FWWeekly's Coverage of LSIFF

LSIFF Concludes With Pariah

2011-11-13T20:44:00.000-08:00

The Lone Star Film Festival ended with Pariah, a terrific indie drama from Dee Rees that stars newcomer Adepero Oduye as a 17-year-old African-American girl named Alike, pronounced a-LEE-keh and frequently shortened to Lee. She's hiding her gayness from her middle-class parents (Charles Parnell and Kim Wayans) and wondering what sort of woman she's going to grow up to be.

I wish Rees had gone into more depth about Alike's academic success (which is apparently considerable), but there's a great deal to recommend the film anyway: Its depiction of the marital discord between Alike's parents, the way it evokes a pocket of homophobia in New York City (one of the most gay-friendly cities on earth), the platonic friendship between Alike and the only other lesbian she knows (Pernell Walker), the way the parents are depicted as flawed individuals rather than gay-bashing monsters. I was most surprised with how funny the movie is, especially in a sequence involving a strap-on that's the wrong color. Stuff like that helps keep this from becoming a standard-issue anguished coming-out story. With terrific acting (Kim Wayans, who knew?) and well-managed storylines, this isn't a movie for gay audiences or African-American audiences, but for everyone.

I think we'll remember this year as the year that LSIFF stepped up in weight class. Counting The Descendants, The Artist, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Shame, and Pariah, that's five plausible Oscar contenders in a five-day festival. Yeah, that's pretty good. And that's not even accounting for the charming minor films like High Road and the splashy premiere afforded to Searching for Sonny, a film that proves a Fort Worth movie can attract name talent. It's notable that this past year Dennis Bishop stepped down as the festival's artistic director, allowing programming director Alec Jhangiani to take over the position. The quality on display at this year's LSIFF is a testament to the programmers' good taste and the organizers' acumen in bringing such big-ticket items to the festival. Of course, that just means that they'll have to do this all over again next year. I can't wait.

Zack, do you have any final thoughts about how this year's festival shaped up?

Tarred

2011-11-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

I have read the book, Zack, and the structure is as you describe it. I have an idea what to expect, too, so I'll be weighing in on the film when I catch up to it.

I spent my Sunday morning earning my Béla Tarr merit badge. The Hungarian filmmaker's name is legend among hard-core cinephiles for his epic-length black-and-white films such as Werckmeister Harmonies and Sátántangó, which are filled with long tracking shots and not a great deal else. The film he had at LSIFF is The Turin Horse, which Tarr has said will be his last, and it was the first Tarr film that I've been able to see. Supposedly it takes place in the Italian countryside in the late 1880s, but it really takes place on an alien landscape with a howling wind that blows nonstop. The main characters are a farmer (János Derszi) and his daughter (Erika Bók) trying to survive on their farm, though it's hard to imagine anything growing in the world they live in. Their carthorse is gradually becoming sicker. And that's pretty much it, for almost two and a half hours. They get dressed, they pull up water from the well, they eat a single boiled potato each day. The only things that relieve the monotony are a visit from some Romani people and a garrulous neighbor who harangues the farmer with a lot of rhetoric about the godlessness of the universe. It's another slow-moving film, and though its visuals are neatly composed, I found considerably less to chew on than in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia or in Meek's Cutoff, another extremely deliberate film where not all that much happens from earlier this year.

The movie probably left me in the wrong frame of mind to see Believe You Me, a Texas-shot indie flick about a schlubby newspaper photographer (Matt Dixon) in Corsicana who's put on paid leave after his teenage brother's suicide and volunteers at a suicide hotline, where he fields a call from his brother's schoolteacher (Julie Mitchell). I got the sense that the film had some funny jokes but fell down during the more serious moments, but I'll have to catch the flick again some time when I haven't just sat through a Béla Tarr film.

Whatever Happened to Crazy?

2011-11-13T10:25:00.000-08:00

The house was nearly packed for We Need to Talk About Kevin, a deeply unsettling but extremely well-made film from director Lynne Ramsay, starring and co-produced by Tilda Swinton. Based on Lionel Shriver's 2003 novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a psychological thriller told from the vantage point of Eva Khatchadourian, the mother of the titular Kevin (played variously by Ezra Miller, teenager; Jasper Newell, childhood; Rock Duer, toddler). Where the novel as I understand it was epistolary, taking as its structure a series of letters from Eva to her husband Franklin (John C. Reilly), the film is set two years after the kid's spree and uses non-linear flashbacks from various stages of Kevin's life. The effect is exceptionally unnerving, as the details of Kevin's deed (and Eva's devastation) are only slowly revealed in carefully juxtaposed fragments. (Jonny Greenwood, of Radiohead and There Will be Blood fame, turned in another aptly disquieting score here, and the film's soundtrack is rounded out by the occasional old pop song, the cheeriness of which stand in stark contrast to the images on screen, only heightening the unease.)

Though the book has been out for about eight years, I won't reveal too much about the plot, given how purposefully and meticulously Ramsay sequenced the film. Suffice it to say, Kevin's a a teenage serial killer, going on a spree just around the time of his 16th birthday.

The way I see it, Ramsay is saying a couple of things about such acts of irrational, inconceivable violence. The film's focus is not on any particular aspect of culture that critics on the right and left seize upon to explain phenomena like school shootings, but on the mixed-up machinations of the self, especially as it relates to those most intimately involved in one's upbringing: parents and, specifically, mothers. While other characters, reflective of the general culture, may hold Eva accountable for her son's actions, and while she no doubt lives with unbearable guilt, what the viewer sees would never lead one to believe that she were a bad parent. Indeed, to me, the only "explanation" for Kevin is an extreme psychological disorder. (I'm reminded of Chris Rock's take on Columbine: "Everybody wanna know what the kids was listening to. What kind of music was they listening to? Or what kind of movies was they watching? Who gives a f--k what they was watching? Whatever happened to crazy?!").

In Kevin's case, his motivation seems to have stemmed from an inexplicable but lifelong hatred of his mother -- not, again, so far as one can tell, based on anything she'd done. Even as a baby, he would only cry around her, only ceasing in the presence of his father, Franklin. (So disruptive a baby was he that Eva temporarily wheeled the stroller near a city worker wielding a jackhammer on the street, in a vain effort to drown out his screams and cries.) That kind of behavior serves as a template for their relationship in the future, from potty-training to helping with chores: Kevin would always oblige his father, acquiescing only rarely to his mother and only then for future blackmailing material or to throw her for a loop. His seemingly unconditional relationship with his father was, too, one gradually (and then abruptly) realizes, a charade he orchestrated to torment his mother. Eva's unbroken, motherly love for Kevin, if most painful to watch, is still plausible to the viewer, but it's something Kevin cannot understand himself.

There's probably more going on in the film, but I feel confident saying that Ramsay is focusing clearly on the self and psychology. Like many films about personal rather than historical evil -- for me, Michael Haneke's Caché (which, obviously, also had as much or more to do with cultural and political issues) comes to mind -- We Need to Talk About Kevin will make you question having children. I got the impression afterward, as the credits rolled and upon subsequently soliciting the opinions of a few attendees, that many in the audience found the film too disturbing to be in any way redeeming. But again, a film may make for uncomfortable viewing and still be a successful work of art; thought-provoking on the one hand, well-made in just about every way on the other. -- Zack Shlachter

One Saturday, Five Movies

2011-11-12T22:35:00.000-08:00

Whew! Just spent 13 consecutive hours at the AMC Palace, minus an hour here and there for meals. Let's recap.

Zack, you mentioned being taken by the doctor in Anatolia, but I found the character of the prosecutor to be the most absorbing, as he tells the story of a young wife who predicted her own sudden death. The doctor hears this and asks a few questions, and it emerges that a) the woman in the story was the prosecutor's own wife and b) her sudden death may have been a suicide. Much of the film is taken up with the lawmen wandering around the Turkish countryside in the middle of the night trying to find this corpse. I was imagining what headlines I'd write if I were reviewing the film and came up with "Dude, Where's My Carcass?" The movie also struck me like a Harold and Kumar film, though the Turks would change their names to Hayrettin and Kemal. I've seen a couple of Ceylan's other films, and they are indeed not pulse-pounding thrill rides. Yet they do hold your interest with their anecdotes and jokes, here told by the cops among themselves to kill the boredom as much as anything else. I found the film as quietly absorbing as you did, Zack, and you're absolutely right about the visual splendor. The sight of leaves blowing from the trees lit up by headlights, or the ghostly appearance of a village mayor's beautiful daughter during a power outage, are unforgettable sights.

The Artist is enormously charming, and with Harvey Weinstein pushing it, the general public will undoubtedly get to see it. Someone behind me in line for the film saw a promotional photo and mistook Jean Dujardin for Gene Kelly. The resemblance is pretty uncanny, especially the way they both have the same wide, hammy, self-satisfied smile that serves them well when they're portraying movie stars. I wasn't prepared for how emotionally draining the film is, considering that it starts out as a light comedy. You'll hear lots of people compare it to Charlie Chaplin's films, but I think the better comparison might be to The Last Laugh, F.W. Murnau's 1924 silent masterpiece that's also about a man who falls wrenchingly from grace only to be redeemed. In any event, it's been too long since we had a movie with tap dancing in it, so for that alone the movie's worth a look.

I took in Slacker 2011, which isn't a remake of Richard Linklater's Slacker, but rather a takeoff using the same general idea, with the narrative following first one character, then another as they wander around Austin. Each scene is done by a different director, but they don't bring much individual style or sensibility to the scenes. There are a few odd bits of innovation like a segue when an eight-year-old Caucasian boy walks through the door of a coffee shop and comes out as an Asian woman in her 20s. Still, it's not enough, and if the movie hadn't had the Slacker title or Linklater's seal of approval, I would have lost interest in it much earlier than I did.

The main attraction was undoubtedly Andrew Disney's Searching for Sonny, which packed the largest auditorium at the Palace and also drew a pretty good crowd for the extra screening at 10:00. The film was shot in Fort Worth, though it takes place in an unspecified Texas city where many of the locations have the same names as places here (Overton Hills, Trinity Park). Jason Dohring (who did tremendous work on the TV show Veronica Mars) plays a New York City pizza delivery boy named Elliott who returns to Texas for his high-school reunion, invited by his old buddy Sonny Bosco (Masi Oka). Yet when he gets back he finds that Sonny has vanished, so he has to put heads together with his loser brother Calvin (Nick Kocher), his nerdy friend Gary (Brian McElhaney), and the girl he once had a crush on (Minka Kelly) to solve the mystery of Sonny's disappearance, which leads to financial schemes and murders. Everybody eventually notices that the events are mimicking the plot of a stage play that Sonny wrote in high school.

The crowd gave the film a rousing ovation. I found the movie to be loud, ramshackle, and a bit of a mess, especially near the end. Yet I also found it clever, funny, stylish, and slickly edited, which is a nice starting point for a first-time feature filmmaker. Andrew Disney told me he was heavily influenced by Rian Johnson's polarizing indie noir thriller Brick when he made Searching for Sonny, and you can see he's going for the same stylized, unreal tone, but with more humor. Among the misses: Calvin's unexplained hatred for Irish people, which we're supposed to take as a ridiculous prejudice, but it doesn't come off. Among the hits: Gary smuggling Elliott and Calvin into a homecoming dance. Some of the throwaway jokes score better than the set pieces; when a security guard asks via walkie-talkie if a reported streaker is male or female, the answer is "A boy, just like you like it." I was reminded of a movie I saw earlier this year, Aaron Katz' Cold Weather, which is also a comedic noir thriller set in, and filmed in, a city that's not known as a film noir backdrop (Portland, Ore.). I think Cold Weather did better at balancing the comedy and the thriller elements, while Searching for Sonny struck a more consistent tone. The ultimate test of any debut feature is whether it makes you interested in seeing what the filmmaker does next. I want to see what Andrew Disney does next.

There was a Q&A session with Disney and his actors and producers after Searching for Sonny, but I ran out of it because of Shame, and even though I missed the beginning of the NC-17-rated film (which, by numerous accounts, contains a shot of the lead actor's penis), I still found it to be one of the best movies of 2011, with the best performance I've seen all year. Michael Fassbender stars as a successful New York City businessman named Brendan who tries to hide his sex addiction when his sister (Carey Mulligan) crashes in his apartment for a few days.

Before his Inglourious Basterds-related fame, Fassbender teamed with director Steve McQueen on a drama called Hunger about the Irish prisoners who went on hunger strikes in the 1980s to protest British rule. It was an excellent debut for McQueen, an Englishman who's not related to the similarly named movie star from the 1960s. Hunger was as austere as you'd expect for a movie set in sterile Irish prisons, but Shame is no less austere for being largely set in swanky Manhattan restaurants and apartments. However, this movie does display a sense of humor that wasn't evident in Hunger.

