****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.

This was the first year that I got in and I think it had to be his best one. There wasn’t a single horrible movie (although one came close, but it was still fun to watch until the end) and a couple of HUGE special guests.

As my friends and I descended on the Alamo there was much conjecture about who was going to be there and what movies we were going to see. We knew that Return Of The King was going to play because Harry has always had those and he said on his site that he was going to watch it like he always does: with a bunch of his friends. But maybe Kill Bill, Vol. 2? Maybe Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind? Perhaps even that cinematic epic Cheaper By The Dozen? (Someone on his site kidded about that. I would have been pissed.)

But no one knew what was coming. None of us could know.

We got started about an hour late. Harry tried to get us settled, but we were all too excited. We knew that the conclusion to the greatest fantasy epic was coming at the close of the party (it’s NOT a festival!! Some of these movies have to play Cannes.) and we couldn’t wait. But there were plenty of other surprises that we really wanted to know about, too.

HAUNTED GOLD (1932)

*** (3/5)

Directed by: Mack V. Wright
Written by: Adele S. Buffington

Harry started us off with the only horror movie that John Wayne ever made.

Ok. Horror may be kind of a strong word. More horrific. It was 1932 and this wasn’t exactly the Duke that we all know and deify. In fact, his horse was named Duke. John was just a skinny kid (24 at the time) who was in a bunch of B-movies. This was his 35th movie (according to IMDb) and still no one knew his name.

Haunted Gold is about a young man who is called to the town he grew up in because of a mine that his father owned with a long dead partner. The partner’s daughter, Janet (Sheila Terry from…um…it doesn’t really matter), doesn’t know why she was called here because her dad lost his half of the mine in a bet…or something like that.

But now dey’s spooks around. And dey’s spookin’ the walkin’ talkin’ stereotype that’s-a hangin’ out wit Mistra Wayne. Blue Washington plays Clarence Washington Brown, one of the worst portrayals of a black man I have ever seen. (Then again, I haven’t seen just a whole lot of movies with this sort of thing in it.) He is overly scared of everything and just doesn’t know what to do without his massa. (I seriously believe that ol’ Clarence was the inspiration for Scooby-Doo.) Oh, he doesn’t call him that, but he may as well. I guess back in ’32 he gave a lot of laughter to the audience, but these days, well…it was nervous and guilty laughter. It was more funny because people actually put this sort of thing on film than because it was actually funny. At one point, Wayne is getting put up for the night in the local hotel. He points at Clarence and says, “Well, what about…?” Everyone booed. Clarence had to either sleep in the old abandoned house across the street or, as Wayne said, “You could wait outside.”

Booooo.

Speaking of Scooby-Doo, the plot was a direct ancestor of our favorite scaredy dog. (Watch out for spoilers, but I doubt you’re going to be looking for this flick.) The ghost ended up being Janet’s supposedly dead dad who was just trying to scare people away from the mine. But he was a good guy. And if it hadn’t been for that meddling Duke…

But the movie was fun in a rather cheesy way. And Duke, the horse, did some things that no horse could ever do (“Go back and get the boys, Duke!” “Throw the lever, Duke!”) and Wayne threw some girly-punches. Fun was had by all.

After that Harry told us about his experiences with serials. He wasn’t able to get his favorite one (I forget the name, but I’m sure it’s great.), but was able to get:

THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN MARVEL (1941)

**** (4/5)

Directed by: John English/William Witney
Written by: Ronald Davidson/Norman S. Hall/Arch Heath/Joseph F. Poland/Sol Shor
Based on characters created by: Bill Parker/C.C. Beck

Many consider this the greatest serial ever made. It concerns a boy, Billy (Frank Coghlan, Jr.) who is transformed into Captain Marvel (Tom Tyler from Stagecoach) by a wizard named Shazam. Every time he says “Shazam!” Billy suddenly develops pubes and becomes a middle-aged man with the strength of ten men. And he can fly. And he has all kinds of other super powers. Kinda like Superman, actually. That’s mainly because it was supposed to be Superman, but DC wouldn’t let Republic do it.

The show was gearing up to be good and everybody was into it, but the film stopped about 20-25 minutes into it. Just when Captain Marvel got ahold of a machine gun!

But all was forgiven when the New Line Cinemas title screen came up. The crowd went insane. We all knew it was:

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING (2003)

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Peter Jackson
Written by: Peter Jackson/Fran Walsh/Philippa Boyens
Based on book by: JRR Tolkien

Harry knew he had to surprise us with it somehow, so he showed it to us early.

