criterionforum.org

repeat wrote:Roger Ebert posted a three-and-a-half star review of Radu Jude's Everybody In Our Family

Andrew_VB wrote:i really enjoyed that film. i think it says that (and is reviewed on the chicago sun times site) because it's playing a festival at the siskel center this weekend. i could be wrong, but i still think it is without a distributor in the us.

Ah shit, yeah, that must be it. In that case, Chicagoans take notice!

Actually I don't think the film has made it past the festival circuit anywhere in Europe either, which is just mystifying considering all the recent interest in the "Romanian new wave" (or has the backlash started already?). I really hope Cinema Guild or Second Run or someone would pick this one up, it would certainly deserve to be seen more widely.

Ginger and Rosa is a solid drama from Sally Potter. Opened in the UK in Oct, and scheduled for a limited US release next week (March 15). It reminded me in some ways of Margaret, with its young female protag struggling to deal with adult complications. It's British and a period piece -- from 1945 to the Cuban Missile Crisis -- so more restrained, somewhat like a Terence Davie's version of Margaret.

Elle Fanning is quite good in the lead, more so since she was 13/14 when filming playing a British 16/17 year old. Quite a good cast with Annette Benning in a small role as a conscience/mentor figure, Christina Hendricks as a housewife. The film has to do with growing up, family discord, intellectuals and activism and moral relativity, plus banning the bomb. I quite liked it, especially the nice use of jazz throughout, plus some tinges of that newfangled rock and roll. The song The Man I Love, a somewhat obvious choice given the relationship stresses, is used well in various forms. And Body and Soul can even take on a new meaning when juxtaposed with nuclear holocaust.

It goes right to the top of my 2013 Best list -- being the only entrant and all.

Emperor is a film with a case of "Just OK" syndrome. It's acted and directed quite nicely, but the detail-obsessed screenplay starts making it feel like a dry history lesson after a while and that really bogs it down. It's just so stuffy and procedural that it's hard to actually, you know, enjoy. I also found the focus on MacArthur's political ambitions a bit cheesy (how many times, exactly, do we need to see him posing for ridiculous photo ops before we get the point? Apparently about a dozen, or so it seemed). Tommy Lee Jones hams it up as MacArthur, which stands in stark contrast to Matthew Fox and the rest of the cast giving such serious, nuanced performances. But like I said, it's OK. It doesn't excel and it doesn't try to. A decent rental for history buffs at best.

I haven't seen Lustig's original film but Maniac 2012 feels like a missed opportunity: there are plausibility issues throughout the film, especially with the third murder scene where the girl is screaming for help throughout the chase and up to her final moments and it doesn't attract any attention whatsoever. The filmmakers' decision to shoot the film mostly from Zito's POV is an interesting choice but unfortunately they undermine this in the murder of Zito's last victim when

Spoiler

the camera switches from his point of view to an over-the-shoulder shot and then moves in front of Zito and the woman to get a more explicit gore shot.

It's a nasty film alright but it's too expensive and chic-looking to feel genuinely sleazy in the manner I imagine Lustig's original film does. Also, Elijah Wood doesn't feel right for this. He doesn't have the physique (I'd imagine Zito to be bulkier somehow) and he overacts to compensate for it. He was great and genuinely scary in Sin City but his casting didn't work for me here. Pluspoints for the score. 5/10

In the original at least a few of your complaints are answered and I highly recommend it as a sort of B B-Giallo type of thing. Zito (who's huge) is the beginning and the end of the great things for the film, but is so great as to lift the film up a lot. It is compromised almost only of stalking scenes, but the moments in the apartment where Zito breaks down makes for an uncomfortable contrast.

Is there a comprehensive list of the type films that have been accepted at the Austin Film Festival (as well as those that have won prizes)? I'm curious what the festival programmers' taste is like. Lord knows we don't need another Tribeca.

Finch wrote:there are plausibility issues throughout the film, especially with the third murder scene where the girl is screaming for help throughout the chase and up to her final moments and it doesn't attract any attention whatsoever.

I haven't seen how it plays out in the movie, but this in itself is not implausible. It's called diffusion of responsibility, and what it means is that people assume someone else will undoubtedly do something, minimizing the necessity from them to become responsible for any action. The murder of Kitty Genovese helped bring attention to it.

hearthesilence wrote:Is there a comprehensive list of the type films that have been accepted at the Austin Film Festival (as well as those that have won prizes)? I'm curious what the festival programmers' taste is like. Lord knows we don't need another Tribeca.

