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Friday, March 12, 2010
SXSW live review: “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” at the Alamo Ritz
It wasn’t all that surprising that a serious line had already formed a good hour or so before the 4:30 screening of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” After all, Ritz 1 and 2 are two of the smaller theaters in the Alamo chain. Which lead to this exchange overheard in the line:
Woman One: “He (an unseen third party) thought this should be at the Paramount. The novel was incredibly popular and this movie has been huge in Europe.”
Woman Two: “Maybe. But it’s a two and a half hour movie in Swedish with subtitles.”
You may make your own jokes about Americans and reading at movies, but both women were, in their own ways, absolutely correct. Stieg Larsson’s thriller “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (the original Swedish title “Män som hatar kvinnor” translates roughly as “Men Who Hate Women”) was a genuine publishing phenomenon, moving millions of copies everywhere from BookPeople to WalMart airports. The movie version is the most successful Swedish movie of all time. Kristin Stewart is rumored for an American remake due in 2012.
That said, when you have Kick-Ass, the White Stripes documentary and world premiers at SXSW slated for the Paramount, somethings got to give. (Though a representative for SXSW said a long line was left outside.)
So what of the movie? There are two types of noirs: The kind with small lives and small crimes with small errors and small failings snowball into an almost inveitable ending, like an emotional Rube Goldberg device. Then there’s the kind with a massive, labyrinthine plot that might stretch decades as past crimes prove to not even be past.
“Dragon Tattoo” is the second kind, the story of crusading investigative magazine reporter Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) convicted of libel in a very shady case. His career a mess, he’s approached by industrialist Hennrik Vanger to investigate the disappearance of Vagner’s neice some 40 years earlier. Vanger loathes his extended family, and suspects any one of them for the crime.
Blomkvist is eventually joined by the titular girl, a slender, gothy angry-at-the-world hacker named Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) blessed with a photographic memory, a way with computers and a hideous past that has left her with a loathsome “guardian” (think a parole officer that has power of attorney). She looks like a crusty-punk, hacks like a knife through soft butter and is an emotional basket case — who wouldn’t fall for that?
This is not your Ikea’s Sweden. This is Sweden where a Fascist-sympathizing past intrudes on the present, where rape and incest seem all too common, where brutal capitalists can have their way with good lefty journalists with ease.
It’s also a thriller and a calmly (almost too calmly) paced one, where every twist is (for the most part) logical and, more importantly, paid off. It always plays fair with the audience. Blomkvist is quietly honorable and dogged, a man who isn’t sure if he’s a shlump or charming or when he should be one or the other. Salander’s cold and distant, but becomes just as obsessed as Blomkvist, even as she has her own scores to settle.
It’s well-crafted and stays compelling, but it also had what you might call the Harry Potter Burden: It had to remain faithful to a phenomenally popular book.
Disclosure: I haven’t read it, but a quick survey of the crowd revealed that the movie stripped the plot down as far as possible while still hitting all of the necessary plot points — it still need two and a half hours to get where it was going, but any less and fans might have been hacked off.
They were not, nor was I.
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SXSW capsule review: ‘American Grindhouse’
‘American Grindhouse’
How does someone make a history of American exploitation films without once uttering the name of the most influential exploitation filmmaker of all, crowned “King of the Bs” Roger Corman? Elijah Drenner manages this spectacular feat in his lusty survey of low-budget cinema, a raunchy mash note to the B’s and Z’s (and T’s and A’s).
Thanks to recent grindhouse apologists like the Alamo Drafthouse and the evangelical Quentin Tarantino — who apparently had no time to chat with the filmmaker, another blow to the movie’s bona fides — genre and drive-in dreck has been excavated and glorified, profiting from a mass reconsideration tinged with respect.
Drenner shows that exploitation movies, stuff that became synonymous with L.A. and New York grindhouses in the ‘60s and ‘70s, has been around since at least 1913. Nudity, violence, horror and myriad taboos slither through early celluloid, including many of the pre-Code Hollywood movies that still startle. (See Tod Browning’s once-banned “Freaks” for a jolt.)
