Friday, July 10, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 24

From left-to-right: Reid, Michael, Danny, and Eric.

Today's BucketCast is just a barrel 'o goodies. It's a Subman powwow with Friday regular Reid Ackerman (Twitter), plus Michael "Retrospectives Guy" Lester and BucketCast virgin Eric Bruck (Twitter).

First, we talk Bruno (my full review to come tomorrow), which we all caught at the local Midnight show. Then, the discussion opens to the other new releases I Love You Beth Cooper and The Hurt Locker (expanding to 50 cities).

Finally, we scheme our ComicCon schedules up for Thursday and Friday. After all, the schedules are out now at the official website!

So what are you waiting for? Listen!

And S&R if you haven't already. You know the drill.

BucketCast: Episode 23

On today's Podcast (well... yesterday's... the Bruno midnight festivities got in the way of a punctual post), Michael and I once again do retrospectives, this time for Tod Browning's Dracula (1931) and Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense (1984). It's a good episode -- be sure to listen.

Also, as you may have noticed, the BucketCast just spent another week without daily episodes. This is because I'm thinking about re-working it--and the whole Bucket Reviews site in general--and have been devoting the time to exploring my options. If you would like to see more/less of something on the BucketCast, or something new altogether, please don't hesitate to e-mail me at webmaster@bucketreviews.com or contact me at Twitter handle "bucketreviews".

Your support is appreciated, and the sliver of the BucketCast audience I am able to track is really more than I could have hoped for. Now S & R if you haven't, why don't you!

Saturday, July 4, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 22

On a special Saturday edition of the weekly BucketCast retrospectives show, Danny and Michael discuss picks Anatomy of a Murder (1959) and Do the Right Thing (1989), both of which had significant anniversaries this week.

Apologies for the notch-below-average audio quality; a new mic stand is on order to rectify the situation.
S & R, please.

Friday, July 3, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 21

Reid (left) and Danny (right), deep in Podcasting Nirvana. Video will soon be posted to the "bucketreviews" YouTube channel.
First off, apologies are in order: I'm sorry there has been no BucketCast posted since the Transformers 2 video over a week ago. The Los Angeles Film Festival really took it out of me (the remainder of my coverage will be posted over the course of the next week).

But the BucketCast is back with a vengeance, and from now on will be delivered to your computer the standard six days a week.

On today's comeback episode, Friday regular Reid Ackerman and I broadcast from Subman. Because the year is exactly halfway over, we dish on our Top 10 favorite movies at the mid-point. What are they? Tune in to find out!

And tomorrow: a special Saturday edition of the weekly retrospectives with Michael Lester, in which we discuss Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder and Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, both of which had significant anniversaries this week. Stay tuned for that.

S & R. You know you want to.

Friday, June 26, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 20 (Video Edition)

In a special video edition of the BucketCast, Michael and I tackle the local midnight show of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Remember to watch in HD. Otherwise, sit back and enjoy! Please send your comments in to webmaster@bucketreviews.com or Twitter handle "bucketreviews", especially on whether or not we should do another videocast. And please rate us 5-stars on YouTube!

Part One


Part Two

Sunday, June 21, 2009

2009 Los Angeles Film Festival: Day One

If you read my coverage of last year’s Los Angeles Film Festival, you’ll remember that I was not exactly thrilled by the movies I saw. That’s not to say that good movies didn’t play—it was where I discovered both Man on Wire and Boy A, two of my favorite films of the whole year, and there were loads of terrific choices I didn’t catch until later—but rather that I had bad luck with my selections. Going into this year’s chapter of the festival, I was optimistic, set on avoiding the same fate. After Day One, it was clear I needed to rethink my strategy because I was already batting 0-for-3.

Adhen is beautifully shot and tackles a potent, topical issue, but it’s a frustratingly incomplete movie. The setting is a rundown palette factory in France, where working-class immigrant Algerians are exploited by their boss, Mao (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, the co-writer/director). Mao gets away with paying his predominantly Muslim crew bottom-of-the-barrel wages by erecting a mosque in their favor, using the power of religion to ensure they don’t question him. He appoints the Imam (Larbi Zekkour) himself, using the man to convert the staff so his leverage will further. But there’s an uprising in store, as two factory mechanics (Salim Ameur- Zaïmeche and Abel Jafri) rally behind new Muslim Titi (Christian Milia-Darmezin) in questioning Mao’s religiosity and lack of care for the employees.

The film’s quasi-documentary, fly-on-the-wall style is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it allows Adhen to stand out as another enlightening piece of realism in a growing body of cinematic representations of Muslim immigrants in France. The film feels completely authentic, and those adventurous American audiences willing to watch it will no doubt learn quite a bit (I did). Then again, this is potentially dangerous if Adhen is not an accurate blanket representation of working-class Algerians in France, which is very possible. It is a rather political film, and I’m sure the opposing side has something to say about it. But that’s not the big problem with the way the message is conveyed. Instead, it’s that factory life is painfully dull and, no matter how realistically depicted, it wears on the viewer. Yes, this sense of wear is part of the point of Adhen, but I’m unwilling to accept the notion that a film can be effective solely by capturing boredom. The subject matter may seem similar to Laurent Cantet’s exceptional The Class on paper, but I assure you, the comparisons end there. There are certainly isolated moments of engagement in the picture—a shocking scene in which Titi circumcises himself to become a “real Muslim,” a beautiful sequence set on a river, et cetera—but on the whole it's too tedious for its own good.

