REELING

In the trenches and loving it at film festival

By Chris Garcia
AMERICAN-STATESMAN FILM WRITER
Friday, October 19, 2007

The big one, the Austin Film Festival, wrapped Thursday night with a screening of Sidney Lumet's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," a crime noir so dark yet so tremendously executed that it's easily one of my top 10 picks of the year. (Another recent addition to that list: "Michael Clayton." Intense, drum-tight.)

Lumet, genius of the urban crime thriller ("Serpico," "Dog Day Afternoon"), is back in top form — and he's only 83. Ethan Hawke as a downward-spiraling weasel has never been better, not even in his Oscar-nominated turn as a cop in "Training Day."

This was a strong year for the festival, what with Oliver Stone, John Milius, Terry George ("Reservation Road," a melodramatic dud) and Jason Reitman (the adored "Juno," which I ruefully missed) in attendance. The top-line filmmakers strolled about, showed movies both old and new and regaled audiences with instructional élan and anecdotal brio at the Screenwriters Conference.

Another spectacular fest film was Julian Schnabel's poetic, devastating "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," a visually sumptuous biography film about Jean-Dominique Bauby, former editor of French Elle, who, at 43, was paralyzed by a stroke. It screened Tuesday at the Paramount to a stunned audience, and it might creep onto my top 10 list.

My favorite conference panel, perhaps ever, was "In the Trenches: Writing the War Film," fronted by war-film masters Stone and Milius on Saturday at the Paramount Theatre. I arrived just in time to catch a discussion about "Saving Private Ryan," a movie Stone dismissed as "absurd."

"I would have shot Tom Hanks," said Stone, a Vietnam War veteran. He described how phony the film's story is and how Hanks' character's directives to his platoon were totally counterintuitive to what one learns in combat.

Stone also doesn't buy "all that 'Greatest Generation,' Tom Brokaw (expletive)."

World War II fighters weren't heroes for the reasons Steven Spielberg and the media put forth, Stone said. "It was a (cruddy), hard existence for them. They were heroes just for surviving."

Stone's favorite war film is "Dr. Strangelove," but he called "Starship Troopers" one of the best war movies of recent years.

About "Apocalypse Now," which Stone likes and Milius of course wrote, Stone said, "I wish Brando would have done his homework and would have learned his (expletive) dialogue."

"He did the best he could," Milius replied. "He hated it out there."

When Stone lavished praise on "Forrest Gump" to wide surprise, Milius was asked if he liked the film.

"Oh, sure," he said. "I like it when he runs down the street. I like how he sits on the bench."

The audience laughed. Stone frowned.

"I'm not a big fan of Tom Hanks," Milius chuckled. "I would have fragged him, too."

As one festival wraps, two more pop up: Both the second annual Austin Polish Film Festival and the fourth annual Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival roll this weekend.

The more ambitious of the two, the Austin Polish Film Festival, presents the regional premieres of four contemporary Polish movies under the banner "New Directions in Polish Film." Films play Saturday and Sunday and Oct. 27 and 28 at the Alamo Lake Creek (13729 Research Blvd.).

Famed poster artist Leszek Zebrowski and filmmaker Feliks Falk arrive from Poland for a VIP reception to kick off the festival and an exhibit of Zebrowski's work at 7 tonight in the Fine Arts Building, second-floor gallery, at the University of Texas. (The exhibit runs through Nov. 2.)

Falk presents his 2005 Oscar-nominated drama"Komornik (The Debt Collector)"at 3 p.m. Saturday. A question-and-answer session follows.

The other films are: "Jasminum (Jasmine)"at 3 p.m. Sunday; "Co Slonko Widzialo (What the Sun Has Seen)" at 3 p.m. Oct. 27; and "Swiadek Koronny (The Crown Witness)" at 3 p.m. Oct. 28.

Tickets: www.alamo

drafthouse.com/lakecreek/. Festival information: www.austinpolishsociety.org.

Two classic films featuring protagonists with disabilities headline the Cinema Touching Disability Film Festival tonight and Saturday at the Alamo South (1120 S. Lamar Blvd.).

Jon Voight won an Oscar for playing a paraplegic Vietnam War veteran in Hal Ashby's 1978 "Coming Home," co-starring Jane Fonda. It screens at 7:25 tonight.

"The Station Agent," the 2003 indie hit starring Peter Dinklage, plays at 7:50 p.m. Saturday.

Programs also include two student film competitions and awards, lectures and short film screenings, including the rarely seen 1993 animated short "Blindscape."

Details and tickets at www.ctdfilmfest.org and www.drafthouse.com.

Dust is settled, new seats bolted down and ovens fired up at the Alamo at the Ritz, which at last opens its doors and quickens its screens Nov. 1 for a grand opening bash.

The two-screen theater, in the classic old Ritz building at 320 E. Sixth St., marks the reincarnation of the first-ever Alamo Drafthouse, which vacated its Colorado Street digs earlier this year due to rent hikes.

"We have brought back all of our signature shows and events, replete with celebrity appearances, goofy gimmickry and potentially dangerous stunts," co-owner Tim League says. Fare will alternate between mainstream and smaller boutique films, as well as the Alamo's notorious far-out bookings.

Proof of that is the evening's movie lineup, a mix of trash-fun and Hollywood prestige: "Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People" with a five-course mushroom feast; a sneak preview of the Coen brothers' "No Country for Old Men"; and a special unannounced horror movie at midnight for the venue's maiden Terror Thursday program.

Grand opening tickets go on sale at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Ritz. Any leftover tickets will go on sale online at 6 p.m. www.drafthouse.com.

Bye, bye, Buffy.

If you liked to bare your fangs and warble along to the musical episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" at the Alamo during its extremely popular Buffy Sing-Along shows, you are permitted to weep now.

Here's what the Alamo Drafthouse has posted on its blog:

"Fox pulled the theatrical rights to all of their television shows because they were unhappy with how the licensing had been done for the 'Once More With Feeling' musical screenings of the Buffy Sing-Along. ... For the foreseeable future, there will be no more Buffy Sing-Alongs at the Alamo or any other public place."

A Fox spokesman told The Associated Press that " 'significant payments' would have to be made to Hollywood unions for the show to be screened in movie theaters."

And we know that's not going to happen.