.

Now, this first half hour or so is really, really, really, really slow. I didn’t think I was going to make it through the whole movie if it kept up the pace of this first part. Luckily it got better. A lot better.

You see, there’s a twist here. None of the three main characters speak the same language. Since Ville is wearing a Nazi uniform, Kartuzov thinks he is a Nazi. Ville spends a lot of time trying to explain to him that he isn’t and that the war is pretty much over, especially for him. He doesn’t want to shoot anyone anymore. The problem is that he still has his gun with him, mainly because Kartuzov is being very violent towards him.

Anny doesn’t really seem to care either way. She just wants sex. Lots of it. When Ville stands too close to her she says things like, “Don’t stand so close or I will get all wet and want to scream.” Then she looks at him with come on eyes and walks away.

This is really some funny stuff when it’s done in such a dead-pan way and you know that the guy can’t understand a damn word of it.

There is another very slow part that I wish they would have edited a bit near the end, but overall I really liked this movie. It is a great comedy that makes a statement about war that, while being fairly obvious (it’s bad, apparently), it’s told in an original way, so we can forgive it. Besides, I’m up for any anti-war movie. When the trio are talking about war they can’t seem to communicate at all, but when the subject is love and lust they communicate perfectly. I guess war is a thoughtless act that no one can understand. It’s a message that is perfectly stated in a film that no one can see without subtitles.

The acting is awesome, especially Anni-Christina. She plays off her horniness really well. I would be hard pressed to find someone else who could be so coy and yet so innocent.

And her house! Oh my God! It was cool as hell! This chick is like the underworld of, um, wherever the hell they’re supposed to be (where are the Lapps from? I don’t ever remember hearing about them, but I know they exist.) and her house is made from mud and sticks, but it’s such a cool looking house that I almost wanted to live in it. It’s composed of about three or four different small structures that all serve different functions. One of them is a house on a stick! How awesome is that?!

Seek this flick out. Hopefully it will at least get a limited release over here. I don’t know anything about the director (Aleksandr Rogozhkin), but I want to see some of his other flicks now. A lot of people were saying that this was better than last year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar winner (No Man’s Land) which also played at Telluride.

Another subtitled treasure? Ok.

THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST

Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki has a small, but loyal fan base here in America. With movies like The Matchstick Girl and Leningrad Cowboys Go American his deadpan style has charmed and bewildered audiences for a little over 20 years.

This is actually the first one I’ve seen, so I don’t really have anything to compare it to, but if they’re all like this I can sort of see what the attraction is. Then again, this is supposedly his most accessible to date. That almost makes me worry about the other flicks.

M (Markku Peltola) is quietly sitting on a park bench when his is violently attacked and, for all intents and purposes, beaten to death by a gang of thieves.

After being in the hospital for a few days and, in fact, dying, he gets up and walks out of the hospital and into the street where he is taken in by a couple who live in a trash bin. Strangely, there is a whole community who live in these abandoned trash bins.

When M gets better he manages to rent one from the rent-a-cop who patrols the bins to keep people out of them. He also manages to meet some folks from the local Salvation Army type entity and fall in love with Irma (Kati Outinen, a Kaurismaki stalwart). All the while he has no clue as to who he was before the attack.

The really cool thing about that plot device is that we don’t know anything about him, either. In a lot of loss of memory movies (like Regarding Henry or The Bourne Identity) the audience knows everything about someone minus one key fact. Here we know nothing. He could have been a serial rapist and we would have felt sorry for him for the whole damn movie. In fact, we kind of hope that he doesn’t get his memory back because he seems to have gained a whole life outside of his old one.

This is a comedy of no hope. Kaurismaki feels that there is no hope in the world, so why make things hopeful in the movies? But there is hope in the movie. It may have a lot of depression and recession going on in it (no one is very well off and they have to scrape to survive…hell, they’re all living in trash cans!), but they all have the will and hope to keep going.

