|
 |
|
|
| |
Films:
These are my personal pics based on several factors: my ability to get tickets to the screening, personal preferences for documentaries and shorts, and good karma. I happened to be standing in line when it was announced that the Centerpiece Premiere, "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys," featuring Jody Foster and Vincent D'Onofrio had run into trouble and wasn't ready and therefore would be replaced, last minute with "Invisible Circus" featuring Cameron Diaz and Christopher Eccleston.
Also, I waited in line for "Dogtown and the Z Boys" and scored a late night ticket early in the week before it became the "go-see" movie. It just so happened that this flick won Best Director for Stacy Peralta and Documentary Audience Award. Read about it here.
Finally, the X-dance, featuring alternative action sports movies, had a smashing first-year success and I was able to preview some remarkable films and a panel discussion. Read about it here.
"Offside"
Written and Directed by Leanna Creel
(a short film in B&W, based on a true story)
It's World War I on Christmas Day, 1914. Germans are in a trench about 20 feet from Americans' in another trench. It's muddy, cold, and a man play's Silent Night on a harmonica in the American trench. An American guy bounces a ball in the trench to kill time and keep sane, but it annoys his friend who pitches the ball out of the trench. Suddenly, it's thrown back in. They wonder how. He bounces it again and again, the disgruntled friend pitches the ball out, only this time, and it lands in No Man's Land in-between the two trenches. Cut to the ball sitting in the middle of the two trenches. You see the Germans and the Americans with telescopes, wondering what to do. The American bouncing the ball decides to retrieve it. He sticks out his white shirt on a pole and slithers out of his trench, completely vulnerable to the Germans, and slowly walks over to get his ball. You see the Germans stare, but no one shoots. Back to the American trench-the guy with the ball has a notion. He looks at his buddies and crawls back out of the trench with his ball, standing there, facing the Germans, as if to ask them for a friendly soccer match. A German slithers out of his trench and walks over, then another American, another German, and so on until there are two teams ready to play soccer. They look at each other, noticing that they are very much alike as men-tired, bloody, muddy--and then start playing a game. It ends and each side retreats to their trench…the sound of the harmonica playing in the background.
"Scout's Honor,"
Directed by Tom Shepard, winner of Freedom of Expression Award and tied for Audience Award for Documentaries
The Boy Scouts of America are an established part of American culture, but also a private organization, which can, if it chooses, exclude members. The movie traces the broad-based movement of allowing gays and gay adult leaders into the Boys Scouts by following the path of a 12-year-old boy from Petaluma, California, and a 70-year-old scout leader (neither of whom are gay) in their fight for allowing gays into the Boy Scouts. The movie does an amazing job also of including old talk-show footage clips of James Dale and his Supreme Court struggle, and others all fighting to overturn the Boy Scout's rejection of gays from an American institution. The obvious homophobia of other Boy Scout parents, troop leaders, and town officials regarding homosexuality becomes almost humorous in its tragedy as such thinking begins to erode the very core and love these boys and men enjoy about scouting.
"Invisible Circus"
Directed by Adam Brooks, starring Cameron Diaz, Jordana Brewster, Christopher Eccleston
It's the radical '60's. Cameron plays an flower child who can't deal with the death of her father and flees San Francisco for Europe with her boyfriend, Christopher Eccleston, leaving behind her mother (Gwenyth Paltrow's real mother) and little sister, Jordana Brewster. The film starts with Phoebe, the younger sister who's now 19, looking for answers: Her sister, Cameron, died on that trip to Europe, her body found on the shores of Portugal. All Phoebe has for clues are old postcards sent to her by her older sister. The film is a mix of flashbacks of Cameron joining militant groups, getting kicked out, joining another, until she finally bombs a building and kills an innocent man. In-between, she heads to Paris for consoling by her boyfriend, until finally, she returns for good and they travel to Portugal together. Unfortunately, she can't deal with what she's done and she leaps off a ledge into the sea. When her younger sister comes to Europe to discover the truth about her sister, Cameron's old boyfriend helps her piece the puzzle together. They end up healing their wounds together and sleeping with one another in the process. What's stunning about this movie is the scenery, the flashbacks to the '60's, Cameron's performance and the fact that this is even playing at Sundance. Basically, this movie will do well at the box office: it's got a love story, something '60's, stars, slickness. It just didn't fit in.
"Southern Comfort,"
Directed by Kate Davis, winner of Best Documentary
In the heart of Ku Klux Klan country, Davis traces the lives of a group of transsexuals dealing with their most beloved who is dying of ovarian cancer. While at times, the sexuality aspects get confusing ("is that his mother or father") the humor, love and compassion these people have for life and each other is as normal as any other community. The difference is, that they have all undergone tremendous identity crises and have physically had surgery in order to follow what they feel are their true genders. Robert Eads is portrayed as a transsexual female-to-male who is unable to find appropriate medical care for his ovarian cancer and therefore relies on friends to help him meet his goal: attending the annual transsexual conference in Atlanta called Southern Comfort just one more time. Robert does live to present at the conference, but dies shortly after, just as his romance with Lola Cola, a male-to-female transsexual begins to blossom. It's a heartfelt, real, and emotionally raw documentary that basically makes you think about love and relationships with friends above and beyond one's own gender.
If it comes to your city, check it out:
"Hedwig and the Angry Inch,"
Directed by John Cameron Mitchell, about a transvestite from East Berlin who becomes an American rock hero. Won the Audience Award for best Dramatic; the new Rocky Horror. Ironically, the day I got home to Seattle, it was screening, which means it already has distribution.
"Children Underground"
By Edet Belzberg was very popular. About kids living in the streets of Bucharest, Romania, begging, stealing, and sniffing "Aurolac" to get high.
"Lost and Delirious,"
By Lea Pool-adaptation of Susan Swan's novel "The Wives of Bath" about three young girls search for identity.
"Coffin Joe: The Strange World of Jose Mojica Marins,"
Directed by Andre Barcinski and Ivan Finotti-Brazilian indie horror.
"101 Reykjavik,"
Directed by Baltasar Kormakur-boy in Iceland who falls in love with a Flamenco teacher.
"Momento,"
Directed by Christopher Nolan-a man with memory loss revenging his wife's murder.
|
|
|
|
|
|
