** (2/5)

Directed by: Nicholas Ray
Written by: Tom Farrell/Nicholas Ray/Susan Ray

At one time, Nicholas Ray was on top of the world. Directing movies like In A Lonely Place (one of my personal favorite Bogey movies), Flying Leathernecks, On Dangerous Ground and Johnny Guitar, he was cranking out hits in the 50s.

Then he made a little movie called Rebel Without A Cause in 1955. While it was probably the biggest hit of his career, it also ruined his life. Soon after filming ended, star James Dean died and Ray spiraled out of control. He became an alcoholic and a drug addict. His career kept going, but was in a state of decline basically until the day he died.

After years of working with young people in his films, he managed to get a gig in the late 60s as a film professor in upstate New York. This saved his life. He connected with his students so well that they decided to make a film together.

Ray had become entangled in the hippie ideals of the 60s and believed very much in the cause that they were fighting for. Unfortunately, he was unable to make a film about these causes until the end of the 60s, when everyone was realizing that the dream was over.

We Can’t Go Home Again was filmed and mostly improvised by his students. They all play versions of themselves on screen with Ray as their teacher that they at first don’t trust. Soon enough, though, they connect with him and start to tell him all of their secrets. (One girl tells him about a trick that she had just turned with a cabbie.)

The late 60s and early 70s were a strange and terrible time for America. Ray had been away for 10 years and he came home to a country that was being torn apart by violence, racism and protests. No one was innocent and no one got out alive. The film that he made with his students shows all of the nihilism of films like Night Of The Living Dead and the loss of hope of Easy Rider. It’s a VERY difficult film to watch because these kids are so out of control…and they know it. They know that everything they were fighting for is over. They blew it. (The scene with the kid cutting his beard off and crying is pretty heartbreaking.)

Unfortunately, the story is told in multiple images of grainy Super 8 strewn about the screen. Rarely is there a shot that fills the screen. Typically, the shots are actually not even fully on the screen. (A few people thought that this was a problem with the projection. I kind of think it was intentional.) The sound rarely ever synched up with the images. It’s so nihilistic that Ray and his students didn’t want anything to be a comfortable viewing experience.

The film was never finished and was only shown a few times over the years, always in different versions. Ray died just a couple of years after it was shown the last time and he kept working on it well after that final screening. His wife, Susan, has been working on it to try to get it in a form that she thinks he was aiming for.

It’s definitely not a film for everyone. There may have been more of an audience for it in 1971 than there is now, but it is an important piece of 60s art and definitely an important piece of Ray’s work. Unfortunately, it’s not something that I can really recommend to anyone who isn’t an uber-film geek. If it ever gets a real release, I don’t think it’s going to draw much of an audience, home or otherwise. It’s probably going to be the hardest film of the festival.

HAROLD’S GOING STIFF (2011)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Keith Wright
Written by: Keith Wright

Man, do I love zombie movies. I could watch ‘em all day long. In fact, I have watched ‘em all day long before.

Unfortunately, there are SO many of them now that they can’t all be good…or even watchable. And rarely are they ever new.

So, how do you make a zombie movie new? Well, make it actually heartbreaking and kind of…tender.

Harold (Stan Rowe) was the first victim of something called ORD, Onset Rigors Disease. It makes your joints very stiff, then you start to lose your brain functions. Then, eventually, you become violent and really not yourself. Harold is different from all of the other men who have gotten the disease, though: he has remained in stage one for years. His only real problem is the total stiffness of his body. It’s bloody hard to make tea these days.

Enter Penny (Sarah Spencer), a young nurse who just wants to help out. She comes to Harold’s house every day to help him do some limber-up exercises. They really seem to be helping out! So much so that she and Harold become very close. (No, not THAT close. Just very good friends.)

Meanwhile, there are some vigilantes who have been hunting for Harold since the beginning of the disease. They run around the English countryside bashing in the brains of men who are in stage three. Harold is their ultimate goal. Luckily, they’re really too stupid to do much harm.

The movie starts out as a comedy/mockumentary about this strange disease that no one can really explain. Eventually, though, as Penny and Harold become better and better friends, we start to learn more about these two people and how lonely they truly are. Penny is a big girl and finds it hard to meet new guys. She spends a lot of time on internet dating sites to no avail. Harold is a widower who uses his disease to keep himself cooped up away from the world.

Far better than it could ever sound, Harold’s Going Stiff is a rather touching zombie comedy. By the end, we’re so emotionally attached to these two people (mainly due to the great performances put in by both of them) that we almost couldn’t bear to watch anything but a happy ending.

This is a super-low budget film that was shot in 9 days on a tiny camera. If this guy can make a movie this good with so few resources…well, things might be looking up for film these days. I don’t know how you will find this movie, but find it. Even if you hate zombie movies, you might just like this one. It’s not too terribly gory and the characters are sympathetic and, above all, real.

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Matthew Vaughan
Written by: Ashley Miller/Zack Stentz/Jane Goldman/Matthew Vaughn/Sheldon Turner/Bryan Singer
Based on comics by: Stan Lee/Jack Kirby

Ok, True Believers! It’s time to restart (sort of) the X-Men franchise!

But first, some previews.

MR POPPER’S PENGUINS–How much blow can Jim Carrey really need at this point in his life? This looks awful. Skip.

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON–Again, how much blow can Michael Bay truly need at this point in his life? This is going to be awful, but…um…shit. It does looks better than the first two. Could it have merit? Naaaaaaaahhhh.

Now. How ’bout those mutants?

Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender of Inglourious Basterds fame) is in pain. He’s a Holocaust survivor, but his mother was killed right in front of him by an old Nazi doctor (Kevin Bacon) who was trying to tap into Erik’s power to manipulate metal. Now, some 20 years later, he’s on a mission to kill that doctor. What he finds, though, is that the doctor is now a much younger man named Sebastian Shaw. He’s still just as brutal and sadistic, but he has powers beyond Erik’s wildest dreams.

Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), on the other hand, is feeling no pain. He’s grown up completely at ease with his powers of mind manipulation. Sure, he hides the power, but he uses it whenever he can…mostly to get into the panties of young co-eds. He’s a rich boy and as full of himself as it seems like he would be.

When these three men meet, all of human and mutant-kind will clash. Erik and Charles will form a friendship that will last…well, at least until suppertime. The two men know that they’re different, but they have different ideas about how to live with the Normals. Charles thinks that they can all live together peacefully…Erik knows the hard truth. He never truly trusts the CIA agent (Rose Byrne) who is helping them go after Shaw. Even when another Mulder-esque agent (Oliver Platt) helps them find other mutants to start a kind of school for them, he knows that the eventual plan is going to be a Final Solution.

In between them all is Raven (Jennifer Lawrence from Winter’s Bone). She and Charles have been living together as brother and sister since they were kids. She’s obviously in love with Charles, but he won’t touch her. Why? Not only is she his “sister,” but she’s a shape-shifter with blue, scaly skin. She hides it well, but Charles knows what she really looks like. He says that it doesn’t bother him, but it certainly does.

There’s a lot more going on in this movie than meets the eye, much like the best of this series. This time, not only is it the constant battle of good mutants/bad mutants, but they all get caught in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis and government cover-ups. (The early 60s are evoked VERY well.) I love that about this movie not just because I’m into that sort of thing, but because it’s actually really well done. The movie isn’t nearly as good as the second one, but I would say that it’s on par with the first. It’s, of course, FAR better than the third or that Wolverine bullshit.

McAvoy and Fassbender are great as a couple of fast friends who fall out spectacularly. McAvoy doesn’t have to do much but be a little bit smarmy, but ultimately good. Fassbender, on the other hand, smolders as a tortured young man who would end up being Magneto. He is absolutely the best thing about this movie.

The other best thing, almost surprisingly, is Shaw/Bacon. I like Kevin Bacon a lot, but this is one of his most evil roles and Shaw is actually fucking threatening. He’s one of the better bad guys in this series who isn’t Magneto. His crew includes Emma Frost (January Jones), who is another pretty big threat to Charles and Erik. The other two guys are cool, but ultimately forgettable.

The kids that Charles and Erick pick up are pretty interesting, but they don’t get to do a whole lot but be Mutant Babies.

And, of course, we get a visit from everybody’s favorite mutant…very briefly. He has probably the best line in the whole movie.

If you are at all a fan of the X-Men, this is a really good addition to the series. It’s a lot of fun and I kind of can’t wait to see what Matthew Vaughan has in store for us. He says that he already has a second and third movie planned out. Hopefully, they can work out the dubbing problems with Hank’s (Nicholas Hoult from About A Boy) voice after his transformation.

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Tom DiCillo
Written by: Tom DiCillo

Tom DiCillo hasn’t really been around in a while. The last film he made was Delirious in 2006, but I don’t even remember it coming out. It’s interesting that he chose to (sort of) come back with a documentary about The Doors.

I really don’t have to tell you the story of The Doors. Just about everyone on the planet knows about Jim Morrison and his decent into his eventual alcoholic death in Paris. We all also know all about Oliver Stone’s Dionysian fantasy of a film starring Val Kilmer as Jim. It wasn’t history (not really), but it was good entertainment.

So, what can Tom possibly have to say about The Doors and Jim Morrison that hasn’t already been said?

Not a lot, really. But he did it with a pretty amazing style. First, he eventually made the decision to tell the entire story with films that were made between 1966 and 1971 when Jim died. There are no talking heads and no new footage. That really confused some people at Sundance who thought that the framing films with Jim driving through the desert included a stand-in for Jim. What it actually was was footage from a film that Jim was working on with a friend that would lead to the song Riders On The Storm. The footage is Jim: surreal and beautiful. The cleaned up print, actually, is amazing. It looks like it was filmed yesterday.

He also had the foresight to get Johnny Depp to narrate the film, telling the real history of The Doors from inception to Jim’s death. Johnny is just as good at narrating films as he is as an on-screen actor. There are times when Jim does something stupid and you know that Johnny thinks it was stupid, too. The narration is almost sardonic at times, although there’s definitely an affection for the subject.

With the cooperation of Robbie Krieger, the film really tries to show both sides of Jim: Friend Jim and Crazy Jim. It tells of how Jim was a writing mentor to Robbie and a really good friend to all of them and how sad it was to see him degenerate into a wacked out, often incoherent lunatic. (One thing that they don’t say that they did in the panel is that the lyrics for the last couple of albums were often pieced together from Jim’s poetry because they couldn’t get him to write new ones for the songs.