A passionate gallery of talking heads — genre masters Jack Hill, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Joe Dante, John Landis, et al — discuss the mercenary “carny spirit,” the hucksterism and gimmickry propelling most of the movies, from the risibly cynical “sex-ed” and anti-drug films (titillations in pedagogic robes) to Russ Meyer’s “nudie cuties.” Trash dominates, but some filmmakers aimed for art: “Freaks” and Wes Craven’s horrifying “Last House on the Left” shiver with subtext.
Biker flicks, gore, women-in-prison, blaxploitation, on down to a kind of culmination with “Deep Throat” — this compact celebration glides through the decades with naughty glee (if not the zest of the 2008 doc “Not Quite Hollywood” about Australia’s exploitation film industry). Clips from some 200 movies will have you raiding your local independent video store.
Screenings: 9 p.m. Saturday, Alamo Ritz and 10 p.m. Tuesday, Alamo South. Trailer and details HERE.
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5 Questions With … Etienne Sauret, director of ‘Dirty Pictures’
We e-chatted with Etienne Sauret, director of “Dirty Pictures,” a documentary portrait of Dr. Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, a famed chemist dubbed the “Godfather of Psychedelics” for his discoveries in the field of psychedelic drugs, including MDMA, aka Ecstasy. The movie “examines the impact of Dr. Shulgin’s lifelong quest to unlock the complexities of the human mind.” Sauret’s other credits include “WTC: The First 24 Hours” and “Too Pure.”
“Dirty Pictures” screens at 9:30 p.m. Saturday at the Austin Convention Center; 7:15 p.m. Sunday at the Alamo South; and 5:30 p.m. March 19 at the Alamo Ritz.
- What led you to Dr. Shulgin, so-called “rogue chemist,” as a subject?
Etienne Sauret: It began unexpectedly. I have a friend who runs a drug prevention center in the U.K. who wanted to bring Sasha to London to speak at a conference on drug policy. Sasha couldn’t go to London, so my friend enlisted me to go to California with him to make a short film with Sasha for the conference. As we were filming, I found myself really touched by Sasha. I found him special and endearing, and that’s where it began.
- Describe the relationship between Sasha and Ann Shulgin, his wife and work partner of 40 years.
It’s very special, one that comes through in the movie. They complete one another. Alex (Sasha) has the scientific and chemical knowledge to create the compounds and Ann has the ability to verbalize what their work is all about. He’s a child at heart, more interested in tinkering and finding the next compound, where she can verbalize the philosophical and spiritual considerations that they’re trying to get across. So in the movie and for their two books (“Pihkal” and “Tihkal”) she’s a strong voice in explaining their experiences; she takes up where he leaves off.
- What does Shulgin think about the destructive capacity of Ecstasy and other drugs he’s had a hand in making?
Sasha has always regretted that MDMA has come to be seen and used as it has, as part of the party drug Ecstasy. For him, MDMA would have stayed as it was initially, a tool that was used in controlled environments — successfully by psychology counselors — to create a treatment benefit. He doesn’t see the club thing as really having anything to do with MDMA as he created it, which was as a drug to provide insight for people. He’s not against people having fun, per se, he just sees his creations as a more serious endeavor and one to be taken seriously. As Sasha likes to say “They are no casual experiments.” Ann reinforces this belief by adding that one “can deal with matters of life and death” when taking psychedelics.
- How does the mainstream scientific community regard Shulgin and his creations?
Some chemists openly admire his work, and a few of them are in the film. … I think some other chemists must secretly admire what Shulgin does, although they can’t directly say it because of possible repercussions. I think some of them must look up to him for the freedom he has made for himself to dictate the scope of his own research. As a maverick, he’s been able to do what very few of them can do because they work for big companies, which is what he walked away from years ago. … On one hand he is a folk hero with a dedicated worldwide fan base who appreciate his work, but to the outside world, he’s often seen as a rogue chemist who is responsible for people’s children’s experiments. And I think that’s a burden to him, because he knows what good his drugs can do, and he sees this as a vulgarization of that potential.
