Darling readers---I try hard, I do, to convey to one and all that I am not your run-of-the-mill pretentious arthouse asshole. I don't love Godard simply because he's Godard, or Hitchcock simply because, yada yada. And a vintage wine that's been fermented just right? Well, hell, if it's bitter I'll be sure to voice my opinion (perhaps discreetly, but voice I will). I know, I know, sometimes you might not be in the mood to wade through my waxing prologues, so eager you are to get to the tootsie roll nougat of my blog (as compared to similar film blogs), to experience the intense education of good or bad recent cinematic releases, experiencing, what I can only imagine for you, must be equivalent to using a ribbed condom versus an unribbed. Perhaps you could say I am good at ribbing, muahhh. Needless to say, without further ado, having attended the prestigious Toronto film festival twice now (and a coming third this September, Hallelujah!) I could not help but condemn the impotent, incompetent, and miserably inexperienced staff behind the debacle that was known as the 27th Minneapolis Film Festival. For some reason people credit Saint Paul in there as well but since no film screenings are shown for the festival in Saint Paul I will refrain from doing so. The two cities are less like twins and more like distant cousins, so I am continually baffled as to why we insist on connecting the two like Chang and Eng Bunker. If you are attracted to a life style resembling a dead vault (to use my grandmother's verbiage), you live in Saint Paul. Enough said.
Getting to my point, I don't wish to sound pretentious, but I am pretty serious about film. As the festival ends tonight, I will have seen 17 films altogether at this film festival. That's pretty serious, considering I didn't take vacation time and retained a regular gym schedule. Thank Jeebus that my lovely boyfriend humors me and a raucous thanks to him for attending as many movies as he did with me! Anyhow, so all of my "reviews" aren't marred with the bitter tears (like Petra Von Kant) let me just give you a rundown of a few fuckups at the fest.
1). So, in choosing my films ahead of time while they were announced on the fest's website, I was interested in a film called Helen. This film, purportedly, was the Helen that screened in 2009's Sundance film festival starring Ashley Judd in another mentally ill type role (I found a strange respect for Judd after Bug - 2006). So, I bought an advance ticket online. After my first night at the fest, I heard rumblings of showtimes being switched around. Not taking it too seriously, but serious cinephile that I am, I checked the website just to be sure the day I was to see Helen. Much to my chagrin, I discovered that the Judd Helen wasn't screening. No, my little darlings, a different film called Helen from Ireland was the film that the fest had acquired. To me, that's a pretty irritating fuck up. Not to mention that all the computer's crashed on the first night of the festival, so even though I had purchased tickets online, there was still an hour wait to get tickets....but, I wasn't bitter yet....not until
2) So, fifth night of the film festival, I'm scheduled to see two films. Let me preface this---the Minneapolis Film Festival is comprised of A) Films from 2007 and 2008 that have already screened at several more prestigious film festivals or B) Films that already have distributors and are actually in the process of being released in major cities very shortly. So, for Option B films, you could see them in a month's time without nary a soul near you inside an independent theater or be packed into a sardine can screening with a bunch of jolly geriatrics. You decide. That being said, nearly every screening I have attended has started at least 15 minutes late. Not okay. Back to the narrative, the fifth night I was scheduled to see Abdel Kechiche's The Secret of the Grain (2007) and a Russian film I have been following since it appeared on the festival circuit late 2007, Mermaid. Now, the first film was scheduled for 6:45 and is 150 minutes. My next screening was for 9:30 at the same venue, so it would be done just in time, right? Well, no. First, the film started 15 minutes late, which didn't get my dander up, really, since I figured this trend would extend to my second feature. Wrong. Not only did the first film start late (due to the large volume of people attending the screening---for a film that had already opened in major cities due to it already having distribution with IFC films--joke is on me at this point) but a good 45 minutes into the film, a DVD error flashed across the screen, and the film started over from the beginning. Needless to say, the "projectionist" or shall we say "remote control professional" had to fast forward the DVD to where the disc error had occurred. Can you fucking believe that? Projecting from a DVD screener? Not only that, I heard through a lovely grapevine that the team behind the festival refuses to clarify which screenings are being projected like this as they're afraid people wouldn't buy tickets if they knew the film was being projected from a DVD. Shame the fuck on you, Minneapolis Film Festival. Ironically, Mermaid started on time. So I missed the first 15 minutes. And then, tragedy struck again, as someone wasn't available to change the reel and the film stopped half way through, and when it was resurrected there was no sound for a good amount of time. That same mistake happened in six additional screenings I attended, leading the vapid volunteers that introduce the films to comically solicit our sympathies with lines like "with over a 100 films being shown, mistakes are to be expected." Well, if you're showing 100 movies in one day, yes. But in this case, the number of mistakes at this many screenings I found to be, well, unforgivable, unprofessional, and just plain pathetic. While I am thankful for the cinema I was fortunate to see with the festival, I would recommend that anyone involved with a film festival should know what the real deal is supposed to look like. This festival was run like a lemonade stand where the children have run out of sugar to add to their lemonade mix. I don't care if it's half price because you're out of sugar--do it right or don't do it at all.