This, most likely, is the last word on the legacy of The Doors. No more reissues, no more movies or documentaries are necessary. This is The Doors basically in their own words. A book would probably be a better way to get the full story across, but, as far as visual/aural media, this is it. It’s the best doc that I’ve seen about them and, while I really like Stone’s film (and so does Krieger), it is full of a lot of “stupid stuff” (Krieger’s words) that is more 60s fantasy than truth. See this film and you’ll know most of the story the way it actually happened.

STRUMMERVILLE

**** (4/5)

Directed by:Don Letts

Joe Strummer was one of the more pivotal figures in rock history. He’s not as well known as Lennon or McCartney, but he probably did just as much to change where rock music was going as they did. The Clash, for a while, were absolutely “the only band that mattered.”

When Joe died in 2002, it looked as if the dream truly was over.

But a few friends and fans decided that it couldn’t be over. They put together enough money to start up a studio for underprivileged artists and kids who have the talent to get off the streets. If someone who happens to have something to do with Strummerville happens to hear them or hear about them, they could get pulled in to record. Hell, even if they don’t show any real talent, the crew will help them hone something that could help them out.

It’s an amazing service that is helping get kids off the streets and into the studio. Some great music is coming out of it, too, which is making at least a small dent in the British pop charts. Bands like Beans On Toast, Shatter The Hotel and The Riff Raff are gaining followings as I type. All of them were kids pulled off the street.

This movie really is the anti-Harry Brown. That film showed how violent the kids in London have gotten and really offers no hope to anyone except for people who fight back with violence. The kids, though, are screwed. They can’t be changed, only killed. It makes for a great vigilante film, but there’s not much hope there at all.

Strummerville shows us the real people behind that violence. These kids only know that violence, but many of them don’t want anything to do with it. They want out as much as they are wanted out of it. Strummerville is just one organization that wants to help them.

The movie itself is very much a PBS “inspirational” doc. It’s only about an hour long and seems very light and cheery with bright lighting and nothing very interesting visually. Anyone could have made it. Don Letts, though, is a great friend to The Clash and Strummerville. He made all of The Clash’s videos and, without them, he would be no one. He feels that he owes his entire career to them, and he’s probably right. He’s a very engaging fellow, too. He jumped down off the stage at the Paramount and had the Q&A among the audience. During the intro, I thought he was just a cocky dude who happened to make a movie. At the Q&A, I figured out that he’s just super-passionate about his work and the work that Strummerville is doing.

I can understand why, too. They’re doing a lot of good, a little bit at a time. It would be amazing if someone would do that over here. I’m sure that there are a lot of kids on the streets right now whose lives could be changed by something like Strummerville.

TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Eli Craig
Written by: Eli Craig/Morgan Jurgenson

Now, back to the funny.

Tucker and Dale (Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine) are on their way to their vacation home out in the Appalachian Mountains. Unfortunately for them, a bunch of college kids are also on their way out there to camp, drink, smoke and have sex. When the two worlds collide, blood and body parts fly.

Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil shows the other side of the hillbilly horror genre. What if the hillbillies were just misunderstood and the kids kept accidentally killing themselves?

Apparently, hilarity ensues when that happens. The only kid with any real sense is Allison (Katrina Bowden). She hits her head while swimming and Dale rescues her, eventually falling in love with her. She finally understands that Tucker and Dale aren’t trying to kill her, but she just can’t quite get that point across to her friends.

Luckily, the other kids are all obnoxious people who, as characters, deserve to die, so seeing them impale themselves on sticks and throw themselves into wood chippers is hilarious.

As thin as the premise really is, the movie is pretty amazing. It does a great job of showing both sides of the story. Sure, we know that the hillbillies are good guys, but that doesn’t keep director Eli Craig from using creepy music and good storytelling to make us see them as creepy dudes when the kids see them.

It also really helps that Tudyk and Labine are awesome. Tudyk, especially, is hilarious as the smarter of the two who has a great line for everything that happens to them.

I fuckin’ loved this movie. It’s one of my favorites of the festival and, hopefully, it will find a really good audience when it’s released…eventually. I have no idea when it’s finally be released, but keep watching your favorite movie sites to find out.

I actually even skipped the first movie. I’ve seen Up at least twice, maybe more. It was absolutely one of my favorites of the year and, possibly, even the one that I think should win Best Picture. It won’t, but I think it should.

You can read my review here.

Let’s get right into the first one I saw today.

A SERIOUS MAN

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Joel Coen/Ethan Coen
Written by: Joel Coen/Ethan Coen

Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) tries to be a serious man. He takes his marriage seriously. He takes his kids seriously. He takes his job as a physics professor seriously. And he takes his Jewish faith seriously.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that things won’t fall apart on him. In the same week that he’s up for tenure at his school a student tries to bribe him for a passing grade, his wife tells him that she’s leaving him and seeing Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), his brother (Richard Kind) is having some sort of crisis and his son is having his bar mitzvah. How could things possibly get any worse?

When the Coens are in charge of a retelling of the story of Job, you know that things will get worse. This is and isn’t a typical Coen Brothers film. First off, it’s a very personal film. It’s about Jews in suburbia in the late 60s…just as they were. It deals very closely with their religion and the way they grew up. It’s also the story of a man who loves his faith, but he’s about to lose it because so much is falling apart around him.

As always, the Coens manage to make someone else’s pain very funny. It’s not as laugh-out-loud as something like Raising Arizona or The Big Lebowski, but it’s still a comedy. Larry is a schmuck. He’s a loser. He’s a schlemiel. No doubt about that. But there’s something so pathetic about the guy that it’s hard not to really push for him and want things to work out. Stuhlbarg is amazing in this role and absolutely deserves all of the accolades that he’s gotten from this performance. Also better than expected was Richard Kind. He can be a pretty funny guy, but I’ve never seen him try anything else. He was very good here in what could have been a one-note role.

Also watch for Micheal Lerner and Adam Arkin in small roles.

I’m not a Jew, so it’s hard for me to really relate to a lot of this film, but I think I might understand my Jewish friends a little bit better after seeing it.

A lot of my friends who saw this movie with me hated it. Mainly it seemed to be because of the ultra-ambiguous ending. The thing is that they pretty much tell you that the story will have an ambiguous ending about mid-way through the film. And, really, there is no other way for the film to end. I loved it. It may actually rank up with some of the Coens’ best work. Just know that you’ll have to work some stuff out for yourselves.

THE HURT LOCKER

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow
Written by: Mark Boal

“War is a drug.” This film starts with those words. Then it takes the next two and a half hours to prove it to us.

William James (Jeremy Renner) is the new guy on the EOD team. Unfortunately for the other two guys, he’s also the leader. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) are actually scared when he takes over for their former leader (Guy Pearce). Is this guy going to get them killed?

In the RL, the answer to that question would be yes. Actually, no. It wouldn’t This guy would have been fired before he finished his first day on the job. He’s a complete dumbass. He puts on his suit and walks out to disarm a bomb, even after his team tells him that they have robots to do just that. Then he goes out, disarms the bomb and starts yanking on other cables that he finds with no real regard as to whether they might be attached to other bombs. Seriously? I would fire this guy and I wouldn’t know the first thing about disarming a bomb.

Barring that, though, this is a movie and, even though my friend who actually did this kind of work in Iraq called the movie pure fantasy, I’m here to grade it on its merits as a film, not its accuracy…of which there really isn’t much at all.

James is a down to earth guy for a guy who yanks on bombs all day for a living. He does his best to get to know his team and the people around them. He even befriends one of the kids who sells DVDs to the troops. (Right here, I thought, “Dammit. I’m seen MASH. I know what’s going to happen here.”)

The movie doesn’t necessarily have much of a through-line story. There’s no single villain except for the faceless Iraqis who are placing the bombs and shooting at our heroes. It starts 39 days before they’re done with their tour and ends basically at the end of those 39 days. It’s just a string of bomb disarmings put together to form a character study of the guys who do this incredibly important job. Luckily, the characters are interesting enough to hang this film on.

Is it a great film? Meh. I don’t really think so. I think it’s very good, but it’s not great. Maybe what ruined it for me is that even I am smarter about disarming bombs than these guys were. Or maybe it was the fact that I’ve seen a lot of war films, so I knew a lot of the tricks that Bigelow and Boal were pulling on us. (Although, they did kind of pull one new one with the kid. Kind of.) They do know how to build suspense, though. Those disarming scenes were pretty fucking tense. Definitely the best moments of the film.

Definitely worth seeing, possibly even buying. I wouldn’t say it’s Oscar worthy, though. I think everyone loves it so much because it gets into the heads of these guys…unfortunately, they don’t have anything new to say about their plights.

It’s still better than Bigelow’s ex-husband’s movie.

AN EDUCATION

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Lone Scherfig
Written by: Nick Hornby
Based on memoir by: Lynn Barber

England in the early 60s was a MUCH more permissive place than America in the early 10s, apparently. I spent this entire movie thinking about how strange it was that a couple were perfectly ok with their 16 year old daughter dating a nearly 40 year old man.

Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is just such a 16 year old. She meets David (Peter Sarsgaard) outside of her orchestra rehearsal when he offers her cello a ride when it’s raining. The two hit it off and, eventually, start dating. Meanwhile, her parents (Cara Seymour and Alfred Molina) don’t seem to have too many problems with this older man taking her all over town.

Times were different then, though. They were looking to get Jenny married partly because it would save them the money of sending her to college at Oxford. (They’re not quite that cold, but that is a big factor.)

David’s friends, Danny and Helen (Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike), seem to have some secrets. Come to think of it, so does David. He’s really good at coming up with reasons for Jenny to come with him on weekend trips. And how does he make his money?

Basically, this is a really good (and more complex) version of Mona Lisa Smile. Jenny fights for her right to have a real education without having to be married off. I mean, why even bother if you have to give it all up when you get married, right? Even her headmaster (Emma Thompson) doesn’t seem to understand that Jenny wants to do something besides get married OR teach. (At the time you couldn’t really do both.) Although, she wants an English degree and, unfortunately, there’s not much else that you can do with that besides teach. Sad, but true.

An Education is a very good movie but, again, not so Oscar worthy. There just isn’t anything new here…except for the creep factor with the major age difference.

