The second wedding-centric "comedy" I've seen this year is the new release Made of Honor, and like the first one, Over Her Dead Body (aka That Waste of Paul Rudd That I Had to Look Up the Title For), the word "comedy" deserves to be within quotation marks when used as an adjective. It's not a terrible film, but it rarely rises above the hilarity level of Oh, How Cute. Even the cuteness wears off in the last third of the movie, leaving you with nothing but the feeling that you've seen this all before, perhaps in sitcoms, where it was much funnier.
You can predict the plot from the poster. Tom (Patrick Dempsey) and Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) are best friends who pal around New York together like pale imitations of the leads in When Harry Met Sally, except these two characters apparently never watched the second half of that film. Tom is relationship-phobic -- he has a set of strict rules for his frequent one-night stands -- but when Hannah takes a long business trip to Scotland, he starts to realize that maybe Hannah is a bigger part of his life than someone to antique-shop and eat desserts with. Naturally, when Hannah returns from Scotland, it's with a perfectly sexy, perfectly perfect fiance in tow. And in a move that is meant to be the incitement for high humor, she asks the newly lovelorn and crushed Tom to be her -- you won't believe this -- maid of honor. Have you fallen out of your chair yet, and are you rolling on the floor in hysterics?
Have you been wondering what happened to Adam Rifkin's caveman comedy Homo Erectus? I've been curious about the fate of the film since it was shot here in Austin back in 2005. Rifkin not only wrote and directed Homo Erectus, but also stars as a "philosophical caveman" yearning for a better life. Other well-known actors appearing in the credits include David Carradine and Talia Shire. (Oh, yeah, and Ron Jeremy.) The film premiered at Slamdance in early 2007, then vanished until last June, when National Lampoon picked up the distribution rights. Now, according to Austin Movie Blog (part of the Austin American-Statesman site), National Lampoon has finally decided to let the rest of us see this movie.
National Lampoon's Homo Erectus, as it seems to now be called, will be released in U.S. theaters in stages starting next month, with a DVD release slated for September. The long wait is definitely ominous ... and the comedies National Lampoon releases these days are generally not known for their subtle innuendos and rapier wit. I can't find a review for this movie online, so if any of you caught the film at Slamdance or elsewhere, what did you think?
"Are you okay?" "I'm disgusted and repulsed and ... I can't look away."
--Clerks II
After watching Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay with me, my husband remarked, "That may be the most deliberately offensive film I've seen." However, he also pointed out that he'd been laughing his head off most of the time. My first thought was that if the Harold and Kumar sequel was the most offensive thing he'd seen in awhile, maybe he needed to go to QT Fest with me next time, or watch some of those bizarre midnight movies at Alamo Drafthouse. (And what, did he forget we saw Borat together last year?)
But afterwards, I started wondering ... how many intentionally offensive comedies have we seen and loved? I'm not thinking about provocative or transgressive films that try to make you stop and think about your life. I'm talking about movies that, when they succeed, evoke that amazing moment in which your jaw has plummeted to the floor in disbelief as a bubble of laughter starts to force its way out of you and will send you to the floor along with your dropped jaw, in hysteria. I'll put up with revolting, sacrilegious, and downright repellent content in a film if it makes me laugh hard enough. Can I think of seven movies that meet such a high standard for offensive comedy? It's more like seven times seven, and difficult to pick only a few of my favorites. Feel free to share any movies that you think I neglected to include -- bear in mind that in some cases, I simply didn't like the movie enough to get past the offensive bits (the Jackass films), or although I liked the movie, wasn't offended (The Aristocrats).
The recent U.S. involvement in Iraq has become one of the biggest subjects for documentaries in the past few years, and it's hard not to feel weary of watching the variety of movies on this topic, no matter how varied and original they might be. Phil Donahue has contributed to the genre with Body of War, a documentary he co-directed with Austin filmmaker Ellen Spiro (Troop 1500). The movie focuses on the effect that the U.S. conflict in Iraq has had on a single soldier.
