IFC.com - Film News

"Speed Racer"

2008-05-09T11:37:35Z

Nothing in "Speed Racer" is real: not the cars, not the buildings, not the physics, not the stakes, and certainly not the danger. If the Wachowski brothers, creators of "The Matrix" trilogy, were trying to make a movie that looked like a video game, they've accomplished their mission — more than once, "Speed Racer" reminded me of something I'd seen just hours before while playing my new copy of Mario Kart Wii. But while absurd racing games that laugh in the face of Sir Isaac Newton can be fun to play, they're certainly not very fun to watch, especially for two hours straight burdened by merciless editing and lousy subplots.

The story, adapted from a variety of "Speed Racer" cartoons through the decades, involves a threat to the Racer family from a greedy tycoon named Royalton (Roger Allam). He wants Speed (Emile Hirsch) to race for his team and he wants his mechanically inclined Pops (John Goodman) to come with him to build cars for his company. The Racer family is proudly free of sponsors and corporate influence, but the Royalton deal offers financial security and all the luxurious purple clothes that come with it. If there is a meaning buried beneath the gaudy colors and outlandish visuals of "Speed Racer," it is here, where one could conceivably see the Wachowskis speaking about themselves and their art through Speed's dilemma. The world of racing in "Speed Racer" is one dominated by big businesses more interested in making money and selling products than real entertainment; it's not hard to see the similarities to the Hollywood moviemaking machine. The theory is given additional weight by an awkward scene between Speed and his mom (Susan Sarandon) where she makes the argument that Speed's racing is "everything art should be" and by the fact that, as film is for the Wachowskis, the Racers treat racing as a family business.

]]> Still, tantalizing subtexts aside (I haven't even gotten into the whole Racer X leather fetishist thing), "Speed Racer" still aims to deliver action and thrills that it never really provides, especially in its leaden, flashback-laden first hour. When Speed does hit the track, the driving sequences are so frenetic and the onslaught of the "Wacky Races"-esque gimmicks is so unrelenting that it's difficult to keep track of who is doing what to whom, and why, and most importantly how, a question the Wachowskis are clearly not interested in addressing (their screenplay tosses around phrases like "interpositive transponder" as if they mean something).

Paying close attention to the film isn't necessarily rewarded, though it does reveal a few choice plot holes (like when Pops Racer inexplicably claims that they don't have a car to use in the Grand Prix, even though we saw Speed driving his Mach 5 without complication just one scene earlier). You're better served trying to appreciate the races as a sort of technological ballet; at one point at the climax of the film, the swirl of candy-colored car bodies actually morph into an abstract collage of shapes and light. But, c'mon — who goes to "Speed Racer" looking for that?

When the nefarious Royalton teaches Speed a lesson about the "real" history of racing, the Wachowski brothers make the mistake of cutting to old archival footage of real daredevils performing stunts such as hanging onto the hood of a car as it plows through a pile of flaming logs. That's an awesomely stupid act but it's also real; a certifiable lunatic driving through some fiery wood and not some actor in a stationary car husk on a green screen stage being shaken by stagehands. The history of movies is littered with great moments of audacious automotive idiocy all made exciting by the fact that real people did them in real cars. The Mach 5 and the rest of the four-wheeled cast of the Wachowski's digital garage do spectacular things. But I fail to see the point.

[Photo: "Speed Racer," Warner Bros., 2008]

Chris Eigeman on "Turn the River"

2008-05-08T19:20:37Z

By Stephen Saito

One of Chris Eigeman's favorite performances in his directorial debut, "Turn the River," comes from an actor who has all of three lines and plays a pimply faced donut shop employee who tells his potential customers that he already drank the coffee. It's the kind of droll one-liner that one could easily imagine rolling off Eigeman's tongue during his heyday as the quick-witted star of Noah Baumbach's "Kicking and Screaming" and Whit Stillman's trilogy of "Metropolitan," "Barcelona" and "The Last Days of Disco." But "Turn the River" isn't the intellectual yukfest one might expect from an actor with a reputation for snark and smarts, but rather the heartfelt character study of Kailey (Famke Janssen), a mother forced to give up her son Gulley (Jaymie Dornan), who attempts to raise enough money through hustling at pool and poker to steal him away from his father. It's an ill-conceived plan, to be sure, and Eigeman doesn't pull any punches in its execution, nor does he shortchange any of the group of fine character actors he's assembled, including friends like Matt Ross ("Big Love") and Marin Hinkle ("Once and Again") or veterans Rip Torn and Lois Smith. Eigeman recently sat down to talk about his first film as a writer/director, how pool scenes are like sex scenes, and the moment when he realized he was no poolhall hustler himself.

]]> How did "Turn the River" come about?

I'd written a few little pieces of it, a couple of scenes here and there. I did a job with Famke as an actor called "The Treatment," and as she and I were working together, it was a really good experience. I'd never known [Famke] before — she has a great cowboy spirit about her, both in her life and in her work. There's a fearlessness about her. After that film finished, I went back to writing ["Turn the River"]. I wrote one of the bench scenes between the mother and the son, and it was incredibly evident I was writing for Famke — there's something very defining about her, and it became a real path through the woods, having that as a sort of lodestone.

The interesting thing to me about the film was that it seemed more interested in the characters than the story it was telling. Were you conscious of that?

I'm a Jesuit when it comes to structure, but I really think that structure is defined by character. Everything serves that master. People will ask me "Why did Kailey do this?" I always wanted that if I turned the film off halfway through, the audience's reaction would be "Well, I really loved Kailey and I really loved Gulley and I really loved Kailey and Gulley together, but I think this is a terrible plan of hers." And that was something that propelled me through.

Did you feel like this was the right time in your career to direct your first film?

I don't think there's ever a great time, but a lot of this was born out of the fact that when I was just starting out, working with directors like Whit [Stillman] and Noah Baumbach, those scripts were bulletproof. Those were great scripts, and I got incredibly spoiled by that because as you go down the road in all sorts of mediums, you aren't going to have those great scripts all the time. So I set about trying to write as well as I could, and that would be defined by every actor in the movie being able to do good work and to have fun.

This is a little bit of a technical question, but I remember listening to the commentary on "The Hustler" DVD and they were talking about how hard it was to shoot the pool scenes. Was that a challenge for you?

Oh. My. God. Are you kidding? It was truly fucking terrifying. There are a number of films out there with pool, but the two biggies are "The Hustler" and "The Color of Money," [and] it's interesting, you think of "The Hustler" as being wall-to-wall pool, but actually there isn't that much. There's a lot at the top and there's a little at the bottom and that's about it. There's a huge middle section. I knew that wasn't going to work for us because that can take an incredibly long time. The other way is "Color of Money" and we could't do [that] because we just couldn't afford it. Scorsese shot every possible point of view on that pool table, [with] those huge, long tracking shots with Tom Cruise singing "Werewolves of London" in synch to the music and sinking three shots. We didn't have the support structure to try and pull something like that off, so we found a third way which was very controlled and very loose.

The controlled was we built maybe 20 or 30 pool shots — we took pictures of them, put them in a notebook and named them: Ann, Betty, whatever...all the way down. So we had these shots, and the last shot that Famke makes — Zelda — and we knew that was the shot that we would end all the pool with. Famke got good enough and John [Juback, who plays Duncan, the pool czar of the picture] is good enough that we could just let them play. We'd shoot 360 degrees and let them go.

I was always interested in how much I had to show. It can get really uninteresting watching balls fall into pockets — it's a lot like sex scenes, here [what's] going is infinitely less interesting than [the expressions on] people's faces.

This might be my naïve view of the films you were making with Whit Stillman and Noah Baumbach, but this one had a similar feel of "let's get together and make a movie in New York," which it seems fewer films have these days. Has that changed over time?

It has absolutely changed and I genuinely miss it. I worked very hard to bring these people together [on this film] and to try to form a tribe for at least a little while. To me, I look back on Whit's films, on Noah's, on "Kicking and Screaming," [and] not only is that a movie I really like, but the experience of making it was so enjoyable. I never wanted to just be an actor for hire — that's actually why I liked doing television a lot. Doing a year on "Gilmore Girls" was fun because I liked the tribe [aspect] of it. It's like extreme sports — at this budget level, you're either going to cling to each other with affection and hope for salvation or you're going to knife each other. Somebody's going to get poked in the eye. In this case, it was the former, which is great — if my next shoot is half as enjoyable as this one was, I will die a happy man.

This film has already surprised some people because of the kinds of characters you played as an actor. What have you made of the expectations that people have of you and the reception this film has received?

Look, if you're an actor and the first movie you do, you're wearing a cummerbund and cracking wise in a Noël Coward template, that is what people are going to assume and you can't blame them. But yeah, I know. All the pool stuff came about because when I got out of college, I was shooting a lot of pool and thought I was good. I came to New York, and when I wasn't parking cars to make money, I was shooting pool and getting my ass handed to me by people who were smarter, better players and very crafty about taking money out of my pocket. I still play, but I won't play for money anymore. It's important to know, if you're in the land of gambling, what you're good at. [laughs]

This was during the time of New York City when there were some great poolhalls that are gone now — you could easily spend a day shooting pool against people who were kind of famous. There was a poolhall called Chelsea Billiards which isn't there anymore, but it was the last great room in Manhattan and I lost to this one guy so many times [it] drove me crazy. He was incredibly good, but I didn't realize how good until I was out a lot of money and it turns out it's this guy named Kid Delicious, and he just wrote a book about what it is to be a pool hustler. That's where all that came from.

Are you planning to go back to acting any time soon?

I think basically I am an actor. Sometimes I'm an actor who's writing and sometimes an actor who's directing, but I think if I'm forced to fill out a form for my tax return, actor is the first thing I write down. I try not to fill out forms, but when I do, actor is what I write down.

[Photos: Famke Janssen in "Turn the River"; writer/director Chris Eigeman - Screen Media Films , 2007]

"Turn the River"opens in New York on May 9 and in Los Angeles on May 16.

Tribeca '08: Tracey Hecht on "Life in Flight"

2008-05-08T14:28:24Z

By Stephen Saito

[For complete coverage of the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, check out IFC's Tribeca page.]

There's a moment late in "Life in Flight" when Will (Patrick Wilson) tells his young son, "I haven't been paying a lot of attention lately." It's a difficult thing to admit for the harried husband and father, who spends most of the film kowtowing to his wife Kate (Amy Smart), who'd rather see him land a major commission for his architectural firm than have him attend their son's biodiversity science fair. As Will finds out, such choices have left him with the life he might once have imagined for himself, but not one he wanted. Though he's become a successful architect, the lines that have defined his life have become blurred, particularly when he meets Kate (Lynn Collins), a free-spirited designer. Writer/director Tracey Hecht knows something about those kinds of decisions, having recently broken away from a career in design to make her feature debut, which made its world premiere at Tribeca, and had time to talk about her own career path and why there's something for everyone to take away from her first film.

]]> How did "Life in Flight" come about? What was it about this particular story that appealed to you for your directorial debut?

To be honest, my day job was going through a boring stretch — as in really boring — so I started to get up early before work and write. I wrote the story for this film over three months and showed it to a friend who suggested I turn it into a script. Translating narrative into the discipline of a script format was a lot more work than I thought it'd be, but I love to write and the story plays with themes I think are prevalent in life today, so I enjoyed the process as well.

Your director's biography mentions that you were a founder of several small design businesses. Did that help you visualize things as a filmmaker? Also, the characters obviously come from that world, so did you want to write something relatable?

My husband teases me that I'm aesthetically cursed — that I art direct everything. It's not that bad, but for me, writing is very visceral. As I writer, I have a clear sense of how the scene looks and feels, both in tone as well as look and styling. That's something I probably do with all things — that sense of conceptualization on a broad scale. As for the characters being relatable, the themes in the film are very broad and universal — career, marriage, responsibility, family — I think you need real grounded characters to communicate those themes. I'm glad I was able to create them that way, but maybe more important is how well Patrick and the rest of the cast portrayed them as real and relatable.

You've mentioned before that you felt each of the main characters were a different facet of one person — could you elaborate on that idea and how that informed the story you were telling?

There's this tendency in life and in movies to qualify and classify people — there are bad people, there are good people, there are nice people, there are mean people. I actually don't believe that. I think we're all capable of all those things, so when I wrote those four characters, I wanted to write the spectrum that we're all capable of. I didn't want there to be a bad guy and a good guy and I didn't want there to be someone who was capable of greatness and someone who was capable of terrible failure. It was a real craft to try and create these four characters all dealing with similar themes, but because of where they were in their lives or different tools that they had, revealing their different capabilities around them. We all have the ability to be a Catherine and be afraid and not able to say something and we have the ability to be Josh [Will's freewheeling friend, played by Zak Orth] and be totally free. And most of the time, most of us are Kate and Will, trying to figure it out in the middle.

You've said that this is a story about fear — while you were filming, do you think the fact that you were a first-time filmmaker added a resonance to that theme as you were making the film?

Ironically, once I was making the film, I felt pretty adept and comfortable. The fear for me was all the work leading up to getting the film made. You write this story and then you toss it out there to people in an industry that you know nothing about. That part was scary! But pre-production, principal photography, editing, etc., I had strong bearings and felt focused and good.

At Tribeca, the film received divergent reactions, which you cited when you said that even your husband has seen it a hundred times and likes different characters each time out. Was it your intention to get different reactions and how do you feel about the reception the film's been getting?

It wasn't the intention, per se, but I think it's a byproduct of having that openness to ambiguity. Depending on your place — there was a woman who was in that Monday screening [at Tribeca] where she said, "I feel like Catherine and Catherine's just such a bitch." [laughs] It's not intended to strike people differently at different times, but I think it does because I think that the emotional spots of those four characters are so representative of when you're in a good place or a bad place that, depending on your mood, they can really speak to you differently. In all the screenings, even from people who've read the script and also seen the film, everyone's reaction to the characters really evolves and changes. To me, I think that's one of the more gratifying things about the film — it has the ability to transform itself depending who you are and what you're going through in your life.

[Photos: "Life in Flight," Plum Pictures, 2008]

Nick Broomfield on "Battle for Haditha"

2008-05-06T23:37:12Z

By Aaron Hillis

It was only a matter of time before renowned British documentarian Nick Broomfield ("Kurt & Courtney," "Biggie & Tupac," "Aileen Wuornos: Life and Death of a Serial Killer"), whose on-camera muckraking begat Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock, would tackle the Iraq War. But what's surprising for a guy who's been developing his doc style since the early '70s is that "Battle for Haditha," based on a 2005 tragedy in which U.S. Marines slaughtered 24 Iraqi men, women and children as kneejerk retribution for an IED attack, isn't a documentary at all. A progressive but blisteringly angry re-enactment that may be the first Iraq-themed narrative with any intelligent sense of the complexities at hand, Broomfield's drama casts real-life Iraqi civilians, insurgents and U.S. marines to depict the humanity from each side of the story. I sat with a no-nonsense Broomfield at NYC's Film Forum to discuss the film, political apathy and his thoughts on how cinema may be more effective than the media.

]]> Why did you want to make a film about this particular event, and what led you to casting non-actors?

Before this, I did a film called "Ghosts," using the same technique with non-actors. It was about illegal Chinese immigrants coming to England, and I used illegal Chinese to basically be themselves. I got amazing performances from them because, obviously, they knew what that world was.

I also wanted to make a film about what happens in the vocabulary of war — generally portrayed as good guys and bad guys, cowboys and Indians. Both sides always think they're right or have their vision. I'm very anti-war and mindful that, at the end of the Second World War, there were all these pronouncements that this was to be the war that ends all wars, and warfare is not a way of resolving disputes because it would always involve the killing of innocent civilians.

This film happens to look at Haditha, a symbolic incident of the Iraq War, which I think the American public will remember. It's something that I think happens every day because of the situation, the uncertainty, suspicion, paranoia, and the desire to live longer — all those pent-up emotions that happen in any war. Innocent people get killed because they bend in the wrong direction. As much as anything, I think people need to think through what war represents, and it's not enough to blame the Marines who are, in a sense, doing what we want them and have trained them to do. It's the bigger thing: what is this conflict going to achieve? Hopefully there will be a desire to move forward and establish a real dialogue with the Iraqis; have a sense of them, their culture and their civilization, which is, as we know, one of the oldest in the world. Dialogue can never happen when there's warfare, and there's a circle of violence that emanates inevitably from it.

Though it's loosely scripted, what made you decide that narrative was a better medium than non-fiction to tell this story? Did you need more control to get specific points across?

Depending on what medium you're working in, you choose the subjects to fit. A documentary couldn't have done of this particular story, certainly not on this emotional level. Members of the insurgency would not take part in the film. I met the insurgency, and you know, they don't want to be filmed. Marines wouldn't be identified on camera either, those we had met from Kilo company. You can't get [within] that emotional proximity to the people who were involved. Also, in order to show that circular motion that has the inevitability of doom and clash, that sort of repetitive worsening of the situation, I think you need to see an event or drama unfolding in front of you to really appreciate what happens. I'm not saying that talking heads aren't useful in another kind of context, but I don't think they would've worked here.

You mentioned before that ending the war requires the start of a dialogue. What part in that conversation do you hope people will instigate after seeing your film?

What cinema can do is stand back from the plethora of information we get from the television — which tends to become very inhuman after a while — and establish a sense of humanity. Put a face on the Iraqi people. You're never going to achieve a peace or a lasting solution until you have some respect — you need to personalize the Iraqis as one needed to the Vietnamese. Cinema can do that on a very emotional level. I think people can empathize with an Iraqi family trying to raise kids, have a love affair, or just exist in this situation. It can bring humanity to the Marines at the same time, and the insurgency, and it all becomes much more complicated.

How do you get people to engage when they're shying away from Iraq-themed films in droves? To many, it seems like an extension of the news, or homework, or eating one's vegetables.

It's any political film, really. People keep comparing this to the Vietnam films. I think it was a different time. People were marching about everything and felt like their vote counted, that they could register their feelings. The whole civil rights movement was based on being listened to, that somehow taking to the streets mattered and would have a significant impact. I don't think people believe that anymore. There's a feeling of impotence, that everything is beyond our control: "I'm going to get on with my life, raise my kids, make money, laugh at Britney Spears, and that's all I can deal with."

So once again, how do you convince people to pay attention when there's a collective apathy?