DISTRICT 9

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Neill Blomkamp
Written by: Neill Blomkamp/Terri Tatchell
Based on short film by: Neill Blomkamp

I’ve seen District 9 before, but I really wanted to see it again on a big screen. The main thing I wanted to make sure of was my original assessment of the special effects. Luckily, I was right. They are better than Avatar’s.

Wikus (Sharlto Copley who should have been nominated for an Oscar) is a weasel of a man. He works for the MNU, a munitions company in South Africa who pretty much rule the nation now that the aliens are here.

The aliens (“Prawns” to the racist humans) came 20 years ago and seem to be stuck on Earth. South Africa did what they always do: they put the folks who look different into a slum and made them separate and unequal. The aliens live in squalor that they aren’t allowed to get out of and now the MNU wants to move them to a concentration camp.

Wikus is sent in to serve the Prawns eviction notices. He has fun with it at first. He’s just as bad as the rest of the humans. He thinks the Prawns are slime, worse than animals.

Then something happens. Something horrible and amazing. He starts to turn into one of them. As he’s treated worse and worse by his own kind, one of the Prawns, Christopher Johnson as he’s called by the humans, starts to treat him better. Christopher is  a father and just wants to get his people home.

What’s so amazing about this movie is that the CGI creatures are actually more human than the humans. Christophe and his son are much more appealing than Wikus is. As Wikus turns more and more Prawn, he starts to become more human.

I love this movie. It’s not just a morality play about racism and human nature to hate what it doesn’t understand, but it’s a great gore-flick, too. The effects and gru are pretty amazing. The Prawns mix in with the human world far better than the giant blue smurfs of Avatar and the story makes more sense.

So, that’s all of ‘em. All TEN of the Oscar nominated films. What do I think of the choices?

Well, I absolutely think that it could have been whittled down to five. In fact, these ten could be whittled down to even less to let in some more worthy films. Of the ten here, I think that Up, A Serious Man, District 9 and Up In The Air are the best. I love Inglourious Basterds, but I’m not sure that it’s better than those four. In its place, I would put either The Fantastic Mr. Fox or Where The Wild Things Are. There. I said it. That was a great film.

What should win? Up. Hands down, Up was the best of these ten (or twelve) films. It won’t win, but it should. What will win? Most likely we’re down to either Avatar or The Hurt Locker, two of the films that I don’t think belong. It will probably be The Hurt Locker, because it’s more of an issue film. It’s also MUCH better, so I guess I won’t be TOO terribly upset if it wins over Avatar. I just wish that they would give the award to the movie that actually deserves it. Up will win Best Animated Feature and that will probably be it.

That’s too bad, but unsurprising. We’ll see tomorrow night, though!

Every year we try to figure out what’s going to be playing and every year we’re completely surprised. (Ok, not every year. Anytime Peter Jackson has a new movie coming out, we know it’s going to be there. And apparently everybody knew at least one of the movies this year.) I’ve learned to not even try to guess. It’s best just to go with it and enjoy the ride.

This year Harry started the festivities early. Friday night he showed everybody Pan’s Labyrinth. Since I had already seen that, I decided to forgo it and go see one of my favorite bands from high school, Twang Twang Shock-A-Boom (which I hope to be reviewing soon…it’s been a long weekend).

So my BNAT-ing activities started like they always do: rushing to the Alamo Downtown to make sure that I get in before all of the stand by’s try to get my seat. After parking in a spot that I was a little bit concerned about, running to the Alamo with my pillow (always fun to do in downtown Austin), getting in the wrong line and grabbing my goodie bag (lots of books this year…weird) I was finally in theatre and ready for 24 hours of geekiness. Well, sort of. I was really freakin’ tired from Twangin’ out the night before. But it’s all worth it, right? You only live once.

Twice, if you’re lucky.

Harry takes the stage (sort of) and tells us that he’s turned the schedule on its ear. We usually start off with some classic and then go into a big bang with a premiere. Then, around 4am, we get some movie that’s just plain wrong and it will disturb us into staying awake for the rest of the day.

This time, though, he was starting us off with two new ones.

BLACK SNAKE MOAN (2006)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Craig Brewer
Written by: Craig Brewer

Last year, Craig Brewer kind of took the world by storm with Hustle & Flow. It’s all about a Memphis pimp who wants to be a hip hop artist.

Now he’s hoping that lightning strikes again with the story of Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) a Memphis man whose wife left him. He sings the blues like nobody’s business and has every reason to do it. When he finds the town slut, Rae (Christina Ricci) bloody and beaten outside of his farm one morning, he takes her in and decides that it’s his mission to rescue her from her own life.

Rae is in love with Ronnie (Justin Timberlake), but he joined the National Guard to get money for college. Unfortunately for him, Rae is the Black Snake Moan. She’s gotta have dick every once in a while to take away her own pains and troubles. It actually hurts her to not get the dick. So she goes out drinking and fucking every night.

What’s a couple of town outcasts to do? Well, Laz has a few tricks up his sleeve.

This is a really strange movie, but I liked it a lot. Just like Hustle & Flow was all about hip hop, this one is all about the blues. From the music down to the story. Every thread has some basis in a hyperbolic blues song from back in the days when men sold their souls to the devil for guitar chops and women weren’t no good.

The acting was, for the most part, very good. Sam was better than ever and Christina was awesome. Justin was Justin. He’s a better actor than he is a musician, but that’s really not saying a whole lot. (I had no idea that he has such a wussy voice!) But he did get to rub up against a naked Christina, so he’s got that going for him. Bastard.

Speaking of which, as my buddy Greg said, the costume designer of this movie should win an Oscar. Christina was running around in a pair of panties and a shirt that barely covered her for most of the movie. And she looks amazing. She’s hiding her five-head a little bit and she’s lost a lot of weight. But, then again, I thought she looked great with the weight, so I dunno. It’s a toss-up.

Definitely check this one out. It’s worth the weirdness. It’s probably one of the most misogynistic films made in a long time, too. But, hey. That’s the blues, man!

Craig was at BNAT with us (at least, until 6am) and he said that he’s got a few movies in the works right now. He said something about a soul movie, but I don’t know if he was serious or not. That would be pretty awesome.

But now it’s time for a musical of a different kind.

DREAMGIRLS (2006)

*** (3/5)

Directed by: Bill Condon
Written by: Bill Condon
Based on play by: Henry Krieger/Tom Eyen

Back in the early 60s, Barry Gordy started a record label that would change the way white people saw black music forever. He would actually get the music on the top of the pop charts, which was a pretty damn big feat back then. And he did it by controlling the singers with an iron fist.

Now, let’s fictionalize the whole thing and Barry Gordy becomes Curtis Taylor, Jr. (Jamie Foxx), a small time music promoter who happens onto a group of girls who have a good look and a great sound. The Dreams are Effie White (Jennifer Hudson) on lead vocals and Deena Jones (Beyonce Knowles) and Lorrell Robinson (Anika Noni Rose) on backup. Effie has an amazing voice and Curtis falls for her almost instantly. But does he love her or her voice?

He also helps to represent the biggest name in black music, James “Thunder” Early (Eddie Murphy). Jimmy is huge, but he’s never been on the pop charts. Curtis sees a way to finally do this, but he’s gotta be a cold-hearted asshole to do it. And he has to pay off a few DJs.

Things go right. Things go wrong. Deena replaces Effie as the lead singer of The Dreams (because Effie’s a big girl and her voice is TOO distinctive) and in Curtis’ life (ditto). Jimmy gets rid of his original manager (Danny Glover). Jimmy and the house writer/Effie’s brother, CC White (Keith Robinson), try to make more topical music. Curtis shoots them down. The 60s come to a close.

Everything about this story screams Motown, which I love. What I didn’t love was the tonal shift in the middle of the movie. The first half was pretty good. The music was all onstage or record. It was a good facsimile of the old Motown sides that The Supremes and Marvin Gaye were recording in the early and mid-60s.

Then things got weird. People started singing offstage when they weren’t before, including Curtis and CC. (I’m surprised Danny didn’t have a song.) Effie starts taking more of a center stage than she had before, as if the filmmakers decided mid-way through production that she was the star. She was amazing. No doubt about that. The fact that she lost “American Idol” pretty much proves that that show needs to end. Fuck Simon and his crew of evil Svengalis. Especially since he actually told Jennifer that she needed to find another line of work. Obviously, she’s better than the chick who won.

But here’s something that I haven’t been able to say about a movie since 1988: Eddie Murphy was the best part. He was absolutely amazing. Not only was he a great performer onstage, but he was a great actor. It was really weird. I hope he gets a lot of notice for this one and we were all hoping that this role wakes his ass up to his potential. We all know he can do it. He just needs to believe that he can again.

Not a great film, but it is kind of fun. If it ends up winning Best Picture as a lot of people have been talking about, I’m going to be pretty pissed off. We’ll know then that we are back in a time when only musicals can win again.

ONCE UPON A GIRL… (1976)

[Rating:.5/5]

Directed by: Don Jurwich
Written by: Don Jurwich/Joel Seibel

Now it’s really time to shake things up. Harry had said that he was changing the line-up quite a bit, so he threw the “just plain wrong” movie in when he knew that we would all be awake.

This one, however, wasn’t quite the level of wrongness as a Teenage Mother or a Toys Aren’t For Children. I was actually a little disappointed in the level of wrongness, actually.

Once Upon A Girl is about Mother Goose (Hal Smith who used to do Owl’s voice in the old Winnie The Pooh cartoons) being put on trial for obscenity. She tells the jury (mostly full of hot chicks in pretty skimpy outfits and lecherous looking dude with big moustaches) her stories and the movies go into animated shorts done by Hanna-Barbera folks in their off time. And, from the looks of it, they didn’t change their style much. They still think that repeating actions over and over again is really funny.

Here’s why the movie is so wrong: you not only have Owl talking about how “Jack fucked her real good!”, but you have Hanna-Barbera cartoons actually showing all of the action. This is a porn cartoon. Jack gets used as a dildo by the Giant’s wife. A naked Little Red Riding Hood runs into a gay troll collecting tolls on a bridge. Cinderella is a virgin, so the Prince has to fuck all of the girls in the kingdom to find out who is truly a virgin.

I’m not opposed to cartoon porn. It’s usually pretty funny, actually. But this was just lame. And, unfortunately, boring. It was the first of a few movies that I fell asleep during and didn’t feel like I missed very much.

Apparently, this is on DVD. I would avoid it, though, unless you really want to listen for the voice of Megatron (Frank Welker). I couldn’t find him. We’re thinking he may have been the flashing troll, though.

