Finding the Giant Within: FFC Interviews A.J. Schnack

October 23, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Film Festivals, Interviews, Music

AjschnackinterviewtitleOctober 24, 2002|The kind of interview that They Might be Giants (hereafter TMBG) might appreciate, my chat with filmmaker A.J. Schnack was short, sweet, and to the point. In town for the 25th Denver International Film Festival with his film Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns, a pop journalist-laden look at the phenomena of geek rockers TMBG, I shared a large sofa with the nebbishy Mr. Schnack and asked what moved him to make a feature-length documentary on his favourite band.

DIFF ’02: Together

October 23, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, China, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, Music, South Korea
Together with YouHe ni zai yi qi**/****starring Tang Yun, Chen Hong, Chen Kaige, Liu Peiqiscreenplay by Xue Lu Xiao, Chen Kaigedirected by Chen Kaige by Walter Chaw Sentimental and overlong if beautifully shot and carefully structured, Chen Kaige's latest film Together is, in most respects, very much like his other films despite a contemporary setting. Focusing on music as a metaphor for transcendence and release in a way that has become a recurring hallmark of his career (Life on a String, Farewell My Concubine), Together follows a gifted young violinist, Xiaochen (Tang Yun), who finds that music is his only…

DIFF ’02: Swing

October 23, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Japan, Music
***/****starring Oscar Copp, Lou Rech, Tchavolo Schmitt, Mandino Reinhardtwritten and directed by Tony Gatlif by Walter Chaw An infectiously good-natured and bittersweet film about the Manouche Gypsy culture in France, Tony Gatlif's musical history Swing wraps a story of first love around the story of passion for the creation of music. A dream of flight scored by a haunting Gypsy lullaby marks the centre point of the film and defines as well the feeling of eternity that marks the picture and its threads of love, music, and place. (A burial at sea consists of the axe of a guitar sent…

DIFF ’02: Far from Heaven (2002)

October 23, 2002Posted in****/****, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, Romance, Theatrical

****/****
starring Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysbert, Patricia Clarkson
written and directed by Todd Haynes

Farfromheavenby Walter Chaw Fascinating in its subversion of the conventions of the 1950s melodrama (Elmer Bernstein’s swooping score dead-solid in evoking that time and place), the halcyon euphoria of Todd Haynes’s Far from Heaven first surprises with its simplicity, then fascinates with its effectiveness. It is essentially a version of Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (a title that itself speaks wryly about the Hays Code) that brings all of Sirk’s seething sexual subtext embarrassed to the front and centre. Taking that further, consider that if the subtext and text are flipped in Far from Heaven, then the artificiality of the film’s surfaces becomes the subtext to the sexual dysfunction. Haynes evokes Greek tragedy in the debunking of the fantasy of the golden, Golden Age nuclear family. He has crafted a pitch-black and hopeless picture, a torturous psychosexual exercise as played out by the Cleavers or Ozzie & Harriet.

DIFF ’02: Safe Conduct

October 22, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Biopic, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Germany, Spain, War
Laissez-passer***/****starring Jacques Gamblin, Denis Podalydès, Charlotte Kady, Marie Desgrangesscreenplay by Jean Cosmos, Bertrand Tavernier, based on the book by Jean Devaivredirected by Bertrand Tavernier by Walter Chaw The best didacticism is one carried by a strong sense of humanism, and Bertrand Tavernier's oft-brilliant Safe Conduct ("Laissez-passer") wears its heart on its sleeve--a few inches sometimes from where a yellow star would have been sewn in the occupied Paris where it sets its scene. There is a reason to Tavernier's rambling madness (the film clocks in at just about three hours), found in the care taken in establishing a sense of…

DIFF ’02: Hejar

October 22, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, Greece, Hungary, Turkey
Big Man, Little LoveBüyük adam küçük ask*/****starring Dilan Erçetin, Sükran Güngörwritten and directed by Handan Ipekçi by Walter Chaw An unintentionally creepy, relentlessly political diatribe, Turkish director Handan Ipekçi's Hejar intends to tell the plight of the minority Kurdish--who aren't even allowed to speak their own language--in Turkey, through the deep-set eyes of a little girl orphaned by the majority's inhumanity to the Kurd downtrodden. Sort of like The Professional with an aging barrister in place of a highly-trained assassin, or The Omen and The Exorcist (complete with a bizarre semi-public carpet urination) in its startling musical stings and unmotivated…

DIFF ’02: Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns

October 22, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Documentary, Film Festivals, Music
***/****directed by A.J. Schnack by Walter Chaw A.J. Schnack's Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns has a title perfect for a withering exposé on the seedy underworld of prostitution and pornography but is instead a breezily enjoyable documentary on quirk-rock pioneers they might be giants. Its title referring to the name of the band and its two frontmen (John Flansburgh and John Linell), the piece succeeds as an introduction for the neophyte and a detailed retrospective for the long-time fan (some of whom are featured to great comic effect), even as it slightly overstays its welcome for the former. With a…

