BYOB Archive for May, 2009
BYOB Thursday
Leaving Salmon Central behind… Terminated Salacious ahead…
Questions of the Day: Did something keep Transformers Dos from opening LAFF or is a concept comedy with Jeff Daniels and Ryan Reynolds
How big will Pixar’s most surrealist film to date fly?
And is the best documentary of the year an off-the-radar old school (no talking heads/no narration) film about training kids for Olympic gold while still in pre-school and elementary school?
BYOB – Happy Memorial Day '09
The Seattle fun continues… lots to write… hopefully this afternoon, I will get to it.
We are now into two of the highest profile Sundance docs – The Cove and We Live In Public – that require digestion… especially WLiP, which has some personal resonance that I need to think about for a while. I think the film is about a lot more… and a lot less… than Ondi Timoner might realize or wish to consider. On the other hand, maybe she gets it completely. I’ll have to ask. The Cove, on the other hand, is really about taking action and, as so many great films are, is about the power of the individual when focused. The former is about a person with the power to get started, but who never finishes… the latter about finishing at all costs and not worrying so much about how much attention one gets for starting.
Somewhere in the middle are The Yes Men, who have a kinda sequel to the first doc about them here, The Yes Men Fix The World. They are somewhere between the other two films… interested in very specific goals with very specific action, seeking to publicize their work until after the fact, in order to make their case about the need for us all to wake up. One of the interesting elements of this film is that they seem to be restarting their movie franchise, somehow seeming to be unhappy with the quite excellent first film. In the end, they are not as skilled as documentarians as the last team was – the have the directing credit on this one – and the loss of objectivity is not to their advantage. Still, an interesting film.
Still, I think my favorite so far is Terribly Happy, which, as a function of style not always level of talent, is like a hybrid of David Lynch and Chris Nolan, leading to intrigue, humor, and more ideas than this very intimate piece seems to be capable of delivering. It is possible to overpraise this film and the invocation of these directors may have this effect. But the hybrid makes for a quality film experience and, as is often the case, lower expectations make good seem great.
More later…
BYOB – Saturday
Things seem to be going apace with y’all… a bit of soul crunching, load blowing, and adult conversation to boot… glad to see it… here’s a fresh space for some more, as a lovely day in Seattle calls. 4 movies yesterday… good day. Really interesting film called Terribly Happy. More on it, and others, to come…
64 Comments »BYOB – On The Road Again
Heading up to Seattle for a week… going for 3 or 4 movies a day… Salumi… Spike Lee… Hostel 3 dvds on the street…
I should be back online tonight…
BYOB – Looking For Something
Quiet out there…
19 Comments »BYOB – Going South
It’s a good day to… drive.
182 Comments »