Body of War combines two threads of narrative. The first thread follows Tomas Young, who enlisted in the U.S. Army on Sept. 13, 2001 as a reaction to the events of Sept. 11. He ends up being deployed to Iraq, and after only a few days in combat is injured -- a spinal injury. He's paralyzed below the chest and is confined to a wheelchair. Tomas, his bride-to-be and his mom all have to get used to dealing with his range of physical problems as a result of this injury: not only can't he walk, but he's on an ever-changing variety of medications, he can't control his body temperature, he vomits frequently, and experiences sexual difficulties. Meanwhile, his experiences have made him passionately anti-war, and he visits Cindy Sheehan's compound in Crawford, Texas, travels to the offices of several politicians, and speaks out frequently in public.
I can't believe I saw two movies about racial politics in Alabama at SXSW this year -- not what I would have expected. Both approached the issues in different ways, and both films were good. While The Order of Myths (which I reviewed already) focused on Mardi Gras in the Gulf Coast city of Mobile, the documentary Bama Girl takes us further north to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa to examine a tradition popular at many American universities: the selection and crowning of the Homecoming Queen.
Bama Girl focuses primarily on Jessica Thomas, a senior at the university who is determined to win Homecoming Queen. The problem is that a number of the white fraternities and sororities plus other unnamed organizations have formed a covert group known on campus as The Machine. The way in which the Homecoming Queen is elected on campus favors The Machine, which is why no African-American woman has won the crown since the rules change. This all sounds like paranoid fantasy and crazy student rumors, but when you see a staff member in the Dean of Students office talking seriously about The Machine, you start to wonder. Anyway, Jessica isn't going to let any secret society keep her from what she wants. She and her sorority sisters get to work to get her elected.
I've seen a lot of documentaries in the past few years about the decline of small towns and rural areas, how the population has dwindled and local businesses have closed shop and so forth. So it was strange to watch the opening sequences in the documentary Crawford, where the small Texas town starts to flourish when George W. Bush (then-governor, now President) buys a ranch in the area.
Crawford examines the effects on the town and its residents from the day Bush bought the Prairie Chapel Ranch in 1999 through 2007. At first, everyone in the town couldn't have been happier, especially once Bush became U.S. President. Businesses thrived as tourists and media flocked to the town, the local school band traveled to Washington, DC to perform at the inauguration, and the minister of the Baptist church felt confident that any day now, the First Family might join his congregation. However, a lot of things can change in half a decade, and Cindy Sheehan's 2005 protest in Crawford triggers even more radical effects.
I've never met filmmaker Alex Karpovsky in person, but from the way his movies are structured, I have to wonder if he's the kind of guy who likes messing with your head. Both his latest film Woodpecker and his 2005 film, The Hole Story, give very credible appearances of being documentaries. And you're sucked into the vibe, even if you know the film is listed in the feature section of SXSW, and then the tiniest bits make you wonder exactly what type of film you're watching anyway, and start questioning what's real and what's staged. I always feel thrown slightly off-balance during these films, but not in a bad way.
Woodpecker is about the excitement raised in Brinkley, Arkansas, when birdwatchers start to report sightings of an ivory-billed woodpecker, a species of bird that was believed to be extinct. Many of the news coverage and interviews with townspeople are genuine -- Karpovsky shot these interviews as though he were doing a documentary about the woodpecker craze. Much of the town is split into the people who are happy about the woodpecker mania, either because they're birdwatchers or environmentalists or because they're making money off the tourists, and the hunters who are upset because their hunting grounds have now become a protected bird sanctuary. Various experts on birds are also divided on whether the sightings have been authentic.
I'm a bit of a nerd about some things, although I prefer the term "geek" myself. I'm a film geek, of course. I've worked as a technical writer and editor, and I know my blogger slang. I'm married to a Linux developer, which would make anyone a geek. So I felt right at home with the documentary Nerdcore Rising, even though I had never heard about the hip-hop subgenre "nerdcore" before or the primary subject of the film, MC Frontalot. I can't resist a guy who rhymes "braggadocio" and "Ralph Macchio" in a song.
