Whenever March 1st arrives, I can’t help but have the following thought: not only am I lucky to be alive, I am so-so very-very lucky-lucky to be me-me-me. For at no other time of year do my most cherished personal taste buds converge so mightily as they do in the weeks between mid-March and mid-April.

First up is something everyone can appreciate: the return of spring. All it takes is that first warm, bird chirpy morning to make my Seasonal Affective Disorder disappear in a blink, like it hadn’t just been dragging me down for the past several months (i.e., forever). It’s as if my nagging SAD, as well as the winter season itself, looked at each other late one night, shrugged, and hopped on a red-eye back to the North Pole or wherever they go to twiddle their thumbs until next winter, leaving me behind to bask in the magic realization that, all of a sudden, all that pent up wintry internal pressure is just gone. It never ceases to amaze me.

Second up is something fewer can appreciate: March Madness. While I’ve progressively begun to care less and less about professional sports, my affinity for college basketball, and especially this particular time of the season, is alive and thriving. Conference tournaments, leading into Selection Sunday, which in turn kicks off a giddy week of studying the brackets and fantasizing about the excitement to come… if you don’t get it, you never will. Thankchristfully for me, I do.

Third up is something even fewer get to experience: South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. For me, it’s all about the film festival, which champions the best in low-budget American independent cinema but is also well rounded in seemingly every other way (nonfiction, world cinema, genre films, etc.). By the second weekend, although movies are still being shown, the music festival has swallowed the city, creating an even more visceral opportunity to absorb some of the freshest new pop culture on the planet (and make the terminal ringing in my ears even louder). Combine this with the reality that in sports bars everywhere, March Madness is occupying every screen… all I can say to those of you have seen me in action the past several years and were convinced I was having a powder party up my nose, I wasn’t. I just find it hard to contain myself when experiencing the gold rush that is SXSW and its surrounding elements: spring weather, good music, great movies, and college freaking basketball!

And then there’s the Alamo Drafthouse, which is its own form of Heaven On Earth. Don’t even get me started on Tim League’s glorious institution. I can’t promise many things in life, but I can guarantee you that between March 12th and 19th, the following items will be saying WHAT’S UP, DADDY? to my stomach: multiple draft beers, several large tubs of buttered popcorn, a chicken strip basket, a chocolate milkshake, BBQ wings, and much more.

Then there’s St. Patrick’s Day. As my father is from Ireland (County Galway, represent), I should be happy that this overlaps with SXSW every year, but in reality, all this holiday does is gaudily constipate Austin’s already busy enough streets by tossing green clothing and raucous vomit into the mix. It’s like 6th St. becomes the obnoxious set of a low-rent House of Pain video.

The 2010 SXSW Film Festival promises to be a memorable one, as evidenced by a quick glance at the meaty schedule. I have already seen 28 of the feature films, and I am happy/surprised to say that I would recommend just about all of them (to varying degrees, of course). Shamefully, I appear to have only seen two of the shorts—Andrew Goldman and Andrew Blackwell’s Bikini Lighters and Bobby Miller’s TUB—but they are both excellent and worth your time. There are at least 20 more features that are very high on my list, and since I’m staying through Friday this year, I plan to see those 20 and hopefully several more. For now, let me try to wrap my brain around the films I have seen to help those of you out who are hoping to wrassle this program to the ground…

MY PERSONAL FAVORITES

Last Train Home
Trash Humpers
Four Lions
The Red Chapel
His & Hers

WORLD PREMIERES THAT I HAVE SEEN AND THOROUGHLY RECOMMEND

NY Export: Opus Jazz (Co-director/cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes quoted me describing this majestic beauty as “Elephant meets West Side Story” and I’m sticking to that. Mark my words, you won’t see a more beautiful film at SXSW this year.)

Tiny Furniture (Full disclosure: I have only seen an early cut of this film and expect it to be even better in its finished version. With it, the absurdly young Lena Dunham has made a gargantuan artistic leap forward. But don’t listen to me. Listen to the reviews as they start to roll in.)

11/4/08 (I am scrambling to get a full review of curator—NOT director—Jeff Deutchman’s provocative cinematic experiment written before I land in Austin, but in case that doesn’t happen, I wanted to make sure that it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.)

OTHER FILMS THAT HAVE SCREENED ELSEWHERE AND ARE WORTH YOUR TIME IN SOME WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM

Cyrus
Dogtooth
The Freebie
Life 2.0
On the Other Side of Life
Putty Hill
Winter’s Bone

AN ALL-TIME GREAT WITH SOME ADDED FLAVOR

The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, Denmark, 1928) — As much as I want to see this film on the big screen with a live musical accompaniment by In the Nursery, I don’t know if that’s fair to the other films in the festival. I think it would be incredibly hard to hop into a low-budget American indie after re-experiencing what is, without question, one of cinema’s most towering achievements.

AN INTERESTING COMPANION PIECE TO JOSH FOX’S GASLAND

Haynesville: A Nation’s Relentless Hunt For Energy (Gregory Kallenberg, USA, 2010) — Movies always come in twos, but in this case, Gregory Kallenberg is facing an uphill battle against Josh Fox’s throbbingly vital GasLand. That said, I actually think Haynesville makes for a valuable complement to that more incendiary film, if only to see just how complicated the developing natural gas situation in our country actually is. Removing people who light the water streaming out of their kitchen sinks on fire just by putting a match up to it! from the equation, Kallenberg’s film examines the situation from many sides, showing those who are benefiting from this modern day gold rush yet not in an exploitative way. I’ve been thinking about which film would be better to watch first, and right now I’m leaning towards Haynesville. One thing I will say, just because you’ve seen one of them doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see the other.

YOU HAVE BEEN FOREWARNED

Red, White & Blue (Simon Rumley, UK, 2010) — A month removed from Rotterdam and I’m even less sure how I feel about Simon Rumley’s punishing Red, White & Blue, which recalls Bruno Dumont’s Twentynine Palms in more ways than one. File this under “non-American director puts his own warped spin on what life is like in the good ol’ US of A.” One thing’s for sure. Though Red, White & Blue gets shockingly twisted, this isn’t mere torture porn. Rumley uses an elliptical editing style that keeps viewers off-balance throughout and makes his film feel artful even when everything else about it screams schlock genre. Rumley definitely drills his casting—at least with regards to his two main leads. Noah Taylor and Amanda Fuller don’t just look the part. They are the part. Though I am still scratching my head about Marc Senter, whose own performance is so campy that I can’t tell if this was intentional (good David Lynch) or unintentional (bad David Lynch). Even if you like it, Red, White & Blue will make you feel gross. And if you don’t, it’ll make you feel really gross.

NOT IN AUSTIN? THAT’S OKAY!

For those of you who aren’t attending SXSW but want to get a taste of what we’ll be watching, Cinetic FilmBuff and IFC Films have a very solid slate of VOD-ready titles ready for the taking. FilmBuff’s picks, which are available on iTunes and AmazonVOD, are two very different, though equally strong, examples of UK cinema: Justin Molotnikov’s comic thriller Crying With Laughter and David Bond’s provocative documentary Erasing David. I dug both of these films and think they’re perfect fits for this frisky approach to distribution. As they did last year, IFC Films is returning with their “Direct From SXSW” OnDemand series (available beginning 3/12). I am a very big fan of Bryan Poyser’s Lovers of Hate, so if you only pick one film to see, I urge it to be that. While I haven’t yet caught up with Shane Meadows’s Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee or Emmett Malloy’s The White Stripes: Under the Great White Northern Lights, I am interested in both (though I’m way more excited about the Meadows). As a bonus treat, two well received American indies from SXSW 2009, Jon Bryant’s The Overbrook Brothers and Daryl Wein’s Breaking Upwards, are also yours for the taking.

16 FILMS I AM EXCITED TO SEE

Cold Weather
No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson
The Oath
Enter the Void (I have been avoiding Gaspar Noe’s latest shocktacle for as long as I can but I’m now confident that seeing this at midnight at SXSW is the perfect way to stab my cherry into shredded pieces.)
Leaves of Grass
Earthling
The Myth of the American Sleepover
Phillip the Fossil
The Canal Street Madam
Audrey the Trainwreck
Mars
Passenger Pigeons
Taqwacore
SATURDAY NIGHT
The Weird World of Blowfly
Jimmy Tupper Vs. The Goatman of Bowie (While I have an affinity for urban legends, I’m more attracted to this movie because I lived in Bowie, Maryland, until I was eight years old!)

As you can see, we’ve all got a lot to chew on. So start chewing…

— Michael Tully

After last month’s open call in which we suggested readers submit their own Netflix Hidden Gems titles, we were quite pleased to receive this fine list from the filmmaking duo Playa516. If you too have a stack of Netflixable titles that you think are overlooked, or if you are inspired to make your own creative playlist the way the cool kids used to make mix tapes, send ‘em to this address: clinkAThammertonailDOTcom. Up first, a brief biography of our esteemed guests, followed by this month’s edition of Netflix Hidden Gems…

Playa516 is the nom de guerre of the writing/directing/producing team of Benjamin Cummings & Orson Cummings whose last feature was If I Didn’t Care (which can be found on Netflix under its alternative title, Blue Blood). The Hitchcockian noir, set and shot on location in The Hamptons, was the last film of the great Roy Scheider. Their work can be viewed on their website: www.playa516.com. They are presently at work on their follow up feature.

***ISSUE #7: MARCH ‘10***

A Shock To The System (1990) — Graham (Michael Caine) is a murderous advertising executive whose nagging wife (Swoosie Kurtz) won’t stop reminding him of his failures in this 1990 film that slipped under the radar most likely due to its intensely dark humor. When he accidentally commits a little murder, Graham is not punished, but rather his life and career are energized; not a message for the masses but hilarious and gripping. Unforgettable are Graham’s tete-a-tetes with the detective trying to catch him in a slip up, played by the great Will Patton. Their encounters are delicate dances that both of these heavyweight actors clearly relish.