How do I review a movie like this? Seriously. It’s the culmination of everything that we’ve been seeing and dreaming of for the past three or four years. Ever since I heard that Peter Jackson was doing these films and I read the books I’ve been wondering how he was going to pull off some of these scenes. I’ve been waiting to see what the fires of Mount Doom look like and the Battle of Minas-Tirith and the Halls of Gondor and, and, and….

Well, this is how: he makes the absolute perfect ending to the greatest fantasy trilogy of all time. As great as everyone thought the Fellowship and Two Towers were, this one is twice as good. By about half way through there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. The film would get quiet for a second and you could hear little nerdling sniffles all through the theatre. For three and a half hours we were right there with Aragorn and Frodo and all the rest. When Legolas said to Gimli, “How about dying with a friend?” and Gimli said, “I could do that.” we knew that things could be over for one of them. And we were afraid for them.

If this movie doesn’t absolutely sweep at Oscar time I am actually giving up on Oscar. No, really. This time I mean it. Come on, guys. SHUT UP!!

I can’t say enough good words about this movie. Everyone in it was awesome. The battles are fucking amazing. (You haven’t lived until you’ve seen walls of men and orcs hit each other at top speed. And they’re incredibly violent, too. I’m surprised it got a PG-13 rating.) And if you loved Legolas in the last two movies thinking he was the coolest character, you’ll want to suck his dick after this one. He does some pretty amazing shit here.

I don’t want to say too much about it because I wouldn’t dare ruin it for anyone. But it is the best movie I’ve seen in a long, long time. There really hasn’t been a better film this year. I’m happy to have seen this (happy isn’t even nearly the right word for it), but I’m sad that it’s over. There’s nothing else to wait for until New Line gets the rights to The Hobbit and offers it to Peter. So far, that hasn’t happened, but it could. Who knows? Peter and Ian McKellen have both said that they’re game.

I cannot wait to see what Peter does with King Kong.

After the movie was over you could tell that Harry was just filled with every emotion. He told us all to be patient and sit down because he had some very small guests coming out. My first thought was, “If he got all four of the Hobbits here I’m going to freakin’ explode.” He told us that we were going to watch The General as a thank you to the guests for making these movies. We all laughed at Harry for starting to cry while he said that. But a laughter of comrades. We all had the same feelings he did.

That’s when he brought Peter out.

Holy shit. Peter Jackson was there along with his writers Fran Walsh (Peter’s wife) and Philippa Boyens (a big fan of the books and the mouthpiece of the writing team). I had heard rumors that Peter and Elijah Wood were going to be there. I just knew that there was no way that Peter would be there because he’s too busy with the extended version of this film and getting ready for King Kong. But he wanted to be here in Austin so bad that he skipped out on a Q&A in LA that New Line really wanted him to do (they forbade him to come to Austin, pretty much) and hopped a flight as quickly as he could. He lied to his production company for us! I love him!! He was off to Berlin soon after The General, but he was a very cool guy.

Elijah wasn’t there.

After that big surprise and amazing piece of film there was no way that Harry could top himself. He had shot his wad (as I’m sure many members of the audience did during the movie and Q&A). But it was no longer about topping ROTK. It was just about having fun.

THE GENERAL (1926)

***** (5/5)

Directed by: Clyde Bruckman/Buster Keaton
Written by: Clyde Bruckman/Buster Keaton/Al Boasberg/Charles Henry Smith/Paul Girard Smith
Based on books by: William Pittenger

I’m sure most of us have seen The General. Hell, it’s required viewing at UT and most film-ophiles check it out just because it’s got such a great reputation as one of the greatest silent films. But it’s one of Peter’s favorite movies and it IS a great film, so that was where we went next.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s about Johnnie Gray (Buster Keaton, one of the greatest silent comedians of all time and Jackie Chan’s main influence), a lowly train engineer in the Deep South during the Civil War. Johnnie’s girl, Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack), really wants him to enlist and fight off the Yankee menace. Unfortunately, the top brass figure he’s more useful as an engineer than a soldier, so the won’t take him. For some reason they wouldn’t tell him why. I guess there would have been no movie if they had. He goes home, dejected, but not before Annabelle’s brother and father tell him that her “good for nothin’” suitor didn’t even get in line to enlist. She tells him that he can’t talk to her anymore until he’s in a uniform.

Bitch.

A year later his beloved engine, The General, gets kidnapped by the North. This is where the movie truly begins. It’s non-stop sight gags that even a verbal comedy lover would love. They’re all classics, from the soaking of Annabelle to Johnnie using one railroad tie to get another one off of the tracks. There’s no calculating how much influence this movie had on comedy and film in general. Watching it today it’s hard to tell just how revolutionary it was at the time, but it’s still funny as hell and should be seen by anyone who likes to laugh even a little bit.

