AFF04–Open House/Mojave

Those are the words I expected to hear at my first screening at the AFF in about 6 or 7 years. Instead I got a small old lady murmuring something along the lines of, “Ok, so we’re going to be screening Open House…and then after that we’ll see a short called…”Danny Bot” and then we’ll have a question and answer session with the directors and then if, as you leave, you’ll…um…pick up a ballot and vote for the films…Thank you.”

Yeah, thanks, Grams. That was one of the least exciting intros I have ever been privy to. And then, when the movies were over (which, the short came first, of course) she couldn’t find the directors! She had no idea where they were! They were in the audience watching their movies in random spots with no clue to the poor lady where they were sitting.

The AFF may be a great Screenwriter’s conference, but their screenings still leave a lot to be desired.

Well, at least the films didn’t break. But I’ve got six more days. It still could happen.

The first film that I saw at the AFF this year was actually the short, “Danny Bot.” It’s a pretty damn funny music video for a parody of the old chestnut, “Danny Boy.” This time, though, it’s about a robot nanny who is off to the Robot Wars and is leaving his ward back home. It’s sad, touching and….oh what the hell. Go see it for yourself: www.dannybot.com. It’s only three minutes out of your life.

OPEN HOUSE

Open House, on the other hand, may seem like three hours out of your life. And yet…well…we’ll get to that.

Open House is the story of people trying to buy as house. Or are they? They may actually just be out to have sex in the house and steal some little bauble. Or they may be on the run from the cops. Or they may BE the cops after the guy. Whatever the reason that they’re there, the house is fantabulous!

(What’s really weird is that Spell Check didn’t scream at me for that word. Discuss.)

As soon as the first kids (James Duval looking shockingly normal for the first time ever and Kellie Martin looking better and better) get to the house to look at it we know that this movie is going to be different. When the realtor, Barry (Anthony Rapp from A Beautiful Mind and Road Trip), starts singing, we know we’re in for…something. But we’re not really sure what.

You see, it’s hard to tell if this movie is horribly inept or terribly brilliant. The songs are so bad that they could only be written to be this bad. The songwriters like to take two words that vaguely rhyme and squeeze them into lines that vaguely make sense. Fucking brilliant! Or is it?

That’s just it. This is a hard movie to review because I just don’t know!

The cast is full of people you’ll recognize, but never remember from where. Sally Kellerman is the standout as a drunk, horny realtor down the street from the house Barry is showing. And, according to the director, she wasn’t acting. The rest of the cast was at least adequate…even James Duval, which is surprising. He’s still a second rate Keanu, though. And that’s bad.

Can anyone actually sing? Um. No. Not at all, actually. They’re all pretty terrible. (And Sally has a band that she tours with!) But I found a reason to forgive them. All of the songs were sung on set and not re-recorded to be dubbed in later. That’s pretty hard to do when you’re dancing around with no music. The filmmakers wanted to one-up Lars von Trier when he did Dancer In The Dark. He wanted to do it this way, but “chickened out” at the last minute. But I still don’t think anyone could carry a tune in a really big bucket.

The movie drags a bit towards the end (how many last songs do we need?!—and what happens to the kid?) and it’s certainly not a very good movie. But it could be a cult item if it gets the right kind of distribution. Actually, this could be huge in the cult market. It bad enough and funny enough (in a good way) to be to real estate what Rocky Horror was to transvestitism.

Well, maybe I wouldn’t go that far.

MOJAVE

Mojave is something completely different. There’s just no happiness in this one.

The funny thing is, it started off as a Stand By Me-type coming of age story (they even crib a line from that movie) about four young guys who drive out into the Mojave looking for a rave. They take a little mescaline under the pretense that it would help them find answers.

Then, when the rave is gone and they’re left with a girl that one of the guys picked up, it turns into Straw Dogs.

The five kids get rained down upon by desert punks (led by Dash Mihok) and have to defend themselves. The girl, Amber (Jennifer Cortese), gets raped by one of the punks and all hell breaks loose.

The cast is amazingly good considering who they are. Rider Strong (“Boy Meets World,” Cabin Fever), Eric Christian Olsen (Dumb And Dumberer), Bumper Robinson (“Sabrina, The Teenage Witch,” “A Different World”) and Wayne Young (um, well, nothing, actually) all do a great job in what could have been a terrible movie if the leads hadn’t been at least passable. Eric is the actual lead and he’s pretty damn good.

Even though the story goes through that weird-ass change, it keeps its momentum, turns intense and never lets up until the last frame. And, like a Joss Whedon script, you never know who’s safe. All bets are off and no one is guaranteed safe return. That’s a very good thing.

The movie does try to be very deep and doesn’t always achieve it, but that may just be because I’ve seen Straw Dogs and Assault On Precinct 13, so I’ve already seen the best. It’s hard to go anywhere else with the story. But directors/writers David Kebo and Rudi Liden did a great job of keeping an old story interesting. They did an especially good job considering the fact that this was their first film. Although the dialogue is a little bit weak (especially at the beginning), but not weak enough to kill the movie.

This is actually a very good movie. It’s not perfect, but it does make you question some things in your own life. Just don’t expect to remember those revelations in the morning.