Nonetheless, there’s no denying that Adhen boasts its share of accomplishments. Cinematographer Irina Lubtchansky works with the confinements of the factory, tightly photographing through each orifice between stacks of red palettes, and captures the toils of working-class life. It’s true that the images in Adhen often seem too perfect for the gritty material, but without them, the movie wouldn’t be near as distinct or reflective of the social paralysis of its characters. Also strong are the performances, which are all too easily taken for granted because they appropriately lack any grand-standing and keep things authentic. It’s a shame that the partially-successful picture may have been doomed to failure from its inception in that making a fully engrossing movie on daily-life in a supremely laborious, dull setting is a paradox. In order to really work, Adhen would have had to transform into something else entirely. The film may have many rewarding elements, but most audiences are likely to be snoozing before they recognize them. 2-1/2 Buckets out of 4.

As most festival-goers filed into the Mann Festival theater for Davis Guggenheim’s documentary on the electric guitar starring Jack White, Jimmy Paige, and The Edge—It Might Get Loud—I decided to counterprogram with one of LAFF’s “Guilty Pleasures” selections, Weather Girl. Unfortunately, standing five feet from supporting actress Kaitlin Olson on the red carpet was more exciting for this “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” fan than anything in the movie itself. After a small theatrical release, Weather Girl will premiere on the Lifetime Channel in October and, boy, will it be right at home there.

My crappy, covert camera-phone capture of Sweet Dee in the flesh, greeting reporters on the red carpet.

The title newscaster is Sylvia (Tricia O’Kelly). In the opening sequence of the film, she has an on-air eruption, deciding she’ll call out quintessentially moronic anchors Dale (Mark Harmon) and Sherry (Olson) on numerous character flaws on the air. Most notably, Dale weaseled his way into a sex-based relationship with Sylvia, only to leave her for his bumbling idiot of a co-host. While the scene leaves Sylvia without a job and all over the Internet in embarrassing form, things slowly but surely turn around for our heroine, as they always do in this type of movie. Circumstance forces her to move in with her brother, Walt (Ryan Devlin), who allows his web-designer friend and Sylvia’s soon-to-be love-interest Byron (Patrick J. Adams) over to use the Internet while his is down. On the emotional rebound, Sylvia once again faces a tough decision when she’s inevitably offered her job back at the station to improve sweeps ratings.

While Weather Girl is never a painful sit, it never fully realizes itself as a romance, a comedy, or a combination of the two. This problem stems from the way Sylvia is written. In the opening sequence, she is established as a caricature rather than a character, grand-standing in climactic fashion as if only to make the audience hoot and holler at the drama. While very glib, this technique would be OK if writer/director Blayne Weaver’s only goal was to make the viewer laugh at Sylvia the entire time. But instead he targets a more sympathetic portrayal—especially as the movie goes on—and his expectation that we simultaneously treat her as an over-written ploy for laughs and a real human proves impossible. Needless to say, Sylvia’s ensuing lack of authentic emotion means her romance with Byron comes off as artificial, not sweet or compelling. Actress O’Kelly is a champ throughout and tackles the role as best she can, but her attempts are futile within the confines of Weaver’s script.

Yes, there are select enjoyable moments in Weather Girl, most of which involve actors Harmon and Olson hamming it up for the camera as all-too-realistic news anchors. But given Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s legendary Anchorman already stands as the definitive broadcasting comedy, this disjointed melodrama’s attempts to engage the audience in that way seem unnecessary. If you’re bored one day and find Weather Girl on Lifetime when channel-surfing, it’s an acceptable time-killer, but there isn’t any other reason to see it. 2 Buckets out of 4; screens again on Weds, Jun 24 at 9:30 p.m. at the Landmark.

Then again, Weather Girl has nothing on Matthew Bissonnette’s Passenger Side when it comes to empty caricatures. The film stars Adam Scott (Knocked Up, Step Brothers) and Joel Bissonnette as brothers Michael and Tobey, who are not so much people as they are mouthpieces for dialogue. The only background the viewer gets is that it’s Michael’s birthday, and he has canceled the plans he had with his girlfriend so he can drive recovering drug-addict Tobey around L.A. on mysterious “errands” all day. And drive they do, from Echo Park to Glendale to Joshua Tree to the Valley to Long Beach and back. They seem to sit in a lot of traffic, but nonetheless cover at least 350 miles in about 12 hours. I didn’t know that was possible in this town, especially when one is forced to take a detour to rush a kid with two severed fingers to a hospital and to sit down for a long lunch with a lonely old lady.

Had the conversation or the main performances been particularly deep or authentic, then Passenger Side could have been an interesting and/or emotional experience. But they’re not. That’s not to say that there’s anything inherently wrong with the two elements, other than perhaps their overextended desire to conform to the indie standard for "quirkiness." They’re simply unremarkable and therefore don’t contribute much to an already unremarkable movie. For instance, when we find out what Tobey is actually looking for on this long (albeit circular) journey, the revelation could have led to some quietly poignant scenes between the brothers but instead the ensuing material is just flat. At times, it seems as though leads Scott and Bissonnette completely misread the script, crafting restrained portrayals under the assumption there was something underneath that wasn’t actually present.