Was Buster better than Charlie as Peter says? I don’t know. I love both of them equally. They really are completely different kinds of comedy. As someone once said (I wish I could remember who), Buster is comedy of the mind, Charlie is comedy of the heart.

The new score by Guy Forsythe and his band was great. Very down-home country and lots of cool sound effects.

The only bad thing about this film is that it really glorifies the South. They are the heroes of the movie and Johnnie is a die-hard Dixie Man. There’s no mention of the reasons for the war at all, but I do seriously wonder if Spike Lee likes this movie. (Although I think it’s supposed to be a direct spoof of The Birth Of A Nation, so maybe that helps.)

From there we moved on to another country. There was a lot of that this year. Of the 11 movies we saw, 4 were subtitled and one other one was from another country. It’s apparently some kind of record. And most of the subtitled ones were between about 2am and 6am. Bastards.

OLDBOY (2003)

****½ (4.5/5)

Directed by: Chan-wook Park
Written by: Jo-yun Hwang/Chun-hyeong Lim/Garon Tsuchiya
Based on manga by: Nobuaki Minegishi

Chan-Wook Park is apparently building up quite a cult following lately. His last film, Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, got a lot of applause this year and, when Harry said that he liked Oldboy better, everyone seemed shocked.

I’ve never heard of the guy or his other two movies. (The other one is Joint Security Area.) But I liked this one quite a bit.

Oh Dae-Su (Min-Sik Choi from Shiri-you may have seen that one on the shelves of video stores lately) has been imprisoned for the last 15 years. Funny thing is, he has no clue why or by whom. He was pulled into this hotel room and left there being fed and drugged occasionally. Now that he has escaped, he has vowed to find out the whos and the whys.

Along the way he meets Mido (Hye-Jeong Kang), a beautiful young sushi chef, and falls in love with her. He also finds out that the person who imprisoned him is still trying to torture him.

The story takes some very weird turns and has a pretty sickening twist ending, which makes me think that the boys at Miramax (or whoever it is who is buying the rights to this one–by the way, boys, this review was posted AFTER Dec. 8th, no matter what date it says on top.) are going to screw it all up when they do their remake. I haven’t seen a lot of Korean films (Tell Me Something and Lies are about it for me), but none of them would be made in America. The Koreans aren’t afraid of any subject and they show it all. Gotta love that.

This is a very good film with lots of darkness and, of course, violence. It’s the first film of the day that is just rife with violence and the second where someone’s hand/finger gets taken off. But I think it’s the tooth-pulling scene that gets everyone.

This is about the time that we saw a couple of new trailers.

HELLBOY TRAILER

I’ve been waiting for this one ever since I saw Blade II and Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman were talking about it so much. I don’t know anything about the comic, but I want to see this movie.

The preview, though, almost seems to leave something to be desired. Yeah, it’s cool to finally see it on the big screen, but everything looks VERY cartoony. Hellboy looks like a kid with sawed off horns. (A very tall and big kid to be sure, but still a kid.) I guess it’s just not as dark as I would have hoped.

But Selma Blair looks great.

SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW

Not so sure about this one, either. It’s about a reporter (Gwyneth Paltrow) in 1939 NYC. She and a couple of pilots (Jude Law and Angelina Jolie…waaaaaiiiiiit a minute…did they let women become pilots back then?) are the only ones who can save the scientists of the world and, in fact, the world. There are robots with lasers and big flying machines and stuff being destroyed.

What I like:

It looks like a movie made in the 30s about the World Of Tomorrow. That’s pretty damn cool. It’s very comic booky (but it works in this one) and even the trailer is done in a comic book style.

What I don’t like:

The whole movie was done on green screen. That means that it may very well suck because it’s sometimes hard to act with just a screen behind you. AND that also means that they’re going to pay more attention to special effects and background than story.

I’m afraid.

More violence? More subtitles? Ok. Here we go!

WASP’S NEST (NID DE GUEPES, AKA THE NEST, 2002)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Florent Emilio Siri
Written by: Florent Emilio Siri/Jean-François Tarnowski

Who remembers Assault On Precinct 13? Ok, who remembers The Nebraskan? Yeah. Not as many. I had never heard of it until Harry told us that it was the actual basis for Precinct 13.