The Twilight Samurai (2002) — Huge in Japan and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, this is not the type of picture to garner much hype in America. Unlike most Samurai movies, it is not dominated by action but rather tells the tale of the everyday life of a poor, dirty, smelly and terribly unlucky low ranking Samurai. He works a boring job, is a good man who avoids conflict, and takes care of his ill mother and young daughters. Delicate scenes that would be instantly tedious in the hands of a mediocre director are somehow intensely compelling when handled by the master Yoji Yamada. But fear not, as the slow pacing will carefully build and lead to the encounter all fans of Samurai pictures crave; even if this one involves a bit of sitting around and talking while blood spills from open wounds. ***STREAM IT***

The Chocolate War (1988) — Keith Gordon’s surrealistic debut about the tough road faced by an anti-conformist was criticized for playing with the book’s ending and not delivering the author’s intent. But films cannot be slaves to their sources and the ending here is sufficiently complex. The plot revolves around a student’s dilemma when he refuses to follow orders and sell chocolates for the school. The secret society known as “The Vigils” is brought in to squash the rebellion. The music of the ’80s is a key layer, ending with memorable use of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”. Like many great films, this one is dominated by the villain, Archie (Wallace Langham), an intellectual heavyweight who raises his nefarious deeds to the level of art as the leader of the Vigils’ campaign to reek havoc on the psyche of the rebel.

Elevator To The Gallows (1957) — As the great era of the film noir gets further and further behind us, classics like Double Indemnity or Touch Of Evil remain on best ever lists while lesser knowns are in danger of slipping away. In my campaign to watch them all, one that stayed with me is this 1957 Louis Malle classic. It follows the noir template: a bad decision and fate trap man in a web from which there is no escape. In this case it’s a faulty elevator that literally does the trapping. But this gem has two special elements: the visage of Jeanne Moreau and a score from Miles Davis that jazz critic Phil Johnson called “the loneliest trumpet sound you will ever hear and the model for sad-score music ever since. Hear it and weep.” Indeed. ***STREAM IT***

Groove: Requiem in the Key of Ski (1991) — This is quite simply the greatest ski film—no, not just ski but extreme sports film—ever made. It rises above the genre into the realm of art film with a political edge. The best athletes (Laird Hamilton windsurfing at 30knots with Iggy Pop belting out “Butt Town”), a sublime soundtrack ranging from Seal before anyone had heard of him to Ice-T, and a phenomenal show-stopping final segment of extreme off-piste skiing and boarding in the mountains of Alaska. The film asks: If the world is at war and falling apart, what should one do? Work for political change? Or disappear into the snow or surf and live a simple life enjoying the beauty of nature? There is no easy answer, though the Vietnam vet chopper pilot who ferries the athletes to the top of an Alaskan mountain long ago made his decision. (Special Note: The film no longer has its original soundtrack after Mr. Stump ran into some legal problems with regard to licensing.)

The Rachel Papers (1989) — Based upon the Martin Amis novel, this is a film about a precocious English lad, Charles Highway (Dexter Fletcher), who uses all his intellectual and technological prowess to woo women of all stripes. He falls for an American played by Ione Skye in her only real role other than Say Anything and falls in love with her. But old habits die hard. Will true love survive Charles’s persnickety attitude? Featuring performances from many notable names before they got big: James Spader, Jonathan Pryce and Michael Gambon. A great soundtrack and smooth, stylized imagery add to the potent mix.

Vernon, Florida (1981) — This is one of Oscar winning documentarian Errol Morris’s early films. He set out to meet and film the residents of Vernon, who, he had learned, had become known for severing their own digits and then filing insurance claims on the injuries. The film evolved to be about the town in general: a turkey hunter forever on the prowl, a couple who ‘grow’ sand in jars, a policeman who mans a speed trap where no one is ever in a hurry. Totally surreal and utterly gripping. ***STREAM IT***

Suture (1993) — In one of the great surrealistic Bunuelian casting ploys, half-brothers Clay (Dennis Haysbert - black) and Vincent (Michael Harris - white) approach one another and one says to the other: “Isn’t it remarkable how much we look alike?” No, they don’t, of course. But everyone else pretends they do, which is audacious and sets the tone for this psychological thriller/noir directed by Scott McGhee and David Siegel. The plot is a fun one in which one brother attempts to get away with the murder of their father, whilst pinning the crime on his sibling. It involves classic suspense elements of amnesia and a case of mistaken identity. It’s shot in black-and-white, is slick and smart, and oozes style and suspense.

Car Wash (1976) — With appearances by Richard Prior, George Carlin and Professor Irwin Corey, Car Wash is routinely thought of as a lightweight comedy. It’s funny, yes, but it’s also so much more, capturing a day-in-the-life of minorities in America (not unlike Do the Right Thing). The Hispanic, African American (and one homosexual) crew of the car wash experience what it is like to be a minority and under-employed at a menial job at a white-owned business. What begins as funny and lighthearted during the sunny LA morning becomes darker and increasingly dramatic after the sun sets. Great music, including the famous disco title track, lend a great deal to the proceedings. ***STREAM IT***

Rififi (1955) Yes, Rififi is acknowledged as a gem but do the kids really rent it today? They should because it invented the heist film and even though, yes, it is in French, subtitles don’t matter when the 30-minute set heist set piece has NO DIALOGUE, a tour-de-force that still enthralls as the criminals ply their trade in real time. It is also notable as the work of an American directer, Jules Dassin, working in France, where censorship was not the issue it was in the States during that period. As for the ending, well, it’s French and it’s Noir. Need we say more?

The Vanishing (1988) — Not the remake (1993, starring Jeff Bridges), but the original adaptation of the novel, The Golden Egg, as directed by George Sluizer. The film tells the story of a man obsessed with finding out what happened to his girlfriend, who disappears one day when they innocently stop for gas on a trip. His desire to know what happened leads him toward a fate of Greek proportions. The Vanishing does not, like most pictures of this genre, wait to reveal the identity of the kidnapper in a zinger at the end. Rather, he is introduced about halfway through the film, a choice that ironically provides much more suspense. All pictures must be judged by their endings, and rest assured this is one you will not forget (and one much too audacious to be found in the studio remake). It might very well cost you a few night’s sleep. ***STREAM IT***

In honor of that putrid spectacle that I didn’t, in fact, watch this past Sunday night (yes, I’m patting myself on the back with both of my stuck-up hands), two Best Picture nominees are being released on home video this week. Sharp thinking, Lionsgate and Paramount. While I’m neither ashamed nor proud to admit that I still haven’t seen Up in the Air (buy it on DVD or Blu-ray), I am still reeling from having caught Precious: Based On The Novel “Push” By Sapphire (buy it on DVD or Blu-ray) when it first premiered all the way back in January 2009 at the Sundance Film Festival. One year, and an unexpected amount of lavish praise and attention later, my opinion of that divisive spectacle remains more yay than nay. It’s a tonal mess, and it often plays like a dated movie-of-the-week, but it has a sincerity—and one legendary performance (yes, you, Mo’Nique)—that makes me ultimately say, “I’ll grant you this one, Lee Daniels, but watch yourself, buddy.” More importantly, here are some more new DVDs for the taking. Truth be told, these aren’t coming with the highest recommendations, but they at the very least appear to be worth adding to your Netflix queue:

The Memory Thief (7th Art/Walking Shadows) — Often, when a film starts strong but runs out of gas by the end, its shortcomings will seem magnified in retrospect, even as its virtues seem proportionately reduced. So it is with The Memory Thief. I haven’t been recommending the movie to friends since I saw it. But thinking about it weeks later, I’m still impressed by its thematic ambition, its conceptual originality, and the grim integrity with which the story plays out. It’s a bold, serious, and in many ways accomplished debut. Read the rest of Nelson Kim’s review, then buy it on DVD.

Tapeheads (MGM) — I have absolutely no recollection of this one—which hopefully says more about me than the movie itself—but I’m interested to find out if my memory of Bill Fishman’s wacky comedy is blacked out for a reason. That said, John Cusack and Tim Robbins back in 1988? How bad could it be? Buy it on DVD.

The Who: The Kids Are Alright (Sanctuary Records) — Another one that I know I’ve watched but don’t remember. Man, I’m on point this week! Buy it on Blu-ray.

Gigante (Film Movement) — This is one of those movies that I genuinely wanted to see but missed at every opportunity for some reason. A supermarket security guard becomes infatuated with a janitor. Where will all this lead? Probably not to true love, but perhaps I’ve watched too much Lifetime Movie Network. Buy it on DVD.

Capitalism: A Love Story (Starz/Anchor Bay) — I remember back when I would have been first in line to see the new Michael Moore call-to-arms on opening day, but those days have taken a seemingly indefinite hiatus. Still, I do want to see Moore’s treatise on the economic crisis and see how digestible he makes it. Buy it on DVD or Blu-ray.

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (Sony Pictures) — I still don’t understand the phenomenon surrounding this franchise but apparently it’s a phenomenon so I’m including it here. How’s that for a hot recommendation. Buy it on DVD or Blu-ray.

What Definitely Not To Watch

Based on past, admittedly limited, experience, the idea of the International Film Festival Rotterdam taking its complete Tiger Awards competition on the road is maybe not the best one. That’s because the Tigers only consist of the earliest features (first and second) of upstart directors from all over the globe. When you take into account the fact that more than a dozen films are included each year, this makes for an unavoidably imbalanced ratio between the very good to the middling to the much more painful than that. In doing a casual survey of those who are familiar with the IFFR and the Tiger Awards competition, the most generous number I’ve heard when it came to keepers from each year’s competition was a dubious three. While teaming up with BAM to present the complete 2010 Tiger Awards competition in America—aka, Rotterdam@BAM—is a fresh, groundbreaking concept, if most of the films on display sucked, this wouldn’t just be bad for Rotterdam and BAM, it would unintentionally further marginalize exceptional foreign, independent, festival films from American audiences.

