August 26, 2010

The Summer of Bad Movies

I was reading this article ("Go and Pay to See Scott Pilgrim Now") on Vanity Fair bemoaning the dismal box office for the pretty wonderful movie SCOTT PILGRIM vs THE WORLD. The writer, John Lopez, says, in part:

Listen, if A.O. “Nashville’s-the-Greatest-Movie-Ever” Scott can recommend a film aimed at video-game-junkie twentysomethings, whose themes and characters are as important to him as a Surgeon General’s Warnings is to Don Draper, there’s probably something there. And if you haven’t noticed, it’s been an atrocious year for movies. That’s not just our opinion: it’s so bad even studio executives are ringing up agents with frantic “Oh my God, what have we done” conference calls to ask, “Oh my God, what have we done?”

This article (which, in addition to being RIGHT, is also excellently written -- something that, quite frankly, you don't see enough of these days) got me to looking back over the summer and the movies I've seen and, guess what? Of all the summer's offerings, only three even stood out in my mind: TOY STORY 3 (a sure winner, because Pixar rarely, if ever, screws up), INCEPTION (for me, a safe bet going in, because I think Christopher Nolan is brilliant), and SCOTT PILGRIM (not a complete unknown to me as I have read a couple of the graphic novels, but executed by Edgar Wright far better than I could have hoped).

That's it. Three standouts out of the entire summer. There were some others here and there that weren't completely awful, like DATE NIGHT or KNIGHT AND DAY, but c'mon ... those are both safe, formulaic films. Lopez really pounds his point home in his piece: SCOTT PILGRIM is an example of a studio actually taking a risk to do something different, something not safe, something really good .... and audiences have, apparently, stayed away in droves. Look at the box office for the latest TWILIGHT film next to SCOTT PILGRIM and tell me that's not one of the saddest things you've seen.

I don't know what the answer is, really. The studio marketed the hell out of SCOTT PILGRIM, it's a fun, original, entertaining film that doesn't require you to be a super-geek who's read all the graphic novels to understand and enjoy it, and on top of that, it ends with an epic battle between Michael Cera and Jason Schwartzman. It's fast-paced, packed with action and interesting characters, and chock full of video game references, which you'd think would please the short-attention span Facebook/XBox/Wii crowd.

So what's the deal? Why haven't more people gone to see it?

Posted by kvoynar at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)

August 16, 2010

Review: Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

You don't have to be a fan of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels to appreciate Edgar Wright's rather brilliant adaptation of the source material for the movie Scott Pilgrim Vs the World. Nor do you have to be a fan of Michael Cera as an actor to appreciate his turn as the title character (in fact, I would suggest that those who complain of being "tired" of Cera or who generally find him to be "one-note" might be very pleasantly surprised by his performance here). Wright, who previously made the terrific zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead, has made a graphic novel adaptation here that is -- yes, yes, for what it is, cinephiles -- as close to perfect as you could hope to get. It's pure entertainment, heavy on brilliant colors, fast-cut editing, video game imagery and clever devices, to be sure; but if that's your thing, you'll find Scott Pilgrim Vs The World to be a fantastic, frenetic, fun ride.

Continue reading "Review: Scott Pilgrim Vs The World"

Posted by kvoynar at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

August 11, 2010

The Long Road from Film Fest to Release Date

Whew. Sometimes it takes a looooooong time to get a film from festival play to an actual release date.

I got an email the other day that NESHOBA, which played the Oxford Film Festival in 2009, is finally getting a theatrical showing in NYC. Micki Dickoff's smart doc revisits the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi, and follows the trial of alleged ringleader Rev. Edgar Ray Killen, who was finally indicted for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwermer in 2005.

Dickoff had unprecedented access to Killen and his family in making this film and it is well worth watching. I understand from the director that this is a new cut of the film that is exactly how she wanted it to be, so it's a bit different from what we saw at Oxford (not sure how different, exactly). NESHOBA opens August 13 in NYC at Cinema Village. The filmmakers and family members of the victims will be in attendance opening night for a Q&A, so go check it out ...

... Also from the "it's about time" charts, I just got an email in my inbox that LOVELY, STILL, the writing/directorial debut of Nicholas Fackler starring Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn, is finally getting a NYC release date. I saw this film way back in 2008 at the Toronto International Film Festival, where as I recall, it was well-received by critics, and I could have sworn it had already released, but hey, apparently not.

LOVELY, STILL is a sweetheart of a romantic fable about an aging gentleman (Landau) who returns home from his job at a grocery store one day to find a strange woman (Burstyn) in his house. The two embark on a late-in-life romance that isn't -- quite -- what it seems. A smart, warmly heartfelt screenplay and excellent acting, combined with a nice job by Fackler in weaving the whole thing together, make this charming little film worth catching while you can. LOVELY, STILL opens in NYC on September 10.