Why am I talking about these movies? Because Wasp’s Nest (The Nest according to IMDb) is a direct remake of AOP13. (I’m sure Tarantino would LOVE this movie.) A group of cops are in charge of getting an evil killer/rapist/Albanian revolutionary to a maximum-security prison. A group of robbers are robbing a warehouse. Somehow the two get stuck in the same warehouse while a bunch of faceless (literally-they all have gas masks with night vision goggles covering their faces) Albanian mafia troops besiege them, picking them off one by one.

It’s been done many times, but never quite as confusedly. It took me a long time to figure out that the people shooting at the cops weren’t part of the thieves’ group and that the cops weren’t shooting at the thieves. When I finally understood what was going on I realized that the action was great. Yeah, the characters are pretty stock (although they’re cool, too) and the story is simplistic (once you figure it out), but it’s action packed and very violent. Director Florent Emilio Siri is next doing the Bruce Willis action flick, Hostage, and the new Splinter Cell video game. I can see Hollywood loving this guy. I hope Hostage has a better story.

Now let’s move on to a REAL horror movie.

GINGER SNAPS: UNLEASHED (2004)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Brett Sullivan
Written by: Megan Martin
Based on characters created by: Karen Walton

Yes, it’s time now to revisit Ginger’s little sister, Brigette (Emily Perkins). You remember them from the original Ginger Snaps back in 2000, right? Well, as we all know Ginger (Katherine Isabelle) and Brigette, erm, parted ways…of sorts. But not before B injected herself with some of Ginger’s tainted blood and started to become a werewolf herself. (All of this is sort of explained along the way in this new movie.) Now, with daily injections of wolfsbane, she is able to keep her inner beast under control to a degree. But that doesn’t mean that she’s cured. She still feels the hunger at times and it keeps getting stronger. It’s not helped any when she gets thrown into a rehab center for girls because someone thinks she’s hooked on heroin.

She meets a strange and unlikely ally in Ghost (Tatiana Maslany), a young girl who is in the center to take care of her grandmother, a burn victim who doesn’t seem too happy about Ghost being around. There’s also Tyler (Eric Johnson-not the guitarist), a nurse who trades drugs for sex.

The movie is sufficiently creepy in all the right places and kind of keeps the mood of dark comedy and horror that the first film had. The last half reminded me a bit of Alien because they were stuck in the basement of the center and then in Ghost’s grandma’s house running from a mostly unseen evil.

I also really like where they’ve taken Brigette. She’s not just another goth kid who has something actually wrong with her. Like Sarah Connor in the second Terminator film, she’s highly disturbed by what she’s becoming. She’s all alone in the world and knows it. There’s no going back to what she once was even if she does manage to find a cure, which she doesn’t have much hope of doing.

What I wasn’t all that happy with was the ending. It seemed like they just wanted to tack on a twist ending that would creep us out even more than just another werewolf. And, I guess it is creepy, but it almost seems out of nowhere.

It’s by no means as good as the first one, but I still thought it was better than a lot of the crap that has been called horror lately.

It’s coming out on DVD pretty soon and the prequel should be out soon after that. Too bad the first one didn’t get a theatrical release, because they both look great on the big screen and are much scarier in a dark room with a bunch of other horror fans.

How ’bout some more horror? This time with subtitles!

HIGH TENSION (aka SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE, HAUTE TENSION) (2003)

***½ (3.5/5)

Directed by: Alexandre Aja
Written by: Alexandre Aja/Grégory Levasseur

France has started making horror movies. Well, I guess they always have, but I’ve never seen one that I can remember. Most of what we get over here are the really pretentious French films that end in the death of a child or the diseasing of an entire city. You know: their comedies.

This one, however, is a pretty tense little slasher flick with a twist ending that nearly negates early scenes in the movie.

Ok, it completely negates them. But I didn’t really care. It was a fun ride.

Marie (Cecile de France) and Alex (Maiwenn le Besco…credited as just Maiwenn) are best friends in college. They’re going to Alex’s house for the summer (I think) and Marie couldn’t be happier. We kind of get the feeling that Marie may be a bit happier than Alex really wants her to be.

The first night, though, something horrible happens. An old man comes in a kills everyone in the family except for Alex. Marie sees what’s going on and hides, trying occasionally to save Alex to no avail. The man carries her off in his truck to some horrible destiny. Luckily Marie manages to get in the truck.

That’s the whole story until the twist at the end. Not much there, but it’s enough to show us some really cool gore effects and some horrible, horrible deaths. Director Alexandre Aja has a future in horror films, but he needs to work on plugging up those plot holes.

Now, on to a horror of a different kind.

