AFF11 – Butter/Martha Marcy May Marlene

Every year around this time, I start to talk about the “Red-Headed Stepchild” of Austin film festivals. It’s weird that the ONE film festival with the word “Austin” in the title would hold that rather dubious nickname with me.

BUT…

Two movies in and the festival already feels different. There weren’t masses of people standing outside of the Paramount wondering how/when they were going to get in. The movies started on time. The movies were actually GREAT!

Could this be a turning point for the Austin Film Festival? 18 years in and they’re finally kind of getting it? I certainly hope so. It’s only one day, though, so we’ll have to wait and see what I think by the end.

Let’s get to those movies!

BUTTER (2011)

Directed by: Jim Field Smith
Written by: Jason A. Micallef

Butter is a movie that really shouldn’t work. It’s a political allegory set in the world that most people don’t even know exists: the world of butter carving.

On the face of it, it’s about Laura Pickler (Jennifer Garner like you’ve never seen her before…a complete and utter bitch), the wife of Bob Pickler (Ty Burrell). Bob was the butter carving champ 15 years in a row. This year, though, he’s been asked to step down and maybe be a judge…you know, to let some new blood in. He’s sort of ok with it, but Laura is livid. This was her road to the White House!!

No. Seriously.

It’s also the story of Destiny (Yara Shahidi-probably the best performance in the whole movie), a little black girl who has been moved from foster home to foster home. The latest is the home of Ethan and Julie Emmet (Rob Corddry and Alicia Silverstone). They’re crazy white people but, strangely enough, as the movie goes on they seem more and more sane and…awesome.

Destiny feels like she’s never been good at anything, but she finds out that she’s good at butter carving. She enters the contest just after Laura throws her own shoe into the ring.

There’s also another monkey wrench: Brooke (Olivia Wilde), the hooker that Laura caught Bob with. She could give a shit about butter or Bob. She just wants her money and she’ll do anything it takes to get it.

This is a movie that I went into not knowing a damn thing about it. It just happened to be starting right after work and it has a great cast, so I went for it. I’m really glad I did. Every single character is fucking brilliant and has at least three lines that I want to start using in my daily life.

I think that even if it was just about butter, it would still be pretty good. But there’s the added level of recognizing every character as someone in the political world. THAT, my friends, is what makes this movie the kind of great allegory that Hollywood should be making in times like this. Screenwriter Jason Micallef wouldn’t say who inspired each character, but that’s probably for the best. He said that he would base a character on one person, then that person would disappear and another would take their place. It’s a never ending cycle of unfortunate entertainment in the political world.

He also said that he would come up with something, think it was too outlandish and then the folks in the political world would come up with something even worse than anything he could EVER come up with. (He specifically brought up the name of Rick Perry’s ranch. Hehehehehe!)

Right up there with Election, this is one of the better political comedies in a long time. I can only hope that it gets a good distribution from The Weinstein Company. Maybe with the star power of Jennifer Garner and Hugh Jackman (who has a small role as “the one that got away” from Laura…and he’s hilarious) people will want to see it. We can only hope.

Jason said that his next film is already being shot. Something about Charlize Theron and dildos in Texas. I can’t fucking wait.

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (2011)

Directed by: Sean Durkin
Written by: Sean Durkin

What really happens to someone who has been brainwashed? How do they react when they get back into the “real” world? What could possibly make them want to come back?

Those are all questions posed by Sean Durkin in his first feature.

Martha (Elizabeth Olsen in a break-out role that might just make her bigger than her sisters) is a young woman who disappeared about two years ago. She suddenly calls her older sister (Maria Dizzia) and asks her to come get her. The rest of the film is told in broken up flashbacks and non-linear storytelling to let us in on not only what happened to her in those two years, but how she deals with being back in her sister’s world.

This is a harsh, harsh movie. No one is not implicated in making Martha the way she is. The people at the camp she was at for two years are, of course, kidnappers, rapists and burned-out hippies who make her feel like she’s “part of a family.” The leader, Patrick (John Hawkes in an amazingly creepy performance), is a Manson-like freak who is so soft-spoken that you just know that he’s going to lash out at any moment to smack Martha (or, as the campers call her, Marcy May) or something even worse. He’s so good at what he does, though, that Martha thinks that it’s all a beautiful thing. After all, “death is pure love.”

But, once Martha makes it out of the camp, her new home life isn’t much better. Her sister and brother-in-law (Hugh Dancey) are modern materialists who absolutely don’t understand what is going on in Martha’s head. The sense of “family” just isn’t there, and that’s a very strange thing to the still brainwashed Martha. Their first clue that something might be wrong is when Martha strips to go swimming. Instead of being even a little but understanding, her sister yells at her, asking her “What is wrong with you?! What are you thinking?!” Granted, she does crazier things later on, but it felt like a super-overreaction.

I’m not really sure how this movie is going to play at the multi-plex. It’s not an easy film at all. Not only is it visually different from most films (it’s shot mostly with soft-focus so it looks kind of like a 70s film), but it doesn’t give ANY answers. It even ends on a really ambiguous note. As my viewing buddy said, “You’re not sure where it leaves YOU. And you don’t like that so much, do you?”

Actually, not sure if I LIKE it, but I do think it makes for great cinema.