Month: April 2007

A recap of the festival … in short, most of the screenings I attended were rather good, with just a few real stinkers among them. In past years it’s been more of a spectrum between good and bad, but this time it was pretty stark. On the other hand, I have to say I wasn’t just blown away by anything, but that could be the exhaustion speaking.

IMAGE continues to have one central problem with the festival: they don’t use thir own email list to notify members of cancellations! There were at least two screenings cancelled that I know of, and there was not a peep on the IMAGE mailing list about it (which I am on). I heard that their email guy quit on the eve of the festival start (nice way to burn your bridges, dude) so perhaps that played into it. However they’ve NEVER done this (notified of cancellation of sreenings) so I doubt it.

They had lots of aspect ratio problems early on (and not just in the fancy Sony theater) but about halfway through the week those seemed to be resolved. By the way, the Sony 4K projections in Landmark’s theater #8 were gorrrrrgeous.

It was flat out great to have the whole festival in one place (Landmark Midtown) and have that place be among restaurants and a short walk from Piedmont Park. The downside is that they had to move the festival up to April to get that much of the Landmark for that long, and it sucks sitting in a theater during the best weather that Atlanta offers (April).

Some highlights:

Narratives:

TV Set: AFF / IMDB / website Murder Party: AFF / IMDB / website Killer Of Sheep: AFF / IMDB / website Hamilton: AFF / IMDB / website The King And The Clown: AFF / IMDB / website La Vie En Rose: AFF / IMDB / website

Documentaries: The Blood Of Yingzhou District: AFF / IMDB / website Sari’s Mother: AFF / IMDB / website The Paper: AFF / IMDB / website Sacred Sights Of The Dalai Lamas: AFF / IMDB / website Kamp Katrina: AFF / IMDB / website Someone Else’s War: AFF / IMDB / website

[my comments assume that you’ve already read the AFF description that I link to in each movie title]

The Killer Within — A really great documentary, perhaps the best I’ve seen at the whole festival. There’s nothing inventive about the filmmaking, it’s just a well-crafted telling of the story of a man who decides to stop keeping his secret, and the complicated results of his decision to go public with it. Fascinating insights into a complex situation. It’s been winning awards, so should appear on PBS this year, I’d hope.

Documentary Shorts 2 — Nearly a complete waste of time. Projection problems on top of a remarkably weak slate of material.

American Fugitive — Put me to sleep, and I think that may be a lifetime first for me! Could have been at least 30 minutes shorter; valuable historical context came far too late. I’m fascinated by the political history of Iran, so it was nice that this turned out to be essentially about the late 70’s / early 80’s Iranian revolution. If the filmmaker can figure out how to edit around the mindnumbingly slow pacing of the principal’s speech, and cut it down to less than an hour, he might have something worth picking up on PBS.

La Vie En Rose — good biopic; I was concerned about its length (2.5 hours) going in, but I didn’t notice it, which I guess is a pretty good endorsement. I was familiar with Edith Piaf’s singing but not a single bit of her story. This will be in theaters in the summer — go see it!

The Insurgents — I’ve been really conflicted about this narrative. On the one hand, I’m right with them on the politics, how reasonable and intelligent people can just get so pissed off about the raping of our democracy that they decide to resort to terrorism as a means of expression. But on the other hand, the actors that they cast for this were so impossibly attractive it pushed it over into cheesy. There’s no way I’m going to believe that Hottie Chick and Ripped Dude are going to form a terrorist cell and smash the state. Made for a nice sex scene though. Ha!

[my comments assume that you’ve already read the AFF description that I link to in each movie title]

Milk In The Land — I don’t see how anyone can take this seriously when they’ve selected obvious crackpots as their talking heads, don’t have enough functional intelligence to spell “concise” correctly, use “its” and “it’s” improperly, and can’t do the most basic sound mastering (leveling) so that the audience doesn’t have to stick its fingers in its ears half the time. A fascinating story of corporate distortion, propaganda and profiteering, unfortunately buried in a pretty badly executed documentary.

