This year kicked of with a video sent from Harry’s buddy, Quint, over in New Zealand. Quint’s been on the set of The Hobbit for the last few months and has been reporting on the filming of the future masterpieces. He did some behind the scene intros for the video and it was all a lot of fun. Then Peter Jackson called Gandalf (Ian McKellen) over because Quint was feeling pretty awful for not being at his best friend’s birthday party. Gandalf did a little hocus pocus and, after some in theatre explosions, Quint was in the audience! Gandalf leaned in to the camera and told us that he had secretly stashed a copy of the trailer in Quint’s bag just before he sent him.

WE GET TO SEE A TRAILER!?!?!

Well, first, Quint had to find a trailer bearer. You see, you don’t just walk into the Alamo projection room. A few people stood up, but it was Elijah Wood who stood up and yelled, “I will take it!” and ran up to Quint.

Wow. We’re all such freakin’ geeks, because this was awesome.

Well, they couldn’t get the trailer to work, so we had to go into the first film, but we did eventually see the trailer…three times in a row. I can’t tell you anything specific about it, but godDAMN, it looks amazing. I am hardly going to be able to wait until next December to see this movie.

The first movie that we saw was one that Harry introduced by saying that we had all probably just paid to see it very recently. He didn’t care, though, because it’s his birthday and he doesn’t care if it was just released a couple of weeks ago. The movie was pretty much about him and, as soon as he programmed it, all the rest of the programming just fell into place. Luckily, Hugo is probably my favorite movie this year.

Watching it a second time, I really noticed all of the more subtle film images throughout the entire movie. All of the clock faces and gears look like film reels and many of them make the noise of a film projector. Hugo runs around the clockworks, looking out of all of the windows as if he’s watching movies about all of the people who work at the train station. He’s a voyeur just like we all are when we watch movies.

I love this movie and it’s at least as good on a second viewing. It also helped to introduce what ended up being an underlying theme of the festival and, really, all movies: unexpected adventure.

Next up was a movie that plays a big role in Hugo.

A TRIP TO THE MOON (1902)

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Georges Méliès
Written by: Georges Méliès

Georges Melies was THE early visionary of film. Before Melies, film was a sideshow technology. Even the Lumiere Brothers had no idea that film would be a truly big deal. Melies figured out that you could actually tell a story with film.

A Trip To The Moon is Melies’ most famous film and deservedly so. It tells a simple story of a group of scientists (or wizards, depending on how you take the long beards and hats that they wear) who figure out how to go to the moon. They all climb aboard their rocket, hit the man in the moon in the eye, fight some mooninites, bring one back to Earth and are heroes. End story.

While the story was huge for its time, the sets are what amazes now. It’s all stage sets, but they still look better than a lot of CGI sets made today. Because of his background as a magician, he was the first filmmakers to use special effects on screen. His use of jump cuts to make people and objects appear, disappear and change instantly was an accidental invention, but he used it all the time to amaze his audiences.

If you have any interest in film history, A Trip To The Moon is absolutely essential to your film viewing. If you like sci-fi films, this was the first. It’s beautiful to see on the big screen. I wish it had been a tinted version (hand-tinted, of course), but it’s still a great film that should be seen by anyone with the slightest interest in film.

JUST IMAGINE (1930)

** (2/5)

Directed by: David Butler
Written by: Buddy G. DeSylva/Lew Brown/Ray Henderson

In 1930, Hollywood was looking for something new to put on the screen. Movies had just started talking fairly recently, so what could they do with this new version of the media?

Well, a sci-fi musical, of course!

That’s right, kids. This is not only Hollywood’s first sci-fi film, but it’s the first sci-fi musical!

Let’s not take that as a great thing just yet.

Basically a remake of A Trip To The Moon, Just Imagine takes place in 1980, a time far too distant for citizens of 1930 to even dream about. Cars have been replaced by airplanes, marriages have to be approved by the state (weird…we’re pretty much just starting that now), everyone has a number instead of a name and there are no people with pigment in their skin.

In other words, it’s a Republican dream!

LN-18 (a pre-Tarzan Maureen O’Sullivan) and J-21 (John Garrick) are in love. Unfortunately, another man has asked for permission to marry LN-18 and he is above J-21 on the pecking order. This, of course, means that he gets first priority. Unless, of course, J-21 can distinguish himself in the his field: aviation.

What’s a boy to do when everything’s already been done in aviation?

Luckily, esteemed scientist X-10 (Wilfred Lucas) wants to send J-21 to Mars. If he succeeds, he’ll be able to marry LN-18 and everything will be hunky dory. This can only happen, though, if he survives the trip.

Along for the fun are his best friend RT-42 (Frank Albertson) and Single-0 (El Brendel). Single-0 is a man who was somehow frozen in 1930 and is thawed out. He’s all about comic relief and has almost no bearing on the story. He just runs around with a Swedish accent (“What about yustice?!”) and does some vaguely funny Harpo Marx routines. El was a comedian at the time and this was his schtick on vaudeville. He’s kinda funny, but nothing to write home about.

Really, there’s not much to write home about for any of this movie. The sets are pretty amazing and the effects are nice. (A couple of the uncredited effects guys would go on to break down barriers with King Kong a few years later.) But that’s really it. The story is silly, the acting is stiff and the songs are kind of awful.

This isn’t an easy film to see. Amazon is out of stock and the ones that are for sale by other sellers are $999.99. Trust me. It’s not worth all that. If you really want to see the sets, check out a serial from the same time period. A lot of them were reused for…well, I can’t actually remember the serial. Apparently, it’s awesome, though. Too bad.

If you do see it, check out the strangest song of the entire movie where RT-42 and his wife sing about how they no longer kill flies because that fly might be in love with another fly. Then they save a pair of flies just so they can force them upon each other.

Um…what?

Also, there’s a jab at Henry Ford’s antisemitism. THAT is some funny stuff.

Next up was a different kind of adventure.

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (2011)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Tomas Alfredson
Written by: Bridget O’Connor/Peter Straughan
Based on book by: John le Carre

John le Carre is one of the preeminent Cold War spy novels. With books like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1962) and The Looking Glass War (1965), he basically invented the cerebral, inward-looking spy novel. His books aren’t about globe hopping and lady laying. His are about the inner struggles of being a spy and the inner workings of MI6 and the Circus, the upper echelon of British spies.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974) is one of his best loved novels with his most well known creation, George Smiley. Smiley is a man whose entire life revolves around the Circus. Although he’s married, his wife is barely a character in the story…or his life, for that matter.

In the beginning of the film, Smiley (Gary Oldman) is in the middle of a forced retirement. His former boss, Control (John Hurt), calls him back into duty to find out who the mole is among his co-workers. They all seem to have different views from Control, but one of them is feeding information back to the Soviets. Who could it be? When Control dies, Smiley is basically on his own to save his country.

There’s the entire plot. Just a few lines. But, while the movie is VERY good, it’s also incredibly hard to follow at times. In fact, in my already tired state at this point in the day, I was pretty much lost by the time I got my burger. (In fact, that might have been what totally distracted me from what was truly going on. Don’t eat while watching this movie. You’ll get lost and never find your way again.) With all of the names, double-crosses and characters, it was nearly impossible to truly figure out.

