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
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Brief Words on Parties, Celebritydom
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.
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.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Awards and stuff
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?
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?
Director of Programming
Lone Star International Film Festival Director of Programming Alec Jhangiani checking out the official program to the festival.
Nirvana
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
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