Blech.

INHERIT THE WIND (1960)

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Stanley Kramer
Written by: Nedrick Young (as Nathan E Douglas)/Harold Jacob Smith
Based on play by: Jerome Lawrence/Robert E Lee

From Mother Goose on trial to intelligence on trial.

This is one of those classics that, for some reason, I had just never seen. Call me an idiot, call me what you will. I always wanted to see it, though.

Bertram Cates (Dick York) is caught teaching free thinking…er…evolution in his class. The moment he starts his lesson, he is arrested by the police in his tiny little town of Hillsboro. The case goes to trial and the City brings in ace lawyer Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March) to prosecute Bert. Fortunately, a big city newspaper (I forget which one), got wind of the trial, sent one of their best reporters, EK Hornbeck (Gene Kelly) and hired Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) to defend Bert.

And that’s when the fireworks start. The team of Kelly and Tracy is fucking amazing. These guys are so cynical and tired of stupidity that it’s hard to believe that they’re based on real characters from the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. (The names of all participants were changed. Not sure why.) Kelly gets just about every funny line, usually on his exits. (“You’re the stranger, ain’t ya? Are you lookin’ for a nice, clean place to stay?” “Madam, I had a nice, clean place to stay. I left it to come here.”)

This is an amazing film that needs to be seen today. It needs a wide re-release so that people can see what life is supposed to be about. We should be allowed to think for ourselves without the influence of the government. We should be able to believe what we want to believe. If you don’t believe in evolution, so be it. Just don’t tell me that I can’t believe in it. “Then this man wishes to have the same privilege as a sponge. He wishes to think.”

Another line that I think needs to be used more often these days is one of Gene’s lines: “Mr. Brady, it is the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” So many news folks need to take that line to heart. We seem to have forgotten what the news was originally for. It wasn’t to trumpet the coming of a new rich man on the rise. It was to show that that man had no clothes. The he was corrupt. That he might not be so good for us.

But, I digress. Inherit The Wind is one of the best courtroom dramas ever made. It should be taught in schools just before evolution is taught.

ROCKY BALBOA (2006)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Sylvester Stallone
Written by: Sylvester Stallone

So, now it’s time for a big confession: not only had I never seen Inherit The Wind, but until today, I had never seen a single Rocky movie. Not even the first one. You know, the one that won Best Picture right out from under All The President’s Men, Bound For Glory, Network and Taxi Driver? Yeah. Never seen it. I’m borrowing them all from a buddy, but I haven’t watched them yet. I figured that I would watch them and then, if I still liked the character enough after the debacle that was Rocky V, I would go see Rocky Balboa.

Well, Harry beat me to the punch. Hell, he even had Sly Stallone himself in a video introduction telling him “happy birthday.” It was actually a pretty damn classy intro and made me respect Sly a little. Just a little, though.

Before the movie started, we saw trailers for all five of the other Rocky movies. Well, all of them but V. The projector actually caught on that one and burned it. Tim League got on the mic and said that they had installed the new Dolby Digital Shit Detector and it wouldn’t allow them to play shitty stuff anymore. On to the movie!

Rocky (Stallone) is in his 50s and running a restaurant named after his now dead wife, Adrian. His son, Rocky, Jr. (Milo Ventimiglia from “Heroes”), has a job at some marketing firm or other and doesn’t have a lot of time for his dad. Rocky is happy, but something is missing. Something big.

Then Paulie (Burt Young, one of only three people to be in all six Rocky movies, the other one being Tony Burton who plays Duke) shows Rocky a sportscast where they pit him against the current heavyweight champ, Mason “The Line” Dixon (Antonio Tarver, an actual light heavyweight champ). When the computer Rocky wins, it starts the real Rocky to thinking. Maybe he can come back. Maybe he can do a few small, local fights. What else does he have?

So, come back he does. He fights with the Boxing Commission to get his license back and finally gets challenged by Dixon’s promoters. He’s reluctant at first, but he finally sees it as a chance to prove to himself that he’s still a man.

He has a possible romance in the works, too. He runs into Marie (Geraldine Hughes), a girl that he knew years ago when she was a little girl. It’s a little creepy, but Stallone (who also wrote and directed this one), manages to keep it from being too Woody Allen.

There’s no way that this movie should be good. Not only is it the sixth in a rapidly declining series, but it’s been 16 years since the last one. And it’s about a 50-something year old man starting to box again. Where’s the good?

Fortunately, Stallone is able to keep everything light and makes it entertaining. I can’t really say that it’s a great movie, but it is very fun to watch. Even when Sly is fighting a real-life champ, it doesn’t seem too outlandish. And we were rooting for the guy! Rocky is a charmer in a palooka sort of way and we want him to win.

If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll definitely want to check this out. If not, it’s still a decent movie. It’s definitely better than what I hear about most of the sequels.

FANBOYS CLIPS

This is the only clip show or trailer that we got this year. Weird, huh?

This is actually a movie that Harry was going to show to us, but the filmmakers pulled it because it just wasn’t ready. Instead, he got the next movie.

Fanboys is the story of four guys (Sam Huntington from Detroit Rock City and Superman Returns, Chris Marquette, Dan Fogler from the upcoming Balls Of Fury and Jay Baruchel from Million Dollar Baby) who decide to go to Skywalker Ranch to see Episode I before it opens because one of them is dying.

This looks really fuckin’ funny. I reminds me a little bit of Detroit Rock City, but, since it’s about Star Wars geeks, I think I’ll relate to it a little bit more.

And Harry has a cameo! Sort of. The guy who plays him, Jordan Gelber, sounds exactly like Jack Black. It was hard to tell that it wasn’t him under all the red hair. It’s a pretty funny scene. And watch for a lot of geek cameos. Can’t wait to see how this one turns out.

KNOCKED UP (2007)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Judd Apatow
Written by: Judd Apatow

So, instead of Fanboys, we get Knocked Up. It’s a fair cop.

Seth Rogen (“Freaks And Geeks,” The 40 Year Old Virgin) is starting to be everywhere. And good for him. He’s a really funny guy that just about everyone can identify with. When he gets into weird situations, you feel like you could actually be there.

This time he plays Ben Stone, a guy who has nothing going for him and he’s fine with that. That all changes when a one night stand with Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) turns into a baby. Eight weeks after, Alison finds out and tells Ben. They try for the rest of the movie to be compatible with each other.

The movie wasn’t quite finished yet and you could tell that they had some tightening up to do. But it was really funny. Almost as funny as The 40 Year Old Virgin, actually. (Judd Apatow wrote and directed both of them.) Of course, most of the cast of that movie is back including Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann (as Alison’s sister and her husband) and Steve Carell in a cameo. Ben’s buddies are really funny, too. Jason Segal, Martin Starr (both from “Freaks And Geeks”), Jay Baruchelel and Jonah Hill are awesome. Also watch for Alan Tudyck (“Firefly” and Serenity) as an E! TV studio exec.

Check this one out when it comes out next June. It’s pretty awesome.

TEEN WOLF (1985)

* (1/5)

Directed by: Rod Daniel
Written by: Jeph Loeb/Matthew Weisman

Remember this one? One of Harry’s buddies kept bugging him to show this one, so he finally relented. At first I thought, “Oh, man. Well, at least I can get a little bit of sleep.” Then I thought, “Naw, this could be fun. Screw it. I’ll watch it. Look! There’s Styles!”

Then the film broke and burned. And Tim got back on the mic and said, “Oh, I forgot about the Dolby Digital Shit Detector. Harry, you just want to go on to the next movie?”

And they did.

BLACK BOOK (2006)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Paul Verhoeven
Written by: Gerard Soeteman/Paul Verhoeven

Why they would do that on purpose before THIS movie, I have no idea. No one was very excited about this one. It’s not like they needed to fake us out. Oh well. I guess they were faking out that one guy. Whatever. (How do we know it was a fake? Well, we still ran over time at the end of the day, so obviously we didn’t skip a 90 minute movie.)

When Harry and Tim said that Black Book was the new Verhoeven movie, I knew that we were in store for lots of sex and violence. What I didn’t realize is that that sex and violence would be wrapped in a story about Jews running from Nazis in WWII Holland.

Rachel (Carice van Houten) is a young Jewish girl in Holland. When the Nazis take over, she goes into hiding and changes her name to Ellis so that people won’t guess that she’s Jewish when she does get caught. Eventually, she becomes a member of the resistance and goes undercover to try to release more Jews from the clutches of the evildoers.

Verhoeven and his writing partner, Gerard Soeteman, spent about 30 years writing and re-writing this script. They finally decided that they got it right when they changed the main character into a woman.

This movie is no Schindler’s List. Hell, it’s not even really Life Is Beautiful. But it is a very good movie. Except for the sex and violence (which really wasn’t excessive, just more than you would normally see in a movie like this), this doesn’t feel at all like a Paul Verhoeven movie. It feels like a movie made by someone who truly cared about the film he was making, not someone who just wanted to show lots of tits and blow some heads apart. I’m glad he’s done something worthwhile again. It’s been a long time since Robocop.

The Dutch think so much of this film that they’ve entered it into the race for the Oscar. They even paid more to make it than they’ve ever paid before. Hopefully that risk pays off for them.

THE INFORMER (1935)

Rating reserved on account of sleep

Directed by: John Ford
Written by: Dudley Nichols
Based on book by: Liam O’Flaherty

Now it’s time for a couple of “classics.” And, unfortunately, Harry chose to program these towards the end of the day.

The Informer is actually a classic John Ford film that I have hardly even managed to hear of before. It’s the story of an ex-British rebel fighter (Victor McLaglen) who is so poor that he turns in his buddy for 20 pounds. When his buddy is killed while trying to escape, he is racked with guilt at every turn. Even his girlfriend seems to be a source of guilt.

This movie was incredibly slow and I couldn’t really see where it was going. And, because I was so fucking tired at this point, I fell asleep and can’t really tell you what happens past the first 20 minutes. Maybe I’ll rent this someday and write a real review for it. Until then, I’m chalking it up as boring. And I hate to do that because I think John Ford is one of the greatest directors of all time and I’ve never seen a film of his that I didn’t love.

I guess I have to give it another chance.

RAW FORCE (1982)

*½ (1.5/5)

Directed by: Edward D. Murphy
Written by: Edward D. Murphy

Early on in the day, Harry and Tim showed us a preview of this movie. It had boobs, bullets and Samurai zombies. What the fuck more could you ever fucking want?!

