Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written by: Christopher Nolan

What is a dream? Well, that’s a pretty heady concept for a normal action movie, but Christopher Nolan isn’t into normal action movies. He goes quite a bit deeper.

First, though, let’s check out a preview or two.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK–I actually wasn’t all that interested in this until I saw who directed it (David Fincher) and wrote it (Aaron Sorkin). Other than that, it’s just the story of how Facebook got it’s start and it stars stunt Michael Cera, Jesse Eisenberg. (Not to take anything away from Jesse. I like him and all, but I really feel like Michael has the market cornered on this character.)

I dunno. I’ve never been very interested in the story of the guys who invented Facebook. It’s not particularly compelling. But with Fincher behind the camera and Sorkin behind the computer, I’m there.

THE TOWN–”From the director of Gone Baby Gone.” That’s one of the first lines of this trailer for a film that stars Ben Affleck…THE DIRECTOR OF GONE BABY GONE! Why do they not use his name?

Anyway, this is the story of a thief who falls in love with a bank teller who was traumatized by hast last heist. As the truth gets closer to her, things get more intense in his life, too. I’m up for this one. Gone Baby Gone was great and I can’t wait to see if Affleck can direct himself.

Ok, let’s get back to those dreams.

The less you know about Christopher Nolan’s latest mindfuck of a movie going in, the better, so I’ll do my best to keep plot points under wraps. All you really need to know is that Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the leader of a gang who go into peoples’ dreams to find out their secrets. The team includes Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Eames (Tom Hardy, the new Mad Max) and, in a way, Saito (Ken Watanabe). He manages to get a new team member out of his father in law (Michael Caine). This new member is college student Ariadne (Ellen Page).

The crew has been hired to do one last job by Saito on a young man named Fisher (Cillian Murphy). If they succeed, then Cobb gets something that he’s been trying for for about a year. If they fail, they could all lose their minds.

And what the hell is Marion Cotillard doing popping up in all of the dreams?

This is a pretty typical “one last job” movie, but with such a twist that it rises FAR above that rather low-concept plot and becomes something much more complex and deep. Something that only a star psych major could truly understand, but laymen such as myself can really enjoy a lot.

As the plot (and the dream world) gets deeper, so we get deeper into Cobb’s life and psyche. It’s an amazing journey and is full of tension and intrigue. We’re so invested in Cobb and his band of merry dream stealers that it’s hard to watch as things get harder and harder for them and they go deeper and deeper.

I loved pretty much everything about this movie. It’s an action movie with more brains than most brainy indie movies lately. It’s proof that, not only should Nolan be given however much money he wants when he wants to make a film, but he should be allowed to collect actors for his repertory along the way. It was nice to see familiar faces from the Batman movies pop up throughout the film.

Most likely, this will end up being the best live-action film of the summer. (Toy Story 3 MAY edge it out as the best film overall.) We can only hope that it gets the box office and accolades that it deserves. So far it seems like it is. The film world may be redeemable yet.

By the way, listen for a lot of Edith Piaf music. Har har har.

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Wes Anderson
Written by: Wes Anderson/Noah Baumbach
Based on book by: Roald Dahl

Godammit. I have to say it, so I’ll get it out of the way early: The Fantastic Mr. Fox was, indeed, fantastic.

Ok. Now that that’s over with, let’s get down to business.

Wes Anderson is a super-talented filmmaker and writer. Most of us know this. The problem is that his last couple of movies have been a bit…um…lacking? I liked The Darjeeling Ltd more than most did, but even I know it wasn’t his best work. And The Life Aquatic was just kind of there. If it weren’t for the David Bowie songs sung in Portuguese, I don’t think anyone would really remember that movie.

So it was with not really trepidation, but definite hope that I walked into the screening tonight. I really hoped that the Wes that we all know and love would be back with the new form that he was taking.

Luckily for all involved, this one is on par with Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums.

Fox (George Clooney) is a bit of a scoundrel. He and his wife (Meryl Streep) made a deal when their son, Ash (Jason Schwartzman), was born, he would stop stealing chickens for a living. But all bets are off when they move in next door to the meanest and most successful farmers in the country, Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guinness) and Bean (Michael Gambon). He gets up to his old tricks again, even pulling his new friend, Kylie the opossum (Wally Wolodarsky).

Meanwhile, Ash is having problems of his own. He is constantly trying to prove to his dad that he’s an athelete and now he has to deal with Kristofferson (Eric Anderson, creator of all of the artwork for Wes’ Criterion editions…and his brother), his far more talented and better looking cousin. What’s an uncoordinated runt to do?

Keep your ears open for Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe and Owen Wilson. Even Wes gets a small role!

As you can tell, Wes is back to his favorite subject again: father-son issues. Even when he didn’t write the source material he manages to get it in there. I had never heard of the Roald Dahl book before the movie started being talked about, so I don’t know if it’s in there or not, but it works out well.

Wes used Dahl’s story to create some charming and real characters and his animators brought them to amazing life. The stop-motion is beautiful, even if he did direct a lot of it from his i-Phone. He also took the voice actos out on location. No studio recording for our boy. As Jason said in the video Q&A after the movie, he was out there digging in the ground “between George Clooney and a Ghostbuster.”

Just like another kids’ flick from this season directed by someone who doesn’t usually do kids’ flicks, this movie probably isn’t for the youngest of kids. It’s not as scary as Where The Wild Things Are could be, but there is a lot about death going on in it. After all, Fox is stealing live birds…and they’re not so alive after he gets through with them. And death plays a role later one, too.

But, for the most part, this is WAY lighter than Wild Things. Not as deep and faster paced. Anderson and Noah Baumbach didn’t pull punches for kids, but they know how to appeal to them without talking down to them. I love how they wrote the screenplay as if it was one of their normal screenplays and then found a way around all of the cursing.

And for all of you purists out there who decry the fact that the ending is different from the book…well, shut up. First off, the ending is great. Second, the ending is actually an alternate ending that was found in Dahl’s house while Wes and Noah were writing the screenplay. So, there.

Wes and his crew have made what may be the most fun kids’ movie of the year. Great voice cast, great animation and, of course, great soundtrack. (Three Beach Boys songs! AND a Stones song!) Go see it as soon as you can. Even if George Clooney is your nemesis.

I’m quite the little trooper, huh?

So, let’s get to those movies, eh?

CURIOSA CONQUISTA DEL AMPERE

Directed by: Ramon Orozco
Written by: Ramon Orozco

A Mexican short about a man who is killed by his job. He works for an electric plant and gets electrocuted. But he keeps on going. The plant cuts off the power to his neighborhood, but he just might have a way to get the power to the people.

It’s a pretty funny short that very well could be taken as a political statement. The funniest bit is actually at the beginning when he’s at the doctor’s office, but the whole thing is quietly funny.

CRAZY RACER

*** (3/5)

Directed by: Hao Ning
Written by: Hao Ning/Yao Wang

I don’t know what it is, but I just don’t get Hong Kong comedy. There are very few that I really get. I LOVE Hong Kong cinema, but their comedies just don’t grab me at all. Steven Chow flies RIGHT over my head…or under it, maybe. Kung Fu Hustle was alright, but Shoalin Soccer sucked.

So, why did I got see Crazy Racer? ‘Cause I’m an idiot, apparently.

A brief (maybe) run-down of the plot.

A famous bicyclist is black-listed because he tests positive for drugs, but it was really the energy drink that he was shilling for. The owner of the company disappeared, though, before he could prove the cyclist’s innocence.

Cut to a few years later. The cyclist is a broke truck driver looking for ways to make more money. His beloved coach dies and he now has to figure out how to bury him. Somehow (I didn’t quite catch how), he manages to dupe a condo owner (?), who has a funeral policy (??), into thinking that he’s loaded.

