**** (4/5)

Directed by: JJ Abrams
Written by: Roberto Orci/Alex Kurtzman/Damon Lindelof
Based on tv series created by: Gene Roddenberry

When Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek, he wanted to write a series that used sci-fi to put a mirror up to our own world. He succeeded most of the time, although the movies tended more towards less “thinkin-man’s” sci-fi and more action.

JJ Abrams’ new vision of Star Trek is definitely geared more towards the latter, but it still works really well.

First though, let’s trek through some previews.

MAN OF STEEL–Goddamn, this movie looks amazing. Zack Snyder has been great fun (Dawn Of The Dead), middling with patches of greatness (Watchmen, 300, Legend Of The Guardians) and absolute shit (Sucker Punch). If the trailers are any indication, Man Of Steel could be his first true opportunity to delve into actual greatness. I promise you that some will hate it just because it’s not Christopher Reeve. I think it’s gonna be amazing, though. Besides, anytime someone in a Superman movie says something along the lines of, “They’re not a strong people, but they can be. They wish to be.” it gets to me. I love that shit. And with Russell Crow saying it this time out…yeah. Perfect.

PACIFIC RIM–Once again, Goddamn, this movie looks amazing. Anything del Toro does is magical to me, but when he’s allowed to just create his own world…that makes it all that much better. I’m gonna see the shit out of this movie. And so will you. I WILL IT!

GRAVITY–This could be the scariest film ever made. The trailer is George Clooney and Sandra Bullock in space suits marveling at how beautiful it is to be floating around the space station that they’re fixing. Then, all of a sudden, something bashes into the station and severs Sandy’s lifeline, sending her floating…where? I heard at least one “Fuck no!” around me in the theatre. I’ll see it, though. It’s Alfonso Cuaron and he really hasn’t steered me wrong. I’m interested to see what he does here.

Ok, let’s get to this.

When last we left Captain James T Kirk (Chris Pine) and his crew, they were being commended for their handling of the Nero problem. Kirk was among the youngest captains ever given a starship and his crew was equally green, all fresh out of the Academy.

Star Trek Into Darkness opens with Kirk, Bones (Karl Urban) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) basically making a botch of an exploratory mission, completely obliterating the Prime Directive in the process…of course. (As much as Kirk always touted the Prime Directive, he broke it in just about every episode of the original series.)

Kirk also goes against everything he was taught at the Academy to go back and save Spock’s life. It’s something that, really, only Spock doesn’t want, but it’s also something that gets him taken out of the captain’s chair of the Enterprise. Not even his mentor, Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood) can save him from that fate.

Then something happens. In a blatant terrorist attack, a former member of the Federation named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch in his first released American role) blows up the Federation Archives in London, killing some innocent people. Why would he do this? Who is this man? And why does Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) seem to want so badly to see him dead?

If Star Trek Into Darkness had come out before 2008, it probably would have been seen as a slightly subversive dig against the then current president. With it’s complex villain and slightly war-mad leader, it’s a perfect match for those uncertain times.

As it is, I think that people will gloss over that aspect of it and only see it as a sci-fi film with terrorism in it. They’ll see it as the new Star Trek movie that dredges up the past glories of Star Trek even more than the first reboot did. All of that is well and good…because it’s all true. But I really would like for the political context to be seen, as well. This is an incredibly political movie that takes the complex relationship that we have with terrorists and leaders and puts them into a popcorn movie with ties to our past and our future.

Enough of that, though. Does the movie work?

Absolutely. As much as I liked the first one, I think I might like this one a bit better. All of the actors are really sliding into their roles perfectly. Really, only the folks with put-on accents (Anton Yelchin and Simon Pegg) come across a bit weird, but even they are starting to slide in there to BE Chekov and Scotty. Especially Pegg. By the end of the movie (even though he sits out a lot of the first half of the film) he’s become a human being and not just a character. (I think it has something to do with him called Kirk “Jim” for the first time.)

I don’t want to say too much about the plot because there are some surprises here and there…although those surprises seem to be getting spoiled all over the internet. I’m glad that I hadn’t read any reviews or stories before I saw the movie. I will say this, though: Abrams has debated whether they’re going to redo stories from the olden days. He made a decision that there are some people that you are destined to cross paths with, even if the stories are different. (Watch for one played by Alice Eve.) There are also certain events that are destined to happen, even if they happen with a different twist this time around. I kind of love that.

The only real problems that I have with the movie are pretty minor. There is one point where Spock does something that, at first, made me think, “Oh, man. You’re going there again? Do we really need that? Does he need a paycheck that badly?” Then I started to really think about it. If I had that resource at my fingertips…I would reach out to it, too. Absolutely. Might as well be honest.

Another problem is the title. I get it. It’s a dark film. But is “Trek” a noun or a verb in this title? Should there be a colon? Am I too much of a dork for making this an issue?

I really like where Abrams is going with this series. I think that the next movie will be more of an original story. There’s only so many times that you can dip into the past without people starting to call you out on it.

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Jeff Nichols
Written by: Jeff Nichols

Mud (Matthew McConaughey in what very well could be his best role ever) is a man. He’s just about everything you think of when you think of the word “Man.” He’s rough, tough and he can do it himself.

He’s a haunted man. There’s something in his past that is keeping his present close at hand and his future at bay. Of course, it involves a woman (Reese Witherspoon). It also makes him a hunted man.

