AFI Fest 2008: Day Two, Part 1

Before covering the three films I saw on Day Two of AFI Fest--those reviews won't come until later as I have limited time before screenings begin today--I'd like to cover the big movie showing tonight at the festival, which I had a chance to see at a press screening.

Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale is a movie that will have hardcore art-film enthusiasts raving and everybody else snoozing. Yes, it's true that the movie is pretty darn amazing on a technical level: it tells the story of an extended-family of 15 gathering over Christmas and never loses sight of a single character. Every persona is well-developed and, indeed, the viewer feels like they know each of them. Ice the cake with some lovely cinematography courtesy of veteran Eric Gautier and you've got yourself what would seem like a masterpiece on the surface.

And yet A Christmas Tale is no masterpiece. In fact, it may not even be a good movie. The reason is simple: however well-constructed its characters and situations are, they never connect with the audience on an emotional level. Desplechin's work is so technically competent that it practically begs to be viewed as an exercise rather than the deeply poignant experience that it should be. There is a sense that the filmmaker loses touch with his characters by overanalyzing them; they should be rough around the edges but the film's execution doesn't allow for this.

Desplechin's harmful overzealousness in A Christmas Tale does not just show in the fact that he spends a lot of time indulging in each of his characters. It also rears its ugly head when he structurally implies up-front that the experience will be an greatly emotional one. Desplechin inserts all of the film's conflicts and dramatic meat into the first act of the movie--we learn right away that the family's matriarch, Junon (Catherine Denuve), has been diagnosed with terminal leukemia; that she lost a 7-year-old son decades ago, likely because she passed the disease on; that her next-eldest son, Ivan (Melvil Poupard), became her favorite because he took the deceased's place; and that her youngest, Henri (Mathieu Amalric), will soon be giving her a bone-marrow transplant despite being banished from the family in a legal-agreement by her depressed daughter, Elizabeth (Anne Consigny)--to show that he's going to use the rest of the movie to work on emotional-development. (If that sentence seemed long and complicated, then this movie, which plays like 25 of them strung together, isn't for you.) Oh, and don't forget that A Christmas Tale is indeed about its titular holiday, meaning its frontloaded structure suggests a genre-defying movie in and of itself because, after all, when was the last time you saw a Christmas movie about character-development?

The above represents precisely the irony of A Christmas Tale: it focuses so much on developing its characters and yet the characters never once move the audience. Part of this is because they collectively represent a dysfunctional family and dysfunctional families are rarely involving unless their antics are neurotically funny (forget about touching). But a lot of it is because Desplechin just wants the film to be perfect, which is the antithesis of what his characters are. They should be a family of humans experiencing authentic problems as they come together to celebrate a holiday; instead, they're pawns in an artistically-drunken Christmas movie that wants to make sure you know it's not like the rest of its kind. The result is a motion picture that will leave most viewers yawning well before its cumbersome 152 minutes have passed. 2 Buckets out of 4.

A Christmas Tale screens tonight at 6:45 p.m. with a Tribute to Arnaud Desplechin and again on Fri., Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

AFI Fest 2008: Day One

2008's AFI Fest not only represents my second time attending the festival, but my first anniversary of living in Los Angeles. One year ago, I moved into a tiny studio on the fifteeth floor of a monstrous Downtown high-rise... and I'm thankfully still here to talk about it today. While the smog, traffic, and hoards of Angelenos on city-streets can make L.A. a tasking place at times--I often escape back down to suburban San Diego for some peace and quiet on the weekends--I also owe it a great deal of respect. I can confidently say that, if not for L.A., my writing would be weaker and my access to films would be far more limited than they are now.

Last year, I began my festival with Chang-dong Lee's Secret Sunshine, a terrific drama/whodunnit that still hasn't seen U.S. release. Make sure to keep watching for it. This year, I decided to start my festival with another Korean film called The Chaser, directed by first-timer Hong-jin Na. I didn't expect much walking into the theatre because I hadn't heard anything about the movie, but I was soon taken by complete surprise when I learned in the programmer's introduction that it competed for this year's Palme d'Or at Cannes. When the movie came up on the screen, I was blind-sided once again. From the first ten minutes, I could tell that it would be one of the most stylistically-enriching exercises in pulp since the one Quentin Tarantino provided us with fourteen years ago.