Having said that, I am happy to report that 2010’s Tiger Awards competition features so many standouts that I would hold it up alongside the far more illustrious and comprehensive New Directors/New Films program. While I’ve only seen twelve of the fifteen films from this year’s slate, some of which were, in fact, the type of pretentious stinkers that give foreign films, and film festivals in general, a bad name, I am also shocked at how much strong work I encountered. Here, in order of personal preference, are my must-sees from this year’s Rotterdam@BAM series (in some cases, I’ve tweaked/updated the capsules from my IFFR wrap-up):

Alamar (To the Sea) (Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio, Mexico, 2009) — Alamar is a breathtaking little gem of a movie that is executed with such seeming effortlessness, I was fully convinced I was watching a documentary the whole way through. While it might be lazy—and not entirely accurate—to call it Malickian, Gonzalez-Rubio shows a similar reverence for nature that isn’t overly simplistic and hippified. This touching story of a young boy and his father spending time in Mexico’s Banco Chinchorro coral reef, fishing and existing meal-to-meal, day-to-day, with their father/grandfather, before the child leaves his father behind once and for all to go live with his mother in Italy, is a pleasant reminder that industrialization hasn’t steamrolled its way into every corner of the world (not yet, at least). And when it’s time for the little one to leave that paradise behind, Gonzalez-Rubio doesn’t provide an obnoxiously loud contrast between the sea and the city. Back on land, in this more developed Italian setting, the beautiful memories of that quiet life linger. To paraphrase my smarter-than-I girlfriend, Alamar isn’t just a profoundly touching metaphor for parenthood in general; it’s like watching a father’s gorgeous dream in which he basks fully in the love of his child. It would have to be a seriously triumphant year if, at the end of 2010, Alamar doesn’t make my overall Top 10 list. (SCREENING: THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 9:15PM)

Let Each One Go Where He May (Ben Russell, USA, 2009) — If someone asks you to describe what the Tiger Awards competition is about, Ben Russell’s film would be a great place to start. Tell them that the only American selection in 2010 was directed by an experimental artist and that it consists of thirteen 10-minute one-takes shot on 16mm. I saw Let Each One Go Where He May on my last night in Rotterdam at 10pm. Groggy before even sitting down to watch it, I was worried that my already heavy eyelids wouldn’t be able to stay separated for the film’s duration. Yet as soon as it began, I perked fully awake and stayed riveted throughout. Shot in Suriname, Let Each One Go Where He May follows two brothers who take a similar geographic journey to the one their ancestors took when they were fleeing Dutch slave-traders over 300 years prior. Russell’s bold film is a glorious blend of Munyurangabo and Gerry, in which each unbroken take builds in drama and tension the longer it transpires (there are some glitches along the way, but these feel more like documentary accidents as opposed to fiction mistakes). Winner of the FIPRESCI prize, Let Each One Go Where He May is certainly not for everyone, but in contrast to the more traditional narrative work on display in major film festival award competitions, it provides a rejuvenating, major thrill. (SCREENING: SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 2PM)

Street Days (Quchis dgeebi) (Levan Koguashvili, Georgia, 2010) — It might be sacrilegious to say that I like Koguashvili’s Street Days even more than Corneliu Porumboiu’s Police, Adjective, but the further away I get from it, the more that feeling sticks. The similarities between the two films are virtually impossible to ignore, as Koguashvili’s deadpan drama is set in small Georgian town (yes, I know Georgia is not Romania) in which boredom leads the police into staging an inappropriately false drug bust. In Street Days, however, the character of Chekie (a phenomenal Guga Kotetishvili) stands for more than just this particular down-on-his-luck individual. Chekie represents so many of his fellow countrymen, who are born into a despondent life that they won’t ever be able to transcend or escape. Koguashvili sets a humorous tone—exhibiting an exceptional talent for choreography within the frame along the way—but he concludes on a somber note that brings his point home more conclusively. For those of you who appreciated Police, Adjective but felt there was a way to convey repetition less literally, Street Days accomplishes this same agenda at a much brisker pace, without sacrificing any intellectual weight. (SCREENING: MONDAY, MARCH 8, 8:45PM)

The Temptation of St. Tony (Puha Tonu kiusamine) (Veiko Ounpuu, Estonia, 2009) — Wow. If Bela Tarr watched a double-bill of Dead Man and Lost Highway and went to sleep, this is what his dream might look like. Ounpuu opens with a quote from Dante’s Divine Comedy, and he goes on to update that story to reflect modern Eastern Europe life at its most comically grotesque. Tony (Taavi Eelmaa, looking oddly like Reggie Miller if Reggie Miller had hair) is a successful everyman who begins to lose a grip on his life when a series of freak events occur. This is another case where personal taste buds will determine one’s tolerance for the bizarre antics on display, but to know that movies like this are still getting funded and are still being made is a wondrous thought indeed. Having not yet seen Oonpuu’s first feature, Autumn Ball, I’m now determined to track it down. More than that, I’m anxious to see what he comes up with next. (SCREENING: FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 9:15PM)

Mundane History (Jao nok krajok) (Anocha Suwichakornpong, Thailand, 2009) — Come to think of it, this Tiger Awards program is filled with work that will appeal to certain temperaments and rub others the very wrong way. Fortunately, the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul makes me swoon, and I would place Suwichakornpong’s Mundane History firmly in the Weerasethakul camp. That said, since I only know Thai cinema through Weerasethakul’s films, I’m not sure if I’m being lazy at best, and racist at worst, in making this comparison. Anyone? Or would Suwichakornpong acknowledge this influence and appreciate the compliment? Whatever the case, Mundane History unfolds at a sleepy pace, as an injured young man returns home to be looked after by a male nurse. Suwichakornpong repeats scenes and situations to add a drugged up dreaminess to the proceedings (to further place us inside this patient’s head?), but she also injects a few moments that burst forth with an otherworldly, immediate power, jolting viewers awake in the process. (SCREENING: SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 6:30PM)

Agua fria de mar (Cold Water of the Sea) (Paz Fabrega, Mexico, 2010) — Fabrega’s feature debut is a quiet mystery of a drama, boasting beautiful CinemaScope cinematography of some genuinely stunning locales. The setting is the Costa Rican coast, where a young couple has traveled to take care of some family business involving land. Their first night there, they encounter a small girl who appears to have run away from an abusive situation at home. The next morning, she’s gone. For the majority of the film, Fabrega crosscuts between the young girl’s life back at home and the mysterious unraveling of the couple’s relationship. But eventually, their paths cross again, and the truth is revealed. Cold Water of the Sea is a quiet achievement, which speaks most strongly when it isn’t speaking at all. I jokingly called it “Lucrecia Martel’s George Washington” when I first saw it, but in a strange way, I think that comparison holds true. It’s no wonder it won a Tiger Award alongside Mundane History and Alamar. (SCREENING: SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 4:15PM)

R (Michael Noer and Tobias Lindholm, Denmark, 2010) — Movies always seem to come in twos (Capote and Infamous being the most obvious recent example), but it’s unfortunate for directors Michael Noer and Tobias Lindholm that their doppelanger happens to be Jacques Audiard’s ultra-mighty A Prophet. There are just way too many similarities to not keep feeling a sense of déjà vu throughout, but if one can suppress those annoying urges, R turns out to be an even bleaker depiction of life on the inside. In this case, even though our protagonist rises to the occasion, ultimately his cunning can’t conquer his surroundings. It’s a tough movie. (Note: I can promise that after watching R, you’ll never look at Kinder eggs the same way again.) (SCREENING: SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 9PM)

Wild Card

Mama (Nikolay Renard and Yelena Renard, Russia, 2010) — Mama is like the immaculate bastard of Ulrich Seidl and Roy Andersson, which merges Seidl’s Eastern European grime with Andersson’s comic-strip sadness. Nothing much happens in this story about a grotesquely large 40-year-old man who lives at home with his weary mother, and literally nothing is said. But it certainly sets a mood and tone that lingers. If the names Seidl and Andersson get you excited, you should definitely seek out Mama, though don’t set your bar too high. This is more of a distant nephew than an actual sibling. (SCREENING: SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 5:15PM)

— Michael Tully

An interesting, rather well rounded week for new home video releases. Let’s get to it:

Fully Recommended

The Beaches of Agnes (Cinema Guild) — Playfully linking together experiences and memories, observations and thought, culminating in revelations that are far outside the limitations of a linear biography, The Beaches of Agnes may be [Agnes] Varda’s most completely realized cinematic essay. Read the rest of Holly Herrick’s review, then buy it on DVD.

Tell Them Anything You Want (Oscilloscope) — At only 40 minutes, Lance Bangs and Spike Jonze’s portrait of acclaimed children’s author and illustrator Maurice Sendak is an unexpectedly moving experience. Bangs and Jonze go into Sendak’s home to let him tell his own life story. Hilariously, Sendak explains that his lifelong fascination with childhood surely isn’t because he likes kids. Another ongoing obsession is death. Watching Sendak grapple with his own eventual demise provides the film with another layer of bittersweet humor. More than just a complement to Jonze’s feature-length adaptation of Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, Tell Them Anything You Want stands as a tender portrait of a sheltered man whose imagination and talent continues to bless so many lives. Buy it on DVD.

Recommended

Gentlemen Broncos (Fox Searchlight) — To this day, I still don’t understand the vitriol that accompanied so many people’s harsh dismissals of Jared Hess’s latest film. To my eyes, Gentlemen Broncos is an example of low-budget filmmaking at its scrappiest and most spirited. It feels like Hess’s most accomplished and deeply personal work so far, and it features an award-worthy performance by Jemaine Clement. If you listened to all those naysayers and avoided it during its shamefully limited theatrical run, watch it now and join me in wondering what in the hell those people were talking about. Buy it on DVD or Blu-ray.

Where The Wild Things Are (Warner Home Video) — Even speaking solely on technical terms, I found Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are to be a more emotionally absorbing achievement than Avatarded. However, its rather grating twee-pop score and somewhat lackluster narrative brought me back down to Earth. Still, I look forward to revisiting this one again, if only to admire the incredible art direction and special effects on display. Buy it on DVD or Blu-ray.

Home Video Recommended

This Emotional Life (PBS) — I only saw the first part of this 6-hour PBS series dedicated to understanding and improving our personal lives in such trying times, but it made me want to very much catch up with the whole thing when this day arrived. Now’s my chance to finish it off. Buy it on DVD.

Cold Souls (20th Century Fox) — Try as I might, it was impossible for me not to think of Charlie Kaufman when watching Sophie Barthes’s Cold Souls. A philosophical comedy in which Paul Giamatti plays himself as he tries to shake up his passionless life by receiving a controversial “soul extraction” operation, the film is well acted and looks appropriately clinical. But it left me wondering if I was missing something or if it simply hadn’t hit its mark all the way. Which makes it a perfect candidate for revisiting on Netflix, in the comfort of my own home. Buy it on DVD.

Have Not Seen But Very Much Want To

Ponyo (Studio Ghibli) — I’m not sure how I managed to miss Hayao Miyazaki’s latest on the big screen, because it seemed to be in theaters for a refreshingly extended period of time, but now I have no more excuses. Buy it in the following formats: Two-Disc DVD Edition, Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo, or Two-Disc Special Edition + Plush Toy.