When Ellis and Neckbone (Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland) take their boat to a little island off the shore of their Mississippi River bound town, they find Mud there doing his best to survive while hiding away from the world that’s after him. The two boys are doing their own bit of hiding. They’re just on the verge of the almighty “growing up” and they’re looking for a fort to stave it off as much as possible. Unfortunately, not only has Mud commandeered the boat that landed in a tree after a hurricane, but he’s going to make them grow up a little faster than they really want to.

Ellis has his own problems at home, though, with his mom and dad (Sarah Paulson and Ray McKinnon) possibly splitting up. If they do, she’s moving out of the boat house that they’ve all called home all of Ellis’s life. If she moves out, the boat goes to the state, which, well, no good will come of that.

Neckbone, on the other hand, doesn’t have any parents. He stays with his uncle (Michael Shannon) who is kind of a player and a little silly, but loves Neck all the same.

Then there’s old man Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard) across the river. But what does he have to do with anything?

Mud is one of those movies that you really think you have pegged going in, but then it does this really strange thing about a quarter of the way through: it gets awesome. This isn’t just another coming of age thriller about an ex-con who forces boys to do things that they shouldn’t do, although that’s what the trailer would have you believe. The movie that the trailer sells looks pretty mediocre. Mud, though, is a very good movie about being a man and what that means in today’s world.

Each of the men in the film have some pretty heavy decisions to make and even heavier responsibilities. They all think that it’s the fault of a woman, but they know it’s their own damn fault. There’s a point where you could get the feeling that this is kind of a misogynist film because all of the women seem to be in it for themselves and have no concern for anyone else. Then, all of a sudden, you realize that the female characters have just as many dimensions as the male characters, they just do it with less screen time.

I kind of loved this movie. It reminded me of a more serious Stand By Me. Not completely serious, because these kids can be pretty funny…and they’re every bit as good as the stars of that long-ago film. (26 years, eh? Man.) In fact, everyone is great in this film. Matthew was surprisingly good. If you’ve ever thought that he was just some Texas surfer dude without a lot of range, check this one out. He finally shows some talent here beyond taking off his shirt.

Directed by: John Hillcoat
Written by: Nick Cave

The Proposition, directed by John Hillcoat, sure has a lot going for it. Its got a great premise, a contemplative, annotative way that its shot and scored, great acting and an unnerving atmosphere, but it falters in its editing, narrative and characterization.

An outlaw in the wild Australian Outback is captured along with his brother. Their other two brothers are absent, and the captain making the arrest spies an opportunity to bring them in–especially the oldest and most dangerous one. He’ll hang the younger brother on Christmas Day if, by then, the other does not bring back the oldest one. There’s some amazing potential for a thoughtful compelling story, and for a while and sporadically afterwards, the movie delivers. The sun and the dirt and especially the buzzing, parasitic flies beat and buzz the characters, making them practically swim in their own degradations. Gunshot wounds are graphic and very obviously hurt without prejudice for character, moral or otherwise. The one most seemingly uncorrupted character is almost distractingly out of place in such an environment.

That’s the problem. There’s a lot of great atmosphere and even dialogue, but the pathos is only half-there. Certainly, the younger, impossibly frightened younger brother earns our sympathy with his frantic, wounded-rabbit scurryings and the most frank and non-exploitative public whipping I’ve ever seen in a movie. But the other brothers, including our protagonist, basically become types–though in fairness, they get a few touches of humanity. Its that we’ve seen the ‘killer-poet’ character before. Even if done well, as it is here, its still too much of a type to create much more than passing human interest. The other characterizations are an equally frustrating mix of the well-played and the superficial trope.

One character gets thrown at us so he can say odd things and ultimately become more of a ‘something ugly and revisionist-western this way comes’ kind of portent and not really be a character. The main protagonist (Guy Pearce), at least, has somewhat of an arc; he goes from a hardened but apparently (different than evidently) caring outlaw to an even more hardened but more evidently caring outlaw and brother. For such an Eastwood-like character we either need a less ambitious narrative that revels in and reinvents its cliches like “A Fistful of Dollars” or more showing and less telling. Or, rather, more showing and less odd, abrupt editing. It seems like the movie is over about forty minutes through when he’s suddenly attacked and simply WAKES UP with his dastardly brothers again. After that the plot is stretched too thin to support such unexamined characters.

We don’t really know why these men, including the protagonist, are and continue to be outlaws. It is suggested that they hate the police, but I guess they hate women too, since they rape one before the movie’s events. They do so because they’re bad I guess. Fair enough. But you gotta give me more than one of them eloquently reciting poetry and having the other sing to have me compelled by them as characters–or, better yet, as human beings. This is a separate necessity from any want of the characters to be ‘good.’ They just have to be humans on some level if I’m going to be asked to care about what happens to them.

I still enjoyed the movie somewhat. As I mentioned, there are lots of great touches and I reveled in and admired their toughness and even their occasional originality. I like as well what this movie has to say, that the taming of the Outback ensures a hypocritical suppressing of our basest desires and impulses, but many ‘revisionist’ Westerns have had similar things to say for nearly 50 years now and given us much more individual and memorable characters. “Unforgiven?” “The Wild Bunch?” Hell, watch any of the worthwhile Peckinpah movies (most were Westerns) and you’ll see more substantive reasons why characters hate themselves, each other, the whole world, and why they, at least sometimes, hold one little piece of humanity inside their hearts that keeps them from giving up altogether. Here, they’re bad because they’ve been pre-written that way.