The Chaser tells the story of a psychotic killer not unlike those in the Saw and Hostel series, who takes prostitutes back to his home only to mame and kill them. The movie isn't your standard torture-porn flick, though; in fact, folks like Eli Roth really should watch it to learn a thing or two from Na's refreshing debut. The story-web cast is complex.

Young-min Jee (Jung-woo Ha) is a regular client of Joong-ho Eom (Yun-seok Kim), an ex-cop-turned-pimp whose call-girls seem to be disappearing on him by the second. Young-min has been killing them, but Joong-ho doesn't realize that the two who have gone missing were both with Young-min until after he dispatches Mi-jin Kim (Yeong-hi Seo) to Young-min's home. Joong-ho thinks Young-min is selling the girls into sex-slavery, which, as he pieces together as the movie goes on, would be a far better fate than the torturous one they're actually suffering. Joong-ho chases Young-min throughout the movie, even catching him very early on only to see a beaureocratic police-force release him because they have no evidence to hold him on. Complicated situations ensue with Mi-jin's single-digit-aged daughter and Joong-ho's assistant (who he calls "Meathead") along for the ride.

The Chaser revels in socio-political commentary on the state of the South Korean police, stomach-churning violence that serves a far greater purpose than it does in the Saw series, well-paced chase scenes with stunning cinematography, a Shakesperean tone of unescapable dread, and the feeling that it is the work of the next great Asian action director. It has its problems, yes, running for about a half-hour too long at 125 minutes, but theyare negligible when one considers what a find it is. I can't think of a better movie I could've seen this Halloween. 3-1/2 Buckets out of 4; screens again Thursday, Nov. 6 at 12:30 p.m.

Also on my list of films to cover today is Margarita Jimeno's Gogol Bordello Nonstop, a documentary delving into the history of the titular gypsy-punk band that has its premiere at the festival tonight. I'm not familiar with the band's music beyond the songs used for film-soundtracks (Everything is Illuminated) or its members beyond the fact that they all appear in Madonna's new bomb of a directing-debut Filth and Wisdom, which explains why I found the doc pretty uninteresting. Beyond familiarizing the viewer with the paradox that is gypsy-punk, Jimeno doesn't delve into anything profound about the band's origins or its purpose, nor does she allow time for any long-passages of concert-footage (I'll admit the music is catchy--"Start wearin' purple / wearin' purple..."). The result is a film that will only appeal to hardcore Gogol Bordello fans. I assume that AFI only programmed it because of the success of a similar niche-music film that sold out three shows at last year's fest, Heima featuring the compositions of Icelandic band Sigur Ros. 2 Buckets out of 4; screens tonight at 7:10 p.m. and Weds., Nov. 5 at 12:30 p.m.

That's all I have for now; I will return tonight or tomorrow morning with three more reviews. Until next time, may the film-going forces of the world force be with you.

2008 San Diego Film Festival Coverage: Part Two

Oh how time flies when one's life is full of schoolwork and screenings. I may have gotten to writing two early reviews during this past week, but I never posted on my second and final day at this year's San Diego Film Festival. As I had predicted, it was indeed a better one than the first. Unfortunately, the selections I caught were still far from what would desire out of a semi-large film-festival.

The best movie of the day I saw was, as expected, The Brothers Bloom. Just take a look at the picture's pedigree and strong festival-buzz and you'll see why I knew it would turn out that way. The Brothers Bloom isn't a mastepiece, but it's a solid piece of filmmaking from budding young director Rian Johnson. Johnson made 2007's high-school-set neo-noir Brick, which wasn't a very good film but it definitely showed promise. In this follow-up, Johnson has taken to less dark and less complicated material, although The Brothers Bloom is similar to the former work in that its success mainly rests in its ability to keep the audience guessing about plot-twists. These are aplenty here, and for the most part they succeed in captivating the viewer admist the film's terrifically fast pace. And the cast is excellent, too: not only are Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo engaging as the titular con-artists siblings, but Rachel Weisz is downright show-stealing and mezmerizing as the rich Jersey girl they try to pull one of their cons on. I wholeheartedly recommend The Brothers Bloom; a full review will be published on Bucket Reviews prior to the film's December release.