Kati won best actress at the Cannes Film Festival this year, but I’m not exactly sure why. Everyone did a good job, but there wasn’t a whole lot of acting to be done. Kaurismaki’s style is kind of anti-acting. It’s the epitome of dead-pan. (I’m using that word WAY too much.) “Line. Line. Line. Line.” Shake hands. Leave screen. That’s it. But it makes some of the weird metaphors even funnier. (“You will be lonely like the wolf in the night howling at the moon.” Or something like that.) The movie is very funny, but also kind of slow. That makes it what the Coen Brothers would call a way home-er. Check it out if it comes to your town.

Ok, last foreign film.

SPIRITED AWAY

A few years back there was a little flick about a boat that sank back in the early part of the 20th century. It was a huge hit all over the world. Maybe you heard of it?

Well, Spirited Away has nothing to do with that little independent film except for this: it broke all of Titanic’s records in Japan.

But that’s not too surprising when you figure that the director (Hayao Miyazaki) has directed some of Japan’s biggest hits. What is surprising is that they have all been animated. My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke (the only one I’ve seen so far). They have all been big all over the world.

This one is no Mononoke, but it’s still pretty damn good. It centers around a little girl, Sen (Daveigh Chase in our version–she also did the voice of Lilo in Lilo & Stitch and played Donnie Darko‘s little sister), whose family is moving to a new place. When her father decides to take a short cut they run into a tunnel that their car can’t get through. They decide to go in (despite Sen’s protests) and find an abandoned town that for some reason has a lot of food. And they are so hungry. So very hungry.

Sen decides to go exploring for a little while and finds the residents. They seem to all be ghosts! She runs back only to find that her parents have turned into pigs. Now she has to find a way to save them within the confines of this strange world that really doesn’t seem to have any rules. She has the help of Haku (Jason Marsden–Max from the Goofy movies) who is a young boy who has been trapped in this world so long that he doesn’t remember what his real name is. That is how the witch who runs the bath house that Sen ends up working at traps you. She takes your name away. When you forget it completely you’re trapped forever.

The movie is basically a cross between The Wizard Of Oz, Alice In Wonderland and The Neverending Story (there’s even a Luck Dragon!). In fact, it may be a bit too much like The Neverending Story in that it, of course, never seems to end. It’s a little over two hours long and could be cut a bit. But I actually really liked it a lot. It’s Disney on acid and has some of the strangest beasties I’ve ever seen on screen. And I’ve seen some strange one before. Miyazaki does things with animation that Disney could only dream of doing. And they need to take a lesson from him in the “cute animal sidekick department.” Sen’s sidekicks are actually cute and not annoying.

There is, of course, a moral to the story which is true love conquers all and don’t be greedy. Pretty obvious stuff, but it works. Although I think Sen and Haku are a little young to be accused of “true love,” but just go with it.

All of the voice actors this time out were pretty good. There were no Billy Bob Thorntons to offend my anime sensibilities, so that’s ALWAYS a good thing. Suzanne Pleshette (the witch), John Ratzenberger (the manager of the bath house) and Lauren Holly (Sen’s mom) were the only names that I really recognized, though, so maybe they’ve learned their lesson on getting really big names. Stick to the smaller names that have done this kind of thing before and you’ll get much better performances.

Overlong and a little confusing, but totally charming. This is definitely a must see for kids and adults. (Although it does get a little bit violent at times. Not nearly as much as Mononoke, though.)

Let’s go to some documentaries now.

ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE

Back in the 60s the sweet soul singers of Motown, Atlantic and Stax were making some of the most enigmatic and stirring music ever put on record. Some of them were even outselling The Beatles and The Stones.

But something happened in the 70s and soul music gave way to disco, punk and new wave. The real soulsters were lost in the flood.