This, of course, does not make this a bad film. The plot is kind of a McGuffin. We don’t necessarily care who the mole is. What we care about is seeing Smiley go through the motions of finding the mole. We care about the toll that it takes on Smiley. We care about seeing all of these characters interact together.

It also helps that Gary Oldman is at the top of his game here. Smiley is a very “normal” character and Oldman manages to make him real. There were definitely times that I forgot that this was Sid Viscous/Beethoven/Sirius Black that I was watching. His voice has a British aristocracy lilt to it that I’ve never heard from him before. His face, although not really made up, was older than ever before. And he was perfectly amazing.

The rest of the cast was just as good. Toby Jones, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch (it was nice to see Sherlock play Holmes), Ciaran Hines…all were great. Alfredon’s (Let The Right One In) direction caught all of these performances perfectly, often from a distance away…much like a spy would have.

After sitting through the two hour film, just about everyone had the same look on their face: “That was great! What happened?” Luckily, the studio knew that they had made possibly the most cerebral and complex spy film in decades, so the Alamo staff was provided with dossiers for every audience member, complete with plot points, character sketches and basically a flow chart explaining what the fuck happened.

I kind of love them for it.

This is definitely a film that warrants multiple viewings. I can’t wait to give it another shot and see if I can follow more of it. I’ll have one up on the rest of the audience with the dossier in my hand.

Hell, I actually can’t wait to read the book.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS (2011)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Guy Ritchie
Written by: Michele Mulroney/Kieran Mulroney
Based on characters created by: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes has come back in a big way lately. In 2009, Guy Ritchie directed the amped up version of the world’s greatest detective to accolades and dollars. Then there was the BBC update of the original stories perfectly cast with Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson. There will also be an American version of the Holmes legend on television soon.

Now, Ritchie is back with the sequel to the film that restarted it all. This time out, Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr) and Watson (Jude Law) are on the run from Holmes’ greatest enemy, Professor James Moriarty (creepily played by Jared Harris). The two men are perfectly matched in just about every way with one exception: Moriarty is willing to kill anyone who gets in his way. Even the innocent.

Watson, of course, is about to get married when he and Holmes reconnect, so he is none too excited to get caught up in this latest adventure. The bromance is palpable and the near homosexuality of the two leads is played up even more than it is in the BBC show. “Lay with me, Watson.”

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve seen the original, so it’s hard for me to compare the two. From what I remember of it, though, I think this one is just as much fun and just as good. Yes, there are plenty of explosions and the direction is kinetic, as always. This is no sedate, Basil Rathbone film, but I think you all knew that. To say that it has a Michael Bay style is to insult the movie. It’s not dumb like a Bay movie. It’s not shit like a Bay movie. This is a Guy Ritchie film and he is getting back in our good graces by using other peoples’ characters. (His next project is The Man From U.N.C.L.E.)

Of course, this movie really has almost nothing to do with the original stories. There are things that fans will recognize, but there’s no story that I know of that follows this kind of path. (Somehow I doubt that Conan Doyle teamed the boys up with a sexy gypsy woman (Noomi Rapace) who kicks just as much ass as the two men. And I don’t think that Mycroft (Stephen Frye) was as…strange…as this version of him.)

This was an incredibly fun movie and, honestly, I can’t wait for these folks to team up again for a third film.

THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS (1946)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Robert Florey
Written by: William Fryer Harvey/Curt Siodmak/Harold Goldman (uncredited)

At one time, a man like Peter Lorre could be a huge star. With his bugged out eyes and crazy voice, you would think that he would be a hard sell. But Lorre was a movie star pretty much from the first time he stepped onto the screen in M in 1931. He has never stopped being an icon.

That’s why it was a bit surprising when Harry said that he had never played a Lorre film at BNAT. The fuck you say?

The Beast With Five Fingers was a pretty good way to start.

Lorre plays an astronomer who lives with an eccentric old pianist (Victor Francen) who has lost the use of his right side. His music has been rewritten by a cynical young man named Bruce Conrad (Robert Alda). When the old man dies leaving all of his money to his nurse (Andrea King), his descendants descend upon his house to try to make it seem like the old man was a blundering fool and that the money should come to him. Of course, Bruce and the nurse are in love.

Oh yeah…Peter Lorre. He actually plays a big role in this, although the description makes it seem like he doesn’t. He is pretty much the catalyst for the whole thing to happen. He’s incredibly protective of his books and his research and wants everyone out of the house…except for the nurse, of course. She can stay.

As time goes on, Lorre goes crazier and crazier and starts to see a disembodied hand crawling around the house and occasionally playing music. Sometimes it even kills people.

This is a great little film that, unfortunately, is hard to find outside of this sort of festival. It’s never been released on DVD and Warner has no plans of releasing it. That’s really too bad because I think the movie could find a niche audience now.

If you ever get a chance to see it, check it out.

G.I. JOE 2: RETALIATION TRAILER

Well, they got rid of Stephen Sommers, so I guess that’s a step in the right direction. But they replaced him with Jon M Chu, director of such classics as Step Up 2, Step Up 3D and Justin Beiber: Never Say Never.

Uh…what?

First off, was anyone really clamoring for this sequel? Second…shit. I don’t even know. I don’t remember anything about this trailer. Whatever. Do what you want, Hollywood. Enough stupid people will be into it.

Let’s move on.

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (2011)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Written by: Steven Moffat/Edgar Wright/Joe Cornish
Based on comics by: Herge

Tintin is one of the most popular characters in the world. Created by Georges Prosper Remi (aka Herge) in Belgium in 1929, he has become like Mickey Mouse to about 85% of the world.

So, you ask, why have you not heard of him? That’s because people in America don’t really care about what happens in any other country. Most Americans had never heard of Jackie Chan until Rumble In The Bronx in 1995. He had only been making movies for about 25 years before that, becoming the most famous man in the world. Why would we have heard of him?

I’m not saying that Americans are stupid. We’re just very insular. Many people see something foreign and they suddenly become uninterested. That really is a shame, though, because other countries make some amazing stuff.

Anyway, enough PSAs. Tintin is like a Belgian Mickey Mouse. He’s a boy reporter who was able to have 23 and a half adventures before Herge died in 1983 while writing the 24th. Sometime in the early 80s, a young director named Steven Spielberg became interested in Tintin because someone compared Raiders Of The Lost Ark to his adventures. Herge then became a fan of Spielberg saying that he was the only man who could possibly bring Tintin to life. Spielberg bought the rights in 1983 and has never let them go.

Skip ahead nearly 30 years when Spielberg goes to fellow Tintin fanatic Peter Jackson to see about using WETA to do special effects for a live action Tintin movie. Jackson says, “No! The only way to do it is motion capture and CGI!”

Agreeance!

I’ve never read a Tintin book, but I feel like I need to now that I’ve seen this movie. It follows Tintin (Jamie Bell) as he and his dog, Snowy, run amok all over the world. They meet Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis), rescue him from smugglers led by Mr. Sakharine (Daniel Craig) and then search for treasure. There’s also the Inspectors Thompson (Nick Frost and Simon Pegg), two identical policemen who bumble their way through helping Tintin catch the bad guys.