Though the above quote is from Ebert’s Great Movie review of Sam Peckinpah’s “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia,” it could be about Ebert himself, especially in his later years.  Its worth noting before I begin that, besides his huge amount of achievements up to his fight with cancer (Pulitzer Prize, writer and contributor to the Chicago Sun-Times for nearly forty years at that point), when his voice was lost due to failed reconstructive surgery, he wrote even more.  Just last year, he wrote 306 thoughtful, insightful reviews and numerous equally thoughtful and insightful journal entries.  True, its one thing to write a lot and have it be garbage, but Ebert scarcely flagged on quality.  Comparing his older reviews to his recent ones, what’s revealed is gradual change happening over a man’s life, and at most a softening of his rating system and a tolerance for even more esoteric filmmaking and material.  Taking that into account, the achievement is truly beyond reproach.  He never stopped thinking and he never stopped caring.

I first became aware of Roger Ebert when I was little in front of the TV.  I thought he and Gene Siskel were funny!  It was evident that they deeply cared about what they were doing, and both were deeply offended when one would disagree with–and thus seemingly trod upon–the other.  I liked being involved in the conversation even then.  When Gene Siskel died, I remembered being sad.  Sad for him and sad that I wouldn’t see the two talk anymore.  As a result, Ebert dropped off of my radar for a bit.

Later on, when I started thinking for myself a little bit, I became curious and deeply interested in movies in a more adult way.  It was then that I discovered IMDB for the first time and found the little “external reviews” link on each movie page.  Right at the top, almost all of the time, is Roger Ebert.  Now this may be, to some, simply an indication of his fame and celebrity, and its partly true.  He and Siskel were the most visible and prominent film critics in the public’s eye.  They pretty much defined film criticism for most people in America.  But there was more to it than that.

He was simply the best.  I’ve encountered an enormous amount of great film critics and writers over the years with in-depth, hilarious, touching and insightful reviews, but none could match Ebert’s body of work.  He started strong, and kept getting better over his 46 years as a film critic.  Yes, his reviews were at the top, but it was for a reason:  he could write, and he did.

In his later years, when I became most involved in the conversation of movies, he ran a personal blog on the Sun-Times website with probably the largest depth and care ever to be applied to the medium.  He wrote about seemingly everything worth writing about in the style of his reviews, only even warmer.  He edited it himself (I believe), and read every single comment that people sent in before he posted it.  He directly responded to many, and welcomed all with open arms.

I recently went back and read what I wrote to Roger in a moment of misty-eyed, flabby sentimentality and loneliness on his blog page about “Remembering Gene.”  I know that the sentiment that made me write to him that day was borne of a more histrionic and dramatic perspective than I would have admitted at the time, but that’s life.  I think he would have understood.  In a way, I also think I could have just copied all but one of the paragraphs here and said (almost) everything I ever needed to say, but that was still a different time, and Roger already read that one.  But it still bears mentioning here:

“…I was reminded of something else besides the way in which you, Siskel and the movies helped shape and enlighten the young me; I’m reminded of you and your partner’s (and countless numbers of artists, writers and critics) starry-eyed, child-like passion and devotion toward the art that inspired you both. I am reminded of you and your partner’s meaningful affirmation of your own lives that constantly inspires me to search for and create my own meaning… You once mentioned how the movies are a way of dreaming that is necessary for reaffirming and enriching our lives, and that besides the movies, that process in itself is vital. I agree, and I thank you…”

From my comment here, where you really should read the whole thing (I’m in there under “Aaron J Brian!”):

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/02/i_remember_gene.html

How do I feel like I knew him so well, and how do I miss him so much?  I knew him from his writing, his presence, his humanity.  From the time he was officially a film critic back in 1967 up to now, he inexhaustibly expressed himself and informed and enlightened others with his writing about the movies.  Back when I was a budding thinker, I was intrigued by his thoughtful recommendations and his intelligent, excited reasons for them.  They resonated strongly with me.  He was an old pro who wanted to show you the best and have you be a part of it.  He had the same problems and intellectual questions that I did and through his writings he was working on answering them for himself.

Way before I ever saw them, and way after, his reviews and essays (both at the time and his Great Movies one) of “2001:  A Space Odyssey,” “Five Easy Pieces,” “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” “The Wild Bunch,” “Chimes at Midnight,” of nearly every Martin Scorsese movie and of nearly every movie I’ve seen since helped bring me into intelligent conversation, both about movies and about the world they come from.  I certainly didn’t always agree, but his opinion would always be clear and articulate and was never to be ignored–disagreement, especially when so eloquently stated, would only be another fuel for the conversation.

Such was his writing ability and love for movies that when he would describe a movie he loved, I would then, after seeing the movie, sometimes initially be disappointed; if only because the movie he saw and expressed in his own words was more amazing than any real one.  In all seriousness, I’m waiting for a movie as magnificent as the ones that I picture when reading some of Ebert’s reviews and essays.  Most often, he gave shape to those boundless thoughts and feelings–some beautiful, some painful–that well up in the back of your head and shiver down your spine when you see a really great movie, or when you see an old, great friend.