The one regard in which the movie really works is as a love letter to Greater Los Angeles. Joining the recent Drag Me to Hell as a cinematic representation of a gentrified Echo Park in the first scenes, the film expands in geography as it moves and does so beautifully. Director Bissonnette doesn’t show L.A. in an unrealistically picturesque way, as the movies often do, but rather with the sort of jaded discovery that makes the places in the city what they are. Aiding this style is D.P. Jonathon Cliff’s humid, distinct way of shooting each location. In fact, I dare say that a momentarily-featured, blank doughnut shop exterior has more personality than either Michael or Tobey. The journey in Passenger Side is indeed far more interesting than the men taking it, and that’s reason enough why the movie doesn’t succeed. 2 Buckets out of 4; screens again on Thurs, Jun 25 at 4:30 p.m. at the Landmark.

Unfortunately, Day Two of LAFF didn’t prove much better than the first, but I’ll provide more on that later. Now, I must scurry off to Westwood for the pair of Day Three viewings on my slate.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 19

Today's BucketCast is little more than a recitation of Friday's box office figures, as predicted by Leonard Klady at Movie City News, and Exhibitor Relations' weekend projections, but it's my hope that you'd rather listen to my soft, sultry voice than read them off a chart yourself.

Why so bland? Well, I'm up here doing lots of LA Film Festival stuff and don't have the time to do a substantive if you want me to crank out some festival coverage too.

So take this as an opportunity to catch up on older BucketCasts if you haven't already. I highly recommend yesterday's episode with Reid on potential summer breakthroughs and Episode 8, in which Michael and I talked David Carradine movies.

S&R.

Friday, June 19, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 18

That's right: as the picture on the left featuring Subby artisan Dustin would indicate, today's podcast is brought to you from Subman with go-to Friday guy Reid Ackerman.

It was pre-recorded, for all of you are questioning how I magically am in both L.A. and San Diego at the moment.

During the episode, Reid and I talk openers Year One and The Proposal, plus potential summer movie breakthroughs.

S&R. Now. I command thee.

BucketCast: Episode 17

Now the BucketCast is completely up to speed, and rest assured: it'll stay that way for the foreseeable future. I already have tomorrow's (err... today's, by 20 minutes) episode all cut and ready to post. That is, once you're done listening to these two.

On this bare-bones Thursday edition of the BucketCast, I provide my usual weekly box-office opener predictions. They are for Year One, The Proposal, and Whatever Works. On Saturday moring, we'll all know whether I was crazy, prophetic, or somewhere in between.

S&R. You know you want to.

BucketCast: Episode 16

Putting an end to the momentary BucketCast backlog that resulted from my travels 100 miles north for the L.A. Film Festival, here's Wednesdays episode, which Michael and I recorded from a movie theater parking lot. (You gotta love the portability of podcasting!)

My pick for the week is Friday the 13th (1980) and his is Ghost Busters, making for an all-around '80s cheese sesh. Enjoy the commentary and banter, and remember to listen to the end to hear us tease the films we'll be covering next week.

Instead of doing the whole "Subscribe & Rate on iTunes" line, from now on I'll simply type "S&R" at the end of these BucketCast announcements.

S&R, baby. S&R.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 15

Hey, what do you know? I'm only 30 minutes late in posting this BucketCast -- the best I've done in three days! Things are looking up here for my punctuality's sake.

Is it really DVD Talk Tuesday again? (Well, technically it's early Wednesday morning right now, but let's not let technicalities get in the way of the pure, unadulterated joy of that proclamation.)

On today's show, I provide reviews of the three new releases: Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail, Friday the 13th, and Morning Light. Also in store for 'ya is my usual DVD pick of the week and what I'll be renting.

As always, I beg you to listen, subscribe, and rate. There will be a pretty... interesting... incentive to do so announced on Friday's show.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 14

I'm a bit late again in posting Monday's BucketCast, but cut me some slack -- I'm still trying to get the hang of podcasting nearly every day. And better late than never, right?

On this edition of Random Monday, I do quick audio reviews of a few movies out there that I didn't get to in print -- Dance Flick, My Life in Ruins, Angels & Demons, Imagine That, Land of the Lost, and Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian.

These are similar to what I'll be doing in the "YouTube Reviews" I announce at the beginning of the show. Those will begin running in around two weeks from now.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Sunday BucketCast Announcement

After nearly two weeks worth of BucketCasts, I have made a decision regarding the daily format: there will be no Sunday shows.

Recording, editing, and publishing seven days a week was already starting to get tiresome, so I've decided I need a day-a-week break.

Sunday came as the natural choice for that break. Not only was I dreading the prospect of left-wing listeners becoming alienated by the proposed regular political episode of the show, I also found that such an episode would require a lot of prep-time to be good. And I just don't have 4-5 hours to put these things together.

Not to mention: Internet traffic really lulls on Sundays, meaning not many would hear the show. Movie news also slows, meaning a simple change in topic would likely prove futile.

So, with that said, the BucketCast will now broadcast six days a week. It's still an ambitious schedule, but one I will mostly hold to. I say mostly because I'm still unsure of whether I'll be able to do episodes when I'm at film festivals, like the one coming up this week.

But keep tuning in and keep subscribing and rating on iTunes. This is a very small cut-back. Your listenership is appreciated indeed.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 13

On today's BucketCast, I discuss the Friday box office numbers.
The Hangover and Up claimed the #1 and 2 spots, with openers The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 and Imagine That coming in at #3 and #6, respectively.
I also talk box on limited openers Moon, Food Inc., Tetro, Street Dreams, and Call of the Wild 3D.
So what are you waiting for? Listen and then be so scintillated you're compelled to subscribe and rate on iTunes (if you haven't already)!