Our Land, Our Life — I think this is the point when I really started to feel worn down by the endless string of documentaries showing us, in detail, how our own government is screwing us. In this case, the victims are the Western Shoshone native Americans, and the root cause is mining concerns wanting to tear up the land that the Shoshone happen to own and live on.

Soldiers Of Conscience — This felt a little weird, what with the flags and stirring music and all. I’m guessing that it was produced by a church, since it seems to show the soldiers (who have decided to become Conscientious Objectors) coming to their decisions by way of Christian theological arguments. If you can ignore the slight schmaltz that results from a serious documentary being made by Ned Flanders, it’s a good doc.

The King And The Clown — A ton of fun and an entertaining window into medieval Korean history and the imperial courts. The acting was a bit broad, and this is no Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or even Farewell My Concubine, but it was worth watching.

[my comments assume that you’ve already read the AFF description that I link to in each movie title]

Hamilton — this is one of those unique films done in the narrative style where there simply isn;t much dialogue on screen; you just set up the shots and situations and let it play out over long, quiet scenes. You are left to wonder what’s happening exactly, try to fill in details yourself, a lot is left to imagination or conjecture, with an occasional morsel of information to narrow down the possibilities of what’s going on, your imagination at work. Beautiful and meditative, shot by Jeremy Saulnier who also directed the completely different Murder Party, also well done. Watch that name.

Kamp Katrina — a couple opens their N.O. backyard as a tent city; poor white trash, surrounded by drugs and alcohol, all trying to hold onto the creaky but stable life that they’d managed to eke out for themselves pre-Katrina, but many find themselved descending into despair and homelessness. Government support utterly nonexistent. It was nearly over before I realized it was just white people they were showing, no blacks. Yet another facet to the Katrina story.

Documentary Shorts I — six shorts, I’ll only write about three:

My 9/11: at this point I guess it’s pretty hard to NOT do a 9/11 documentary that has sweeping emotional power. This one, by established Dutch filmmaker Tjebbo Penning, is a simple personal video letter to his family and friends (ostensibly to his future grown son), where he takes the simple footage of that day at home in Lower Manhattan and adds voiceover. While the reality of the situation was right outside his window, he still was drawn to watch and get confirmation of that reality from the TV set in the other direction. And how watching the hole in the building with his naked eyes didn’t really evoke emotion, but the later litanies of victims did. But that was after it all had been confirmed as real by outside agents.

Someone Else’s War — excellent documentary about “Third Country Nationals” (TCNs) that are hired as laborers by military contractors to do the dirty work (literally) that U.S. troops used to do. Sure, American contractors are making $75K and up, but these imported labors are making a tiny fraction of that, and often are defrauded of even that. Coming primarily from India, Nepal and the Philippines, these are basically poor people who are tricked by local agents into going to Iraq to make money, but find themselves trapped in situations that at best get them back home with no more money than they left with, and at worst get them killed and buried in a foreign land, far from the families that need them.

The Fighting Cholitas — hilarious! I find it hard to believe that it’s true, but it certainly looked real. Poor Bolivian women take on careers as professional wrestlers, skirts and all.

[my comments assume that you’ve already read the AFF description that I link to in each movie title]

Red Without Blue — I just didn’t see much unique or compelling in this; it does makes you think about how people need companionship to survive, and shows what kinds of things can happen when that companionship is removed. Not one of the best I’ve seen, but I didn’t ever have the urge to walk out either.

Revolution ’67 — The Newark riots of July 1967. A mismash of facts and interviews, chaotic flow, stupid graphics, and a severe POV problem, like a push poll. In 90 minutes I saw just one really interesting point about how the police distorted the facts about the presence of black snipers — used to justify their ugly response which resulted in over 20 bystander deaths, all at the point of police bullets. Makes the point that the urban riots of 1964-1968 (500 of them) have been suppressed in historical views of the 60’s and civil rights era as not being relevant, and this documentary serves to try to correct that. As with nearly all docs, I’m glad I went and learned something, in this case about late 60’s urban politics and police lies, but on balance this was a pretty bad doc.

[my comments assume that you’ve already read the AFF description that I link to in each movie title]

My Mexican Shiva — I was running a tight schedule on Sunday and this would have fit if they had started the screening anything close to on time. I bailed when it was 15 minutes after start time and they hadn’t even let us into the theater yet. I was really only going to see this on the pedigree of Sayles and Renzi. Instead I went to go see a couple laps of the last stage of the Tour de Georgia zipping through the streets of Midtown. Got a sunburn. Killer Of Sheep — booked into the festival as a “classic”, and wow it sure qualifies. I’ll admit I’d never heard of it, but it’s deserving of it all. A loose narrative view into the lives of poor and lower middle-class blacks trying to claw their way out of the LA ghetto in the 70’s.

Sacred Sights Of The Dalai Lamas — someday the Chinese will loosen their stranglehold on Tibet a little bit and allow a real film crew to go in and document all these sights, but in the meantime this is about as good as it gets. Notwithstanding the shaky handheld shots, a beautiful introduction to the temples of Tibet and Buddhist practice itself.

Salud! — Cuba trains doctors and send them to needy developing nations (Gambia, South Africa, Honduras) and makes the U.S. look like chumps in the process. Our health care system is so hopelessly screwed up. But it’s nothing that Congress can’t fix, right?

Taxidermia — screening cancelled. Any email alert to IMAGE members? Nope!

[my comments assume that you’ve already read the AFF description that I link to in each movie title]

The Blood of Yingzhou District — AIDS orphans scraping out lives for themselves in huts; orphaned toddlers ostracized by their own extended family and wandering outside with the farm animals; a total lack of AIDS education means that people are afraid to even attempt to care for the orphans. An astonishing local practice that led to this problem: blood brokers would come to a village, buy blood donations from the villagers and then collect it in a single vessel, extract the plasma and then reinject the blood back into the villagers so that they could donate again more quickly. Oh my god.

Sari’s Mother — by James Longley. Long, beautiful, meditative shots of the poor in rural Iraq, dealing with a completely non-functional health system. I really need to see his Iraq In Fragments.

The Paper — Even though it’s “just” a newsroom for a college paper, it’s still a real pressure cooker environment; they have the same pressures and constant debating of ethical issues, what to print, circulation concerns. Fast paced, well edited, energetic soundtrack, fast moving like the newsroom itself. Single-man crew allowed him to really get in there in the middle of the newsroom situations.

Third Monday of October — There are few things as painful as listening to 8th graders talk about national politics. That itself nearly drove me from the theater (well, that and the lady next to me who delighted at length in every little kernel of humor tossed out). Fortunately both let up after 15 minutes or so. These are the kids that will, later in college, assume the form of what I call “resume stuffing SGA goons”. Also reminded me of the great TNR article about College Republicans and how their abuse of each other in CR campaigns (Rove, Norquist, Reed, etc.) gives them the balls to pull off the dirty tricks in the big campaigns when they grow up. Anyway, I could have lived without seeing this doc.

Dante’s Inferno — a bit sillier than I expected; dragged a bit; lots of current partisan political satire integrated in; it’s certainly entertaining to see Cheney embedded in the ice of Dante’s lowest level of Hell, various figures of history being subjected to various tortures for eternity. Cheney’s soul was already in hell because he’s undead or something like that … A unique and brisk treatment of the 700-year-old classic.

Murder Party — an entertaining diversion. I generally couldn’t care less about this gorefest stuff (e.g. Shaun of the Dead and all that) and this didn’t change that opinion much. It was fun enough to watch and I didn’t walk out … The quiet sodium amytal scene at the center of the movie was pretty funny. I just see a lot of this stuff as endlessly derivative, and at the indie level it just feels like all of these kids are making this garbage as their calling card just so that they can get into the Hollywood machine and make proper big budget gore crap. Seems like kind of a waste to me, but it was definitely entertaining and well put together. This was directed by Jeremy Saulnier, the same guy who shot Hamilton, which was a completely different movie but also beautifully shot.

[my comments assume that you’ve already read the AFF description that I link to in each movie title]

The TV Set — David Duchovny plays a bearded nebbish of a writer trying to get his shows through the pilot stage and onto the air. Sigourney Weaver steals all her scenes as a viciously stupid yet enormously powerful network executive. Lots of great characters and acting. Written and directed by Jake Kasdan, son of Lawrence Kasdan (big Hollywood writer / producer), so that probably helped him get an early perspective on the corrosive atmosphere of the SoCal entertainment industry. It takes the most well-intentioned talent and slowly whittles them down to the size and shape needed to be part of the machine that pumps crap like “According to Jim” into the nation’s living rooms. Good movie! Although really this isn’t what I’m here to see, with the big names and laughs and all. Nonetheless, very entertaining, recommended, a lot like the hilarious The Comeback, an HBO comedy that starred Lisa Kudrow as a slightly past-her-prime comedic actress trying to goose her career back into the limelight.

12:08 East Of Bucharest — Ah yes, the IMAGE of old rears its head. First, they start the movie 15-20 minutes late. Then, the aspect ratio is wrong and everybody’s got fat heads. Then, their are no subtitles for the Romanian dialogue on screen. Time goes by, people in the audience laugh at the situation, some start trickling out. After about 10 minutes I gave up and walked out, to find AFF staff in the lobby apologizing and handing out vouchers. Apparently they’d received the wrong version of the film, or at least couldn’t figure out how to get the subtitles up. But do they go into the theater and let everyone know? No. Sigh. I hope this isn’t representative of the rest of the festival. 2005 was a mess, 2006 was virtually perfect, so 2007 … ? OK, so I got to go home early. Saturday and Sunday will be full days.

It’s that time of the year again, time for the annual Atlanta Film Festival, during which I take the whole week off of work and try to see as much as I can. I’ll be posting my remarks here daily for the next week, although I’m already two days behind because it started Friday night. I’ve seen 6 or 7 movies and my head is spinning. More to come!

It’s six months ago today that my mother died. Last week we reunited the entire extended family, including about a dozen relatives from Germany, at my mother’s house in NJ and spread her ashes at the base of a newly planted flowering tree (a Saucer Magnolia) in the backyard of the house that she designed and lived in for 20 years.

In the past six months I’ve thought of many things.

I’ve thought of how beautiful the spring season in Atlanta is right now, and how I always wanted to share that with her and put her to work in my yard.

I’ve thought about that awful light jazz soft rock that she liked to play on the stereo in her house, and how horrible that was for the music snob in me.

I’ve thought about her frugality; how she taught us to save money, pay off credit cards, be very careful about taking on new loans, and how she demonstrated to us how to slowly make ourselves wealthy.

I’ve thought about how you had to prepare for her visits, and I don’t mean clean the house, I mean invent projects for her to work on because she was a blitzkrieg of project making. Yardwork, carpentry, tilework — her idea of a vacation was to work on projects in somebody else’s house.

I’ve thought about when I was a boy, I told her I’d buy her a Mercedes when I got rich.

I’ve thought about how she got rheumatic fever as a child, and for her entire life had to live with a serious heart problem, and that it’s really a miracle that she was going strong at 65.

I’ve thought about how strange it is that just a month earlier she had turned 65 and was finally able to stop paying those exorbitant medical insurance premiums.

I’ve thought about how she was always interested to talk about science and hear about the technology that I was working on, and how we joked that in a later time she probably would have become an engineer herself.

I’ve thought about how I can’t just call her up anymore.

I’ve thought about how sorry I am that I didn’t get to go on our planned trip to the Galapagos Islands, but how happy she was to know that she would finally be going.

I’ve thought about how she made a custom piece of stained glass artwork for our renovated bathroom, but never got to see it in place in our house.

I’ve thought about how strong-willed all three of her children are, and how we got that from our mother.

I’ve thought about how someone at the October gathering said that she made you think that you were the most important person in the world to her.

I’ve thought about how she built the house for herself, and how perfect she made it for herself.

I’ve thought about how she was the center of the family, and how her house is now the center of the family, and how wonderful it is that, with Julienne’s help, we will be able to keep the house in the family.

I’ve thought about how her final resting place is right in the backyard of her home, under a new tree, in view of the bird feeder.