ten canoes Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I just got back from a brief Christmas holiday to the distant land of relatives and limited Internet access, so my column is just a tad late this week. Nevertheless, I'd like to pick up where I left off last week, in my celebration of those smaller films that lost their way in 2007, either misunderstood, or misjudged, or just never found.

I saw Hal Hartley's Fay Grim in May as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival. It was a sequel to his 1998 film Henry Fool and it had one of those strange near-simultaneous releases in which it debuted on DVD just a few days after it opened in theaters. This technique didn't work at all for Steven Soderbergh's superb Bubble last year, so I can't imagine why anyone would try it again. I found Henry Fool too long with too much navel gazing to be of interest, but somehow Fay Grim worked for me. I felt it was all a huge, deadpan joke that these pathetic writer-types would now be involved in international intrigue. And who is better for a deadpan joke than Jeff Goldblum, with his glaring eyes and sharp delivery?

Paul Verhoeven in his native land, making an independent movie about a hot naked woman and Nazis? That's got to be my pick of the week. Of course, this being Verhoeven, he subverts expectations, at least according to the critics, and produces a film with a serious intent in mind. And the result was so good it prompted Cinematical's Ryan Stewart to declare it "the best film of 2007 so far" when he reviewed it in April. I'm talking about Black Book, Paul Verhoeven's "sweeping war epic ... following a Jewish girl on the run in Nazi-occupied Holland." Sony Pictures' DVD features an audio commentary by Verhoeven, who is usually entertaining on yak tracks, and a "making of" feature.

William Friedkin's films have been generally derided for many years -- pretty much everything since The Exorcist in 1973 -- though, personally, I have a soft spot for the failed Sorcerer, really love To Live and Die in L.A., and am glad that Cruising has recently received some critical reevaluation. Though it didn't make much of a ripple at the box office, Bug seems to be a comeback of sorts for him. Our own Jette Kernion wrote: "Bug blends paranoia, trust and love into a riveting story, driven by intense characters." She also commented very favorably on the "incredible" performances, especially the one by by Michael Shannon, but also those by Ashley Judd and Harry Connick, Jr. The Lionsgate DVD includes both a commentary by director Friedkin and a discussion with him.

If you're looking for something a bit further out of the mainstream, Ten Canoes sounds like the best bet. The critics were pretty well united in their praise. Stephen Holden of The New York Times said it "interweaves two versions of the same story, one filmed in black and white and set a thousand years ago, and an even older one, filmed in color and set in a mythic, prehistoric past." The Palm Pictures DVD sounds like it's worth a rental.

Also out are two comedies: mockumentary Chalk (about high school teachers) and Jake Kasdan's The TV Set (about a television pilot). Several friends of mine -- and many festival audiences -- thought Chalk was hilarious, while The TV Set has received mixed response. Perhaps the respective subjects will help you decide if you'll want to check those out.

I used to live in Rochester, New York. It sits nestled on Lake Ontario. In the fall, the foliage is spectacular. In the winter, the town competes with Buffalo for who gets the most snow (the last year we lived there, Rochester won -- if you can call it that -- with 92"). There's a cute little indie theater nestled near downtown Rochester called The Little Theater, where Rochesterians can sample a fine selection of independent film -- maybe not quite as soon as the folks down south in New York City get to see them, but they do get them pretty darn quickly. What they didn't have when I lived in Rochester, though, was a film festival. Now that I live 3,000 or so miles away in Seattle, of course, they have one.

2006 marks the sixth year of the High Falls Film Festival, one of the few fests in the country that focuses on Women in Film. This makes sense, because conservative Rochester has a rich history of feminism under its surface. Susan B. Anthony lived in Rochester (if you're going to be in Rochester for the fest, you can take a tour of her house while you're there), and Rochester is also the home of Eastman Kodak founder George Eastman -- the man whose ideas helped make it possible for us to have movies today. It's a great city to host a regional film festival

This year's fest runs November 8-13, and features a pretty impressive slate. The fest opens with Copying Beethoven, and other films I'd recommend include Ten Canoes ( which got good buzz around Telluride and Toronto), Deliver Us From Evil (I'm curious how that film will play in Rochester, which has so many Catholics that the Friday Night Fish Fry is a local tradition -- mmmm, fried haddock), Little Red Flowers, American Blackout, The Lives of Others, After the Wedding, and 13 (Tzameti), which doesn't have any women in it, but is a good film nonetheless. You can check out the full schedule here.

Regional film festivals are one of the best ways to see the kinds of films that play major fests like Sundance, Cannes and Toronto, without having to travel too far from home. If you're in upstate New York, and you make it to the High Falls Film Festival, pop on back here and let us know how it is. Oh, and stop off at Kelly's Apple Farm and pick me up a Dutch Apple Pie while you're out that way.

[via Movie City News ]

Because Australians can't get enough of our Academy Awards, they are now after the one category we thought was safe from the grasp of an English-speaking country; they've submitted a film for consideration in Oscar's Best Foreign-language category. The picture is called Ten Canoes and is marked with being the first to be shot in an indigenous language. That language is Ganalbingu, which is spoken by the Yolngu people of Ramingining, located in the Northern Territory. Written and co-directed (with the aboriginal Peter Djigirr) by Rolf de Heer (Alexandra's Project), who is Dutch-born but Oz-raised, the film tells of a man who desires one of his brother's wives and is put right by his tribal elders. It has so far performed quite well in Australia and will get its North American premiere this month at the Toronto International Film Festival.

So, now that Australia is submitting its first contender for the foreign-language award, I wonder if there are any other primarily English-speaking nations who haven't done so. I also wonder if it would be possible for the U.S. to submit a film if it were shot in a Native American language or even a non-native language. The rules for this category, some of which recently changed, are so darn confusing.