The most impressive thing here is the seething rage that Fassbender brings to his performance. Brendan is an angry man, because he's in love with his sister and can't have sex with her. He's an emotional cripple; when he goes on a date with a co-worker (Nicole Beharie), their conversation is strikingly normal, but when she wants to have sex with him, he can't perform. He can only do it with hookers and sex workers and anonymous women (and the odd man) who are looking for a quick orgasm and nothing more. Brendan's interactions with his sister are all kinds of unhealthy, ranging from a rancorous argument on his couch to a tiff when she walks in on him while he's masturbating, an initially funny scene that turns rather frightening. Yet his love for her and his despair are palpable in the film's climactic scenes, when she enters a spiral of her own. Fassbender has been in four movies this year (including the upcoming A Dangerous Method, in which he's also excellent as a man acting sexually against his better judgment.), but he's nowhere as vivid in any of them as here.

Well, I need to catch the rest of the film, including Fassbender's penis. Zack, what did you think of We Need to Talk About Kevin?

Cannes Favorites at LSIFF

2011-11-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

I spent the first half of the day with a couple of big-name films that did quite, by all accounts, at Cannes this past year. First up was Grand Prix winner Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da), a two-and-a-half-hour doozy from Turkey, directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan and scripted by Ceylan, Ercan Kesal and Ebru Ceylan. I recalled reading a little about this from coverage of that festival and looked up some of those micro-reviews to refresh my memory, so I knew I was in store for something long, slow and, at times, frustratingly enigmatic. To say the film is long and slow is not a knock; the little dialogue on offer, usually about mundane concerns, is richly textured and speaks to the tensions under the surface, without making the experience too uncomfortable on the viewer. There are a few very revealing passages, however, and the film demands your attention without being obvious.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia follows a team that includes law enforcement officials (police and military), the prosecutor on the case and a doctor along a wild-goose chase for what the viewer can guess but is not actually explicitly mentioned for quite some time (or found, for quite a while). Even then, the details of the case are murky, as are the back-stories of the characters, none more-so than the doctor, Cemal (Muhammet Uzuner). Dr. Cemal is learning the ambiguities and motivations of criminals and the people delegated to bring them to justice, fueled as much by personal issues as politics, while simultaneously contending with the dissolution of his own marriage -- something which transpired a couple of years before the action but remains, for him, unresolved. Because of how little the divorce is referenced in the film, it would seem like a minor detail but for the lingering effects shown on his face in a few key, brief scenes.

I'm barely scratching the surface here, so I hope Kristian can provide both some more "plot" points and insight into the film's subtext. When we caught up this afternoon, he said he was still processing it; indeed, I feel like I'll need to watch it again.

Next up was The Artist, a French silent film by Michel Hazanavicius, for which past collaborator Jean Dujardin took home top honors at Cannes for his portrayal of fading film star, George Valentin. Valentin is the world's biggest movie star, whom early viewers have likened to a Fairbanks or Chaplin, but he sees his career eclipsed when talkies hit the scene and he fails to adapt. In an attempt to buck the trend, he directs, produces and stars in one last silent film, Tears of Joy, which tanks at the box office just as an extra-turned-actor and romantic missed-connection, Peppy Miller (played by Bérénice Bejo), launches into talkie stardom -- and just he loses his fortune in the Great Crash.

LSIFF did well to have a film about the movies on this year's line-up, and no doubt, The Artist is a warm and sentimental crowd-pleaser. Though it might lean a little to hard in its first act on visual and sonic gags, in a series of winks and nods to the audience that thankfully climax early, it certainly does capture the the joy of (the) cinema. The film's closing sequence is sheer fun and redemption, and I might have had chills watching it had there been no -- I hate to mention this -- technical difficulties that interrupted the viewing experience, with two minutes to spare.

A last, stray note before I head out for We Need to Talk about Kevin -- Once Upon a Time in Anatolia was, for a rather bleak film, rather beautifully shot. The cinematography, lighting and editing were perfect, lyrical and subtly expressive for a film which largely hinted at action but tended to hold back. The Artist had an almost dreamlike quality that suited it well. -- Zack Shlachter

Further Thoughts on High Road

2011-11-12T07:06:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Kristian. As my first-ever LSIFF screening, High Road got things off to a good start for me. I don't have much to add to your take on the film, a low-budget indie comedy with, as you mention, quite the ensemble cast. I likewise don't expect the film to get a wide distribution but I think it's the kind of thing comedy nerds will seek out, given the preponderance of UCB, SNL, The State, Daily Show / The Office, and Party Down alums among the cast. As you say, everyone gels together, but my one "complaint" might be that High Road feels less like a film than an extended episode of the kind of television show these actors have worked on. Which isn't a necessarily bad thing. While never big, they keep the laughs coming, rarely hitting a false note. (Kristian mentions the aggressive, homophobic sex worker as one; I might add the drag-queen father, whom the script and, considering the level of improvisation, other characters don't quite know how to treat.)

While High Road is less steeped in irony than the usual indie comedy, the film's sincerity isn't nearly as cliche, problematic or gratingly overdone as the usual Hollywood fare. As the filmmakers noted in the subsequent Q&A session, because the small budget didn't allow for the kind of production choices one might expect from an Apatow joint or an action-comedy, character development was key. And perhaps that's why it felt like one of those TV shows: the characters felt lived-in and pleasantly familiar, something actors typically achieve with comic roles only over the course of a season or series. These actors, some with only a scene or two, managed to do so in under an hour and a half. -- Zack Shlachter

Triangles on the High Road

2011-11-11T23:22:00.000-08:00

I missed the opening of Rampart, but I saw enough of it to be disappointed. My high expectations came from knowing that the movie was the second film directed by Oren Moverman, whose debut film The Messenger made a strong impression at the 2009 Lone Star Film Festival. Rampart stars Woody Harrelson as a crooked L.A. cop during the 1990s who's struggling to avoid various corruption probes over his many, many misdeeds. The movie has a starry supporting cast: Cynthia Nixon and Anne Heche as his ex-wives (who are also sisters), Sigourney Weaver as a police psychiatrist, Steve Buscemi as a politician, Robin Wright as the cop's lawyer girlfriend, and Ice Cube as an investigator from the D.A.'s office who's hounding the cop. It even has James Ellroy, whose novel L.A. Confidential became a modern classic film, as a co-writer. Despite all that, this whole portrait of a bad man's moral squalor has a rather negligible impact. The only actor who impressed me was Brie Larson as the cop's screwed-up gay teenage daughter. I completely failed to recognize the same actress who portrayed Michael Cera's hipper-than-thou rock-star ex-girlfriend from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, so when I saw her name in the end credits, I was pretty blown away. Still, it wasn't enough to make this into a good movie.

Better stuff was in High Road, a comedy by Matt Walsh, a character actor who's also the founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade. James Pumphrey stars as an L.A. pot dealer named Fitz who wants to be a rock star and is working on a rock opera about his theory that triangles can explain the entire world. Unfortunately, his bandmates leave him on the same day, one for a promotion at his day job, the other for a different band that has actually gotten paying gigs. (It's a White Stripes cover band called 8th Nation Army.) One day, Fitz mistakenly gets the idea that the cops are onto him, so he hastily packs up and drives to Oakland to lie low, accompanied by his neighbor's unmotivated teenage son Jimmy (newcomer Dylan O'Brien). They're chased not by the police but by an overzealous ex-cop named Fogerty (Joe Lo Truglio) and Jimmy's dad (Rob Riggle), who think Fitz is a pedophile who has kidnapped Jimmy. They're also chased by Fitz' girlfriend Monica (Abby Elliott from Saturday Night Live) after she learns that she's pregnant.

Most of the dialogue was improvised, and most of the onscreen talent has connections to UCB, so they're pretty much all on the same page. What talent, too: Lizzy Caplan as a dimwitted member of 8th Nation Army, Ed Helms as Monica's pervy boss, Horatio Sanz as a suspicious (in more ways than one) doctor, and Kyle Gass as a weed buyer named Uncle Creepy. ("I'm Creepy," he introduces himself.) Not everything works: The scene with the hooker (Morgan Walsh) who keeps calling her potential customers "faggots" is repetitive, tone-deaf, and unfunny. Still, that's more than balanced out by the scenes that do work, like the one when Monica's boss sexually harasses her and then tries to get out of it by playing innocent, or Fitz' encounter with his estranged drag-queen dad (Rich Fulcher), or Monica's conversation with Fitz' ex-bandmate (Zach Woods), who won't stop talking on his Bluetooth headset with a guy named "Cole," so she's never certain whether he's talking to her or Cole. The chemistry among the cast is pretty good, especially the partnership between Lo Truglio and Riggle. Dylan O'Brien is a newcomer, but he keeps pace with these others very well. I wonder what kind of distribution this movie's going to get given that its lead actors are pretty much unknown, but it's funnier than many Hollywood comedies, so it deserves to be seen in some format. My fellow Weeklian Zack Shlachter was at this screening as well. Zack, what did you think? -- Kristian Lin

One Late Screening

2011-11-10T23:35:00.000-08:00

I missed most of the Thursday showings because I was traveling to and from Plano for a screening of Happy Feet Two. That movie left me very much in the mood to watch something dark and disturbing, and Mollie Binkley's psychological thriller Occupied seemed to fit the bill. Even better, the start was delayed by some technical glitches, so I was able to catch the whole thing. Unfortunately, I found a movie that managed to be both incredibly obvious and frustratingly vague, no small achievement.

Liza Binkley stars as a 20-year-old USC student named Sarah who's gone to babysit her 12-year-old cousin (Lucy Bock) in a house in the woods outside of Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, Sarah is suffering from schizophrenic delusions and survivor's guilt (over a boyfriend's death) that results in her becoming a danger to both of them. Sarah's backstory is left sketched in, and I was craving more information about how her illness was manifesting itself before, or the particulars of her family situation. I liked Liza Binkley's performance in the film's initial stages, though by the end of the film she goes well over the top. Much of the film is shot through surveillance cameras placed inside the house, but instead of creating an atmosphere of paranoia, it just seems like a rip-off of the Paranormal Activity films. The musical cues underline every source of danger (though it wasn't helped by the theater, which cranked the sound so that the cellos and basses in the orchestra were rumbling through your soul), and all the montages meant to represent Sarah's madness turn into a repetitive tic. In short, Black Swan this isn't. -- Kristian Lin

Opening night

2011-11-10T09:56:00.000-08:00

Hello, everyone. Sorry for the delay in getting this up, but welcome to the 2011 Lone Star International Film Festival blog. I won't be covering the fest by myself like I did last year, so I'm looking forward to talking with our other writers about the movies we're seeing, especially with this year's lineup.

Last night LSIFF opened with The Descendants, the first feature film by Alexander Payne since his widely feted 2004 comedy Sideways. It's being widely tipped as an Oscar contender, and you can see why. George Clooney portrays a wealthy Hawaii lawyer whose wife was in a boating accident that put her in a coma. Now he has to raise two daughters, an angry 17-year-old (Shailene Woodley) and a precocious 10-year-old (Amara Miller), by himself. It's even harder when the older daughter breaks the news to her dad that her mom was having an affair.

You'll get to see this film pretty soon; it's scheduled for a Dallas release on the 18th and then an expansion into Tarrant County five days later for Thanksgiving weekend. My gut instinct tells me this isn't a masterpiece, but I still found a lot to like in this movie. Payne perfectly captures the inconvenience of feeling depression, rage, and grief in a sun-drenched vacation spot that's supposed to banish all negative emotions. Payne's known more for getting his human interactions right, but he's underrated when it comes to landscapes; he's very good at capturing the natural beauty of Hawaii. The acting is very good, especially from Woodley and Clooney (even though he's somewhat miscast). As with all Payne movies, the writing is splendid, especially a scene late when father and daughter go to the house of mom's boyfriend (Matthew Lillard) and pin the guy neatly while his oblivious wife (Judy Greer) is there.

The theater was pretty full, as you'd imagine a big-ticket film would have. The screening was followed by a Q&A session with actor Nick Krause, who plays the older daughter's obnoxious boyfriend. He's a Texas guy (Georgetown) who's thinner in real life than on the screen, with much shorter hair. He described auditioning over the Internet for the role. The whole evening got this year's festival off to a flying start.