Hi there hearthesilence! The comprehensive list of the types of films that have been accepted at the Austin Film Festival is:

Animated Shorts
Awardee
Comedy Vanguard
Conversation in Film
Dark Matters
Documentaries
Documentary Feature Competition
Documentary Shorts
Family Films
Film
General Advice
Guest Programmer Film Series
Independent Filmmaking Track
Marquee Screenings
Narrative Feature Competition
Narrative Student Short
Narrative Shorts
Out of Competition Feature
Panel
Party
Passport to Africa
Pitch
Roundtable
Shorts Programs
Television
Texas Independents
The Industry
Women in Media
Women in Writing
Workshop
Writing Animation
Writing Big Budget
Writing Comedy
Writing Screenplay
Writing Short Films
Writing Television
YFP

Here is another list of all the winners, categories, and titles of films from 2012 to 1995.

Thank you for your interest! If you have any other questions please don't hesitate to ask.

This has to be the most lackluster January-March slate of films in history. There has been absolutely nothing of redeeming value released here other than Spring Breakers. Even the art houses have been doing 2012 awards retreads and an alarming trend towards mainstream first run fare. each weekend i've been looking and looking and there is NOTHING worth seeing. There are two showings of Herzog's Happy People this weekend so I'm going to try and see that, but otherwise the best film i've seen in a theater since December is Casablanca. thank god for Classic retrospectives!

HistoryProf wrote:This has to be the most lackluster January-March slate of films in history. There has been absolutely nothing of redeeming value released here other than Spring Breakers. Even the art houses have been doing 2012 awards retreads and an alarming trend towards mainstream first run fare. each weekend i've been looking and looking and there is NOTHING worth seeing. There are two showings of Herzog's Happy People this weekend so I'm going to try and see that, but otherwise the best film i've seen in a theater since December is Casablanca. thank god for Classic retrospectives!

Stoker, The Place Beyond the Pines, Room 237, Simon Killer... need I go on?

And (for me, at least) Side Effects.

mfunk9786 wrote:

HistoryProf wrote:This has to be the most lackluster January-March slate of films in history. There has been absolutely nothing of redeeming value released here other than Spring Breakers. Even the art houses have been doing 2012 awards retreads and an alarming trend towards mainstream first run fare. each weekend i've been looking and looking and there is NOTHING worth seeing. There are two showings of Herzog's Happy People this weekend so I'm going to try and see that, but otherwise the best film i've seen in a theater since December is Casablanca. thank god for Classic retrospectives!

Stoker, The Place Beyond the Pines, Room 237, Simon Killer... need I go on?

Place Beyond the Pines opens tomorrow (and i'll be seeing it Saturday). Room 237 and Simon Killer haven't opened here at all. Stoker was here for a week at a theater in Missouri that's a pain for me to fit into my schedule. Need I go on?

There are no good movies this year because of your location/schedule when they open? Yeah, go on

The Narrator Returns wrote:And (for me, at least) Side Effects.

For Jan-March that was the one redeeming film that hit most theaters...that's a pretty awful ratio, which was my one and only point (and that the small art house chain of 3 theaters here is STILL playing Hyde Park on the Hudson, Quartet, and The Impossible.

mfunk9786 wrote:There are no good movies this year because of your location/schedule when they open? Yeah, go on

3 of the 4 examples you listed haven't opened wide in the US or are only doing so now. the other wasn't something I was terribly interested in. Jan/Feb sucked for movies if you aren't in NY or LA. Why do you make arguments out of stupid shit like this?

Room 237 and Place Beyond the Pines had limited openings on 3/29, Simon Killer had it's NY/LA opening on 4/5. Stoker opened in March. I fail to see how that in any way refuted my summation of cinema offerings in the first quarter of 2013. Spring Breakers and Gatekeepers came out in March, but for Jan/Feb there was Side Effects and....a bunch of crap.

Thankfully that has come to an end and there appear to be many great films coming out in the coming weeks. No also opens this weekend, and I think the family and I will be seeing the Sapphires tomorrow night. So the extra dead dead period is over finally.

Most of us here are not in LA or NY yet have seen the movies legally. Making a sweeping statement (especially one which at its broadest applies to every year) is just tiresome and certainly not worth getting upset over.