But above all, what Ebert gave me was his voice:  his perspective, his sense of place, his aisle seat.  His tone and voice was always endlessly trusting and believed in the highest of intelligence and intellect in you, the reader.  It is a place that further convinced me of the best potential of myself and mankind.  He was conversational, calm, and natural, but frank and open about how a movie or anything affected his mind or heart.  His writing was just like his picture at the top: inviting, friendly but knowing and knowledgeable, ready to listen because he knows you are, too. More than any other writer, for me, he helped open the door to the great intellectual and emotional conversation where we share our dreams.  It was a gift from one to another.  Beyond any matter of agreeing with him or not, the seat next to Ebert was just a great place to be.  Thanks to his writing, its still here–and it’s always open.

REWIND THIS! (2013)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Josh Johnson

VHS is dead for a reason. I firmly believe this. Like the 8-track and the cassette tape, it’s a media format whose time has come, been and gone. Sure, it lasted a long time (15 years, actually), but it was clunky and not particularly good or durable. I can barely watch a VHS now without thinking about how it would have looked SO much better on just about any other format.

That being said, there is a pretty large community of movie lovers who long for the days of VHS. At first, I just didn’t understand this. Now, after seeing Rewind This!, I do…kind of. They’re still not going to make me believe that it’s a better format than DVD or blu-ray, but there are still thousands of titles out there that have never been released in any other format. How will we see these movies? Will we ever want to see them again? Did they also disappear for a reason.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that ALL media should be preserved, so I hate to see these movies go away. Get them transferred to some other format that will actually last, whether it’s digital or not. Just fucking preserve them.

Rewind This! is a great doc about preservation more than anything. These obsessives aren’t all obsessed with keeping an obviously inferior format alive. They’re obsessed with keeping these movies that they grew up with in circulation. They’re obsessed with keeping the feeling that they got as they perused a video store and saw those giant boxes, promising blood, boobs and craziness.

Shot mostly in Austin, Josh Johnson also took his crew to Asia to talk to Japanese and Hong Kong filmmakers about their favorite VHS movies and what keeps them collecting tapes.

If you’ve ever been a fan of genre films or have a nostalgia for all things media, you owe it to yourself to see Rewind This! It’s pretty much totally rad.

THE BOUNCEBACK (2013)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Bryan Poyser
Written by: Bryan Poyser/David DeGrow Shotwell/Steven Walters

I’m always hopeful when I see a movie that was made in Austin. Unfortunately, if a movie isn’t made by Linklater or Rodriguez, not many Austin movies really do much outside of Austin film festivals. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they don’t even do much at Austin film festivals except cause some buzz for about two days. Then they float away into the atmosphere, forgotten until the filmmaker makes another movie. Then we remember that first film…vaguely.

This isn’t a comment on the quality of those films. I really liked…um…what was that one…with the people walking and talking…about relationships? Yeah! That one! It was awesome!

Bryan Poyser is one of those filmmakers that I really hope gets away from the Austin Curse. His first film, Dear Pillow, was a great movie about growing up and trying to figure out your sexuality. (It’s available on Netflix, but pay no attention to the reviews. They’re wrong.) I didn’t see Lovers Of Hate, so I can’t comment on that. Either way, both of these movies just kind of disappeared.

With his third film, Poyser is going for a more commercial tone, but keeping the indie edge. It’s about a couple who moved, and grew, apart. Stan (Michael Stahl-David) moved to LA to become a screenwriter while Cathy (Ashley Bell) moved to New York. The two tried to keep their relationship going, but…something…happened. And they broke up. We never really find out why they should “never see each other again,” but that’s the way their friends feel.

Their friends are Jeff and Kara (Zach Cregger and Sara Paxton), another couple who are going through a pretty bad breakup. When Stan finds out that Cathy is going back home to Austin for the weekend, he decides to follow her. He wants, more than anything, to get back with her. Is it a good idea? Will Jeff and Kara succeed in keeping the two (and themselves) apart? Or will Stan eventually run into Cathy and strike a spark again? And who are these two other people that Stan and Cathy keep running into?

The Bounceback is a lot of fun, even if it often comes off as kind of a travelogue of Austin. Jeff and Kara are hilariously raunchy and all of the characters have some pretty realistic conversations. Sex is a very big part of their lives…just like the real thing.

Not only is sex a huge part of their lives, but it’s a huge part of what’s going on, too. Jeff is entered into the local Air-Sex Competition that the Alamo Drafthouse puts on every year. That makes for some pretty amazing scenes.

I really hope that somehow The Bounceback finds distribution and an audience. I would love to see Bryan become more than just another Austin filmmaker who keeps trying and trying.

FUCK FOR FOREST (2012)

*½ (1.5/5)

Directed by: Michal Marczak
Written by: Lukasz Grudzinski/Michal Marczak

Speaking of movies that I really hope find an audience…um…Fuck For Forest is NOT one.

This is a documentary about a group of young folks in Berlin who make porn to sell on the internet. With the money, they help environmental causes.

How could that be bad, you ask? Well, first, you take any kind of appeal out of the characters. I’m not just talking about physical appeal, although they’re basically a bunch of dirty hippies. I mean that these people are personally unappealing, also. They’re controlling, annoying and just all around awful. Somewhere in the middle of the doc, the narrator tells us that one of the female members joined because she was kidnapped from the airport by one of the other members. After what she did with the group, her family disowned her.

Fuck these people. They may be trying to raise money for a good cause, but they’re a cult that doesn’t really seem to know what the fuck they’re doing. The head into the deep, dark jungles of South America where they’re told to fuck off by the natives. Their families have already told them to fuck off, why not the very people they’re trying to help?