Enter a couple of the dumbest hitmen to ever be on screen. They’re “professionals.” (It’s a running gag. See it running away from you?) They’re hired by the guy who set up the cyclist to kill his wife. When that runs away from them, she hires them to kill him. Of course, all four meet and hell ensues. The husband accidentally kills the wife and frames the cyclist.

I haven’t even mentioned the gangsters. They’re about as dumb as the hitmen, who have nothing to do with the gangsters, by the way. And the cops are no smarter. The cyclist is framed not only for the death of the wife, but for the death of one of the gangsters.

Basically, everyone in this movie is pretty dumb and the coincidences fly fast and furious. I’m usually ok with movies like this where four or five groups of people keep happening upon each other and chaos ensues. But I think there was just too damn much chaos in this one. I had no clue what the fuck was going on most of the time.

I think I was just about the only person who didn’t like this movie. Everyone else thought it was this brilliantly fun ride. Personally, I thought it was a boring mess. There were a few good spots. The explosion was pretty funny (watch out for flaming turtles) and there were a few funny lines thrown in for good measure. Overall, though, it didn’t add up to much more than a bunch of people running around trying to make us laugh because of their “crazy” predicaments…and utter stupidity.

DREAD

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Anthony DiBlasi
Written by: Anthony DiBlasi
Based on short story by: Clive Barker

What is fear? Not the fear of someone jumping out at you with a knife or a cat screeching as it jumps out of an empty closet. No, not THAT kind of fear. I mean real…fucking…dread. The dread you feel just before that knife plunges into your stomach. The feeling you get as a loved one is lying on their death bed taking their last breaths. That kind of overpowering, all-encompassing fear.

That’s what three college students want to find out in this new adaptation of the Clive Barker short story. Well, actually only one of them wants to find out. The other two are just kind of along for the ride to get a grade.

Stephen (Jackson Rathbone from <shudder> Twilight) is just a normal college kid. Yeah, he might be a little more uptight than some others, but he comes by it honestly. He leads a pretty boring life. That is, until he meets Quaid (Shaun Evans who looks like an even crazier Christian Slater), a guy with LOTS of issues. Quaid’s parents were brutally murdered right in front of him when he was six years old and that baggage will never go away. He’s on medication but, at some point towards the beginning of the film, he throws it all away. Why? I still don’t have a clue. There’s absolutely no explanation for it. Cheryl (Hanne Steen) is Stephen’s friend and a girl that he would like to get to know far better than he does. They’re both film students in a philosophy class just for a credit.

The three of them interview lots of subjects, but none of them are good enough for Quaid. He has to keep pushing buttons and envelopes so that they can “face the beast.”

How far can he push Stephen and Cheryl before they finally crack?

This is Anthony DiBlasi’s first film, but not the first thing that he’s adapted. In fact, he’s been working with Barker for about 7 years and has two more Barker projects in the pipeline. Personally, I can’t wait to see those. His directorial debut was pretty damn impressive. I’ve never read the story, but there were plenty of people there who had and all of them said that he caught the mood pretty much perfectly.

The film is dark, gory, disturbing and a little bit sick. But we expect nothing less from Clive Barker’s work. And, now, I expect nothing less from DiBlasi. If you’re up for facing your fears, check this one out. It’s not perfect, but it’s damn good enough.

THE BROTHERS BLOOM (2008)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Rian Johnson
Written by: Rian Johnson

My shortest day started with the first secret screening. And, while it doesn’t really seem to fit the genre at first glance, it really is kind of a fairy tale/fantasy. Just like director Rian Johnson’s first film, Brick, it creates its own fantasy world where people have amazing vocabularies and can basically do anything they want without police involvement. (I freakin’ LOVE the way they talk in the beginning of this movie. They kind of go away from it pretty soon, though.)

Bloom and Stephen Bloom (Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo) are con men. They have been ever since their ninth or tenth foster home and they figured out ways to get what they wanted without working too hard at it. (It was also a way for Stephen to get his younger brother to talk to a girl.)

They learn to sharpen their skills under the tutelage of the Diamond Dog (Maximilian Schell), but soon move out from under his shadow and learn to hate him.

Bloom leaves Stephen behind when things get a little too hot for him, but Stephen soon catches up to him with a new grift: Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz being as cute as she’s ever been) is a bazillionaire shut in who is even more socially inept than Bloom can be. They insinuate themselves into her lives and…well, the inevitable happens.

But here’s the deal: nothing in this movie is really inevitable. Johnson keeps the con man genre moving with a tight script and a really cool story and characters that I really cared about. This ended up being one of my favorites of the festival. There is a bit of predictability, but it’s played exactly the way one of the characters is writing it, so it works perfectly.

I love how they treat some of the references, too. One is called out by a character and then they never once mention the fact that the main character’s name is Bloom Bloom.

Some say that the con man genre is dead. I think it’s just been sleeping for a bit. Rian Johnson may just wake it up. I’m not sure that it’s The Sting or Paper Moon as Harry Knowles said that it was. But it could at least be Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

There’s really only one word for this movie: whimsical. And I hate that word. But it fits it pretty damn well.

And with Ricky Jay narrating at the beginning, how can it lose?

Keep watching Rinko Kikuchi from Babel throughout the film. She’s hilarious.

GUSHING PRAYER: A 15 YEAR OLD PROSTITUTE (1971)

*½ (1.5/5)

Directed by: Masao Adachi/Haruhiko Arai
Written by: Masao Adachi

You read that right. That’s the actual title of this next movie. No, the lead actress was NOT 15. She was of age. But she played a 15 year old. The film reel and the festival program didn’t mention the last part of the title. It would have been a bit hard to get through customs with that title.

This is another Pink film and was even slower than last night’s Blue Film Woman. It dealt with a young girl named Yasuko who could not feel sex. She had lots of sex with her two male friends, often with their female friend looking on saying things like, “Do you feel it?! What does it feel like!?”

After that annoyance, Yasuko tells them all that, not only is she pregnant, but she has had sex with their teacher. They baby isn’t his, though, it’s one of the boy’s. They are going to raise the baby as a community of four.

Or maybe she is going to get yet another abortion. Or maybe she is going to kill herself. Or maybe she’s going to kill all of us with her deadpan boredom.

And this is all about the Red Army movement in Japan in the late 60s and early 70s. No, seriously. That’s what director Masao Adachi meant for it to portray. He is a very political director and, while being pretty Left Wing, he was being extremely critical of the movement and its absolute ineffectiveness with this movie. The kids are trying to “beat sex.” Of course, they fail.

The film was one of the few black and white Pink films of this part of their life, but it had moments of color. Most of them would film the sex scenes in color. Instead, Adachi would film important scenes in color. Including the rather disturbing and disgusting near finale. COLOR ME BLOOD RED!

Ugh. The five note score put me to sleep. The deadpan acting put me to sleep. The constant repetition of lines put me to sleep. Basically, the whole movie kind of put me to sleep. It made me rethink seeing any more of the Pink films. But I persevered for the next night.

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Sidney Lumet
Written by: Kelly Masterson

Sidney Lumet just keeps making movies like we’re still in the 70s. No big-ass special effects. No cheesy soundtracks. Just great actors giving us a great story. And New York City. Dirty, crazy, sleazy, beautiful New York City. And bless his heart for it. I love him.

Andy and Hank (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) are brothers. Both of them are in some kind of financial trouble. And both of them are pretty desperate.

Luckily (I guess), their parents own a small jewelry store. That means that there’s a fully-insured source of money for them to rob. No one gets hurt. Unfortunately, Hank hires a small-time crook to do the actual robbery and mom ends up shot. And dad (Albert Finney) wants revenge that the cops can’t give him. (Seems to be a lot of that going around at this Festival.)

Things just get worse from there. The less you know about the plot, the better.