By the way, if you were at this screening and were wondering about that moviegoer with the stuffy nose and persistent cough, it was me. Sorry, everyone. The battery of medications that I take to control my allergies seems to be losing its efficacy. I'll be spending the rest of the festival well-stocked with cough drops and Kleenexes. -- Kristian Lin

Festival Wrap-Up

2010-11-15T18:53:00.000-08:00

Went to the Harry Potter screening this afternoon, so I couldn't wrap up the festival until now. Clearly LSIFF has reached that point where it's no longer the new kid on the block with the buzz of novelty. Now they have to keep things going. I didn't experience that "wow" movie this year that I did with previous festivals with Let the Right One In and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. However, I did spot some interesting new talent (Miss Nobody), take in a couple of great performances (Another Year and Everything Must Go), and find a couple of absorbing documentaries that I might have overlooked otherwise (Marwencol and Sons of Perdition). And the Jeff Bridges/T-Bone Burnett concert was a pretty good "wow" moment for the festival. I count this a weekend well spent.

Next year will be LSIFF's fifth anniversary, not a major occasion but worth celebrating all the same. Let's see if doing it helps LSIFF keep the magic going.

Sunday Punches

2010-11-14T18:45:00.000-08:00

The festival's last day started with Night Catches Us, a debut feature by Tanya Hamilton that's opening in selected markets around the country next month. It stars Anthony Mackie (from The Hurt Locker) as a former Black Panther who returns to his Philadelphia neighborhood in 1976 despite his fellow Panthers regarding him as a snitch who set up his best friend to be killed. He's there for his father's funeral, but he falls in love with said best friend's wife (Kerry Washington). I love the talent on display here, but the movie is indifferently paced, and the romance is boilerplate. If you're not fascinated by the history of the Black Panthers, this movie doesn't have much for you.

I caught the winner of the festival's documentary prize, and it's a good one. Sons of Perdition follows several Utah boys who either ran away or were kicked out of Warren Jeffs' polygamist community. Now they're all living in shelters (organized by a millionaire who himself was expelled from a polygamist sect). The film keeps careful tabs on the different ways these colonies brutalize boys and girls, and the troubles that the boys have adjusting to the freedom of the outside world. One boy's sisters repeatedly try to escape, and the rescue scenes feel like something out of an action film. There's one scene in which a 24-year-old cult member who has escaped (leaving behind her four children) celebrates her freedom by getting drunk. We see her lying face down on the floor and suddenly just start screaming. It's primal stuff. I wish the filmmakers had explored that a bit more, but this is still an important documentary that LSIFF can be proud to have.

The afternoon finished with Sideways, not the 2004 comedy starring Paul Giamatti but a remake of that film that's still set in California wine country but with all four main characters turned into Japanese people transplanted to America. It's one of those instances where the idea of the film is much better than the execution. The Giamatti character is less of a flaming wreck and more of an anally-retentive alienated Japanese guy, though he still reacts to professional frustration by chugging the contents of a winery spittoon. The English-language scenes are acted woodenly, and not just by the Japanese actors, either. The bright spot for me is Rinko Kikuchi (the schoolgirl from Babel) in the Sandra Oh role. I've had the chance to see her in The Brothers Bloom as well, and she has a great natural presence. It's an interesting exercise, to be sure, but it doesn't hold up on its own.

Final thoughts on the festival tomorrow. — Kristian Lin

Funny How Fallin' Feels Like Flyin', For a Little While

2010-11-13T23:45:00.001-08:00

First, a correction to my last post: Colin Firth plays George VI in The King's Speech, not Edward VI.

Well, all my predictions about the secret screening blew up in my face. The thing turned out to be Everything Must Go, a drama starring Will Ferrell as an alcoholic who loses his executive job on the same day that his wife tosses all his possessions out onto their front lawn and changes the locks. With said wife conveniently away, the guy obstinately arranges the furniture and stuff on the lawn like it's his living room and sits there stewing away and drinking lots of beer. Man, we've had so many depressive drunks in this year's festival. Ferrell is really good in a more or less straightforward role, and he plays well off a talented supporting cast that includes Rebecca Hall as a pregnant neighbor and Christopher Caldwell (Biggie Smalls' son in real life) as a kid who helps him sell off some of his stuff. The movie is based on Raymond Carver's short story "Why Don't You Dance?", but it's funnier and it ends more hopefully. I'm not sure how the movie will do in the general release that it's scheduled for next year; not much happens in it, particularly because the main character is trying to keep things from happening to him. Yet Ferrell's performance and the movie's subtle humor are enough to make it worth a look. The film was shot in the Phoenix area; writer-director Dan Rush reported that the houses he used were some of the only ones in the city that had a grassy lawn. Most of the houses there have rock gardens and desert landscapes out front, which does cut down the city's water usage.

I've never attended the music events at LSIFF before, but I stopped by 8.0 to catch Jeff Bridges and T-Bone Burnett. T-Bone took the lead on "Honkytonk Angel" and "Don't You Lie to Me," while guitarist Colin Linden did a fantastic job fronting four songs by the likes of Howlin' Wolf and The Band. The crowd was there to see Bridges, though, and he didn't disappoint. He and Burnett played the Bad Blake songs from Crazy Heart, and they are as good as I remembered them. Bridges fittingly dedicated "Brand New Angel" to the late Stephen Bruton. All in all, it was pretty awe-inspiring having these distinguished artists take the stage at 8.0. The festival organizers seem to be pretty good at tying these musical events into the movie world so that moviegoers will be interested. I'm looking forward to next year's closing-night concert, for which I fully expect LSIFF to book Gwyneth Paltrow and the cast of Country Strong.

Let's see if there are surprises on the last day of the festival tomorrow. — Kristian Lin

Waking Up with T-Bone

2010-11-13T15:17:00.001-08:00

Started off the morning by going to an appearance at Fort Worth Public Library by the one and only T-Bone Burnett. His legendary discomfort with interviews showed, but he was quite gracious. He talked up his recently released albums with Elvis Costello (National Ransom) and Elton John and Leon Russell (The Union). He wasn't that revealing on his work in films, but he's not too high on the digitalization of music. He said that he happened to be very close to a digital TV that had a World Cup match on last summer, and he noticed that the ball looked square from his viewing position. "That's what digital is," he said. "A square ball."

The shorts program this afternoon was rather undistinguished compared with the other two I've seen. Lauren Wolkstein's Cigarette Candy didn't say much new in its story about a Marine returning home, though it had a fine lead performance by Jonny Orsini. Daniel Trevino's Amateur was very slight, too, about a guy who freaks out during an encounter with a girl in a bikini who turns out to have a penis. Jonathan Shepard's documentary The Sharecropper interviews a series of chicken farmers who were screwed over by Pilgrim's Pride. I wanted more rigorous journalism from this piece. The only short that really impressed me was Pablo Larcuen's Mi Amigo Invisible, a Spanish-language comedy about a fat nerdy young man who's so pathologically shy that he can't even speak to his own parents. (He never speaks on camera, but he narrates the story in voiceover.) That changes when an invisible friend comes to him, a shirtless dude wearing tight shorts, a cape, and an Admiral Ackbar mask. Nice piece of deadpan humor.

I'm left to speculate on the secret screening I'm supposed to see in less than two hours. I thought I had it pegged; with Jeff Bridges in town for a tribute, I figured it might be the Coen brothers' remake of True Grit, which would be a huge get for LSIFF. (Using similar logic, my second choice was Tron: Legacy, which would be a huge get for entirely different reasons.) However, my picks were blown out of the water by a note in the program saying that our mystery film played at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this year. That scratches both of the Bridges films. It also rules out Country Strong, which would have made a nice companion with the screenings of Crazy Heart and The Blind Side that played at the festival earlier today. It also would have made sense because writer-director Shana Feste had her debut film The Greatest unveiled at last year's LSIFF.

So what are the possibilities? Most of Toronto's bigger items have already hit the movie theaters, but the ones that haven't include John Cameron Mitchell's Rabbit Hole, a heavy drama starring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart as a couple dealing with the death of their young son. Then there's Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine, starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a couple who fall in and out of love. (The movie recently got rated R by the MPAA, which caused everyone who had seen the film to go "Whuh?") There's also Robert Redford's The Conspirator, a period piece about the criminals who took part in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in the days immediately after the president's shooting. Tom Hooper's The King's Speech has been getting all sorts of Oscar buzz lately, starring Colin Firth as King Edward VI of Britain and Geoffrey Rush as the speech therapist who taught him to overcome his stutter. My fondest wish, though, is that the mystery film might be Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, with Natalie Portman as a star ballerina who's going insane. If LSIFF has that one, I'm going to bow down to them. We'll find out soon, and I'll let you all know how it turned out.

Casual Friday

2010-11-13T01:05:00.000-08:00

After yesterday started off with so many dark and disturbing shorts, it was nice to see today's shorts program primarily composed of funny shorts. There was even some star power in Jordan Vogt-Roberts' Successful Alcoholics, which stars T.J. Miller and Lizzy Caplan as, um, successful alcoholics. (They were both in Cloverfield. He's been in She's Out of My League and Unstoppable. She's been in Hot Tub Time Machine and True Blood.) They're high-functioning salespeople who are engaged to each other and are so far gone that they're reduced to drinking mouthwash at 4 a.m. at one point. The material was pretty good in this one, and the presentation was slick. I also liked Landon Zakheim's Delmer Builds a Machine, which can be seen in its entirety here. It's only two and a half minutes, it tells only one joke, and it builds up to that skilfully. The only shortcoming was that I didn't immediately get the identity of the old man at the end. The end credits gave me that information. Then there was The Legend of El Limbo, which was co-written by Kevin Brennan, a local guy who also worked on last year's festival opener The Scenesters. (We profiled him earlier.) El Limbo is a Western spoof that tweaks Sergio Leone, tells a good joke, and doesn't overstay its welcome. Well done.

A slight change of tone came from the documentary short at the end. Ken Ochiai's Frog in the Well shows the filmmaker traveling all across his native Japan because his late mother wanted him to scatter her ashes all over her homeland. Very little footage is actually filmed; most of it is still photos taken in quick succession and strung together in sequence. The tone is frenetic and yet wistful and nostalgic.

The feature event was Mike Leigh's Another Year. Leigh's coming off his marvelous but atypically sunny film Happy-Go-Lucky; this feels more like the Leigh we know. There's a lot of misery here, and it might be difficult to take if the main characters weren't basically happy people. They're a married geologist and psychiatric counselor (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen), and we see them receiving their grown son Joe (Oliver Maltman) and various friends at their London flat at different times over the course of a year. Joe is pretty much okay, but everybody else is a train wreck. There's a sad turn by Peter Wight as a fat guy who seems hellbent on eating and drinking his way to an early grave; he guzzles wine and beer at the same time during a meal. Even that is outstripped by this amazing supporting performance by Lesley Manville as their friend Mary, who also drinks way too much and keeps up a pathetically positive outlook. It's pathetic because she never stops feeling sorry for herself for being alone and past 50, even though she's quite beautiful. I wish there'd been more of a crowd for this, but I heard more than one audience member say they knew somebody like Mary. Manville's highly strung performance is horribly real. You feel like you're the one cooped up with her and her boozy self-pity. When I make my list of great acting performances of 2010, I'll remember this one.

I went straight from Another Year into the far different Miss Nobody, a Heathers-like satire about a pharmaceutical company secretary (Leslie Bibb) who accidentally kills her boss (Brandon Routh) while he's sexually harassing/trying to rape her and then discovers that murdering her horrible, corrupt, sexually deviant bosses and colleagues is a great way to climb the corporate ladder. The main character serves as a narrator, and sometimes turns to the camera in the middle of a scene to continue her narration. This is a difficult role to play, and Bibb does it perfectly. (I always thought Bibb was underappreciated. Remember her in Talladega Nights? "I'm a driver's wife! I don't work!") Director Tim Cox put a lot of talent around her, too (Adam Goldberg, Kathy Baker, Missi Pyle, Paula Marshall, Barry Bostwick), and directs this in a candy-coated style that's exactly what's needed. So why isn't this movie awesome? I think it's because the material just isn't there. That's too bad. You can tell a lot of talent went into this thing. I hope the artists involved get a chance to do better stuff.

The evening ended with a midnight screening of Dawning, a horror film that makes an admirable stab at psychological complexity but doesn't do much right. It's about a family of four trapped in a log cabin by a deranged intruder who claims that some malign supernatural force killed his girlfriend. Writer-director Greg Holtgrewe does some innovative things with the sound mix, but he needed to do more to make us wonder whether something really was out there or whether the demons are all in everyone's heads.

The film was preceded by yet another humorous segment about applying movie logic to the real world. (These things are co-written by Andrew Disney, I've learned since yesterday.) This one was about a couple who hit a mysterious creature with their car. Disney and director Sam Parnell were parodying a horror-movie cliche, so it was dismaying right off the bat to see Dawning do that same cliche straight-up.