- I’m sure law enforcement isn’t overly pleased with his work.
I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that these days they’d probably rather just ignore him. Drug enforcement now deals with drugs that have nothing to do with Sasha’s discoveries at the prime of his career, when he was in consultation with law enforcement and researching new drugs. I think the DEA is more concerned with huge labs that are making a ton of drugs that are really nasty and that have nothing to do with the psychedelic experience.
- What’s the most lasting thing you learned while being immersed in Shulgin’s world?
Foremost is the power of individuality, of somebody who stands up against all odds. Sasha decided what he wanted his life to be, then he went all the way and never looked back. … There’s something very inspiring about that. … If there were more people like him, we’d live in a better world. Meaning, if there were more individuals who took it upon themselves to find materials which could possibly enable people to better themselves, we’d live in a better environment. Anybody who improves people’s ability to feel good and understand themselves has got to feel pretty good themselves.
More about the movie HERE.
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SXSW capsule review: ‘The Ride’
‘The Ride’
In just seconds, it plays out like this: Gate swings wide, beast thunders forth, man on beast’s back holds on for dear life before he’s flung like a sock monkey, scrabbling in the dirt to dodge the frenetic hazards of hoof and horn.
This is high athleticism in the professional bull ring — “conquering the beast,” as someone puts in Meredith Danluck’s documentary about the players who animate the Professional Bull Riding (PBR) circuit. People are the soul of a well-told story and Danluck is enamored with her down-home characters at the expense of a deeper look at the sport, its history and rules.
Leisurely stretches show how a colorful bull breeder, a contemplative rodeo clown and young riders brimming with bravado live at home and on the ranch. These parts flap too loosely to braid a narrative, and you might wonder: Where’s the bull?
Danluck’s not-quite-novel glimpses into rural southern culture eclipse the beautifully shot ringside action. She’s hooked on the rugged romance of cowboydom, from cattle to Coors, and less transfixed by the intricacies that lead these people into the bull’s eye.
Screening: 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Austin Convention Center.
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Capsule summary: ‘American: The Bill Hicks Story’
‘American: The Bill Hicks Story’
The Bill Hicks story is both well known and murky, as years of bootlegs, repackagings and mythologizing have clouded the story of the man whom some regard as the best stand-up comic since Richard Pryor.
American cruises through Hicks’ early years in Houston as a rebellious Southern Baptist obsessed with stand-up comedy at a time and place where he had a better chance of working at NASA.
Sneaking out of his house to gig in Houston at 14, the footage of Hicks as a teen is dazzling - his pace and timing are already at professional levels, his charisma already tangible.
“There has never been anyone funnier at his age as a stand-up. Maybe the only other guy who touched him at that age was Buster Keaton,” says one comic. After living in Hollywood and heading back to Houston a comedy vet at 21(!), Hicks nailed down his wordview and progressed, much like Carlin, from excellent stand-up to man-with-a-mic visionary, hitting Letterman, becoming a legend.
Like many comics, he fell prey to the free booze and cocaine that fans love to give you when you’re a god on stage, but he cleaned up, got focused and became the Bill Hicks everyone remembers, ranting against consumerism, advertising and fear, which is about where he stayed by the time he died from cancer at 32 (!) in 1994.
Directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas use witty collages in the style of “The Kid Stays in the Picture” and keep the narrative tight, focused and moving. While I could have used more on the legendary joke-stealing beef between Hicks and Dennis Leary, they did get some amazing footage of Hicks relaxing in Wimberley. His magnetism is on display in “American;” It’s easy to see why people adored him.