As always, the acting here is pretty fucking amazing. Hoffman is perfect. Seeing him emotionally explode is always something special to watch. And with a fuck-up brother like Hank, there’s no end to the possibilities for that here, even though Andy is pretty dead inside. It doesn’t hurt that his wife (Marisa Tomei, who I swear is getting hotter…and more naked…as time goes on) is kind of an idiot.

Ok, they’re all idiots. There’s really not a single smart character in this movie. But that doesn’t kill it for me this time because it’s so well acted and written. (First time screenwriter Kelly Masterson wrote it and balances the comedy with the tragedy very well. This is, after all, kind of a comedy.) Even Ethan Hawke is VERY good. I almost believed that he and Philip were brothers!

Seriously, though, this is the best I’ve seen Ethan be in a long time. He’s a good, desperate sad-sack.

The only really weak link here was actually Marisa. And it wasn’t because of her acting. She was great, but her character was just kind of stupid. She was like a ditzy Marilyn Monroe type…without the brains.

Other than that, though, we have a great film told from each character’s perspective. And it was a great way to close the Festival. Maybe not Lumet’s best work (still done in the 70s), but it’s damn good and ready for an audience.

The title, by the way, is taken from something that Kurt Vonnegut said about Hunter Thompson after he killed himself. “May you get to Heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.” Learned that from the wall of the bathroom at my favorite coffee shop. (According to IMDb, it’s an old Irish toast. Could be. But I like Vonnegut better.)

Overall, this was a pretty good year for the Austin Film Festival. Yes, there were some minor fuck-ups, but I’ve gotten used to them. (Although, I was still a little shocked at the 360 Vodka commercial played before just about every movie I saw at the Hideout. What the fuck was that? And why was it played before the Young Filmmaker Shorts?! And what the fuck is eco-friendly vodka?!?!) But there were a lot of great movies, and that’s really all that counts. I’ll be back again next year.

Just wish I hadn’t missed The Savages.

And this year, for the first time since, I think, the first year, it was actually held on the Big Man’s birthday! That was kind of cool.

As always, we started off not knowing what the hell we were getting into. We all had guesses (The Life Aquatic!? The Aviator!?!?) but we were completely in the dark. Harry put up an alternates list on his website, and it ended up nearly matching up as far as genre or plot points or whatever. Other than that, no hints.

So there we all sat in line with our pillows and backpacks full of stimulants, making predictions on what we were about to see, checking out that hot chicks who were there (you’d be surprised, o ye unfaithful) and waiting in anticip……………………pation.

Harry started us off with a film that he saw as a kid and that he knew would take us back to our 10-year-old selves. (Best way to start a festival, I think. Make us kids again.)

WILLIE MCBEAN AND HIS MAGIC MACHINE (1965)

*** (3/5)

Directed by: Arthur Rankin Jr.
Written by: Arthur Rankin Jr./Antony Peters (uncredited)

This was Rankin/Bass’ first full-length Animagic theatrical film. For those of you who don’t recognize those words right away, they’re the guys who made that classic Rudolph stop-motion flick that we all watch every year at Christmastime. I’ve always loved those films and it was good to see one that has been forgotten in time.

Made in 1965, it’s not exactly the most, erm, PC kid’s movie ever…but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Willie McBean (voiced by Billie Mae Richardson, who also did the voice of Rudolph the year before, and pretty much forevermore—disappointing, but not surprising, that she’s a 40-something year old woman) is a normal kid who hates studying. He especially hates history. His strongest subject is science. He’s an inventor, you see. So, when he’s approached by a Mexican monkey name Pablo (wearing a giant sombrero, no less) with the plans for a tiny time machine, he’s neither surprised, nor is he flummoxed by the fact that he has to build one in order to stop a man named Professor Professor von Rotton (Larry D. Mann, who was Yukon Cornelius).

Von Rotton wants the world to know his name, so he is going to go back in time to stop historical events so that he can do them, therefore putting his name in the history books.

Let’s not think about the flaws in this plan. It’s a kid’s movie.

What ensues is a trip through time that is trippier than just about any other time traveling flick out there. Willie and Pablo make it to the Old West, 1492 Spain (with a Columbus who sounds like Chico), King Arthur’s court, and pre-history complete with cavemen and dinosaurs.

As far as Rankin/Bass flicks go, this is pretty bad. The characters are flat, the songs are bad, blah, blah, blah. But fuck that. It was a LOT of fun. The unintentional racism was funny (imagine a Mexican monkey saying things like, “I am just a Latin lover!” and remaining horny for the entirety of the film, or a man disguised as a Chinese guy singing about how he can make a great won ton) and the tiny sets were pretty cool. Oh, and there’s a giant gay dragon! So that was good.

If you find this somewhere, check it out. Definitely worth a look. Especially if you’re into the stop-motion animation that Rankin/Bass perfected throughout the 60s.

The next film (and first premiere of the day) was a different kind of kid’s flick, but started off looking a LOT like the Rankin/Bass movies of yore.

LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (2004)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Brad Silberling
Written by: Robert Gordon
Based on book by: Daniel Handler

For some, this is the most anticipated film of the season. The series of books has become a pretty big deal in the publishing world. Not quite the scale and scope of Harry Potter, but they’re on a lot of kids’ Christmas lists.

The Baudelaire children are among the most unfortunately children in the history of children. They are happy enough with their rich lifestyle until their parents are killed in a fire that takes the entire house with them. Now Violet (Emily Browning), Klaus (Liam Aiken, the doomed Sullivan kid from Road To Perdition) and Sunny (Kara and Shelby Hoffman) are doomed to walk the Earth between guardians.

The first of the guardians proves to be the worst. Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) is a two-bit actor whose greed knows no bounds. He almost pretends to like the kids in order to get the clueless Mr. Poe (Timothy Spall) off his back and so that he can collect the inheritance that was left to the kids. Fortunately, the kids are smarter than Olaf.

They go through two other guardians (Meryl Streep and Billy Connolly), but happiness is not to be had by these children, dear reader.

I don’t want to say too much about this movie, because that’s part of its charm. You never really know what’s going to happen next. These kids really are unhappy, but they’re very intelligent, too, so they can get out of anything that the shitty ol’ world hands to them. (And Sunny steals the show. Particularly her subtitles.)

The movie, of course, isn’t perfect. Things push along so quickly that I almost didn’t get a chance to know the characters. But all of the performances are great (and the cameos and small roles are pretty cool, too) and the sets are amazing. Those alone make this pretty charming little movie worth seeing. (Director Brad Silberling, obviously has a lot of love for his subject.) Luckily the story is also a lot of fun, if that can be said for such horribly depressing subject matter. Remember, you still have time to avoid it to see a movie about a particularly small elf.

Emily and Liam were there at the beginning of the screening and, while Liam didn’t seem to have much to say (typical teenage boy), Emily had nothing but great things to say about Brad and Jim and the rest of the cast. Interesting observation: the kids are supposed to live in England, but they have American accents. Emily did a great job of disguising her Australian accent throughout the movie.

The next film got a lot of “YARGG!”s out of the audience, but first a little clip show.

MADAGASCAR CLIPS

Dreamworks is working on a new CGI animated movie about four zoo animals that get stuck on the titular island. The animals, a lion (Ben Stiller), zebra (Chris Rock), giraffe (David Schwimmer) and a hippo (Jada Pinkett-Smith) are looking for humans to take care of them. All they find are a bunch of kind of annoying meerkats.

The first clip (the animals in crates as the ship they are on has a little accident) was hilarious. Especially the penguins. I can’t wait to see the movie just for them. The second clip (the animals exploring their new home) wasn’t quite as good, but I still want to see the flick.

THE BLACK SWAN (1942)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Henry King
Written by: Ben Hecht/Seton I. Miller
Based on book by: Rafael Sabatini

From 1942 comes a rousing adventure featuring Tyrone Power as a rapscallion pirate with a heart of gold!