Friday, June 12, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 12

Here to tell you to listen to this Friday Subman edition of the BucketCast is a 14-year-old Reid Ackerman, stoned off of Disneyland cotton-candy on our 8th Grade graduation trip.

But a lot of things have changed since then -- not only Reid's ability to pose for pictures, but also his movie tastes.

Without regulars Ryan Gray or Blaine Nelson, Reid and I discuss the new movies this weekend, Imagine That and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, and a slew of movie news.

We also tease a special Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen feature coming on the BucketCast. It's bound to be as epic as Bay's film, so make sure you listen for that.

And, as always, I'm begging you to subscribe to the BucketCast on iTunes and to rate it 5-stars.

BucketCast: Episode 11

I apologize it's about 15 hours late--how off my game have I been over these past two days?--but here's the Thursday Box Office Predictions edition of the BucketCast.

I talk about the likely weekend takes for The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 and Imagine That, which are unlikely to dwarf last weekend's top two, The Hangover and up.

This delayed episode will not preclude the normal Friday Bucketcast from Subman, which will be posted by 9 p.m. tonight.

As always, please Subscribe to the BucketCast on iTunes and rate it 5-stars.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 10

Sorry it's about 90 minutes late, but here's today's (well... yesterday's) edition of the BucketCast.

It's Retrospectives Wednesday again, where once-a-week co-host Michael Lester and I look back at movies of the past.

This week, the chosen ones are 1962's The Longest Day, in celebration of the 65th anniversary of D-Day, and 1974's The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, which has of course been remade by Tony Scott with Denzel Washington and John Travolta for Friday release.

C'mon, you know you want to listen. Yes, you do...

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 9

It's DVD Talk Tuesday on Bucketcast Episode 9.

I cover all the big releases this week: Crossing Over, The International, Nobel Son, Fired Up!, and Gran Torino. Can you guess which one I liked the most? Yeah, thought so.

I also provide my standard "Pick of the Week" and offer up what I'll be renting this weekend.

This episode runs pretty short (9 minutes, 31 seconds), but I'm playing with the lengths to see how they play. Remember to send you're opinions on this or any other matter concerning the BucketCast in to webmaster@bucketreviews.com or Twitter-handle "bucketreviews".

Once again, thanks for listening and I hope you'll tell a friend!

Monday, June 8, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 8


On today's BucketCast, Michael "Retrospectives" Lester and I discuss the movies of David Carradine (1936-2009).

We focus on Boxcar Bertha and Death Race 2000, both made at the beginning of Carradine's long and (mostly) successful film career. His characters in these films are two of his most iconic.

There's also some talk of Kill Bill and "Kung Fu", as I promised when teasing the show.

Hope you enjoy this special episode, and we love your questions and comments. Send them to webmaster@bucketreviews.com or message the Twitter handle "bucketreviews". One note: do not e-mail us because Michael accidentally said "Roger Shaw" rather than "Robert Shaw" -- he was still marinating on our discussion of Roger Corman and the correction is duly noted.

And, if you haven't already, please subscribe to the BucketCast on iTunes. And rate it 5-stars. I'm sure Carradine would have wanted you to. Oh, yes, I went there.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 7

We're a week of BucketCasts in and the fun has barely started.

In an effort to not alienate liberal listeners and to ensure I don't make a fool of myself by not preparing thoroughly enough, I've postponed Politics Sunday until next week.

Because Michael and I will be doing a special retrospective tomorrow (on David Carradine movies), I decided to move up the "Anything Goes"-Monday topic to Sunday for this one time.

During the course of this BucketCast, I discuss the movies I'm most awaiting in 2009. Let's hope they live up to their promise.

So what are you waiting for? Start listening!

(And subscribe and rate on iTunes and all that fun stuff.)

Saturday, June 6, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 6

On today's BucketCast, I discuss the Friday box-office numbers and their future implications.

Boy, did that Hangover movie open big... and I had a lot to say about it.

So what are you waiting for? Download the episode now or, if you haven't already, subscribe to the BucketCast on iTunes so my voice will automatically find its way onto your computer each and every day of the week.

Friday, June 5, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 5

Oh, yes, it's another BucketCast for ya.

Today, I speak with soon-to-be Friday regulars Reid Ackerman and Ryan Gray from local sandwich joint Subman. If you remember their posts on Bucket Reviews from years ago, then you've been following the site for waaaay too long.

Topics range from this week's openers to the future of Digital 3-D to the month's release calendar.

As a side-note: the audio quality blows, mainly because I had to hold the microphone and the input-level on my laptop was turned up way too high. We'll fix this next week. My deepest apologies.

If you have any suggestions for the BucketCast, please contact me at webmaster@bucketreviews.com. Also, once again, I ask that you please subscribe to the BucketCast on iTunes and rate it 5-stars while you're there.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 4

New reviews are coming over at the main site tonight, but for now you have the latest BucketCast.

On today's episode, I discuss the box-office prospects for this weekend's openers: Land of the Lost, My Life in Ruins, The Hangover, and Away We Go.

Tomorrow, the BucketCast will offer a look at what mainstream audiences think of these, as I'll broadcast from local sandwich-joint Subman.

Remember: it will really help if you Subscribe to the BucketCast on iTunes and rate it 5-stars while you're at it.