If you live in NYC, and you won't be otherwise engaged at the Toronto International Film Festival, go check it out.

Posted by kvoynar at 01:21 PM | Comments (0)

July 09, 2010

Can You Do Me a Kindness?

Just a note for you NYC folks: Winnebago Man premieres there this weekend, and tix are reportedly selling out. I caught Winnebago Man last year at Cinevegas, and it is hilarious. From last year's Cinevegas dispatch:

I also very much enjoyed Winnebago Man, in which director Ben Steinbauer became obsessed with tracking down Jack Rebney, better known to many folks through YouTube as The Winnebago Man (or, alternatively, The World's Angriest Man) courtesy of a viral video of outtakes of Rebney taken during an industrial video shoot for the recreational vehicles, in which he rants and swears most impressively. Steinbauer managed to track down Rebney, considered by found video afficionados to be a "holy grail" of sorts, to find out what happened to him. While I'm not normally in favor of the director of a documentary being in the film itself, this particular case is an exception, given that the story is somewhat about the relationship that evolves between Steinbauer and his crusty, curmudgeonly subject.

Winnebago Man is an immensely enjoyable film, and that's at least in part due to some excellent editing choices by Malcolm Pullinger. It's also worth noting that one of the cinematographers credited on the film is Brad Beesley, who also shot and directed the surprisingly poignant Summercamp!, which is one of my favorite underappreciated documentaries.

Me again. If you're in NYC and you've not seen Winnebago Man, go see it, will you? Added bonus: Michael Moore and Jack Rebney, the Winnebago Man himself, are expected at the screenings at the Sunshine Cinema.

Posted by kvoynar at 08:29 PM | Comments (0)

July 08, 2010

Armond, Armond, Quite Contrary

I was just reading this piece that Ray Pride linked to about Armond White on Maclean's, in which writer Jaime Weinman attempts to dissect the man whose penchant for contrariasm has made him one of the most talked about critics du jour.

Love him or hate him, but you have to admire White for finding a way to use the internet to reinvent himself, rather than just shaking his fist in the air and yelling at those damn kids to get off his print critic lawn. Roger Ebert, who's quoted in the article from this piece calling that White a "... troll. A smart and knowning one, but a troll." has also learned to leverage the power of the internet to his advantage, communicating more directly with his large fan base through both his online journal and prolific use of Twitter. But whereas Ebert has been accused in recent years of growing too soft and generous with his reviews, White is the bellwether of contrariasm. If everyone else loves it (see: Toy Story 3) White is almost certain to review it negatively. If most other critics slam a film, White is likely to find something to like about it.

Continue reading "Armond, Armond, Quite Contrary"

Posted by kvoynar at 12:11 AM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2010

Film as Art vs Film as Entertainment

Just read this excellent interview with critic and cinephile Olaf Möller (thanks to Ray Pride for linking to it, and for always digging out the most interesting and obscure bits out of the vast array of information clogging the internet).

Whether you love his opinions or hate them, Möller's knowledge, the way he thinks and writes about film, should humble anyone seeking to call himself a film critic. A quote about the "death of the film criticism" from the interview:

"As long as there's art, there's a need to make sense of it. As long as we're talking about a bourgeois culture like the one we — nominally — live in right here and now. It's that simple. Mind: "Make sense of it" is something quite different from having an opinion on it, however well-phrased that might be. Everybody has an opinion, but it's the critic who can argue his, make it his contribution to society's daily work on the common good."

I'm going to have to make more of an effort to hunt down some of the films and directors Möller writes about for Film Comment and Cinemascope, if for no other reason than to broaden the depth of my knowledge about filmmakers who are out of the scope of even many of the more elite festivals. I read interviews like this, read Möller's writings generally, and it makes me question (in a good way, mind you) everything I think I know and love about cinema. I happen to like a good many of the filmmakers Möller derides, but when I read him I think, "Ah, you may think you like these films, that this or that filmmaker truly aspires to 'art,' but if you saw what these other filmmakers he talks about are actually doing, would you still think that? Or would it make you question everything you think you know and believe in?"

Reading stuff like this makes me long to move to Europe for a few years and just immerse myself in hitting all the Euro fests and soaking in films from so many filmmakers I haven't even heard of, much less have any knowledge of. We tend to be so mainstream-centric around here, even those of us who regularly attend fests like Sundance and Toronto and Telluride and Cannes.

Even going to the excellent Scarecrow Video here in Seattle overwhelms and humbles me ... there are so many films I have yet to see, and ever fewer years left in which to see them all, and never enough time between mothering my brood and working to ever hope to catch up. It reminds me of when I was about 10 or so, really getting into books seriously, and standing in the public library looking at all the books on the shelves and realizing that even if I read at least a book a day every day for the rest of my life, I could never read them all.