Or something like that. Jamie Boy Waring (Power) is a captain under the infamous Captain Morgan (Laird Cregar who looks NOTHING like the Cap’n Morgan that I know—he’s wearing green!). When Morgan goes legit he tries to get all of his captains with him in Jamaica (where he has been made the governor) to help the English keep the peace with Spain. Unfortunately there are dissenters in the ranks.

Meanwhile, Jamie is falling for the daughter of the old governor (Maureen O’Hara). Of course, she’s engaged to another weenie man.

For a 1942 adventure movie this is pretty damn good. It’s slow by today’s standards, but it was a lot of fun. The “romance” between Jamie and Lady Denby got some laughs from the jaded BNAT crowd (“I always sample a bottle of wine before I buy it. Let’s have a sip, see if you’re worth taking along.”), but it didn’t detract from the fun.

The movie was made during WWII and a lot of it was done in one take. Pretty amazing when we think about how many takes it takes now to do stuff like this. And the Technicolor, as always, was great.

I haven’t seen many swashbucklers from this period, but I’m ready to seek out some more. This isn’t one of the more famous ones, so I’m guessing that they can only go up from here.

Watch for Anthony Quinn in a pretty small role.

Now for what was, for me, the most emotional part of the day.

HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY SLIDES

As many of you know (however many of you there are…one maybe?) Douglas Adams is my favorite author. When he died I felt an intense sadness to be living in a world where he didn’t exist anymore. And to know that he wouldn’t be alive to see his story become a movie was even sadder.

But that dream is finally coming true. One of the producers, Robbie Stamp, came in with some slides of conceptual drawings and set photos. Even though I was sitting right behind the slide projector (by the end one of my viewing partners was tired of having my head in his lap, BUT I COULDN’T SEE!) the shots were beautiful. The Vogons are hilarious and slimy looking. The Heart Of Gold, while not shoe shaped, looks great. And Marvin is depressingly cute. And that’s a complement.

I can’t wait for this movie to come out. Robbie said that he heard a lot of sighs and screams when Mos Def was cast as Ford, but he said that he plays him beautifully and, most importantly, he doesn’t play him like a rapper.

I’ll be first in line here in Austin when it opens next year. And I hope it does well enough to make the other four movies.

BLONDE VENUS (1932)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Josef von Sternberg
Written by: Jules Furthman/S.K. Lauren/Josef von Sternberg (uncredited)

One of the first movies I ever saw at the Alamo (possibly THE first) was called The Scarlet Empress. It was directed by Josef von Sternberg and starred Marlene Dietrich. It was one of the strangest film experiences I had ever had at that point in my movie-going career. (My, how things have changed.) There were boobs on the screen in a movie made before 1967! There were surreal sets and weird-ass sexual innuendo! There was over the top acting! I loved every minute of it!

Blonde Venus was made a couple of years before that, but it has the same star and director and, as Harry said, it was often considered the best film ever made before Citizen Kane came along in 1941.

It’s the story of Helen Faraday (Dietrich), a loving mother and wife who is forced to go back to singing on stage when her husband (Herbert Marshall) is diagnosed with a deadly disease. His only hope for survival is a $1500 operation in Berlin. While he’s gone Helen meets Nick Townsend (Cary Grant) who takes care of her. But she falls in love. And what’s a woman to do when she loves two men?!

The beginning of the movie shows off some of the pre-codeness of this movie when we see Marlene and some of her friends skinny-dipping in a lake. And then there’s the whole “woman of loose morals” thing going on. It’s amazing what they could get away with before the government got involved. Bastards. We could have had boobs all along if it wasn’t for those meddling agencies.

Anyway, this is a great film. Everything comes together to tell a heartfelt story that probably would have lingered for a little while if it weren’t for the next movie coming only 10 minutes after this one. And then there’s that kind of annoying ending that tied everything up nice and neatly so that morals reigned again.

One thing that will probably ruin the musical numbers for anyone watching it is knowing that Madeline Kahn based Lili von Shtupp on this movie. You’ll recognize a couple of the costumes from this movie and you won’t be able to get “I’m tired” out of your head for the whole movie.

Also watch for bits of this movie to show up in The Dreamers.

How ‘bout another woman of loose morals?

MISS SADIE THOMPSON

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Curtis Bernhardt
Written by: Harry Kleiner
Based on story by: W. Somerset Maugham

Rita Hayworth is the woman of a lot of men’s dreams. She was hot, sexy and apparently crazy in bed. (Or course, she was crazy in a LOT of aspects of her life, but that’s not important right now.)

And I bet that in 1953 to see her in 3-D was just too much for some guys. So that’s just what Columbia gave the world.

Miss Sadie Thompson is the story of, well, Sadie Thompson (Hayworth). She shows up on an island overrun with horny Marines and ends up having to stay a week while she waits to be able to go on to her destination. One of the Marines (Aldo Ray) falls in love with her while the head of the Mission Board (Jose Ferrer) decides that she’s a bad influence on the Marines and the natives. He wants her gone now.

This certainly isn’t a great movie (it drags quite a bit and feels longer than it’s 91 minutes), but it’s pretty fun. And, of course, seeing it in 3-D was a lot of fun. They didn’t really take advantage of the format, though. Nothing really shoots out at you (no, not even Rita’s ample tracts of land), but the scenery sure is nice.

The politics were pretty interesting. Ferrer’s character was definitely the “bad guy” here. He’s a man of the church who is bitter and intolerant. Dr. MacPhail (Russell Collins) is the good side of the older folks. He’s a man of science who realizes that young people will be young people and that “The creator of our religion wasn’t so intolerant.” We all saw quite a few parallels here.

Take a look at it if you get a chance (even if it’s not in 3-D), just don’t expect to remember too much about it later.

WAR OF THE WORLDS TEASER

Next up was a teaser that was personally sent to Harry by Spielberg and Cruise for their upcoming sci-fi flick. How do we know it was personally sent? Because there was a short clip at the beginning with the two of them saying hello and good luck to everyone in Austin. Steve then tells us to “Watch the skies.” Cruise’s stock almost went up in my book. Almost.

The teaser looks great. No plot points except that we know that Martians come to Earth and blow the hell out of a bunch of suburbanites who get out of their homes to do what Spielberg told us to do.

Kinda looks like Independence Day, but that was pretty much a remake of War Of The Worlds, so I’m not expecting it to be too different. But, since it’s Spielberg, I’m expecting it to actually be good.

Can’t wait for this one.

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

**½ (2.5/5)

Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Written by: Andrew Lloyd Webber/Joel Schumacher
Based on book/musical by: Gaston Leroux/Andrew Lloyd Webber

After years of making movies, Joel Schumacher seemed to make the biggest mistake of his career: he put nipples on Batman’s costume. DAMN HIM!!! Before that I don’t remember anyone ever bemoaning his talentlessness. Now, though, everyone hates him. We were sent out of the theatre with all of our stuff for a security check (it was pretty tight this year) and, as we came back in, there were moans of, “This better not be Schumacher.” When the movie started there were a couple of guys behind us saying, “You wanna go grab a beer next door until this is over?” That was before the opening credits were over!

But all of these people love The Lost Boys. And a lot of them love St. Elmo’s Fire. And many of them thought that Flatliners and Falling Down were pretty damn cool. But let him screw up a Batman movie or two (I kinda liked his first one) and he’s Satan with a camera.

Personally, I have no feelings one way or the other for the guy. He’s competent. No particular style of his own really, but he’s usually at least watchable, sometimes better.

This time out, though, was somewhere between crap and watchable.