Wild Card of the Week

Elvis [A 1979 made-for-TV movie about Elvis, directed by John Carpenter and starring Kurt Russell??? Why have I never seen this???]

This is one of those weeks when the number of movies I can personally recommend pales in comparison to those new releases that I haven’t actually seen but plan to add to my Netflix queue.

Highly Recommended

The Informant! (Warner Home Video) — I guess this year’s Best Actor nominees seem appropriate (I wouldn’t really know, though, as I’ve only seen one of those films), yet I still wish Matt Damon had been recognized more officially for the work he does in Steven Soderbergh’s biting comedy. Slowly and surely, Damon has proven himself to be one of Hollywood’s smartest and most determined performers. His talents are on full display in The Informant!, which took a while to get going, but when it started zinging, it really started zinging. Buy it on DVD or Blu-ray.

Examined Life (Zeitgeist) — Can philosophy serve a legitimate purpose in our rapid-paced, techno-charged, money-grubbing modern world? Or is it nothing more than a severely outdated form of brain calisthenics that has no ability to impact our society in even the most impractical of manners? Perhaps the answer to that question resides in the actual film Astra Taylor has made with Examined Life. If Taylor can spin such heady, academic material into an engaging and entertaining documentary, then there just might be some hope after all. Inserting her subjects—some of the world’s most brilliant philosophical minds—into the most routine and commonplace of locales (parks, airports, backseats of cars, landfills, shopping districts) as they casually, though headily, discuss a variety of topics, Taylor delivers an engaging defense for the idea that this type of thinking is exactly what the world needs right now. Read the rest of my review, then buy it on DVD.

The Vicious Kind (Image Entertainment) — Refreshingly free of quirky pixie girls and embroidered title cards, The Vicious Kind gets most of its mileage out of an acidic, pathetic, and seductive performance from Adam Scott as Caleb, a wittily embittered construction worker with a cross to bear—and a destructive crush on his frat-boy brother’s goth girlfriend (Brittany Snow). But despite the various “types” populating this anxious Thanksgiving reunion (and despite the presence of J.K. Simmons as a saucy patriarch) there’s not a hint of the Juno here. The Vicious Kind is a film with a curious kind of nostalgia. It harkens back, but not too far—just to the 1996 new releases shelf at Tower Video, when this viewer was ten years old and devouring Ted Demme’s Beautiful Girls, Steve Buscemi’s Trees Lounge, and Doug Liman’s Swingers (a great year for sadsack pseudo-misogynists developing relationships with sympathetic heroines they couldn’t properly appreciate; I should really examine this vis a vis the formation of my romantic inclinations). Lee Toland Krieger has created the sort of pure, slightly sentimental character study that’s no longer cool—but definitely should be. (Note: Although the performances are all top-notch, I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t nominate Brittany Snow’s hair for a Razzie. Her turn as a wanton sexthing with something to say is awesome, but girlfriend is giving major wig and it is distracting.) Buy it on DVD. — (Lena Dunham)

Somewhat Recommended

Crude (First Run Features) — Buy it on DVD.

Flame and Citron (MPI Home Video) — Buy it on DVD.

Three Blind Mice (MPI Home Video) — Buy it on DVD.

New to Blu-ray

Ichi the Killer (Tokyo Shock) — Buy it on Blu-ray.

The Crazies (Blue Underground) — Buy it on Blu-ray.

Have Not Seen But Very Much Want To

Make Way For Tomorrow (Criterion) — Buy it on DVD.

The Damned United (Sony Pictures Entertainment) — Buy it on DVD or Blu-ray.

The Box (Warner Home Video) — Buy it on DVD or Blu-ray.

Have Not Seen But Kind Of Want To

The September Issue (Lionsgate) — Buy it on DVD.

Dead Snow (MPI Home Video) — Buy it on DVD.

Swedish Auto (MPI Home Video) — Buy it on DVD.

Google Me (Cinevolve Studios) — Buy it on DVD or Blu-ray.

Wild Card

Jersey Shore: Season 1 Uncensored (Full disclosure: I tried watching this show, after being urged to do just that by pretty much anyone I encountered who knew of my love for The Real Cancun, and after only two episodes, I bailed out. Jersey Shore is like the National Enquirer to The Real Cancun’s The New Yorker. Not as deeply layered and fascinatingly hypocritical and generation-defining.)

Another month has arrived. Yippee! It seems like every week Netflix is unleashing an onslaught of new titles available for Instant Streaming, which is making it very hard to keep up. But that’s a good thing. Just a daunting one. Along those lines, we have a proposition for you:

In the future, we would love for you devoted readers to contribute to the Hidden Gems fun. If you’ve got some time on your hands and want your voice to be heard, please submit your own picks to the following address—clink AT hammertonail DOT com—in a format similar to below. Also, feel free to contribute as many as you’d like, so we can ensure that the Hidden Gems party keeps on grooving. Thanks!

***ISSUE #6: FEBRUARY ‘10***

Let It Ride (1989) — One of the most underrated comedies of the ‘80s, now slowly gaining a cult following. Teri Garr, David Johansen, Robbie Coltrane, Jennifer Tilly, and Allen Garfield are all at the top of their game. Richard Dreyfuss at his most irksome, repugnant, and wonderful. (Noah Buschel)

Ushpizin (2005) — This wonderful and warm film marks the first feature made by members of the Israeli ultra-Orthodox community in collaboration with secular filmmakers. Sensitively directed by Giddi Dar, Ushpizin (“the guests”) provides an extremely touching look at the daily lives of ultra-Orthodox Jews as they question and explore their faith in this humorous tale of deeply religious people trying to live in a modern world. Shuli Rand, playing “Moshe” (he also penned the excellent script) gives a powerful performance alongside his real-life wife, Mechal Bat Sheva Rand (“Malli”). Their love is tested, their deep faith challenged, when a secret from Moshe’s past reveals itself during the harvest holiday of Succoth (think Jewish Thanksgiving) when two unannounced guests, who have just sprung themselves from prison, show up and turn their lives upside down. Absolutely beautiful. (Pamela Cohn) ***STREAM IT***

Ishtar (1987) — After weeks spent chasing down a copy of Elaine May’s famous 1987 fiasco finally landed me an unopened VHS via Ebay, I was a proud cultural spelunker. Vanity Fair recently excerpted a section from Peter Biskind’s Warren Beatty bio that left me desperate to watch the famous flop. After all, if Elaine May is given Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, and the desert as tools, how bad could is really be? And tales of backstage drama only increase my curiosity. So this Wednesday I am having a small Ishtar party, replete with thematically appropriate middle-Eastern food. And then, this morning, I found out the movie can be streamed on Netflix instant view. Buzz. Kill. (Lena Dunham) ***STREAM IT***

Trigger Man (2007) – Before making the masterful The House of the Devil (#11 on our Top 25 of the Decade list), Ti West created Trigger Man, a film as minimalist as The House of the Devil is opulent, and every bit as tense. The story follows as three friends leave New York City for a day of hunting, beer, and male bonding in the woods. Soon, however, they discover that they aren’t the only hunters in the woods, and someone has their targets set on them. Think of it as Old Joy meets Deliverance. Special mention must be given to Sound Designer Graham Reznick, whose expert manipulation of the soundscape is as integral to the film’s sustained suspense as West’s skillful command of atmosphere. (Cullen Gallagher)

John And Mary (1969) — Directed by Peter Yates and starring Dustin Hoffman (hot on the heels of his great performance in Midnight Cowboy) and Mia Farrow (just after her star-making turn in Rosemary’s Baby), John and Mary is the story of two Manhattan singles awaking after a one night stand. Told as a series of conversations, flashbacks and complicated gestures, the film unfolds the nature of attraction between two people who, living in the moment, did not take the time to discover one another’s name before getting down to business. Considered racy (and even “amoral”) by some in 1969, the film today feels light, charming and, given the concerns of so many low-budget independent films of our own time, strangely prescient. (Tom Hall) ***STREAM IT***

Starting Out in the Evening (2007) - The last gasp for Gary Winick’s InDigEnt label, which in its 2000-2007 lifespan specialized in heartfelt and unadorned NYC indies, ones usually shot on digital with a movie star or two for somewhere south of a million dollars, was Andrew Wagner’s Starting Out In The Evening. It also happens to be the best of an impressive if uneven group of films, a meticulously acted kammerspiel marvel, deftly avoiding the clichés that latch onto films about secluded, ambitious writers, young and old alike. Never much of a Frank Langella fan, this one sold me on his bona fides. (Brandon Harris) ***STREAM IT***

Blind Shaft (2003) — A gripping thriller set in China’s semi-illegal, unregulated, and highly dangerous network of coal mines, where thousands of workers are reported to die each year. Two migrant workers have come up with the perfect scam: they recruit other men to join them on mining jobs, kill them, then claim there was an accident and collect hush money from the mine owners. The film’s combination of punch-you-in-the-face pulp vigor and muckraking political anger recalls Sam Fuller at his best. Writer/director/producer Li Yang, whose background was in documentary, shot Blind Shaft independently, without the permission of the central authorities; the film was subsequently banned in China but went on to play several major international festivals, winning the Silver Bear award at Berlin. (Nelson Kim)

Lawn Dogs (1997) — Some may mistake Tom DiCillo’s Box of Moonlight from the same mid-‘90s boom to be Sammy “the Rock” Rockwell’s breakout role, and that’s a damn shame when this little gem (directed by John Duigan) is considered. With a beautiful lead performance by Mischa Barton (at 11, both striking and sincere, despite how most consider her as of late), this story of a gated community with a talented, frustrated lower-class groundsman who develops a strong and eventually dangerous bond with one wealthy family’s precocious, pubescent daughter, manages to unfold and enwrap its audience before unraveling in a disarming, thoughtful way. Pretty much perfect, don’t let the triteness of the title deceive you, it is what the picture wants you to think. There is more here than in most others of this genre, breed, and period. (Evan Louison)