Well, a plot would be nice. And some fun would be great, too.

This is another one that I fell asleep somewhere during the first 20 minutes. And, seeing as how it hasn’t made it to DVD yet (big surprise), I may never get to see this exploitation “classic” ever again. Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to live with myself. Let’s move on.

SMOKIN’ ACES (2006)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Joe Carnahan
Written by: Joe Carnahan

For the last two films of the day, Harry gave us a couple of big ones. The first is this highly kinetic gangster movie from Joe Carnahan (Narc; Blood, Guts, Bullets And Octane).

It’s hard to sum this one up, but let me try.

Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven) is an up and coming mobster/magician in Las Vegas. He’s managed to come up right under the real Vegas mob boss’s nose. Of course, this isn’t a good thing for either of them. The real boss is pissed that he’s losing his power to this asshole and Aces now has about 50 hitmen after him.

So he made a deal with the FBI. He informs on the boss and he gets a reduced sentence. When they catch wind of all of the hitmen on Aces’ ass, they send Agents Carruthers (Ray Liotta) and Messner (Ryan Reynolds) to save him. But it’s going to take more bullets than a Tarantino flick to save him.

If you think that ol’ Quinten can serve up some violence, you ain’t seen what Joe can do. This movie is so violent that it at times becomes hard to watch. But it’s such cartoonish violence (for the most part) that it’s also fun to watch. The story is a little convoluted and it’s a little hard to keep track of who’s who, but that doesn’t matter. I loved every minute of it.

The cast is pretty amazing. Besides the three leads, there’s also Ben Affleck, Common, Alicia Keys, Peter Berg, Jason Bateman (in probably his strangest role this side of Teen Wolf, Too) and Andy Garcia among many, many others.

Some people cried that it tried to hard for it’s Tarantino-ness. I gave it credit for at least trying. And from now on I’ll always give Joe Carnahan the benefit of the doubt.

It ain’t no award winner, but it’s awesome nonetheless. Check it out. You won’t regret it.

300 (2006)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Zack Snyder
Written by: Zack Snyder/Kurt Johnstad/Michael Gordon
Based on graphic novel by: Frank Miller/Lynn Varley

And this was the big one. The one that everyone kind of figured Harry would somehow get…or at least hoped that he would.

It’s based on a Frank Miller/Lynn Varley graphic novel which, in turn, is based on the story of 300 Spartans who stood up against (reportedly) one million Persians who were invading their land.

In this version, the Spartan king, Leonidas (Gerard Butler in his best acting ever…but he really doesn’t have to do much) takes 300 of his men, against the wishes of his Congress, to meet these Persians before they ever get to Sparta. He leaves his queen, Gorgo (Lena Headey) and goes to what everyone thinks is certain death. Meanwhile, Gorgo is embroiled in an investigation to find out if a member of the Congress is a traitor.

300 is not one of those movies that you go to looking for great acting or a perfect storyline. Fortunately, it has decent acting and a very interesting storyline. But, first and foremost, it looks really, really cool. Director/co-screenwriter Zach Snyder (Dawn Of The Dead) managed to make the film look just like Miller’s artwork without Frank being on-set the whole time. It’s mostly done with CGI backgrounds (and blood) and looks absolutely beautiful.

He also managed to, somehow, make a bunch of British guys workout rigorously for about 6 months to get them in Spartan shape. I could have sworn that THAT was all done with CGI, too. But apparently not. Who knew that Mr. Cardboard, Gerard Butler could look like Lou Ferrigno?

Great flick and a great way to end a day of movies. It had its moments of being a bit slow (and, as Snyder said, it was 99 percent done, so there were probably a couple of special effects that needed to be added in), but it was a lot of fun.

So, that was it. After giving away a few light sabers (damn them for not giving me one!), they sent us on our tired-ass way. It was an awesome day and I can’t wait to do it again.

See you at the movies, Harry.

I SLAMMED MY DICK IN THE DRAWER (2008)

Directed by: Jeffrey Brown
Written by: Jeffrey Brown

I started my day off with a short before RSO…the only short I saw all week! Blast!

I Slammed My Dick In The Drawer is about exactly what it sounds like it’s about. A guy accidentally slams his dick in a drawer. How, you ask? I’m not exactly sure even after the rather painstaking (and painful) re-enactment.

Told like a news story it almost does everything a short should do: it told its story and got out of there quickly. At four minutes it never seemed to outstay its welcome. But I can’t say it was particularly compelling. I kind of wish that I could, but I can’t.

His fiancee was pretty funny, though. “It’s the only dick I have…for the rest of my life.”

RSO (REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER) (2008)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Bob Byington
Written by: Bob Byington

Then came RSO. Tim (Gabriel McIver) has a secret problem. Ok, so by order of the Texas Judicial System, it’s not so secret. He is a registered sex offender.

He’s also a bit of an asshole. He jokes about everything (including his status in the government’s books) and doesn’t take his punishment seriously at all. Even in prison his anus was, as they say, distended and he just took it as a joke.

His girlfriend, Tina (Kristen Tucker), finds it funny at first. But soon enough she’s sick of it. In fact, everyone’s sick of it, including the neighbors he had to tell about his registration.

You may ask what he did to deserve this status. Even that doesn’t get a straight answer. He tells everyone a different disgusting story about little girls in bathrooms.

Featuring a cast of Austin regulars (including Kevin Corrigan, Richard Linklater, Bob Schneider and Bill Wise), Bob Byington’s film is a pretty funny mockumentary of one man using his defense mechanism so much that it nearly takes everything away from him. Maybe a tad overlong, it still keeps interest and has some really good laughs.

It also brings up a lot of good questions about the validity of the RSO program. You could have been an 18 year old guy who got caught by the parents of your 16 year old girlfriend and end up on the list for the rest of your life. Or it could have been a totally stupid mistake that really wasn’t your fault. Anyone could end up on the list. This sort of thing ruins lives.

Now, there are some real scumbags who deserve this treatment, no doubt about it. Child pornographers, molesters, etc…yes. They need to be humiliated and we should probably know where they are living so our kids stay away from them. That sort of thing doesn’t really go away. But do you want to ruin a guy’s life because when he was 18 he was attracted to a 16 year old? I’ll go ahead and answer that for you: no.

THE NIGHT JAMES BROWN SAVED BOSTON (2008)

***** (5/5)

Directed by: David Leaf
Written by: Morgan Neville

Now, from a guy who screwed up once to a guy who saved a town from being wiped off the map.

April 4, 1968 was a horrible day in America. One of the biggest leaders of the Civil Rights Movement was shot and killed in Memphis. That night, thousands of people across the nation decided to rise up in violence for retribution against the white world that they saw as the cause of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination.

The next day would just get worse. Boston, however, had a secret weapon. If only the mayor had the guts to use it.

Luckily, he was talked into allowing James Brown to go ahead and perform and ended up using it as a memorial for the slain leader. What happened was proof that rock and roll can change the world, if only for a night.

David Leaf (Beautiful Dreamer, The Unknown Marx Brothers and The US Vs. John Lennon) documents the night and the events after in painstaking detail. He follows Brown in the years after the Boston Garden concert to show how political he got. He never spoke of that night again (in fact, he evaded questions about it in interviews by other people), but he became sort of a political leader after, sometimes to the detriment of his career.

An engaging musical history, The Night James Brown Saved Boston is a pretty important chapter, not only to music, but to civil rights. It’s airing on VH1 soon and Shout Factory will be releasing the DVD with the full concert near the end of the year. Look for it.

The concert, by the way, is absolutely enthralling. David and his crew just got the footage on Tuesday, so the version we saw wasn’t as cleaned up as it will be for broadcast. (James’ mic wasn’t very good because the people who were filming it had no clue how to mic a rock show. They were used to classical.) But the music is amazing and the moment people start storming the stage, James just takes command of them, knowing that if they get out of hand people at home will get out of hand. “Brothers! We’re black! Let’s work together. Let’s keep it together.” It was pretty beautiful to see. I can’t wait to see the whole thing.

JOY DIVISION (2007)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Grant Gee
Written by: Jon Savage

Moving ahead about 10 years, Joy Division was on the forefront of an entirely different kind of music. Hailing from the skeletal hulk that was Manchester at the end of the 70s, Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris would end up being one of the most influential bands of the New Wave/Punk movement. Ian, however, would not live to see their influence. After two albums and a handful of singles, Ian hanged himself in his apartment, the victim of depression brought on by anti-epilepsy drugs.

Grant Gee’s (Radiohead’s Meeting People Is Easy) documentary tells their story in their own words in a visually compelling way. Interviewing not only the band, but just about anyone who ever came in contact with the band, he puts it all together with bootleg videos of performances and other interesting videos. (Including the Sex Pistols’ show where they decided to start making music! I would LOVE to get my hands on that film.)

Gee also tells the story of Manchester in then and now pictures, which is very cool. Manchester is on its way back to being a truly modern city, but he shows us what it once was and why bands like Joy Division/New Order and The Smiths were so depressed about it.

The only thing missing is an interview with Deborah Curtis, Ian’s widow. She is quoted in some subtitles, but she is never actually interviewed. That may be because she had her say in her book, Touching From A Distance. It was turned into the excellent Control last year by photographer Anton Corbijn. Some of Corbijn’s photos are used in the doc.

This film would be a great triple feature with Control and 24 Hour Party People, Michael Winterbottom’s film about Tony Wilson, the man who basically discovered Joy Division along with just about every other “Madchester” band. I’ve always believed that Joy Division’s songs should be heard in black and white. These three movies (especially Control) prove this to be absolutely true.

LOVE SONGS (2007)

**½ (2.5/5)

Directed by: Christophe Honoré
Written by: Christophe Honoré

How ’bout a French musical?

Love Songs is the story of a manag a trois that loses a member. Ismael (Louis Garrel from The Dreamers), Julie (Ludivine Sagnier from Peter Pan and Swimming Pool) and Alice (Clotilde Hesme) have been together for about a month. Alice is the new addition to a long standing relationship and she is already putting a bit of a strain on it.

When tragedy strikes, Ismael and Alice have to pick up the pieces. They each fall into new relationships that may not be good for them, but help them get over their heartbreak and loss. Julie’s family tries their best to help Ismael by insinuating themselves into his life in ways that he sometimes doesn’t want.