Everybody knows the story, but let’s recap. Christine (Emmy Rossum from The Day After Tomorrow) is a beautiful young opera singer (in real life, too) who is about to get her first big break. She is just a chorus girl now, but when the diva, Carlotta (Minnie Driver…not such a singer in real life from what I hear), leaves in bitchy frustration, Christine is given her chance to shine. And shine she does, much to the pride of the hidden Phantom (Gerard Butler screwing up yet another classic monster—he was Dracula in the back street abortion that was Dracula 2000) who has been teaching her for years. She also brings pride to Madame Giry (Miranda Richardson) who has raised her ever since her beloved father died. Giry’s daughter, Meg (Jennifer Ellison, whose boobs seem too big to be a ballet dancer’s, but she actually IS a dancer), is Christine’s best friend.

All is well until Christine is reunited with her childhood sweetheart, Raoul (Patrick Wilson from The Alamo). He, of course, makes the Phantom jealous and all hell breaks loose.

I’ve never seen a film that was so stagy and yet so cinematic all at the same time. One lady said something about Moulin Rouge, but, after more thought, that was cinematic all the way. I can’t imagine that being on stage ever. This, however, was written for the stage and you can tell. It’s (loosely) an opera, which doesn’t necessarily translate well to the screen. BUT the direction is VERY cinematic. The sets are beautiful and full. The world that Schumacher creates is complete. There’s nothing to tell you that this is all staged.

That being said, Golden Globe nomination notwithstanding, this is not a very good movie. The acting is mostly second rate (sorry, Emmy. You’re beautiful and you’ve got a pretty good voice, but you’re not a great actress…GG nomination don’t mean shit here, either, and Gerard just wasn’t particularly charismatic as the Phantom), the story moves FAR too quickly early on (funny to say about a two and a half hour movie, but I didn’t get a chance to know anyone and, therefore, didn’t care if any of them died) and some of the dialogue is just lame.

Now, is that a function of Schumacher, or is that the fault of writer Andrew Lloyd Webber? Well, it was probably Schumacher’s decision to pull us out of the story occasionally to show us the auction 50 years after the fall of the opera. That would have been alright at the beginning and end of the movie, but it was distracting to do throughout.

In defense of Schumacher (which this is really turning into an argument FOR him, isn’t it?) this movie is pretty much what I expect of a Webber play. It’s cheesy. It’s over-the-top. It’s got some great music (“Music Of The Night”) and some pretty dippy music (the main theme works so much better without lyrics). And, seeing as how Schumacher was Webber’s first choice to direct back in the early 90s, I’m sure this is the film that Webber wanted. I’m not sure that it could have been made any other way than the way it was made. They worked really closely together on it. (How closely we may never know.) Sure, there are some weird choices here and there (and it became laughable towards the end—why did the Phantom look COMPLETELY different with his mask off?), but I’m not so sure that it was the film’s fault. I think it’s just the story/music. I’m not really too sure how this was such a huge hit on Broadway.

But it is a very pretty movie that is incredibly well shot. Beyond that, die-hard fans won’t like it and the uninitiated probably won’t be all into it, either. It’s mainly of interest to those of us who are into “interesting failures.”

Let’s move on to a good horror movie’s sequel’s trailer.

THE RING TWO TRAILER

DAMN, this looks creepy. And it’s mainly because of that kid! David Dorfman is just a creepy little kid. And it doesn’t look like he’s grown up very much since the first movie.

I can’t wait to see this one, either. The water on the ceiling was creepin’ me out the whole time. I’m all over it. I just hope it’s at least as good as the first one.

THE MUTATIONS (1974)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Jack Cardiff
Written by: Edward Mann/Robert D. Weinbach
Based on book by:

This Freaks homage from 1974 is not as good as the first one. But it’s still cool in a really weird, freakish way.

Professor Nolter (Donald Pleasence) is a genetics professor who seems to just be a little too into his work to be very sociable. What his students don’t know is that he is performing hideous experiments on students in order to “further the cause of science” and to help his friend, Lynch (Tom Baker just before he took over Dr. Who’s telephone box), become “normal,” whatever that means. Lynch, you see, is the Two-Faced Man. He has a horrible deformity that gives him a “handsome” side and an “ugly” side. The “ugly” side looks like the Elephant Man while the “handsome” side looks like…um…well not so pretty, either really. Not in this movie, anyway. The real Two-Faced Man was apparently actually good-looking on that side. But there was a problem with getting him to England to make the movie, so they had to cast Tom Baker instead.

Anyway, the movie was basically an excuse for one of the producers, Robert Weinbach (who was in attendance), to make an homage to Freaks. There’s even a scene where they might as well be saying their “Gooble gobble”s! He said that he really wanted to make a movie with these kinds of people, so he wrote this. I’m sure they appreciated it.

The movie drags a lot and has kind of a weird message about progress (Science is evil!), but it’s a lot of fun just to see Donald Pleasence play this ultra-introvert who can barely speak above a whisper, but is a brilliant (if slightly unethical) scientist. It’s also fun to see him feed a rabbit to a plant.

Certainly one for the cult crowd. No one else will really appreciate it. It’s coming out on DVD soon, so everyone will get to see it!

Now for Tim League’s (owner and programmer for the Alamo) slot in the program.

TOYS ARE NOT FOR CHILDREN

** (2/5)

Directed by: Stanley H. Brassloff
Written by: Macs McAree/Stanley H. Brassloff

Oh, what hell hath Tim brought?! Last year it was Teenage Mother. This year it’s this cinematic trashterpiece that, while not as vomit inducing, was just as disturbing.

And, actually, it reminds me a lot of last year’s Old Boy, too. Freaky.

Jamie Godard (the beautifully innocent Marcia Forbes who never made another film…go figure) is a sick little girl. She’s 20 years old (at different moments in the film…tiny bit non-linear, this one) and has never had sex with a man. But she loves her toys. Especially her stuffed tin soldier. Especially when she’s naked. And moaning. And groaning. And screaming “Oh, Daddy!”

Needless to say, her mother (Fran Warren) is not amused. She tells her that she’s just like her father and that she needs to get rid of all of her toys because she’s SICK!!!

Luckily, she finds a boy who loves her, too. She marries Charlie (Harlan Cary Poe who was in Taxi Driver!…for a second) and wants to live happily ever after. If only she could let him touch her.

Then she meets Pearl (Evelyn Kingsley) at the toy store she and Charlie work in. She helps Jamie open up. But at what price? At what price?

This is one of those trashy exploitation flicks that Tim loves so much and that makes everyone else cringe at the end. Yes, there’s a “surprise” ending that really twists your mind into a fucking pretzel and then eats it with a side of mustard. It’s really not much of a surprise except that it makes you think, “Are they…? No. They aren’t. They’ll stop. Wait. No. They’re… AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”

The acting is terrible. The writing is worse. Marcia is beautiful (and finally naked towards the end). And the movie is so awesome that words can’t quite describe it. But, of course, it’s not for…well…anybody, really. It could have only been made in the late 60s or early 70s. (1972, to be exact.)But I’m looking for the DVD now. It’s on Something Weird Video and is a double feature with The Toy Box. I’m there!

And this is where I started to fade in and out. Dammit.

LAYER CAKE (2004)

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Written by: J.J. Connolly
Based on book by: J.J. Connolly

These next three are all premieres and, for the most part, well worth staying up for.

Layer Cake is a British gangster movie in the vein of Get Carter and Lock Stock. In fact, it’s directed by Matthew Vaughn, producer of Guy Ritchie’s films, so it kind of has that style, but not quite. It’s a little more straightforward than anything Guy has done. (Well, I haven’t seen Swept Away, but neither did anyone else, so it hardly matters.)

The main character (Daniel Craig, the second person from Road To Perdition to have a movie played here) is a lower rung gangster, but he’s on his way up. The boss, Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) trusts him and thinks he’s got a big future ahead of him. He wants him to find his friend’s daughter. Our hero, however, just wants to make one big score and get the hell out.