God Told Me To (1976) — This low budget ‘horror’ film, written and directed by genre master Larry Cohen, stars Tony Lo Bianco as religious cop whose faith is is challenged by a series of strange murders in which the killers claim that “God told them to kill.” As Tony pursues similarities between the seemingly unrelated murders he starts to fall apart as he realizes that his belief in a benevolent and all knowing creator may be wrong. God Told Me To is a pulpy classic that is set in a gritty long gone New York City and demonstrates how flexible the horror genre can be when realistic character development is used in pursuit of sincerely argued thematic issues. (Mike S. Ryan) ***STREAM IT***

Dallas 362 (2005) — Scott Caan’s directorial debut is a jacked up affair that shows Caan’s reverence for the testosterone-heavy character pieces of the 1970s. Caan and Shawn Hatosy star as best friends in LA who can’t buy a drink in a bar without getting into a brawl. Caan shows great instincts along the way, and his assembled players—Jeff Goldblum, Kelly Lynch, Val Lauren, Isla Fisher—clearly revel in the opportunity to get loose. It ain’t perfect, but it should have received way more attention than it did. (Michael Tully) ***STREAM IT***

A few weeks back, in my very personal recap of the 2010 Cinema Eye Honors, I made my opinion of Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher’s October Country quite clear. In the subsequent few weeks, I encountered multiple people who told me that my reaction had struck a real nerve with Palmieri and Mosher. Since I normally reserve my negativity for big Hollywood productions, I decided that the most honorable thing to do would be man up and sit down with Palmieri and Mosher and have a conversation about this minor drama. While I didn’t see the point in talking about the film itself—they felt how they felt, I felt how I felt—I wanted to try to have as candid a conversation as possible about what upset them so much about my words. October Country opens on Friday, February 12th, at the IFC Center. Visit the film’s official website to learn more, and be sure to read Pamela Cohn’s review for a much more positive take on the film.

Hammer to Nail: I want to explore this situation that came up. You guys don’t know me, but it seems like you’re aware enough of the site to know that we usually don’t go after smaller films. But I had a personal reaction to the Cinema Eye Honors and I just let loose.

Michael Palmieri: To be fair to you, you did say in your piece, you were having a personal rant. You did acknowledge that.

H2N: I tried to, at least. I guess the first thing I want to ask is: prior to this, have you guys had any negative press?

MP: The funny thing about some of the comments you made that, at least for me, struck hard, had to do with the very first review we got, which was in Variety when it showed in LA. It just bashed us for being ‘invasively exploitative’ and all these things—

Donal Mosher: It said it walked a moral line and then proceeded to say that we crossed it. At the same time, they praised the beauty of the filmmaking.

MP: It was kind of like a giveth and taketh away review. They were praising the filmmaking but they were having ethical problems with the film that were really—if you step back and try to put yourselves in the shoes of the reviewer—it was in a weird way a class-based assumption that was being made in the article, which we thought was the most interesting thing about it. It was still a negative review. That’s fine. A negative review is a negative review.

H2N: A review is a review.

DM: And there was some debate on The D-Word on these issues. It was complicated by the fact that, a guy in the audience who accused us of condescending to my family and exploiting them was saying that the audience was laughing at them during the course of the film. And in my opinion, I think my family tells some damn good jokes. They’re bitter jokes but they’re funny, and if you can’t laugh with them, at their humor, then who’s condescending to whom?

MP: This person’s personal response was more of a reflection of their own shit they were bringing to the table on this movie. I mean, I was in that screening. You can hear laughter in a certain way. It seemed pretty clear based on the general audience response, from the comments they were making afterward and the way they were laughing, that they were on the right side of the laughter the way we were presenting it. We’re never condescending to that family. At least we don’t think we’re being condescending.

DM: But that’s where it ended up. Because it was an online forum we could respond to it. And so it actually turned into a really good dialogue about the extent of your cultural lens and how do you view a film. And you can only combat that so far when you’re a filmmaker.

MP: In the end you have the personal reasons for making this film, and then there’s all the basic ethical steps you can take as a filmmaker to guard against this concept just for your own sanity. You know, ask the people if they want to be interviewed; make sure that along the way you’re always checking in with them, that it stays a collaboration; that after you shape the material in the edit you show it to them and say, “Is this cool? Are you cool with this?” I mean, that’s as far as I think I can take it. But then it becomes a public film, and that public film is an entirely other thing. It gets to a point where you don’t have control over what people do or don’t think.

H2N: My personal experience as a filmmaker, especially having so many friends and acquaintances in the industry, is that when I know they’ve watched my movie and they choose not to write about it, that’s their answer right there. It’s a polite gesture on their behalf. But when we get out of the festival circuit and into the ‘real world’ of a theatrical release, the gloves come all the way off. I’m weird, because some of my favorite reviews were the ones that ripped us to shreds! I guess what I’m wondering is how do you deal with the feelings that emerge when you read something from someone that appears to have viewed the film through a different lens than you’d intended?

DM: I think if you can’t respond to them. If it’s some large publication, you don’t really have much of voice in response. You have to let go at some point. For me, you can charge me with whatever you want because that’s like filmmaker to filmmaker or viewer to filmmaker. The only time where I can’t let go of it is when they start attacking my family personally. The language turns on them and is cruel towards them.

MP: For example, in Variety’s review, there’s a line where they say, you know, “The Moshers dilapidated dwelling.” And it’s like, dilapidated according to whom? From a cultural theory perspective the question becomes: what is the background of this reviewer? These comments go through so quickly, the people just pick it up and read it. I mean, they’re reading Variety and deciding whether or not the film is gonna play well or not in the theater. But still, that’s hurtful.

H2N: I kept meeting people since my post went live who said that it really appeared to sting you, and I kept thinking, “Only like fourteen people read this site. Who cares?”

MP: Well, more than fourteen people read your site, Michael.

H2N: Not many more!

MP: But it’s a really great site.

H2N: I wonder if the fact that we usually reserve our negativity for the big Hollywood bombs played a role in your reaction, like maybe it was a bigger sideswipe because it was so unexpected?

MP: For me, I read Hammer to Nail. And I really like it. I really appreciate it. And I also appreciate your allowing certain reviewers to review our film in a positive light. It was weird, coming from your site. It was just like, “Whoa!” Like an out of left field thing. And compounded by the fact that the way you were framing our film was coming from these older exploitation attacks. Which was just like, “What the fuck?” That’s why I was so thrown by it.

DM: It’s also that we’re pretty new into the community, and so I don’t know how much these things weigh. Like, is this a serious blow? Not to the film. The film will do what it does. But standing inside a community with somebody who people respect and they lambast you. It’s tricky, because it’s not just about the work. It’s about the community of filmmakers. And I’ve never been in an art community that took such good care of each other. So that’s the stuff that makes me nervous.

MP: I was like, “Oh, this Michael Tully, I’d really like to meet him some day.” You know, just reading your blog. And then all of a sudden it was just like WUH-BAM! (H2N laughs) My first reaction was, “What a fucking asshole.” But then stepping back, it’s like, wait a second. People are judging something out here. It has nothing to do with you or me or us being friends or not. You know what I mean?

H2N: And that’s where it gets so complicated. It’s weird. Whenever I get negative, that’s the only time I get personal thank you emails. When I wrote the Cinema Eye Honors piece, I got a lot of thank yous, and many were from people who love your movie. They weren’t taking that personally. But those reactions make me actually want to be more outwardly critical without sounding bitter or jealous or frustrated or whatever. It’s a tough line because everyone says they want you to be honest but most people sure don’t take criticism well.

MP: It feels like part of the reason we’re having this conversation is that we all agree that there’s something very special about the documentary community in the United States and in New York, that everyone is very supportive of one another. And we actually take that for granted, because that can actually take away from helpful criticism by those members of the community, which is I think why people were thanking you. You’re expressing an alternative opinion that is only, in the end, better for our viewing of this situation. My own viewing of the situation. Why did I get so angry at this person? What the fuck, I need to get my head on straight. Oh yeah, well shit, we’re gonna come up against this against much larger people than, like you said, the fourteen people that read your site.

H2N: That is true. Like, do you know who’s writing your Times review?

MP: A.O. Scott. I would think that’s the safest. If we’d gotten Manohla Dargis I think we would have been absolutely murdered.

H2N: I love her but I don’t agree with a good bit of her nonfiction writing.

MP: Supposedly she’s not a big fan of the personal family film.

H2N: If that’s true, she’s probably not the one you want writing your review!

MP: We never thought we’d get someone like A.O. Scott.

H2N: But even that. I don’t know how much a Times review helps anymore. There are at least ten movies getting released every weekend. It’s like a scary volcano.

MP: In terms of box office it does very little for these films, because I think the margin is so small. Actually, Big River Man is a really good example. That was an absolutely awesome review for that film. But that didn’t do much to change their box office.

H2N: And Loot, which opened on the same day.

MP: It’s the same thing! It ran for three weeks there. I don’t know what the numbers were. I’m sure Big River Man in general grossed more because of it being in a larger theater or whatever. But there is no career making New York Times review anymore.

DM: At the same time, we’re trying to do a theatrical run, and the smaller theaters are looking to see what New York does. And the review’s part of it.

H2N: Do you think that is true? I’ve always thought it was a strictly numbers game.

MP: It’s predominantly numbers but a good review will put you on a certain radar, for one-off venues like the Wexner Center. I think all you need is that one review. And it’s interesting to see. We’re doing all this independently. We’re using an independent booker, Wendy Lidell of the International Film Circuit. We really made that choice because we wanted to see the landscape, where things are right now as opposed to going with a respected, larger distributor. We think we made the right choice even though we’re pulling our fucking hair out on a daily basis. The ground is shifting dramatically.

H2N: The difference with your film is that it’s literally personal. We’re all sissies and sensitive about our ‘art’ but you have like two layers to be sensitive about.

MP: One of the weird things about this film is that it was basically ignored. I mean, it was rejected from every single major festival at the beginning of the year. And then True/False decided to give it a shot, but we were concerned about giving our premiere away, and True/False said they’d ‘sneak preview’ it and then people would come and see it and they’d want to show it at other festivals. And that worked really well. But we didn’t get started until June. We showed the film like twice and then went to Europe.

H2N: You did Silverdocs first, right? Like, after True/False?

MP: Silverdocs and LA were the same time. Then we just disappeared to Europe, so we’ve never really shown it much in the US. But the response to the film that’s only now happening is coming out of nowhere for us. We had no idea how we ended up at, like, the Gothams. The Spirit Awards?! What the hell are we doing in that?

H2N: You guys are going, right?