And it all starts with a model ship.

This is a really fun movie with amazing animation. For just about the first time, motion capture isn’t totally creepy. I think it’s probably because they don’t try to make these characters look realistic. They look like slightly more realistic versions of the real comic book characters. (Watch for the analog drawings at the beginning of the film.) The 3D works beautifully, too. Not as essential as Hugo, but still a good addition to the film.

I think, though, that even if the animation was as creepy as Polar Express the movie would still be a lot of fun. Story and action go a long way and this one has both to spare. The action is basically non-stop, just like it would be in a comic book.

My only complaint is that maybe the story moves a bit TOO fast. I felt like we got caught up right from the start and there wasn’t enough time to really figure out what was going on who who these people really were. Then again, maybe that’s how it would be in real life. Just go, go, go and don’t stop to think.

I think I’ll have to see it one more time to really get a good feel for it. I had a lot of fun with it, but I think it may be a movie that a second viewing would give it another half star…maybe even a full one.

THE DEVIL INSIDE TRAILER

From the producer of the Paranormal Activity movies and (sigh) Insidious, this looks like Paranormal Exorcist. Lots of people (same person? not sure) getting possessed and then breaking their own backs. Oh, and found footage. Of course. We can’t make a horror movie anymore without found footage.

I dunno. Maybe I’ll check it out on video. I just don’t really want to give this guy THAT much more money.

Oh yeah, when the trailer said, “Based on a true story,” the whole audience laughed.

PORCO ROSSO (1992)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki
Written by: Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki is one of the best directors alive today, live action or animation. The man is amazing. All of his films are at least entertaining on some level. There are some that I don’t like as much as others (don’t shoot me, but I’m just not that into Totoro), but they’re all great.

Porco Rosso is one that has always been on my list, but I’ve just never gotten around to checking it out. I mean, it’s about a pig who flies airplanes. Why does that sound good? Well, it has the name Miyazaki attached to it. That’s why.

Porco is the best pilot in the air just before World War II breaks out. He makes his living as a bounty hunter and rescues people from air pirates. He also happens to have had a spell put on him that turned him into a pig. This, of course, does not stop him from romancin’ the ladies. There’s one lady in particular that he’s had his eye on, but he’s constantly thwarted by Curtis, a fellow flying ace.

This was definitely a movie that I could not stay awake through just from sheer fatigue. It had nothing to do with the quality of the film because, you know, it’s Miyazaki.

Here’s the deal, though. This is Harry’s favorite Miyazaki film. He dressed as Porco for Halloween this year and just loves the shit out of this movie.

I don’t think it’s going to be one of my favorites. I just couldn’t quite connect with it like I did something like Princess Mononoke or Castle In The Sky. It’s a good film (note the four stars), but I don’t think it’s Miyazaki’s best. I will, however, give it another shot sometime.

CABIN IN THE WOODS (2012)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Drew Goddard
Written by: Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard

Joss Whedon did a LOT for the horror genre when he created Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It’s a real turning point for horror if only for the girl-centric plot of the whole thing.

Unfortunately, he’s also inspired a lot of rather uninspired clones over the years.

Cabin In The Woods is his way of knocking all of them down a peg or two…even if that’s not what he says it is.

I’m not allowed to do a detailed review here, but I can tell you that this movie kicked my ass. It’s so freakin’ smart, funny and full of turns that you don’t quite expect that it’s hard not to fall in love with it. It takes every trope of horror movies and turns them on their inverted ears in a way the Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson couldn’t quite bring themselves to do with Scream.

It’s been a long and winding road for this movie (it was filmed a few years ago, I think), but it’s finally coming out and I hope that it endears itself to lots of fans. It deserves it.

GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE (2012)

** (2/5)

Directed by: Mark Neveldine/Brian Taylor
Written by: Scott M. Gimple/Seth Hoffman/David S. Goyer
Based on comics by: Roy Thomas/Gary Friedrich/Mike Ploog

When Harry announced this one, I think most of the audience groaned a little bit. Seriously? Ghost Rider 2? Why would we want to see a sequel to that shitty movie?

Actually, he had the same reaction when Columbia asked if he wanted to screen it at BNAT. He said, “I need to see it.” He did and he thought it was completely different from the first one and kinda loved it.

Again, I’m not allowed to write a detailed review…but I’m not really sure that I could even if I wanted to. I not only couldn’t stay awake through it, I wasn’t interested enough to stay awake. Sure, Nicolas Cage is in Bad Lieutenant mode here, so he’s a lot of fun to watch while he goes through his weird faces and crazy voices. That, unfortunately, doesn’t make the movie particularly good. It’s good enough to be better than the first, but that’s not saying much. Really, only the kinetic direction (from the guys who brought us the Crank saga…they do know how to get into the middle of the action) and Nic’s craziness keeps it from being the worst movie at BNAT this year.

THE GREY (2012)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Joe Carnahan
Written by: Joe Carnahan/Ian Mackenzie Jeffers
Based on short story by: Ian Mackenzie Jeffers

Joe Carnahan is one of those directors that everyone just kind of lost faith in. When Narc came out in 2002, everyone thought that the 70s cop drama was coming back. It was a great story of dirty cops in a dirty world.

Then things started going slightly awry. Smokin’ Aces came out and no one but me liked it at all. No, I didn’t think that it was a great film, but I thought that it was fun. I was all alone. Then came The A-Team.

Done with that.

I really hope that The Grey changes peoples’ minds again. It’s the story of Liam Neeson vs. very large wolves.

Ok, it’s more than that. Liam and his co-workers go down in a plane crash in the snows of Alaska. Only seven of them survive. He is the wolf expert, so he becomes the de-facto leader, even if some of them aren’t so happy with that “decision.” The wolves pick the men off one by one as Liam becomes more and more of a badass and, actually, more full of regret and pathos. His mind is constantly on his wife back home. What happened to make him put his shotgun in his mouth just before he got on the plane?

No action movie is this, though. This is a dark action drama where the men are worse enemies to themselves than the wolves are. The infighting is believable and sometimes hard to watch. Even without the infighting, though, nature is stronger than man. This film never lets us forget that. Never…

This is a great film and I really hope that it brings Joe back in favor. He has pulled a performance out of Neeson that very well could be award caliber. Liam is one of my favorite actors currently working and I love that he’s become a thinking man of action. This is one of his best performances.

After this flick, we all piled onto buses and headed for the IMAX theatre down the road.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL (2011)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Brad Bird
Written by: Josh Appelbaum/André Nemec
Based on television show created by: Bruce Geller

Why the fuck can’t I dislike Tom Cruise movies anymore? Why the fuck does he keep making good movies while he, personally, still sucks?

Sigh. Whatever. The Mission: Impossible franchise has become his goto to make more money and, actually…they’ve become pretty goddamn great. After the mediocrity of the first and outright badness of the second, the third was awesome and the fourth is at least its equal. This has become the director’s franchise that Tarantino has always wanted the Bond series to become.