It's 4 a.m. and I'm off to bed. There's a screening of a mystery film tomorrow evening. In the afternoon I'll air my speculation over what that might be. — Kristian Lin

Dark and Disturbing Times

2010-11-11T21:57:00.001-08:00

Wow, the second day of LSIFF sure served up a lot of angst and outright horror. Primarily I'm thinking of the shorts program that started off the evening. The Wonder Hospital is a disquieting Dali-esque animated Korean film about a girl who goes into a hospital for cosmetic surgery and has it go very wrong indeed. That was followed up by Pinched, another animated film (this one from the U.S.) about a pickpocket battling schizophrenia, personified by a giant dreadlocked gorilla with a Caribbean accent. The racial caricature made me uneasy, as did the conclusion implying that a girl's love can make mental illness go away. Yet there's no denying the slickness of David Vandervoort's drawing style, about halfway between Jules Feiffer and Gorillaz' music videos. I wasn't offended by it, though, like I was with Matthew Morgenthaler's Love Me Tender, a slasher flick about a wholesome girl seeking a "white knight" and hacking to death any boy who doesn't measure up. I'm told the intentions were satirical; any humor the film had was lost on me. Then there was a Swedish film called An Affair With Dolls, which told much the same story but in more effective terms, with a woman in her 30s dressed up as a doll (knee socks, frilly blouse, short tutu) and acting out a story with dolls that ends with her committing violence against both dolls and people. What is with all these unhinged women early in the going? The Swedish film is nicely hinky, but Marwencol addressed dolls in more creative terms yesterday.

There was a much funnier entry with the Finnish short The Patient, which is about a security guard at a mental hospital who's making rounds late at night when he runs into a patient outside the ward who claims to be an angel. The twist is that the patient may be right, but there's one more twist after that. The short is full of that deadpan Finnish sense of humor that one sometimes hears about, as the guard unleashes an astonishing monologue that goes seamlessly from "What was in the universe before the Big Bang?" to "Why does the Easter Bunny exist? And isn't it strange that a bunny lays eggs made of chocolate?" The most frightening short film was S. Vollie Osborn's Monsters Down the Hall, in which a kid in New York City sees his heroin-addicted mom coming out of an apartment down the hall and is told by her to never go in there. Naturally, he imagines the place as full of monsters. The filmmakers do an excellent job of making that apartment building look like something in one of Hell's sleazier neighborhoods, and the creatures there would do any haunted house proud.

The feature I saw was Monogamy, the first fiction film by Dana Adam Shapiro, whose documentary Murderball was my favorite film of 2005. I had high hopes for this thing, which only set me up for disappointment. Chris Messina (from Vicky Cristina Barcelona and the recent Devil) stars as a New York City photographer who's hired by various people to take candid shots of them from afar as they go about their business. One hot young woman who hires him starts masturbating in public, visible only to his camera lens. Then she starts engaging in high-risk sexual activity for the benefit of his camera. His fiancee (Rashida Jones) knows about this from the beginning. I guess later on his obsession starts driving them apart somehow. It's not really clear. The movie does give us Rashida Jones singing and playing guitar; it's no surprise that Quincy Jones' daughter is musically talented. Still, what starts out as an intriguing erotic thriller with psychological overtones turns into a tedious disquisition on pre-wedding jitters. That's no fun.

I went straight to Mark Claywell's documentary American Jihadist. I missed the first few minutes, but I caught the gist of this profile of Clevin Holt, an African-American U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who converted to Islam in the 1970s and changed his name to Isa Abdullah Ali. Isa went rogue and traveled to Iran, Afghanistan, and Bosnia to help revolutionaries spread the word of Allah and fight the Shah, occupying Soviets, and genocidal Serbs. The CIA kept careful tabs on him the whole time, yet they were powerless to keep him out of America or off any planes because he only provided training for the Muslim insurgents/guerrillas/freedom fighters/what you will. There's no evidence that he ever took part in any war crimes or terrorist acts. He has since settled in Bosnia, and if he has any sort of opinion on the terrorists currently waging war on Islam's behalf, I missed it. The insights into him aren't deep, but his story is interesting enough to be worth hearing.

The festival is running humorous locally made segments before showings about people applying movie logic to real-world situations. I thought the one before Marwencol would be the only one, but there was another one before the shorts program, so apparently there'll be more of these. The first was a pretty lame bit about a dude trying to perform an inception on his girlfriend so she'll let him watch football on Sundays. The second was much better, with a guy deciding to ignore an animal bite that he sustains while gardening. ("It's probably a bat! I'll turn into a vampire! We'll be wealthy and I'll have diamonds in my skin!") I badly needed the dose of humor on this night. If there are more of these, I'll pass the word along. — Kristian Lin

Doll Town

2010-11-11T07:52:00.000-08:00

I had some trouble signing on last night, but I'm here now to weigh in on Lone Star Film Festival's opening selection, Marwencol. It takes some gumption to open a film festival with a documentary without much exposure and with a relatively obscure subject matter. Yet there was still a pretty healthy crowd there, especially given that it was Wednesday evening with the Fort Worth premiere of Spring Awakening playing a couple of blocks away at Bass Hall. (So wish I could have made one of the show's performances.) The prime seats at the AMC Palace's big auditorium were about three-quarters full, and there was significant spillover onto the floor-level seats.

What that crowd saw was an utterly absorbing film about Mark Hogancamp, a mentally damaged artist living in upstate New York. Before 2000, he was a Navy sailor and a mean drunk with a talent for drawing and some serious demons running loose in his head. The evidence for this is a diary that he kept that includes some violent cartoons and a scrawled "last entry" clearly meant to be a suicide note. That changed ten years ago, when he made the mistake of telling some guys in a bar that he liked to dress up in women's clothes, and they beat him into a coma. (Hogancamp isn't gay, by the way.)

Having re-learned to do everything as a functioning human being, Hogancamp no longer drinks. Instead, he spends his time creating a 1/6 scale Belgian World War II village in his backyard. He populates the place with dressed-up G.I. Joe and Barbie dolls, each of whom has a name and a distinct identity. Hogancamp takes incredible pains to get the historical detail right in the costumes, weapons, etc. The wheels on the model Jeep looked too new when he got them, so we see him distressing the wheels by dragging the toy car behind him as he walks down the road. He incorporates his friends and relatives into the village as well, and filmmaker Jeff Malmberg interviews those people while they're holding doll versions of themselves. The place is called Marwencol after Mark's name plus the names of two women friends, Wendy and Colleen.

Hogancamp finds a level of fame with his photographs of Marwencol, and the movie builds toward a gallery show of these in New York City, a trip that gives the artist considerable jitters as to whether he'll be able to handle the attention. He never intended Marwencol to be a piece of art; it was just his own form of therapy. Marwencol has complex ongoing storylines that reminded me of Henry Darger's work, and the fictional place's roiling sexual tension and violence is clearly a way for Hogancamp to work out his own personal feelings of anger and fear stemming from his beating. Ultimately, the film gives an inspiring look at a man who's had so much taken away from him and yet has found a way forward that gives his life greater purpose than it had before. And he even works up the courage to wear a pair of heels and seamed stockings at the gallery opening. Much like Marwencol itself, the movie feels like an unearthed treasure that you feel privileged to have come across. Nice opening, let's see what the rest of the festival holds. — Kristian Lin

Closing Thoughts

2009-11-16T12:14:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention that the AMC Palace theater, where most of these screenings were held, has upgraded to digital projection especially for this festival. I saw the results a week before, when the theater showed A Christmas Carol in 3-D. No doubt they were feeling left out at not being able to show all the movies that came out in 3-D earlier this year.

I returned on Sunday to watch Spooner, the winner of the festival's Best Dramatic Feature award. It's a romantic piece that stars Matthew Lillard as a sad-sack used car salesman who still lives with his parents in an unfashionable part of California. His life changes when he stops to help a girl (Nora Zehetner) who's broken down on the side of the road. I always thought Matthew Lillard was an underappreciated actor, and there's quite a bit of chemistry between him and Zehetner. There's hardly any material to this movie, though. Compared to this, a film as slight as Management, which has a similar theme, looks as dense as a Russian novel. It has its minor charms, though. Interesting note: Christopher McDonald plays Lillard's dad, 10 years after they played father and son in SLC Punk!, and rock 'n' roll film that I liked a lot.

Well, that wraps up the third iteration of the Lone Star International Film Festival. As I mentioned before, the inclusion of The Messenger ensured that there wasn't any slippage in quality between last year and this year. There's always an initial burst of energy in getting a festival like this off the ground, but it's a different matter maintaining people's interest once the new event is firmly established. What we need to keep our eye on for next year is what the festival will do to keep itself fresh. These are tricky times to be running any sort of cultural institution, but especially for one that's in that delicate phase. In light of the success that the festival's been able to maintain, let's wish it the best. As always, thanks to everyone who's been keeping up with this blog. -- Kristian Lin

Saturday films

2009-11-15T10:01:00.000-08:00

Again, I return to the LSIFF to partake in much foreign and domestic treats of cinema!

Artois the Goat was a funny if somewhat overlong comedy directed by Austinites Cliff and Kyle Bogart, starring Dan Braverman as Virgil, an unsatisfied taste test lab worker who one day decides to pursue his dream of…making the world’s best goat cheese. A comedic take on the “follow your passion” genre, the movie was still a lot of fun. Good acting and fun characters, like Virgil’s german baker friend Yens played by Stephen Taylor Fry, who is paranoid a homeless guy outside his store is actually an undercover FDA agent. The movie still has that unmistakable college student/indie feel, but in this case that adds to its earnest charm, as does its offbeat sense of humor (the inspirational talking goat vision comes to mind.) It could use a little editing to tighten it up and cut about 10 minutes off the run time, but still this was a good funny surprise.

Documentary Severe Clear was next. Directed by Kristian Fraga, the movie takes videos shot by First Lieutenant Mike Scotti during the initial invasion of Iraq, and provides and honest, warts and all view of marine and military life. There are few stoic soldiers, mostly just guys acting like guys in high school; pulling pranks, cussing like sailors, and most of all trying to kill the boredom, which seems to be the main enemy next to the Iraqis. I have a friend in the army go through two tours in Iraq, and this movie definitely helped me understand what he went through over there. Funny and brutally honest, this doc should be viewed by anyone hoping to have an idea of what American troops go through, in this or any war.

Lastly on Saturday came the German film Distance, about quiet botanical worker Daniel (Ken Duken) who falls in love a woman who also works there, the sweet Jana (Franziska Weisz). Also, Daniel is a serial killer. Though very quiet and deliberately paced, the movie is captivating, as Daniel is never given a reason for why he kills (which produer Michael Frenschkowski says was intentional) so you never know when he’ll kill next, if Jana is safe, which makes the obvious love they feel that much sadder. This movie hit me in my soft “outsider looking in” spot (though I’ve never had a problem with homicidal urges…I think), and made for a pretty captivating, but also a little too slow, character drama/thriller. Heavily recommended.

Now to just see what Sunday holds!

-Cole Williams

Bad News Brings Good News

2009-11-14T21:54:00.000-08:00

So far the festival hadn't had any buzz-creating movies like it did the previous two years, and I was starting to get worried that there wouldn't be one. Luckily, The Messenger stepped in on the last night of the festival and did the job.

First things first: The block of shorts at Four Day Weekend served up one highlight in Alex Dron's Fot: The Next Big Thing, an animated film from New Zealand that features a running monologue by the runty title character, who thinks he's destined to be a great soccer player when he isn't strong enough to lift a bag of soccer balls. The short went on a bit too long, and a little bit of that character goes a long way. Still, Fot is voiced by The Flight of the Conchords' Rhys Darby, and it was a kick to see this film on the same day that New Zealand qualified for the World Cup soccer tournament.

I cut out on the awards ceremony in favor of The Greatest, and was repaid with a rather shameless example of a standard-issue Hollywood-style tearjerker. Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon play parents whose son is killed just before he goes off to college, and then, in the midst of their grief, meet the girl their son made pregnant (Carey Mulligan). The reason I saw this movie was Carey Mulligan, who seems likely to land an Oscar nomination for her amazing performance in An Education, which is playing this weekend at the Modern and is slated to start playing at AMC Grapevine Mills this coming Friday. (I'll have a review later this week.) She reminds me quite a bit of Michelle Williams, but she couldn't rescue this film from its heavy-handedness, and her American accent kept slipping.

