Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet

This documentary starts out strong, introducing a topic entirely new to part of its audience: "chip music", a genre based on the audio capabilities of 1980s video game hardware. I'm just not sure they had enough material for a full-length film. Maybe it's because they get to the 2006 New York Blip Festival within 15 minutes, then keep going back to it intermixed with artist commentary. There's no forward motion. Maybe it's because every artist says the exact same damn thing over and over again - the music is "fresh", "new", "pushing boundaries", "creatively driven by the self imposed technical restraints".

The film does feature music from every artist that performed at the Blip Festival, but even that gets redundant for someone perhaps not ready to appreciate the nuance of 8-bit music. My recommendation is to put the film on in the background while doing something else, and tune in as you wish. It's a solid rental - just not theater quality.

Blip Festival: Reformat the Planet
2008, 82 minutes, directed by Paul Owens

Flawless

(Note that I saw this Wednesday night, after Bananaz, Wellness, and Goliath. This review, like all the others, is based on notes taken during the screening. Pay no attention to the date when I finally get around to posting it.)

Finally, after a day of disappointment, here's a film that deserves praise. The story about a 1960s robbery of a De Beers knockoff is a bit predictable, but I really liked the cinematography, filmed in a style that makes it look like a period movie. The movie is set as a flashback from present-day, and halfway through the film I was wishing they hadn't told me how it ends, wanting to be surprised by the finish. I'm pleased to say that I was. This is definitely worth a screening to the sophisticated film crowd.

Flawless
2007, 108 minutes, directed by Michael Radford

Goliath

Again, I've been misdirected by SXSW's poor film categorization. WTH does "Special Screenings" mean? From the limited description text I thought this would be a comedy, but I was sorely mistaken. Instead, from the "long, uncomfortable scene" school of filmmaking, comes a feature film about a depressed post-divorce man desperately seeking his lost cat. Ooh, sadness. And this guy's just an idiot. Stupid film.

Goliath
2008, 80 minutes, directed by David Zellner

(The last 20 seconds don't make up for the rest of the movie.)

Wellness

The description on the SXSW site for this film, like most others, is quite vague, but as this won the jury prize for best narrative feature based on its first showing, I'm hyped going in. My joy deflates quickly. The movie is filmed like a documentary, exclusively with hand camera work, and the pacing is set to match. But it's the story that just drags me down. "Ahh, here's what it's like to be a sales guy with a jackass boss." "Ooh, 90 minutes watching a man fall for a scam, watching his final dreams wash away." This is just sad.

Wellness
2008, 90 minutes, directed by Jake Mahaffy

Bananaz

It's day six of SXSW, and my busiest day left. My first feature this afternoon is Bananaz, a documentary on the band Gorillaz. Admittedly, I've only heard their two big hits, one of which I bought on iTunes. But the concept of a real fake band interested me, and I thought I could see more, learn more, and perhaps grow to appreciate more of their story.

Alas, this documentary won't help me do so. It should have been subtitled due to poor audio, which greatly detracted from the experience. Scenes of them being the band chatting / bullshitting I guess help establish their personality, but it slows the pace way down, especially when they mumble everything except the curses. As Damon, one of the founding members, put it in a brief moment of clarity: "Americans like you to be nice. They want you to explain things clearly." Yes, yes we do.

I did enjoy where they showed the process of laying down tracks for a new song, something I hadn't seen in such detail in a documentary before. But I felt that they skimped on the animation aspects, something I couldn't get anywhere else. Whatever I thought of the band before, it's basically unchanged.

Bananaz
2008, 92 minutes, directed by Ceri Levy

Second Skin

Walking in, I wasn't really sure if this was to be a complement or detriment to one of my chosen hobbies. I was very, very disappointed. The documentary focuses on a few small aspects of online gaming - the potential for addiction and effects on health and relationships. They make a cursory effort to show the other side, but even then they use a series of stereotypical "gamer" couples to make a weak counter point, before going back to the theme they want to ram at their audience: game companies are drug dealers, and those on the games are geeks, unable to hold a job, maintain a relationship, or take care of their health. Only the scant few minutes devoted to the benefits for the severely disabled game the games any credit. Where's the couple who lead normal lives, have great jobs, travel, attend movie festivals, built themselves a house, and, oh yeah, play World of Warcraft? The only person that comes close in the film is being shown as "breaking the habit" to get on with his life.

I know there are people who are prone to addiction, but that's true for many, many hobbies, most of which never receive such continuous bad press. The worst part to me is that, while I know there is a darker side, I also know that these games can be played in a healthy, normal manner, just like any other hobby. The general public seeing this film will only have the stereotypes imprinted on them again. For this, I recommend no one ever watch this again.

Second Skin
2008, 95 minutes, directed by Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza

Shot in Bombay

This isn't my genre. It isn't my topic. But the director certainly had a compelling fabric to weave, and weave it well she did. This was an singular intersect of events in the life of Sanjay Dutt.

Shot in Bombay
2008, 101 minutes, directed by Liz Mermin

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

The latest film from a team whose earlier works (40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up) I greatly enjoyed, Forgetting Sarah Marshall implies that its focus is on the end of the relationship, not the beginning. But that's only half the story. While there's little character development, it's an emotional journey for the lead actor from start to finish. Unfortunately, like many adult comedies, they schlock on the humor through uncomfortable situations, leaving my cringing and unable to watch half the time. But the reference jokes and straight-up funny stuff is plentiful, too. I recommend seeing this one in the theater, so you can laugh with the audience for full effect.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall
2008, 111 minutes, directed by Nicholas Stoller

Dance of the Dead

After far too much of the "stupid people" motivation for conflict in a comedy, good old "zombie gonna eat yo head" is delightfully refreshing. And while there's nothing really new here, Dance of the Dead puts all the right pieces together in just the right way, for a perfect presentation. (See Flight of the Living Dead for a film that I consider "average" for the genre.)

