Philadelphia Film Festival & Cinefest '09: Day 6

4bia

This ended up being a light day because I had class and could only get in three screenings. First up, a Thai horror film divided into four (mostly) unrelated segments:

Happiness - I was very impressed with how this segment kept ratcheting up the tension with hardly any special effects. The story is about a pretty girl who begins receiving texts from a mysterious admirer while she's stuck at home with a broken leg. The director does a masterful job of creating fear out of nothing more than shots of a phone display and the general tone. I was upset that it only lasted half an hour.

Tit for Tat - A rapid editing style that would give Michael Bay a headache definitely distracted from what would've been a pretty decent story about revenge gone wrong. I mean, it had black magic, cute Asians in schoolgirl outfits, and an increasingly ridiculous series of deaths. It should have been right up my alley!

The Middle - This ghost story about four boys who go camping/whitewater rafting together is by far the goofiest of the segments. It also verges on being annoyingly self aware. The boys keep relating to their situation by mentioning other horror films in a good gag that gets run into the ground.

Last Fright - Decent segment about a cat fight at 30,000 feet between a stewardess and a princess after the princess discovers that the stewardess had a fling with her prince. But things really get going on the return flight when the stewardess is forced to watch over the corpse of the princess after the princess dies of complications from the first flight. The whole thing is a little ridiculous but they pull it off well enough.

Boy Interrupted

Great but tragic documentary about a boy who suffered from bipolar disorder and ended up taking his life at fifteen. The film offers an intimate look into how his family dealt with the disease and how the family dynamic changed over time. It's really heartbreaking to watch a great kid head down such a dark path. His loved ones do everything they can to change his trajectory but ultimately they're helpless to stop him from destroying himself. The boy's therapist gets to the heart of the issue when he says that bipolar is his profession's cancer, it kills people.

Able

The forward to this film informs us that the zombie epidemic begins as a paralyzing disease and then, after three days, the victim turns into a brain-loving undead monster. And that today is the third day. So it's zombie time, right? Wrong. The zombies don't show up for seventy-one minutes. This film is seventy-two minutes long. What happens for the first hour and eleven minutes you ask? Nothing.

At least it was preceded by a decent short, the French-Canadian Next Floor. It's about a a ravenous group of diners who dress like they're attending a formal 19th century dinner and proceed to gorge themselves on a meat feast until their combined weight sends them crashing through the floor. Then the process begins all over again. It's a stylish and beautiful looking short, I'd like to see what the filmmakers could do with a feature and some money.

Philadelphia Film Festival & Cinefest '09: Day 5

For My Father

Thanks to Corey, for the first time I had company for the whole day! We started off the day with this compelling Israeli drama about a Palestinian terrorist who is forced to spend a weekend in Tel Aviv after the button he planned to use to detonate himself failed. He ends up forming relationships with the electronics store owner who replaces his device and the beautiful shopkeeper across the street (both Jews). I'd just been reading about a recent study that found that people were more likely to become terrorists for social reasons rather than religious ones, so I was pleased to see that the lead was portrayed as someone driven to this act by issues having to do with his father's honor not religious doctrine. This is a challenging film that doesn't shy away from tough questions or give easy answers.

Art & Copy

This documentary made me not hate advertisers. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I mean, Nike has had some really inspiring ads for an evil corporation. But I think the most important thing I got out of film is a respect for advertising as an art. And that's something that's easy to miss when you're constantly bombarded with advertisements, especially when the vast majority of them are terrible.

Kisses

Two children run way from home one night and find themselves on a dark adventure in this Irish fairytail. The director gets wonderful performances out of the two young leads who highlight the first awkward steps into adulthood. They're kids who've had to grow up too fast but still haven't left childhood behind. The film begins in black and white but the farther the children get from home the more color is introduced into the pallette. In a way this story is a reflection of The Wizard of Oz. Only in this case it's the real world that is a more fantastic, and far scarier, place than home.

Goodbye Solo

This is the movie that so many independent films strive to be only to come up short. It's from a director who really caught my eye last year and who I hope has a long and industrious career. The plot involves a Senegalese cabbie in Winston-Salem, North Carolina who figures out that one of his passengers plans on killing himself and tries to involve himself in that man's life. But this isn't a film about plot, it's about the characters. So many characters in films are artificial, they don't look like real people, they don't talk like real people, and they don't act like real people. But Ramin Bahrani has found a way to humanity, in all its pathos, humor and messiness, onto the screen and for that I am grateful.

20th Century Boys

What I'm told is a very popular manga is turned into a mediocre movie in this litterary adaptation. As far as I can tell the central premis is that group of boys came up with a story about a supervillian and some kid they wouldn't let play with them decided to become that villian. So basicaly, some guys spends his entire life enacting a plan thoguht up by twelve-year olds, incluging the giant robot that terrorizes Tokyo. It's all very silly but it's mostly played straight. I had originally plannes on watching the second installment of this three-part series later in the festival but I think I'm just going to put 2 and 3 in my Netflix cueue and try to find something more worthwhile in that timeslot.

Philadelphia Film Festival & Cinefest '09: Day 4

Saving Grace B. Jones

Sucked.