This time out, the IMF have been disbanded because the American government think that they have gone rogue. They were framed by a mysterious man (Michael Nyqvist, the original Mikael Blomkvist in the Swedish Girl Who… trilogy) who wants to start a nuclear war between Russia and the US. In fact, he has made tension run higher than it has since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After the Secretary (Tom Wilkinson) is killed, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is forced to go underground with his crew (Paula Patton and Simon Pegg) and the Secretary’s adviser (Jeremy Renner). The four of them become a well-oiled machine…even if their machines aren’t so well-oiled. In fact, that’s kind of a running joke in the film. None of their equipment seems to work quite right.

Funnier than the last film which, if I remember correctly, was a bit dour, Ghost Protocol is non-stop action and a LOT of fun. I’m not sure what made JJ Abrams and Tom Cruise entrust animation/Pixar director Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille) with their baby, allowing him to cut his live-action teeth on the fourth installment, but it looks like their gamble paid off in spades. He handles the job like a pro and I hope it leads to more action flicks like this: fun, thoughtful and full of actual story.

A lot has been said about Jeremy Renner being a possible replacement for Tom if he ever decides to leave the series. They’ve been denying it, but I would be up for it. Sure, I don’t think Tom is going to leave his cash cow anytime soon. But if he does, they could do worse than Renner. He’s a really good actor and handles the action very well. Honestly, if this was Cruise’s last M:I film, I wouldn’t be sad. Brandt is a good character and could totally hold the franchise up.

By the way, I would totally buy this Saul Bass inspired poster. Why have I never seen it before? One of the best posters I’ve seen in a while.

So, that was it. One of the better lineups for BNAT, I think. Only two movies that really weren’t up to par, but they even had their place in keeping the flow. (Without Ghost Rider 2, when would I have slept?!)

Another Butt Numb-A-Thon down. I’m already ready for next year.

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Written by: John Logan
Based on book by: Brian Selznick

This is the best Christmas ever. A Scorsese movie and TWO Spielberg movies! The Spielberg flicks haven’t come out yet, but I did see a preview for one of ‘em.

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN–America knows nothing about this character, but he’s one of the most popular characters in the rest of the world. The trailer doesn’t show us anything to make us feel like this is particularly special…but it’s Spielberg and the movie looks great. The animation is the same sort of motion capture that Zemeckis has been using, but it’s MUCH less creepy because they’re not trying to make them look real. I’m SO freakin’ there.

TITANIC 3D–Wait…didn’t Cameron already do this in a documentary? Oh well. Whatever. He needs more money to make Avatar 2 and 3. As much as I love Titanic (this is an OLD review…keep that in mind if you decide to read it), I’m not too interested in seeing it in 3D.

Now, back to Hugo, already in progress.

There are certain films that make you feel like a kid again. Cinemas used to be filled with them. Now, we have to wait for people like Steven Spielberg to make movies and, really, the last film of his to do that for me was Jurassic Park. Munich was a great movie, but I sure didn’t feel like a kid watching it. (Although Super 8 may as well be a Spielberg film, he wasn’t actually the director, so it doesn’t count.)

Strangely enough, Steven’s old buddy and decidedly NOT childlike director is the next director to release a film of this caliber. Martin Scorsese, director of such kids’ films as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas and The Departed has gone back to the genre he….

Wait. Huh? Scorsese is one of the greatest directors of all time, but he’s never been mistaken as a director who makes movies for kids. Luckily, though, his young daughter bugged him enough to make a movie that she could watch…we all win.

Hugo (the amazing Asa Butterfield who is going to be Ender in Gavin Hood’s adaptation of Ender’s Game), is a young orphan who has been hiding from everyone for months. He’s been living in the clocks of a Paris train station ever since his father (Jude Law) died and his uncle (Ray Winstone) has disappeared. As long as he keeps the clocks running, everything is ok and no one knows that he’s alone.

Unfortunately, he has to go out occasionally. When he does, he needs to stay away from the watchful (read: blundering) eye of the Station Inspector (a slightly toned down, but still very funny Sacha Baron Cohen). Eventually, though, he gets caught by Georges (a stately and dignified Ben Kingsley), the old man who owns the toy shop at the station.

You see, Hugo is a bit of a genius when it comes to mechanical things. He’s currently trying to fix an automaton that his dad found at the museum he worked at just before he died. He needs parts, so he sometimes steals them from the old man. After their encounter, Hugo is light one beloved notebook that his dad had made notes in about the mechanical man. Georges’s niece, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz who just keeps getting better), is going to help him get it back.

From the opening tracking shot to the closing tracking shot, this film is absolutely beautiful through and through. It’s fun, it’s heartbreaking, it’s uplifting and, most importantly, it’s entertaining. Scorsese has, of course, always been one of my favorite directors. This may well be my favorite movie of his.

In a way, his career has been leading to this. Sure, he’s always been known for gangster dramas of violence and strife. First and foremost, though, he’s a film geek. Just about every movie he’s made has had some sort of homage to a film that he loves. (That last shot of Goodfellas? Yep.)  His love affair with film goes back to his childhood, which is exactly where Hugo picks up. Sure, Marty was born after the evens of the movie supposedly took place (somewhere in the 30s), but I imagine that Hugo is Scorsese as a young boy, running from place to place, never sitting still for longer than he needs to and, of course, falling in love with the movies.

Hugo is a film history class with a story. Based on a book by Brian Selznick (relative of David O), it tells the story of silent film from the first one-reelers up through the more intricate set-pieces of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. (Check out the poster.) Many film clips are used to explain the progress of storytelling. (My favorite bit is about the screening of the train coming into the station. Like 3D of our time, it looked like it was going to come right out of the screen to early filmgoers. How very meta.)

Speaking of 3D, Scorsese has used the technology in a way that other filmmakers wish that they could use it. This includes James Cameron, who agrees with me, actually. The depth of sets (some real, some CGI) is shown in nearly every scene. It adds so much to the movie that it’s almost hard to imagine seeing it in 2D. For the first time, the extra $3 was truly worth it. (A certain scene with Cohen was a bit disturbing, but hilarious.)

But it would all be for naught if we didn’t care. Luckily, the writing and the performances make you want the very best for young Hugo. We believe that he could keep those clocks running all by himself. And, best of all, we believe the young love that’s blooming between him and Isabella. And that really is the heart of the film. The relationship between these two kids is strangely adult, but still childlike. It’s absolutely believable and true. When she holds his hand, it doesn’t become an “Awwwww” moment. It becomes an “Of course” moment.

There’s really nothing that I didn’t like about this film. I’ve seen just about all of Scorsese’s films and I love just about all of them. Hugo, though, shows me a new side of a director that I know very well. It’s a side that probably only his parents and his children know. It’s a side that shows us just how deep his love of films goes. And it’s a side that I kind of want to see more of. Hopefully other people want to see it, too. And, hopefully, it makes people (especially youn’uns) get more interested in silent film. There’s some amazing stuff there and not many people know it.

