Ebertfest Dispatch #1: Adventures in Urbana

I'm here in beautiful Urbana-Champaign, Illinois (go Fighting Illini!) for Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, which will likely officially be called Ebertfest next year, seeing as how that's what everyone calls it anyhow. I'll start by getting right to the question I know a lot of you are wondering: How does Roger Ebert look? The answer is, for all he's been through in the past year or so, pretty damn good. Appearance-wise, he looks about like the pic here, which he released just before the fest (smart move, that, because everyone was prepared a bit for how he'd look after his long ordeal. He's walking in and out of the screenings on his own feet.

They have a comfy recliner set up for him in the back so he can rest comfortably while watching the films. His lovely wife Chaz is here with him, and she's taken on a lot of his duties doing intros for the films and moderating Q&As and is otherwise always by his side. He was at all three screenings today -- it takes stamina to sit through three to four movies a day when you're totally healthy; the fact that Ebert is here supporting this fest, showing up for the screenings, and talking to well-wishing fans, speaks to his strength of character and his undying passion for film.The fest kicked off Wednesday night with a screening of Gattaca, which I unfortunately had to miss. This morning it was up bright and early to be at a 9:30AM panel. I don't know why they always schedule panels so damn early. Lots of people were dozing off -- they at least need to hook us up to coffee IVs for early stuff like that. The topic of this panel was "The Role of the Film Critic in Contemporary Distribution Patterns." I know, it sounds exciting, doesn't it? Especially at 9:30 in the morning. Fortunately, it turned out to be pretty interesting.

It was quite a large panel, composed of a couple film critics -- Jim Emerson, who writes his own site, Scanners, as well as writing for Ebert's website, and EFilmCritic's Peter Sobczynski. UIUC prof Richard Leskosky was on hand, as were actors Scott Wilson (who's in Come Early Morning, which screens tomorrow) and Gil Bellows (The Shawshank Redemption), film journalist Lisa Rosman, film editor Allison Firor (Darius Goes West), film theorist and writer David Bordwell, and screenwriter Steve Conrad (The Weather Man, Pursuit of Happyness). Altogether a pretty eclectic group. As often happens with a panel group that large, inevitably a couple of folks end up largely dominating the conversation, while others we barely got to hear from, but it was only a one-hour thing. Moderator Nate Kohn kicked things off by giving each of the panelists a chance to speak to the topic; that ended up taking up a good chunk of the allotted time, as a couple of the panelists talked quite a lot.

The conversation covered everything from how US indie filmmakers are often at a disadvantage compared to their counterparts from other countries where their government helps fund filmmaking, to how the increased ability for indie filmmakers to distribute their films through the internet and other digital means will actually make critics more relevant as people seek to sort the wheat from the chaff; to whether critics should have adversarial or cooperative relationships with studios. The audience had a chance to ask some questions; the highlight of this portion was Conrad's young son stepping up to the mic to ask his father why he chose to make The Weather Man rated "R," because he really wants to watch it. Conrad gave his son a nice, intellectual explanation of the choices writers make around language, and how it was necessary to the story for the main character to use strong words. When Conrad's son replied that he already knows all those bad words from at home, the audience roared, and Conrad deadpanned back, "We'll talk about that on the ride back to Chicago, son."

One of the more interesting questions was about the relevance of star rating systems for film reviews. Emerson replied that Roger Ebert gets frustrated with stars because he feels sometimes people just look at the number of stars without bothering to read the review. Then things took a turn toward the business end of filmmaking, how financing gets lined up, etc. and then we were out of time.

There were three screenings today. The first was The Weather Man, which I didn't catch when it came out because I find Nicolas Cage to be sometimes annoying. However, I very much enjoyed The Weather Man; it's some of Cage's best work since Leaving Las Vegas. The movie is deliberately very gloomy and depressing, which may explain why it didn't go over hugely on it's theatrical run. I particularly liked the writing in this film; Conrad has a very astute perspective on relationships, depression, and what it's like to feel lost and lonely and paralyzed about moving forward. There's a great bit of dialogue between Cage's character and his father, played by Michael Caine, where Cage is talking to his dad about how he feels about his unfulfilling job, his failed marriage, and his kids who are careening down the wrong paths, and his dad tells him, "Easy doesn't enter into the grownup life." Amen to that.

The second film, Moolaade, was one I vaguely remember hearing about a couple years ago when it played Cannes in 2004, and I am so glad Ebert chose it to play this fest. Moolaade, from Africa and directed by Ousmane Sembene, addresses the issue of female genital mutilation through the story of one woman who stands up against her entire village to protect four young girls from being "purified." The performance by the lead actress, Fatoumata Coulibaly, was incredible, as were the supporting performances, and the issue of young girls being forcibly mutilated is so important. The audience very much got into this film from beginning to end, although the sound quality was a bit shaky (it was probably tough to even track down a copy of it). Fortunately, it was subtitled, so it didn't matter that much.

The last film of the day was one of my favorite films from last year, Perfume: The Story of Murderer (you can also read my interview with director Tom Tykwer). Alan Rickman was on hand with his delicious accent for a lengthy Q&A with Nate Kohn and David Poland, which I'll be transcribing soon for you soon. And if I can track down or buy a USB cable tomorrow in between screenings, there may be pictures, to boot.

The one downer out of my day (well, except for the joys of locating parking in a university town filled with crosswalks and one-way streets) was that I was cursed with sitting next to annoying people. During the first film, I actually had a guy walk down the aisle (I was on the third row) and then crouch down right next to me and start talking on his cell phone -- during the movie! For the second film, I was seated immediately in front of some woman who I swear must have brought a two-month supply of candy, which she kept loudly unwrapping, in that particularly annoying, drawn-out, unwrapping it slooooooowly way. I considered smacking her with a candy bar, but they tend to frown on press attacking the audience members at fests. The third was the best, though. I had Super-Annoying Man seated across the aisle from me. First, he was restless -- kept shifting around and sighing loudly. Then he tapped his foot on the hard floor. Loudly and incessantly, throughout the entire film -- and it's a LONG film. Later, for added fun, he progressed to making audible commentary to his female companion. Bad movie manners, ugh.

I'll have more Ebertfest coverage coming your way, including reviews of The Weather Man and Moolaade, the Perfume Q&A, and much more about the nine films still to come over the next couple days. Keep checking back for the latest Ebertfest coverage.