TEENAGE MOTHER (1967)

[Rating:.5/5]

Directed by: Jerry Gross
Written by: Jerry Gross/Nicholas Demetroules

Jerry Gross made a lot of exploitation flicks in the 60s. Strangely, a lot of them were hits. His biggest deal was actually releasing Sweet Sweetback’s Baaadaaaassss Song. (Talk about exploitation. That one is blaxsploitation AND child porn!)

This is one of the more disturbing of Gross’ films. It’s about a young Swedish woman (with a slightly British accent) who is hired by a small-town high school to start teaching sex-ed. Of course, all of the parents are against it, but the kids love to laugh about it. As soon as the kids become more sexually active, the parents blame it on the teacher, not the hormones. (Apparently they were never teenagers themselves.)

There’s a lot of stuff that happens involving the bad kid, Fred Willard (yes, he’s in it…ask him about it the next time you see him) and the golden couple. But none of that really matters. By the end of it there were only about five minutes that anyone actually remembered.

The hot new teacher is talking to the school board and some parents (which consists of about five people) while they are attacking her. They scream about the books and films that she “makes” the kids read and watch. (It’s all actually voluntary.)

It’s all well and good until they decide to “take a look at that film.”

Oh my God, it’s probably the most horrible birth I have ever seen. It’s an actual birth, but it’s an actual birth circa 1968 when they used forceps and “blades” and salad spoons. There’s fucking blood everywhere and the baby looks dead. There’s no way that can be good. Afterwards I said, “It’s vagina, but it’s ALL WRONG!!” The screams were amazing. People were hiding their heads, but they couldn’t hide forever. We were all stuck watching this train wreck.

Then the movie returned to its normal badness, but by then no one was able to tell anymore. At least the torture had stopped. It was over.

What exactly did Gross (good name) hope to achieve with this movie? Yeah, it had hot babes in it and the tagline was “She was a motorcycle mama!” (No motorcycles, by the way.) But did he expect kids to go see it after their friends told them that there was a real birth in it?! I would have avoided that like a bad date with Estelle Getty! I mean, we all wanted to see pussy, BUT NOT BEING FORCED OPEN BY FORCEPS!!! NOT WITH A GIANT HEAD COMING OUT OF IT!!! NOT BEING CUT OPEN!!! After this we had breakfast.

Bastards.

After breakfast it was time for more horror. This time from New Zealand.

Yay!

UNDEAD (2003)

*** (3/5)

Directed by: Michael Spierig/Peter Spierig
Written by: Michael Spierig/Peter Spierig

What happens when you cross Peter Jackson’s early zombie flicks with…um…well…I dunno what else. This seems to be a direct homage to the master himself.

Rene (Felicity Mason) is the Fish Queen of her hometown. She won a beauty contest that she didn’t even want to enter and royally pissed off the reigning queen.

But none of that really matter since meteors are hitting the town and turning the townsfolk into brain-hungry zombies. The only person who seems to know what the fuck is going on is Marion (Mungo McKay), a farmboy with some pretty tricky gun stylin’s and a kick-ass multi-shotgun.

There are other survivors of the shower/feeding frenzy (my favorite is the cop who spews stuff like, “When I was a kid, we fuckin’ respected our parents, we didn’t fuckin’ eat ‘em!” and “I’ll fuckin’ finish you off faster than a fuckin’ birthday cake at a fat chick’s fuckin’ birthday party!”) but none of that matters. What matters is that this is one fun zombie flick with some great gore and pretty good special effects for a couple of guys sitting home alone with their computers. The Spierig boys (Peter and Michael) obviously know what they’re doing and they love it.

My main problem with the movie is the ending. It made NO sense at all. It was another twist ending that came out of nowhere and then they twisted it two more times. Didn’t work for me at all.

But the ride to that was a lot of fun. If you’re a fan of the genre, definitely seek it out. It’s at least as fun as Bubba Ho-Tep.

And last, but not least:

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004)

**½ (2.5/5)

Directed by: Mel Gibson
Written by: Benedict Fitzgerald/Mel Gibson
Based on book by: A committee of Christians

Harry said that every year there’s a movie that he goes for that he knows he won’t get. This year it was this one. And, obviously, he got it. And that’s not all he got, but I’ll get to that later.

This is Mel Gibson’s dream project. The man is a very devout Catholic and has been trying to make this movie for a long time. Ever since he was a little boy he thought that it was a strange thing that ALL movies about Jesus were in English. It just didn’t work for him.

So, now that he has pretty unlimited clout in Hollywood, he has made the definitive Jesus movie. It is quite possibly the most realistic depiction of the days leading up to the crucifixion that has ever been put on film. And, in fact, the entire day of the crucifixion is amazing. The bearing of the cross, the nailing to the cross and finally the actual slow and torturous death. It was gory, bloody, disturbing and awe-inspiring.