DIFF ’02: The Safety of Objects

October 22, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, UK
**½/****starring Glenn Close, Dermot Mulroney, Joshua Jackson, Jessica Campbellwritten for the screen and directed by Rose Troche by Walter Chaw Deserving of notice if only for its loaded cast and some very fine editing work and cinematography (by Geraldine Peroni and Enrique Chediak, respectively) by turns revelatory and breathtaking, Rose Troche's The Safety of Objects is another take on American Beauty that, unfortunately, ends with the same broad shots at the same barn sides. Structured out-of-time around a car accident that left a teen (Joshua Jackson) in a coma, the picture marks the circular trajectories of a carousel of characters…

DIFF ’02: Streeters

October 22, 2002Posted in****/****, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, Mexico
De la calle****/****starring Luis Fernando Peña, Maya Zapata, Armando Hernández, Mario Zaragozascreenplay by Marina Stavenhagen, based on the play by Jesús González Dáviladirected by Gerardo Tort by Walter Chaw Gerardo Tort's primal scream of a debut, Streeters is a sepia-soaked DV exploration of the teeming underbelly of Mexico City's sprung metropolis, as well as another in an ever-evolving Mexican cinema that, film-by-film, takes on the spirit and ferocity of the French Nouvelle Vague. This more a Godard than, say, Alfonso Cuarón's Truffaut-ian Y Tu Mamá También, Streeters follows every-urchin Rufino (Luis Fernando Peña) as he rips off a corrupt cop…

DIFF ’02: The Damned

October 22, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Czech Republic, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, Netherlands, Thailand
Zatracení**½/****starring Jan Plouhar, Jan Révai, Isabela Bencová, Dana Vávrováwritten and directed by Dan Svátek by Walter Chaw The first drug-themed film to be shot in the Kingdom of Thailand, Czech director Dan Svátek's The Damned is a handheld, vérité version of Return to Paradise (or Brokedown Palace, or Midnight Express) as two Czech nationals find themselves adrift in an island nirvana before being spirited away to a third-world prison. A handful of gritty, genuinely affecting Blair Witch moments, aided immeasurably by a gorgeously vigorous performance from Czech star Jan Révai, lend the picture an H-tinted immediacy and, now and again,…

Big Fat Liar (2002) – DVD

October 22, 2002Posted in2000s, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Family

**½/**** Image C Sound A- Extras C+
starring Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti, Amanda Bynes, Amanda Detmer
screenplay by Dan Schneider
directed by Shawn Levy

by Walter Chaw Although it closes with thirty minutes of pratfalls and screaming, Big Fat Liar begins its life as a fun revenge fantasy that makes the interesting choice of never being about greed, but rather truth. Marty Wolf (Paul Giamatti) is an evil Hollywood producer who steals the vaguely autobiographical writing assignment of pathological liar Jason (Frankie Muniz) and turns it into a big-budget blockbuster that shares its name with this film’s title. Saddened that his wolf-crying (like “Marty Wolf”–get it?) has resulted in a loss of trust between him and his parents, Jason takes off for California with his tart pal Kaylee (Amanda Bynes) in tow to convince Marty to cop to the theft. No mention of economic restitution is ever made.

The Lost Boys: FFC Interviews Keith Fulton & Louis Pepe

October 21, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Directors: Terry Gilliam, Film Festivals, Interviews

LamanchainterviewtitleOctober 22, 2002|Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe–the team behind the Terry Gilliam documentaries The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys and this year's excellent Lost in La Mancha–define a collaboration of complementary parts. Meeting the pair in a below-street level conference room at Denver's chichi Hotel Monaco, I was stricken by the realization that the two themselves resemble a Gilliam dyad (the duct repairmen of Brazil, perhaps)–they're an exercise in interesting, opposing body types. Gilliam, one can only conclude, is infectious.

You Might Even Say They Glow…: FFC Interviews Alan Rudolph & Michael Henry Wilson

October 21, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Interviews

ArudolphinterviewtitleOctober 21, 2002|I don't know exactly what I was expecting from Alan Rudolph, the director of such peculiar films as Love at Large, Trouble in Mind, and the frankly misguided Vonnegut adaptation Breakfast of Champions, but a smallish, balding, unassuming man with a flat west-coast accent wasn't it. (This despite his cameo in The Player pitching "a cross between Ghost and Manchurian Candidate.") In Denver for the city's 25th International Film Festival with his latest, Investigating Sex, in tow, Mr. Rudolph–along with the film's co-screenwriter, Michael Henry Wilson–sat down with me underneath the canopy dome of the Denver Performing Arts Complex, high above the bustle below of the crowd arriving at the Temple Buell theatre for the screening and reception to follow. (A privileged vantage reminiscent of the ivory tower interplay of his collection of intellectuals in the picture.) I began by asking Mr. Rudolph about his long association with friend and mentor Robert Altman.