I highly recommend this zombie beat-down.

Dance of the Dead
2008, 95 minutes, directed by Gregg Bishop

The Promotion

My second feature today was another comedy, the bigger-budget film The Promotion. It's a little slow paced - quite a bit slower than the last film - but it has the deep, evolving character development that the other film (The Marconi Bros.) lacked. You get to like both main characters, which left me sad for part of the film because one of them had to lose. I'm sure that wasn't the director's intent, and the story works out acceptably in the end. Maybe I'm just burnt out on the genre right now. I skipped my next film - yet another straight-up comedy - and look forward to the comedic gore fest that awaits at midnight.

The Promotion
2008, 85 minutes, directed by Steven Conrad

The Marconi Bros.

I dragged this morning, missing my first film. My second screening was the animated shorts lineup, so my first feature-length production today was The Marconi Bros. I get very frustrated by the stereotype "screw-up" who keeps cruising through life unchanged. Unfortunately that was the focus of this film - there's little character development from beginning to end. On the positive side, the pacing was delightfully quick and the actors were fantastic in their roles. I really felt Anthony's frustration with his brother. (Heh, the actor who played him, Brendan Sexton III, is sitting a few seats over in the lounge here.)

The Marconi Bros.
2008, 82 minutes, directed by Michael Canzoniero & Marco Ricci

(Today's showing was the second screening for this film.)

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

It was incredibly stupid, but filled with deep laughs that make it feel so good. The audience responded very well to the film, and it was hard to not pick up on the enthusiasm. Plus John Cho, Kal Pen, and Neil Patrick Harris participated in the Q&A, which was really lively and fun. From Cho: "It felt simple, right, and stupid."

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
2008, directed by Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg

They showed what amazingly was an R-rated cut. Yes, they're all fake. Apparently it's ok as long as it's not real. Well, most of them.

Mister Lonely

This narrative features an all-star cast: Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, James Dean, Madonna, the Three Stooges, etc. Yet they just can't lift it out of the deep mire of introspection set at an impersonator's commune in France. It's a portrait of sadness. Will they find salvation? When nuns fly.

Mister Lonely
2008, 108 minutes, directed by Hormony Korine

Note: During the Q&A, someone noted the director's earlier work and asked why this one was filled with so much more hope. Apparently his last one was truly fucking depressing to make this one seem light in comparison.

Crawford

Documentary filmmakers are attracted to politics like bees to nectar, and it is no different here. The story focuses on the families and friends of Crawford, Texas, during the first seven years with the new neighbor-in-chief. But the story keeps pulling back to the politics. Maybe they're inseparable; it's not that I mind the story being told, but I'm not sure it's what the director meant to say. Regardless, the filmmaker found found wonderful characters and captured them at their prime.

Crawford
2008, 74 minutes, directed by David Modigliani

Secrecy

The staple of SXSW is documentary. Not usually my favorite genre, they're A) better than average at SXSW, and B) hard to avoid. Still hung over from last night (due to lack of sleep, not excess <...>), my first was Secrecy.

This film looks at U.S. government secrecy efforts from World War Two to the present day. The directors do their best to paint a balanced picture around their chosen theme - namely, that some secrecy is good, but that all-too-often the government uses the same power of secrecy to hide its mistakes. The theme and topic are broad - probably too broad for an hour and a half - and so it's hard to cover the spectrum of issues. My wife pointed out that the Valerie Plame events were completely neglected, for example.

In my opinion, the arguments and eloquence of Charles Swift were the highlight of the film.

Secrecy
2008, 85 minutes, directed by Peter Galison & Robb Moss

OTIS

The new Alamo at the Ritz has a smaller theater than the old Alamo Downtown. Blocking off four entire rows for cast and crew seemed excessive, but I really appreciate the performers in a film actually showing up for the premiere. Most of the time, if an indy film scores a big-name star, they miss the premiere because they are, you know, a star, meaning they have work to do.

There's not enough zany gore-fest films being made today, and I found this a refreshing addition. The entire cast just seemed to enjoy the movie making process, and it showed with splendor. The entire major cast, except Daniel Stern, participated in the Q&A and confirmed my impressions. Best quote, when asked about her favorite part of the film, from Ashley Johnson: "I rather enjoyed being - shackled... That sounds kinda weird." Weird indeed.

OTIS
2008, 100 minutes, directed by Tony Krantz

21

My second film of SXSW was the opening night screening, a big-studio production premiering just before its theatrical release. 21 is loosely based on the book Bringing Down the House, about the MIT blackjack team that took Vegas for millions. They made some drastic changes as Hollywood is prone to do - added a Harvard Medical motivation so the main driver isn't "merely" greed, and rewrote the love angle - but I found it surprisingly good. The screenwriters had a strong story to start from, and their flourishes didn't didn't detract from the rich, lively plot.

21
2008, 123 minutes, directed by Robert Luketic

Humboldt County

And here it is again. The 2008 South By Southwest Film Festival kicked off with a great start last night, with three movies I found quite adorable. My favorite part of SXSW is that the movies range so widely outside my usual genres, yet I always find some remarkable films.

My first screening was the world premiere of Humboldt County, which at first glance is little more than a drug culture film, exploring the marijuana culture from an outsider's point of view. But very quickly you can see that it's much more than that - in fact, it's not that at all. It dives into a journey of self discovery, and then flourishes as a story of love and family.

The film was stolen by young star Madison Davenport, who summed up the film well in the Q&A. "Peter - he can be whoever he wants to be."

Humboldt County
2008, 97 minutes, directed by Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs