Sucked.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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