DIFF ’02: Be My Star

October 20, 2002Posted in2000s, Austria, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Film Festivals, Germany, Romance
Mein Stern**½/****starring Nicole Gläser, Monique Gläser, Jeanine Gläser, Christopher Schöpswritten and directed by Valeska Grisebach by Walter Chaw An extremely naturalistic German product, Valeska Grisebach's short (65 minutes) hyphenate debut Mein Stern ("Be My Star") demonstrates an unerring ear for the maelstrom of first love and just-pubescent angst but fails to maintain much interest in its inevitable story arc even over its brief running time. The picture is structured as an allegory for the capriciousness of adult relationships, though in route to its broad statements about the fickleness of attraction and devotion it finds itself choppy and unstructured. Distinguished by…

DIFF ’02: Springtime in a Small Town

October 20, 2002Posted in****/****, 2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, China, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, France, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Romance
Xiao cheng zhi chun****/****starring Wu Jun, Bai Qing Xin, Hu Jingfan, Lu Si Siscreenplay by Ah Chengdirected by Tian Zhuangzhuang by Walter Chaw Something like a Renoir film or a Brontë novel, Tian Zhuangzhuang's first feature film in nearly a decade Springtime in a Small Town ("Xiao Cheng Zhi Chun"), a remake of the Fei Mu's 1948 classic, is painterly and patient--a map of the inner rhythms of love and jealousy and sacrifice drawn with a master's steady stroke. The film introduces its three main characters in the same gently swooping style: the sickly scholar in the antebellum ruins of…

DIFF ’02: War

October 20, 2002Posted in2000s, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, Russia, War
Vojna*½/****starring Aleksei Chadov, Ian Kelly, Sergei Bodrov Jr., Ingeborga Dapkunaitewritten and directed by Aleksei Balabanovby Walter Chaw War is a peculiar low-budget version of Proof of Life that opens like that episode of "The Twilight Zone" about dolls come to life in a Beckett-ian toy box before it falls into some all-too-familiar patterns of folks getting kidnapped for ransom in Chechnya as foreign governments remain powerless (or disinclined) to get them back. Pitched with feverish earnestness, The War is high melodrama told without much in the way of moderation nor ultimately interest, its story proper that of a British man…

DIFF ’02: Dragonflies

October 20, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, Norway, Sweden, Thriller
DragonflyØyenstikker***½/****starring Maria Bonnevie, Kim Bodnia, Mikael Persbrandt, Tintin Anderzonscreenplay by Nikolaj Frobenius, based on the short story "Natt Til Mørk Morgen" by Ingvar Ambjørnsendirected by Marius Holst by Walter Chaw Marius Holst's haunted Dragonflies is weighted like a Terrence Malick film (or like Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock) by the ominous, oppressive indifference of the Natural. Its drab Scandinavian landscapes as timeless and purposeless as the subterranean tides that govern human behaviour, it's a lovely, poetic thing then when we're introduced to Eddie (Kim Bodnia) floating on a lake and his lover Maria (Maria Bonnevie) wandering through high grass like Ruth…

DIFF ’02: Gossip

October 20, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DIFF/SDFF, Drama, Film Festivals, Sweden
*½/****starring Pernilla August, Helena Bergström, Lena Endre, Olsson-Frigårdhwritten and directed by Colin Nutley by Walter Chaw Colin Nutley's insufferable (and interminable) in-joke of a roundelay concerning nine aging Swedish actresses each vying for the coveted role of Queen Christina in a remake of the Garbo classic suffers from that peculiar malady of actors occasionally thinking it novel to pretend that their lives are as laden with the indignities of outrageous fortune as ours. While one wonders if the auto-fun-poking would be more trenchant were one more familiar with the reputations and peccadilloes of the actors in question (among them Pernilla…

DIFF ’02: Sweet Ambition

October 20, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Documentary, Film Festivals
*/****directed by Laura Wall-Mansfield by Walter Chaw A low-aspiring, semi-inspiring documentary about nine Latino teens vowing not to become a racial stereotype of underachievement, crime, and early dropout-ism, the Denver-based Sweet Ambition examines the effect of smaller class sizes on future success. With a soundtrack cribbing tracks from sources as varied as local Latino rap to Antonio Banderas, Willie Nelson, Santana, and loads of Ani DiFranco, the production looks and feels slick, but interviews with the youths (some wayward, some twice-mothers at the age of 16) are naïve and often redundant. Over it all hangs the spectre of "So what?"…

DIFF ’02: Chiefs

October 20, 2002Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DIFF/SDFF, Documentary, Film Festivals, Sports
**/****directed by Daniel Junge by Walter Chaw Sports as empowerment as heady a trip as sports as oppression (Columbine's real villain, after all, is a virulent administration-sanctioned jock culture), Chiefs follows a Wyoming Native American High School basketball team through two consecutive seasons of state championship basketball. Indians perhaps the most marginalized minority in terms of insensitive sports mascot stereotype and caricature (The Cleveland Indians' unforgivable Chief Wahoo, anyone?), that the documentary chooses to champion a team self-named "The Chiefs" is both interesting and thorny. (Enough so that when a more interesting film fails to emerge, Chiefs at the end…