I guess no one has really come out with that solution. Maybe when there's a feeling of a new vision, that there's some statesman-like character leading us to a new way of seeing the world, apolitical people will take control of their lives and what's happening around them. I think there's a lack of empowerment at the moment, a lack of belief that anyone's views are represented. The cinema, entertainment and everything else reflects that. It comes from the top, doesn't it? It comes from the administration and the overall political situation of the country.

Have any conservatives reacted to the film, and is it preaching to the anti-war choir?

Funnily enough, the conservatives in Jordan and places like Dubai, where the film has been shown, feel it doesn't portray the freedom fighters in as strong or patriotic a way as it should. They shouldn't be shown accepting money, they should be the conscience of Iraq, total heroes, you know. Here, the conservatives on both sides are essentially the same: "There shouldn't be any criticism whatsoever of what's happening because it's an unfolding conflict. This is a conflict we've got to win, and this isn't helpful."

I think the film will people [who] don't have any information on both sides. The Iraqis have very little idea of what is going through the minds of the marines. They just see them as evil, as the devil. I think by humanizing the marines — showing that these are vulnerable kids who have problems with what they're doing, and they're kind of victims, too — is a revolutionary thought for a lot of Iraqis who've seen the film. I hope the same will be true with the Americans who get a sense of what the Iraqis are going through, that the insurgency is not "the insurgency." They're not all Al-Qaeda members. A lot of them are guys who were in the army, who became disillusioned with the liberation when they realized they weren't able to vote, their army was disbanded, they didn't have electricity, their kids couldn't go to school. They saw what was actually a — I wouldn't say an amazing economy, but certainly people could function and drive across their city — disappear, and they felt they had to take things into their own hands. It's humanizing both sides, and that's the way forward.

[Photos: "Battle for Haditha"; director Nick Broomfield, Hanway Films, 2007]

"Battle for Haditha" opens in New York on May 7.

"Bamako," "The Films of Morris Engel"

2008-05-06T12:44:34Z

By Michael Atkinson

Malian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako may have made the one African film everybody needs to see — at least for its disarming fugue of frank political awareness and state-of-the-quotidian African life. In most other ways, though, "Bamako" (2006) is a challenge to orthodoxy, because it's not driven by its narrative, and hardly even provides an establishing context for itself. Before we know it, we're in a sun-dappled Mali courtyard (Sissako's family home, as it turns out), in which a kind of tribunal is going on, complete with black-robed jurists, waiting witnesses, anxious journalists and stacks of documentation. This is, we slowly realize, a fantasy trial in which the African people have taken civil proceedings against the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and American-led global capitalism in general, for the crime of exploiting and loan-sharking the continent and its peoples. The testimony is not from actors, but from real African citizens, writers, activists, tribal leaders, etc.; the lawyers, European and African, on both sides are also genuine advocates.

]]> It sounds like a Peter Watkins film, except "Bamako"'s primary thrust is mitigated, colored and accented in a distinctly African fashion: in, behind and around the trial courses a never-ending flow of relaxed, workaday life full of loiterers, babies, laundry, troubled families, goats, sunglasses salesmen, fabric dyers, well-women and so on. Every one of Sissako's shots is a deep-focus study in the irresistible press of life; beyond every passionate witness who gives testimony is Africa itself, working and lazing and surviving. A beautiful nightclub chanteuse, whose marriage is dissolving, stops the court in mid-morning to have someone, anyone, tie up the back of her dress. The locals listen to the proceedings on loudspeakers until they no longer wish to and watch TV instead. (Sissako doesn't let that opportunity slip by, inventing for broadcast a cheesy spaghetti western parable on cowboy diplomacy starring Danny Glover and Elia Suleiman.) At one point, a wedding ceremony plows through the courtyard.

But the witnesses are never deterred, and the core of "Bamako" is intense, eloquent testimony against the state powers that systematically, under the guise of aiding developing nations, rape them of resources and drain them through intolerable debt. For Americans who generally accept the spin about the IMF and the G8 being philanthropic or, at best, error-prone organs of national assistance, getting the picture from the African perspective could have an awakening effect. The IMF's lawyer, embodied by French decolonization advocate Roland Rappaport, cannot muster much of a proposed defense, but who could, given the vocabulary and priorities Sissako has established? (The name "Paul Wolfowitz" is spat out like a swallowed bug.) There's no denying the integrity of Sissako's assembled voices, especially once an elderly tribesman takes the stand and belts out a wailing, and unsubtitled, Bambara elegy of cultural woe, making everyone in the vicinity stop dead and go grave. Humanistic agitprop, "Bamako" may be African, but it is aimed outward at the world with global unrest in its heart.

The integrity located at the nougat center of Morris Engel's three modest features — "Little Fugitive" (1953), "Lovers and Lollipops" (1956) and "Weddings and Babies" (1958) — is just as undeniable, just as it's virtually impossible not to feel charmed and even a little blessed by the movies' affectionate attention to realistic details (despite their cloying titles). They are, in fact, such an unassuming clutch of cinema that it'd be easy to overlook the revolution they represented — without "Little Fugitive," there might not have been a French New Wave or John Cassavetes, and therefore, perhaps, no new wave movement at large. Before Engel, "indies" were exploitation and genre rip-offs, destined for the grindhouses. Before Engel, American film characters had heavily plotted actions to carry out — they didn't live in real rooms, speak in convincing cadences, or lallygag around watching children or laying in parks or dallying over luncheon counters. Before Engel, shooting an entire dramatic film as if it were a spontaneous documentary was unheard of. From the late '40s noirs onward, American films were tentatively, nervously, edging toward a street-savvy realism, but it took Engel to push the zeitgeist over for real, with no studio behind him and with a handheld camera, into the sawdust of Coney Island and onto the sidewalks of Little Italy.

Engel, working with his photographer-editor wife Ruth Orkin at every stage of production, had a crafty and expressive eye, but his films feel as natural as daylight through an old apartment window. "Little Fugitive" is a tiny story — a Brooklyn seven-year-old thinks he killed his bullyish brother, and escapes alone to Coney Island — slogged by post-dubbing and amateurish performances, and yet it's a miracle; it's as if no one had ever photographed a real child doing authentic childish things before. Freckly, beady-eyed Richie Andrusco is just a paradigmatic kid (no extraordinary resources of charisma or camera love here), but essential, unfettered boyness was rare in movies, and it's what makes him compulsively watchable. Similarly, "Lovers and Lollipops" dawdles over little Cathy Dunn as a fatherless girl whose lonesome mom (Lori March) finds a new, and not terribly kid-savvy, boyfriend (Gerald O'Loughlin); the people are just as interesting to Engel as the landmarks of Manhattan, including Central Park, Macy's and the Statue of Liberty (source of a typical Engelian moment: as the adults talk high in the statue, kids run along its shadow's perimeter on the grass).

"Weddings and Babies," the only Engel film to be made with synch-sound and without Orkin, is a stunningly intimate view of a working couple at odds about marriage and offspring. (Viveca Lindfors, coming to Engel's penniless improv New Yawk after 10 lackluster years in Hollywood, gives one of the best performances of the '50s.) "Little Fugitive" won a top prize at the Venice Film Festival, played in 5,000 U.S. theaters, and has since been inducted into the National Film Registry. (It is, in addition to everything, an anthropological portrait of Coney Island in the early '50s.) But all three movies are sincere and true and powerfully expressive love letters to kids, to lower-middle-class Americans, and to New York and its outer boroughs, in a day of thriving street life. Influential or not, Engel was a hardcore independent who struggled to get his films made. He made a fourth feature, "I Need a Ride to California" (1968), which still has never been seen; otherwise, he and Orkin made their livings as photographers and occasional commercial directors, outcasts from a culture-scape they pioneered.

[Photos: Aïssa Maïga in "Bamako," New Yorker, 2007; "Little Fugitive," Joseph Burstyn, 1953]

"Bamako" (New Yorker Video) and "The Films of Morris Engel" (Kino Video) are now available on DVD.

Tribeca '08: James Mottern on "Trucker"

2008-05-06T03:19:45Z

By Stephen Saito

[For complete coverage of the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, check out IFC's Tribeca page.]

It's typical to assume when you sit down with a director that they have a love of film, but in James Mottern's case, his enthusiasm for the medium is infectious. When asked why he cast the perennially underrated Michelle Monaghan as the lead in his first film, "Trucker," he'll simply ask in return, "Did you see 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'?" That leads to a conversation about the little-seen 2005 drama "Winter Solstice" and the way Monaghan caught his eye in the background of a scene, and the next thing you know, you're talking about the way her eyes crossed in a segment for "North Country." That attention to detail is what might also be most impressive about Mottern's nuanced directorial debut, which premiered at this year's the Tribeca Film Festival. Though he'll rattle off his influences and the films he loves from the 1970s with reckless abandon, Mottern's "Trucker" is an original concoction that stars Monaghan as a mother whose hard living is interrupted by retaking custody of a young son she left long ago, with enough cursing between the two to make, well, a trucker blush. Mottern recently sat down to talk about his gritty character study, his war against sentiment and why not getting your film into a particular festival shouldn't be the end of the world.

]]> Was this an attempt to class up a genre previously dominated by "Over the Top" and "Black Dog"?