I feel that way about film now ... there is so much out there from directors I know of and want to see, and so much more from directors I don't know enough about, and I feel like I will never catch up with everything I want to learn and know, much less ever get to the point where I'm truly writing at the level at which I'd like to write.

None of which is to say that I think you have to write about obscure, artsy films to be a "real" film critic; there is a place for more mainstream critics who write about more mainstream film, and I certainly wouldn't argue that folks like A.O. Scott, or J. Hoberman, or Roger Ebert, or many, many more colleagues out there, aren't all doing useful work that contributes to culture overall in reviewing those films. There is a place for writing about the mainstream for the mainstream, and there is a place for writing about the obscure for those who seek to understand art on a different level than the entertainment of the masses that Hollywood, for the most part, generates.

I write about mainstream films out of Hollywood, and I'm fortunate as well to be able to write about some less mainstream films that I see at Sundance, Seattle and Toronto, and for that I count myself truly blessed, but I still hunger, always, for more, more, more. And as for being able to spend my time watching and writing only about the kind of obscure, interesting, fascinating films that truly aspire to be art rather than just entertain? Probably someday I'll be lying on my deathbed thinking, man, I wish I'd had time and the place in life to get to all that.

Posted by kvoynar at 08:32 PM | Comments (0)

The Invisible Writer

Just read this very interesting piece by Reid Rosefelt on his career of writing press books -- you know, those production notes we all get at screenings that tell us everything about a film. Rosefelt notes in his piece that when he ran into J. Hoberman at a screening recently, the latter commented that he had no idea anyone actually wrote those things. To be honest, neither did I -- or rather, obviously I knew that someone wrote them, but I guess I assumed that was a task usually farmed off on some poor unpaid intern working overtime for a publicist.

Rosefelt's piece got me thinking about how there are a lot of jobs that people do in which the person performing the task is largely invisible to the consumer of the output. I used to work in project management in the tech industry, and I felt that way a lot back then, that me and everyone on our team would work our asses off to meet insane deadlines for disposable websites that were obsolete almost from the moment they went live.

We pushed them out, they lived briefly with no one outside the team knowing or caring who the people were who brought them to life at the expense of countless hours eating meals hunched over a desk, working late away from family, friends, outside life, and then we killed them as soon as the next big project was ready. It was soul-sucking work that paid very, very well, but when I quit to move to Seattle and took some time off to raise babies, I didn't want to get back into it. Rosefelt seems to have a much better attitude toward the disposable and invisible nature of his work writing pressbooks: He gets paid to watch movies, to talk to the creative people behind them, and, very often, to completely make up the things these creative people supposedly say about their own work. So, cool.

I know the same can be said of the nature of just about any job, including the job we do in writing about movies. We watch a movie, we work hard to craft a review that articulates our thoughts, we read the emails or comments from people who think we're stupid, and we move on to the next one, and the next one, and the next one. During a fest like Sundance or Toronto, especially, it's a constantly hungry machine waiting to be fed by the next thing on your to do list to write about.

But if you love movies, and you love writing, then getting paid to write about them -- even if what your writing is pressbooks -- is a hell of a sweet gig.

Posted by kvoynar at 03:03 PM | Comments (0)

Seattle Gay Pride 2010: Glee Flash Mob

We bravely fought Seattle weekend traffic to get down to the International Fountain at Seattle Center this afternoon for the Gay Pride festivities -- and to watch my daughter Neve, her BFF Kendra, and Kendra's dad Michael performing with the Glee Flash Mob! I was right in the middle of the action to be able to get them in most of the video, so the crowd noise is loud -- roughly 250,000 people gathered in Seattle Center = LOUD! But you can see my girl and her friends and a bunch of other people dancing and having a blast.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any footage of the drag queens kicking the Flash Mob off by dancing to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" -- this guy's head was in my way. But once you get past that and "Proud Mary" starts, it's all fun from there.

Great day, huge crowd coming out in love and support and celebration, and nary a protester in sight, at least that we saw. Lots of scantily clad folk, as you might expect at Gay Pride, but mostly family-friendly. Kids got to play in the fountain, Flash Mob rocked, cotton candy was eaten. Good times. I love living in Seattle.

PS ... This guy got video of the drag queens, and a different view of the crowd, if you want to see that:

Posted by kvoynar at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)

June 21, 2010

Review: Toy Story 3

SPOILER WARNING: This review contains some spoilers. You have been duly warned.