I was there for the beginning of the awards ceremony. In previous years the festival gave out its awards at a ritzy Sunday brunch at the Worthington. This year they had a much smaller nighttime affair at the Norris Conference Center, though I did like the mashed potato bar. The foreign film competition was won by China's Petition, while the documentary honors went to Egypt's Garbage Dreams. The narrative competition was won by an American film, Spooner. I regret to say I didn't see any of them, but I'll get the chance to catch up with Spooner tomorrow afternoon.

The Messenger stars Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster as two soldiers assigned to the U.S. Army's casualty notification unit, which dispatches uniformed officers to do the emotionally draining work of informing American civilians that their loved ones have been killed in Iraq. In one respect, the movie compares with The Hurt Locker, which is also about a soldier with an unusual job. On the other hand, the better comparison might be Up in the Air (which comes out in early December and is also something to watch for), since both movies are about people whose job is to break bad news in the gentlest way possible. The film was co-written and directed by Oren Moverman, who served in the Israeli military and spent some time doing this same job. (This New York Times article has some fascinating details of the research he had to do.) The movie is a bit scattered, and I have some issues with the climactic scene, but it's powerful and unsentimental stuff, and it has some terrific acting by Harrelson, Foster, and Samantha Morton as a war widow who contemplates having an affair with Foster's character. Good to see Morton back on the screen.

It seems like a no-brainer to say that a festival should play at least one of the year's best movies, and yet that's difficult to pull off unless you're Sundance or Toronto or some other well-established fest. The Lone Star Festival needed a movie of this caliber as a point of prestige. If it hadn't been for The Messenger, the festival might well have lost some steam. Now we can point to that movie like we pointed to Let the Right One In and Sunshine Cleaning and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Those movies all prove that the festival is bringing us Oscar-worthy work and not just interesting curiosities from obscure corners of the world, as valuable as that is. The Messenger is proof that the festival is not slipping, but rather remains one of the city's great annual cultural events.

I'll be back tomorrow with some closing thoughts. -- Kristian Lin

Come Saturday Morning

2009-11-14T13:39:00.000-08:00

Such a beautiful day outside, I almost wish I didn't have all these movies to watch. For me, movie-watching weather is when it's blazing hot or pouring rain. Well, at least all the people visiting Fort Worth for the festival are enjoying this.

The highlight of the early morning shorts program was a spooky Australian short film called Miracle Fish, about a bullied boarding-school kid who hides out in the school's sick bay for a few hours and then emerges to find that everybody has mysteriously vanished. I like the way the movie resists throwing the kid into a hackneyed thriller plot; the boy reacts to it all by eating candy and drawing on the chalkboard. Other than that, the program also had City of Cranes, which I took note of when it played at last year's festival.

Then I headed over to the Kimbell for Ry Russo-Young's You Won't Miss Me, which our presenter aptly said was "probably the grungiest movie that's ever been shown at the Kimbell." Russo-Young is affiliated with the "mumblecore" movement, having acted in Hannah Takes the Stairs and directed the feature film Orphans, plus a short called Nude Descending Stairs that, if my memory serves me, played at the first LSIFF. (Also, movement regulars Aaron Katz, Joe Swanberg, and Greta Gerwig all appear in You Won't Miss Me.) I put the word "mumblecore" in quotes because many filmmakers associated with it don't like the term, and I really don't see what they're doing as all that different from Richard Linklater's early films, or indeed from My Dinner With Andre.

Enough about that. What about the movie itself? It stars Stella Schnabel (the daughter of painter/filmmaker Julian Schnabel, and the granddaughter of pianist Artur Schnabel) as a mentally unstable 23-year-old named Shelly who, when she isn't doing drugs and having sex with all manner of shaggy-haired artistes (male and female), is pursuing acting not because she really wants a career but rather so that she can get away from herself for a while. The movie is aimless, sometimes maddeningly so, but it's a deliberate strategy to capture the directionless quality of this young woman's life. The skeezy New York City apartments that the movie plays out in are evoked pretty well, and there's some vinegary stuff when Shelly has a big falling out with one of her friends in a hotel room. You Won't Miss Me has some flat stretches, and it's not a very likable piece, but it has some interesting things to say from a viewpoint you don't get from most other films. -- Kristian Lin

Stopping and Starting

2009-11-13T22:28:00.000-08:00

I feel like a slacker for only seeing two films today, though I actually saw a bit more. I went out to the Modern to see Dancing Across Borders, Anne Bass' documentary about a boy she met in 2000 while traveling to Angkor Wat. His name is Sokvannara Sar, though his nickname is "Sy" (pronounced "see"). Bass saw him perform in a Cambodian dance troupe and was sufficiently struck by his grace that she encouraged him to study classical ballet in America, even though at 16 he was supposedly too old. Now he's a professional ballet dancer, and finding one of those in Cambodia is apparently like finding a great NASCAR driver in Ethiopia. Once you get past this intriguing setup, the film doesn't have a whole lot of drama. Sy just makes the same adjustments to a strange land that so many other immigrants make. It does have a lot of well-edited dance footage (it's the first filmmaking effort by Bass, who's better known as a Manhattan socialite and ballet patron), and Sy himself is an engaging subject with a charming sense of humor. He has a great natural stage presence as a dancer, too. The auditorium at the Modern was pretty full. I just wish I had seen this with the Weekly's Leonard Eureka, who knows much more about ballet than I do and could give a much more in-depth assessment of Sy's talents.

I got back to the AMC Palace just in time to catch the end of Andrew Disney's presentation of short films, which concluded with a terrifically funny short film by the comedy team calling themselves BriTANicK about a guy who has his friends play an absurdly convoluted practical joke just so he can dump his girlfriend. (I didn't get the title of the short, unfortunately.) The screening room was packed and Disney was leading the cheers for developing a film industry in Fort Worth. He knows how to galvanize a room, too. Who knows? Maybe he can make it happen. The atmosphere in that theater was easily the best I've experienced at this year's festival so far.

My day ended with Breaking Upwards, a romantic comedy by Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones. The two actors not only starred in the film but also co-wrote the script, while Lister-Jones provided lyrics to most of the songs on the soundtrack and Wein directed. If this sounds like a vanity project, well, it plays like one, too. (Wein previously directed a documentary called Sex Positive, which played in Fort Worth as part of last year's Q Cinema festival.) The main characters, who are named Daryl and Zoe, are a disintegrating couple who try to ease into their breakup by "taking days off" from each other. Not surprisingly, it doesn't go as planned. Also not surprisingly, these characters are incredibly self-absorbed who engage in all sorts of unfunny banter. There was one scene I missed because the DVD kept freezing at the same point, forcing the projectionist to go back several times before eventually deciding to skip over it. It didn't impact my nonenjoyment of the film. Juno's Olivia Thirlby turns up as a girl who meets Daryl at a party. She couldn't make this any less of a dud. Hope the movies I see tomorrow turn out better. -- Kristian Lin

GOOD NEWS!

2009-11-13T15:45:00.000-08:00

If you wanted to see Vanished Empire, a Russian movie about kid trying to impress girl in early 1970s Soviet Union, but didn't go because you didn't want to go downtown at 5 pm on a Friday, you're totally in luck--due to technical difficulties, the subtitles didn't work, so they're going to show it again tomorrow around 2 pm.

While the film still ran, I ducked out in favor of waiting for tomorrow afternoon. I'm sure people watch foreign films with the subtitles off all the time, but I'll bet they do it in the comfort of their homes, sitting in their shorts and eating chips. You know, because they're totally high.

Anyway, I'm going to watch Tenure. I kind of wish it were also in Russian.--Steve Steward

Ups and Downs on Day 2

2009-11-12T22:03:00.000-08:00

Whew! I spent the early part of this day conducting interviews in Plano for an upcoming cover story, and then attending a screening of Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox. (You can get my thoughts on that in two weeks.) All that was before I got back to Fort Worth for the second day of the festival.

I went to Serious Moonlight and was sorely disappointed. As I wrote in my preview piece, it was directed by Cheryl Hines (better known as the lead actress in Curb Your Enthusiasm), who carried the torch for the project after Adrienne Shelly's murder, so much so that a studio executive suggested that Hines direct it herself. Well, her inexperience shows in the piece's wobbly tone and overall staginess. Granted, it's tricky material, and the entire movie takes place in one location when a lawyer (Meg Ryan) ties up her husband (Timothy Hutton) rather than let him leave her for another woman. But the script seems to frame the main character as a romantic when her behavior is psychotic, and Meg Ryan looks totally lost as to how to play her. The violence that comes when a thief (Justin Long) shows up to rob the place jars with what's come before, and the ending is really weak. Kristen Bell pops in as the other woman. She will always hold a place in my heart for starring in Veronica Mars, and she's really good at being mean. Some of the funniest stuff was some slapstick bits late in the film she joins her boyfriend in being tied up on the bathroom floor, but it's not enough to overcome all the problems here.

After that was over, I attended the shorts program, which was entirely made up of films made in Texas. Dig Deep is a documentary that features the eye-catching art of Deep Ellum fixture Frank Campagna, while Sam Lerma's Trash Day strikes exactly the right comic mood in telling the story of a woman with a creepy crush on her garbageman. I was cringing at the synopsis of Sukwon Shin's Unbelievable4, expecting a lot of stale satire in its story about George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld protecting the earth from space aliens. However, this animated film scores because its action sequences actually look good, because it shows the four White House officials singing Europe's "The Final Countdown" like they're in an old MTV rock video, and because it's all done so straightforwardly that it would be a Republican rally staple if you took out the last shot. You can watch the whole film here. My favorite shot is the one early on of Condi Rice in a leather catsuit crouching Angelina Jolie-style on top of a skyscraper. Even funnier was Jenny Goddard's Weight of the World, with some delicately scripted and well-acted banter between two boys who've been hung from a tree by their underwear and are now wondering what the impact will be on their adult lives. Hope the other shorts programs will have this many highlights. -- Kristian Lin

By the way

2009-11-12T13:28:00.001-08:00

I did enjoy Excuse Me, the short shown prior to The Scenesters, made by the same guys. They're not hacks or anything; I think their feature just sort of fizzled in its execution.--Steve Steward

The Scenesters

2009-11-12T12:48:00.000-08:00

From what I read about this movie, I assumed it would be something completely different. For all the name dropping (for example, one guy says of his band, "We had a residency at Spaceland..."), I found the promised L.A. hipster-skewering to be at best toothless and obvious and at worst cumbersome and unfunny. Like Kristian pointed out, it's a jumble of forms ranging from handheld-camera veritae (when is this going to peter out, by the way?) to deliberately hammy noir--that didn't bother me. What perturbed me most was why just about every joke or stinger that should have elicited a laugh or even a chuckle clumped to the ground in a humorless piles of failed punchlines.

The characters deliver these ripostes in an earnest deadpan, the sort of thing that works in a Judd Apatow movie or on The Office. Or, geez, I suppose Entourage. For all the popular precedents, the director can't quite pull it off. The acting isn't terrible, but I think the actors timing is off, like watching a video where out-of-synch sound is on that precise mark between tolerable and unwatchable. Eh, that's charitable. I caught myself heaving several sighs of annoyance.

Speaking of annoyance, I'd say the characters are patently unlikeable, even Charlie, who is supposed to be the hero. Kristian enumerated the plot well enough, so I won't bother. It's amusing that the most repellent of them (the producer character--I forget his name, but he's the one who looks like a blonde Seth Green) talks about character arcs at one point, because his remains the same throughout. I suppose this irony is intentional, the point being to tell us how many stupid, unscrupulous wannabes fill the shallow end of the indie filmmaking pool, but I thought it was too heavy-handed and irritating. I mean, most people know someone like this guy; if you're into books, it's the girl at the party who gets a little drunk and makes sure you know she's read one by someone who won a Booker prize. If you're into music, it's the guy who talks about "industry people" or says stuff like, "Oh, well my friends in The Bronx..." meaning the hardcore band rather than the borough. In this case, it's the self-described "movie geek" who mentions Truffaut or Fellini while you're speedeating chips at Chili's, who also says of any movie he enjoyed, "I think they did a good job." So these two are familiar, but if you don't like those characters in real life, you probably won't like them in this film.