What I didn’t think was so good was everything leading up to that. The characters didn’t seem to be very different and I couldn’t tell them apart even if they were. Everyone had big, bushy beards and even Jim Caviezel (who is the only known face besides Monica Bellucci who played Mary Magdalane) didn’t look like himself, so I was never sure if I was right that he was playing Jesus. It turns out that they put a very small prosthetic on his nose so that he didn’t look so pretty. But every time I figured that I had the right guy, it ended up being Jesus who betrayed himself. And that certainly doesn’t work right.

Maybe if I hadn’t been so damn tired I would have understood it a bit better. Maybe if I knew the story better. But, since I got most of my Bible knowledge from Jesus Christ Superstar, I’m a little lacking in that department.

This was a good film with great acting all around and when it’s actually projected on film it will look beautiful. (We saw a very rough cut with a few scenes and all of the special effects left to be added in.) But character development was a real problem for me. I’ll check it out again when it comes out for real, though. Hopefully it’ll be better.

Now for the controversy. Will it start a whole anti-Semitic movement in the Catholic church again? Well, I certainly hope not, but here’s the deal: the film does depict the Jews in a pretty disturbing light. They are portrayed as pretty blood-thirsty. They wanted this Jesus guy dead with a capital D. The Romans were actually starting to falter, but the Jews spurred them on.

But what can be done about that? That’s the way it’s portrayed in the Bible as far as I know. At that time and place in history that’s what happened. It’s not like we can change the Jews into a more hate-friendly group like Nazis or Arabs.

Kidding.

Bushes…how ’bout that? The Bushes killed Jesus.

I think that what we need to do is take a step back and say, “Ok, that’s the way that group of Jews was at that time. Of course they are no longer like that.” If people can’t do that then they shouldn’t be allowed to see ANY movie. Hell, they probably shouldn’t even be allowed to read the Bible because they won’t be able to tell that these stories are parables and probably didn’t actually happen.

Oh. Wait…That’s what most religion is based on: these stories being absolute T-R-U-T-H.

Since I don’t know very much about the Bible specifically I called a buddy of mine who knows it pretty well. According to him, this whole controversy of whether or not the Jews are horrible people because they “killed Jesus” should be null and void. Jesus’ death was prophesied to the Jews, so they knew that they were going to have a hand in it. AND, if they had not had that hand in it, there would be no Christianity! Jesus had to die in this specific way. In a way all Christians should be grateful to the Jews because they made Jesus the martyr that he was. They enabled the Christians to live with sin and still get into Heaven.

Besides, if they hadn’t done it (or even existed) someone else would have done it.

So, those are my thoughts on that whole stupid argument. What were Mel’s thoughts? He said that what he believes is not necessarily in this film. The film is completely separate from his religious agenda, so he only put what he saw in the Bible and many other scholarly tomes.

Yes, that’s right. Mel Gibson was at Harry’s birthday party.

Holy shit. I saw Mad Max. Riggs. William Wallace! Fuckin’ awesome! I’m still excited about him and Peter.

Anyway, Mel talked to us for about an hour about the film and where he’s going next. (He actually wouldn’t say what it was, but he “really wished that he could.” He said it was something really cool. Hopefully it’s not something like Waterworld or The Postman.) He will probably be directing again before he acts. Whatever he does, I can’t wait to see what it is.

So, thus endeth my first BNAT. I had a LOT of fun and I hope it happens again next year. It probably won’t be nearly as fun because Harry is starting to produce his film and doesn’t have time to program a party like this. But it’ll still be 24 hours of movies and I’m sure there will be something to crow about.

Until next time, fearless readers, keep watchin’ the movies.

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.

Well, hold on. She’s giving the guy one more chance and going to England with him for two weeks. What’s a poor Canadian boy to do while the love of his life is away with her ex-boyfriend but gamble all of his money away?

And that’s exactly what Shane does. In a matter of one night he goes from being broke, to having a couple of thousand dollars to being $9000 in the debt to the casino. How the fuck do you get out of that? You go to a loan shark. Now he owes the casino $4000 and a dangerous man $5000.

His buddies try to help him, but they don’t have any money, either. All they have are the brains to not get so in debt with their gambling. The hell of it is that they gamble all the time. Shane has never done it before.

With Goodfellas type narration we get the whole story of how Shane goes from bad to worse and how he can’t stop thinking about this woman who left him, possibly forever.