****½ (4.5/5) on a What The Fuck? scale

*½ (1.5/5) on a filmmaking scale

Directed by: Shan Hua
Written by: Kuang Ni

In 1954, everything changed in Japan. There was this little movie about a giant lizard (played by a guy in a rubber suit) and, somehow, it was a huge hit all over the world. Yeah, it had the underlying story of the danger of nuclear power and all that…BUT IT HAD A GUY IN A RUBBER SUIT DESTROYING TOKYO!!!

Skip ahead about 20 years and Rubber Suit Fever has hit Hong Kong and the Shaw Brothers. The venerable studio had seen Ultraman one too many times and figured that it was time for China to have their own superhero.

When the ageless Princess Dragon Mom (Terry Liu) attacks the world with her crew of crazy monsters, it’s up to the Science Institute to save us! The Institute’s leader, Professor (Hsieh Wang), needs a hero to put into his new Inframan costume. Why did he choose Rayma (Danny Lee, who completely ignores this part of his filmography)? Meh. He was there. Anyway, Rayma goes through the nuclear change and becomes Inframan.

The rest of the movie is a plotless mess of fight scenes between Inframan and future rejects from both the Power Rangers and Yo-Gabba-Gabba. From giant piles of shit with metal hands to balls of tangled fur, Inframan had his hands full.

There seriously is no plot at all here. What little the writers could come up with is so unobtrusive to the action and incomprehensible that you just kind of let it go after about ten minutes.

Here is the opening scene, basically shot for shot:

A bunch of kids on a bus, singing songs. A giant bird monster falls from the sky onto the road in front of them. The road breaks up. The kids scream and run from the bus. A city is on fire.

Wait…what city? Where…? Why are Professor’s kids so near the danger zone? Why is his 30 year old daughter only 15? Why is that octopus acting like a plant? WHAT THE FUCK?!?!

Ssshhhhhh. It’s ok. It doesn’t concern you. This movie is going to rape your eyeballs. Just lie back and enjoy it.

Inframan is absolutely indescribable. I’m not even sure why I’m writing anymore at this point. For an hour and a half I had no idea what I was looking at on the screen of the Alamo Drafthouse, but I knew that I was loving every insane minute of it. It could only have been made in the mid-70s in Hong Kong.

Strangely enough, I now know where Guillermo del Toro gets his ideas:

Now, run along. And don’t forget your Thunderball Fists! You CAN have such a thing!

***½ (3.5/5)

Written by: Eoin Colfer
Based on characters created by: Douglas Adams

As people who have been following profwagstaff.com over the years know, Douglas Adams is my favorite author. Bar none. The man was a genius in his field of comic sci-fi. Unfortunately, he also wasn’t particularly prolific, completing only seven fiction and one non-fiction book during his lifetime as the deadlines made that “wooshing” sound as they went by him.

When Douglas died, I felt like a little piece of my world had died with him. The story of Arthur Dent and his “friends” ended on such a down note. I had really hoped that he would write one more Hitchhiker’s book to make things a bit happier for a man who defined the term “hapless hero.”

The 2005 film, unfortunately, didn’t help matters too much. While I liked it, it did nothing to win new fans (or appease too many old fans) and it only ended the film series before it could really begin. (My main complaint was the fact that the end was TOO happy. Trillian and Arthur together? What?! The Vogons defeated? The fuck?!)

Then something strange happened in 2009. Eion Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl series, suddenly released a sixth book in the increasingly mis-named trilogy. Could the story actually have a happy ending? Could we get more of Arthur, Trillian, Ford and Zaphod?

Well, yes and no. I’m always wary of someone else taking over for a renowned author after the latter’s death. After all, have any of the James Bond novels since Ian Fleming died been any good? Were any of Frank Herbert’s son’s books good? Has anyone cared since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died?

What I was really afraid of was this new book being glorified fan-fiction. That’s why it took me two years to read it.

First, a word about our author. Eion Colfer is an Irishman (hence his seemingly unpronounceable name) and an author of young-adult novels. His anti-hero, Artemis Fowl, has been called the heir-apparent of Harry Potter. Of course, he’s also been called a pale imitation of Harry Potter. I’ve never read any of Colfer’s other books, so I have no opinion on them. I would like to check them out sometime, though.

Did it scare me that a novelist who writes for kids was taking over the series? No, not really. While Douglas Adams never wrote books for kids, per se, his books were never so offensive that they couldn’t be read by people under the age of 15. Hell, I read the first one when I was about 8. (Then again, I also started reading Stephen King around the same time. Go figure.) The most offensive things in the books were a few proclamations of “ZARK!” and, well, strangely enough, in one of the later books, a couple of characters learn to fly and manage to form the shape of a “T” together. An 8 year old may not quite catch on to that.

Having never read any of Colfer’s books, I was worried right out of the gate because the ONLY person who had anywhere near the same sense of humor (er, humour) as far as I knew, was Terry Prachett. Unfortunately, he’s a bit unavailable to continue the series.

I bought the book with some trepidation and, quickly, put it away for about half a year. Finally, though, I figured that it was time. Then I waited another few months.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally cracked And Another Thing… open. Was I surprised? Well, yes and no.

The book opens with Ford Prefect, Arthur Dent, Trillian Astran and their daughter, Random all in separate corners of the galaxy. They are all quite aged, but are doing exactly what you would think that they would be doing. Ford is being extravagant on the Guide’s money. Arthur is in quiet seclusion on a beach. Trillian is about to interview the current President of the Galaxy, Random. They haven’t gotten along in years, so this is a big deal, not only for the Galaxy, but for them.

Then, everything stops. Even though this has been a lifetime for them, they are actually still in Club Beta, where they were at the end of the last book, Mostly Harmless. The new Guide has implanted memories of a full life in each one of them so that they die happy when the  Earth is destroyed…again.

Needless to say, they all have mixed emotions about this. Also needless to say, they eventually escape, find another pocket of humans, the Vogons go after them and Zaphod shows up to screw things up/save the day. There’s also Bowerick Wowbagger, the immortal who traveled the universe insulting every living being in alphabetical order. Oh yes, and Thor, God of Lightning.

To try to succinctly sum up the plot of And Another Thing…is pretty futile. So much happens, but, in true Adams-fashion, the plot is sort of inconsequential to the characters and their reactions to the plot. Colfer, at times, has the Adamsian humor down and knows exactly what to do with these characters.

What he DOESN’T have down is the pace of that humor. Or the fact that an “adult” book doesn’t need to have the word “shit” in it every three pages. Or that constantly referencing things from past books, while certainly part of the Hitchhiker’s style, should be a bit less constant. Not only is Wowbagger one of the main characters in the book, but the triple-breasted whore is reference just about every other page, the cows who want to be eaten are major characters and there are lots and lots of throw-away lines referencing throw-away lines from previous books. This is, unfortunately, what makes this book barely rise above fan-fiction. Yes, it’s fun to reference things, but it’s really just fan-service when it shows up so often that it often takes precedence over the story.