[laughs] Yeah, it was conscious in the sense that when I was little, one of my favorite movies was "Smokey and the Bandit." It's a great film because it's exactly what it is. It's an interesting movie in that way. But this film is more informed by certain classic '70s movies, like "Five Easy Pieces" or "The Last Detail" — I know these are all Nicholson movies — that almost are genres unto themselves because they're usually about one character going through this process and, a lot of times, there's a breeziness to their character. There's a sense of humor about it, but there's an undercurrent of melancholy, a real human feeling to it, so that was what appealed to me about the story as I was writing, the subtext of it. Michelle's like that. You look at her and she's very beautiful, there's a lightness to her but at the same time, whatever she's got runs very deep. It's a depth that some of the greatest actresses that we know have.

It was surprising that you could read the plot synopsis for this film and think it probably couldn't avoid being melodramatic — there's an estranged mother taking in her young son as his father languishes in a hospital — but there's no sentimentality to this film whatsoever.

Because you've seen that story about 500 times.

Was that something you had right from the start and had to protect?

I think of sentiment, any sentiment, as a constructed emotion that's been created by movies. I don't know where it comes from because I don't think it's a real human emotion. I don't think people have "sentiment." I think they have love, fear, anger, compassion, but "sentiment" is not an emotion, it's a reflex to emotion. So from the very beginning, I wrote it with restraint against that. It was a challenge. The beauty of the story was that it was familiar, but you have a mother and a son — if you want to be sentimental, it's all there for the picking, but I really wanted to let the story tell itself and have an openness to it.

People want you to do it. When they read the script, they're like, "I don't really like it. I don't like her... you could get more tears out of this.' It would never appeal to me. In a movie like "The Last Detail" where there's no sentiment at all, there's a shot where Randy Quaid does the semaphore and then [gets] the crap beaten out of him. There's a tragedy to that, but there's no music, just the sound of the leaves and the flailing far away. You feel it because you've been allowed to feel it. It was a '70s movie, and there's no sentiment in those films because they're trying to tell a true story. Those films informed me that it's important to tell the story, not the sentiment of the story.

The other thing that was interesting in the film was how gender roles was defined — having Monaghan play a role that usually would be reserved for man and you have dialogue referring to what makes a good man — was that a thread you wanted to follow through?

A lot of this film is about identity, that you live your life and you think you have free will. But as you walk around in the day, whether it's the way you look, your gender, the way you behave, the sound of your voice, you're immediately identified and categorized by people. They're trying to tell you who you are at all these points and you begin to believe it, it chips away at your freedom until you have no free will. You're beholden to these people who are identifying you. [Monaghan's character] Diane says "That's not who I am. That's not who I am." To me, that's why she's a hero — she does resist that categorization by other people. It wasn't so much role reversal, because I never thought of this movie as being a woman's movie. It was always [about] a human being first.

Knowing your background with Slamdance, where you were once a festival producer, what's the experience been like to switch sides from producing a festival to participating in one as a filmmaker?

The thing I like about those films [at Slamdance] is that not all of them are great, but there's always some little nugget that's good in each one of them. It's always like filmmakers first, and to me, Tribeca is very similar in that sense that it was started not by a city to promote the city, but in a response to 9/11. I'm religious about movies anyway, that some of the great films would suggest somebody is finding redemption or salvation or freedom. It's a very American phenomenon to have that feeling.

The other thing about Tribeca is that they have a very high regard for the history of film in terms of American history and influence and what films have meant to people beyond the box office. It depresses the shit out of me when I'm listening to Indie 103 in L.A. and they have the Sundance Report. You tune in and you're like alright, tell me what the movies are, and the first thing they do during the Sundance Report is tell what the sales were of these films and it's pathetic.

"Trucker" was bandied about as one of the titles that might've been selected for Sundance. Were you actually aiming for that before Tribeca?

Yeah, but I think that when you're making a film you'd hope that everyone's working together for what they believe in — that's why you'd do it. An independent film, no one's paying you any money to do it. You do want your film to sell because you want people to see it — you don't make it to put it in your bureau. But when there are these big festivals, you find yourself almost making a film for the people who run the festival — will it get in? Who's there? Who will like it? Who knows someone who's at the festival? It's almost like the festival becomes a distributor who you haven't even sold the film to.

For Sundance and this film, it was being bandied about because I always thought it was great and people will tell you, "This is a Sundance film," but I always thought this is any festival film because it's going to be great. For me...and Sundance, God love 'em... I wanted to finish my film. I didn't have a score in, so we were all like let's just finish it, you know, because it's going to be a good film.

I was curious about it because I knew it did have that history.

And that's the other thing — so it's bandied about that it's going to get into Sundance, right? And so people then say "What is wrong with it that it didn't get in?'

It comes off as damaged goods when you don't get in.

But it's.... not done. [laughs] I learned a valuable lesson — the movie that you are going to make you should make, come hell or high water. I'm [actually] very positive about that experience, but it discourages me when I see filmmakers have that feeling that their film didn't get into a particular festival. I have friends that didn't get into this festival and it's divisive. It makes it so that these filmmakers that have worked together or have tried to nurture each other are suddenly divided by a festival because the festival is suddenly qualifying the value of your film.

What's next?

I would like to be in the Michelle Monaghan business for the rest of my life, because I really think she's one of the greats. When she agreed to do the film, we went through the script and talked about this character and by doing that with her, I found things in the script that I hadn't seen before and it informed me about things that I wanted to do that I hadn't thought of. So for me to be able to work with Michelle, it's what I would consider as almost joint filmmakers. It's a symbiotic relationship. I'm working on a few things for her and then I just finished a Hal Ashby-ish kind of comedy and we'll see what happens with that. But I'm always working on a bunch of different things.

[Photos: "Trucker," Plum Pictures, 2008]

IFC News Podcast #75: Not Another Teen Movie Podcast

2008-05-05T16:18:17Z

By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore

This week, "Juno"'s Ellen Page is back in theaters with "The Tracey Fragments," playing another troubled but eloquent teenager girl. Is it safe to say that Page is the wide-eyed, smart-mouthed face of the MySpace generation on the indie screen? In honor of her role, this week on the IFC News podcast, we take a look at some of the better representations of teens on screen, from "Kes" to "Ghost World."

Download now (MP3: 27:56 minutes, 25.5 MB)

Podcast feeds: [XML] [iTunes]

[Photo: "The Tracey Fragments," THINKFilm, 2007]

Opening This Week

2008-05-05T16:05:23Z

By Neil Pedley

This week sees the return of the Wachowski brothers, Tarsem Singh ("The Cell") and Henry Bean ("The Believer") to the big screen, not to mention new films from documentarians Nick Broomfield ("Tupac and Biggie") and Doug Pray ("Scratch"). On the other hand, after running around Tribeca, we still need to catch up on last week's releases.

"The Babysitters"
The idea of the spunky teenage boy succumbing to the allure of an experienced older woman is the kind of Hollywood golden goose that launches major careers (think Dustin Hoffman). But when the roles are reversed, the result is the directorial debut of David Ross that sees an entrepreneurial high schooler (Katherine Waterston, daughter of Sam) and her friends turn their babysitting ring into a call girl service, realizing there are alternative ways to pay for college besides waiting tables. It stars when one local dad (John Leguizamo) goes a little too far one night, and Waterston's Shirley sees the opportunity for a full scholarship (and a phone call to Chris Hansen).
Opens in New York.

]]> "Battle For Haditha"
UK documentarian and provocateur Nick Broomfield, perhaps best known for his controversial music doc, "Kurt and Courtney," once again takes a factual event and offers to fill in the blanks in "Battle For Haditha," a fictional dramatization of the events surrounding the 2005 death of a U.S. Marine in Haditha, Iraq and the subsequent killing of 24 Iraqi noncombatants, reportedly in retaliation. In keeping with the speculative nature of the project. the film was shot without a script with actors being given a detailed scene outline and then left to improvise their roles within it.
Opens in New York.

"The Fall"
Tarsem Singh's debut, the psychological mindbender "The Cell," was much like its leading lady, Jennifer Lopez — extremely beautiful and more than a little excruciating to watch on screen. His sophomore effort, which arrives in theaters after six years in production and the aegis of "presenters" David Fincher and Spike Jonze, is certainly at least one of those things. Using the gloriously ripe cinematography of classic Bollywood to paint a visceral steampunk adventure story, Singh lets "Pushing Daisies" star Lee Pace impart a grand, epic tale of warriors and tyrants to the little girl in the hospital bed next to him (Catinca Untaru) in an effort to enlist her in a bid to end his life.
Opens in limited release.

"Frontière(s)"
That this film was originally deemed too gruesome to premiere at even the 2007 Horrorfest festival and had to be toned down for an NC-17 rating should tell you everything you need to know. The demonic lovechild of Eli Roth and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, this nasty survival story stars Karina Testa and Aurélien Wiik as young thieves on the run who take refuge at an inn where they are made to earn their freedom by running the gauntlet of a vast underground labyrinth filled with neo-Nazi torturers and sub-human cannibals. The film was directed by Xavier Gens, who went Hollywood with "Hitman" last year.
Opens in limited release.