His buddy, Gene (Colm Meaney who needs more jobs! Hollywood, where the hell are you?!), is there to help him, but not at the cost of his own life. When our heroes get caught up in a drug deal gone wrong that involves some of their associates and some sadistic Germans, things get more and more dangerous.

This is one of the better gangster flicks I’ve seen in a long time. Of course, I was really tired and was falling asleep every once in a while, so I’m sure I missed some plot points and good lines. But it was a lot of fun trying to figure out who was double-crossing who and who was going to get out alive. Awesome flick. Can’t wait to actually see it.

Eli Roth (director of Cabin Fever) always makes it to BNAT, so he brought a clip from a movie that he’s producing called…

2001 MANIACS CLIPS

As far as I can tell, this is about a bunch of rednecks who take offense to some city slickers comin’ into their little corner of the South. So they figure up little ways to kill ‘em and cook ‘em.

One clip featured a hot young girl nearly having sex with a redneck kid (who I think might have been Giuseppe Andrews from Cabin Fever…I know he’s in it and I think this was him), but meeting a rather nasty end. The other clip I, um, don’t remember so well.

Looks like it could be a lot of fun. This one is on my list.

CASSHERN CLIPS

This one WAS on my list. I guess it still is, but it’s not as high.

This is one of those Japanese sci-fi movies that has big, Big, BIG production values. The preview looked fucking AMAZING, so everyone I knew was drooling all over their skivvies for it.

Now, after seeing a clip, I realize that it may just be Episode I all over again. The clip was a lot of politicizing with weird special effects going on all over the place. I couldn’t keep up with what was going on, but they were just talking. A buddy of mine at the festival (can we call it that this year?) has seen it (DON’T ASK!) and said that it’s kind of boring. SHIT! That’s NOT what I want to hear.

Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to make do with The Princess Blade, The Returner and (especially) Azumi for my Japanese sci-fi fixes. (Anybody know when Azumi is coming out? I’ve been waiting since SXSW!) I’m not condemning this movie yet, though. There are good reviews online. And it’s one of at least four movies that were made around the same time completely against a CGI backdrop. I just wasn’t too impressed with the clip we saw.

The next movie I was TOTALLY impressed with, though.

ONG-BAK (2003)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: Prachya Pinkaew
Written by: Prachya Pinkaew/Panna Rittikrai/Suphachai Sittiaumponpan

This was the best fucking movie of the entire day. From the first scene of about 30 guys running up a tree and pushing each other off from about 30-40 feet in the air I knew this was going to be an all-new action highlight. When these guys hit the branches and, finally, the ground with force we only see in real life, we KNEW these guys were really hitting.

This movie HURTS LIKE FUCK to watch. But it’s more fun than a barrel of running chainsaws being thrown at a clown.

The story has something to do with our hero, Ting (Tony Jaa), being sent from his tiny town to Bangkok to get back the head of their Buddha statue (called Ong-bak). It was stolen by his cousin (I think) and is now in the hands of an evil gangster who smokes out of a hole in his neck. His other cousin and a girl come along for the ride and help out as much as they can. But with baddies running after him every step of the way, they can’t help him too much.

But it looks like he doesn’t need much help, really. He’s a fucking BADAAAASSSSSSS! He’s a master of Muay Thai, a Thai martial art. This guy is so fast that Jackie and Jet are left in his ass dust! He jumps through tiny rings of barbed wire, kicks guys four times in mid-air and manages to live through a saw attack that would have hurt a normal man so badly that he would be crying on his mommy’s shoulders.

I can’t say enough about how badass this guy is. He may not be the greatest and most charismatic actor ever (he actually leaves a little to be desired in that area), but that doesn’t matter. GO SEE THIS MOVIE! Better yet, find a way to see the uncut version. I hear it’s going to be butchered to shit when it’s finally released over here. I’m pretty pissed about that. I’m SICK of studios doing that thinking that we’re just not ready for the real thing. Fuck them! There’s nothing in this that America can’t handle. It’s a simple story with some of the best action ever put on film. And this time it’s fucking Luc Besson who’s doing it! What the fuck!? He should fucking know better!

Nevertheless, see this movie. Preach on about Tony Jaa. He WILL be the next big star.

Next up was another exciting clip show for a movie that all geeks are biting at their collective bits for.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA CLIPS

After hearing that Disney was doing these I was worried. I loved these books as a kid (not as much as the Hitchhiker’s Guide, though. I was always pretty twisted that way.) and I would hate to see them get fucked up by a big studio machine like Disney.

But now that I’ve seen how they’re handling them I’m not quite so worried. The effects and costumes (made by WETA) are shaping up to be pretty amazing. And with Brian Cox set up to be the voice of Jesus, I mean, Aslan, I think these are going to be great movies. And you know they’re planning the sequels already. They would have to be. I don’t know if they’ll be able to do all of the books, but if they did at least they wouldn’t have to deal with kids growing up too fast.

I’ll be in line for these next year. And I know I’ll see you there, too.

For the last film of the day, Harry chose one starring the biggest star in the world.

KUNG FU HUSTLE (2004)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Stephen Chow
Written by: Stephen Chow/Xin Huo/Kan-Cheung Tsang/Man Keung Chan

And he was right. Stephen Chow is the biggest star in the world. Just, no one knows him in America but a chosen few. He’s kind of like Jerry Lewis that way. Maybe in many other ways, too. When he makes a comedy out of a terrible moment in world history and a surreal drama starring an up and coming young weirdo we’ll know that he’s patterning his entire career on the peripheral Rat Packer.

And just why he’s such a big star, I’ll never know. I don’t really get it. He’s kind of funny, but I’ve never been overly impressed with his movies. Shoalin Soccer was a BIG letdown after hearing how great it was and how it was the biggest hit ever in Hong Kong. I was kind of bored with it. So far the best movie of Chow’s that I’ve seen was From Beijing With Love, and even that one wasn’t very good.

Kung Fu Hustle is among the best of his, though. It was fun, if not great. Stephen is a BIG fan of American movies and you can tell from this one.

Gangs rule China of the 40s, the most notorious of which is the Axe Gang. Stephen wants desperately to be part of the gang, so he invades a slum. Unfortunately for him, this slum is lorded over by the meanest landlady in the world. And she has some special powers that you wouldn’t believe. But Stephen might have some surprises of his own.

The movie is pretty funny (especially when a gangster steps on a soccer ball and says, “NO MORE SOCCER!”), but I think Ong-bak would have been a better closer for the day. The story was alright, but there were parts of it that just didn’t really fit into the rest of it. (What was up with the lollipop girl showing up somewhere towards the end? She meant nothing to the rest of the story and only added up to an “AAAWWWW!!” ending.)

But some of the gags make it worth watching. Like I said, it’s one of the better Chow movies I’ve ever seen. It’s just not something that justifies his “biggest star in the world” title.

So that’s it. We sat around for a little while longer waiting to see who would win some prizes (I walked away with a figurine of The Chief from Get Smart!) and to talk to some of the friends that we made over the last 25 hours. (We went over an hour. Sue us.)

And, as we walked away from the festivities with our hands full of goodies (Original Godzilla soundtrack! YAY!! Chucky sperm! YAY!!) and our bellies full of whatever after not wanting to poop in the Alamo toilets, we shed a tear for the good times that we had. We pried our eyes open for the drive home. And we talked about going to see Ocean’s 12.

Thanks, Harry. It was another fun birthday party. I can’t wait for next year. KING KONG HERE WE COME!!!

Ask for his help, apparently.

But let’s ask about some previews first:

AMERICAN GANGSTER–Denzel Washington as a bad guy again? I’m for it. He plays a buy who has built his family up from nothing and Russell Crow (who looks like he’s lost a LOT of weight) is the cop who wants to take him down. Ridley Scott directs them both to some gangsterific fun. And Nicholas Pileggi is one of the producers!

Yeah. I’m there.

