BYOB Weekend – 112108

DP/30 – Marisa Tomei

Oscar winner Marisa Tomei, now up for another Oscar in The Wrestler, talks about her work in the film and throughout her career.
The video after the jump…

Read the full article »

IDocFestAmsterdam – Day Two

The day is just beginning, but I am already pleased to be able to read Baz Bambigoye in print in the Daily Mail (he has a shot of Kate Hudson in Nine that still looks like used goods)… and many of the other Brit papers. The obsession with the UK version of Cloris Leachman is starting to slow, though the older gent who quit is now causing the BBC to refund the telephone expenses of all who voted for him this last week.
Sad to see that Clive Barnes passed. I was not really in sync with Barnes, but a great old pro who will be missed.
The last two movies last night were, again, quite good. Epperlein & Tucker’s Bulletproof Salesman is more subtle than either of their earlier films. The film about an German armored car salesman/manufacturer traces the path of the Iraq War and in his very specific field, the need to evolve from bulletproof to bombproof. Tucker, whose voice I recognize, though he is not in the film as a character, is along for the ride, literally. What’s it like to be in a car with people shooting automatics at you? We now know, thanks to Mike. This husband/wife team continues to do fascinating work, outside the margins. Their first film, Gunner Palace, was the first of its kind. But since then, their interest in the kinks of the individuals who live in the war zone has been completely compelling.
This was followed by Citizen Havel, which was a perfect capper to both the Iraq film and War Room Redux. The film was very much in that Maysles/Hegedus/Pennebaker style of being a fly on the wall… only here, instead of documenting the supporting cast, the center of this film is the head of state. Keeping it lively is Havel’s personality – cheerful, goofy, vain, direct, repetitive, and undistracted by his own flaws.
This is the kind of film that ages with you… more layers as you think about it more… because it is not directly about his story so much as it is about a man in that very unique position. When he waffles on issues, he seems like every guy at a kitchen table trying to hash something out. When he makes the same joke about a foreign head of state for the fourth time, it is still charming because he is still selling the joke as well as telling us something he thinks is profound. When he prepares to have photos taken, he is like any family leader at a Sears Photo Studio, wondering if he looks good in that shirt.
If there turned out to be a theme for the day, it was the breaking down (and building) of mythologies. High profile people and stories from perspectives that were unexpected.
The only oddball remains the audition piece from Brazil, which, as I think about it, has elements of Spike Lee’s Girl 8… which also left me wondering.
On to the day… there seems to be some sun up in the sky… really enjoying this town… even having not gone to visit the Red Light District yet… can you come here and not? interestingly, another huge buzz story in the UK is about new efforts to penalize men who go to legal prostitutes who turn out to be human trafficked “slaves.” The issue is controversial, even there, with other women’s issues not getting as much buzz, though many feel they should. But it does seem like people are waking up to the shockingly large issue of women being trafficked around the globe.

DP/30 – Eddie Marsan

The co-star of Happy-Go-Lucky

IDocFestAmsterda

(3:53p) Yes… this was an iPhone oddball cut off thing… use it as BYOB space if you like…

IDocFestAmsterdam – Day One

The festival hasn’t officially begun yet, but they decided to screen during opening day, in the dayparts, to decidedly soft results. I’ve been in 3 films today and seen about 40 ticketholders.
Still, two of the three films were great to see… and one was interesting, even if I still don’t know what it quite was.
The great ones were Solo – the tale of a man trying to cross the Tasmin, the ocean between southern Australia and New Zealand… in a solo kayak – and Return To The War Room, a Sundance Channel look back – by Pennebaker & Hedegdus – to their landmark doc about the 92 election.
Solo is in the style of Touching The Void, though in place of recreations, we get actual footage of our kayaking hero. There is also a distinct Grizzly Man feel to it all. It’s not quite the filmmaking effort that the other 2 were, but still, enormously compelling stuff.
War Room Redux is all joy, though it now feels short an hour on how the crew handled being the media leaders around the Obama run.
The oddball was Playing, a doc consisting of auditions that blur the lines of reality. Like I said… not really sure what the endgame was meant to be, but it felt, from early on, like a concept that could lead somewhere profound… Though not so much this time out.
About to start the new Tucker/Epperlein doc, Bulletproof Salesman…
More later.

BYOB Wednesday

Y’all loaded up the last one.. here’s more space… can we keeps the CAPS to an occasional screed, please? (Though it is great to see you all fighting without abusing.)
I will write on Rev Road from something other than this iPhone, but the short stroke is that it doesn’t make it to the very serious ambitions that it aspires to… Mendes just isn’t a hard guy (even if he gets another young actress to show her boobs for no reason)… He is a curveball guy and the reason why the Michael Shannon performance kills is that he is the only person whose inner passion we really get… he is the Cold Mountain Zellweger of the piece… had Mendes had the cajones to show the look on Leo’s face when he is having sex, not for something sexy, but so we could see what his inner angst is, then you would be on the road to Virgina Wolfe or August: Osage County or even Mad Men, my son.

Amster, Amster… Dam, Dam, Dam

The most striking thing about wandering about on a first jet-lagged night was how rich the film culture is here compared to Los Angeles. And keep in mind, the doc fest doesn’t launch for another day.
I count no fewer than 6 theaters running classics of cinema, from Satyajit Ray to John Waters to Downey, Sr. And the mainstream houses are loaded with “art house” fare as well.
We killed a total of zero pedestrians and bike riders on the way to the hotel, so that was a plus too.