Sun Dogs

Because Sucking Grace B. Jones started late, I had to watch this as a last minute replacement for The Nail: The Story of Joey Nardone. It's a somewhat compelling drama about people trying to find their way into adulthood set against a post-Katrina New Orleans. The characters have their own quirks but everything here falls into well-worn Indie territory.

Pressure Cooker

This documentary falls into the teacher-pushes-students-really-hard-to-achieve category but spices things up by including the inner-city-kids-learn-something-high-brow-that-you-wouldn't-expect genre for good measure. It's a fun and uplifting look at a culinary arts instructor from a high school in Northeast Philadelphia. Her tough talk and no-nonsense attitude leads all of her students to the finals in a cooking competition where they can win scholarships. She's basically the mother of every black stand-up comedian (if you don't stop crying she will give you something to cry about). This movie has everything: a sassy authority figure, students triumphing over adversity and a prom scene!

…Even Jesus Had an Accountant

Four diverse short films:

Character Study - Good-looking animated film but it was so brief that it ended before I really figured out what was going on.

Free the River Park: The Story of Citizens' Fight for the Schuylkill River Park - This documentary deals with residents' struggle against a train company to allow access to a park. There are two things you need to know about this conflict. One, it was completely wrong for the train company to block access. Two, this subject is really boring. I give the filmmakers credit for making a half-way interesting movie about it but, come on, I use this crossing a couple times a week and I don't give a crap.

The Last Duel - Very funny comedy that, without dialogue, tells the story of a duel that went so awry it lead to the outlaw of dueling.

Poet of Poverty - Fascinating documentary based on the letters of Camden's Father Doyle as read by Martin Sheen. It presents a heart-breaking look at a community stricken by poverty and crime which is where the rest of the county literally sends it's garbage and sewage. Father Doyle has been fighting the good fight for over forty years and while he has only seen Camden get worse in that time he still hasn't lost faith.

Not Quit Hollywood

I had no idea that Australia had a thriving exploitation film industry in the 60s and 70s (I just assumed Mad Max was a fluke) but now I'm really excited that a whole new sub-genre has been opened up to me. This documentary explores some truly awesome-looking Ozploitation flicks and, although it might just be a glorified clip reel with some talking head interviews thrown in, the editing is wonderful. One novel thing I think the filmmakers did was give a lot of screen time to a film critic who absolutely detests these movies. It's a great way to cut the unabashed praise given by comentaters like Quentin Tarantino and fitting with the modest B-movie ambitions of the subject. Anyway, I can't wait to sink my teeth into Mad Dog Morgan, The Naked Bunyip, Turkey Shoot and Howling III: The Marsupials.

Philadelphia Film Festival & Cinefest '09: Day 3

Hunger

Okay, so I overslept and missed the first half-hour of this (no more partying during the festival) so I can't give it a proper review but I will say that I had a favorable reaction to it. This film chronicles the treatment of Bobby Sands and other IRA inmates held at Maze Prison in the early 80s. The prisoners went on a hunger strike to protest their cruel treatment that caused Sands and nine others to starve to death. It's a tragic story that illustrates how there are no winners when terrorism is employed to protest colonialism.

Children of Invention

A struggling mother gets caught up in a multilevel marketing scheme while trying to provide for her children in this film sponsored by the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival. When the mom is arrested the two young kids are forced to fend for themselves and take a remarkable journey from the suburbs into Boston so they can withdraw birthday money from a bank account and start a business selling inventions. Despite the incredible nature of this story the director manages to keep things grounded. The film is described as semi-autobiographical and that really comes out in the naturalistic tone. It's a down to earth look at a family on the fringe of society struggling to get by.

This movie was proceeded by The Moth and the Firefly, a short film about a moth that is drawn to a firefly during a blackout. It wasn't that interesting.

Herb and Dorothy

This documentary tells the amazing story of Herb and Dorothy Vogel who managed to amass one of the world's best collections of minimalist and conceptual art on their middle-class salaries. In the early 60s they realized that Dorothy made enough as a Librarian to support a modest life for the two of them in their rent-controlled New York Apartment. This freed up Herb's salary from the Post Office to be used to acquire art. Over the course of thirty years the couple used their keen eyes to gather over 4,000 pieces in a collection that was conservativly estimated to be worth millions, which they stored in their one bedroom apartment. Eventually, they turned their collection over to the National Gallery (which was only able to handle 1,000 pieces) without asking for anything in return. The gallery did, however, decide to provide them with a small annuity in the event that either of them faced a major health crisis. Herb and Dorothy used this money to begin another collection.

No Boundaries

This film is sort of like a modern-day version of "Romeo and Juliet" set against a backdrop of immigration issues or a non-singing West Side Story. The leads were engaging but there was some truly cringe-worthy dialogue about love and a lot of contrived plotting. But seventeen of the filmmakers showed up to the screening and judging by the cheering for every name in the credits it sounded like 80% of the crowd knew someone involved with it personally, so this might be a shoe in for the audience award.

