I had to skip Monday's screenings due to work commitments, but had a pretty busy Tuesday at the festival. Unfortunately, it was not a good day, as most of the films stunk it up, displaying the kinds of flaws that would scare most people away from a festival.
The first film was PARK, which shows what happens when twelve very different individuals all go to a remote location in Los Angeles. There are various reasons for the trip, some have gone for suicide, some have gone for sex, some have gone to skip work. Some of them eventually cross paths as the day goes on and each reaches their own epiphany by film's end. This is one of those comediesthat goes overboard trying to be quirky and ends up being annoying. The entire film is played as a joke, even the suicide, and there's no reason to care about any of these people. The director is thoroughly incompetent, with awful musical montages and a ridiculously banal ending for each of the characters. The ensemble cast is mostly awful, with William Baldwin achiveing a level of annoyance that surpasses even his previous accomplishments. This will probably get an unceremonious DVD release soon, but skip it and instead watch previous fest hit ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, which shows how quirky can be done.
A film I had been looking forward to was KAMP KATRINA, a documentary about a unique charity effort in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. A New Orleans 9th Ward resident known as Ms. Pearl opens up her backyard to 14 homeless individuals. They erect tents and have access to electricity and running water. There are rules, including the prohibition of alcohol or drugs (but curiously a pregnant woman may smoke), but these eventually get broken and relief support in the city begins to break down. The film is well intentioned, but the filmmakers just don't have the skill to tell the story correctly. With 14 people in the backyard, they're only able to really let us get to know two of them, a married couple with a baby on the way but a crack and alcohol addiction getting in the way. One by one, people leave the camp for various reasons, but it's hard to care about people you haven't really met. Ms. Pearl and her husband are very interesting personalities, but we only learn a little about them, most of it is in reaction to the efforts in their backyward. This film needed either more focus on them or to get inside some of the other tents and let us know about these sad, desperate people.
Thankfully the day brightened up considerably with GREAT WORLD OF SOUND, a very entertaining effort from Craig Zobel, a former associate of David Gordon Green, who made a smashing debut at the 1999 festival with GEORGE WASHINGTON. Zobel's film is about Martin (Pat Healy), a man who takes a job for a record company as a talent scout. He teams up with cocky, energetic Clarence (Kene Holiday) and travels the country looking for the next great talent, but eventually learns they may be part of a scam. We are treated to a series of hilariously bad audition scenes as the pair have to sit through some really awful nonsense. These scenes threaten to become repetitive, but Zobel is able to keep them lively and varied enough to prevent that from happening. As opposed to cynical and self-conscious indies such as ALL THE DAYS BEFORE TOMORROW or PARK, Zobel's film is filled with nothing but pure, unadulterated love for his story and characters. Zobel doesn't use any filmmaking tricks to show you how clever he is. Instead, he fills every frame of this film with a low-key sensitivity that rings true, from the opening shot of a record being painted gold to the way Martin is moved by a young girl's rendition of a "New National Anthem". He's found a memorable duo in Healy and Holiday, who create a natural chemistry as a mismatched pair of friends. GREAT WORLD OF SOUND is exactly the type of memorable indie film you look for at a film festival.
SOMEBODIES was a popular sold out showing (twice) at the festival. It was filmed in Athens, Georgia and contains plenty of local talent. It's a comedy about a college student in Athens and his offbeat friends and family. The film borders on the offensive, as all of the characters fit into tired stereotypes. If a racist was going to make a film about black people, then I imagine this would be close to it. Except that the film also fails to contain one positive white character. All are portrayed as one-dimensional buffoons wuthout any sense of dignity. The film features almost every stereotype in the book and treats everything on a comic level including the death of a major character that plays like an SNL skit, but then suddenly asks us to care. This is all pretty bad, but I should note that there is some funny material in here. There are some amusing comic situations, such as a scene where the main character's girlfriend wants to re-enact her favorite scene from MONSTER'S BALL. This has been picked up by BET as a regular television series, which will probably only strengthen Aaron McGruder's complaints about the network. Can't wait for the first Boondocks cartoon that talks about this show.
Unfortunately the night had to close out with one more stinker. THE ELEPHANT KING is a fairly generic film for something appearing in the World View series. It's about a shy, depressed young man who goes to Thailand to persuade his brother to return to the states, but he eventually gets caught up in the Thai nightlife to the point where he wishes to stay. This is like so many other movies where a character travels to a foreign land and finds romance with a native woman, but intrigue and violence eventually get in the way. Worst of all is the elephant of the title actually does appear. I mean, they actually own an elephant, who spends time with them at the pool. See above re: cynical, self-conscious indies. It's not a poorly made film on a technical level and Tate Ellington is decent in the lead role, but it lacks imagination throughout. Ellen Burstyn is in the film as the mother, but she is relegated to a series of repetitive phone scenes where she cries and begs her sons to return. If there were a new reality show called "Who Will Waste Ellen Burstyn's Talents the Most?" then writer-director Seth Grossman is sure to go pretty deep in the competition.
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