And, really, that’s what I liked so much about this film. Yes, it’s about gambling, but really it’s about the love that you just can’t quite have. His gambling represents the downward spiral that we all take when we fall in love with someone and can’t tell them.

The cast is very good and full of basically unknowns. All together they have a pretty impressive filmography, but you never will have heard of any of them but Sarah Polley. And she plays a character that’s slightly different from her norm. She’s more forceful and modern. The closest she’s ever come to this in her list of roles is Go. She’s very good. Hell, I fell in love with her.

Very good romance with some gambling thrown in to occupy your mind while you think of all of the women like Margaret in your life.

And, since it’s a Canadian film, it’s got hockey. It takes place during the Canadian/Russian hockey championship in 1972.

STANDER

In the late 70s Andre Stander (Thomas Jane) was one of the top policemen in South Africa. Apartheid was in full force and it seemed like a white man could get away with anything while a black man would be shot in the streets for accidentally stealing an orange.

When Stander kills an unarmed man during a riot his life changes forever. He starts to realize the hypocrisy in the system and comes up with a way to buck it. He walks right into a bank, shows them his gun and robs them. The experiment works and he starts to live a much more fulfilling life chasing after himself. When he is finally caught by his best friend and fellow officer he is thrown in jail. That’s where his story really gets started.

A lot of bank robberies followed while he and his new gang were on the run from his old cop-mates. His wife (Deborah Kara Unger) and father (Marius Weyers) are completely at a loss as to why he’s doing these things.

This movie was a lot of fun and has a really cool true story about a guy who is just fed up with the system he’s worked for for so long. The acting was very good across the board, but Thomas Jane was the real standout. I’ve never been overly impressed with him, but he was awesome in this one. But why was he naked so much near the beginning? That was kind of weird. It was in very strange places like running around the beach with his bikini-clad wife.

It’s a beautiful film, too. The cross-processing was perfect for making it look like a 70s film. And the South African vistas were really cool even if they were mainly just deserts and shanty towns.

The only problem I had was the fact that the first 30-45 minutes were great. It was those last four hours that were kind of slow. I kept thinking, “Ok. This is it….no. This is it. Alright, this has to be it.” And it never was. It’s not even two hours long, but it felt like forever at times.

Other than that it’s definitely worth seeing when it comes out, which I’m sure it will within the next year.

JU-ON: THE GRUDGE

With the success of The Ring and the fact that The Eye did so well at the festival last year, the directors of SXSW were looking for another Asian horror film to fill a midnight slot.

When I heard that they had chosen The Grudge as this year’s pick I was excited. The movie is a sensation in Japan and has spawned not only a sequel, but the movie itself was started by a video series. And they were all directed by Takashi Shimizu. He is also doing the American re-make of his film starring Sarah Michele Gellar, Clea DuVall, Bull Pullman and Cousin o’ Cruise, William Mapother.

I was looking forward to seeing this movie for days. Too bad it wasn’t worth the wait.

The “story” centers around a curse in a house that gets passed from person to person like a virus. It’s told in segments that focus on each person. While each person has a connection to another victim, the stories just barely coincide. I couldn’t figure out the timeline of the movie at all.

There were plenty of creepy moments (the little boy was pretty creepy), but they didn’t add up to anything. I didn’t care about anyone because we didn’t spend enough time with anyone to learn anything about them.

I’ve heard that the sequel is better. Maybe I need to see it in order to make some sense out of this shit, but I’m not sure that I’m all that interested in seeing it. I hope they insert a story into the American version, but I can’t imagine that they will. Those are pretty secondary to American horror films, even if they are directed by someone who has filmed the same story 427 times before.

What a disappointment to a Japanese horror fan.

This time out he plays CW Briggs, an insurance investigator who is in a war with a new efficiency expert, Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt). She’s out to make the office into a modern (for the 40s, anyway) machine whereas he’s ready to keep things the way that they are and run on gut instinct and sexual harassment.

When the two of them are hypnotized by Voltan (David Ogden Stiers) at a party they are made to think that they are helplessly in love and trapped on a deserted island. Of course, when they wake up from the trance they have no idea that they were even hypnotized.

A few days later Voltan calls CW and whispers his secret word to him. He then sends the little nebbish detective on a search for some very valuable jewels. CW wakes up and no recollection of ever even seeing the jewels so, unbeknownst to him, he’s after himself.

There’s some almost interesting stuff going on between CW and Betty Ann, but it’s all been done before. They hate each other in real life, but in their hypnotized lives they are madly in love with each other. Are they only acting out their actual fantasies? Or is it only the power of suggestion?