The Rocky Balboa Picture Show 2 - Rock Treatment

Short programs are always a mixed bag but this one was more consistently good than I'm used to. I'll go through them one by one:

Hair and Diamonds. Episode 9: Shaving - Animation and live-action combine in this dream-like film about a man shaving. Bizarre and sort of wonderful.

Trees - An old-timer tree attempts to pass on knowledge to a young sampling by way of an insane (and hilarious) monologue.

Another Bad Idea - This stop-motion animation follows a man as he attempts to catch a light bulb that appears over his head as he gets an idea. Surreal, amusing and too short to wear out it's welcome.

America's Game - An old-timer human muses wistfully about America's pastime only to discover that baseball players aren't as virtuous as he imagined. Pretty funny but it went on a little too long.

Dead Hooker Theater - Stagehands manipulate dead hookers through a rendition of Tennesse Williams' "The Glass Menagerie". In a word, awesome.

This One Time in Paris - A filmmaker visits the Eiffel Tower and finds one girl sitting alone amidst a sea of lovers but he can't get up the nerve to put down his camera and all he can do is sit and watch while a Frenchman sweeps in to woo the girl. Well, watch and mock. It was pretty cute.

American Terror: Company Man - Adapted from a comic book, this stylish animated short has a stunning energy and visual style.

The Institute of Séance - Delightful spoof of silent horror films.

Clowns Without Borders - About half-way through this film I realized it wasn't a joke.

Amerika Idol - Amazing documentary about a tiny village in Serbia that erects a statue of Rocky Balboa and faces a controversy that mirrors Philly's long conflict regarding the prop created for Rocky III.

Philadelphia Film Festival & Cinefest '09: Day 2

Landscape No. 2

What begins as a promising Slovenian political thriller is derailed half-way through when the main character, after figuring out that his best friend was murdered because of a document that reveals secrets powerful enough to reignite a civil war, decides to take a holiday with his horny girlfriend. This guy is a complete tool. Later, he gets a lectured for being a dick by a sociopathic murderer and I think we're supposed to take the killers side, or maybe learn a lesson. I don't care. It's so frustrating to see a suspenseful, well-made film devolve into absurdity because of poor plotting.

Rumba

This comedy was created by a trio of French-speaking Belgians, two of which also serve as the leads. I found it fascinating to watch because the leads look more like caricatures than people and they move in ways that seem alien. It's almost like watching a cartoon come to life, especially with the bold color palette. The largely silent nature of the film only adds to the surrealism that makes it impossible to look away from even if some parts drag on a bit long. Though I must admit that I was a little disappointed but only because I had high hopes for this after seeing the trios previous film. Ah, the burden of raised expectations.

Addendum: This screening was preceded by a short film called The Line. It's a somewhat amusing look at women waiting in line for the ladies room where the tension reaches absurd levels (a riot squad is eventually called in). I think it's a particularly notable film because, as far as I'm aware, it features the first on screen glimpse of a urinary director.

Mommy Is at the Hairdresser's

The clear winner for today was this affecting portrait of a broken French-Canadian family trying to make it through the summer of 1966. Told largely through the eyes of three siblings, this film paints a rich canvass of life in the suburbs. It examines how the characters come to grips with a reality that can be at times wonderful and liberating or cold and uncaring. Looking back on it, I'm amazed that they managed to touch on so many issues in such an organic way. If I gave you a list of the topics it covers (infidelity, prejudice, abandonment, homosexuality, tolerance, liberation, emerging sexuality, treatment of the developmentally disabled, etc.) it would just sound like a laundry list of 60s issues but this movie isn't about that. It's about lost people trying to find their way in the world and to me that's far more interesting.

Left Bank

So, this is a horror movie from Danish-speaking Belgium about a giant vagina in the earth. But not the good kind of Vagina. This was an evil vagina. An evil vagina that needs a woman to be sacrificed to it every seven years in order for the ground to be fertile. But it turns out that being eaten by a giant evil vagina, while certainly not good, isn't all that terrible. A quick side note to the budding filmmakers out there: If you're going to make a movie about a giant vagina that eats people, that movie should contain humor.

Philadelphia Film Festival & Cinefest '09: Opening Night

(500) Days of Summer

Okay, so I haven't updated this blog for eight months. My bad. But it's festival time again and I'm back. If you're interested in what I'm seeing this year, I have provided a link to my festival calendar on the right-hand side of the page and it will remain there for the duration of the festival.

Anyway, on to the Philadelphia Film Festival . . . and Cinefest '09. There's been a lot of rumbling behind the scenes and there may be major changes in the future but so far the festival seems the same as ever. The fest always starts off with a safe bet, a crowd pleaser that already has a distribution deal and (500) Days of Summer (opening in theaters July 17) is no exception. It stars the surprisingly talented Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the absolutley wonderful Zooey Deschanel in an anti-romantic comedy. The leads have great chemestry and the genre allows in the fun of meet-cutes and watching two people fall in love without getting overly sentimental or hookey. The only bad thing I can say about it is that it lacks ambition. It seems like the filmmakers set out to make a nice movie that everybody would enjoy and largely succeded. I doubt this emerge as one of the highlightss of this year's film festival but if you're looking for a good date movie this summer you could (and, most likely, would) do a whole lot worse.