Oh yeah. There’s a movie here somewhere. Even though it’s partly about porn, it’s fucking boring, not just because there’s very little sex. Actually, NOTHING happens for quite a while. It’s just people mumbling about sex and the environment in incoherent ways. I’m pretty sure that I was in the theatre for about six hours watching this hour and a half long documentary.

Fuck For Forest is absolutely the worst movie I saw at the festival. I wish that I could say that it was even a little bit interesting. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t. These people were just awful and, even worse, uninteresting.

ZERO CHARISMA (2013)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Katie Graham/Andrew Matthews
Written by: Andrew Matthews

Speaking of terrible people who just don’t learn, Scott (Sam Eidson) is a game master for a small group of old friends who get together every week to play an RPG that he wrote.

He also happens to be a 30-ish year old guy who lives with his grandmother because he can’t hold a real job. He’s a lazy slob who can’t get along with anyone…ever. He lashes out at the simplest things and, if things don’t go his way, he basically ends whatever it is that’s going on.

He’s basically a teenager trashed in a grownup’s body.

If it weren’t for the fact that Zero Charisma was so damn funny, there wouldn’t be much to like about Scott. He’s absolutely awful and I can’t understand why his friends put up with him for so long. It takes a new member of the group (Garrett Graham) to show them that things could be better.

Scott really is the main problem with the film. Sure, he’s an interesting character (more than half the battle, really) and Eidson is great in the role), but you just can’t sympathize with him at all. I wanted to punch him through most of the movie. And (spoiler alert), he doesn’t really learn anything! He has almost no character arc. He sort of learns, but he more learns to hide the fact that he’s a selfish prick who wants everything his way. He’s basically everything that people outside of the gaming world think all gamers are.

All of this sounds like I’m trying to dissuade you from seeing the movie. Strangely, I really did like the movie. As I said, it’s very funny and Scott is even really funny. See the movie and expect to laugh a lot. Just don’t expect a lead character that you really care about.

By the way, this is another film shot in Austin. I hope it finds an audience, but I have more doubts for this one than for The Bounceback.

CHEAP THRILLS (2013)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: E L Katz
Written by: David Chirchirillo/Trent Haaga

Again, a movie with protagonists that it’s a little bit hard to like, but this time there’s kind of a reason for that.

Craig (Pat Healy from The Innkeepers) is a new dad who owes about six months rent. When he loses his job at the auto shop, he just can’t figure out how to go on. Instead of going home, he stops at a bar and runs into Vince (Ethan Embry, who I haven’t seen in a LONG time), an old friend who represents Craig’s old life. Vince has gone on to become a low-level collector for bookies.

Into their lives walk Colin (David Koechner) and his young trophy wife, Violet (Sara Paxton again, also Pat’s co-star from The Innkeepers). They start throwing money around and…well…I won’t say anything else. Let’s just say that things get crazy real fast.

Cheap Thrills is a super-dark comedy that is definitely not for everyone, but it’s absolutely for me. Probably the best narrative film I saw at the festival, it keeps going into darker places than you ever think that it will go. Then it goes farther.

Definitely check this one out if you’re up for something dark that will make you laugh, then make you sick, then make you think…how far would YOU go?

SCENIC ROUTE (2013)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Kevin Goetz/Michael Goetz
Written by: Kyle Killen

As one who has taken many-a road trip with many-a friend (often in the same part of the country that this movie takes place in), I can tell you that Scenic Route is only partly exaggerated. It’s about two men who were friends as kids, but have grown apart. Now they’ve decided to take a road trip together. We don’t really know why or where they’re going. We only know that their friendship kind of fell apart at some point. When the truck breaks down on a mostly deserted desert highway, things go from “I don’t really care” to “I hate you and your face!” really quickly.

Mitchell (Josh Duhamel) is a successful business man with a wife and kid. Carter (Dan Fogler) is an unsuccessful writer who is living with his mother and just can’t seem to do anything right. The two guys fight and bite and blame each other for every failure that either of them ever had in their lives. Even when they’re actively trying to kill each other, though, you can tell that there’s some kind of deep friendship that is making them fight like they do.

Scenic Route is one of the better portrayals of adult male friendship I’ve seen in a long time. That constant push and pull of “I love you, man” to “You’re dragging me down and you always have!” is something that a lot of men have felt in their lives. Everyone has that one friend who just can’t seem to get up, no matter what, and you can’t seem to leave him behind, even if it’s detrimental to your lifestyle. We all also have that friend who tells you the truth no matter how much it hurts. Sometimes, as in Scenic Route, it’s the same person.

I also really liked that we’re really dropped into the story kind of in the middle. We don’t know why these guys have grown apart or what their lives are like. We just know that they’re two guys on a trip. The story unfolds as they tell it, as opposed to there being some kind of set-up.

This is the kind of movie that I used to see at SXSW all the time. It may not be the greatest movie ever, but it’s a small, but universal story that resonates and really works on just about every level. And it has an ending that lets you decide.

It doesn’t hurt that Duhamel and Fogler are threatening to become real actors. They’re both awesome and they have a great chemistry together. See this one if only to see these two guys love and hate each other, often at the same time.

MILO (2013)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Jacob Vaughan
Written by: Jacob Vaughan/Benjamin Hayes

Milo is a demon baby who lives in a man’s colon.