Well, you were right to call it stupid shit

knives wrote:Most of us here are not in LA or NY yet have seen the movies legally. Making a sweeping statement (especially one which at its broadest applies to every year) is just tiresome and certainly not worth getting upset over.

I agree completely. it's always a dismal period...it felt especially dismal this year. Mfunk enjoys instigating stupid shit like this for some reason. God forbid someone express an opinion on a message board.

I'm surprised to hear that Kansas City is getting so few platform releases. There have been several good mid-sized releases that definitely played outside of NY/LA.

I've seen lots of stuff in Denver theaters that I've liked a lot so far this year: (Like Someone in Love, No, Side Effects, Stoker, Spring Breakers, 56 Up, Lore, Beyond the Hills. I didn't make it to Happy People or The Silence during their one-week runs. A Place Beyond the Pines opened last week here, and To the Wonder, Room 237, Trance, and The We and the I all open here tomorrow, with Upstream Color, Reality, and Blancanieves coming next week.

I would have thought that Kansas City was a similar market since it's not much smaller than Denver. It sounds like you're simply in need of more "arthouse" theater options or more adventurous programmers.

Jeff wrote:I'm surprised to hear that Kansas City is getting so few platform releases. There have been several good mid-sized releases that definitely played outside of NY/LA.

I've seen lots of stuff in Denver theaters that I've liked a lot so far this year: (Like Someone in Love, No, Side Effects, Stoker, Spring Breakers, 56 Up, Lore, Beyond the Hills. I didn't make it to Happy People or The Silence during their one-week runs. A Place Beyond the Pines opened last week here, and To the Wonder, Room 237, Trance, and The We and the I all open here tomorrow, with Upstream Color, Reality, and Blancanieves coming next week.

I would have thought that Kansas City was a similar market since it's not much smaller than Denver. It sounds like you're simply in need of more "arthouse" theater options or more adventurous programmers.

It's definitely the latter. There is a chain called "Fine Arts" that runs 4 older theaters - the kind that were shoved inside pseudo malls in the 70s and have mostly closed down - and one single screen 1930s Movie House that tends to show one movie for a month at a time - it's had Emporer for the last 3 weeks, and this weekend they are moving Quartet back to it from another spot. One of the 4 multi screens is inexplicably used for mostly multiplex fare - right now it has crap like Admission, Oz, and 6 Souls with Stoker. The other as I said has been in a weird post-oscar rut with things like Silver Linings, Argo, Hyde Park, Quartet, The Impossible, etc showing for 4, 5, 6 weeks and more in some cases. They finally added a 4th venue that is the farthest away, but I was able to catch Gatekeepers there last weekend, and No, Trance, and Place Beyond the Pines open this weekend. They are in this weird limbo where they aren't really an arthouse chain, but not multiplexes either. I don't really understand why they insist on showing the mainstream stuff because we have AMCs and Cinemarks galore if you want to see 42 this weekend - but for some reason that's the film they publicize more than Place Beyond the Pines. The theaters are uniformly dingy and not terribly comfortable...but I don't really care about that. I just want to see good movies - and not two weeks before the DVD/Blu is being released, which they also sometimes do for some reason.

As for your list of stuff that's played in Denver or is coming to you:
Like Someone in Love, 56 Up, Lore, Beyond the Hills, To the Wonder, Room 237, and The We and the I, Upstream Color, Reality, and Blancanieves

It Looks like we'll get Room 237 on 4/19, To the Wonder on 5/3, and....that's it. They list Angel's Share (4/26), Mud (4/26), Kon-Tiki (5/17), Frances Ha (5/31) among stuff like The Company You Keep as coming soon. None of the other films on your list will play here before June if they ever do - the latter being most likely. It's kind of a bummer.