Nerdcore Rising uses the standard "road trip around America" structure to show us MC Frontalot's first nationwide tour in 2006. The nerdcore rapper is more used to recording his music than performing it live, but gathers a band to tour from the small college-town bars in South Carolina to the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. We get to see the usual trials and tribulations of a band on tour -- missing or damaged equipment (an opening act spills fake blood all over the drum set at one gig), MC Frontalot's chronic back injury (I loved the scene where he tries to explain what he does to a medical professional), and the lone groupie who follows them for several states. None of this is especially new, but the band members are funny enough to keep you interested, especially if you like group Wookie imitations.
I first encountered author Harlan Ellison's writings in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine, when I was in high school. I enjoyed his "Watching" series of movie essays, and in fact I still do -- I have the collected book of them, and I sometimes reread them when I want to remind myself of certain things I like about film criticism. So naturally I was excited about Dreams with Sharp Teeth, Erik Nelson's documentary about Ellison that screened at SXSW this week. I wasn't disappointed, but obviously I was already a fan of the author.
The movie sets out to show you various facets of Ellison's life, without resorting to a linear biography. Various friends, colleagues and well-known acquaintances of Ellison talk about him -- Robin Williams perhaps most surprising among them, reviewing a list of the crazy stuff Ellison has allegedly done, and Ellison responding on whether the stories are true. Neil Gaiman and Battlestar Galactica producer Ron Moore also make appearances. The film also includes some vintage interviews with Ellison, such as Tom Snyder's interview from the 1970s. In between these stories about his life, Ellison reads excerpts from some of his best or best-known work.
I live in Austin, so I get to stay here for the entire South by Southwest festival ... and beyond. So I get to see the transition during the festival where the Interactive and Film conferences end (although movies continue to screen through Saturday), and the Music portion engulfs downtown entirely. Every year I still get a jolt of surprise when I see the changes downtown for the Music festival. This year, I was completely surprised. During the film festival, you get used to seeing the insides of theaters and the convention center a lot, but Music spills out into the streets, all through downtown Austin.
I drove downtown yesterday to catch Woodpecker at Alamo Ritz. (And I got in, yay! The movie sold out all three of its screenings.) The parking garage where I'd paid a high but reasonable fee of $7 to park my car earlier in the week was now charging $15. Don't we have price-gouging laws in this town? Sheesh. Fortunately, it was late enough in the day for me to find a metered spot on the street and pay a much more acceptable rate of $1.50. (We keep lots of quarters around the house to use for parking meters during SXSW.) It was pointed out to me later that the Convention Center garage always charges $7 throughout the fest, which is handy advice for us locals.
There's always one film at SXSW where I walk in completely cold, knowing nothing except that it fit the right timeslot for me, or that another festivalgoer strongly recommended it. Former Cinematical editor Karina Longworth urged me to see Medicine for Melancholy but didn't say much about why ... and the only other thing I knew was that it was a narrative feature, because I felt like I'd seen too many documentaries so far and needed some balance. Karina must not have been the only one at SXSW recommending the film, because the Alamo Ritz was full at the screening I attended.
Medicine for Melancholy turned out to be a lovely, sweet film, which reminded me in some ways of Aaron Katz's film Quiet City (my DVD review is here). Again, we follow two characters as they explore a city in fairly ordinary ways, while at the same time suspense lingers about their relationship. Both films also use the arts -- art galleries or museums, and music -- to enhance their character studies and their look at city life. However, in this first feature from writer-director Barry Jenkins, the city is San Francisco (primarily the east side), and the characters' interaction is complicated by racial and political elements.
Although I'm from New Orleans and celebrated Mardi Gras annually throughout childhood, I knew little about Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama, except that they're very proud to have the oldest American Mardi Gras celebrations, since 1703. (They love to brag to New Orleanians about this.) Margaret Brown's latest documentary, The Order of Myths, showed me that New Orleans isn't the only city with racial issues rife in its Carnival festivities. The movie premiered at Sundance last month before making its way to SXSW.
The Order of Myths focuses on the 2007 Mardi Gras preparations in Mobile, which are blatantly divided by race. Most of the city's parade organizations are all-white; one integrated group founded in 2003, and has a single white member. Mobile has two separate sets of Mardi Gras royalty: a white king and queen (Max Bruckmann and Helen Meaher) and an African-American king and queen (Joseph Roberson and Stefannie Lucas). The movie alternates between the preparations for each side of the segregated Mardi Gras: the clothing designers for the royalty and their courts; the parties and luncheons; and the everyday lives of the people involved.