I was not so fortunate in my selection of Remarkable Power, which I based entirely upon the presence of actors Kevin Nealon and Tom Arnold (why I saw Arnold as an enticing factor I'll never know). The movie is a broad farce about a late-night talk show host's elaborate plan to stay on the air after his show is cancelled and involves a slew of unmemorable characters. The most prominent among them is Ross (Evan Peters), an obnoxious teenager living in LA's Koreatown who becomes obsessed with the phony impowerment he is provided by a series of self-help tapes he discovers on a 1AM informercial. Much of the film's plot concerns Ross' self-defense murder of the star of said infomercial. Don't ask. Don't care. Remarkable Power isn't funny, suspenseful, or entertaining. And it won't be coming to a theatre near you anytime soon. Even when the thing fatefully goes straight-to-video, it won't be worth seeing.

Last up for me at this year's festival was the Closing Night Presentation of the new documentary Morning Light, which follows a team of young sailors assembled by sailing-enthusiast and film-financier Roy Disney. They sail from California to Hawaii in the 2007 TransPac Yacht race. The doc plays more like an MTV-special than a family-friendly documentary--it's full of artificial-feeling drama and hokey empowerment of its college-aged subjects--but proves moderately entertaining and does justice to the considerable skill exhibited by said subjects. Morning Light isn't a film one should actively seek out during its upcoming limited run, but it makes for an enjoyable sit. My best advice is to wait for the DVD. A full review will be posted to Bucket Reviews within the next ten days.

And that concludes my coverage of this year's San Diego Film Festival, which was rather abysmal on the whole despite my condensed-schedule designed to avoid such a result. Out of the six pictures I saw, I only rated one above 2-1/2 Buckets (The Brothers Bloom). Much as I hate to say it, I may not return to SDFF next year, marking the first time I've skipped the festival since 2005. Hopefully the SDFF programmers will give me a reason to attend (ahem -- better bookings please, guys).

2008 San Diego Film Festival Coverage: Part One

I always make a concerted effort each year to attend the San Diego Film Festival, mainly because it feels like my duty as a San Diego native to foster the "growing" program. And yet, each year I attend, I can't help but feel like the selection is getting more and more intolerable. Rarely do programmers book foreign films or experimental features. It seems as though SDFF is stuck in commercial-territory, although I don't know why given the fact that it seems less commercially successful with each passing festival. My first day at the event this year was Friday--I had to skip out on Thursday given my now out-of-town academic obligations--and not a single showing I attended was even close to being sold out.

All that said, I really don't mean to bash the folks who run SDFF. They're hard-working, always nice, and this year even graciously provided me with a free pass to catch screenings. But it's depressing that hardly any film on this year's line-up will see a theatrical release; most of the selections will be doomed to see straight-to-cable fates. (Even some good movies I've seen at the festival in years past--the Jeremy Renner/Gabrielle Union vehicle Neo Ned comes instantly to mind--have suffered this exact pattern.) In fact, 2008 marks the first year I've skipped a day I could have attended the festival--Saturday--due to complete apathy for the choices. To my credit, I did use the day to catch the festival's Thursday-night opener, The Lucky Ones, in a regular theatre, and liked it very much. So kudos to programmers for scoring that one.

Today is Sunday, and the three movies that I'm about to see look to be the best offerings at the festival: The Brothers Bloom, Remarkable Power, and Morning Light. Two of them already have releases slated--one with an Oscar campaign--and the other has good buzz. Yes, I've whittled down my choices this year to the bare essentials, but can you blame me? Perhaps I'll actually leave SDFF this year with a 50% recommendation-rate as a result. Watching Friday's mediocre crop, all I could think about was how much better this year's AFI Fest would be. Here's what I caught:

Lost in the Fog is a nice little documentary by first-time director John Corey about a special racehorse, but being "nice" isn't enough to make the movie worth seeing in this case. I was interested in the movie's portayal of the horse's San Francisco-based owner, Harry Aleo, for the first thirty minutes, but once Corey turned the focus almost solely on the titular horse, the doc got old quick. Yes, I can respect the fact that Lost in the Fog may have indeed been a one-of-a-kind competitor, but what's stirring about this story on a human-level? Not much, and hence the film fails to win over those of us who aren't horse-racing enthusiasts. The picture isn't unpleasant, but it's mediocre in the sense that it doesn't reach for anything nearly as special in the cinematic-world as that which its subject did in the equestrian-realm.