Also in the 60s, a filmmaker named DA Pennebaker was experimenting with documentary film. He made one of the greatest music docs ever called Don’t Look Back. It followed Bob Dylan on his first electric tour and didn’t necessarily show him in the best light. At the time he was believing his own hype. But Pennebaker caught it all in a way that no one had seen in America. There weren’t very many interviews in the film, just a whole lot of Bob. It was real fly on the wall filmmaking at its best.

Fast forward a few decades for everyone involved. Some of the soul singers have died and some have kept going. Even a few are still having sell-out concerts. But for the ones that have survived, this is a great time. They’ve made it through the roughest years and now it’s time for them to show us that they can still bust out with some of the best singing we’ve ever heard.

This film is supposed to help us catch up with a few of them. Wilson Pickett, Mary Wilson (original member of The Supremes), Isaac Hayes, Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave–he was at the screening I saw, too!), Rufus Thomas, The Chi-Lites…they all still have their careers and, thankfully, their lives going on. They had some hard times, but they’ve made it through.

As far as information the doc comes up a bit short, though. I still don’t really know what happened to Wilson Pickett during the 70s and 80s. And wasn’t that what the movie was supposed to be about? And while we did get a few scenes of Pennebaker’s fly on the wall filmmaking, it was mostly interviews. Not nearly as electric as his stuff has been in the past.

But once the performances start, you kind of forget about that. These guys and gals can still knock it out with passion and grace. Wilson is still a wild man on stage. Sam is still a Soul Man. And Rufus is Walking His Dog better than ever. (Although the film is dedicated to him…not sure if he’s died since production or if it’s just because he was the DJ who started the whole revolution.)

I believe that this film is an IFC production, so it will probably show up on there pretty soon. If it does and you’re into the sweet sounds of Philly and Harlem, check it out. Even if you aren’t maybe you should just to see what all the hype was (and is) about. These guys are amazing even if the film isn’t as enlightening as I had hoped it would be.

Now from a lot of near tragedies to a real tragedy.

LOST IN LA MANCHA

The saddest thing in the world to me (besides death and destruction, of course) is art left unfinished. I read the last book published under Douglas Adams‘ name, The Salmon Of Doubt. It contains the Dirk Gently book that he was writing at the time of his death (which he was actually thinking about turning into another Hitchhiker’s book) and when I finished the unfinished novel I couldn’t help but think of all of the opportunities that were missed with his passing.

Terry Gilliam of course isn’t dead, but his dream project may be. For the past 10 years he has been trying to bring Don Quixote to the screen. He knew that the project had a little bit of a curse on it (Orson Welles spent the last few decades of his life trying to bring it to the screen filming a bit during his free time even after his lead actor died), but he soldiered on.

Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, who directed the documentary on the 12 Monkeys DVD (The Hamster Factor And Other Tales Of 12 Monkeys) were asked back to film the pre-production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, starring Jean Rochefort as the delusional Spaniard and Johnny Depp as an accountant from modern times who has been transported back to become Sancho Panza.

The production is plagued from the start. Money can only be found in Europe because American studios are scared of Gilliam. Even though he’s had a lot of hits (12 Monkeys, Brazil, The Fisher King) he is still plagued by his one belly-flop, The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen. Personally, I love that film, but it went so far over budget and over schedule and made so little money that studios don’t want to touch him anymore. And it probably doesn’t help that Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas didn’t do so well with critics or fans.

So he has to shoot in Spain (which is probably best for the story, anyway) and get all of his money from Europe. The problem is that he has a lot of investors. And they’re all interested in what the hell is going on with this mad genius.

After the nightmare that was pre-production, production was even worse. Their first day of filming was hit with un-rehearsed extras and, even worse, the dry and barren desert area that they were filming in got hit with a flood. It was funny, but extremely sad to see their equipment start to float away. And, as if things couldn’t get any worse, Jean Rochefort had to go back to France to be treated for a prostate problem and couldn’t come back for weeks.

A few people thought that it didn’t get interesting until the production scenes, but I thought the whole thing was great. I really shows you everything that can go wrong on a big-budget (or a small budget, for that matter) film.