It’s also a little bit disconcerting that a guy who writes such (apparently) good books for young adults doesn’t seem to really understand how to write them. Sure, Random isn’t exactly your normal teenager (she starts the book as a 40-something year old woman who has just married a particularly hungry ball of fluff) and her petulance is supposedly amplified by the dark-matter ship that they’re riding in…but she’s annoyingly petulant. So much so that I kind of wished that she would just shut the fuck up or that Wowbagger would kick her off of the ship.

Then there’s the fact that the book was quite obviously written after the movie. Not only are the characters described exactly as they were shown in the film (Zaphod is blond and has only one head…explained in the book), but they act more as they did in the movie than in any of the other books…especially Zaphod. He’s FAR more manic than he ever was in the first books. And, while Arthur is pining for his true love, Fenchurch, he almost seems to still be carrying a torch for Trillian that he had dropped before the end of the first book.

This, of course, doesn’t make Colfer a bad writer. It just makes him a fan of Douglas Adams, which is something that he readily admits. He’s obviously a HUGE fan of the first book, because every three of four paragraphs of his book there is a “Guide Note” that explains something that is barely reference in the last paragraph. Sometimes, these notes go on for over half a page…explaining something that wasn’t necessarily worth explaining. Something that Douglas would have just let us wonder about. (The triple-breasted whore, for instance, I don’t think had an entry in the first book. She was mentioned and then forgotten about for a while until she was brought up in a later book. She was possibly given a name by Douglas, but I don’t remember. Here, she is always referred to by name…about 25 times.)

I was actually surprised to not read a reference to a certain Doctor who Douglas wrote for in the late 70s. Oh…wait…there may have actually been a reference to him.

As I keep trying to say before my criticism takes over, none of this keeps the book from being completely readable and, in fact, a decent addition/ending to the saga of Arthur Dent. I especially liked the anti-silly-religion bits that, I think, would have done Douglas proud. Unfortunately, it’s all wrapped in a story that is a bit too much like the story of the first settler’s of Earth from Life, The Universe And Everything. All of the people are too stupid and self-centered to live and also reminded me of the humans in Wall-E. Hillman Hunter, the leader and profiteer of this group of humans, is just about the most annoying character in the entire series. He serves his purpose, but I wasn’t altogether happy when he showed up in the narrative.

While it’s not up to the rather lofty goal of being a Douglas Adams novel, I did thoroughly enjoy reading it and catching up with some of my favorite characters ever created…even if I occasionally had to stop reading to vent my frustration about how many times the original cover of the first book was referenced. I think Douglas would have been ok with it. Not ecstatic, but certainly ok.

**½ (2.5/5)

Directed by: Brian Jett
Written by: Brian Jett

Walter Dishman (David Denman who played Skip the demon on Angel) is a parole officer who is about to change his entire life. He just got three parolees who are going to help him, even if none of them know it yet.

Darla DeMint (Gillian Jacobs) is cold-hearted bitch who uses her hotness to get her way, then dumps the men who fell in love with her. The last one gave her a ring that she then tried to sell on e-Bay. Unfortunately for her, it was stolen.

Kris Styles (Kevin Hart) is a former doctor who committed a white-collar crime. Now he has to get a job to not break parole. The thing is, he doesn’t need a job. He’s got all the money he needs…if only his wife was still around.

Artie Satz (Ed Asner who, sadly, sounded like he was being read his lines a lot of the time) is a lifer. He just got out of prison after a long career robbing banks. Now what’s an old guy to do?

Of course, Darla starts to use her feminine wiles on Walter and he falls for it. He starts hanging out with her during his off time. Kris goes from job to humiliating job. Artie thinks about going back to the life.

Oh yeah. Walter is married…a fact that the filmmakers barely even register for us until it’s convenient to the story. Unfortunately, it starts to make Walter look like a terrible person because his wife is a perfectly nice lady. Nice to look at, too. As a matter of fact, I didn’t really like anyone in this movie but her. Artie was an asshole, Darla was a bitch (who started to change for no apparent reason) and Kris didn’t handle some of his jobs well. (Ok, some of them I totally understand. But the parking attendant job? Totally could’ve saved that.) And tell me again why I’m supposed to feel sorry for a guy who cheated Blue Cross or Medicare out of millions of dollars? Another insurance company I would totally be down for, but not those two. That’s like stealing from a charity.

This is one of those movies that tries to be everything and only really succeeds at a couple of them. It’s an ok character study, but that’s about it. It’s not particularly romantic. It’s not particularly funny. It’s not particularly dramatic. It’s not even very good at the social commentary about the prison system. I’ve seen it before and it was usually better.

Not particularly good, unfortunately.

THE DESCENDANTS (2011)

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Alexander Payne
Written by: Alexander Payne/Nat Faxon/Jim Rash
Based on book by: Kaui Hart Hemmings

Alexander Payne has a very interesting formula. Take a likeable actor (Reese Witherspoon, Matthew Broderick, Jack Nicholson, Paul Giamatti) and saddle them with a pretty unlikeable character. Turn that character’s world on its head about 15 times. Then throw about a ton of narration over everything.

Throughout my time in film school, I was always told “No narration! It’s a crutch!” I would love for someone to tell Payne that. And then I would love for him to laugh in their faces. His movies fucking work. And they work perfectly.

Matt King (George Clooney) is a Hawaiian lawyer whose family has owned a giant plot of land for generations. It’s part of his heritage, but now it’s time to give it up. He and his cousins have seven years to sell the land or they have to break up the trust that owns it.

Meanwhile, Matt’s wife is dying of injuries sustained in a boating accident. She’s been in a coma for weeks and is not going to pull through. After dragging his oldest daughter, Alexandra (Shailene Woodley), out of reform school, she tells him that she caught her mom with another man (Matthew Lillard, looking for the first time like an adult).

Queue the journey. Matt, Alexandra, younger daughter Scottie (Amara Miller) and Alexandra’s dumbass boyfriend Sid (local boy, Nick Krause) head out to find this guy and confront him while trying to figure out how to tell the rest of the family about the impending death.

Everything about this movie is pretty amazing. Alexander Payne has yet to make a bad film and this keeps that record going. It’s funny, sad, thoughtful and perfectly acted by everyone. His movies are always peopled with folks that we wouldn’t want to hang out with, but MAN do we ever want to see movies about them. Matt King is no exception. He’s not exactly the best dad, hasn’t always been there for his daughters or his wife. Luckily, he’s an amazing subject for a film. It certainly doesn’t hurt that George Clooney is on the top of his game here. This very well could be his best performance yet. (You have no idea how heartbreaking it is to see that man cry.)

Of all of Payne’s films, this is probably the most beautifully shot. Not only does he show us the beauty of Hawaii (and there are some shots that make me want to go there tomorrow), but he shows us the mundane parts, too. The opening shots are of the cities that we never see: the traffic, the office buildings, the suburbs. It’s all there, too. We just don’t know about it because Hawaii is “Paradise.”

By the end of the movie, like all of Payne’s movies, we love the characters and Hawaii…even dumb ol’ Sid. Against all odds, we want this family to go on forever. And we wouldn’t mind if the movie was about three more hours long. We could watch them all learn to forgive each other all over again.