MP: I guess.

DM: I don’t wanna go. I hate that shit.

MP: It’s weird. From one perspective it’s like, well there’s no way on earth we’re winning. But you have to go to play nice or something. I’m sure it’ll be a fun time, but it’s also very expensive to fly to LA.

H2N: They don’t pay for you?

MP: They don’t pay for anything!

H2N: It’s just like, “You should be honored. Show up.”

DM: They wanted us to pay five thousand dollars to distribute DVDs to the voters.

H2N: What an honor!

DM: Thanks for the independence!

H2N: I feel like even within the Cinema Eyes, one of the mandates was to only vote for categories in which you’d seen every nominee. Do you think people actually respected that?

MP: I don’t know.

DM: I don’t know. I think the one thing that Cinema Eye—and they’re working towards it—the selection committee is all the major programmers from the United States, and some from Europe, and I think that needs to be really much more transparent. Because I think people get this idea that there really is cronyism going on. And to some extent that’s unavoidable because it’s a tight community and is made by some very visible people and, like you said, I love that they’re doing it, but I do think they need to combat that image just to quell the kind of tensions that come up. Because we’re all working so damn hard. It’s just easy to lose your shit.

MP: I’m not sure what I think. Personally, I have a problem with awards shows and competitions in general. I think it’s so fucking hard to make these things to begin with that to then put people in competition against one another? It makes me just feel like I need to take a shower, because you can’t help but get caught up in the competition if you’re in one. Naturally, you don’t want to be the person who loses on some level, but it’s hard. And it’s just this extra stress that I wish we didn’t have to deal with.

H2N: I guess the devil’s advocate view is that they’re supposed to shine a brighter light on films. But I completely agree with you. Any time I’ve found myself in a competition, I try not to go, because, like you said, even though I say to myself, “I truly do not care,” and I truly don’t care, when they call that other name there’s a knee-jerk, visceral stomach drop, and then I feel doubly worse for reacting like a sore loser.

DM: And you know this too. It even happens outside your own films. We were almost embarrassed by the extent of the nominations we got.

MP: We didn’t understand that. We didn’t understand how that could have happened.

DM: But to be nominated for five and get two? That’s a nice balance. It’s not an embarrassment. Like, if we didn’t get anything it would have been an embarrassment.

MP: When I saw those nominations, to us it was like, “Well, we’re losing all of those, because that film’s in that one and that film’s in that one.” I mean, there are some really great movies in there. And a lot of fucking awesome films that deserved—

DM: Like Loot.

H2N: Which walks away with nothing.

DM: That totally pisses me off.

MP: 45365 for editing, for god’s sake.

H2N: But then we’re guilty for jumping on the same stupid treadmill. I hope I expressed that frustration in my Cinema Eye post, which is part of the reason I was sparked into writing that. Getting fired up about something that doesn’t have any impact on my life whatsoever. It’s hard enough eating dinner tonight.

MP: One of the things I’ve heard, and I don’t know what I think, if you have an awards ceremony like the Spirit Awards or the Gotham Awards, and now Cinema Eye, they’re all relatively the same if it’s voter driven. ‘Cause if it’s voter driven then the person with the most advertising dollars wins. But if it’s by a jury, you can call cronyism on the jury that chose it, but there’s something about what’s being valued that changes. Whereas it doesn’t matter with these awards. Film Independent, it doesn’t matter what they say, the film with the largest advertising dollars is going to win because it costs $50,000 to book a table there. We can’t afford that.

H2N: Which I think directly connects to what I was saying about even getting some of these nominated films seen. Last year, Sean Baker had Take Out and Prince of Broadway in the same category, and I think they ended up sending out screeners to all the voters even though they debated it. I still have a worry that even at the Cinema Eyes, voters didn’t watch everything and still voted.

MP: It would be so awesome if it was Cinema Eye Honors and they just selected a bunch of films and brought everyone on stage and they just said, “You’re honored. Now sit down.”

DM: Between programmers and voters, some system where it’s like: “These are the films that deserve some recognition.”

MP: I don’t understand why these larger films always seem to win Cinema Eye, and I don’t think there’s any hoodoo hoodoo going on in the selection. It kind of amazes me. If this is something formed by an internal community of people that we feel like we all know and respect and who watch documentary films intensely, there’s a hierarchy and it’s like, “Okay, there’s The Cove over there.” But that’s not something we’re all seeking out.

DM: I think that points to the actual openness of the voting, that there is a wide and varied selection going on. Because I think if it had been just our tight-knit community, The Cove would have been nowhere near there. In general, I think a lot of people are angry that The Cove took so much. Not saying that we deserve it, but that film, from the moment it entered the game it was a shoo-in all the way. But we have to remember there are voters and that film has an audience, it has a passionate audience, and in spite of everything I feel is wrong with that film, they have their say too.

H2N: But again, you’re talking advertising dollars, and to me that translates into: people have seen this movie. And they’ll be like, “I only saw The Cove out of these four, I’ll vote for it.” There’s no way to like send AJ out with a gun and a lie detector machine.

MP: I think all they can do is what they did, which is ask you to respect that. But I don’t think most people do.

H2N: I really think that’s why the bigger movies win. You’d like to think this is a smaller community and we’re not like the Academy, that people wouldn’t vote so stupidly based on what they recognize more than what they actually have an informed opinion about. But after seeing the pattern more fully emerge this year, I don’t know. AJ wrote me afterward and wasn’t offended by my piece. He was like, “How can we fix this?” And I was like, “You’re an awards show, dude. You’re inherently screwed!”

DM: Exactly. It’s an awards show.

MP: The only thing they can do to distinguish themselves is by doing juries. Otherwise they’re gonna fall into the same trap as everyone else. Not by AJ and that team’s design, it’s just the way it works if it’s open voting. But at the same time, I also feel like there’s enough of a spin they’re putting on it that regardless of who wins they are still spotlighting and honoring people inside of a context—whatever it is, juried or not—that’s way more valuable than, say, Film Independent, which is just much larger. And the Gothams is just like the strangest thing ever.

H2N: Did you have to pay for that too?

DM: No.

H2N: I thought you had to pay to get a table even if you’re nominated.

DM: No, but they place you randomly.

MP: They sat us with another film that lost in our category, so we got really drunk.

DM: But even there, even though I knew—

H2N: You still had that loser pang.

DM: And I hate it. I hate it. I didn’t win enough stuff as a child. This stuff flips me out! (everybody laughs)

MP: But what is it that we want? We want people to like our films? It’s strange. You put a thing out there and do you want people to like a film? To be honored in the manner of even a nomination is just incredible. That’s a larger group validating your work and that’s really, really nice.

DM: And that’s really, when you boil it down, when you pull off all that visceral reaction, that’s the stuff that counts. And we have been really lucky this year. We’ve had that shit in spades, you know? So much better than anything I expected.

H2N: Honestly, I feel like that might have somehow factored into my little rant. Obviously, the bigger point of the piece was about awards shows in general and you guys fit into that agenda, but lately it has felt like you guys have been on a never-ending victory lap. I’ve personally talked to people who loved the movie and I’ve talked to people who really didn’t love it, I’ve heard the gamut. So it’s strange that I’ve rarely encountered any negativity in print/online.

DM: For the most part, the feedback we get is positive, but then there are people who have a really, really angry dislike of the film. And it’s not unjustified. They can argue it, and argue it well. So it’s like, alright, that’s your position. Cool. I just assumed that was your position on the film.

H2N: I was not one of the more extreme haters. I established my opinion already, that it was more of a superficial, aesthetic thing. It was hard for me to get past the beauty of it and into an emotional place. The contradiction there didn’t sit well with me. But I was not angered by it in any way. Maybe my writing made it sound harsher—

MP: I still have a bruise below the waistline. (H2N laughs) Still recovering.

H2N: That’s why I’m like: keep my mouth shut.

DM: But don’t!

MP: Seriously, in what other community of filmmakers anywhere—Los Angeles, Paris—where else would you have this happening, after a very tiny personal slight? We care about each other enough to want to understand. That’s going way further than any other community I’ve ever been involved in—video, commercial.

DM: Jean-Pierre Duret, who did Because We Were Born, which was also nominated, he came all the way from Paris and got nothing. He still walked away and was like, “This community does not exist in Paris. This kind of environment would never exist in Paris.”

MP: He said in Paris everybody is out for themselves. They’re gonna push down anybody else so there’s not that possibility for community in that situation.

H2N: I don’t think we should not be the way we are, I think it’s good, but I also am getting a little concerned with how dependent we’re becoming on each other. This is taking a leap, and I don’t know how familiar you guys are with Kickstarter and the crowd-sourcing phenomenon, but in the past month I’ve gotten at least five to ten emails from filmmakers sending out pleas to contribute money to their films. It makes me feel an unnecessarily heavy wave of guilt.

MP: It’s only in the past few weeks where I’ve started registering that.

DM: I think it’s all fair, but I’m not gonna feel guilty. I mean, I don’t have any money! If you can get it and someone is out there? Sure, great.

MP: It’s kind of like the idea of, “Hey all you friends out there, come see our film at the IFC this weekend, ‘cause we need the opening numbers to be really big. No matter that you’ve seen our film thirteen times already. Please pay ten dollars this time to see it so we can give the illusion that we’re selling tickets!”

H2N: But that’s different. Your movie’s done and it’s coming out and you deserve to ask people that.

DM: It’s also, isn’t it just one page? Even if I had money to donate, I’d have to have a lot more to go on, we’d have to enter into a dialogue about this. (H2N laughs)

H2N: The one page pitch isn’t enough for you?

DM: The one page pitch is not enough.

MP: Wow, you are rough.

DM: So many movies are made and so few are good, right? I mean, that’s a fact. I feel like, “Alright, that’s a start. Tell me more. Show me more.”

MP: Just thinking about the way you finance a documentary film at all, we took a totally different approach. We initially had the interest of ITVS and they didn’t really get the idea of what we were trying to do on the metaphorical level. And we also didn’t have the material to show them. But we knew what we were going after. It was impossible to communicate on a piece of paper. And they were like, “Well, if you remove all the ghosts and stuff we’d be totally into it.” They were ready to give us money. But it was like, that’s the theme of the movie. So we decided to just not take financing, except for personal funding that we could get from, say, people who would be willing to donate to us. And then grants came much later when the film was done, because we figured the same thing would have happened with the grant process. It kinda raises the question, making a documentary on a certain level is an elective sport.