Thanks!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 3

I may not be producing the desired amount of reviews these days, but I'm certainly cranking out the daily BucketCast at the rate I promised. It's a demanding task, but nonetheless a rewarding one. Please send your feedback to me at webmaster@bucketreviews.com if you haven't already.

Episode 3 of the BucketCast is the first-ever with a co-host. That's Michael Lester you're hearing, and he will be joining me every Wednesday for weekly retrospectives.

In this episode, we talk William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), which was supposed to be released on Blu-Ray this week but wasn't, and Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), which just celebrated its 30th Anniversary.

Also: I drop a news bombshell about the speculated Alien Quadrilogy Blu-Ray set.

Because Michael decided to destroy the suspense, he announced that next week's picks will be 1974's The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and 1962's The Longest Day. Stay tuned for those.

If you enjoy the Podcast, please Subscribe to it on iTunes and rate us 5-stars! That will really help.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

BucketCast: Episode 2

Yep, it's that time of night again -- the second episode of BucketCast is now posted.

In this installment of "DVD Talk Tuesday", I cover the latest releases in the format: He's Just Not that Into You, Revolutionary Road, and Defiance. I also offer my weekly DVD pick--Nothing but the Truth--and discuss the movie I'll be renting for the weekend (tune in for that).

While I still have a lot to learn about Podcasting, I hope you'll tune in because I think this 20-minute segment is at least moderately interesting.

And, remember, on tomorrow's show, Michael "Dawn of the Dead Retrospective" Lester makes his return to Bucket Reviews after a five-year layover in Siberia! We'll talk old movies, namely Alien (1979) and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). Stay tuned for that.

And please be sure to subscribe to "BucketCast" on iTunes and rate it 5-stars. Because you know it deserves that rating so it can keep (or start?) thriving.

BucketCast: Episode 1

OK, I'll admit it -- I've been slacking on writing my Up and Drag Me to Hell reviews. (Let's just pretend that the "review a day" promise was supposed to start next week, all right?)

But I've got something better. Here's a link to the first episode of the daily BucketCast.

In the short opening, I introduce the daily features and talk about Conan O'Brien's (perhaps not so coincidental) debut on "The Tonight Show". Nonetheless, despite NBC's totally copycat programming-choice, I'm certain BucketCast will be the more popular topic at tomorrow's watercooler.

Don't let the link stop you from subscribing to the Podcast on iTunes, though. And, please, if you like it, give us a 5-star review -- that's what will improve its ranking and therefore expand the reach of Bucket Reviews.

Hope you enjoy!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

SXSW 2009: Day Seven

Taking a final snapshot with the historic Paramount in the background, moments before catching a final cab back to my hotel, to commemorate my SXSW 2009 experience.
As I wrote in yesterday’s post, Day 7 of SXSW was something of a drag because the movies were less thrilling than I had hoped. I didn’t let that inconvenient fact get me down too much, though, because it was the last full day of my wonderful first-ever out-of-town (let alone out-of-state) trip to a film festival. Sure, the excursion had its hiccups, namely an incident in which I feared for my safety as a taxi driver manically told me about his suicidal tendencies caused by passengers’ disbelief in his assertion that he saw a UFO in the mid-‘80s. (The only freakier moment in the 25-minute ride was when he then breathlessly discussed how star-struck he was when Barbara Streisand hopped in his cab.) But both my planes ran on time, the hotel didn’t lose my reservation, and I was able to catch nearly every film I had on my schedule. I had no big qualms.

My final screening at the Paramount (which, aside from having poor sight-lines, is glorious) was first on the day’s agenda. Lynn Shelton’s Humpday claimed two easy-to-garner SXSW titles: Best Movie I Saw on Day 7 and Best Mumblecore Movie at the Festival (unless you include True Adolescents). While hardly remarkable when judged by itself, the film boasts several funny moments and a unique look at certain heterosexual males’ perplexedly fascinated attitude towards homoeroticism that made it seem like a masterpiece compared to the two movies I saw afterwards.

The basic premise: Ben (Mark Duplass, also seen in True Adolescents) is a thirtysomething who has already settled down into a quiet life with his lovely wife Anna (Alycia Delmore). But he begins to question whether taking the domestic route was the right choice when old, scraggly buddy Andrew (Joshua Leonard) shows up in the middle of the night looking for a place to bunk, only to take him partying the next day. Ben finds the youthful scene he left behind for marriage to be alluring, and soon enough he’s high as a kite. Loaded, he and Andrew proclaim to their hippie-dippy counterparts that they’re going to make a gay porn movie and enter it into competition at the popular local sex festival, Humpday. Instead of forgetting about the idea when they’ve sobered up, though, the two only further commit, almost as if it would be emasculating to not live up to the challenge.

For once, the mumblecore style really fits the material—OK, maybe it worked in the Duplasses’ Baghead, too—but not in the way one might expect. Humpday works on meta level, as if writer/director Lynn Shelton and the cast are making fun of their commitment to the understated genre, which proves so unwavering that they even use it to tell this outrageous story. The tactic pays off immensely. For instance, had a pivotal scene in which Anna learns of her now-aspiring filmmaker husband’s plan been handled in an overbearing, desperate-for-laughs manner, it would’ve fell flat. The deathly serious, nearly sublime tone Humpday instead opts for proves hilarious. When Ben and Andrew finally book a hotel room and get down to business, the experience reaches an uncomfortably comic crescendo. Both Shelton and her deadpan actors, especially the where-did-they-get-this-guy Joshua Leonard and the terrified-looking Alycia Delmore, are responsible for maintaining the delicate balance of comedy and bizarre realism.