And actually, the super deadpan guy (Wallace Cotten) who plays the director of the film within the film (I guess he is the actual director, though this movie's obsession with its own meta-ness made me too tired to figure out) is just as irritating, for the same reason as the producer character. And while Charlie, the hero, is a comparative saint relative to the Producer's and Cotten's amorality, he seems to be as big a douche as everyone else. There's a point, however, where he seems to become hypnotized with the fake movie's hardboiled noir so much that it spills into his life outside of the fake-movie's frames, trying to solve the actual murders that drive the plot. This would have made the movie way more interesting, a character study about a real person who turns into a character because he's surrounded by idiots who convince him to become as two-dimensional as they are. And as for why he goes along with them... who knows? There's no convincing reason why he doesn't go to the police, and he never seems as vain or unscrupulous (or even as stupid) as the two filmmakers. And actually, he doesn't even seem to be interested in becoming a player or a star like everyone he has to associate with. I never bought his resignation to go along with the plan for hiding evidence from the police in favor of unmasking the killer on his own. This guy is aimless and a little lazy, and letting someone else take care of a problem seems like his character's default setting. The only motivation that makes sense to me is that he doesn't seem to have anything better to do.

So I was disappointed in this movie, but I think the festival is even better than last year. Why The Scenesters is a centerpiece is a mystery to me, other than that two of its creators are from Keller and Grand Praire. I'm really looking forward to Ichi.--Steve Steward

Opening Scenesters

2009-11-11T21:18:00.000-08:00

How do you pick the opening night selection for one of these festivals? I was talking with Q Cinema's Todd Camp after the end of The Scenesters, this year's LSIFF opener. Todd pointed out that last year's opening night pick (Sunshine Cleaning) was an enjoyable film with big names, but no one from the film had appeared at the premiere. This year had the opposite problem, with lots of people from the film at the premiere, but no big names on the screen. Maybe that's why I left feeling like I would have enjoyed the movie more as a regular festival selection instead as the opener.

The Scenesters is by a comedy troupe calling themselves The Vacationeers: writer-director Todd Berger and his co-stars Kevin Brennan, Jeff Grace, and Blaise Miller. For a movie by a comedy troupe, this is an ambitious piece. It's about two ethically challenged documentary filmmakers who initially find a subject in Charlie, a guy who cleans up crime scenes (shades of Sunshine Cleaning!) but then shift their focus when Charlie discovers evidence that the murder scenes he's cleaning up are the work of a single serial killer. The film is like a Chinese box; I spent the first 20 minutes or so trying to disentangle the framing device from the flashbacks. Berger shoots much of the film like a fake documentary, but he also inserts parodies of everything from instructional films to music videos to mumblecore movies. Some of it is very funny, but things turn serious when Charlie tries to figure out the killer's identity while the documentarians manipulate reality to make Charlie into their hero. This is a tough trick to pull off, and Berger doesn't quite get the balance right between showbiz satire and David Lynch-style paranoia.

Side notes: Anthony Mariani already took note of the Vacationeers' local ties. Suzanne May, who plays Charlie's TV reporter ex-girlfriend, can also be seen in Gentlemen Broncos, which opens Friday in Dallas. The feature was preceded by an amusing short film by the Vacationeers called Excuse Me, in which Julia Stiles plays herself as an annoying celebrity who goes up to four guys in a restaurant and pesters them, trying to give them her autograph while they try to give her the brush-off. Nice comic reversal.

Hello Again!

2009-11-11T11:38:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe it's been almost a full year, but the Lone Star International Film Festival is ready to start up again for its third running. Jimmy Fowler, Anthony Mariani, Steve Steward, Cole Williams, and I will all have updates from this year's event, starting with tonight's screening of The Scenesters, so stay tuned. -- Kristian Lin

Closing thoughts

2008-11-23T21:18:00.000-08:00

Looking back on the Lone Star International Film Festival, I think the movies on offer were at about the same level as last year's fare, which was pretty good. The Russian movies got a bit heavy, even the supposedly lighter entries like '12' and 'Nirvana,' but it's always good to see the state of filmmaking in an active country like Russia. That's one thing festivals can accomplish; it's much easier to see a bunch of foreign films from the same country at a festival than it is to track down all those specialty DVDs.

That said, I think 'Let the Right One In' is the one thing most likely to make people come away saying, "Wow, I saw something cool at the Lone Star Film Festival!" It's all very well to use a festival to conduct an academic exploration of foreign cinema, but I don't think LSIFF can afford to overlook the "cool" factor when it comes to programming. Yes, it's easier for me to sit here and say "we should have cool movies" than it is for other people to find them and book them, but that's what will create buzz around this event more than anything else.

Organizationally, this festival was more efficient than last year's, probably because they had the advantage of running their operation out of the nearby Norris Conference Center downtown instead of the West Side office they were in last year. It made a noticeable difference.

The change in management meant that the Lone Star Film Festival didn't get a chance to firmly establish an aesthetic identity in its second year, but the same people figure to be in charge next year, and they'll have more time to organize. We'll need to monitor the event to see what sort of movies festivalgoers can expect, and how LSIFF will set itself apart from AFI Dallas or South by Southwest.

The big-ticket items like 'Sunshine Cleaning' and 'Last Chance Harvey' -- the films that are assured of a wider release in the future -- were the biggest draws, so they probably won't be going away in the festival's future editions. I'm not arguing that they should, either. In fact, since Christopher Kelly's stimulating annual series at the Modern (Great Films You Haven't Heard of Yet) went dead this year, LSIFF can fill the niche and give us a sneak peek at the movies that the smaller studios are touting as Oscar contenders.

What about the rest of the festival? Will it concentrate on locally made films, American indie features, documentaries, or looks at other countries' cinema like the Russian series? Where is this all headed? That'll be something for us to keep tabs on.

One thing's for sure: Fort Worth needs a film festival in some shape or form. Our city's too big and too cultural to be without one. If you liked the work the festival did this year, they need your time and your money, and you can find out how to help by clicking on their website. If you didn't like this year's fest, then they'll probably still welcome your input as to how to improve next year's event. If that fails, you can always set up your own. It'll be a lot of hard work, but Fort Worth can definitely use it. Thanks for reading, everyone. See you back here next November. -- Kristian Lin

Brief Words on Parties, Celebritydom

2008-11-20T11:03:00.000-08:00

For reasons I’m still not sure of, press people were allowed into some LSIFF parties but only as civilians, not as, y’know, press people. Which was understandable. Totally. Most film fests set aside celebrity reserves, areas where star actors, directors, and best boy grips can hang loose and just be their beautiful, fabulous, smart, famous, gripping selves without fear of turning up in compromising positions in the next day’s newspaper. Why LSIFF had a similar protocol in place is understandable, but … there weren’t any bona fide celebrities there.

Not that I was complaining! As I always say, I wouldn’t pay a dime to watch Jesus wrestle Buddha on my neighbor’s lawn. I could care less about famous people. Anyway, at almost every party I went to, I had the same convo, a variation on, “Yeah, a lot of the movies were great, but the Lone Star people need to get some celebrities here.”

Now, I understand that not everyone is as blasse about celebs as I am. I also know that having celebs appear on panels after screenings is one of the best, most enlightening aspects of any film fest, and also that with A-listers like past LSIFF guests of honor Martin Sheen and Fort Worthians Bill Paxton and Janine Turner typically comes national press coverage and that with national press coverage comes more film submissions and with more films submissions comes better quality and so on.

But isn’t there always a third way? To everything? To any “problem” of sorts that needs solving? I think there is, and I think a third way for the LSIFF to maintain its stellar level of programming while getting more butts in the seats, as the old saying goes, is to focus on longevity, to acquiesce to the thought that the first years may be tough going but that perpetuating high-quality programming will attract attention. In other words, let the national press – and celebs -- come to you by doing what you do best.

ANYWAY, the parties. Briefly: Missed the one on opening night but made the happy-hour one the following night at V Lounge, Vault’s downstairs club. Funny, but the only faces I recognized were a couple of Star-T staffers who happened to be there. (Wonder what film fests’ policies are toward “celebrity journalists”?) And the crowd at the one on Friday night at the Longhorn Saloon in the Stockyards comprised mostly people I know from rock shows, which stands to reason, considering that three great bands were on the bill: The Lifters, Telegraph Canyon, and the Rivercrest Yacht Club. Also on Friday, a couple of storefronts down from the Longhorn at the partially opened Lola’s Stockyards Saloon, was an invite-only party, with Texas Music rocker Josh Davis onstage. Again, didn’t notice anyone famous or infamous there, but Davis was great, and the vibe was appropriately celebratory.

Awards and stuff

2008-11-16T22:34:00.001-08:00

I got up early, got dressed up, and went downtown to the Renaissance Worthington for a free brunch and the chance to watch the festival's awards ceremony. Turns out the honors are a great way of framing my description of my day on the last day of the festival, so that's what I'm going to use.

The award for Best Short Subject went to Clay Liford's "My Mom Smokes Weed," a humorous bit filmed in Dallas about a young guy whose aged mother goes to buy pot from a group of intimidating black guys. I saw it yesterday and didn't find it as funny as the rest of the crowd did, though I suppose it was as deserving of the award as anything else. (If Liford's name sounds familiar to Weekly readers, it's because I profiled him a while back.) None of the shorts at this year's fest overwhelmed me. I caught one of the shorts packages as my last viewing act of this festival, which included Eva Webber's 'City of Cranes,' which juxtaposed lyrical shots of cranes over the London skyline and audio interviews with British crane operators discussing the solitary, high-up nature of their job. If you'd turned the sound off, it would've been dull, but the disembodied interviews made it interesting. I was also struck by "Spider", Nash Edgerton's Australian comic short about a guy who plays a practical joke on his girlfriend while she's driving, with horrible consequences for both of them. (You can actually watch the entire short here.) Some shorts use the duration just to tell a glib joke or score a bit of cheap irony. This one does that, but I have to say the cheap irony can be very funny.

The winner of the Best Foreign Film was 'The Banishment,' which I discussed in an earlier post. The winner of Best Documentary was 'Visual Acoustics,' Eric Bricker's profile of Julius Shulman, an architectural photographer who became famous for taking pictures of iconic modernist buildings. The 98-year-old subject is a marvelously energetic subject, and the film looks gorgeous. I don't know that it's any better than 'They Came to Play,' which I mentioned earlier, but the two films are so different that it's difficult to compare. I saw 'Visual Acoustics' at the Kimbell Art Museum this afternoon. None of the festival's buzzing atmosphere was at this screening, probably because the venue is so far away from the other theaters showing LSIFF's movies. In fact, much of the museum was closed to the public because it was changing over from its recent Impressionist exhibit, so the museum was downright sleepy. Too bad -- it's a great place to show a movie. The screen and digital projection are quite clear, and the screen is easy to see despite the auditorium's odd dimensions (long and narrow).

The last award for Best Narrative Feature went to 'Nirvana,' Igor Voloshin's thoroughly strange Russian film about two young female roommates who wind up owing money to a drug dealer and have to work frantically to pay it back. That doesn't sound strange, but the characters wear weird costumes: Venetian masks, body glitter, fake eyelashes, and makeup you wouldn't see outside of one of Paris' wilder fashion shows. It's as if Baz Luhrmann directed '4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days.' I watched the film in the late afternoon after getting back from the Kimbell, and found it growing on me.

So the festival is at an end, and it's now time for us to render some final judgments. I ask my fellow bloggers: Did you have any issues with the award winners? Were there other films in competition that should have been recognized? Do we all agree that 'Let the Right One In' was the hit of the festival? Did anybody get out to see 'Wendy and Lucy'? At the risk of sounding like an ophthalmologist, was this year's fest better, worse, or about the same as last year's? And what would you like to see next year?

Teen A Go-Go

2008-11-16T21:26:00.000-08:00

Al Pruitt introduces Teen A Go-Go at the Norris Conference Center.

Teen A Go-Go

2008-11-16T21:22:00.000-08:00

Crowds file into the Norris Conference Center for the screening of Teen A Go-Go.

Director of Programming

2008-11-16T21:18:00.001-08:00

Lone Star International Film Festival Director of Programming Alec Jhangiani checking out the official program to the festival.

Nirvana

2008-11-16T21:16:00.000-08:00

Fort Worth Weekly staff writer Kristian Lin playing a video game while waiting for the doors to open for the screening of Nirvana. photo by: vishal malhotra

Catching Up: Let the Right One In, Vexille, and Sunday night

2008-11-16T14:42:00.000-08:00

Cole here again. Well I'm ashamed I didn't post sooner about 'Let the Right One In', but better late than never. I think its a great movie, not just for the atmosphere and the way the movie doesn't explicitly show Eli's vampire powers, but for the sweet romantic nature of the story. One of my favorite things in any story are unique relationships, and they don't get much more unique than the one between weird little Oskar and vampirishly sweet Eli. The scene when she comes into his room and into his bed is crammed with so much stuff: burgeoning adolescence, innocence, losing innocence, creepiness, and is very touching. And the climax...hoo boy! Any movie that has the guts to go where this movie went in regards to kids gets a big thumbs up in my book, namely in showing how the idea that kids are all innocent little perfect beings who don't start being corrupt until they become teenagers is a load of bs.