DM: I disagree.

MP: For many people, though, I don’t think… there’s so many people making documentaries, there can’t be money for all of them. If you really feel like you need to make something, you’ll find a way to make it. And people are doing it.

DM: Right, and that’s why it’s not elective because you really feel the need to do it. If I considered this ‘elective,’ or something that wasn’t really necessary, do you think I would go through nearly a fraction of the hell that we’ve put ourselves through? Hell no! I had a nice, cush job doing actual, tangible social work before I did this.

MP: What I mean is I’ve never equated it with being something you can make a living at. Never.

DM: Okay.

MP: And the whole idea of, like, trying to make a living as a documentary filmmaker trying to get this grant, that grant, I’m sure there’s people who do it.

DM: But that’s the direction you want to move in.

MP: But this has to be supplemented by something. Commercial work or something like that. The way people make a living doing it is they start jumping into the sandbox with Arte and the larger television companies, and those people are bankrolling them and then it becomes more mainstream and more ground down, so you have to make that choice. It’s weird.

DM: What we’re hoping to do now is we have projects fired up and hopefully they’re gonna be happening in a way that we can be working back-and-forth. If all funding falls into place—cross fingers—then we’ll be completely working in documentary film. So I do think it’s possible. It’s just really tough.

H2N: One last thing. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. It started in Sarasota last year when David (Redmon) and Ashley (Sabin) had Charles show up for Q&As of Invisible Girlfriend but I think your film is another one that makes me nervous about the idea of having the subject(s) in attendance. The fact that there isn’t really a healing by the end of it, that, more than anything, it shows unfortunate patterns of behavior in your family. It’s a tough one. I think it sounds honorable to have documentary subjects in attendance to potentially stand up for themselves, but in some situations it seems like it might be inappropriate.

DM: I think it’s case-to-case. In LA, it seemed like the only way to get attention for your film in competition was to have a circus show. You had to have family there, or every immigrant you had crossed the border, or you had to have them tap dance, and it was just a bit much. But in our case—

MP: We had two black balloons.

H2N: How much did that cost? (laughter)

DM: I think especially for Desi, we’re bringing Desi here. I know as a kid that the only thing that changed my course from the kind of life that’s shown in our film, is the fact that I got exposed to a world outside that. So I think even though there’s some really sensitive material there, I think the benefits—and from talking with Desi and her own desire to see the world and be part of something bigger than her life as it exists now—that trumps it. It’s fair to bring her there. My parents want to do it for me. It wouldn’t occur to them to be like, “Hey, we wanna be at the film in New York City.” But then, once they were at Woodstock, we said, “Let’s try Woodstock and if you don’t like this, if you’re uncomfortable, you don’t have to stand up, but I want you to see how people respond to your lives.” ‘Cause they were like, “We don’t understand why this film is successful. We don’t understand why people are watching us.” I was like, “Well, you have to watch it with them. See where they laugh, let them speak to you, and then you’ll know.” And Woodstock was positive enough than now they were quietly excited to come down to New York. They don’t want to appear too nervous and they don’t want to appear too excited but they definitely want to be here. So we’ve been careful with them, just to make sure they’re cool with it. And I think if you’re gonna do that kind of stuff, it’s really important.

— Michael Tully

In January of 2006, I attended the International Film Festival Rotterdam for the first time with my narrative feature debut, Cocaine Angel. Four years later, a last minute invite brought me back once again. Even in 2006, when I was there to world premiere a film that I had directed (did that really happen?), I was more interested in watching other people’s movies than talking about my own. This time around, watching other people’s movies was my only job.

Having been to Rotterdam, I knew what I was getting into with regards to the program itself—for better than worse, Rotterdam isn’t just a long ways away from Park City in geographical terms. Which isn’t to say that Rotterdam’s audiences are only interested in the most experimentally charged work on display. It also doesn’t mean that the programmers are out to take a brashly anti-Sundance stance. All one needs to do is look at the 2010 Audience Award winner, Alvaro Pastor’s Yo, Tambien, to realize that these festivals do have some overlap (another joint selection was Veiko Ounpuu’s Tiger Award nominee The Temptation of St. Tony).

As for Yo, Tambien, what makes it an especially interesting work is how, from a distance, it seems like a bad Hallmark ad waiting to happen, but, in execution, it is a pointed corrective to this oft-abused genre. That said, this is a film that has Audience Award written all over it. Yo, Tambien is a surefire crowd-pleaser, no doubt, but it also accomplishes its goal without selling itself short. This is most largely due to the commanding lead performance of Pablo Pineda, who is not only “playing” afflicted but is, like his character, a highly functioning victim of Down’s Syndrome. Yet the word ‘victim’ doesn’t apply here. Which is Pastor’s point. Yo, Tambien is at its best in naturally exposing the unfair, invisible walls that prevent ‘normal’ people from mixing with the mentally and physically challenged on deeper (i.e., romantic) levels. Pastor’s reliance on a pop music soundtrack threatens to push Yo, Tambien into the film it so refreshingly is not, but even with these minor hiccups, the performances of Pineda and Lola Duenas shine through.

In between viewing, I found some time to visit with some of the American contingent in town. Before they split, I had breakfast with CineMart participants James Ponsoldt (Off the Black) and Anish Savjani (he of Filmscience), who were there to pitch Ponsoldt’s Refresh, Refresh project to a roomful of potential co-financiers. I’ve been hearing this for years, but it sounded like their experience was similarly illuminating. As in: unless your movie is set in the country of those to whom you’re pitching, or unless you’re willing to hire a crew that’s comprised of said countrymen, it’s incredibly tough to find financing for an American product (I’m not quoting Ponsoldt and Savjani here, I’m coming to my own conclusion). Not that it was a total bust for Ponsoldt, as he excitedly told me that one of their meetings was with Ate de Jong, who directed Drop Dead Fred!

In three full days of viewing, I watched eight features and ten shorts, spanning fifteen different countries. Which isn’t a tally to be proud of, I realize, but that’s how it went down. Let’s begin with some of those shorts:

Massage The History (Cameron Jamie, France/USA, 2010) — An upper level film studies course could be taught on Cameron Jamie’s 10-minute short, which is about these guys, who have turned the seemingly ridiculous act of dry humping furniture into a hypnotic, carnal ritual of hypnotic proportions. That it all takes place in the sterile living rooms of upper middle class homes in the South adds a further layer of intrigue. Is this a supremely outlandish metaphor for unrequited adolescent male lust? Is it a comment on the over-sexualization of our culture in general (and hip-hop culture in particular)? Is it a plea for us to consider our own household objects with more tenderness and humanity? Your guess is as good as mine. But one thing’s for sure. Massage the History casts an undeniably freaky spell.

Centipede Sun (Mihai Grecu, France, 2010) — A strong residue of the Dinosaur Age permeates Mihai Grecu’s Centipede Sun. Though, by the time the film unleashes its unsettling final image of beached dolphins/whales lying dehydrated in the desert, one wonders if Grecu is projecting a vision of our immediate future as opposed to our distant past. If you dug the slow-motion destruction at the end of Zabriskie Point, you’ll dig this.

Dreams From The Woods (Johannes Nyholm, Sweden, 2009) — The Big Bird loves the Girl. He bequeaths her with a gift, yet she doesn’t like him that way. She ventures into the isolating, windy outside world and, predictably, falls for a musician. He kills her with heartbreak, leaving Big Bird to wallow in his sorrow. At least that’s what I got from this clever little work of puppetry.

The Palm Lines (George Chiper, Romania, 2009) — An elderly woman (played by actress Coca Bloos) goes through her solitary daily routine while, in voice-over, she tells the story of a tragic accident that led her to her current state. This short is a quiet crusher and a great lesson in how to show boredom, solitude, and reflection on screen without succumbing to boredom itself. Also, proof that narration can enhance the proceedings, rather than drag them down with sentimentality.

Out of Love (Birgitte Staermose, Denmark, 2009) — I saw this film, which won The Rotterdam Short Film Nomination for the European Film Awards 2010, a few months back at CPH:DOX, and was taken aback by its inventive blurring of the line between fiction and nonfiction. In 29 minutes, Staermose follows several children living in post-war Kosovo, who continue to make their way through a hard, unforgiving landscape.

In the feature film department, Rotterdam is perhaps most well known for its Tiger Awards competition, which celebrates first and second features made by promising directors from across the globe. Three equal awards are chosen by the jury. This year, while I didn’t catch two of those winners—Paz Fabrega’s Agua fria de mar (Costa Rica) and Anocha Suwichakornpong’s Mundane History (Thailand)—the winner that I did see turned out to be my revelation of the festival.

Mexican director Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio’s Alamar is a breathtaking little gem that is executed with such seeming effortlessness I was convinced it was a documentary. While it might be lazy—and not entirely accurate—to call it Malickian, Gonzalez-Rubio shows a similar reverence for nature that isn’t overly simplistic and hippified. This touching story of a young boy and his father spending time in Mexico’s Banco Chinchorro coral reef, fishing and existing meal to meal, day to day, with their father/grandfather, is a pleasant reminder that industrialization hasn’t steamrolled its way into every corner of the world (not yet, at least). And when it’s time for the little one to return to Italy with his mother, Gonzalez-Rubio doesn’t provide an obnoxiously loud contrast between the sea and the city. Back on land, in this more developed setting, the beautiful memories of that quiet life linger. I would be surprised if, at the end of 2010, Alamar doesn’t remain near the tippy-top of my list.

Let Each One Go Where He May (Ben Russell, USA, 2009) — If someone asks you to describe what the Tiger Awards are all about, this film would be a great place to start. Tell them that the only American selection was made by an experimental artist and that it consists of 13 10-minute one-takes shot on 16mm. Let Each One Go Where He May was my last screening before I headed home, and at 10 o’clock at night, I was worried that my already heavy eyelids wouldn’t be able to stay separated. Yet as soon as the film began, I perked fully awake and stayed riveted throughout. Shot in Suriname, Let Each One Go Where He May follows two Suriname-Maroon brothers take a similar journey to the one their ancestors took when they were fleeing Dutch slave-traders over 300 years prior. To my eyes, this film is a glorious blend of Munyurangabo and Gerry, in which each unbroken take builds in drama and tension the longer it transpires (there are some glitches along the way, but these feel more like documentary accidents as opposed to fiction mistakes). Winner of the FIPRESCI prize, Let Each One Go Where He May is certainly not for everyone, but in contrast to the more traditional narrative work on display at Sundance, it rejuvenated me and gave me a major thrill.