Just came from a scarcely-attended midnight showing of BIRDEMIC 2: THE RESURRECTION which is still a blast in the right state of mind (our small group certainly laughed plenty) but, for filmmakers and audience, it's a typical case of sequel diminishing returns. The magic of the original "Birdemic" was that James Nguyen and his actors clearly took what they were doing seriously and, combined with everyone's obvious "limitations," hit the 'so bad it's good' mother lode. Now, three years and built-in cult status later, Nguyen and his cast (many returning from the original "Birdemic" besides Rod and Natalie, along with a new batch of talentless faces) are fully aware of what is expected of them and seem to try to repeat the same beats from the first movie. The 'business meeting with endless clapping' struck you as hilarious? There's a version of that here. The endless driving footage that opened the first movie? We get a different-but-essentially-the-same type of intro. Vietnamese restaurant cute meet? Motel room sex scene? In-your-face environmental agenda? Awkward club dancing? Hitchcock worship? Check on each times 10, especially the Hitch references (I lost count after 10) and too-obvious tributes to everything from Billy Wilder to Spielberg. The SFX and budget have clearly improved (i.e. they rented a tripod with wheels, which I know because I saw it reflected on windows/mirrors... several times!) but that's like being happy with PlayStation 1 in 2013 after you liked your first taste of Tandy/Amiga-caliber graphics. Hell, they probably spent more money blurring faces/signs in "Birdemic 2" than the entire cost of "Birdemic" several times over.

And though "Birdemic 2" goes completely and spectacularly off-the-rails with

Spoiler

the introduction of cheesy human zombies and resurrected-from-the-past cavemen to the mix of bad things global warming is responsible for, gratuitous sleazy nudity and a never-ending "ending" so insultingly bad and God-awful Nguyen had to put the 'hanging out with your family' song over the credits (to buy back goodwill from many a poe'd viewer like myself)

the incompetence, bad acting and willful disregard for the most basic of filmmaking techniques (sound is still muffled and changes from shot to shot, birds are still mostly static, etc.) is now joined by Nguyen's new tech toys (borrowed from Tommy Wiseau no doubt): unnecessary green-screen photography and low-budget non-bird/blood CGI. There is one three-second shot in this movie (I will not spoil it) with such an obviously-cheap-but-why-not-shoot-it-practical CGI effect so unnecessary I was howling/crying from laughing so hard two minutes after it ended. The people in the theater tolerated my annoying laugh (and my laughter made them laugh even harder) because they had just witnessed the fucking thing that was making me almost piss my pants. This one scene alone was worth the $10 ticket price, and can't wait to see the audience reaction when this eventually makes it to a "Rifftrax Live" show. :D

So there you have it: "Birdemic 2" is about 60-70% as funny as its predecessor, but the magic of the original is compromised now by a lack of new ideas (the beats are variations of the earlier stuff, now set in and around Los Angeles), self-awareness and still-talentless filmmaking. I stormed out of the theater steaming at the gob-smackingly shitty ending and ran smack into Alan Bagh (Ron) greeting me next to a table full of t-shirts for "Birdemic 2." Didn't have money to buy anything (and even if I did I wouldn't buy "Birdemic 2" merchandise) but, after tossing a few softballs and wishing the guy luck, I left Landmark Sunshine wondering how I was able to survive Nguyen's latest after just spending six hours at Anthology Film Archives watching 35mm screenings of Rivette's JEANNE LA PUCELLE I & II for the first time.

Simon Killer is one of the worst films I've seen in a long time. Certainly the worst second film I've seen from a promising director since Steve McQueen's Shame. But even on its own terms Antonio Campos' sophmore effort is far worse. There's just nothing that isn't jumbled or facile or flat about this film, from the lazy poorly rendered and psuedo-complex psychology of the film's protagonist, to the non-existent motivations/wills of all the other characters -- especially the beautiful women who never cease to do whatever makes it easiest on the hero -- to the Indie stock visual style, to the specific way in which each scene plays out dramatically and cinematically with zero surprises. Everything about it was so painfully obvious and uninspired that I kept wondering if maybe it wasn't really me, that the film was smarter than I could see, that it would all pay off somehow in the end. Nope. This remains, in the end, a film without even the guts to be as one-dimensionally bleak as it seems set up to be, and both the manipulations of the film's title and the last-minute reveal(s) fall flat.

Don’t forget the Earlybird Deadline for both the Film Competition and the Screenplay Competition is May 1st – films/scripts must be postmarked by that date to receive the low entry fee. Submissions prices will go up at 12:01 AM May 2nd (PST). http://www.austinfilmfestival.com/submit/film/online/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you’ve been on the fence about submitting/attending, AFF just announced some really exciting news. Our press release that was picked up by Variety and Indiewire and several other major publications is below:

Austin Film Festival (AFF) is thrilled to announce accomplished filmmaker Jonathan Demme as their 2013 recipient of the “Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking” Award. Demme is best known for directing THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, which won him an Academy Award for Best Director, and critically acclaimed films PHILADELPHIA and RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, among others.