Day 1:
Just Another Love Story (2007) --- What may stand as one of my favorite films at the festival, and a welcome introduction to an amazing Danish filmmaker, Ole Bornedal, is his latest offering, a sort of neo-noir with a delicious climax. Jonas (Anders W. Berthelsen), a dull, married, homicide scene photographer, accidentally involves a woman on the run in a fatal car accident, which sends her into a coma. Feeling responsible for her dilemma, Jonas visits Julia in the hospital, and doesn't have the cajones to tell her family the truth, but instead poses as her boyfriend, Sebastian, who Julia's family know by name but have never met. Julia awakens from her coma suffering from amnesia and Jonas becomes obsessed with this secretive alternate identity he's stumbled upon. Leaving his wife, the pieces all start to come together as Julia's memory (and vision) begin to return and culminate in an extremely satisfying ending that runs like While You Were Sleeping (1995) spliced with 40's noir. Immediately after seeing this I obtained a copy of Bornedal's other 2007 release, The Substitute, starring Danish film stars Ulrich Thompsen and Paprika Steen, about a substitute teacher who is really an alien sent to earth to study and kidnap schoolchildren in order to discover the one quality that makes humans unique in the universe. Excellent filmmaking all around---I look forward to more from Bornedal.
Surveillance (2008) -- My second feature on the fest's first day was a mixed bag, but I loved it nonetheless. My poor boyfriend wasn't entirely impressed, but he came away enjoying Bill Pullman's fun performance in Jennifer Chambers Lynch's first feature since her infamously campy cinematic debut in 1993, Boxing Helena. Since Lynch is the daughter of my man, David (who was also executive producer on this feature) my interest was peaked, though I had low expectations. Concerning two FBI agents (Bill Pullman, Julia Ormond) who are tracking a cross-country serial killer who has just killed several people in Santa Fe, nothing, of course, is what it seems. With a strange and twisted comic edge that runs throughout (due to the presence of comedians like French Stewart, Cheri Oteri, and a hilarious turn from Pell James--who was in one of Zodiac's more disturbing scenes) I fell in love with Ms. Lynch's second offering. Granted, it's a little Twin Peaks-ey, and the ending could have been a bit better, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. While the twist may be anything but surprising and the pacing a bit languid, if you're patient, you may enjoy it. Definitely strange, and to be daring, perhaps downright Lynchian.
Getting to my point, I don't wish to sound pretentious, but I am pretty serious about film. As the festival ends tonight, I will have seen 17 films altogether at this film festival. That's pretty serious, considering I didn't take vacation time and retained a regular gym schedule. Thank Jeebus that my lovely boyfriend humors me and a raucous thanks to him for attending as many movies as he did with me! Anyhow, so all of my "reviews" aren't marred with the bitter tears (like Petra Von Kant) let me just give you a rundown of a few fuckups at the fest.