Watch for Beau Bridges basically playing his brother and Robert Forster playing himself.

THE ARTIST (2011)

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Michel Hazanavicius
Written by: Michel Hazanavicius

Silent film is a dead art. Out of all of the styles of film that have come and gone, silent film is the one that no one really goes back to. Outside of one Mel Brooks movie and an episode of Buffy, I can’t think of another silent film made since the early 30s. (I’m sure there are some, but I just can’t think of them right now.)

Michel Hazanavicius has taken up the challenge and made a full-length silent film in the age of CGI effects and Digital Dolby sound. And, strangely enough, it’s fucking amazing.

It’s 1927 in Hollywood and George Valentin (Jean Dujardin in a role that Kavin Kline would have played very well about 20 years ago) is the biggest star in the world. His series of films (including A Russian Affair and A German Affair) are adventure/espionage movies where he and his trusty Jack Russell terrier roam around the world spying on folks and getting tortured.

Just after the premiere of one of his films, George meets Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo). The two share a moment and then she becomes Hollywood’s IT girl.

Then, tragedy strikes: sound. Can George’s career survive? Will Peppy lose her soul? Will Zimmer (John Goodman) ever direct a masterpiece? What is Malcolm Macdowell doing in this movie for ten seconds?

The Artist will most likely be the best movie that I see at this festival. Not only does it get everything right as far as the silent filmmaking (this looks like it could have been made in the late 20s), but the story is absolutely perfect. It’s hilarious, heartfelt and, most importantly, human. All of the characters are real while still being broad enough to be larger than life.

I didn’t know very much about this movie going in. I kind of wish that I could write a review for it without mentioning that it’s a silent film because I think that some people will avoid it because they don’t want to sit through an hour and a half of no sound. Unfortunately, there’s really no way to review it without that bit of information because it’s so integral to the plot. It’s not just a gimmick. It pretty much is the whole story.

Please don’t let the fact that it’s silent keep you from seeing The Artist. If you do, you might just miss one of the best movies of the year.

DARK MATTERS SHORTS

Typically, a shorts program like this will have three or four real stinkers. This one, though, didn’t have any. It was kinda weird. There was one weak one, but it was still pretty funny.

Let’s check out the horror shorts, shall we?

BLIND SPOT (2011)

Directed by: Matthew Nayman
Written by: Matthew Nayman

When the world is going to Hell, will you notice? Or will you be like the guy in this short who just keeps trying to get his plane ticket changed.

This is a short that knows how to build, tell its story and then get out before it’s too late. Not the best thing around, but it was pretty damn funny and actually had a bit of a point.

HOW (NOT) TO BECOME A VAMPIRE (2011)

Directed by: Keram Malicki-Sanchez
Written by: Lori Fischburg

This was the weak one. A mostly funny instructional video/infomercial for a kit that will turn you into a vampire. Sporadically funny and a bit over done, but still not too bad.

LAST CHRISTMAS (2011)

Directed by: Geoff Redknap
Written by: Geoff Redknap

This was, hands down, the masterpiece of the program. A young boy (Quinn Lord, who plays Sam in Trick ‘r Treat) wakes up to a Christmas tree and a cat. Soon enough, we find out that he’s taking care of his increasingly addled grandmother (Linda Darlow), seemingly all alone. Why won’t he let her go outside? And why is he nervous when she asks about the family?

Great performances and realistic writing make this an incredibly sad and yet still sweet short that will be the one that stays with me after the festival. Redknap has been doing makeup for movies since 1995 (a lot of big ones that you’ve seen), but he keeps that to a bare minimum here. And it’s all for the best.

THE INTERVIEW (2011)

Directed by: Michelle Steffes
Written by: Jacob Givens/Jason Philip Thompson

Another good one about an apocalyptic world where a young man is trying to get a job with the only other person that he knows is alive, the DJ of the radio station that he listens to. (Ok, the ONLY radio station.) They’re advertising for a new VP. When he gets there he finds a normality that isn’t exactly what he expected.

Consistently funny, but not so overboard that it becomes completely ridiculous. Also, strangely sad in a way. Corporate mugs will always be corporate mugs, no matter what happens.

IN THE MIDDLE (2010)

Directed by: Thomas Ward
Written by: Thomas Ward

A waitress at a crappy diner in the middle of nowhere goes through her crappy day serving crappy food to crappy customers. The crappiest are a group of teenaged girls who just don’t get that this lady isn’t “quaint.” They think they’re smarter than her and they show it. The whole thing comes to a boil when they start to talk about “Perjury.” You know, where you wait for your fate just outside of Hell?

Just another day at D’s Mediterranean Diner.

Pretty good stuff. I know how this chick feels, unfortunately.

THE FIRST ZOMBIE (2011)

Directed by: Jeff Norton
Written by: Jeff Norton

Another one that could have been better, but was still pretty funny at times. The first zombie has crawled his way out of his grave and now has to acclimate to his unlife. His wife does her best to help him, but his baby is a bit more on the “AAAAUUUGGGHHH!!!” side of things.

Like I said, pretty funny at times, but I think it could have worked a bit better.

MOVING DAY (2010)

Directed by: Jason Wingrove
Written by: Matthew Graham

I felt like I had seen this one before, but the ending was completely different. A little girl moves into a new home in the countryside with her family. She discovers some not so nice fairies living in the plants. (The first one flips her off, which was actually unexpected.) But she finds a way to get bloody, fiery revenge.

This could have been a disaster, but it was actually pretty damn fun…even if the credits went on and on and on and on. The music is what made it work so well. All innocence and fun at first and the 90s action movie by the end. Not a perfect short, but definitely one worth seeking out.

MUMMY’S LITTLE HELPER (2011)

Directed by: Michael Lavelle
Written by: Michael Lavelle

Heavy handed, but still suspenseful, Mummy’s Little Helper is an anorexia cautionary tale about a mother who is all about losing weight…any way she can. Will she pass that on to her little girl?

Very obvious message that Lavelle beats us over the head with, but it was visually very good and the storytelling was effective. Check it out if you get the chance, but wear a helmet.

THE DINNER MEETING (2011)

Directed by: Antony Webb
Written by: Ethan Marrell

This was probably my second favorite. It’s about a guy who wants to propose to his girlfriend. She picks the restaurant and he meets her there. But what is this restaurant called Eternity? And why is the maitre’d so freakin’ nervous?

I actually didn’t see where this one was going until it hit me in the face with it. This is a fun and dark little flick. Definitely check it out.

*** (3/5)

Directed by: David Marek
Written by: David Marek/Judson Webb/Barrett Ogden/Adam Benn

Ian (Barrett Ogden, looking like Matt Damon with a prison record) is dying of cancer. He goes to the support groups, but he knows that it’s over. There’s no more denying it.

Instead of getting treatments that are going to make his death slower, but more painful, he throws away the false hope and starts driving west from his Upper Peninsula Michigan home. Before he can even get out of town he meets up with Ryan (Judson Webb, Mike Nesmith with the same prison record). Ryan is running from a couple of guys for because of who knows what? And he’s kind of a hopeless drunk.