Unfortunately, the usual misgivings of mumblecore pictures still apply to Humpday, even if it’s better than the average genre-entry. When the humor falls flat—namely in the first act when Ben first indulges in the party scene and in the second when Ben and Andrew constantly debate whether they should go through with the porno or not—the token style seems as boring and phony as it has ever been. Despite its many brilliant moments, Humday also has a tendency to look and feel like a bad student-film, as mumblecore efforts all-too-frequently do. Yes, Shelton’s film is entertaining enough on the whole that it left me more optimistic about the genre and its core-players than I was during the bulk of the festival, but I still doubt that it ultimately has much to say. Humpday touches on a few fascinating themes about masculinity and has its share of laughs, but one would be hard pressed to argue there’s enough substance there that it was worth making the film in the first place. 2 ½ Buckets out of 4.

As the day wore on, the movies got worse. In fact, my final two SXSW reviews will be pretty short given that neither film is likely to have a sizable theatrical release, if one at all. But, hey, Austin was alive and kickin’—bright sunshiney days and loud music coming from every which direction tend to attract the 6th Street Crowd—and I couldn’t have been happier knowing my first SXSW was a resounding success no matter what my schedule had in store. (Short of a widespread chemical attack on the U.S., that is.) Back to the Alamo Ritz I went to finish my fest.

The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle is a strange little movie that, it seems, exists for the sole purpose of being “quirky” (read: “annoying”). The story follows Dory (Marshall Allman), who takes a job as a janitor after getting fed up with his desk-hound gig doing data-entry. One of the offices that his new company cleans tests food products, and they often use the janitors as guinea pigs for new creations. One day, Dory and co-workers innocently munch on self-warming cookies designed to taste like they’re fresh from the oven. They don’t expect the array of side-effects that propel the movie’s plot, from cookie-withdrawal to… well, pooping out a colorful little creature.

At times, The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle is amusing because of its sheer wackiness. But on the other hand, does anybody need to see another movie that seeks to get by on wackiness alone? Shouldn’t that remain the role of big-budget, zero-substance Hollywood productions that are transparent in their emptiness, not independent films that should, by design, offer something deeper? In a way, “indies”—much as I detest grouping everything low-budget into one category—need to be more interesting and more original than box-office giants if they want to continue to make headway in growing a well-deserved audience. As often as the concept of The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle lends itself to inventive visuals—writer/director David Russo’s history is in animated shorts—the one-dimensional ill-effects of imaginary test-cookies don’t make for interesting and original material. The movie may seem ballsy upon first glance, but viewers will quickly discover that this emperor has no clothes. 2 Buckets out of 4.

How exactly first-time writer/director Judith Krant’s Made in China won this year’s SXSW Narrative Jury Prize is beyond me. (I could also phrase this in a more direct way: What the heck were you thinking, judges Scott Foundas, Ted Hope, and Kim Voynar?) I’d be willing to bet the reason rests in the many ways this tale of an idealistic young inventor who’s duped by those promising him fame and fortune parallels the causes of the current worldwide economic crisis. But I found the movie’s attempts to be humorous and politically relevant rather banal, their topicality notwithstanding. Yes, Made in China was an ambitious attempt for a first feature in that it was shot on location in Shanghai, but that doesn’t change the fact that it isn’t a good movie.

The focal inventor is Johnson (Jackson Kuehn), who’s more annoying than he is charismatic, and he’s confident that a certain “humorous domestic hygiene product”—revealed in one of the film’s few genuinely funny moments—will make him a fortune. He lives with his mom and sister in East Texas, where he can’t find any investors despite several vigorous pitches to locals. In order to make his dream a reality, Johnson travels to China, where he plans to meet a business man who agrees to fund the product over the Internet. Unfortunately for Johnson, the guy was just looking to run away with the hefty deposit he demanded upfront, failing to book the hotel room he promised Johnson or show up for the restaurant-meeting where Johnson planned to discuss production. In a twist of fate, Johnson meets the successful Magnus (Dan Sumpter), who agrees to help him. But this isn’t just any old favor; Johnson will have to live up to his half of the deal. Ya think more financial ruin might be in store for the naïve American?

That all sounds good and dandy on paper, but the film’s obnoxious, slapstick style undoes the relevance of the material. Had Made in China been written as a full-on farce, then it might have been funny, but its attempts to bring humor out of the farcical elements of the plot’s all-to-real Ponzi-scheme come off as obnoxious and unwatchable. This is probably because Johnson is such an unsympathetic loser that he practically deserves to be gamed, making it impossible to laugh at otherwise-funny sequences like the one in which all of his ludicrous invention-ideas are shown. Not to mention, Johnson’s idiocy kind of defeats his ability to parallel those good people whose lives have recently been destroyed by economic corruption. Made in China probably would have been more successful had it attempted a more serious tone, but even that seems like an idea better suited for a superiorly written film with actual production value. SXSW Award Winner or not, this juvenile attempt at humor and sociopolitical pertinence totally misses the mark. 1 Bucket out of 4.