VANTAGE POINT–Dennis Quaid is a secret service agent when the President (William Hurt) is supposedly killed. Forrest Whitaker is a witness. But did they all see what they think they saw? Or is there a bigger conspiracy going on? Another big action flick that looks pretty awesome.

I AM LEGEND–Oh, I am SO down for this one. At first, I was a little worried about the whole Will Smith/Ahnold debate, but I think I can do with Will taking the place of Moses.

Will is the last man on Earth walking the lonely streets of Manhattan. But there’s something else out there trying to take him out. I’ve never read the book, but I’ve always wanted to. This version may be a bit closer to the source than The Omega Man was, but I like that one a lot. We’ll see how Will does, but I’m in line for it.

STARDUST–Neil Gaiman tries again for Hollywood. This one has something to do with a mythical city where people never leave. When a kid decides to go investigate a falling star (Claire Danes), he ends up swordfighting with Robert DeNiro and battling witches led by Michelle Pfeiffer.

Looks a little cheesy, but I’ll probably see it. I’ll see anything with Peter O’Toole. It ain’t no Golden Compass, though.

That’s it for previews…what about those boys in the Ocean?

So, Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his crew need to do another job. This time it’s personal, though. ____ Bank (Al Pacino) has screwed over ______ (Elliott Gould) and basically put him in a coma. The crew comes back together to get him out of his medical funk and pull off a huge job on Bank.

(Of course, all of this makes it kind of weird that Danny would say that ‘It’s not Tess’ fight’ since she loved _____. They needed a better reason for Julia Roberts to not be here, I think.)

And, yes, at one point they have to call in a little help from Terry ____ (Andy Garcia), their mark in the first movie and the man who made their lives hell in the second. His reasoning for helping them is a little flimsy, but I can imagine that he wants Bank out of Vegas.

Basically, there are holes galore (I still don’t understand most of the plot)…but that didn’t matter this time. Unlike Ocean’s 12, it didn’t seem forced and there was no ‘She looks JUST like….!’ If the sense of fun has diminished a little bit, it didn’t hurt the movie. It’s not as good as the first, but it’s a FUCKLOAD better than the second.

These guys are still the epitome of cool. And Pacino just adds to the fun. It’s always great to see him be such a bad-ass that you want to lose. Ellen Barkin, who plays his right hand woman, seemed a little wasted in her role, but it was good to see the two of them together again.

I was NOT too excited to see ______ (_______) back again. He was the most annoying part of Ocean’s 12. But he didn’t have nearly as big of a role here and he was actually a little bit…cool…this time.

The most welcome addition to the crew was Eddie Izzard. He didn’t have a lot to do, but he was great. I would watch him in just about anything, though.

This is a good way to end the Ocean’s Epic. And I think they’re done. They kind of allude to the end here. They acknowledge that Vegas has changed and talk about the way things used to be. There’s a big scene where Danny and Rusty (Brad Pitt) reminisce about the Sands and how they learned to gamble from _______. You could tell that Soderberg and the boys aren’t too happy about the Disney-fying of Las Vegas. It’s no longer an amusement park for adults. It’s a place for people to show off their wealth and build bigger and more obnoxious casinos. Bank’s obviously Fred Ghery inspired casino is quite possibly the most obnoxious building I’ve ever seen…and it’s supposed to be the new crown jewel of Vegas. (It doesn’t really exist, of course. I’m not sure that something that tall and fragile would actually stand for very long.)

It made me sad for the old days of Vegas even though I’ve never really seen those days. I’ve been there once and it was already owned by Disney.

But once there was a day when shaking Sinatra’s hand meant something. A time when the casino was more important than the jewels. When kids didn’t want to go to Vegas. When a certain amount of honor was traded among the thieves of the town. And Danny and the boys belong to that time. And it’s time for them to fade away. As much fun as it would be to see what they could come up with for Ocean’s 14, 13 is a good number for them to stop on.

Besides, Linus (Matt Damon) is all grown up now.

Not being good at anything seems to be a theme at this year’s festival. After The King Of Kong yesterday, now I see Skills Like This.

Max (Spencer Berger) writes some of the worst plays ever. We’re talking Vogon style, here. His latest, The Onion Dance, actually put his grandfather into a coma. After that, he decides to call it quits.

This is when things start to go his way. He finds out that he actually has a talent for something: robbery. He even meets the girl of his dreams at his first bank robbery. Lucy (Kerry Knuppe) is a very down to Earth, practical bank teller who helps keep everyone in line during the robbery. He meets her later in a bar and the two hit it off more than they probably should.

Max’s friends are just as strange as that pairing. Dave (Gabriel Tigerman) has a good job, but is totally uptight. His girlfriend, Lauren (Jennifer Batter) wants to fuck Max now that he’s robbing people. And Tommy (Brian D. Phelan)…well, Tommy’s just kind of a freak. He’s a typical jock type who is obsessed with his girly looking bike and figures that everything should be easy, including evading the cops after a bank robbery.

While not a great film by any means, Skills Like This does manage to keep the laughs coming for all of its 90 minute run time, something that a lot of the movies at the festival this year have had a problem doing. The characters are great and there are some awesome lines. Check it out if it manages to make it to a theatre/video store near you. It’s worth a few laughs.

EAGLE VS. SHARK

A friend of mine loved this movie. She saw it earlier in the festival and fell in love with the characters and said that it was MUCH better than she ever thought it would be.

The next time I see her, she’s dead to me.

Jarrod (Jemaine Clement) and Lily (Loren Horsley) are losers. Lily has lost her job at the local burger barn and Jarrod thinks that he’s amazing. He also has no social skills whatsoever. When the two meet, lint flies.

It really seems like Taika Cohen saw Napoleon Dynamite one too many times and figured that we were all ready for a New Zealand version of it. He also figured that we needed a version without any likable characters. Lily, who I guess is supposed to be the Napoleon character, is pathetic because of her complete devotion to Jarrod. And Jarrod is just an asshole. He’s such a dick that when he gets hurt towards the end, you’re kind of glad. I hated the guy and wanted him to get off the screen as soon as possible.

There were a few funny lines (“You’re a bitch and I hope you die of diabetes!”), but for the most part the movie was pretty well devoid of laughter. Not much in the way of good here.

GRIMM LOVE

A few years ago, a German man put an ad online for another man who would allow him to eat him. This is his story.

It’s also the story of Katie (Keri Russell), a girl who is writing a paper about the psychological ramifications of such a deal. Why did Oliver Hartwin (Thomas Kretschmann) want to eat another human being? And why did Simon Grombeck (Thomas Huber) allow him to do it? Eventually, Katie becomes completely obsessed with these mens’ stories and what led them to their horrific act. She starts to think that maybe, just maybe, she could be like either of them.

This is a very good film that shows us the inner thinking of a cannibal. The cuts between Katie’s life and the Oliver/Simon story show us just how closely related the two are. Maybe Katie ISN’T too far from them. Maybe we aren’t, either.

I loved how this film was shot. The scenes that take place in Oliver’s childhood are shot on old film stock and are very choppy. (All of this could have been done digitally, too.) It’s beautiful and creepy at the same time. Then the later story with the actual cannibalism manages to keep the gore to a minimum. Director Martin Weisz knows just how much we can take and when to string us along.

Check out this twisted fairy tale, but only if you have a strong stomach. The gore is minimal, but it’s still really intense. And there’s no comic relief to take you out of the story.

There is a more underground version of this story called Cannibal. I haven’t seen it, but from what I hear it’s a lot more gory and sensationalistic. This is supposed to be the better film. And it is very good.

Good start to the festival, though. Let’s get right to it.

THE LOOKOUT

Chris Pratt (Joseph Gorden Levitt) was once a big hockey star at his Kansas high school. Then he had caused a horrible car accident that killed two friends and gave him head injury severe enough to do permanent damage. He has trouble remembering things that he needs to do (like use soap in the shower) and sequencing events in the past.