The movie reminded me a bit of Moonlight Mile…but without all the messy emotion. Which is to say, I really didn’t give a damn about any of these characters.

But what of the music?

Yeah, what of it? I don’t remember any of it. It was so absolutely unmemorable that I almost didn’t realize that the actors were singing until about half-way through most of the songs. The actors obviously aren’t singers, which doesn’t usually bother me that much. But I seriously couldn’t tell when they were singing. And that kind of takes away from the enjoyment of a musical.

The moral of the film seemed to be that, “If your girlfriend dies, you will turn gay.” And, you know, whatever. That doesn’t bother me that much. But people seem to change their views on homosexuality in the middle. At first it seems like no one cares one way or another. Julie’s mother doesn’t seem to care if her daughter is gay or straight. When Ismael meets Erwaan (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet), he never tells him that he’s not gay. It’s just never a question of taking that out of the equation. And I thought that was cool, actually.

Then suddenly everyone cares if Ismael is gay. And he’s all freaked out about it. It just seems to be at odds with itself.

The last French musical I saw was Jeanne And The Perfect Guy with Virginie Ledoyen. That one had some of the same problems, but it was so much better. I cared whether the characters lived or died at least. When Julie died I was surprised, but not shocked.

SHUTTLE (2008)

** (2/5)

Directed by: Edward Anderson
Written by: Edward Anderson

Shuttle, on the other hand, was totally shocking.

Ok. Maybe not. Not a bit, actually.

Mel (Peyton List) and Jules (Cameron Goodman) just got back from vacation and are waiting for their bags at the airport. They meet Seth (James Snyder) and Matt (Dave Power) and are immediately wary of them. They seem to just be out to get laid…especially Seth.

Soon enough, all four of them end up on a shuttle, along with Andy (Cullen Douglas) a family man with zero balls, to their homes. But it ends up being a shuttle to Hell!

Oooooh!

The driver (Tony Curran from League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen) ends up being a psychopath who robs them and forces them to take money out of an ATM for him. But he doesn’t let them go. He seems to have more sinister plans.

There’s lots of blood and intrigue and whatever, blah, blah, blah. But that doesn’t mean that this movie is the slightest bit plausible. First off, he trusts these people far too much. He lets Mel fucking go shopping! Sure, he tells her, “If you tell anyone or make a spectacle of yourself, I’ll kill all of them.” But will that stop her from passing a note to someone? Nope. Will it stop her from hiding a weapon away? No.

And this is the bad side of town that they’re driving through…where the fuck are the cops? Cops are always crawling all over that sort of place. Not to mention the fact that the shuttle itself is a little shady. “No more than 3 stops” it says on the side. What? Isn’t this a shuttle? Aren’t there about 10 seats? And what kind of airport shuttle takes you to your house? Yeah, it’s called a taxi.

At one point, the girls are forced to take off their clothes and put on high heel shoes. Fuck. I could put an ad on Craigslist and get plenty of girls willing to do that. No need to get a fucking bus to pick them up in.

There’s an explanation for (almost) everything, but it’s kind of a lame explanation. I like my horror movies without morals, thank you very much.

Hopefully writer/director Edward Anderson did better with the other movie at the Festival that he wrote, Flawless. I don’t know that Michael Caine and Demi Moore would have put up with this.

Oh, who am I kidding? Were they paid? Then they would have put up with it.

At the end of the movie, I said to my viewing partner, “The preceding four hours have been brought to you by some sicko’s fantasy.”

Blech.

So, that was my SXSW this year. I learned a bit. First off, Ryan Philippe and Justin Timberlake are the same person. (One just has a lower voice, but it sounds faked.) I will continue to believe this until I see them together with my own eyes. Second, no matter how hot a girl is, she’s ugly when she’s drunk off her ass. Being drunk doesn’t always excuse you from being stupid. And having someone rub your velvet jacket saying, “I’m just going to keep doing this and pretend it’s your penis” is NOT always a good thing.

Good night, everybody.

Either way, this is a great festival. And, even if the movies aren’t as good as they used to be, it’s still a lot of fun. (And, to be honest, the movies are still great. It’s just that once you’ve seen one movie about Iranian women gaining new freedoms, it’s hard to think that you haven’t seen them all. And that seemed to be what ALL of the smaller movies were about this year.)

But the big news of the festival (besides the movies and celebrities running around) was The Palm. That’s the new theatre that took over for The Max this year. It’s still the biggest theatre in Telluride, but it’s a few seats shy of The Max. It’s also an actual theatre. The screen is flown in on a fly system instead of being built from the ground up inside of a gym. The seats are permanent (and some are at really weird angles) and there’s a balcony! No more lugging heavy quartets of seats through the school and placing them very carefully throughout the gym! This is a state of the art REAL theatre!

And, just to keep up with history, there are bits and pieces of the old theatres around. There is a sign from the lobby of The Max, a banner from The Strand (that was before my time AND before The Max’s time) and a giant sign for Vespucci Pictures. (That’s the name given to the production crew of the festival.)

And here’s the strange thing for a Texas boy to notice: The Palm theatre is named after a guy named Michael D. Palm. That, in itself, isn’t so weird. What’s weird is that Mr. Palm was a gay man. Even THAT isn’t all that weird. What’s REALLY weird is that this is a publicly funded school that named it’s facility after an openly gay man who worked for gay rights and died of AIDS. That just would not happen in Texas. Not even in a mostly progressive town like Austin. No, no. There would be so many people protesting it that they would finally just scrap the project all together, wait 10 years and then try to build the thing again under a different name. It’s amazing to me that a small town in a state that, just a few years ago, passed a law that was pretty discriminatory against gays (remember the whole Barbra Streisand thing?) would name a school facility (even a theatre) after a gay man. That’s pretty cool. If only the whole country could be as open minded.

And with that revelation comes the rather unofficial theme of this year’s festival: Gay.

For the first time ever that I know of, there was in fact a movie about gay cowboys at a film festival in a small mountain town. Since I didn’t actually get to see Brokeback Mountain, I can’t tell you if there was any pudding being eaten.

I actually only saw two movies with lead gay characters in them. Here’s the big one:

CAPOTE (2005)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Bennett Miller
Written by: Dan Futterman
Based on book by: Gerald Clarke

Truman Capote (Phillip Seymour Hoffman in an amazing performance) is synonymous with witty writing. His books pretty much define the late 50s and early 60s. With Breakfast At Tiffany’s he created one of the most indelible characters of the mid-century with Holly Golightly.

But in 1966 he decided to write a book about the murder of a small Kansas farm family. He read an article about the murders and immediately told his publisher, William Shawn (Bob Balaban), that he wanted to write a novel about the crime. But first he had to talk to the people involved.

Truman and his childhood friend Nelle Harper Lee (Catherine Keener in her best performance ever) go to Kansas and interview the friend of the teenage girl who was killed and Sheriff Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper) to get as much information as they can. But it’s not until the killers are caught that Truman gets really involved.

Perry Smith (Clifton Collins, Jr.) and Richard Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) were caught in 1960. Finally, in 1966, Capote completed and published In Cold Blood. Why did it take him so long? This movie (and the book it’s based on written by Gerald Clarke) fills in the gap left by Truman’s emotional turmoil at having met Perry Smith and, basically, formed a very strange almost father-like attraction to him. He saw in Perry the Truman that could have been if he had chosen a different life for himself. He cared about Perry, but at the same time had to use him in order to get his book written. And that tortured Truman. It tortured the hell out of him.

In fact, it tortured him so much that it ends up being very hard to figure out just how you feel about the character. He’s an asshole opportunist who wants to help his subject. This makes Truman Capote one of the most complex characters to come out of Hollywood in a long, long time. Is he finding them new lawyers just so that he can keep them alive long enough to get information out of them? Or does he really want to try to get them off?

The movie is very good, but it’s Hoffman who takes the prize here. His portrayal of Capote is sympathetic and beautiful. He’s a hard man who almost can’t handle being hard. He’s also incredibly fey and gay, but he keeps it at a level that is not annoying once you get used to it. (This is something that an actor in another movie at the festival could have learned from.) This is probably the best performance of the year. I can’t imagine anyone else doing anything better. Absolutely amazing.

And Catherine Keener, who has a bad habit of over playing things all the time, kept herself under control as the future writer of To Kill A Mockingbird. She was better than ever here.

I would also not be surprised if Collins got some accolades for his sensitive portrayal of a could be killer who is still surprised by what happened.

Capote is definitely one of the best films I saw at the festival this year. Check it out when it comes to a theatre near you.

BREAKFAST ON PLUTO (2005)

**½ (2.5/5)

Directed by: Neil Jordan
Written by: Neil Jordan/Pat McCabe
Based on book by: Pat McCabe

This one, however, was NOT one of the best films. And it’s really a shame because it’s directed by Neil Jordan, who can be a great director, and stars Cillian Murphy, who is on his way to becoming a pretty good actor. It also stars Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson and Jordan regulars Stephen Rea and Ian Hart.

Patrick “Kitten” Brady (Murphy) grew up in a small Irish town. He always knew that he was different from the other kids, so as soon as he was able he ran to London and became the transvestite that everyone knew that he had in him.

Along the way he met up with a rock singer (Bono chum and collaborator Gavin Friday), a magician (Rea) and, of course, members of the IRA. He is constantly looking for his real mother even though there’s not much chance of ever finding her in a city the size of London. Besides, the priest back home (Neeson) doesn’t seem to want him to find her.

And this is the problem with this movie: this is ALL we know about Kitten. (Oh, and he laughs when he gets the shit kicked out of him. Which is aggravating not only to the people beating him up, but to the audience because it’s a pretty annoying laugh.) Kitten is a very “on the surface” character. There really isn’t a whole lot of depth to him/her. And I couldn’t really figure out if it was because of the screenplay by Jordan, the book by Pat McCabe or Murphy’s acting. Or maybe it was all three.

The last is actually a pretty big possibility because at first I thought that Cillian was doing really well with what little he was given. Then I started to realize just how annoying this character was and how, if he was only portrayed as being a little less fey, he would have been sympathetic. But, as it was, I was glad when he got beat up because it shut him up for a little while.

That’s not to say that the movie was all bad. For the first half hour it was actually a lot of fun. Kitten’s childhood was funny and the young actor playing him was pretty adept at balancing the nature of a future transvestite and the boyish mischief of knowing what you want and not really being able to get it.