"Noise"
Based on the real life exploits of writer/director Henry Bean, "Noise" finds Tim Robbins as a white collar vigilante who harbors a deep-seated hatred of that pre-dawn terror, the faulty car alarm. Driven to distraction by their perceived incessant interruptions of his otherwise serene inner city existence, Robbins dons a mask, grabs a tire iron, and fights back under the guise of his preposterous alter ego, "The Rectifier." Following his credited screenplay work on "Basic Instinct 2," Bean attempts to rectify his own cred with this black comedy.
Opens in New York.

"OSS 117: Cario, Nest of Spies"
The espionage novels of Jean Bruce were the inspiration for this gloriously silly riff on Cold War spy fiction. Though the film isn't the first adaptation of — are you ready? — the series of 265 stories, it's certainly a jab in the eye for the Bond films of Sean Connery, especially since the story's hero, the impossibly named Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, actually predates Ian Fleming's character by several years. Arming our man in Egypt with the wardrobe of Harry Palmer and the brains of Inspector Clouseau, director Michel Hazanavicius takes the customary innuendo, thinly veiled misogyny and spectacularly oversimplified geopolitics, mixes them with classic French farce, and shakes them like a vodka martini.
Opens in limited release.

"A Previous Engagement"
Perhaps best known for her BAFTA-nominated performance in the late Anthony Minghella's "Truly, Madly, Deeply," Juliet Stevenson stars as Julia, a bitter and aging librarian who decides on a whim to drag her family to Malta where she can wallow at the site where she promised to hook up with the real love of her life (Tchéky Karyo) 25 years ago. When she finds he's actually there, along with his young, attractive new girlfriend, she is completely unprepared to deal with her former lover and her foppish husband (Daniel Stern), who sets about making himself a new man she'll be unable to resist after discovering the trip's true purpose.
Opens in New York and Los Angeles.

"Speed Racer"
Lounging around development hell since as far back as 1992, with everyone from Johnny Depp and Julien Temple (cheer) to Vince Vaughn (shudder) attached at one point or another, it took the resolve of Joel Silver and clout of the Wachowski brothers to get "Speed Racer" up and running. After his acclaimed turn in "Into the Wild," Emile Hirsch feels the need to be Speed, the prodigal driver who must be taken out after he refuses to play ball with the racing industry's corporate stooges, who're looking to fix races for profit. Perhaps the single prettiest thing ever committed to celluloid, the film received its world premiere as the closing night film of the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.
Opens wide and in IMAX in select theaters.

"Surfwise"
"Scratch" documentarian Doug Pray chronicles the life of bohemian surfing legend Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, who's credited as being the man who introduced surfing to Israel. Pray charts Doc's amazing transformation from successful, middle-class doctor in Hawaii into a wandering, nomadic beatnik, living in a camper van on the California coast with his wife and nine children. Blending archival footage, interviews with former surfing students, his now-grown children and the aging guru himself, "Surfwise" tells the incredible story of a man who decided to wave goodbye to society and never looked back.
Opens in limited release.

"The Tracey Fragments"
Using an abstract fusion of mosaic and montage imagery, cult Canadian auteur Bruce McDonald directs a pre-"Juno" Ellen Page in an adaptation of Maureen Medved's novel about the titular Tracey, a traumatized girl found naked on a bus who reveals through a series of vignettes her story and her search for missing little brother, Sonny. In preparation for its domestic release, the film's footage was made available to users online who were encouraged to assemble and submit their own version of the story, with the best entries then featured on the official website.
Opens in New York.

"Turn The River"
Another week, another card film, this time starring Famke Janssen as Kailey Sullivan, a down-on-her-luck mom who hustles at the poker table and the local poolhall to raise the cash to take her son (Jaymie Dornan) away from her ex-husband (Matt Ross). Praised by some critics as an authentic character study and for its gutsy gender reversal, the film was written and directed by Chris Eigeman, who picked up a screenplay award at last year's Hamptons Film Festival, which also bestowed a jury prize to Janssen for her gritty performance. Rip Torn and Lois Smith also star.
Opens in limited release.

"Unsettled"
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 Slamdance Festival for best documentary, Adam Hootnick's intimate film follows the Israeli withdrawal of the Gaza Strip in 2005 and the varied impact it has on the lives of a group of young people made to leave their homes. Some support the withdrawal, while others vehemently oppose it, and others still are indifferent yet equally powerless against a mandate for them to leave peacefully, or be evacuated by force.
Opens in New York; opens in Los Angeles on May 16th.

"Vice"
Ah, so this is what Michael Madsen and Daryl Hannah do in between Tarantino movies. With a commendation from no less than Dennis Hopper, who's quoted as saying "Vice" "is one of the best cop movies I've ever seen," this low budget pulp noir stars Madsen and Hannah as members of a narco squad who have to stay alive long enough to hunt down an inside man responsible for jacking a bust's worth of heroin. Mykelti Williamson co-stars in this "Max Payne"-lite crime caper.
Opens in limited release.

"What Happens in Vegas..."
Ashton Kutcher is certainly no stranger to walking down the aisle with good-looking older women, but Demi Moore's other half gets more than he bargained for in this anarchic rom-com from "Starter for 10" director Tom Vaughan. Hard as it is to believe anyone wouldn't be overjoyed to wake up and discover he's hitched to Cameron Diaz, both parties are decidedly unhappy when a one night stand turns into a battle of will when it comes to divvying up the $3 million they won together on the slots, and the only way to get the money is to drive the other so crazy that he or she leaves voluntarily. Rob Corddry, Queen Latifah and "Saturday Night Live"'s Jason Sudeikis round out an eclectic support cast.
Opens wide.

[Photo: "The Babysitters," Peace Arch Releasing, 2008]

Tribeca '08: Lucas Jansen, Adam Kurland and Spencer Vrooman on "This is Not a Robbery"

2008-05-02T22:24:19Z

By Stephen Saito

[For complete coverage of the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, check out IFC's Tribeca page.]

When Lucas Jansen, Adam Kurland and Spencer Vrooman had to come up with a title for their first documentary, "This is Not a Robbery," they looked to the René Magritte surrealist painting "This is Not a Pipe" for inspiration. While there was very little that was artistic about the robberies attempted by the film's subject, J.L. "Red" Rountree — who merely went into a bank and handed a teller an envelope with the word "robbery" scribbled on it — there was something positively surreal about the fact that Rountree was 86 years old when he decided to first rob a bank. Rountree died in 2004 after starting out with great success in the oil business and ending in prison, though not before a series of incredible twists and turns of fate led the octogenarian to turn to a life of crime. Jansen, Kurland and Vrooman recently sat down to reflect on Rountree's legacy, how they got cozy with law enforcement and how they're getting away with things of their own at this year's Tribeca Film Festival.

]]> How did "This is Not a Robbery" come about?

Adam Kurland: Basically, we came across the story in the L.A. Times obituary section and I was just fascinated by this guy's life. There were so many questions left unanswered by this story that I just wanted to know what happened. Lucas, Spencer and I have all known each other since we were really young. Lucas [and I] were both living in New York and we decided we were going to do a doc on this guy and plan the whole trip, got everything together and met up with Spencer in Los Angeles.

Because you've known each other for so long, did you guys find out anything new about each other while working so closely together on a film?

Lucas Jansen: If you basically live off somebody else's nose for three and a half years of your life, even if you've known them since you were a little kid, you find out more about people. I think anything you want to know about Adam or Spencer or me, you could ask any of the three of us and you're pretty much covered.

AK: But the truth is that the three and a half years making it were also huge periods of time where we changed drastically. It was a long process, a difficult process and an amazing process, but I would say the people who started making this movie are not who we are now necessarily.

Spencer Vrooman: It's like going from "Saved by the Bell" to "Saved by the Bell: The College Years."

I'm assuming that you'd never been to Central Texas before, where there are such great natural characters, as you discover in the film — what was that experience like?

SV: We're very much big city boys, as painful as it is to admit it, but when we went down, people took us in, were completely generous all along our travels, even people we weren't used to being friendly to us, like police officers and the wardens of jails. Everyone was so accommodating...there's a broad interest in this story that I think led people to want to help us because they wanted to learn more about [it].

While the story of an elderly bank robber is quite funny on the surface, was there anyone who you talked to who didn't have a sense of humor about Red or the crimes he committed? You mentioned that Red's family didn't want to talk much following one of the screenings.

SV: We really hit very few obstacles. The thing about [Red's] family, they just didn't know Red, so they weren't appropriate for the film for that reason. Any estrangement had taken place earlier in Red's life and was unrelated to the robberies. As far as anyone else, probably the worst reaction to Red Rountree was the bank teller who developed the phobia of elderly people. And even with her, we shared a lot of the information we'd found out about Red's past history and I think she may have taken steps towards reconciling [her fears and memories of being robbed] after discussing it with us. Part of the fun thing is Red lived two lives — one as a law-abiding citizen and one as an elderly criminal — [and] we have been able to show people who only knew one side of Red the other side, and I think they come to understand it better. That's been a huge part of the process for us.

One of the most clever conceits of the film is the timeline, which shows how Red went from a man who made a fortune in the oil business to someone who decided to rob banks, but not necessarily in that order. How did you come up with the chronology?

AK: It was in post-production when we realized that we were going to go back and forth. We all love Akira Kurosawa and "Rashomon," which used that back and forth. It was obviously an unconventional style of filmmaking where you were going back to a point that happened before. Coming into the post-production, we knew we had to find some similar way to that to tell the story.