Vince Gilligan, creator of the highly acclaimed and popular television series Breaking Bad and writer/executive producer of the hit series The X-Files, will be honored as this year’s “Outstanding Television Writer” Awardee. His other credits include the Fox Television series The Lone Gunmen, which he co-created, and the features HANCOCK, HOME FRIES and WILDER NAPALM.

Film and television producer, Barry Josephson, will receive the Festival’s inaugural “Heart of Film” Award for his many contributions to film and television, and service to the screenwriting industry. In addition to executive producing the popular FOX television drama Bones, Josephson’s recent film projects include, LIFE AS WE KNOW IT, released by Warner Brothers, TURN, soon to be released by AMC network, and the international Walt Disney hit film, ENCHANTED.

Demme, Gilligan, and Josephson will accept their awards at the Festival’s annual award luncheon held on October 26th at the Austin Club.

“In our 20th Anniversary year, we are asserting, that we are, and have always been, the foremost writers’ festival,” said Barbara Morgan, AFF Co-Founder and Executive Director. “We are beyond proud to be honoring filmmaking legend Jonathan Demme, TV’s most sought-after creator, Vince Gilligan, and acclaimed producer, Barry Josephson – and we have many great surprises ahead.”

The 2013 Conference panelists also read like a ‘who’s who’ of Hollywood’s A-list filmmakers. Attending this year’s festival are John August (writer CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, BIG FISH), Alec Berg (writer/executive producer Curb Your Enthusiasm), Peter Craig (writer THE TOWN), Leslie Dixon (writer OVERBOARD), Todd Garner (Broken Road Productions), Akiva Goldsman (writer A BEAUTIFUL MIND, I AM LEGEND), Rian Johnson (writer BRICK, LOOPER), Franklin Leonard (creator of The Black List), Ashley Miller (writer THOR, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS), Jeff Nichols (writer MUD, TAKE SHELTER), Terry Rossio (writer SHREK, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise), Rob Thomas (creator/writer Veronica Mars), and Beau Willimon (writer/executive producer House of Cards).

Austin Film Festival annually recognizes outstanding filmmakers and screenwriters for their consistently exceptional body of work with the Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award and the Outstanding Television Writer Award. Previous Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking award recipients include Danny Boyle, Frank Darabont, Ron Howard, John Lasseter, Sydney Pollack, Robert Rodriguez, and Oliver Stone; Outstanding Television Writer Awardees include David Chase, Mitchell Hurwitz, David Milch, Garry Shandling, and David Simon.



Sincerely,

Jordan Arroyo
Film Department Intern
Austin Film Festival

Haha, well I don't know what it says about this forum that as far as I can tell, nobody's written about Iron Man 3 at all- but at any rate, it's more or less exactly what I was hoping, an Iron Man movie with all the boring parts left out or made interesting. The politics avoid being fascist (mostly by cancelling themselves out), Gweneth Paltrow is actually pretty good (there isn't nearly as much focus on her telling Downey Jr. that whatever he's doing is a bad idea, and she gets stuff of her own to do for once), Cheadle gets some fun out-of-suit fighting scenes, and the action scenes are all really good- largely because they rarely have a pure CGI on CGI battle, and nearly all of the action beats comprise someone having a new idea and executing it, rather than just mindless robot pummeling.

I can see the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang comparisons- and I really wish that Guy Pearce's role had been played by Val Kilmer- but overall this manages to escape the plasticky, factory assembly line feel of Marvel movies, and I think that's Shane Black's doing. There are a number of laugh out loud moments, only about half of which are dialog based, and the movie as a whole has a sense of personality to it. It's still a Marvel movie, so there's a sort of ceiling on how good it can be, but it pretty easily surpassed The Avengers and Iron Man for me, which I would say were the previous best.

I admit I haven't seen many movies in 2013 and you guys probably will ridicule me but I love action movies and I'm a big Steven Seagal fan from back in the day. I realize he hasn't done much lately but Deadly Crossing, his newest straight-to-Red-Box flick was actually pretty good. Before you chastise me, see it for yourself! It's like an early 90's action movie with crazy moves, a memorable bad guy, and lots of funny one liners. Don't expect any Academy Award winning performances, but expect to be engaged and entertained, especially if you're a fan of old school action movies.