Oh, and the music was, for the most part, great. I’m not so into disco, but the glam rock stuff was awesome. Of course, it’s hard to do a movie about transvestites in the late 60s and early 70s without using “Children Of The Revolution” by T. Rex. Love the song, but it’s starting to get a bit overused.

If you’re a fan of Jordan or Murphy, I guess you have to see this. Otherwise, it’s really kind of not worth it. Even then it may annoy you enough to where you don’t really like Cillian too much anymore.

But there is a pretty good Crying Game joke in there. Almost worth it. Wait. No it’s not. Nevermind.

A TRIBUTE TO MICKEY ROONEY

Ok. Let me say this first: Mickey Rooney is NOT gay. That’s not why I’m putting him near the top here. BUT he did make a lot of movies with Judy Garland. And I saw one of them, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

First off, let’s talk about Mickey himself.

After telling people that I saw Mickey Rooney at the festival I usually got one of two responses. First was, “I thought he was dead!” The other response I got was, “Oh! I loved him in Sin City!” How sad that no one thinks about this guy anymore. He’s 85 years old. He’s made 360 movies. He’s about the only person still alive who made silent films. He remembers EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY. And, amazingly enough, he still acts like he’s about 12 years old.

He’s also extremely funny. He and Peter Bogdonovich talked during his tribute about everything from his silent film days (he only made a few and he was VERY young) to the state of television today. (“I don’t know Martha Stewart, but I hear she has a new tv show coming soon called ‘Why?’”) He almost ended up turning the interview back on Boggy and asked him just about every question that was asked of him. The guy was amazing. And I’m ashamed to say that, up until this festival, the only movie I had ever seen with him was The Black Stallion. Oh, and there was The Fox And The Hound. Does that count? And I barely count Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Although it’s a great movie, his part was just embarrassing.

They showed clips of a lot of his films, but they didn’t even scratch the surface. Babes On Broadway, Bill, Boys Town (a movie that follows him to this day—he is still a representative of Boys and Girls Towns all over America), The Comedian. All movies that I need to see. (They showed The Comedian and I missed it. Dammit.)

He had stories about every movie, too. He remembered working with Don Siegel on Baby Face Nelson before Don went on to do Dirty Harry. He talked about how Lionel Barrymore played Judge Hardy in the very first Andy Hardy movie, A Family Affair in 1937.

And through it all I kept thinking of how dead-on Dana Carvey’s impression of Mickey was on SNL all those years ago. A bit over the top, but not too much.

BABES ON BROADWAY (1941)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Busby Berkeley
Written by: Fred F. Finklehoffe/Elaine Ryan

After the tribute we were told that one of the TBAs the next day was going to be Babes On Broadway, one of Mickey’s most famous collaborations with Judy Garland. Awesome! I’ll finally get to see a classic Mickey Rooney film!

But the real treat was that Mickey watched it with us. He introduced the film and talked about Judy and couple of the other actors in the film. Ray McDonald was apparently one of the greatest dancers ever and Richard Quine went on to be a director extraordinaire. He also went on about how music today is unintelligible and how the movie we were about to see had songs. That you could understand the lyrics to. And that you could sing along with. Dramatic pauses everywhere.

But I can’t begrudge Mickey for being so dramatic. He’s awesome and he’s had an amazing career. He’s earned a few Shatner-like pauses.

The movie itself is a fun little bit of fluff from 1941 that includes a lot of over the top Busby Berkeley song and dance numbers that, while not the master’s best, were still pretty memorable. The only really bad number was the one that Judy sang for the English exchange students, “Chin Up, Cheerio, Carry On”. And that was mainly bad because of the super-cheesy shots of the kids crying stoically. Even before that they were talking to their parents over a loud speaker back in London in really bad British accents and trying to use “new” American phrases. Sad.

But the movie and the actors had a LOT of life in them. I’m not a fan of Judy Garland, but I could almost see the appeal in this movie. And she and Mickey together were a lot of fun. The show that they do at the old theatre (they’re trying to raise money for the kids that Judy helps out with to go to “the country,” wherever that is, along with getting Mickey and his buddies an audition with a big producer) is hilarious. Especially the bit with Mickey in drag doing a Carmen Miranda dance.

Then came the discomfort. The end of the movie comes with a big minstrel show. Yes. Judy Garland in black face. Her eyes are huge already. With her face painted black they look like her entire face was eyes.

Watching something like this at home alone is one thing. I can watch it and see it from the perspective of time. This is something that, unfortunately, was done in the late 30s and early 40s. In fact, it was probably done all the way up to the early 50s. It was just another way of entertaining people. It was wrong and racist, but most of the folks doing it didn’t necessarily see it that way. Mickey Rooney is not a racist. Neither was Judy Garland. But they did a number in black face. Ok. I can handle that. Different times, different culture.

Watching with a group in a theatre, though, is a very uncomfortable prospect. Suddenly you’ve got a bunch of people who may not be able to see it from this perspective. Suddenly you start thinking, “What if Spike Lee is in this joint?” Everyone starts to squirm a bit. If there is laughter it’s VERY nervous laughter. It’s a little harder to deal with even with a festival audience that is a little more cultured than your typical Michael Bay audience.

But, as I’ve said before, I don’t think it’s a good idea to ban these kinds of movies. It’s certainly a terrible idea to destroy them. If we can’t learn from history, what can we learn from? This is a fun movie with an unfortunate end. It’s ok to watch this kind of thing with your kids. But just discuss the ending with them. Let them know that it’s wrong to do this sort of thing, but people didn’t realize it back then. Don’t let the indiscretion of a few people 60 years ago ruin your enjoyment of a good flick.

That’s about it from the gay side of things. (Again, MICKEY ROONEY IS NOT GAY! It’s the Judy Garland connection here.) As I said, I didn’t get to see Brokeback Mountain, but I heard that it was pretty good and definitely beautifully shot. I’ll have to wait to see it. I’ll bring my own pudding.

So, no more gay stuff that I saw, but there certainly was no shortage of the ever popular tortured artist effect. Along with Capote there were these next two flicks.

WALK THE LINE (2005)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: James Mangold
Written by: Gill Dennis/James Mangold
Based on books by: Johnny Cash/Patrick Carr (uncredited)

Johnny Cash (VERY well played by Joaquin Phoenix) was not always the legend that we know him as now. Once he was just a guy who wanted to be a country singer.

Check that. He was once a guy in love who wanted to be a country singer.

The object of his affection from the time he was about 10 years old was June Carter (Reese Witherspoon), the second youngest of The Carter Family, a country/bluegrass/folk singing family that took the country by storm throughout the 30s and 40s. (Their influence is still felt in all of those genres and more.)

Johnny and June grew up, married other people, and, amazingly, ended up touring with the rest of the Sun Records crew. (This movie has some of the best portrayals of Elvis, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and the rest I have ever seen.) And, after June’s two marriages, Johnny’s marriage and three or four kids…well, you know how Johnny and June ended up.

But it wasn’t an easy fight. Johnny became addicted to amphetamines and almost killed himself with them a few times. He got to be so annoying to June (walking all the way from his apartment with Waylon Jennings (played by Waylon’s son, Shooter) to her place across town, constantly proposing to her, etc) that she finally decided that she and her family had to help him kick his habit and get him to live his life and be the amazing star that she knew he could be.

Tough love has never been tougher.

The story has been told before, of course, but that’s ok. This is Johnny we’re talking about. And he approved every bit of this movie, including the casting. In fact, it’s been said that Johnny and June both chose Joaquin and Reese to play them. Joaquin is really showing that he’s one of the best actors of his generation. He looks and sounds just like Johnny at times. He sang all of his own songs and did such an amazing job that there were times that I thought that they had switched to a real recording of Johnny singing. (There’s at least one time, when he’s wearing sunglasses, that Joaquin looks just like River, too. I’ve never thought that they looked too much alike, but this kind of showed that they did.)

Reese, who also did her own singing, may not have looked too much like June, but she was pretty amazing, too. Anyone who thought that she could only do silly romantic comedies has forgotten that she started out in tender dramas like The Man In The Moon. She’s strong, vulnerable and funny sometimes all at the same time. (June was, after all, a comedian, too.)

Robert Patrick is also quite good as Johnny’s nearly indifferent father.

James Mangold and Gill Dennis’ script (based on Johnny’s autobiographies The Man In Black and Cash: An Autobiography) showed Johnny as an almost tragic hero who pulls himself out of hell with a LOT of help from June. And Mangold’s direction keeps the pace going without sacrificing character or story.

I loved this movie. I think it was probably my favorite of the festival, actually. And that’s not just because I’m a fan of Johnny. It’s actually a genuinely great film and it gives us a good perspective on the beginnings of the legend of Johnny Cash.

I have one quibble with the facts of the film: Didn’t Johnny see his brother, Jack’s, accident take place? That’s what I had always heard. Maybe it’s more dramatic to have him off fishing instead of where he could actually help him. I dunno.

NO DIRECTION HOME: BOB DYLAN (2005)

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Now, from one legend to a legend that was heavily inspired by the first.

Bob Dylan is one of the biggest names in rock music. Even in the late 70s and throughout the 80s when he was putting out pretty subpar albums, no one ever wrote him off for being done. As he’s come back throughout the 90s to today we’ve seen an American original grow older gracefully and have a renaissance of artistic resonance.

But how did the man who became Dylan get his start? Well, that’s what Martin Scorsese set out to tell us with this new documentary. In nearly four hours he shows us pretty much ever aspect of Bob’s early life up through the motorcycle accident in 1966 that sidetracked his career for about a year.

With interviews with Dylan and some of his closest cohorts of the time (including Joan Beaz, Al Kooper (who looks like a wasted Tim Robbins) and Allen Ginsberg) we get a better portrait of the man and the myth than any documentary has ever dared to give us before. Even D.A. Pennebaker’s amazing Don’t Look Back (which lent some footage to this film) didn’t give us such a well-rounded portrayal. It’s a great film that any fan of Dylan or music should make themselves sit down and watch. It’s being released on DVD soon. They will see Dylan deny that he is a spokesman of a generation, a folk singer or a poet. (He’s a song and dance man.) They will see him embrace his audience and then do everything he can to piss them off. (“Play it fuckin’ loud!”) And they will see what made him learn to love folk music in the first place.

One question I have: since Dylan is planning a trilogy of autobiographies and there’s so much more ground to cover than what this film covers, is Marty planning two more docs? That would be pretty awesome. I would love to see what he has to say about his Christian years and the dark years of Blood On The Tracks, Desire and divorce. And then end it all up with his big comeback with Oh Mercy in 1989 and the Oscar win for “Things Have Changed” in 2001.