Ryan tries to start conversations with Ian, but Ian just wants to drive and die on his own without making any more friends. Can Ian learn to love?

The first 30 minutes of this movie were absolutely painful. I hated Ian. Thought he was a total punk with no redeeming qualities. Granted, I’ve never been dying of cancer, so I don’t know what he was going through, but it didn’t help me relate to him at all. (It also didn’t help that, besides being bald, he didn’t look like a cancer patient. He looked like he was still working out fairly regularly. Even the shot of him with his shirt off didn’t make me think anything but “healthy dude.”)

Eventually, though, things started to kind of click. Ian and Ryan started to talk. Ian opened up a little bit to Ryan (in a not so well-acted scene, unfortunately). They met a couple of girls who happened to be traveling the same way. (It did seem like they had no agenda, which is a little weird.) I started to see and understand the beauty of Ian’s trip.

The main reason that I wanted to see this movie is because I’ve taken this trip before. As I said, not because I was dying of cancer, but because I wanted to get away for a while and see the country. To that end, I can see where Ian was coming from. If I found out that I was dying in six months to a year…would I want my last days to be spent in a hospital room? Fuck, no! I would want to go out and do things. See the world.

Unfortunately, Ian was a bit of a prick and didn’t want anyone else with him…at first. When he finally became a human being, the movie started to be watchable.

It certainly helped that the cinematography was beautiful. The Badlands will never be justifiably caught on video (or even film, for that matter), but a percentage of its beauty comes through in this movie. The same can be said of all of the places that the characters visit from the UP to wherever it is that they end up on the West Coast.

It may not be everything that the filmmakers wanted it to be, but it’s still a beautiful film in different ways.

AUSTIN HIGH (2011)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Alan Deutsch
Written by: Will Elliott/Kirk C Johnson/Michael S Wilson

Austin, TX is a very unique city. There are those among us who believe that it is one of the greatest cities in the world. There are also those among us who believe that there is a (unfortunately large) faction of people who would like to make it less than great. Those who would like to take the weird out of it. Those who want it to be all about making money and basically turn it into Dallas or worse….LA.

SHUDDER

Luckily, the folks behind Austin High understand what Austin is all about, even if they go about showing it in a REALLY goofy way.

Lady Bird High School is ruled over by Samuel Wilson (writer Michael S Wilson). He rules with a fist that holds a bong. He knows that most of the kids and faculty are high most of the time and he doesn’t really care. As long as no one gets hurt, everything is fine. Hell, he spends most of the day high, too.

That is, until Dr. Patricia Lambert (Melinda Y Cohen) shows up. She’s a prim and proper vice principal who wants everyone to conform. Students, faculty and especially Wilson. Not only is she a threat to the school, but there’s a threat to the very town that we all know and love: Tony Gennocide (Brently Heilbron) wants to turn Austin into a den of non-weirdness. Hippy Hollow? No more nudity! Roads? No more bikers! Stoners? No more stoners!

Will Gennocide and Lambert get Wilson on their side? Will Wilson’s friends understand if they do? More importantly, will his daughter understand? And will she get into the private school that she wants to go to?

Austin High is INCREDIBLY silly. The comedy is over the top and, sometimes, completely random. (Wilson was once an avid falconer. Why? Because it’s funny to watch him stand in his front lawn with a falconer’s glove waiting for a falcon that will never come back.) Some of it is really obvious. (Gennocide is pronounced “gee-no-CHEE-day.” No end of fun is had with that.) It’s also very broad at times. (We see at least three ball sacks.)

The thing is, even though the movie may not deserve four stars…it’s REALLY hard not to like it. It’s a very charming movie in just about every way. You can tell that the folks who made it really fucking love Austin and want it to not stop progressing, but keep what it’s really about in the process of that progress.

Basically, I kind of loved this movie, even with all of its faults. It charmed the pants off of me. It may have done so even if it hadn’t been about my hometown.

(By the way, I kind of want to be Michael S Wilson. Even if he does kind of look like Randy Quaid.)

CORMAN’S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL (2011)

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Alex Stapleton
Written by: Alex Stapleton/Gregory Locklear

Roger Corman is a pioneer. He was making movies for teenagers before anyone else even knew what a teenager was. He made movies cheaper than anyone else and never lost a dime on any of them (except one).

Roger Corman may be the most important filmmaker of the latter half of the 20th century.

Lofty words, eh? But they may just be true. Not only did he change the film industry, but he started just about everyone’s careers in one way or another. Rarely, though, does he get the recognition that he deserves. Most people call him a “schlockmeister,” a name that he takes offense to.

Alex Stapleton’s new film tries to rectify these slights. He gathered interviews with acolytes, friends, co-workers and the man himself in order to correct the ideas that people have of what a “Corman film” is. No, not all of his films were great. That’s not really the point, though. The point was to make something that he believed in and that other people would want to see, get it out there and then move on to the next film.

Corman is a hard man to work for, according to his former employees like Jack Nicholson, Peter Bogdonovich, Martin Scorsese and Peter Fonda (just to name a few), but he always knew exactly what he was doing and knew how to make real filmmakers out of these people. Ron Howard said that one of the best lessons Roger ever taught him was “If you do a good job, you will never have to work for me again.”

Corman’s World is the kind of documentary that you show to a budding filmmaker. Very few films make the viewer really want to “go out there and DO something,” but I think that Corman’s World is one of those films. By the end, not only were there quite a few “tear up” moments (including one with Nicholson, strangely enough), but I felt like everyone in the theatre was ready to go out and start a new career.

If only we knew what that career was going to be.

6 MONTH RULE (2011)

**½ (2.5/5)

Directed by: Blayne Weaver
Written by: Blayne Weaver

Tyler (Blayne Weaver) has a theory for everything related to females. He knows who they are even before they know him and he knows exactly how to get them where he wants them. He also believes that any man can get over any woman in six months.

Could Sophie (Natalie Morales) be the one who disproves all of the rules?

Meh. Whatever. This seemed like a bit of a vanity project for writer/director/star Blayne Weaver. The problem is that he was a bit too Christian Slater and not enough…interesting. In fact, the two lead characters were not NEARLY as interesting as the supporting characters. His best friend (Martin Starr) is trying to get over his ex-fiancee (Jamie Pressly, who is wasted in a ten second role). Sophie’s on-again, off-again is an up and coming rock star named Julian (Patrick J Adams) who is everything that you would expect a pretentious but trying to be down to earth rock star to be.

Best of all, though, are Dave Foley and John Michael Higgins as an instigator of a gallery owner and Tyler’s agent, respectively. Just about every line out of these guys’ mouths is funny. Actually, if the entire movie had been about them, I would have been much happier.

As it was, it was about two people who fell in love instantly, but couldn’t get it together long enough to really get it together. By the end, I really didn’t care whether they got together or not…although I kind of knew that I wanted them to not get together. He’s a douchebag and she’s an idiot. Why do we want them to procreate?

** (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.

BUT…

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

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

Let’s get to those movies!

BUTTER (2011)

**** (4/5)

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

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

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

No. Seriously.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (2011)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Sean Durkin
Written by: Sean Durkin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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