SXSW2004–Dear Pillow/Saved!/Dead And Breakfast

We’re at Hump Day for the festival, so I decided to check out a movie about humping, one with a bunch of chicks I want to hump and, well, the third one has nothing to do with humping, so I’ll just leave it at that. DEAR PILLOW

Dear Pillow is an Austin flick that tackles some pretty heavy petting issues. It’s about a kid named Wes (Rusty Kelley) who finds out that a neighbor, Dusty (Gary Chason), is a writer for a sex mag called Dear Pillow. It’s full of Penthouse Forum type stories about fucking in cars while your dog looks on, threesomes with pool boys and pizza men and getting blown in theatres while watching the latest Disney flick. You know, wholesome stuff.

Wes is a virgin, but he desperately wants to get over that little affliction. His only three prospects are a girl he works with at the grocery store, his landlord Lorna (Viviane Vives), and Dusty, who is gay. While Dusty isn’t the first on Wes’ list, he’s probably his best chance.

The two strike up a friendship (no, not because Wes wants to fuck him) and Wes starts to learn a little more about sex than he maybe really wanted to know.

Bryan Poyser (who used to be my boss at the festival) has written and directed a pretty good first feature film. All of the characters are appealing in their own way and they all change over the course of the film in ways that are surprising and VERY interesting. They’re all fucked up, but they don’t necessarily know why or how.

The movie does drag a bit at times, but overall it’s a good movie that will hopefully get some sort of distribution. It’s shot on digital, so it’ll be a hard sell for a theatrical release, but it does look good. Maybe a video release.

The language is pretty rough, but if you don’t mind hearing a teenager talk about wanting to stick his dick in someone’s ass and then filling their mouth with cum, this might just be a movie for you. I’m sure there was some squirming going on in the audience, but it’s a mature movie for mature audiences. Fuck ‘em.

SAVED!

Who knew that Mandy Moore could be so funny?

Mandy plays Hilary Faye, an extremely devout Christian who feels that everyone should be as perfect as she is. And she’s willing to lie, cheat and deceive in order to make sure that those who aren’t perfect are punished.

Luckily we have Mary (Jena Malone) to identify with. She’s just as devout as Hilary Faye, but she fucks up. She finds out that her boyfriend, Dean (Chad Faust) is gay. She figures that the only way to “save” him is to have sex with him and see if it makes him “un-gay” himself.

Of course it doesn’t. All it does is make her pregnant. But, since she’s in such a Christian school, she is forced to hide her pregnancy from everyone. Especially her best friend, Hilary Faye.

Meanwhile, Hilary Faye’s brother, Roland (Holy shit, it’s Macaulay Culkin!), is finding out that he doesn’t like being pushed around by his younger sister. Too bad for him that he has to be pushed around because he’s in a wheel chair. Things may change when he starts getting influenced by the “bad Jewish” girl, Cassandra (Susan Surandon’s lovely and talented daughter Eva Amurri), who would love to get kicked out of the school.

Enter Patrick (Patrick Fugit). He’s the new kid in school and the pastor’s son. (He’s been on a missionary trip with his mother, so no one has met him before.) He’s the most open minded kid in the school. He seems to be kind of a bad boy (always skateboarding all over the place, doesn’t seem to have a lot of love for Jesus), but he’s really a good kid. Hilary Faye and Mary fall in love instantly. Guess who he goes for.

The plot is derivative, the characters are a bit cliched and the adults are idiots. (Martin Donovan plays the pastor and Mary-Louise Parker plays Mary’s mom…DAMN she looks good!) BUT, the movie is actually pretty damn funny. And it brings up a lot of good questions about Christianity today. That, of course, will get the far right’s fur in a ruffle.

The main message of this movie is Jesus’ tolerance of everyone. Not just straight, white people who make a certain amount of money. Everyone. Stop using the Bible as a weapon to discriminate against entire groups of people. Stop sending your kids off to a camp because they did something that is supposedly wrong just so that you can forget about them. And just stop being so damn closed-minded!

This is certainly not a great film, but it is a good one. And it’s very funny. Check it out if you’re looking for a good laugh and maybe want to think a bit about your faith and your tolerance of others.

Think Heathers with Jesus.

(As most of you know, I’m mostly agnostic, but my devoutly Catholic friend who saw it with me thought it was very funny. She also liked Dogma. So there.)

DEAD AND BREAKFAST

Stupid title, pretty fun movie.

A group of friends (ok, some of them aren’t really friends, but I digress) get together to go to a wedding. Unfortunately, they leave Johnny (Oz Perkins) in charge of getting them and their RV there in time. He lost the directions and now they’re in Lovelock, a little sparrow fart of a town that has a creepy old bed and breakfast and a country singer (Zach Selwyn) who likes to comment on the action.

Mr. Weiss (David Carradine–he’s in this because his niece, Ever, is in it) owns the B&B and he has his own ideas about being spiritual. When he and his cook (Diedrich Bader) end up dead, it’s up to the kids to keep a box safe that may contain an evil spirit. Of course, Johnny knock it over and soon the whole town is zombie-fied.

This movie is full of homages to past films and if not particularly original. Luckily, the acting is better than usual for the genre, the direction is pretty good, the gore is awesome and the dialogue is funny as hell.

And the music is great. In an effort to do something new, director/writer Matthew Leutwyler added Zach to the cast to write songs about the action. It’s very funny and, after Zach becomes a zombie, he’s suddenly doing country rap! He even sounds like Eminem at times.

I really liked this movie. Yeah, it’s not perfect, but it’s a lot of fun and definitely worth the effort to see it if you like Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson before he went to Middle Earth.

Watch for Portia de Rossi in a small role and Jeremy Sisto in a big role. And his head in a bigger role. Also watch for a deputy named Enus. Them Duke boys didn’t get rid of him so easily.

Which brings me to this question: Deidrich Bader has small roles in two movies at this festival. (This one and Napoleon Dynamite.) Why the hell is he not here? I would LOVE to meet that guy. He’s awesome and I want him in every movie I make.

Quick note: Zach, the guy who wrote and sings all of the music in the film is, right now, on the show Dream Job trying like hell to get a job on Sportscenter. Go, Zach. I guess. Personally, that job would be boring as hell to me, but I guess he’s into it. I would rather see him go into acting or music, but I’m not him. Or his parents.