And with that, my official coverage of the 2009 South by Southwest Film Festival is complete. In the event that my 10,000+ words on the event left you hungry for more, then you’re in luck: sometime during the next few months, I’ll chime in with reviews of three more films I was sent/will be receiving on DVD screeners, but for whatever reason wasn’t able to watch before SXSW’s end. They are: Best Worst Movie, a documentary on the making of the cult-classic Troll II; Pontypool, a Canadian zombie flick from the director of the Ellen Page starrer The Tracy Fragments; and Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo, a look at the Oklahoma convicts who participate in “penitentiary rodeos.” Stay tuned.

In closing, I’d just like to once again highlight the films from SXSW that I highly recommend you go see when they (hopefully) play at a theater near you. In alphabetical order: Breaking Upwards; The Eyes of Me; Grace; The Hurt Locker; I Love You, Man; Lake Mungo; Me and Orson Welles; Moon; Observe and Report; Severe Clear; Sin Nombre; The Slammin’ Salmon; That Evening Sun; and True Adolescents. These movies, plus a half-dozen more that will play just fine on DVD, made my first SXSW experience an unforgettable way to spend my spring break. I can only hope that next year, everything will click again and I will be back in Austin in full-force.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

SXSW 2009: Day Six

The marquee at the Alamo South Lamar, home to Day 6 of my SXSW experience. Immediately below the frame, a line of over 200 waited in anticipation for Broken Lizard's latest, The Slammin' Salmon.
Oh how the quality of the movies depreciated once the music started.

Being a SXSW first-timer, I wasn’t aware of the unspoken rule that weaker movies tend to run during the second half of the festival (aside from perhaps the final day), so I booked my stay through Friday morning. While two of the four flicks I attempted on Day 6 were decent, the crop on Day 7 (coverage coming soon) was pretty rough. My stay next year will definitely be shorter. Rest assured, however: the quantity of films I see will remain the same. I’ll just be cramming them into a smaller chunk of time—catching all the Midnight shows—in hopes of a higher percentage of good ones.

The bleak race to the finish line began with Antonio Campos’ Afterschool, a sensationalistic exploration of the YouTube generation’s alleged emotional disconnect and hopeless complexity that is no more profound than your average “Dr. Phil Show” discussion on the topic. Strangely enough, the film seems to be catching on with critics—the seminal Mike D’Angelo named it his favorite movie of 2008—perhaps because it has the look and feel of an edgy auteur piece. If this is the case, however, one has to wonder why the raving critics don’t seem to recognize how derivative Afterschool is of Gus Van Sant’s similarly-themed (but far better) Elephant.

The film follows Robert (Erza Miller), an insecure, bottled-up teenager who can’t relate to the other kids at his Northeast prep school. Perhaps this is because they know he spends his days watching violent porn videos on the Internet, blowing his load to the sight of women getting strangled and other charming things. Perhaps it’s because his roommate deals drugs. Or perhaps, as the movie would like us to think, it’s because modern technology and social structures in America have singlehandedly turned him into a basket case.

Despite Robert’s social issues, his attractive partner on a school film project, Amy (Addison Timlin), inexplicably makes advances toward him. The story, however, takes a radical turn when Robert, filming footage for said project, witnesses popular female twin classmates die in what’s later found to be a drug overdose, camera rolling. His abnormal reaction to the incident—not calling for help as the girls cough up blood and then behaving, well, disturbingly around the bodies—seems to alert the clueless school staff to the fact that Robert’s probably more than a little effed up, but they choose to ignore this an appropriately bureaucratic fashion. His assigned therapy is to make the memorial film that will be shown at an assembly commemorating the girls.

For a film so contemporary and distinctly young in subject and in style—writer/director Campos is only 25—Afterschool takes a puzzlingly bleak attitude towards the present teenage generation. It’s more than a little ironic that Campos’ assault on the YouTube era could not have been made without modern technology. The film’s central thesis seems to be that new media, especially Internet pornography, allow troubled youth to explore dark emotions that attract them and hence lead to a more detached, problematic society. While I think this is a bullshit assertion to begin with, Afterschool does itself no favors by evidencing the message through an unredeemed loser of a main character. Robert is so screwed up that it’s hard to believe he wasn’t a victim of child abuse and wouldn’t have reached his breaking-point without YouTube at any other time in history.

One could argue that the movie merely seeks to explore how new media affect one disturbed individual and not make the aforementioned blanket-judgments about the 21st Century world. If this is the case, the film is even worse because, when not viewed as a human hyperbole or a device to communicate broader themes, Robert is completely unbelievable. Certainly, there were screwed up kids like Robert at my high school, but they weren’t so removed from reality that they wouldn’t scream if they saw two girls dying in a corridor.

One wonders if the film is actually more personal than its writer/director would admit. If Robert is indeed a version of Campos, then the filmmaker’s motivations make a lot more sense. Could Afterschool actually be little more than an F-you to Campos’ own film teacher who, like Robert’s in the movie, criticized his crude attempts at the avant-garde because they weren’t narrative or sentimental enough? (Robert’s tribute stylistically resembles Afterschool and inspires a big “What was that!?” from the teacher, who then cuts it into the video equivalent of Hallmark greeting card for the actual presentation.) Could Campos’ own awkward lack of luck with the ladies at his prep school be the reason he had the beautiful Amy so much as befriend Robert? These are big character accusations that I probably shouldn’t be making—apologies to Campos if they’re untrue, of course—but the movie’s critique of contemporary American society reeks deeply of self-idealization and catharsis that this seems like the only logical explanation. With a concept that’s only provocative in theory, not execution, Afterschool exploits its teenage characters and its violence to form a morally reprehensible vision of the age in which we live. ½ a Bucket out of 4.