Hopefully Terry will be able to get the script away from the insurance company and start production on this film again. For now, though, he is working on the Terry Pratchett story Good Omens.

Now for a little piece of cinematic history.

THIS IS (ALMOST) CINERAMA

In the 50s theatre managers were desperate. There was a little box that was invading peoples’ homes and forcing them to stay home every night to see what Milton Berle would do next. How do we get people back in the theatre?

Gimmicks, of course!!

That’s where 3-D came from. And that’s where this little innovation came from. Strangely, we never really talked about it in my film history class, so I don’t ever remember hearing about it. But it was actually very influential.

Cinerama is basically a screen three times as long as a normal screen at the time. It was a little taller, too. The screen curved around the audience partly to make sure that they became a part of the action, but mostly so that the images from the three projectors wouldn’t be too distorted.

That’s right, three projectors. They each projected a different 1.33:1 image that, when put together, formed one very large image. The movies were filmed by a special set of three cameras set in a box so that nothing would be missed.

This was the first widescreen filmmaking all the way back in 1952.

Of course we film geeks know that Abel Gance did the same thing in 1927 with Napoleon. (Telluride showed back back in 1979 with Abel in attendance. It was the first film (I believe) to be shown at the outdoor theatre, which is now named after Gance. He is reported to have watched it from a window across the street with tears in his eyes.)

The first film filmed and shown in Cinerama was of a roller coaster ride. The audience was said to have reacted about the same as audiences of the very first projected film. They screamed, got sick and ran. That reaction helped make This Is Cinerama one of the biggest hits of 1952!

We didn’t react quite that way, but it was really cool. They showed a 90 minute documentary about the invention and process of Cinerama (I only saw the last 20 minutes or so of it) and then showed us a 45 minute section of actual (or nearly–the screen isn’t quite as big as the old ones) Cinerama. There was the roller coaster, a white water rapid adventure (complete with guys waiting in the wings of the theatre with super soakers), a trip across America (which took about as long as an actual trip across America–WAY too long). The only real problem I had with any of that was the fact that they showed a strip mine and treated it like it was one of the wonders of the world. Blech!

And then the best part, a trailer of the only real film to be shot in Cinerama: How The West Was Won.

Yeah, I didn’t know that, either. I’ve never seen the film (although I rented it once), but I’ve also never heard anyone complain about the two “ugly lines,” as someone calls them on IMDb, in the image. Apparently, the three directors (John Ford, Henry Hathaway and George Marshall) were pretty pissed off that they couldn’t have their boom operators and lighting in the same place that they were used to. And Ford kept getting in the shot because he always sat next to the camera.

Eventually, the 2.65:1 aspect ratio of Cinerama was given up, but the screens were still used to promote non-Cinerama films as Cinerama (It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, 2001: A Space Odyssey!). There are only three sets of projectors left in the world (one in London, one in Dayton, Ohio and this one, which will be permanently set up in Hollywood) and they aren’t used very much anymore. But I was told that they just found a pristine copy of How The West Was Won and are going to show it in Hollywood when the set we used gets there. I wish I could be there to see it.

So there endeth my adventures in Telluride. This year’s festival was dedicated to the memory of Chuck Jones. They showed his films before every movie at the outdoor theatre and at the Chuck Jones Cinema. I was walking by the outdoor when I heard those familiar strains of the opening music and had to go back to watch it even if I was late to work at my theatre. It was the one with the big bull dog who befriends the little kitten and does everything to keep him. I gotta tell you, being in a place that Chuck loved with people who love Chuck and his films was more moving that I thought it would be. I actually got a little misty while I was watching it with that big crowd.

So I’ll leave you with one of his final quotes. He was lying in bed and refusing water and food from his nurses and family. Finally, the nurse brought him a glass of water and, after being refused again, said, “Mr. Jones, what could be better than a tall glass of cold, clear water?”

He just looked at her and said one word:

“Sex.”