I also loved how neither Oskar nor Eli are simple cypher characters, there for the audience to put themselves into the story. If anything, I found that human Oskar is creepier than vampire Eli. But its that neither character is normal that makes their relationship that much more investing and heartwarming, for a weird geek like me anyway.

But unfortunately before that I had to sit through 'Vexville', which told me exactly what it was from the first ten minutes: the average anime set in the not-too-distant future that is just cel shaded. For those who don't know, cel-shading is where something is modeled in 3D and the colored and lighted to resemble traditional animation, somewhat similar to rotoscoping and most famously, or infamously, used in the video game 'The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker'. From what the presenter said, its on the cutting edge of animation. Too bad the story is more than 15 years stale.

Seriously, there's no way I can over-emphasize how derivative and boring the movie was. Wow, a futuristic city! Amazing, futuristic techno-armor! Holy cow, green-lit metal corridors! Not only that, but after two somewhat exciting if unoriginal action scenes in the beginning, about 20 minutes in the main character finds herself in Japan. And while the set up for the future of Japan is unique, as are the "Jags", giant 'Dune sandworm-like' monsters made of swirling metal and debris, these are about the only two cool things in the movie, and even with the future of Tokyo its just all slums. The main character has no character and sits on her ass most of the movie, there's maybe on single drop of humor near the end, rendering the whole movie flat, the drama that's there is melodramatic, and a good chunk of the movie is spent with the characters sitting on their asses in the slums of futuristic Tokyo.

Can you imagine someone thought it was a good idea to use amazing computer generated animation and use it to render boring sheet metal and plywood slums? I'll never understand why people take advanced animation technology and use it to render the most boring things imaginable, be it rooms resembling an industrial buildings in the video game 'Doom 3' to the glut of CGI talking animal movies.

In case I haven't gotten the point across, DON'T SEE VEXILLE! If you want to experience the wonders of japanese animation, rent "Akira", rent any of the "Ghost in the Shell" movies or TV shows, and hell rent some Miyazaki anyway ("Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" and "Princess Mononoke" are two enthralling starters). But at least if 'Vexville' got you interested in anime, then that's a good thing.

Also, tried attending the Weekly's wrap up part at Club Embargo Saturday night. Great thing about a press pass is where it can get you in. Bad thing is getting out. Walking into a club packed full of people for someone who loathes crowds was a bad idea. In and out in 2 minutes, tops.

Well, tonight's the last night. I'm looking forward to seeing 'Network' and some of the shorts. Hope to see some of y'all there!

Not Closing Night

2008-11-15T22:36:00.000-08:00

The turn in the weather meant that many visitors to our city found out what the downtown Fort Worthers already know: The sidewalk in front of the AMC Palace turns into a wind tunnel on even moderately breezy days. With all the running I did between downtown venues, I had plenty of opportunities to get my hair mussed.

I started off with 'Trinidad' at the Four Day Weekend Theater. The film was insightful, but I was even more impressed by the improvements in projection quality at that venue. Dennis Bishop was on hand to explain that the theater has a new screen and some parts from the now-defunct AMC Sundance theater (which apparently still has all the old projectors). Now we get a decent video picture here. The Four Day Weekend guys have always been happy to provide a venue for the local festivals, but this is a fair-sized step up.

Speaking of the old AMC Sundance, it's now been replaced by a Norris Conference Center, which is now officially open for business and serving as the festival's headquarters. The building looks much nicer with new lighting and carpets, and there's a nicely decked out Festival Lounge with divans and throw pillows. (Weirdly, I've never seen more than a few people in there at any time.) The staff is very nice, and the place is good to visit for either visitor information or just to check out the new digs. Interestingly, there are four large Warhol-influenced paintings of John Lennon, John Wayne, Al Pacino, and Frank Sinatra decorating the main lobby. These aren't here for the festival -- Norris actually owns them. It's an odd touch for a center for business meetings, but maybe they're hoping to attract cool, creative businesses.

Anyway, the festival organizers were heavily hyping this afternoon's screening of 'The Banishment', not least because the film's writer-director Andrei Zvyagintsev was due to make a personal appearance. Unfortunately, it didn't go so well. The crowd was reasonably sized (about two-thirds full in the small auditorium), but the 35mm print got lost between London and Fort Worth (they showed the film on DVD instead), the director was held up by Customs at the airport (apparently a Russian guy flying in to Dallas from Costa Rica raises questions), and the sound cut out about half an hour into the film, so the audience was treated to about five minutes of silent movie, followed by a rewind and then those same five minutes with the sound.

On top of it all, the film proved to be tough sledding. It played at Cannes last year to wildly mixed reviews, and though the film's star Konstantin Lavronenko won the acting prize for his work, lots of people there found the movie boring. So did some of the people here -- there were a few walkouts -- and with its deliberate pace, lack of dramatic fireworks, and 159-minute running time, it's no wonder that the film hasn't yet found a distribution deal in this country. Zvyagintsev (whom the staffers called "Mr. Z" because they had trouble pronouncing his name) made an eye-catching debut a few years ago with his prize-winning debut film 'The Return', and he's often been compared with the 1960s Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky. 'The Banishment' had the same effect on me as much of Tarkovsky's stuff -- I see the director's enormous talent in terms of composition, timing, and color (even in a DVD projection), but it just doesn't cast that hypnotic spell on me that it does on other moviegoers. Clearly the festival organizers believe passionately in this movie. They even distributed bound copies of an essay by Evgeny Vasiliev detailing the movie's intricate patterns of religious symbolism and artistic allusions. I get all that. It just didn't do much for me.

By the way, Zvyagintsev did eventually show up to take questions from the audience at the end of the film. However, I'm afraid I missed that because the various delays left me with only half an hour to grab dinner before the next screening. Forgive me, gentle readers. Perhaps some of you who were there can fill us in on what he said.

'Last Chance Harvey' was dubbed as the Closing Night screening, which is bizarre given that the festival doesn't actually close until tomorrow. There was a full house for this movie, no doubt drawn by the star power of Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson, whom you may remember appeared in 'Stranger Than Fiction' a couple of years back. 'Harvey' is being released at the end of this year -- I think the studio is looking to make this into a hit among older viewers like 'The Bucket List' last year. This movie is better, but it's still something that'll blow away in a stiff breeze. The whole plot is basically Hoffman and Thompson meeting each other and falling in love during a 24-hour period when he's stranded in London while attending his daughter's wedding. I like the concept (think 'Before Sunrise' for older people) and these are two great actors. It doesn't deserve to get lost amid the Oscar contenders, but neither does it deserve to draw bigger audiences than them. Something tells me I'll be unhappy either way.

I ended the evening back at the Norris, where I saw 'Night Crawlers', a horror flick filmed partially in Burleson and Cleburne. It was no 'Let the Right One In,' but it was still way more watchable than I expected. It starred Lee Trull and Gabriel Horn as two loser best friends who find the population of their small Texas town turning into vampires. The fight scenes were really inept, but some of the comic interludes worked pretty well, and I liked the fact that the two heroes were total weenies who'd scream like girls when the vamps attacked them. The movie maintains a consistently light tone and doesn't take itself too seriously. You'd be surprised how rare that is in a micro-budget horror flick.

Well, tomorrow truly is the last day. Any picks on which movies might or should win the festival's awards? -- Kristian Lin

Q & A with "Teen A Go-Go" director Melissa Kirkendall

2008-11-15T22:30:00.000-08:00

Several years go, veteran music promoter Melissa Kirkendall transitioned from the rawk world to work as a production coordinator on locally shot TV movies and series, including “Prison Break” and “Walker, Texas Ranger.” She makes her debut as a documentary director with “Teen A Go-Go,” a feature-length exploration of 1960’s “teen scenes” around the country—with a special emphasis on North Texas. These “scenes” were adult-run nightspots where teenagers driven into a hormonal frenzy by British Invaders like The Beatles and Herman’s Hermits could dance to the latest national pop hits as well as to live original music by their peers. Local garage bands recorded their own “one-take” tunes, pressed them onto vinyl, and sold them at the gigs where they performed

LSIFF’s 5pm Sunday screening of “Teen A Go-Go” has sold out, prompting Kirkendall and her producer Mark Nobles to sked a second LSIFF screening at 7:30pm. Kirkendall spoke briefly to “Fort Worth Weekly” about her doc.—Jimmy Fowler

FWW: What prompted you to make “Teen A Go-Go”?

Kirkendall: I’d been discussing ideas for music documentaries for a while. Then Mark (Nobles) heard the “Fort Worth Teen Scene” CDs and gave them to me. I was like, “Wow, how could I have not known about this part of the music scene?” I knew about Johnny Reno and John Nitzinger and Bloodrock, but a lot of the garage bands had passed me by. Also, honestly, I was shocked at how good the music was. Bands like The Elites and Larry and The Bluenotes were not business-savvy, they didn’t get the industry advice that today’s teen musicians get, but their songs really hook you.

FWW: Where was the original “Teen A Go-Go” club located in Fort Worth?

Kirkendall: In the mid-‘60s, there were three or four “A Go-Go” clubs in Tarrant County that could attract as many as a thousand kids on a weekend night. There were different venues with names like “Candy Stick A Go-Go” and “Action A Go-Go.” But the original “Teen A Go-Go” that we talk about was in Will Rogers Coliseum, in what’s now called the Roundup Inn. The peak of popularity was probably Friday nights from 1965 to 1966. These scenes were happening all over the country at the same time, with no MySpace to connect what everyone was doing.

FWW: Can you name any “one-take” songs by 1960s Fort Worth bands that’ve become internet collectibles?

Kirkendall: What comes to mind is “One Potato” by The Elites, a song that was covered by the all-girl Japanese punk band The 5.6.7.8.’s. “Night of the Sadist” and “In and Out” (by Larry and the Bluenotes) have been covered by different musicians. These were bands that played more than forty years ago, and they only discovered their records were selling on eBay a couple of years ago.

Last Chance Harvey

2008-11-15T22:10:00.000-08:00

Lone Star Film volunteers check tickets for the sold-out shoe of Last Chance Harvey. photo by: vishal malhotra

How To Be

2008-11-15T22:04:00.000-08:00

The line for How To Be extended all the way outside for this UK film. photo by: vishal malhotra

Melonie Diaz

2008-11-15T21:58:00.000-08:00

Melonie Diaz at the red carpet event at the AMC Palace. Diaz is the recipient of the 2008 Lone Star Rising Star Award. photo by: vishal malhotra

The Banishment

2008-11-15T21:38:00.000-08:00

Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev talks about his camera work during a question / answer forum after his film, The Banishment, was viewed at the AMC Palace. photo by: vishal malhotra

Alternative Distribution & Marketing - Panel

2008-11-15T21:31:00.000-08:00

James M. Johnston (far left) talks about marketing his films with other filmmakers. photo by: vishal malhotra

Reflections on Acting - Panel

2008-11-15T21:27:00.000-08:00

Lauren Velez and Julio Cesar Cedillo discuss acting. photo by:vishal malhotra

Cold-blooded fun

2008-11-15T00:15:00.000-08:00

You're right, Jimmy, the adults in 'Let the Right One In' are pretty awful. (I was tempted to say that they suck, but then I remembered all the hacks who hurl that word at bad vampire flicks, and I held back.) I'm intrigued by your description of the movie's apartment complex setting as "Polanski-esque". I'm assuming you're referring to the apartment that Catherine Deneuve got trapped in in Polanski's 'Repulsion'? I do see the resemblance, but I've also seen apartments like that in other Swedish movies that have nothing to do with vampires. Maybe that's just how they live in Stockholm and the surrounding areas.

I love the creativity in this movie; director Tomas Alfredson and writer John Ajvide Lindqvist came up with a chilling answer to the question of what happens when a vampire enters one's house without an invitation. Jimmy, you characterize the movie as mean-spirited, but on my second viewing I was struck by the sweetness of that central romance. Then again, I was also struck by how much laughter came from the crowd (which packed the screening room at the AMC Palace and gave the movie a rapturous reception) during the climactic sequence when those school bullies got all manner of comeuppance. Now I'm interested to read Lindqvist's novel, which this movie is based on. Apparently it's available in English translations here in America.

The film did leave me with a few questions: Was Lina Leandersson (who superbly played the vampire girl) really walking around in short sleeves in the middle of a Swedish winter? That idea just amazes me. Also, I'm trying to find out what the two kids said to each other in Morse code at the very end. I don't know Morse, and even if I did, I'd still have to translate the messages from Swedish. Readers?