This is definitely one that I’m buying as soon as I see it. And the soundtrack is out now as Bootleg Series #7. Can’t wait to pick that up. There’s a lot of unreleased stuff including different versions of songs like “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry,” live versions and demos.

EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED (2005)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Liev Schreiber
Written by: Liev Schreiber
Based on book by: Jonathan Safran Foer

This one isn’t so much about a tortured artist as it is about a tortured young man. But the narrator does fancy himself a writer, so there ya go.

Jonathan (Elijah Wood) is a collector. He collects things that his family leaves behind. His wall is full of these things preserved in Ziploc baggies under a giant family tree. He wants to make sure that his family is remembered and this is the only way he knows how to do it. Yeah, it seems crazy, but that’s just him. He’s an extremely anal nerd who likes everything to be in order.

But now that his grandmother has died he is searching for the woman who saved his beloved grandfather’s life back before World War II. He travels to the Ukraine where his grandfather was hiding from the Nazis and meets up with a wannabe gangsta translator, Alex (Eugene Hutz, front man for punk band Gogol Bordello), who really only speaks very broken English, and his grandfather (Boris Leskin) who thinks that he’s blind, but he drives very well.

Along the way, of course, all three learn a little bit about themselves and their roots.

The movie starts off as a pretty brilliant almost surreal comedy and ends up being a very touching and thought-provoking drama about young men and their relationships with the past, especially their grandfathers. It’s not a perfect film (many had a problem with the tonal shift—I didn’t—and Jonathan’s fear of dogs kind of disappears pretty easily for being such a deep-seated fear), but it is a very good film and one of my favorites of the festival. The performances (especially Elijah’s, who looks like he could have been perfect as Clark Kent) were great and, even if the movie hadn’t been all that good, it would be worth checking out just for that alone.

Making his writing and directing debut, Liev Schreiber isn’t necessarily flashy (except for the constant white-outs, which got a little annoying—but everything is illuminated!), but he’s certainly sensitive to the material and knows what he’s doing. It’s a very good debut film. And it makes me want to read Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel.

Although, it’s hard to hear about rings these days when Elijah is involved these days.

Now, let’s move on to the two Asian films I saw.

THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG (2005)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Sang-soo Im
Written by: Sang-soo Im

President Park Chun-hee (Jae-ho Song) was a tyrant. He killed people for no good reason, crushed opponents and, basically, made himself into a villain for future S. Korean filmmakers. But he also loved Japanese music and had a soft spot in his heart for women who sang those Japanese songs.

But that didn’t make him any less of a target of assassination plots. Not even from his own officials.

The President’s Last Bang is the story of the last days of his life. They were filled with the things he loved: violence and singing Japanese women. They were also filled with the ineptitude of his own bodyguards and army. (“We couldn’t find any bullets!”) It’s funny ‘cause it’s true!

This is the kind of story that Tarantino would make with Oliver Stone. In fact, Park’s assassination in 1979 shook the country like JFK’s assassination shook our country in 1963. And director Im Sang-soo was sued by Park’s son for defamation of character! They forced him to excise four minutes of documentary footage so that audiences wouldn’t be confused into thinking that this was not a fiction film.

It’s a really strange, funny, violent film with a lot of great political intrigue thrown in. The only problem I had with it was that it was kind of hard to follow at times. I’m sorry, but even other Asians have said it: all of these guys kind of look alike. It’s hard to keep up with who’s who and what’s going on. And I watch a lot of Asian films, so for me to be confused by something like that is really something special.

THREE TIMES

** (2/5)

Directed by: Hsiao-hsien Hou
Written by: T’ien-wen Chu/Hsiao-hsien Hou

Unfortunately, Three Times was not as good as The President’s Last Bang. In fact, it wasn’t even as good as Breakfast On Pluto.

It’s a nearly experimental film about three different love affairs in three different time periods. Each is acted by the same two actors (Chen Chang, and my main draw, Shu Qi) and none of them have a lot of dialogue. The second one, taking place in 1911, was actually shot as a silent film complete with title cards. Strangely, it has the most dialogue.

The first segment takes place in 1966 and involves a young man who is going off to the army and the girl at the hotel he is staying at who falls for him. When she goes to another hotel in another town, he goes to find her…so that he can play pool in front of her again for about 15 minutes.

The 1911 segment is about a couple who get to know each other better over the course of the film. Or something like that. I think at this point I was figuring out the rhythm of the film and realizing that I was in for a long, slow two hours. I missed a few title cards because I couldn’t keep my eyes open, not even to watch Shu.

The final segment (2005) was about artists and drugs. That’s about all I got out of it. It made no sense at all and was probably the worst of the bunch.

None of the stories really seem to go anywhere and the characters are about as interesting as watching a particularly slow bug crawling across a white floor.

Here’s the hell of this movie: I love Shu Qi. I could watch her reading the phone book. And she was actually very good in all three roles. In fact, it could be the best acting she’s ever done because it showed that she has a range. All three characters are very different. But watching this movie is like watching her reading the New York phone book to herself. And its entire plot has been stripped away. And the room she’s in is dark, so you can’t even watch the pretty paint dry around her.

The first segment, as I said, had 15 minute pool games. And these were shot in one take with only half of the table visible. The other half of the screen was a wall. So actors would disappear for minutes at a time and then you would hear the balls knock around. And Shu would giggle her cute little Asian girl giggle. AND THAT WAS IT!!! I’m all for movies with very little dialogue. Solaris was awesome. Kubrick was a master. But this is ridiculous.

And this is supposed to be Taiwanese director Hsiao-hsien Hou’s most accessible work. Wow. It makes me want to run out to the video store and look for his movies just so I can avoid them.

It also didn’t help that Shu was supposed to be at the festival and never showed up. DAMMIT!!!

CONVERSATIONS WITH OTHER WOMEN (2005)

not rated because I didn’t see all of it

Directed by: Hans Canosa
Written by: Gabrielle Zevin

Now for a slightly more successful experiment.

A man and a woman (Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter) meet at a wedding. They talk and decide to go back to her hotel room for a night of the old in-out, in-out. As they talk we learn more about their pasts and their current lives.

What makes this so interesting from a filmmaking standpoint is that it’s all shot what director Hans Canosa calls “dual frame.” It’s actually split screens that were shot simultaneously so that we always get the reaction of the other actor to whatever is being said to them at the moment it’s said. It must have really been like acting in a play on this set.

The screens don’t always show Aaron and Helena, though. Sometimes they show their memories of their younger selves (Nora Zehetner and Erik Eidem) or even other people at the reception. Sometimes it can be a little disorienting, especially when they look like they’re further apart than they actually are. But this sort of relationship is always a little disorienting, so it works in the film’s favor.

The performances were all very good, if nothing spectacular. The two younger actors look enough like their older counterparts (especially the beautiful Nora) that you could almost believe that they were actually younger Aaron and Helena. (Although I find it hard to believe that Aaron was ever as buff as Erik.)

Unfortunately, I was unable to see the final half hour of the movie because I had to work. (DAMMIT!!) But I do plan on finishing the movie when it comes out. It was enough fun to make me want to keep watching. I might wait until video, but I do plan on finishing it. I’ll try to let you know when I do.

And now, for the final festival film that I need to review. It wasn’t my last film, but it’s the last one for today.

EDMOND (2005)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Stuart Gordon
Written by: David Mamet
Based on play by: David Mamet

Imagine a world where David Mamet wrote Taxi Driver. Now, take Travis Bickle out of the film and put Jerry Lundegaard in there. Now you’re starting to get the idea behind Edmond.

Edmond (William H. Macy) is a loser. His wife (Mamet’s wife, Rebecca Pidgeon) is a selfish bitch who wants nothing more than everything and his job is a dead-end. When he goes to a fortuneteller every card turns up bad. It’s time for him to change his life. So he leaves his wife and walks out into the mean streets of New York to find his way again. He runs into a man (Joe Mantegna) who has a pretty racist view of the world. But, to Edmond, it almost makes sense. Then he goes to hookers (Bai Ling, Mena Suvari and Denise Richards), but he’s too stingy to pay for their wares. In fact, his stinginess keeps him from a lot of pleasures of NYC.

Then he meets a young waitress, Glenna (Julia Stiles). She’s beautiful, young and attracted to him. Things only get worse for Edmond from there.

As Edmond becomes more fucked up and his worldview gets even more twisted, his world gets darker and darker. We just know that something is going to explode, and we think it’s probably going to be Edmond himself.

The craziest thing about this film is that it’s directed by Stuart Gordon, director of such awesome cult films as Re-Animator, From Beyond and Dagon. And this is, in fact, a David Mamet play. Not too high on the violence quotient, usually.

But Edmond does get violent. In fact, Gordon gets to spatter Macy with blood in one scene.

In a way, though, this kind of fits Gordon’s body of work. It’s certainly off-center. It’s also darkly comic, disturbing and shows a world that revels in it’s darkly comic disturbance. What more could Gordon want?! Besides, Gordon and Mamet have been friends for a long time. In fact, I think I remember him saying that he directed the first production of Sexual Perversity In Chicago, which made Mamet the playwriting behemoth that he is today.

It’s also a lot of fun to see Gordon and Mamet regulars co-mingle in one film. You’ve got Pidgeon, Macy and Mantegna on Mamet’s side and Jeffrey Combs, George Wendt, Mantegna and Debi Mazar on Gordon’s. And this still has Mamet’s rhythm to it. It really doesn’t matter who directs a film, if Mamet wrote it (especially as a play), you can tell.

The performances were all very good in that Mamet way, but Macy was pretty incredible. It’s hard for him to be bad, I know, but I thought he was really good here. He has a knack for playing losers.

Some people really didn’t like this movie at all. I know it’s not for all tastes, but I really liked it a lot. Not perfect by any means, but it’s a lot of fun in a really weird sort of way.

As we were walking away from the theatre I talked to Gordon and told him how much I’ve loved his films over the years. He says that he’s working on a fourth Re-Animator movie called House Of Re-Animator. It’s going to take place in the White House. That’s perfect. I can’t wait.

So that’s it for Telluride this year. I saw less movies than ever, but it was still a lot of fun. I left my little box canyon town on Tuesday afternoon and I already can’t wait for next year!