The movie screens tonight (Friday, March 12) at 9, G-Tech (in the convention center). It also screens at 4 p.m. Monday March 15 at the Paramount and at 9:30 p.m. March 20 at the Paramount.
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Recommended for Friday: “Cherry”
One of the best little films at this year’s SXSW has to be “Cherry,” directed by Jeffrey Fine.
It probably won’t have a huge screening tonight (Friday) because it starts playing at 6:15 p.m. at the Alamo Ritz, and that conflicts with the blockbuster wannabe “Kick-Ass,” which is the opening night film at the Paramount.
But “Cherry” deserves to be seen. It’s also screening at 9:45 p.m. Monday at the Alamo South and at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday March 17 at the Alamo Ritz. So mark your calendars.
Why’s it special? Partly because of the performances. Partly because of the depth of characterization. Partly because of assured direction.
It focuses on Aaron (Kyle Gallner), a college freshman who isn’t exactly experienced in the ways of the world. He’s an engineering student who has artistic aspirations and ends up taking an art class, where he sits next to the 34-year-old Linda (Laura Allen).
Linda, of course, is hot. And Aaron is immediately attracted. So when Linda invites Aaron to dinner, he accepts, only to find that Linda has a precocious 14-year-old daughter, Beth (Brittany Robertson).
Beth, meanwhile, develops an attraction for Aaron. And even at 14, she’s far more socially sophisticated than the freshman.
Robertson nails the role of Beth. And she’s almost as impressive as the little girl in “Kick-Ass.” Is this the year of the precocious/foul-mouthed young girl? It’s shaping up that way at this year’s SXSW.
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Capsule summary: ‘Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission’
‘Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission’
Austinites are quite familiar with the story of local video game legend Richard Garriott, who made a fortune and spent $30 million of it to go into space.
The big trip occurred in 2008 after months of training at the secretive Star City in Russia. And this documentary about Garriott’s adventure captures it all, from his early days of admiring his astronaut father to the accumulation of his fortune and his eventual training and launch into space from Kazakhstan. When Garriott’s capsule makes its return to Earth after 12 days at the International Space Station, a camera captures the fiery event.
Director Mike Woolf, a former ad writer at GSD&M, teamed up with Andrew Yates to form Beef and Pie Productions in 2000. This is their first feature. It’s a good start.
Screenings: 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Paramount; Also, 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Paramount.
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Capsule summary: ‘Pelada’
‘Pelada’
Knowing when to walk away from the game is a problems that has haunted athletes for decades. How do you leave something you love?
In the documentary “Pelada,” filmmakers Ryan White and Rebekah Ferguson follow former collegiate soccer players Luke Boughen and Gwendolyn Oxenham as they travel the world playing in pick-up soccer games from Brazil to China.
Although it is widely understood that soccer is the world’s most popular sport, the film reveals how deeply the roots of the game are planted in nearly every culture. Players don’t rely on chalked fields or officials or scoreboards to commune with one another. They simply need a ball — or sometimes something approximating a ball.
As they travel from the slums of Buenos Aires to the concrete urban landscapes of Shanghai, Oxenham and Boughen revel in a game that, as long as they have the desire to play, can never truly be taken away from them.
Screenings: 7:15 p.m. Sunday, aG-Tech Theater; noon Monday, Alamo South; and 3:30 p.m. Friday March 19, Alamo South.
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Capsule summary: ‘Winter’s Bone’
‘Winter’s Bone’
The kind of dirty-fingernailed, underdog-championing film often overpraised by festivalgoers, “Winter’s Bone” has atmosphere and occasional jolts but takes its time building up any narrative momentum.
The Ozarks-set tale of a high school girl, Ree, who goes hunting for her vanished crank-brewing father in order to save the family’s meager homestead, “Bone” puts its heroine through the wringer. Lead actress Jennifer Lawrence holds her own against nasty hillbillies, but doesn’t quite summon the charisma to keep us engaged during the plot’s lax moments. The arrival of John Hawkes, as a morally more-than-ambiguous uncle who helps Ree in her search, keeps the movie from drowning under its bleak weight.