While Afterschool was a bad start to the day, it gave way to two festival-firsts that I was proud to experience. #1 was that I saw a movie at the South Lamar, the festival’s bigger and in many ways better-equipped Alamo location (complimentary water is available as you enter each auditorium and there is WiFi, an invaluable asset for us film critics), where I would remain all day. #2 was my first-ever walk-out, which I pulled on the subsequent show of the Oprah-esque documentary Motherhood realizing that two bad movies in a row would not affect my mood in a positive way. Not to mention, the two hours of free time provided me a great opportunity to write… and eavesdrop on Cinematical’s brilliant Scott Weinberg, sitting several benches down, as he ferociously typed and talked with a cigarette in his mouth, looking up only to compliment and tip—yes, tip—a pretty festival volunteer playing a Decemberists song on the ukulele. Please don’t send e-mails about how I inappropriately lurk on others; I’m quite aware of the behavior.

After that nice, long break, I settled in for The Eyes of Me, a documentary on the lives of four students at Austin’s own School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. While the movie’s blind stars would’ve had to have been gymnasts or rock-drummers to ensure a theatrical release—are you listening, Christopher Guest?—writer/director Keith Maitland’s simple take on the everyday challenges and triumphs of his subjects is engaging enough that a premium cable deal is not out of the question. The film’s most distinguished quality is that Davidson avoids all the congratulatory, score-infused moments typical of the genre in favor of a more subdued and introspective look at the topic. Thus, emotion organically arises from the film’s subjects, not its style.

While all four young people featured in The Eyes of Me are interesting—two are just entering TSVBI and two are about to graduate—one stands out far above the rest. His name is Chas, and he’s not only blind, but poor. (How’s that for a tough break?) Out on his own, living with a roommate who picks up and leaves without paying his half of the rent, Chas somehow still squeaks by, working in a factory that employs the blind. Given the somewhat foreign nature of the subject-matter for most viewers, Chas’ everyman demeanor and common problems forge a relatable bond that makes the material more involving. Chas is also an aspiring rapper—the film’s title is based on one of his songs—but the quality of his charisma far supersedes that of his music. The film’s depiction of Chas is emblematic of why it succeeds on the whole: it’s more about humans with a disability than it is about the disability itself. It’s hard to saywhere The Eyes of Me will ultimately end up, but if you have a chance to catch it on the festival circuit, it’s a worthy way to spend a quick 72 minutes. 3 Buckets out of 4.

My final movie for the day was yet another SXSW selection that one wouldn’t find playing at any other film festival: The Slammin’ Salmon, courtesy of the beloved-in-circles Broken Lizard comedy troupe (Super Troopers, Beerfest). While I have never been a fan of the quintet myself, this latest entry on their resume worked for me because it abandons their usual crude style—no small feat for the gang given gross-out gags are easy to do in food-related comedies—and because it stars some highly talented non-Lizards.

The premise is simple enough: former boxer and Miami seafood restaurant owner Cleon ‘Slammin’ Salmon (played by a balls-to-the walls, outrageous Michael Clark Duncan) has to come up with $10,000 quickly so he can settle his debts with some Yakuza members. He challenges floor manager Rich Ferente (Kevin Heffernan) to do $20,000 in sales – $10,000 for the Yakuzas and $10,000 for the waiter with the biggest bills. Broad comedy ensues as the colorful group—off-his-meds Nuts (Jay Chandrasekhar), med-student Tara (Cobie Smulders), flirt Mia (April Bowlby), retard Donnie (Paul Soter), and washed-up “CFI: Hotlanta” star Conor (Steve Lemme)—duke it out for the 10 grand.

While the individual jokes aren’t laugh-out-loud funny in and of themselves, the characterizations are. Michael Clarke Duncan lets all hang loose and somehow comes off as a completely credible boxer-turned-businessman, as manic and irresponsible as he is charming. Both of the women—“How I Met Your Mother”’s invaluable Cobie Smulders and “Two and a Half Men”’s ditzy charmer April Bowlby—are very funny and great to look at. Will Forte has a hilarious bit part as a patron who spends the day sipping on water and iced tea, reading War & Peace cover-to-cover, much to the chagrin of his money-hungry waitress. And the whole Broken Lizard crew is the best they’ve ever been, especially Jay Chandrasekhar, who proves far more apt at physical comedy than usual, perhaps because for once he isn’t on his double-duty directing. This time, that task went to Kevin Heffernan, who does a competent job at moving the picture along.

While The Slammin’ Salmon is decidedly minor and contains a few passages in which the humor falls flat, it’s one of the spunkier comedies I’ve recently seen, certainly the best Broken Lizard effort to date. That’s not a monumental accomplishment, but it’s highly refreshing amidst all the heavy movies and bad movies one encounters at a film festival. Why no distributor will so much as touch the film is a mystery to me, especially when considering the fact that studios have historically not only had no problems releasing, but also funding, the group’s past works. 3 Buckets out of 4.

Tempted as I was to stick around and watch the midnight showing of Lesbian Vampire Killers based on the film’s title alone, I decided against it when I spotted an open cab surfing the parking lot, a rarity during the music portion of the festival. Unfortunately, I would end up well-rested for a pretty disappointing final set of films. More on that tomorrow.