There. I said it. That’s the whole story, in a nutshell. If you want a little bit more, Ken (Ken Marino from Children’s Hospital) is an accountant at a big corporation. Phil (Patrick Warburton) is the CEO with a few…loose…morals. Ken’s wife (Gillian Jacobs from Community) is supportive, but really wants to help him with his stomach issues. She and his doctor think that they’re stress related, so she makes him an appointment with a therapist (Peter Stormare) who is a but unorthodox. And he talks to his bird. More like, yells at his bird.

Ken’s mom (Mary Kay Place) adds to his stress by dating a MUCH younger man and talking about her sex life. His dad (Stephen Root) is pretty much absent from his life, until Stormare tells him that he needs to find him.

Things go horribly awry when Milo rears his ugly head and starts killing people who annoy Ken.

Milo is a strange, strange movie that really kind of goes for “cult” more than it probably should. It’s silly and it knows it and it really tries very hard to be a midnight movie. That kind of works against it, along with the fact that it might try to take on a bit much. It seems to be about corporate greed and father-son relationships and how “being a man” can kill them.

But it’s still a pretty fun flick with a pretty good creature and GREAT character turns from Stormare and Warburton. It just probably would have been a better long-form short, because it kind of dragged a bit.

By the way, is it just me or does Marino look like a sad-sack cross between Nathan Fillion and Josh Charles?

lead actor is sad sack cross between Nathan Fillion and Josh Charles

Best poster of the festival.

KISS OF THE DAMNED (2012)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Xan Cassavetes
Written by: Xan Cassavetes

Back in the late 60s and early 70s there was a glut of lesbian vampire films coming out of Europe. Along with the giallo films of Italy, these seemed to be the most prolific horror films from the continent. Most of them were pretty ponderous and silly, just being excuses to show some flesh. At the time, it was much easier to have lesbian vampires on screen than lesbian humans. So, vampires they were.

Xan Cassavetes (daughter of John, sister of Nick) obviously loves those films. Kiss Of The Damned is a very loving facsimile of those films…just without the lesbians.

Djuna (Josephine de La Baume) is lonely, but knows that she can never know love. Not truly. She’s a vampire who has vowed to never drink from humans. She hunts animals at night to stay alive. This, of course, isn’t a bad thing, as there is an entire faction of vampires who do this and they get along just fine. In fact, they’re all rich and have lush, luxurious houses and clothes and beautiful cinematography.

When she meets Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia from Heroes and Rocky Balboa), bloody sparks fly. He’s ok with what she is and, in fact, wants to be turned.

That’s when Djuna’s sister, Mimi (Roxane Mesquida from Fat Girl and Rubber), shows up. Mimi is the kind of vampire you want to stay away from. She’s sexy, sexual and wants nothing more than your penis and your blood. You will die if you meet her for more than about five seconds. Djuna hates her.

Kiss Of The Damned is a sexy horror film for people who like their vampire not just brutal, but highly sexualized. Beautifully shot and directed, it’s not for everyone. But the people that it is for will really like it.

Another line that I really liked from the movie: “Here’s a room for you to write those screenplays you like so much.” Way to downplay the screenwriter. She may as well have called him “adorable.”

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Nelson George
Written by: Nelson George

Funk is a genre of music that came from a very specific time. (But not, as it turns out, a specific place. Unless you count…Dayton, Ohio?)

Vh1′s Rock Doc, Finding The Funk, is here to tell us exactly what The Funk is and where we can find it. Starting with James Brown and finishing up with bands like The Roots (?Love narrated the whole thing), it follows the trail all the way with lots of great interviews and information that will make even someone who doesn’t really care about funk look for some of these bands. It was amazing to see interviews with people from Sly & The Family Stone, P-Funk, The Ohio Players and lots of other bands that I had never even heard of. The one sad interviewee was, of course, Sly Stone himself. That guy has done so much terrible stuff to his body that it’s hard to watch him. He’s even degraded since his “performance” at the Grammys a few years back.

The problem was that it was a VH1 Rock Doc and, as interesting as those sometimes are, they’re not made for anything but television. With bits of trivia called “Funk Chunks” flying in every once in a while, I was just kind of annoyed with the movie at some points. Some of the Funk Chunks were interesting, but most of them just reiterated what the person on screen was saying. They just weren’t necessary. This and the overall structure made the subject not quite as exciting as it really should have been. Funk was a great genre that was turned into something commercial (they didn’t even talk about the degradation into disco) and just kind of fell off the charts as quickly as it had popped up.

My other problem is that they just barely mentioned War in passing as a band that existed, as opposed to being an important band that helped bring funk to the charts, AND were already popular when they incorporated a popular white singer (Eric Burdon…who shows up in the next doc).

Anyway, Finding The Funk is a very interesting documentary, even if it’s not the best documentary. I can only hope that funk gets a great doc at some point. Until then, this one will do.

“Funk Chunks” really funkin’ annoying

BORN IN CHICAGO (2013)

*** (3/5)

Directed by: John Anderson

The South Side of Chicago in the 60s was not only a dangerous place, it was one of the most musically exciting places in the world. So many great blues musicians were there, it was like Paris in the 20s. Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Hubert Sumlin, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush…the list goes on and on. And, of course, it was the home of Chess Records.

It’s no wonder that so many future great blues artists came of age in the environment. Paul Butterfield, Charlie Musselwhite, Mike Bloomfield and many others learned their trade from the masters at the little blues clubs in the rough part of town. But how did these white boys get these older black men to teach them?