“Winter’s Bone” won the Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting awards at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
Screenings: 4:15 p.m. Sunday, Alamo South; Also, 7 p.m. Thursday, Alamo South.
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Capsule summary: “No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson”
‘No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson’
Most casual sports fans probably know Allen Iverson as the heavily tattooed basketball player who once rhetorically (and repeatedly) asked a group of reporters if they really needed to waste his time talking about practice.
Despite being one of the greatest-ever NBA players, Iverson has become more known for his selfish attitude (real or perceived) and thuggish image.
In the documentary “No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson,” director Steve James of “Hoop Dreams” returns to basketball and returns to his home of Hampton, Va., to investigate Iverson’s formative years and one incident that helped shape the superstar’s world view.
In the middle of a high school athletic career in which he led his football and basketball teams to state championships, Iverson’s life changed forever. He was at a bowling alley on Valentine’s Day during his junior year when an argument erupted.
What happened next is clear: A fight ensued between Iverson’s friends and a group of white patrons, chairs were thrown and a woman was injured. What was unclear, and still is, is the extent of Iverson’s involvement. Despite conflicting reports, Iverson and two of his friends, all minors, were tried as adults and convicted on a felony charge of maiming by a mob. (The conviction was later overturned.)
In his documentary about the case, James reveals the racial and cultural tensions that still exist in Hampton. And while the facts might ultimately be muddied by history, “No Crossover” leaves audiences with a clearer understanding of the troubled future Hall of Famer, who ever since has had a me-vs.-the-world attitude.
Screenings: 11 a.m. Sunday , Paramount; Also, 2:45 p.m. Friday March 19, G-Tech Theater
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Capsule summary: ‘Crying With Laughter’
‘Crying With Laughter’
The great Scottish humorist Lachlan McLachlan once said, “Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.”
In “Crying With Laughter,” Scottish comedian Joey Frisk is taking McLachlan’s words to heart. Although he’s divorced and has a young girl, he has never grown up. When he goes on stage, he regales his audience with sordid tales of his conflict-laden life, sometimes crossing a line and confronting audience members.
Playing the sad comedian, Stephen McCole dominates the movie and makes it worth watching. He’s a disaster waiting to happen, a raw set of nerves awaiting the inevitable wound. That wounding comes in the form of an old classmate who turns up and involves an unsuspecting Frisk in a kidnapping.
The movie is being billed as a thriller, but it’s really more of a character study. Justin Molotnikov directs.
Screenings: 9:30 p.m. Sunday, Alamo Ritz; Also, 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Alamo Ritz; 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Alamo South. (It will also be available as video on demand on the day of the premiere through the iTunes Movie Store and Amazon.com. It will be available for in-home viewing through Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon and Cox cable providers starting April 1.)
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Capsule summary: “The Taqwacores”
‘The Taqwacores’
This movie is as unusual as its title, which combines the word “taqwa” — the Islamic notion of love and fear for Allah — and “core,” as in hardcore punk.
Based on the novel by Michael Muhammad Knight, “The Taqwacores” focuses on a Pakistani American student who moves into a Buffalo, N.Y., Islamic boarding house dominated by punk rockers.
While there, the innocent Yusef Ali (Bobby Naderi) begins to question his notions about Islam, mainly because of his housemates. They drink, have premarital sex, smoke pot, sing in punk bands and let out a constant stream of curses. It’s particularly odd to see one of the female housemates doing some of this while wearing a full burka.
You have to suspect that traditional Islamists won’t find this very amusing. But “The Taqwacores” has heart, and it’s based on the notion that Allah accepts everyone.
The feature ranks as an auspicious debut for director Eyad Zahra, a Cleveland native who attented the Florida State University Film School. It played this year at the Sundance Film Festival.