It's Sunday afternoon, and I'm taking a short break before going to see the "Conversations with Harlan Ellison" panel. Today's plans also include Super High Me and Baghead. I tried to see Woodpecker this morning, but the theater filled up before I got there, so I'll have to catch the next screening later this week. The upside is that this means I have time to share some photos with you from SXSW so far, including the Texas Film Hall of Fame awards ceremony on Friday night. My one regret is that I was unable to snap any photos of Josh Brolin at the screening of his short film, X -- he and his group slipped into the theater just as the lights went down and the movie was about to start. Instead, you get photos of Cinematical contributors at SXSW, and aren't we every bit as attractive? Sure we are.
Usually I am all over the SXSW opening-night festivities, but this year I decided to try something different: the annual Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards at Austin Studios. I snapped red-carpet photos of many celebrities presenting or receiving awards, then had a break in the lobby during the dinner and auction (a set visit for Will went for $5K; a set visit with extra trimmings for King of the Hill went for an even more phenomenal amount). I ducked back into the big dining area for the awards themselves.
Dan Rather emceed the ceremony this year -- I'd never heard him being this funny before. Tess Harper presented an award to Morgan Fairchild, who reminisced about a Sixties fling with a drummer for ZZ Top. Jayne Mansfield's daugher, Mariska Hargitay (Law and Order: SVU) accepted an award on behalf of her mother. Debra Winger accepted an ensemble award for Urban Cowboy, reminding us all of the days when mechanical bulls ruled certain watering holes. Luke Wilson, describing himself as a half-crazed megafan of ZZ Top, inducted the trio into the Hall of Fame. And finally, the Ann Richards award went to filmmaker Mike Judge -- when a clip was shown from Office Space, the whole audience whooped and cheered. (They were less enthusiastic about Beavis and Butthead.)
Today, I need to catch up double-time on movies, since the awards took up all of my Friday evening. Today I'm hoping to see The Order of Myths, Margaret Brown's movie about Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama; Josh Brolin's short film, X (and hopefully Brolin himself, mmm); and Dreams with Sharp Teeth, the doc about Harlan Ellison. There's also a chance for a happy hour where I hope to run into the rest of the Cinematical gang.
Animated short films have been eligible to win Oscars since the 1931/32 ceremony. Check out the list of winners on the Academy Awards Web site: all kinds of cartoonish and gorgeous animated styles have taken home awards (although Disney films won all the first eight years). The Three Little Pigs is one of my favorites, but other winners range from the notorious wartime short The Fuehrer's Face to Tom and Jerry in Yankee Doodle Mouse to the Pink Panther and Bugs Bunny. I never thought of Mr. Magoo as an Oscar winner, but he's got two of them, in 1954 and 1956. It's a treasure-trove of fabulous animation, all the way through the years to contemporary winners like Creature Comforts and Harvie Krumpet. Wouldn't it be fabulous to have all these winners on one DVD someday?
In the meantime, LiveJournal blogger Jhayne Holmes (aka porphyre) has found 46 of the Oscar-winning short films available on YouTube, and posted a list with all the links. I have to wonder if some of those shorts will stay online for long, but hopefully you'll have a chance to watch at least a few of them if you act quickly. Her entry also includes links to some of this year's Academy Award nominated shorts, which Jeffrey Anderson reviewed for Cinematical recently. This is a great resource, but be warned -- you can easily waste a whole afternoon watching these wonderful animated shorts.
[Thanks to my friend and longtime blogger Karen M. for the link.]
Have you been wondering what happened to Adam Rifkin's caveman comedy 
Animated short films have been eligible to win Oscars since the 1931/32 ceremony. Check out 
Insert Caption: Indiana Jones DVDs_thumbnail.jpg)
Cinematical Seven: When an Animated Series Goes Live Action ... and Gets it Right_thumbnail.jpg)
Full 'G.I. Joe' Cast Photos!