So he works in a local bank as a night janitor hoping to one day become a teller despite his mental handicap. He lives with Lewis (Jeff Daniels) a blind man who was put with him by the clinic that he goes to every week. He is in lust with his counselor (who wouldn’t be? She’s played by Carla Gugino) and lives with constant guilt over the accident.

Then he meets Cork (Aaron Berg). He graduated a couple of years before Chris and now wants to help him have a “normal life.” That normal life includes Luvlee (Isla Fisher) and a bank robbery.

A lot of people were saying that this movie reminded them of Memento. I don’t think it has too many similarities except for the memory thing. And even that wasn’t very close because it was a completely different ailment. But it was a pretty twisty story of someone overcoming a mental ailment in order to solve/undo a crime. And I really liked it.

Joseph, between this, Mysterious Skin and the near-brilliant Brick, is quickly becoming a big star in the indie circuit. He’s a very good actor who is getting some awesome roles lately. Who knew that the kid from “3rd Rock From The Sun” would end up being an indie favorite?

This is screenwriter Scott Frank’s (Out Of Sight, Get Shorty, Minority Report) directorial debut and he did a pretty damn good job. The script, of course, is very good. I can’t wait to see what he’s doing next. Hopefully, he decides to keep directing. I guess we’ll see.

MULBERRY STREET

Rats are taking over Manhattan and there doesn’t seem to be anything that anyone can do about it. It’s so bad that when the rats attack a human, that person starts to become a zombie-like rat-person.

As much fun as that sounds like it should be, this movie isn’t meant to be a fun romp in any kind of Peter Jackson-esque way. In fact, it’s a pretty serious affair, which is a little bit surprising. And, since the premise is so ridiculous, it’s hard to take its seriousness seriously. Director/co-writer Jim Mickle and co-writer Nick Damici even try to wedge a little bit of political commentary into the last 10 minutes or so.

It seems like they’re trying to go for some kind of Night Of The Living Dead gravitas, but they don’t quite make it. The acting pretty much across the board is nearly adequate and the writing is slightly less so. I don’t expect a whole lot from horror movies, serious or not. But I do expect to not be bored. And Mulberry Street didn’t meet that expectation overall. There were only a few spots that were exciting…not nearly enough to recommend the movie to even the most die-hard horror fan.

Just for fun, I looked up Mickle on IMDb. The only other film on the site for him is a short called The Underdogs. It’s about a small town that dogs take over. Hmmm. Running theme? Weird.

BE COOL—The sequel to Get Shorty looks like it could be just as cool. This one focuses on the music industry, though, and reunites Mr. Travolta with Uma. It also stars Vince Vaughn as a wigger record producer and Cedric The Entertainer and, I guess, a rival producer. The Rock, Danny DeVito and Harvey Keitel also show up. I really liked the first one a lot, so I’m ready for this one. But sequels don’t always live up to the hype. (Foreshadowing?)

THE WEDDING CRASHERS—Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson team up (yet again) to crash weddings to get laid. It’s gonna be stupid as hell, but with these two guys it’ll be funny, too.

In other news, I have four weddings to go to next month…

MR. AND MRS. SMITH—Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are a semi-happily married couple who also happen to be assassins in opposite corners. Their covers are blown when they get each other as their next assignments.

This is the movie that Nicole Kidman dropped out of and was up in the air for a long time after that. I guess it’s good that they got it made, but it looks like True Lies meets The War Of The Roses. Good thing? Who knows.

One of the connections for these kids is (Crazy!) Vince Vaughn.

CONSTANTINE—Keanu Reeves (whoa!) is an…angel? Maybe? Something like that. Either way he’s stuck between Heaven and Hell and is out to save the Earth one demon at a time. Rachel Weisz wants to see what he sees. This is based on a DC comic book called Hellblazer (couldn’t call it that, guys? Why not? Bad sign) and, strangely, does NOT feature Vince Vaughn.

The preview actually looks pretty good even though Keanu is around. I’ll be there. It’s The Matrix meets The Exorcist hopefully not meeting Van Helsing.

Now let’s get to this crazy, kooky sequel that we’ve all been waiting for.

And let’s ask this question: Why? Why did we need a sequel to a really good, fun movie that had an ending? I understand the appeal of getting these guys back together because, hell, I wanted them back together, too! Ocean’s 11 was so much fun and the chemistry was so thick that I knew they all had to work together again. But how ‘bout a remake of Robin And The Seven Hoods?

Instead they found a slightly used script (by George Nolfi (Timeline) written for John Woo to direct), found the writer again and told him to wedge their characters into it. What resulted was a slightly fun mess of a movie.

The plot has something to do with Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) finding Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his boys and asking nicely for his money back. With interest. (Of course, nicely is subjective. He doesn’t kill them and gives them two weeks to get the money to him.) The boys are then forced to reconvene and figure out a way to make all of the money back. They get a job in Europe to steal a Faberge Egg that belonged to one pope or another, take it back to the Night Fox (Vincent Cassell in a pretty annoying role) and he will then pay off the debt. The catch is that they have to beat him to the egg. And he’s the one who helped Benedict find them all.

Add to this the fact that Rusty’s (Brad Pitt) ex-girlfriend, Isabel (Catherine Zeta-Jones looking better than she has in a long time), is a cop who is not only after the Night Fox, but she’s after Rusty, too. And she’s a damn good cop whose father was a thief.

Steven Soderbergh managed to get everybody back (not too hard when they had so much fun on the first one) and brought it in with the same budget. He also made it a beautiful film. It looks just like a 60’s European crime movie like Blow Up. (That’s possibly why the women look so amazing in it.)

The actors were, for the most part, just as charming as they were in the first one, too. The characters, while at times underused (was Basher (Don Cheadle) really needed this time?), were still great. But I think the only reason that they seemed well drawn this time out was because we knew them so well from the last movie. This movie would crumble if it weren’t a sequel.

One character, though, didn’t survive the translation at all. What the fuck was up with Benedict? He was all suave and business-like in the first one, always wearing perfect suits. Now he’s wearing frilly purple jackets with big frilly collars and poofy shirts while carrying an ivory tipped cane? What the…? Who died and made him Liberace?

Other problems? Let’s start with Vincent Cassell. Certainly not the biggest problem, but he’s the most obvious at first glance. His character just sucks. He’s supposed to be some kind of master thief, but he’s so flamboyant as to be outed any second now. Even though he’s some sort of royalty I think the cops would pick up his scent a mile away. And the fact that he’s tragically thin didn’t help, either. He took his shirt off a couple of times in the movie and I wanted to shove a piece of cake down his throat. Then there was that STUPID Entrapment “homage.” Just lame. Why anyone would pay homage to that movie I will never know. (Except that one of its stars is here, that is.) Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they were paying homage to Ali G In Da House.

The entire plot was way too contrived. It’s hard to follow at times and not all of their plans seemed to do much for them. (Why did they all have to get pinched?) And the “She looks just like her!” joke was kind of funny, but would have been MUCH funnier if they hadn’t told us exactly who she looked like.

There were a few fun cameos here and there (Robbie Coltrane and Eddie Izzard are always welcome in any movie) but there was one that was just lame and out of place. (And, yes, it involved the above joke.) And when Topher Grace shows up again, what does, “You didn’t have to go all Frankie Muniz on her” mean?

There was some good stuff going on, too. Besides the look of the film, the music was awesome and just about any scene between Rusty, Danny and Linus (Matt Damon) was great. Other than that, it was not NEARLY as good as the first one. Almost not worth seeing unless you’re REALLY into these characters. Even then check it out at matinee prices.

Too bad, really. Even though they ended the first one perfectly, there were so many ways to make a great sequel. What a waste of a perfectly good tagline.