Another movie, titled “Taqwacore,” is screening at SXSW. It’s a documentary about the punk Islamic movement, directed by Omar Majeed.
Screenings for the narrative feature: 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Alamo Ritz; Also, 3:30 pm. Wednesday at Alamo Ritz.
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Capsule summary: “Micmacs”
‘Micmacs’
French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet is known for his unusual imagery, his big-screen pastiche of intricate devices and fanciful imaginings.
His latest offering, “Micmacs,” has plenty of these images, and it’s easy to wish that the action would stop and let you study everything in the frame: the robots pieced together from scrap metal; the crazy-looking electronics. In short, the director of such amusing confections as “Delicatessen” and “Amelie” manages to create beautiful worlds from things that most people throw away.
Americans, especially, will be reminded of the creative influences of comedians Buster Keaton, Red Skelton and Carol Burnett, whose deep humanism permeates “Micmacs.” The movie follws the advetures of the gentle Bazil, who has a bullet lodged in his head after a drive-by shooting. Losing his job because of his injuries, Bazil is adopted by a ragtag group of outcasts who live in a junkyard. But Bazil eventually discovers the weapons maker responsible for the bullet in his head, as well as a nearby arms dealer that made the bomb that killed his father in Northern Africa.
So Bazil recruits his new friends to wreak havoc on the industrial behemoths. It’s a classic tale of David vs. Goliath, with interesting characters and fantastical situations. Dany Boon stars as Bazil.
Screening: 6:45 p.m. Saturday March 13, Paramount
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Capsule summary: ‘Hood to Coast’
‘Hood to Coast’
It’s North America’s longest relay race, starting at Mount Hood, Ore., and going 197 miles to the Pacific Coast in Seaside, Ore. Director Christoph Baaden, who ran the race for the first time in 2007, decided to make a documentary about the festive event, which attracts 1,000 teams and about 12,000 runners each year.
The result is “Hood to Coast,” which makes its premiere at this year’s SXSW. Baaden follows four teams during the relay, including two groups of older runners, some of whom have serious health issues. He also follows a team that includes people who aren’t really physically or mentally prepared. And the result is a charming mix of seriousness and levity.
And when you see some of the runners, you’ll also probably be inspired.
2:15 p.m. Saturday March 13, Alamo South; 1 p.m. March 16, Paramount; 2 p.m. March 20, Alamo South
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Capsule summary: ‘Greenlit’
‘GREENLIT’
In ‘Greenlit,’ director Miranda Bailey follows efforts to be environmentally friendly during production of ‘The River Why.’ She finds that the movie industry isn’t as green as it seems.
In fact, Bailey cites a report indicating that Hollywood is one of the biggest polluters in Southern California, blowing up cars, setting fires and gobbling down hundreds of thousands of bottles of water each year.
And they’re not green anywhere else, either, it seems. Take, for instance, ‘The Beach,’ starring the environmentally conscious Leonardo DiCaprio and shot in Thailand. The producers decided that they needed palm trees, so they removed some of the native vegetation and planted the palms. Then the rains came and washed the dunes into the ocean.
Or take, for instance, the filming of ‘Titanic,’ once again with DiCaprio, in a giant tank off Mexico. The moviemakers decided that the water would look better on film if it were treated with chlorine. Then, after production was completed, they released the water into the ocean, causing a fish kill.
As Bailey quickly discovers on the set of ‘The River Why,’ even well-intentioned production companies who hire green consultants aren’t always open to being environmentally friendly.
Packing peanuts in the compost bin. Bigtime complaints about the lack of compact bottled water. Ignored phone calls about recycling efforts. And so it goes.
Insightful, funny and sad, ‘Greenlit’ shines a spotlight on an industry that’s full of people who pride themselves on being green — but don’t practice that same philosophy at work.
Screenings: 4:45 p.m. Saturday, March 13, Alamo South; 6 p.m. Friday, March 19, Alamo South
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