Turns out they just asked. The guys were just so jazzed that these kids would even know who they were that they invited them to play with them all the time.

Born In Chicago strives to go in depth about the story of these two cultures coming together. What it ends up doing, though, is mainly talking about the white kids and almost glossing over the men who were really the baseline of the movement. And, while they are kind of the point of the story, they weren’t the most interesting part of the story.

It didn’t help that the movie seemed to be about half an hour too long, with many of the people saying the exact same thing as someone who was just interviewed.

As with Finding The Funk, it’s an interesting documentary, but it’s not one of the better ones out there.

Here’s an idea, actually: Ken Burns needs to do a documentary about American rock and roll. I’d buy that shit.

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Chris Simon/Maureen Gosling

Chris Strachwitz is one of the most important men in the history of traditional American/ethnic music, and I don’t even know if he can play an instrument or sing. What he has done, though, is collected music that would have been lost if not for him, his small crew, their recording equipment and Arhoolie Records. He’s traveled all over America (especially the South) listening to and recording music from all walks of life. He started with Southern Blues, went through New Orleans Jazz, took a side-trip through Tex-Mex music and, of course, Appalachian country.

The film follows Chris through some of his travels in the 50s and 60s and explains what he’s doing now that the record industry is basically kaput. How does it affect him and his Arhoolie label? How will he bring his found music to the ears of the public now?

Obviously a labor of love (you can tell how long it took to make because part of it was filmed at a Tower Records), the film is pretty amazing, mostly because Chris is such an amazing man. He’s touched the lives of thousands of people either by recording their music, re-discovering them, or bringing this amazing music to them. He’s the man who found Lightnin’ Hopkins in the 60s (among other great blues artists) and took him on tour around the world, inspiring the likes of Clapton, Hendrix and countless other guitarists.

Even though music distribution has changed and Chris (who was at the screening) says that he no longer collects music because he can’t sell it anymore, the movie is not a sad ending by any means. Sure, Arhoolie may be finished as a record label, it’s still an institution. During the Q&A, Chris told us that his enormous collection of Tex-Mex music is being digitized by a musical institute whose name I forget. That collection is the most unique of his collections, the rest being duplicated here and there, so this is huge. This music will not be lost to time as so much has been.

This Ain’t No Mouse Music is a joyous celebration of music and the man who brought so much of it to so many people. Music that no one ever would have heard, otherwise. I want people to see this film and dig a bit deeper into the music that inspired some of the music that they love.

UNHUNG HERO (2013)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Brian Spitz

Patrick Moote is an actor/comedian that you probably don’t know. The biggest things he’s been in are episodes of How I Met Your Mother and Greek.

Apparently, those are his biggest parts.

(Ok, no more dick jokes…maybe.)

When Patrick surprised his girlfriend by asking her to marry him on the jumbotron at some sporting event or other, she surprised him by saying no and running away. Later, she surprised him even more by telling him why she left him:

Patrick has a small penis.

Yep. She actually said that. Everybody boo her. Please. She’s awful.

UnHung Hero is the story of him trying to rebuild his psyche after that rather harsh blow. He travels the world trying to figure out if it really matters if he has a small penis…or if he even has a small penis to begin with. He also doesn’t just talk about different “remedies.” He tries a lot of them. He tells us if they work or not. He’s also incredibly honest about his feelings of inadequacy. Even if I didn’t think the movie was amazing, I still give him lots of kudos for doing it. I mean, come on. He tells his mom and dad. That’s insane.

The movie is a bit self-serving (if such a movie could be called that, really) and just a touch xenophobic, which is what bothers me about it. No, he’s not an asshole to anyone in Taiwan or Papua New Guinea or Korea, but he does do some of those kind of snide looks at the camera like, “Aren’t these people crazy?” It’s not egregious, but it’s definitely there.

It also has some scenes that HAVE to have been staged. Really? Would you be stupid enough to take a camera with you into a Korean bathhouse? Seriously? The “beating” that he receives just doesn’t seem very real. (And there are no bruises after.) And he would have had to have gotten release forms from people who definitely wouldn’t have signed those forms.

Do I think the whole movie was staged? No. There are a few faces blurred out, so obviously someone didn’t want him filming them at some point, but I think certain scenes were staged…scenes that really didn’t need to be staged. (One of them, though, was integral to the plot and could have been reshot with permission after they did something stupid in the first place after he made friends with the people involved. I can see that and that would be ok. The bathhouse scene, though…really?!)

What’s truly interesting about the film is the fact that it’s about something that not many people really think about: male body image. Everyone is so interested in female body image issues (which are important and need to be addressed) that our issues as men are pretty much entirely forgotten about…or just joked about. I mean, how many little dick jokes have you heard?

UnHung Hero may not be the best movie I saw at the festival, but it certainly is interesting and incredibly brave. Patrick may have a seemingly less than adequate penis, but he’s got balls bigger than most.

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Lisa Barros D’Sa/Glenn Leyburn
Written by: Glenn Leyburn/Colin Carberry

 Great punk music comes from great strife. That’s why it came from NYC in the 70s, Poland in the 80s and LA in the 90s. Little did we know that Ireland (specifically, Belfast) produced some great punk music during the height of The Troubles in the 70s.

Terri Hooley (Richard Dormer from the current season of Game Of Thrones) is a giant music fan, but he lives in a town where no one wants anything to do with anything so frivolous as music. If it’s not revolutionary, it’s CRAP! But he doesn’t want anything to do with the revolution. He just wants to run a record store.