Before that movie, I caught '12', a Russian-language remake of '12 Angry Men' by the Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov, who created a stir in the mid-1990s with his drama 'Burnt by the Sun.' '12' was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar this past spring, but it's not being released in America until 2009. (And I'll say it again: The eligibility rules for the Best Foreign Film Oscar are screwed up.) I found this 150-minute film to be very Russian; many of the characters make a point by telling a story as a parable (something you see a lot in Dostoyevsky novels), and many of the characters have a unique comic tic (like the ones you see in Chekhov plays). The film didn't blow me away, but I was impressed by its intelligent writing and sturdy construction.

The showing of '12' was prefaced by remarks by festival director Dennis Bishop, who urged us to support tax incentives to encourage filmmaking in Texas, saying that "the Texas film industry is dying like Pittsburgh's steel business and Detroit's automakers." The comparisons smack of hyperbole, but I wonder if Texas filmmaking is indeed in that much trouble. I have noticed an uptick of recent movies filmed in New Mexico, including 'Swing Vote,' the festival-opening 'Sunshine Cleaning,' and 'Hamlet 2,' which was supposedly set in Arizona. Is Texas losing movie business at such a rate that we should be worrying?

Bishop also paid tribute to J. Mitchell Johnson, who's responsible for bringing so many Russian films to this year's festival. I profiled Johnson a few years ago for the Weekly, and it's good to see that his Russian connections are being put to good use. I still have a few more Russian movies to see, though, so I'll let you know exactly how good those connections have panned out. -- Kristian Lin

Got them Swedish bloodsucker blues

2008-11-14T22:26:00.000-08:00

Hey, everyone. I’m usually suspicious when the film punditocracy raves about The First Really Scary Movie in a Long Time. But I have to say that the Swedish vampire chiller “Let the Right One In” fulfilled most of the freaky-ass promises that its pre-publicity made. It is visually beautiful, emotionally confounding, and deeply off-putting all at once. The director unleashes all kinds of effects—howling cats, spontaneous flames, blood stains on snow banks—to rattle the subconscious.

The funny thing about this elegant, mean-spirited little horror movie is that classic vampirism (a.k.a. the fangs-in-the-flesh variety) is pretty much kept on the down-low. Center-stage is a chaste but hardly innocent adolescent love story between blonde mortal Oskar and brunette bloodsucker Eli. They share a compulsive fascination with bloodshed—and a residential proximity in the same Polanski-esque apartment building. Their relationship is abetted by the movie’s freakiest conceit—that all adult authority figures are drunken, undependable, or absent, so let the kids be ruled by their worst id-inspired nightmares and fantasies.

Kristian, you’re exactly right that this wintry, brutal vampire love story probably offers a sober counterpoint to the upcoming film version of Stephanie Meyer’s "Twilight.” (Which I haven’t seen). If you missed it at LSIFF tonight, “Let the Right One In” has just opened a run at the Angelika in Dallas. It’s worth a trip across I-30 for lovers of extreme art-house macabre.—Jimmy Fowler.

Friday night!

2008-11-14T15:39:00.000-08:00

Jimmy, I have to agree with you that 'Trinidad'was very fascinating and emotional, though I felt it ran about 10 minutes too long with what felt like too many false endings. I was particularly touched by the commitment made by Sabrina and I think it was Laura's children. I also found the part religion and small town life plays in the film to be interesting. I asked the director P.J. Raval about it and he said that he's not religious but he put all the talk about religion in there because Sabrina is Catholic as is most of the town.

Another funny thing was I asked him if there were ever any hate crimes committed while he was filming. And aside from a group of churches and pastors railing against the sex-change operations in the local newspaper, the biggest thing was Fred Phelps himself showed up in town after filming was completed, and the townspeople asked him to leave! Awesome. Apparently director Raval said that the references to religion and the lack of hate crimes in the small town were put in to not only reflect Sabrina's religious nature but to go against the stereotype of close-minded small towns.

Interestingly, the talk of Fred Phelps invading their town after filming reminds me of something that happened last year. I had just seen the movie 'The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam', a well meaning if mediocre movie about the ancient Muslim astronomer Omar Khayyam and his quest for tolerance and understanding amidst the rise of intolerant zealotry, and was asking director Kayvan Mashayekh some questions when the audience was told that someone outside was passing out comic strip pamphlet by hardcore conservative Christian nutjob 'Jack Chick' (he who wrote that Dungeons & Dragons leads to Satan worship and not abstinence and geek status, and I say that lovingly). Oh the irony.

I'm dying to see 'Let the Right One In'. I've heard nothing but great things about it and can't wait. I also want to see 'Vexville', being a fan of more out there anime (the works of Hayao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon, etc).

Though Kristian I have to disagree about 'Sunshine Cleaning', of course that may be because indie dramas like it are absolutely not my thing at all. In fact the movie gave me a new rule: if a movie's soundtrack is more than 75% made up of acoustic guitar and it isn't a western, I will not see it. Man I can barely stand those plodding, self important, dreary cry fests. I can get drama like that for free on Thanksgiving; don't feel like paying for it at the movies.

I'm also looking forward to what the Weekly's latest after party is like tonight at the Longhorn is like. Hopefully I'll see more actual people from the Weekly there (*wink wink*).

Two hours of shorts

2008-11-13T23:32:00.000-08:00

Jimmy, I'll have to check out 'Trinidad' when it screens again. I got back in time to catch one of the festival's packages of short films. There are only four of them at this series, which is convenient, but this program ran almost two hours. Maybe it's because I'm used to shorts programs that run 70-90 minutes, and maybe it's because this was running late at night, but I felt wiped out when it was over, and I heard a couple of other moviegoers express similar sentiments at the end. The best in this one was a brutal, horrifying, wordless four-minute animated piece called "Sebastian's Voodoo", about a guy stabbing voodoo dolls in his basement. The thing is, the dolls are living things, and they die in excruciating pain when they're stabbed. One of the dolls stabs back. Gnarly, imaginative stuff.

The small auditorium at the AMC Palace was about two-thirds full for the shorts program. There was a steady stream of walkouts, which isn't uncommon at these festivals. Often filmmakers, actors, or crew members involved with one of these short films will come to see their own work and then take off after it's shown. It's rude, but it's also counterproductive -- filmmakers can always learn from their colleagues' work (even if it's which mistakes to avoid), and actors and crew members can find opportunities for roles and jobs with other filmmakers whose work interests them.

If you're wondering about what to see tomorrow, I can highly recommend 'They Came to Play', which I saw about a month ago and found worth blogging about. I also caught a press screening of 'Let the Right One In' this past Monday. I don't want to give too much away, but I will say it's very insinuating and creepy, as opposed to the sort of horror flick that makes you jump. This Swedish vampire movie flips the conventional genders; here it's a boy who falls in love with a girl who's a vampire. Nice that they're releasing this around the same time as 'Twilight.' I can't wait to hear your reactions to it. -- Kristian Lin

A truly "trans"-formational flick

2008-11-13T21:46:00.000-08:00

Having just seen P.J. Raval and Jay Hodges’s documentary “Trinidad,” I have to say: “Wow!” This doc did as perfect a job as I’ve seen of balancing the stories of transgendered people with those of their families and communities—and I’ve seen a lot of film-fest fare about the tricky lives of those who feel to the bottom of their souls that they were born into the wrong gender.

It helps, of course, that the filmmakers had a petri dish of fascinating conflict in the town of Trinidad, Colorado—population 9,000, and unofficially known as “the sex change capitol of America.” This once uber-macho mining and ranching center has become, over the last four decades, a scenic getaway where transsexuals can quietly have their life-changing surgeries. The late Dr. Stanley Biber, a sympathetic surgeon, helped turn Trinidad into a gender-bending mecca with his pioneering 1960s work in the field of the “penile-scrotal flap” technique. (And, yes, the filmmakers include some textbook photos of gender reassignment that are, um, intimate but non-sensationalistic). In one of the movie’s strangest revelations, Dr. Biber reveals that his first trans-operation was in a Catholic hospital—and that it occurred with the permission of the Vatican, which deemed as a condition that the doctor “do no harm” to the patient.

“Trinidad” dispenses with the “please tolerate me” platitudes and focuses on the nitty-gritty details of men who’ve had gender-reassignment surgery to become women. The film’s subjects include Dr. Marci Bowers, a former male OB-GYN from Seattle who resettled to Trinidad to become a female surgeon for transsexuals; and Dr. Laura Ellis, a post-op male-to-female who moved to the town and became a family physician for the general population. Watching her gently encourage a life-long Trinidadian to stop his smoking habit is priceless.

You better believe the children and grandchildren of Trinidad’s founders are not happy about their burg’s reputation. Snarled comments like “Disgusting!” and “That’s not how God made men and women!” appear early on in the movie. But “Trinidad” accomplishes a humane and endlessly watchable feat: It allows the old Trinidad blood—car mechanics, beauty and dress shop owners, firemen, mailmen—to slowly work their way toward their own versions of compassion. “I don’t get it,” said a woman, “but we all bleed the same blood.” “I was standing behind one, and I thought she was real, and she was pretty hot,” said a man gallantly.

The beauty of this doc is that there are no easy solutions and every emotion is messy and universal. Just as the townspeople intentionally and unintentionally cause pain for their transgendered neighbors, so do the gender-reassigned face the pain their decisions have brought to spouses and children. Sympathetic but unsentimental, “Trinidad” explores a most unusual small town in America that is “frontier” in every sense of the word. If you missed it Thursday night, it’s being rescreened Saturday at 11:30am at the Four Day Weekend Theater.--Jimmy Fowler

Another op'nin', another show

2008-11-12T22:34:00.000-08:00

Just got back from seeing 'Sunshine Cleaning,' the opening night selection for LSIFF. Nice, enjoyable movie, though not something I would have picked for the opening night of a festival -- it's a bit too low-key for the occasion. Amy Adams plays a single mom in New Mexico who starts a business cleaning up crime scenes after the cops are done with them. Emily Blunt plays the screw-up of a younger sister who gets in on the business. The story needed a bit of tidying up, but you can't fault the performances of the two leads, who both give the movie comic punch where it's needed. The crowd filled the big auditorium at the AMC Palace about three-quarters full, and they certainly liked the movie.

Did anybody make it to the post-movie Opening Night Reception at Fort Worth Club? I skipped it in favor of the Fort Worth Weekly party at Scat Jazz Lounge, and I think that might have been a tactical error. Also, did anyone else think Emily Blunt's character in the movie was a lesbian, or at least bi? We did see her having sex with that one guy, but she didn't seem very involved, and there's definite erotic subtext in the scenes with her and Mary Lynn Rajskub as the dead woman's daughter.

I'll be off at a screening of 'Bolt' tomorrow, so I won't catch the prime-time fare on the program. The rest of you will have to pick up the slack. I'm particularly bummed to miss out on 'Wendy and Lucy' -- the director Kelly Reichardt has a cult following, and even though I wasn't as big a fan of her last film 'Old Joy' as some people were, I'm still interested to see what she does now. I'll be back in time to catch some of the late showings. -- Kristian Lin

2008-11-11T19:54:00.000-08:00

Hey all; freelancer Cole Williams here. This will be my second time to cover the Lone Star International Film Festival, and I'm really excited to do so. Last year I got to see a lot of movies and short films I normally would never see, either because of my taste or a film's availability. Among my favorites from last were a documentary about the disappearance and murder of atheist activist Madelyn Murray O'hair and my first Bollywood film, the enthralling "Paint It Yellow".

This year I'm probably most looking forward to anime "Vexville" and Swedish vampire/coming of age story "Let the Right One In", which I've been hearing nothing but great things about since it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and the plot of "Sunshine Cleaning" sounds right up my alley, dark humor wise. I'm also looking forward to the shorts packages, a bevy of surprises for me last year, especially "Stars and Suns", "Sebastian's Voodoo" and "Glory At Sea".

One movie I really wish was playing is "The Good the Bad the Weird", a Korean semi-remake of Spaghetti Western classic "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", which I also heard about from the Toronoto Film Festival, and am dying to see after rewatching the exciting trailer several times. But aside from that, I'm betting I'll be surprised and entertained again this year by what looks like an interesting slate of films from around the world.

T-minus one day

2008-11-11T14:16:00.000-08:00

Hello, and welcome to Fort Worth Weekly's new blog created especially for the Lone Star International Film Festival. Here you can read our reactions to the movies on offer and the happenings going on outside the theaters. Along with me, fellow Weekly staffers Anthony Mariani, Jimmy Fowler, Steve Steward, and Cole Williams will be buzzing around the festival and chiming in with their views on what's going on. So have a look, have a pop at us in the comments section. Most of all, have fun. We'll be here through next weekend. -- Kristian Lin