And what’s the inevitable conclusion to this sort of thing when there’s Woody Allen and a young woman involved? I think you know.

I think the whole idea has kinda been done to death. Who hasn’t seen a movie about people who do strange and even illegal things under hypnosis? Come on. Raise you hands.

I guess I liked the movie and all, but it wasn’t anything very special or memorable. I think Woody needs to slow down and maybe make a movie every two years instead of every year. Maybe he could get all of the good jokes together and make one great movie instead of two mediocre ones. Because there are some good gags here, but they’re kinda few and far between. Maybe if he had put this one and Small Time Crooks together something pretty good could have come of it. As it is we’ve got two of Woody’s lesser flicks that are just good time wasters as opposed to the great films that he used to put out.

They get kicked out of their respective houses and have to make it alone. Jack gets a job at the local video store because the geeky guys who work there want to hang out with him after school. Diane gets a job at the bank branch at the grocery store…which gives her the greatest idea that any cheerleader has had since the invention of the mini-skirt.

The problem is that she and all of her friends are dumber than bricks. Even Lucy “The Genius” Whitman(Sara Marsh) who is trying to get into Harvard and has a good chance is pretty damn stupid.

The rest of her crew are Kansas “The Rebel” Hill (Mena Suvari), Hannah “The Virgin” Wold (Rachel Blanchard from Road Trip and The Rage: Carrie 2), and Cleo “The Stalker” Miller (from The Limey and Dark City). Along the way they add Fern “The Terminator” Rogers (Alexandra Holden from Drop Dead Gorgeous and Dancer, TX). That pretty much sums up their characters. To help you tell them apart I’ll tell you a little bit about them. Kansas is the one with the mom in prison for killing her father a few seconds after she was born. He was in the next room with a nurse. Hannah is the one with a strong Christian back ground who can’t watch anything but G-rated movies. She likes horses. She REALLY likes horses. Cleo is the one who is obsessively in love with (get this) Conan O’Brien. She fantasizes about Conan’s head on Keanu Reeves’ body. Lucy is the obsessive compulsive…but it only shows up when it’s convenient. Fern is a white trash girl with the local arms dealer for a dad. He’s rather unfunny.

Oh, back to the Idea. Diane thinks it would be a great idea to rob her bank. They know that they can do it because they can rent a bunch of bank robber movies and learn from their mistakes. (None of which, by the way, made any appearance during the robbery proper.)

Besides their utter stupidity (the only person dumber than they are is Jack), they have another turn of bad luck. Lisa (Marla Sokoloff from Whatever It Takes and Dude, Where’s My Car?) is there…and she’s out to get Diane for stealing the position of head cheerleader from her.

I am so ashamed of myself for actually kind of liking this movie. I’m sure it will be totally bashed by the critics. Really, it’s almost as stupid as its main characters. But there are little flashes of near brilliance that make up for the fact that one of the first places that Jack tries to get a job at is a fast food joint called Lucky Pluckers. (This may have been funnier if there weren’t a place here in Austin called Pluckers. They use a lot of the same jokes. Somehow it’s kind of funny there.)

It’s a satire on the cheerleader stereotype and (including the prerequisite gay mascot dude), I guess, the bank robber movie. In that capacity it almost works. Sort of. Maybe if only the cheerleaders had been stupid. But even Lisa was a complete moron. This should have been called Reservoir Dumbasses. (There’s a pretty funny parody of that movie in here, too…of course. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen five Betty dolls and Richard Nixon walk up to a grocery store in slo-mo.)

So, if you can turn your brain totally off you’ll probably enjoy this flick. It’s better than Jawbreaker (by miles) but not nearly as good as Heathers. Kind of along the lines of Drop Dead Gorgeous. Not too much of a waste of money for a slow Friday night. Go with a bunch of friends so that you can laugh at the girls you went to high school with. Although I seriously didn’t know anyone this braindead. But it’s pretty funny anyway.

And, besides, all of these girls are sexy as hell. I especially liked Cleo (with the Jennifer Connally eyebrows), Hannah (who, appropriately enough, looks like she could be related to Alicia Silverstone–she did play Cher in the Clueless tv show, after all) and Lucy (who, for some reason, reminded me of Patty Duke).

And what the hell is up with all of the cheerleader flicks these days? There’s But I’m A Cheerleader (really bad) and Bring It On (didn’t bother even though Kirsten Dunst is in it). And wasn’t there another one? Don’t you think America should be over its cheerleader fetish.

What am I talking about? I’m out of college and I still have a cheerleader fetish.

Um. Nevermind.