SV: Once we had the time wall [a series of interludes throughout the film that mark the time in Red's life by using framed pictures of Red], we were good.

AK: We went through a couple different transitions that went from the past to the future, from the future to the past, and we eventually came up with the idea of this wall in a room that could've been the audience's room or Red's room or any room, really — time flies on it as if someone is trying to put these back in order.

The film also has bits of the audio interview Jim Lewis conducted for an article in GQ. While that must've been a bit of a holy grail to have his actual voice for the film, how much did you want to rely on it versus finding your own story?

LJ: Process-wise, we found all of the other elements of the story came to us before those tapes, actually. We finished our shooting process before Jim Lewis offered the tapes to us — they were an after-the-fact revelation. We'd already got the chance to fall in love with all of our secondary characters and had to fight to find ways to tell the story with the secondary characters before we even got the tapes with Red. We went through a slow uncovering process of getting into those tapes and falling in love with our lead character in a whole new way that we could then retell.

So now that the film has premiered, what has the festival experience been like for you guys?

LJ: it's been a thrill and we've only had limited screenings for other people. We've kept a tight lid on it and to be able to open it and show it to so many people and get the response that we've gotten has been incredible.

SV: I think when we jumped into the project back in 2005, our attitude was kind of like, hey, Red Rountree at 86 with no previous criminal experience started robbing banks, well, then fuck it, at 23, with no previous cinematic experience, we can probably make a documentary film about it. And now we've got that feeling like we're on the way out of the bank with our envelope... which probably means at any second, we're going to get caught and locked up for the rest of our lives, so we're just enjoying this short high now while we have it.

[Photos: "This is Not a Robbery," Andrew Lauren Productions, 2008]

Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith on "Son of Rambow"

2008-04-30T17:59:22Z

By Matt Singer

Every film lover remembers that first adult movie they were too young to see. For Garth Jennings, that movie was 1982's "First Blood." "It was brilliant," remembers Jennings. "Here's this guy with a stick and a knife taking on 200 men. We just thought it was the business — so much so that we then decided to make our own home movie version of this using my father's video camera."

Jennings's home-brewed movies eventually led to a career working in collaboration with Nick Goldsmith under the name Hammer & Tongs, in which Jennings would direct and Goldsmith would produce first a string of remarkably creative music videos and then features, starting with 2005's "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." The team's second picture brings Jennings full circle: a semi-autobiographical story of two British school kids who become amateur filmmakers after watching — what else? — "First Blood."

The result is the hilarious and deeply touching "Son of Rambow" — the extra "w" of the title, as Jennings and Goldsmith note, is to avoid reactions like the one they got after an early test screening, when a man was furious to discover the movie was not an actual Rambo sequel. "He wrote on his test sheet, 'How dare you trick me? Where are the guns?'" Goldsmith told me with a laugh. During our interview, Jennings and Goldsmith talked about their own "Rambo" sequels and the pleasures of growing up children of the 1980s.

]]> I assume that the film is in some way based on things that one or both of you did as children.

Nick Goldsmith: The first draft we wrote was sort of autobiographical, but we both had fairly ordinary, nice upbringings, so it was a bit of a dull script. But then we had this peripheral character who was a Plymouth Brethren, this religious group that goes to ordinary schools, but aren't allowed any form of entertainment in their lives. We found by moving the story next door to this little kid who'd never seen a film before or any form of entertainment, we could have it so that when he sees "First Blood," it blows his mind. It was a way for us to get that feeling across of how it was when we were kids, when you see a film, and it really has an effect on you in a much more filmic way.

What sorts of movies did you create in the wake of that "First Blood" viewing?

Garth Jennings: Well, the movie that we were inspired to make by "Rambo" was called "Aaron: Part I," and Aaron is a sort of Rambo-esque character. I played the head of the military of defense, and I get kidnapped by the PLO, and the PLO hold me hostage in my mother's shed at the end of the garden, and they're gonna burn me alive unless the government coughs up some money and makes their lives better. And so Aaron comes running in, kicks everyone's ass and then burns them alive in the shed. The name Aaron came from the fact that we always wanted our hero to have one big singular name, and I had seen the name Aaron Spelling going up at the end of "Dynasty," and thought, "Aaron. Aaron's a hard name. Aaron's coming! Be afraid!" I didn't know that in real life, Aaron Spelling was a tiny man.

The kids start making their movie, and there's something wonderful and pure about it. Then at a certain point, everyone in their school finds out about it, and it mutates into this huge production. Are there any comparisons to be drawn there with the story of a pair of independent filmmakers getting sucked into the Hollywood machine?

NG: Well, you can't help but have that. Even though we were conscious of that [parallel], it's a function of the fact that once you start doing things as kids and it's exciting, people tend to join in. So it is a sort of comparison to what happens in the real world. We tried not to make too much of that — it's too easy to start going, "Hey, we're making a particular dig at the Hollywood system," or something.

The movie is very much a product of people who grew up in the 1980s. Can you talk about what made it such a great time to be a kid?

GJ: I didn't realize it at the time, but when I look back, I think that was pretty good. There were great records. There was good clothing. Very big hair.

NG: I think it was probably the worst looking decade ever.

GJ: It was definitely the most garish, stupidest looking decade. I think the '70s have got nothing on the '80s in terms of just stupidity.

With your film and the recently released "Be Kind Rewind," there seem to be the rumblings of a movement to reclaim VHS as a technology now that it's been completely supplanted by DVD and digital. Do you think that's true?

GJ: It was the first time we were able to do something immediately that felt very professional. It was a feat when we all got video cameras — well, we didn't all get video cameras.

When I grew up, you usually had one kid who had one and you'd make friends with him so you could play with it.

GJ: It was actually my dad who got one because his friend was emigrating and selling off all of his electrical equipment. We never would have had one otherwise. We got this thing, and it was amazing. I haven't seen "Be Kind Rewind," but I understand it's from a similar generation of people that just grew up discovering they could make something and then play it back. There was something wonderful about putting on a show at the end of the day and not having to send it off to a processing plant. It felt like we'd been given the keys to the car.

With very few exceptions, we don't see the kids' imaginative view of what we're seeing. When they create a "flying dog," we see what it really is — a plastic dog strapped to a kite. Yet one of the kids says "It looks just like my drawings!" which is a great moment. Was it difficult to decide how to represent what Will and Lee do?

GJ: None of it was actually difficult to do because it's so based on the fact that we never saw anything as impossible at that age. You never worried about making a mistake. You just thought, "Wow, yeah, it's a dog tied to a kite. It's a flying dog." I like that ludicrous ambition.

NG: The flying dog was an idea we came across and we thought, "Oh, yeah, of course, flying dog. Easy. We'll just tie a dog to a kite, and it will fly," and then the special effects guys come in, and they're like, "Of course it's not going to fly. You'd need a kite the size of a small country in order to fly this dog." We ended up having hundred-foot cranes and men with wires and rigging and that sort of thing. It always gets more complicated. It's easier when you're a kid.

[Photos: Bill Milner as Will Proudfoot; Will Poulter as Lee Carter; writer/director Garth Jennings — "Son of Rambow," Paramount Vantage, 2007]

"Son of Rambow" opens in limited release on May 2.

When Mixed Martial Arts Meet the Movies

2008-04-30T03:25:18Z

By R. Emmet Sweeney

Mixed martial arts (MMA) have come a bloody long way since John McCain legendarily dubbed the sport "human cockfighting" in 1996. Its flagship organization, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), aired eight of the top 15 pay-per-view programs in 2007 (boxing had four), while two smaller outfits (Strikeforce and EliteXC) have recently inked deals to air events on NBC and CBS. With major media outlets slowly offering more coverage and the sport's popularity continuing to crest, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood got its opportunistic hands on those tantalizing cauliflower ears... right?

Uncharacteristic of the movie business, producers are showing restraint in capitalizing on the fad, perhaps still haunted by McCain's "cock" slam. David Mamet encountered fierce resistance to his new MMA influenced film, "Redbelt," as he tells Sam Alipour of ESPN.com: "Everybody in Hollywood passed on it. One of the things I talked about (in the pitch) was the demographics of UFC. Look at who goes to these fights. Look at how many follow on TV. It's huge among young males, exactly the demographic studios are trying to reach. You're wondering how you can get these people to see a film? Well, this is your answer. The reaction was baffling."

]]> Much of the reason still lies in the sport's "barbaric" reputation, a holdover from the early days of the UFC, when they advertised, "There are no rules!" and trumpeted supposed mismatches between heavyweights and lightweights. Editorials are regularly churned out about the "bestial" nature of the sport (shockingly, Don King and Bill O'Reilly have joined the chorus), despite the UFC's relatively clean bill of health (no life-threatening injuries to date), at least in comparison to pro boxing's spotty history. After McCain virtually bankrupted the business by encouraging governors to outlaw the fights (which 36 states obliged), the UFC was bought out in 2001 by the marketing-savvy company Zuffa. Although the UFC had already instituted a series of new regulations (no blows to the back of the head, etc.) that cleared them to hold an event in New Jersey in 2000, the new owners claimed to be innovators of the sport, and started to convince regulatory commissions, state by state, that they were safe enough to be allowed into their fair cities. In other words, they were no longer barbarians, but could still get fans to pay at the gate. Now even McCain says that "the sport has grown up," and most states have legalized it.