The store isn’t all that successful at first, but business picks up a bit here and there. When he gets invited to a show at a local club, he’s pretty disinterested. Then he hears The Outcasts. He immediately falls in love and wants to do something he’s never done before: become a producer.

Hence the beginning of Good Vibrations Records.

Good Vibrations, the movie, is a pretty good depiction of what punk music truly means to the people who love it. It’s a catharsis of the feelings that kids get when things are terrible. When the world falls apart, punk comes out the other side. Terri Hooley knew that and he managed to not exploit it, but still bring it to the masses.

Richard Dormer, looking a lot like Robin Williams in his beard, embodied a man who found so much joy in music that it pushed just about everything else out of his life. We didn’t really get to know very many of the other people (except maybe his wife, played by Jodie Whittaker), but it doesn’t really matter. Terri is a big enough personality for all of them.

I really liked this movie. It’s just as full of life as its subject and keeps a sense of fun even when things aren’t going so well for anyone. Terri was a man obsessed with getting these kids heard at all costs. I like that in a man.

I had never heard of any of these artists or Good Vibrations Records before. I’m listening to a greatest hits album by The Undertones now. It’s pretty good stuff. Sure, they were no Ramones, but they’re still great.

THE PUNK SINGER (2013)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Sini Anderson

Kathleen Hanna is one of those women who you may not know, but you’ve probably felt her influence in some way, especially if you listen to modern music. She was the leader of Bikini Kill, basically the first of the slew of riot grrrl bands of the late 80s and early 90s. She shouted her feminist ideas into the microphone for eight years and it was amazing for an increasingly large audience throughout those years. When they broke up in 1997, everyone thought that they had lost their spokeswoman. Fortunately, she kept the mantle lit with Le Tigre, a punk-dance band.

Then, in 2005, she kind of disappeared. She told everyone that she no longer had anything to say, so she was getting out of the music business. Unfortunately, there’s more to the story than that.

The Punk Singer is a great documentary about Kathleen’s fascinating life and her influence on what was going on around her. At a time when no one really cared what female rockers had to say, she was a guiding light to so many women. Her lyrics told them that they weren’t the only ones going through what they were going through.

Not only that, but she gave Kurt Cobain the title to Smells Like Teen Spirit.

My ONLY  quibble with the film is that everyone says that she was the first woman to do music like this. And they say that with a straight face, never acknowledging that Patti Smith ever existed. I can’t necessarily hold that against the filmmaker if none of her interviewees mentioned her.

MILIUS (2013)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Joey Figueroa/Zak Knutson

John Milius is a legend that many people have forgotten about, but they haven’t forgotten his movies: Apocalypse Now, Red Dawn, Conan The Barbarian, Dirty Harry. All of these movies were at least doctored by the man, sometimes written and directed.

What many people who know the name don’t even know is that he’s lived a pretty interesting life, what with being a bit more right-wing than most Hollywood folk. He’s a big ol’ gun nut and really wished that he had been able to go to Vietnam. That being said, he’s super nice and everyone loves him. Some of his best friends are Spielberg, Lucas and Coppola, so he can’t be all bad, right?

Figueroa and Knutson’s film is obviously a labor of love. The folks in the film talk about his films as if they are some of the best and most innovative films of all time. And, certainly, some of them are. Apocalypse Now is amazing and his uncredited work on Dirty Harry made it fucking perfect. If you haven’t seen Big Wednesday, his film about a group of surfing buddies, see it. It had no audience back then and that’s a crying shame. It’s one of the best movies about young man friendship I’ve ever seen. Of course, Milius isn’t perfect, so he has his share of 1941s and, well, Red Dawns.

If you have any interest in 70s film, see this movie. If you don’t have any interest in 70s film, see this film. You’ll suddenly have an interest. It’s a great film that never loses its sense of fun, even when it gets to the sadder part of the story. And you never lose hope that things will bounce back. It even did the impossible for me. It almost made me want to actually see Red Dawn.

Almost.

A TEACHER (2013)

**½ (2.5/5)

Directed by: Hannah Fidell
Written by: Hannah Fidell

There always has to be a first not so great movie. Unfortunately, the Austin-based A Teacher is that movie for this year.

It’s about a young high school teacher (Lindsay Burdge) who is having an affair with one of her students (Will Brittain). The two find lonely places to have sex and at least one of them fall madly in love. Maybe even both of them. I’m not a hundred percent sure on that.

The teacher goes from being not nervous at all to being incredibly (and even unduly) nervous to be recklessly not nervous…sometimes within one scene. The two text each other constantly, sometimes with pictures. Then, when someone completely unconnected to either of them breaks in on them, but doesn’t see her at all, she freaks out. There’s absolutely no reason for her to freak out. But why would she freak out about texts that say, “I miss you, baby!”?

Both of these characters are stupid and fairly reprehensible. And, while I understand that people are stupid with they’re “in love,” it was hard for me to care about them at all. It didn’t help that at least the first half was apparently edited by someone who just learned how to use an Avid system. Fade out, pause, fade in, fade out, pause, fade in.

The movie wasn’t horrible and it was interesting that the kid seemed to really have the power in the relationship. I just couldn’t care less about the fate of these people. I can care about people that I don’t really like, but with the added bonus of sheer stupidity, this movie just didn’t connect with me one bit. I really wanted to like it since it was shot in Austin, but I just couldn’t get myself to.