Just as Lost in the Fog won't interest anyone who isn't a horse-racing fan, The Wrecking Crew probably won't grab the attention of non-music-diehards. The doc is directed by Danny Tedesco, son of Tommy Tedesco. "Who?" you might ask. Yeah, Danny thought you might say that. Tommy was the guitarist for "The Wrecking Crew", a group of studi0-musicians who did the instrumentals on countless studio albums in the late '50s and early '60s. The bunch turned in tracks for The Monkeys and the Beach Boys, among others. At their height, they would lay down an album a day -- six tracks in the morning, six at night. Yes, the story is interesting, but perhaps it was only meant for an hour-long HBO special. Danny Tedesco's version is an overlong indulgence in his father's career and the musicians that surrounded it, which is understandable but not cinematically-forgivable. After sitting through The Wrecking Crew for 95-minutes, I had more than had my fill of the material. The movie proved to me that the group was indeed amazing, but did little more to captivate me beyond that.

Jacob Medjuck and Tony Dean Smith's Summerhood was perhaps the most enjoyable movie of the day because I could see it in full detail (out of the three, this was the only one shown in 35mm), but it was also probably the most rote and uninspired selection of the bunch. The movie is a rumination on the pains and pleasures of childhood summer-camp, told through the emotional-POV of a nine-year-old boy known by fellow campers as Fetus (Lucian Mesel). The topic could've been ripe for nostalgia had it been handled in a more original way, but Summerhood is a completely cliche and indulgent take on the subject matter. The only area in which it branches out is in its surprisingly adult take on the actions of the camp-employees, which proves more oddly-unsettling than its does humorous. Sure, some of the kid-actors are charming, but who really cares when the movie is as shallow as this one? Daddy Day Camp was a more profound take on the topic. Summerhood may get a small theatrical release because it is narrated by John Cusack, but it won't be very successful if it does.

Now it's time for me to catch some films that may actually be good for a change. Please don't disappoint me, Rian Johnson -- The Brothers Bloom is first on my agenda!

Prelude: Showing This Weekend at TVIFF

One of the many angles of a high school shooting is explored in Oscar Velasquez' Prelude.

My Fall film festival season may not be kicking off until Friday, Sept. 26 when I begin coverage of this year's San Diego Film Festival, but don't let that keep you from getting a jump on me this weekend if you live in San Diego, Los Angeles, or the Inland Empire. The Temecula Valley International Film Festival kicks off this Wednesday, and there you will have the unique opportunity to catch my friend Oscar Velasquez' short, Prelude, which is currently making the festival rounds.

Prelude intertwines short segments of the lives of students and parents who are connected in an instant when they or a loved one is afflicted by a high school shooting. The film was made on a shoestring budget as Oscar's final project at the Los Angeles Film School, but you wouldn't guess it given its impressive aesthetics. Shot on gritty 16mm by gifted D.P. Trevor Masid, the imagery mainly consists of grungy, geometric compositions that set the mood well.

Certain actors' performances fare better than others--Germaine de Leon's turn as the focal shooter in a one-line part detrimentally suffers from trivial scripting and self-indulgent delivery--but such variance is an unfortunate consequence of the constraints of making a first film. Oscar occasionally gets a little too caught up in his narrative too, relying on a contrived situation with character Carmen (Dominique Concepcion) to carry dramatic-heft in the film's final third that comes off as exploitative when it should actually be emotionally-jarring.

Despite its flaws, Prelude makes for a worthy watch and a serviceable addition to a growing body of films that explore the complexities of today's youth. If you're attending TVIFF, it will undoubtedly be a solid addition to your festival-schedule.

Prelude screens in Shorts Program III at TVIFF on Thursday, Sept. 18 at 6PM and on Saturday, Sept. 20 at 9PM. Writer/director Velasquez will be present for the Saturday screening.