Another reason for Hollywood's reluctant embrace of MMA is the question of whether these fighting styles can even translate effectively to the screen. Mamet brings this up in a 2006 Playboy piece he wrote about the sport — how do you film the jiu-jitsu fights themselves? He claims that the form never broke into national consciousness like kung fu or karate because it is inherently uncinematic: "A fight, to be dramatic, must allow the viewer to see the combatants now coming together, now separating... Jiu-jitsu involves tying up — that is, closing the distance and keeping it closed...It is not dramatic. It is just effective." Fights that employ this style tend to look like especially sweaty make-out sessions that go on for three rounds. "Never Back Down," an MMA version of "High School Musical" released earlier this year, dealt with this issue by literally skipping over the foreplay, utilizing MTV-style montage to jump to the submissions, eliding the minutes of groping and intricate body contortions it takes to get there. On "Redbelt," Mamet and cinematographer Robert Elswit (hot off of "There Will Be Blood") take a more intimate route, employing very tight handheld framing to capture the technical skill involved in these grappling battles. These fights are not about thrills, but as the main character Mike Terry says, "I train to prevail, not to fight." They are merely the most efficient means to an end. The main visual interest in the film, as Mamet noted in the New York Times, are the faces, which Elswit tends to shoot in profile on extreme edges of the widescreen frame, their bruised faces as purple as Mamet's prose is lean.

The film continues Mamet's obsession with secretive male societies on the edge of the law (gamblers in "House of Games," security officers in "Spartan," thieves in "Heist"). "Redbelt" follows the moral path of Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an ascetic jiu-jitsu instructor who intones that "competition weakens the fighter." Mamet, a jiu-jitsu student for over five years, treats the martial art more as a philosophy than a physical skill, a conduit for self-discipline and moral purity. Terry is like a masterless samurai planted into modern day L.A, his codes of honor ridiculous to the more practical-minded citizens (and viewers) around him. Terry's refusal to compromise on the ethics of fighting leads him on a collision course with the market economy that's dying to exploit both his mind and body. Mamet's Manichean setup can be overwrought at times, but it's the necessary backdrop for his passionate defense of martial values. It ends in an improbable PPV fantasy, an alternate floodlit universe where the old samurai ways triumph for a night and momentarily silence the bloodthirsty bleatings of the marketplace.

In other words, not good tie-in material for the UFC, which is still too busy trying to land a cable deal with HBO or Showtime to concern themselves with the movie business yet. But at this point it seems inevitable that an MMA movie genre will shortly work itself out, likely plotting a middle road between the populist street fights of "Never Back Down" and the angsty existential battles of "Redbelt." The visual grammar of MMA is in its infancy, but I hope the Mamet film provides the template: an economic, unobtrusive style seems appropriate for such brutally efficient fighting — a science more salty than sweet.

[Photo: "Redbelt," Sony Pictures Classics, 2008; "Never Back Down," Summit Entertainment, 2008]

Tribeca Tale of the Tape: Mariah Carey vs. Dave Matthews

2008-04-29T18:43:04Z

By Stephen Saito

[For complete coverage of the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, check out IFC's Tribeca page.]

In a festival that's boasted such fine music docs as "Lou Reed's Berlin" and "Playing for Change: Peace Through Music," along with an appearance from Madonna to promote the non-musical Malawi doc "I Am Because We Are," Tribeca has also turned out to be a place where musicians put down their instruments and pick up scripts. Though acting is nothing particularly new for either Mariah Carey or Dave Matthews, the two have taken on supporting roles in the low-budget films "Tennessee" and "Lake City," respectively, both in this year's line-up. Here's a look at how they measured up.

Mariah Carey, "Tennessee"

Albums sold: Over 160 million worldwide.

Previous acting experience: "Glitter," the straight-to-DVD "WiseGirls"

Role believability: We're inclined to believe that Carey's early moments in the film, as a forlorn waitress longing for a better life, might've been inspired by the fact that shooting in New Mexico was probably not that exciting to Mimi. And once we see her sitting by the side of the road in front of the Route 66 Restaurant where she works with a notebook, humming, we know "Tennessee" isn't going to be a real stretch for Carey as an actress. The same can't be said for her character's plunging neckline.

]]> Stunt double justification: Mariah can't drive...sort of. For a relatively slow speed chase away from her husband, who just happens to be a state trooper, Carey's character Krystal manages some nifty wheel work to evade a fast-approaching tractor. Although Krystal gets away by hopping a train, Carey can't escape the end credits, which reveal that she had a stunt driver.

Huh? Moment: There are a few, but if we have to choose, the gem is when Krystal overhears a guy who she just met telling someone on the phone how great she is — she's really nice and boy, she should go to Nashville with him and his brother. He then asks her to greet the mystery person on the other end of the line. When she picks up the phone and realizes no one's there, she continues the conversation. The runner up for this category is Carey's delivery of the following phrases: "You don't know your limits. You know what happens to people who don't have limits? They cross the line."

Interesting character quality: Teaches the guys how to drink tequila shots at an Oklahoma dive bar.

Does she sing? Well, yeah. In fact, the more cynical members of the audience might wonder if the only reason Carey signed on was to sing "Right to Dream," a sort of "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman" for those old enough to be in the latter category, but who've come of age since watching Britney Spears cover the same territory in "Crossroads." Never mind that Carey's coming out moment happens during a Nashville talent competition where her R & B stylings seem strangely out of place.

Scene partner from acting royalty: Ethan Peck, grandson of Gregory, plays the leukemia-stricken man who, along with his brother, invites Carey's character to Nashville.

Hit song that needs reevaluation after "Tennessee": "Shake It Off," because really what else can Carey do?

Should she give up her day job? No, though we'll give her some credit, since the three gentlemen sitting next to us during Sunday night's screening of "Tennessee" came ready to laugh, complete with a flask of booze, which they managed to get to the bottom of without even letting out a chuckle.

Dave Matthews, "Lake City"

Albums sold: Over 35 million worldwide.

Previous acting experience: "Because of Winn Dixie," "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," that episode of "House"

Role believability: We would never have thought of Matthews as a badass drug dealer, but those nervous ticks he usually gets when hitting a high note pop up in his performance, making him an unpredictable and engaging villain. He also sports a surprisingly creepy beard.

Stunt double justification: Less than five minutes into the film, Matthews' thug Red is interrogating Troy Garity's Billy over some missing drugs, and unwisely allows Billy a drink and a smoke. Alas, Billy swished his drink rather than swallowed, creating a blowtorch effect when Red offers him a light and Billy spits the alcohol in his face. The action in the scene in seamless, but we're assuming Matthews' credited stunt double Chris Moore was the one who took the heat.

Huh? Moment: In the opening credits, Matthews is credited as "David," which may be an attempt to separate his acting career from his music career. We'll gladly call him whatever he'd like as long as he doesn't kick our ass, and we'll even apologize for mocking that Tribe of Heaven album.

Interesting character quality: Has a hard time getting out of bed. Red makes a point of yelling repeatedly how he just got out of bed before answering a knock on the door to his hotel room.

Does he sing? No, and his character is not a man with a song in his heart, but rather a gun stuffed down the back of his pants.

Scene partner from acting royalty: Troy Garity, son of Jane Fonda (and Tom Hayden), plays a man who returns home with a dangerous past, which includes Matthews' drug dealer.

Hit song that needs reevaluation after "Lake City": "What Would You Say?" now suddenly seems like less of a come on than a terse directive.

Should he give up his day job? Probably not, but while Matthews is likely never going to make leading man, "Lake City" demonstrates that his quirks might allow for a nice career as a character actor in supporting roles.

[Photos: Ethan Peck and Mariah Carey in "Tennessee," Lee Daniels Entertainment, 2008; Dave Matthews and Troy Garity in "Lake City," Mark Johnson Productions, 2008]

Tribeca '08: Dori Berinstein on "Gotta Dance"

2008-04-29T16:30:37Z

By Stephen Saito

[For complete coverage of the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, check out IFC's Tribeca page.]

It's not unusual to see a filmmaker appear at two different festivals in two months, but usually, it's with the same film. If Dori Berinstein is aiming to be the most popular documentarian around, she's certainly not wasting time.

After wowing audiences at SXSW only a month ago with "Some Assembly Required," a film that followed a kiddie competition to build a new toy, Berinstein is back at Tribeca with another crowd-pleaser, "Gotta Dance," which goes to the opposite end of the age spectrum to chronicle the inaugural season of the Netsationals, a dance squad comprised of 60-year-olds and above. (It actually makes sense that their jersey numbers reflect their ages, which top out at 83.) While some of the dancers in "Gotta Dance" have a reverse legacy — their granddaughters are on the official Nets dance team — most are amateurs there to find fun and in some cases, themselves. If that sounds a lot like another senior citizen documentary making the rounds, trust us when we say these seniors follow the beat of a different drummer — or rather, Fat Joe.

Berinstein is no stranger to multitasking, considering that she also produces Broadway shows, a subject that became the inspiration for her first documentary, "Show Business." Still, in the midst of her festival two-step, she found time to talk about the senior dancers that brought a smile to Walt Frazier's face and her own complicated dance during the past year.