1). So, in choosing my films ahead of time while they were announced on the fest's website, I was interested in a film called Helen. This film, purportedly, was the Helen that screened in 2009's Sundance film festival starring Ashley Judd in another mentally ill type role (I found a strange respect for Judd after Bug - 2006). So, I bought an advance ticket online. After my first night at the fest, I heard rumblings of showtimes being switched around. Not taking it too seriously, but serious cinephile that I am, I checked the website just to be sure the day I was to see Helen. Much to my chagrin, I discovered that the Judd Helen wasn't screening. No, my little darlings, a different film called Helen from Ireland was the film that the fest had acquired. To me, that's a pretty irritating fuck up. Not to mention that all the computer's crashed on the first night of the festival, so even though I had purchased tickets online, there was still an hour wait to get tickets....but, I wasn't bitter yet....not until
2) So, fifth night of the film festival, I'm scheduled to see two films. Let me preface this---the Minneapolis Film Festival is comprised of A) Films from 2007 and 2008 that have already screened at several more prestigious film festivals or B) Films that already have distributors and are actually in the process of being released in major cities very shortly. So, for Option B films, you could see them in a month's time without nary a soul near you inside an independent theater or be packed into a sardine can screening with a bunch of jolly geriatrics. You decide. That being said, nearly every screening I have attended has started at least 15 minutes late. Not okay. Back to the narrative, the fifth night I was scheduled to see Abdel Kechiche's The Secret of the Grain (2007) and a Russian film I have been following since it appeared on the festival circuit late 2007, Mermaid. Now, the first film was scheduled for 6:45 and is 150 minutes. My next screening was for 9:30 at the same venue, so it would be done just in time, right? Well, no. First, the film started 15 minutes late, which didn't get my dander up, really, since I figured this trend would extend to my second feature. Wrong. Not only did the first film start late (due to the large volume of people attending the screening---for a film that had already opened in major cities due to it already having distribution with IFC films--joke is on me at this point) but a good 45 minutes into the film, a DVD error flashed across the screen, and the film started over from the beginning. Needless to say, the "projectionist" or shall we say "remote control professional" had to fast forward the DVD to where the disc error had occurred. Can you fucking believe that? Projecting from a DVD screener? Not only that, I heard through a lovely grapevine that the team behind the festival refuses to clarify which screenings are being projected like this as they're afraid people wouldn't buy tickets if they knew the film was being projected from a DVD. Shame the fuck on you, Minneapolis Film Festival. Ironically, Mermaid started on time. So I missed the first 15 minutes. And then, tragedy struck again, as someone wasn't available to change the reel and the film stopped half way through, and when it was resurrected there was no sound for a good amount of time. That same mistake happened in six additional screenings I attended, leading the vapid volunteers that introduce the films to comically solicit our sympathies with lines like "with over a 100 films being shown, mistakes are to be expected." Well, if you're showing 100 movies in one day, yes. But in this case, the number of mistakes at this many screenings I found to be, well, unforgivable, unprofessional, and just plain pathetic. While I am thankful for the cinema I was fortunate to see with the festival, I would recommend that anyone involved with a film festival should know what the real deal is supposed to look like. This festival was run like a lemonade stand where the children have run out of sugar to add to their lemonade mix. I don't care if it's half price because you're out of sugar--do it right or don't do it at all.
Day 1:
Just Another Love Story (2007) --- What may stand as one of my favorite films at the festival, and a welcome introduction to an amazing Danish filmmaker, Ole Bornedal, is his latest offering, a sort of neo-noir with a delicious climax. Jonas (Anders W. Berthelsen), a dull, married, homicide scene photographer, accidentally involves a woman on the run in a fatal car accident, which sends her into a coma. Feeling responsible for her dilemma, Jonas visits Julia in the hospital, and doesn't have the cajones to tell her family the truth, but instead poses as her boyfriend, Sebastian, who Julia's family know by name but have never met. Julia awakens from her coma suffering from amnesia and Jonas becomes obsessed with this secretive alternate identity he's stumbled upon. Leaving his wife, the pieces all start to come together as Julia's memory (and vision) begin to return and culminate in an extremely satisfying ending that runs like While You Were Sleeping (1995) spliced with 40's noir. Immediately after seeing this I obtained a copy of Bornedal's other 2007 release, The Substitute, starring Danish film stars Ulrich Thompsen and Paprika Steen, about a substitute teacher who is really an alien sent to earth to study and kidnap schoolchildren in order to discover the one quality that makes humans unique in the universe. Excellent filmmaking all around---I look forward to more from Bornedal.
Surveillance (2008) -- My second feature on the fest's first day was a mixed bag, but I loved it nonetheless. My poor boyfriend wasn't entirely impressed, but he came away enjoying Bill Pullman's fun performance in Jennifer Chambers Lynch's first feature since her infamously campy cinematic debut in 1993, Boxing Helena. Since Lynch is the daughter of my man, David (who was also executive producer on this feature) my interest was peaked, though I had low expectations. Concerning two FBI agents (Bill Pullman, Julia Ormond) who are tracking a cross-country serial killer who has just killed several people in Santa Fe, nothing, of course, is what it seems. With a strange and twisted comic edge that runs throughout (due to the presence of comedians like French Stewart, Cheri Oteri, and a hilarious turn from Pell James--who was in one of Zodiac's more disturbing scenes) I fell in love with Ms. Lynch's second offering. Granted, it's a little Twin Peaks-ey, and the ending could have been a bit better, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. While the twist may be anything but surprising and the pacing a bit languid, if you're patient, you may enjoy it. Definitely strange, and to be daring, perhaps downright Lynchian.
No comments:
Post a Comment