Toy Story 3 hits all the right emotional notes, and the storyline both complements and completes the curve set in motion when Toy Story stole our hearts way back in 1995. Critics have been over the moon for this latest (last?) installment in the Toy Story series, and with good reason. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, voicing Woody and Buzz Lightyear, respectively, never had better roles to play than these animated best pals, and the rest of the cast, both old familiar characters and a few new faces, supports them nicely.

And yet, I can't help but think that the couple of negative reviews I've read of Toy Story 3 have some valid points to make; they're points, in fact, that popped into my head even as I was watching the film, try though I might to brush them aside like annoying flies buzzing around my pie at a picnic. The question is, do a few flies spoil the overall experience of a delightful picnic on a sunny afternoon? Nah, not for me.

Continue reading "Review: Toy Story 3"

Posted by kvoynar at 05:03 PM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2010

OKC's deadCENTER Fest Announces Winners

deadCENTER Film Festival Announces Award Winners for 2010
$300 Okie Film 'Simmons on Vinyl' Wins Grand Jury

OKLAHOMA CITY – Thousands of film enthusiasts from around the world gathered in Oklahoma City for the 10th annual deadCENTER Film Festival, a five-day celebration of independent film in the dead center of the United States June 9-13.

Of the more than 100 films selected to screen at seven downtown locations – many to sold-out audiences – ten rose above the rest to claim awards in the following ten categories: Student, Animation, Narrative Short, Documentary Short, Narrative Feature, Documentary Feature, Okie Short, Okie Feature, Grand Jury Narrative Feature and Grand Jury Narrative Documentary.

Awards were presented on Saturday night as part of “Cosmic Arts Jubilee,” a free outdoor celebration that concluded with the screening of the documentary feature film “Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission.”

The Winners:

Student: “In This Place”
Directed by: Amy Bench
Austin, TX
13 min.
Synopsis: A young artist struggles to find a place in her newly globalized family. In a story enhanced with collage-like animation, Jane travels from the plains of Texas to the jungles of Africa in an attempt to bring them all together again.

Animation: “O Pintor de Ceos (Painter of the Skies)”
Directed by: Jorge Morais Valle
Spain
20 min.
Synopsis: From the darkness of the lost cliffs, a crazy painter, marked by his past, and his faithful assistant try to find a solution against perpetual storms. Sea is destroying their home. A magic boiler and some tormented ghosts will help them to find the light.

Narrative Short: “Junko’s Shamisen”
Directed by: Solomon Friedman
Canada
10 min.
A young Japanese orphan, and her mystical friend, exact poetic justice on a malevolent samurai lord.

Documentary Short: “A Song for Ourselves”
Directed by: Tadashi Nakamura
Los Angeles, CA
35 min.
Synopsis: An intimate journey into the life and music of Asian American Movement troubadour Chris Iijima.

Narrative Feature: “earthwork”
Directed by: Chris Ordal
Los Angeles, CA
93 min.
Synopsis: The true story of real life crop artist Stan Herd who plants his unique, rural art form in New York City with the help of a group of homeless characters on a plot of land owned by Donald Trump.

Documentary Feature: “A Good Day to Die”
Directed by: David Mueller, Lynn Salt
Beverly Hills, CA
92 min.
Synopsis: American Indian Movement (AIM) co-founder and leader Dennis Banks looks back at his life and the confrontational actions that changed the lives of Native Americans—and all indigenous peoples—forever.

Okie Short: “The Rounder Comes to Town”
Directed by: Adam Beatty
Norman, Oklahoma
35 min.
Synopsis: An Okie Gothic film based on a traditional song dating back to 1720. A lone drifter with no history meets the young and beautiful wife of the most powerful man in town.

Okie Feature: “The Rock ‘n’ Roll Dreams of Duncan Christopher”
Directed by: Jack Roberts
Tulsa, Oklahoma
94 min.
Synopsis: The awkward son of a rock star works through the suicide of his father in the brutal underground world of karaoke.

Grand Jury Narrative Feature: “Simmons on Vinyl”
Directed by: Mark Potts
Norman, Oklahoma
75 min.
Synopsis: With the help of his friends, Zeek searches for a vinyl record that could win the heart of the woman he desires.
Fact Sheet: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7391230/SimmonsOnVinyl_factsheet.pdf
Pre-festival radio interview: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7391230/Filmmaker%20interview_SimmonsOnVinyl_TheSpy.mp3

Grand Jury Documentary Feature: “Our House”
Directed by: Greg King
Brooklyn, NY
60 min.
Synopsis: Illegal squatters, anarchist radicals, devout Christians…welcome to Our House.

Founded in 2001, the deadCENTER Film Festival – named for its central geographic location -- has grown into a premiere international summer event. DCFF is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, providing year round events to support its mission to promote, encourage and celebrate the independent film arts. Visit www.deadcenterfilm.org to learn more.

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Posted by kvoynar at 10:15 AM | Comments (1)