]]> "Some Assembly Required" and "Gotta Dance" are opposites in many ways, but geographically, you had to cover so much ground on "Some Assembly Required" that it must've been kind of a relief to do "Gotta Dance," which was all set in New Jersey.

Yes and no. It was more complicated than that because I did post-production on "Some Assembly Required" in Los Angeles. I really wasn't expecting to be shooting "Gotta Dance." It just came up, and I can explain how it happened, but I was much more West Coast when I was shooting this East Coast movie. I produce Broadway shows, and when we were launching production on "Gotta Dance," I had to be in San Francisco with "Legally Blonde" [for preview performances], so I basically spent last spring on an airplane.

Why did you choose to make your life so crazy?

I didn't think it was going to be a problem to do a film and a Broadway show at the same time. They both gestate for a long time and there was no way to avoid overlap there and that would've been fine. But in the back of my mind, I'd been thinking about wanting to do a film on the issue of aging. I didn't want it to be talking heads, I didn't want it to be in your face. I wanted it to be fun and celebratory and all about taking advantage of this time to chase your dreams. I had no plans to start a new project. No plans! But I read in the paper that the Nets were holding this audition for a senior dance team and I had to check it out. I went to the Nets headquarters and started to get to know these incredible people, and I had to tell their story.

Was it an interesting experience to go from being around young kids in "Some Assembly Required" to seniors?

It was fantastic. With both the kids and the seniors, everybody got comfortable with the cameras and we became just a familiar fly on the wall. I find that with kids and with the senior group, it's easier than shooting with...let's just say 18 to 55, who are more aware of the camera and are thinking about consequences. Both the kids and the seniors were completely lost in what they were doing and so passionate [it] that they forgot the camera was there.

During the film, the Netsationals get quite a bit of media attention. Did their growing celebrity pose a problem for you?

The only thing I noticed after they received so much attention from the press and made so many appearances is that they knew the drill. When I had to put a lav on them, they knew exactly what to do. [laughs] They were seasoned in that way. But I wasn't there to capture their performing, I was there to capture their struggle, their adventure. I was with them when it was all happening for the first time — their joy and surprise, looking at themselves in newspapers and on TV. They were, overjoyed and it was exciting to capture that.

Between the dance performances, you let the camera roll on some interesting dinner conversations. How did those come about?

When we were with [the Netsationals] as a group, they were rehearsing, moving, very focused on what they were doing. The conversation was not about their lives and their families and their past, it was about how you do a swivel hip, how you do that kick. It didn't give us the chance to see them in a broader way.

When they started to get comfortable with each other and started to go out together to meals and dinners, we asked to tag along because that was when the conversation became much more diverse. They started to talk about issues having to do with their lives and, in a bigger way, what they thought about what they were doing, that wouldn't have happened while they were taking a break from their rehearsals. They enjoy each other so much — when Fanny [one of the older Netsationals] took them all line dancing, that was so much fun.

There are a lot of poignant moments in the film — one I found particularly moving was when Betty (a school teacher who becomes one of the dancers) is shopping at Macy's and tells the other dancers how she never wanted to wear heels because she didn't want to appear to be taller than her husband — did those moments catch you off guard?

I loved it. [laughs] I adore Betty so much because she wears her heart on her sleeve, her struggle to figure out who she is now in her sixties. I know people of that age who are going through the same thing, so I was thrilled to be able to capture that honesty, that everybody was so supportive of her as she was trying to figure out who she is. That camaraderie and the support that they all have for each other was a lovely thing to capture.

Do you have a particular favorite moment?

I would say that first performance, when they were so nervous and they have such self-doubt not only about their ability to remember everything and to put on a good show, but [because] they had no idea how the audience was going to react. It was thrilling to be there with them when they took a deep breath and went for it out on there on center court and the roof of the Meadowlands just went flying off. They were just embraced by the fans, and their joy afterwards, their exhilaration, was really exciting. We all had goosebumps.

So many documentaries are serious, and between "Some Assembly Required," "Gotta Dance" and your first documentary "Show Business," it seems like you're rebelling against that. How did you decide to become the fun documentary filmmaker?

I'm glad that you feel they're fun, but I think that, to me, what's common about all of them is that they're about people chasing their dreams and giving their dream everything they've got, throwing their complete passion into something, regardless of the risks. You have that in "Show Business," you have that with the kids starting from a blank page and surprising themselves at what they've been able to create together as a team and then certainly with the seniors, most of them really in a million years never thought they'd be doing what they're doing. They're very much about chasing your dreams and being the best you can be — that that's the common thread. I love stories like that. All these people that I've been able to capture really inspire me.

[Photos: "Gotta Dance," Dramatic Forces, 2008]

For more on "Gotta Dance," check out the official site here.

"The Guatemalan Handshake," "Hypocrites"

2008-04-29T12:12:46Z

By Michael Atkinson

Todd Rohal's "The Guatemalan Handshake" is one of the most inventive, most poetic, most disarmingly authentic indies of the last few years — so, of course, you've never had a chance to see it. It's a movie that seems to have dropped out of the sky, inexplicably, like a satellite fragment landing on Main Street. Naturally, it's not a project constructed around a traditional idea of storytelling propulsion — Rohal has whipped his world from the weedy ground up into a fiery, relentless storm of quirk, but he's original enough in his cataract of details to keep us in a constant state of enchanted disorientation. Why was "Napoleon Dynamite," with its relatively stereotypical uber-misfit, a hit, while this 2006 daydream foundered out of sight?

Set in some Forgottentown, Pennsylvania, "The Guatemalan Handshake" encounters characters undramatically, and its narrative gradually coalesces around them: Donald the triangular-electric-car-driving nebbish (Will Oldham); his pregnant girlfriend and one of "dozens of sisters, each with a different mother" (Sheila Sculin); Turkeylegs, the willowy, surreal-minded 11-year-old free spirit (Katy Haywood) who narrates the film; Donald's elderly and obsessive father Mr. Turnupseed (Ken Byrnes); a manic Guatemalan bus driver; a lactose-intolerant skating rink worker who may be the most socially inappropriate man ever devised for an American film; a woman in search of her lost poodle (who we find out got electrocuted by a power station mishap early on, but who reconstitutes magically anyway), and so on. Early on, Donald disappears (literally, he just walks off-frame), and Turkeylegs endeavors to understand why and how, as her already dipsy community reaches several sorts of ridiculous yet dead serious crisis points at once.

]]> Shot in deep, humid colors, the film is fairly unpredictable, and the wealth of mysterious touches (endless phone cords, unexplained band-aids, glimpses of a man running from bees, mundane miracles) suggest a fully realized magical realism just out of view, hidden by American poverty. Rohal is a subtle fiend as well with his largely amateur cast — several geysers of drooling, stilted overacting begins to make sense when you realize it's the damaged, inarticulate characters that are overacting, not the actors. Obviously, this flyaway quilt needed glue, and it has it with Turkeylegs, whose point of view Rohal lovingly attends to, lending "The Guatemalan Handshake" the periodic glow of a secretive, innocent child's natural happiness.

Another revelation, Lois Weber's "Hypocrites" is a deeply eccentric, troublingly lyrical vision, for its day — 1915! — and ours. Whatever its daring and innovation, it's a film that needs to be seen through the scrim of pioneering feminist filmmaking, which is the political hook upon which the four-feature Kino set it's part of hangs (work by Alice Guy-Blaché, Ruth Ann Baldwin, Cleo Madison and "Mrs. Wallace Reid" is included). Talk about a secret history within a history; bizarrely, women directors were common in the day of reactionary-bigot bigwig D.W. Griffith, and within what quickly became just a few years later an almost completely male industry. The scholarship exploring these newly recognized careers is far from done, and you'd stump your average film school prof by asking them to name a single title from these filmographies. But in the teens audiences were well aware — the title sequence of "Hypocrites" begins with a statement and signed portrait of the filmmaker.

Weber herself was an acute visualizer, with a moral sense that easily outgrades Griffith's neo-Victorian ethos, and "Hypocrites" is infused with a quite feminine sympathy even as it excoriates entire chunks of society for their amoral selfishness and fake piety. For a 50-minute movie, it has a dazzling complex structure, layering (but not paralleling, exactly) the story of an old-time monk persecuted for a nude statue, and a modern minister troubled by his congregation of middle class four-flushers and gossipers. The same actors serve both tales, but then Weber falls into a third mode, mixing the first two in guided tour (our hostess is Naked Truth, played by an anonymous nude woman) of the modern American's iniquity hidden within his and her public lives. Weber could shoot, too; the exposure of the ascetic's statue to a medieval community of fair-goers is performed in a breathtaking series of long dollies, encompassing vast amounts of human activity and emotion at a point in the history of cinema when Griffith's cramped-room-tableaux were supposed to be the height of eloquence.

[Photos: Will Oldham in "The Guatemalan Handshake," Benten, 2006; Lois Weber's "Hypocrites," Kino]

"The Guatamalan Handshake" (Benten Films) and "Hypocrites" (Kino Video) are now available on DVD.

The IFC News Podcast is at Tribeca

2008-04-28T23:32:24Z

By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore

The IFC News podcast is taking this week off — catch us in video form instead in our coverage of the Tribeca Film Festival right here. Want to download these video dispatches? Here's the link on iTunes.

+ IFC News Festival Video Podcasts (iTunes)