R (Michael Noer and Tobias Lindholm, Denmark, 2010) — Movies always seem to come in twos (Capote/Infamous being the most obvious recent example), but it’s unfortunate for directors Michael Noer and Tobias Lindholm that their doppelanger happens to be Jacques Audiard’s ultra-mighty A Prophet. There are just way too many similarities to not keep feeling a sense of déjà vu throughout, but if one can suppress those annoying urges, R turns out to be an even bleaker depiction of life on the inside.

Mama (Renard, Russia, 2010) — While I told myself I was going to relegate the “it’s (this) meets (that)” description game to Twitter from this point forth, in this case, it has to be done. Mama is like the immaculate bastard of Ulrich Seidl and Roy Andersson, which merges Seidl’s Eastern European grime with Andersson’s comic-strip sadness. Nothing much happens in this story about a grotesquely large 40-year-old man who lives at home with his weary mother, and literally nothing is said. This has nothing to do with anything, but the program description for this film is one of the more deceptive summaries I have ever encountered. Maybe the writer watched a rough cut in which some of the things they say happened actually happened? Either way, if the names Seidl and Andersson get you excited, you should definitely see Mama, though I would call it more of a distant nephew than an actual sibling.

Other features:

J’ai Tu Ma Mere (Xavier Dolan, Canada, 2009) — I confessed to this on Twitter already, but I felt like humiliating myself once again. I didn’t realize until I was already seated mid-aisle in a jam-packed theater that this French-language print of 20-year-old Xavier Dolan’s Cannes-winning debut had Dutch subtitles. And since it wasn’t a press screening, an early departure would have only called attention to the fact that I was the ignorant American who didn’t speak several languages. Instead, I tried to turn my mistake into an interesting experiment. I wanted to see if I could still understand what I was watching based on action alone. Reading some reviews after the fact, it’s clear that I couldn’t. Though it wasn’t a total loss. Dolan uses music and slow-motion with enough expressiveness that I found myself emotionally involved nonetheless. That said, I look forward to watching I Killed My Mother again when English subtitles are involved.

Red, White & Blue (Simon Rumley, UK, 2010) — Man, I’m really not sure how I feel about Simon Rumley’s Red, White & Blue, which recalls Bruno Dumont’s Twentynine Palms in more ways than one. File this away as another example of a non-American director putting his own warped spin on what life is like in the United States. One thing’s for sure. Though Red, White & Blue gets shockingly twisted, this isn’t mere torture porn. Rumley uses an elliptical editing style that keeps viewers off-balance throughout and makes the film feel artful even when everything else about it screams schlock genre. One thing Rumley definitely gets right, at least with regards to his two main leads, is casting. Noah Taylor and Amanda Fuller don’t just look the part. They are the part. Though I am still scratching my head about Marc Senter, whose own performance is so campy that I can’t tell if this was intentional (good David Lynch) or unintentional (bad David Lynch). You have been warned. Red, White & Blue will make you feel gross.

Crying With Laughter (Justin Molotnikov, UK, 2010) — Another SXSW-bound film (see: Red, White & Blue), Justin Molotnikov’s debut feature cleverly inserts a down-on-his-luck standup into a taut little British thriller. Stephen McCole is great as Joey Frisk, an Edinburgh comic who reflects upon the previous week’s insanity during a very important routine, at which point we see that escalating insanity in flashback. This movie won’t change the world, but it does bring something new to the table.

Eighteen (Jang Kun-Jae, South Korea, 2009) — I wish I had gotten to take in more of the South Korean cinema on display at Rotterdam, but this was the extent of it. From its awesome opening shot, Jang Kun-Jae injects a sweetly unique personality into what could have otherwise become a generic tale of young romance. If Lee Chang-dong’s Oasis is the burn of first love, Eighteen is the more timid sting of first crush. Oh yeah, and the last shot is a doozy too, come to think of it.

All in all, it was a brief but rewarding three days in Rotterdam. I look forward to returning as a viewer and, maybe one of these years, as a filmmaker.

— Michael Tully

Friday night at The Times Center in midtown Manhattan, the documentary community gathered for the third annual Cinema Eye Honors to toast the best nonfiction filmmaking of 2009. The room was packed with familiar names and faces, featuring several living legends (Albert Maysles, Ross McElwee, Barbara Kopple, Peter Davis). Thinking back on the comparatively isolated documentary landscape in these masters’ early years, this all must have seemed extravagant and strange. And while the insular energy of the event bothered some people that I spoke to at the after party, the fact remains that the Cinema Eye Honors has the noblest of intentions. For me, the biggest problem isn’t the Cinema Eyes in particular; it’s awards shows in general. Even in this more independently minded environment, the broken record repeats itself: My picks never win.

It’s silly and pointless to get upset at awards. I realize that. It’s why I stopped watching them. It’s wiser to avoid food that you know is going to make you sick. But with the Cinema Eye Honors, an institution that is courageous enough to nominate films like Darius Marder’s Loot, Bill and Turner Ross’s 45365, Jessica Oreck’s Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, Deborah Stratman’s O’er The Land, John Maringouin’s Big River Man, Chung-ryoul Lee’s Old Partner, Kim Longinotto’s Rough Aunties, and many more, one can’t help but think that finally they’ve found a place where their taste will be celebrated. And then films like Louie Psihoyos’s The Cove and Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher’s October Country take home multiple trophies and I am reminded with a thud that I just wasn’t made for these times.

In his preamble to presenting the Outstanding Achievement in Direction award to a wholly deserving and unfortunately absent Agnes Varda (The Beaches of Agnes), Peter Davis concluded by warning documentarians that while it’s well and good for Hollywood to steal tactics from documentaries, it’s a very dangerous proposition when turned the other way around. Which is the main problem I had with The Cove (and, full disclosure, 2009 winner Man On Wire too). I’m not saying I’m right, but it’s hard for me to put The Cove in the same stratosphere as an achievement like Anders Ostergaard’s Burma VJ. Many would argue that these films are both dramatic thrillers that use technology to expose corruption in the world. But when it came to The Cove, I felt like I was sitting in a multiplex watching a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. In Burma VJ, the sweat in my armpits and tears in my eyes made me realize that I was witnessing history.

In the case of October Country, my issue was a different one. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was watching a work most directly influenced by commercial advertising. Mind you, I felt that way before learning that Palmieri’s background is rooted in that world. I’m not here to knock a little guy, but from the massive attention this film has gotten, somebody’s going above and beyond the PR call of duty and my lack of appreciation for it isn’t going to hurt anybody (read Pamela Cohn’s review of the film to prove that when it comes to this site, I’m an equal opportunity editor). Whereas Loot had a crushing depth that revealed itself gradually and unexpectedly, and 45365 used an inventive, nearly experimental, style to produce an atmosphere of nostalgic omniscience, October Country remained a surface experience that rang more loudly of poorsploitation than tender understanding. I’m not sure if it was even eligible, but the imbalance of attention between October Country and last year’s bracingly uncomfortable 21 Below really disturbs me. While that film didn’t have such a polished superficial sheen, it raised questions that are guaranteed to spark a heated conversation. Which is probably the point. 21 Below goes for the jugular. Awards shows don’t like jugulars. They like pretty dresses.

My one saving grace from this year’s awards—another lesson I’ve learned in my life of disappointment is that you should be grateful if one of your desires is victorious—was the jury’s pick of Jessica Oreck’s Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo in the Spotlight Award category. As this was a juried category I didn’t get to vote, which I wouldn’t have done anyway as I hadn’t seen all of the nominees (though I’d seen most). But it was so very nice to see a film as wildly precocious and inquisitive as Oreck’s receive more than just a nomination. (Here, her boyfriend/cinematographer/collaborator Sean Price Williams flaunts the hardware.)

The point of this site is similar to the point of the Cinema Eye Honors themselves: To be a positive presence and champion films we love. Which is why I feel like a bitter, crabby sore loser in writing this post. Movies are subjective. To scan the catalog from this year’s event is to encounter some truly exceptional work. It just pains me to realize that it’s the nature of the beast and my own personal curse that the work I find to be the most invigorating, exciting, and ambitious is just too damn invigorating, exciting, and ambitious for its own good.

For what it’s worth, here are the winners. And though I sound cranky, I will continue to keep giving my full support to AJ Schnack, Thom Powers, Esther Robinson, Rachel Rosen, Andrea Meditch, and the rest of the Cinema Eye Honors team. I will just try not to get so bothered when my picks don’t win again next year:

2010 Cinema Eye Honorees

Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking

THE COVE
Directed by Louie Psihoyos
Produced by Paula DuPré Pesman and Fisher Stevens

Outstanding Achievement in Direction

Agnès Varda
THE BEACHES OF AGNES

Outstanding Achievement in International Feature Filmmaking

BURMA VJ
Directed by Anders Østergaard
Produced by Lise-Lense Møller

Outstanding Achievement in Debut Feature Filmmaking

OCTOBER COUNTRY
Directed by Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher

Outstanding Achievement in Production

Paula DuPré Pesman and Fisher Stevens
THE COVE

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography

Brook Aitken
THE COVE

Outstanding Achievement in Editing

Janus Billeskov-Jansen and Thomas Papapetros
BURMA VJ

Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Score

Danny Grody, Donal Mosher, Michael Palmieri, Ted Savarese and Kenric Taylor
OCTOBER COUNTRY

Original Music Score Jury: Natalia Almada, Laurie Anderson, Brendan Canty, T. Griffin and Craig Wedren

Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Animation (tie)

Bigstar
FOOD, INC.
and
Francis Hanneman, Darren Pasemko, Kent Hugo, Omar Majeed, Brett Gaylor + The Open Source Cinema Community
RIP: A REMIX MANIFESTO

Spotlight Award

BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO
Directed by Jessica Oreck

Spotlight Jury: Pernille Rose Gronkjær, Jason Kohn, David Polonsky and Jennifer Venditti

Audience Choice Prize

THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE
Directed by RJ Cutler

Legacy Award

SHERMAN’S MARCH
Directed by Ross McElwee

— Michael Tully