(We're re-posting our SXSW review of Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay to coincide with the film's theatrical release this weekend.)
"Is it as good as the first one?" That's the question I've been asked most since watching Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay last night. Short answer: Yes ... and no. The HIGHly-anticipated sequel to 2004's Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle comes just how you'd expect it: raunchy, wild, disgusting and completely absurd. This isn't -- and has never been -- a real-life comedy (all that went out the window after the boys rode a cheetah in the first installment); it's a fantasy/comedy, the kind you'd dream up while stoned out of your mind on a Saturday night. I tend to think that's how writer-directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg came up with this idea in the first place.
The Harold and Kumar films have always been about three things: drugs, sex and racial differences. Like with any sequel, all three of those are upped significantly. Instead of traveling across the state of New Jersey, Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) are now traveling across the United States. The stakes are also higher; this time, the boys are mistaken for terrorists while on a plane heading for Amsterdam after Kumar rigs up a bong that holds in the smoke -- a bong that looks and sounds like "bomb." After they're taken down to Guantanamo Bay, the first ridiculous homosexual joke plays itself out and the boys manage to escape. But where do they go and how do they clear their name? And, most importantly, will we care ... at all?
(Note: We're re-posting our 21 review from SXSW to coincide with the film's theatrical release this weekend.)
In 21, an M.I.T. math whiz joins a secret cabal of card-counters who fly to Vegas on the weekends to make a killing at the blackjack tables. That's the hook, the part you may not have seen in a thousand other films. But the rest is as generic as the title (21? Really? That's the best you could come up with?), a story about a nobody who becomes a somebody, forsakes his friends, and learns What's Really Important.
Yawn is right. This is a prime example of a movie that isn't bad, per se, just unnecessary, a competently made but wholly unremarkable trifle. It trades exclusively in clichés and stock characters -- and yet, strangely, director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) seems to believe he has made something compelling and original. And I have to think, if I've seen lots of movies exactly like this one, then shouldn't Luketic have as well?
(Note: We're re-posting our Stop-Loss review from SXSW to coincide with the film's theatrical release this weekend.)
It's been almost nine years since Kimberly Peirce's breakout film Boys Don't Cry, so expectations for her new project were bound to run high. Alas, she doesn't do herself any favors with the self-serious, emotionally hollow Stop-Loss. Why would someone who's so selective about the films she makes choose something so uninspired?
The title refers to the U.S. Army's policy of renewing soldiers' enlistments against their wishes, a necessary step when new recruits are in short supply and there's a war going on. Technically, the war in Iraq ended years ago, but this hasn't stopped the military from hanging on to thousands of soldiers who were supposed to have gone home when their time was up.
Stop-Loss is a fictional story about a real crisis, written by Peirce and Mark Richard and starring Ryan Phillippe as the soldier who gets stop-lossed. His name is Brandon King, and he has just returned to his hometown of Brazos, Texas, after a firefight in Tikrit that left some of his men dead or wounded. Brandon is a model soldier and staff sergeant, even to the point that his saintliness strains credulity, but he snaps when he learns he's being sent back. He tells his commanding officer (Timothy Olyphant) that he refuses to go, then flees the Army base.
One of the more livelier, spirited and good-natured docs at this year's SXSW film festival, Some Assembly Requiredfeatures teams of middle school kids from around the country competing in the National Toy Competition (founded by executive producer and former astronaut Sally Ride). Think Spellbound, but with a little less of a personal connection to the kids involved. Basically, schools all over the United States gather up a set of kids who break into teams and brainstorm ideas for new toys or games. Those ideas are then fleshed out and pitched to the toy competition. Roughly, we're looking at around 400 teams to start out with; a number which is eventually cut down to 50 -- and it's those 50 teams who must build their toy or game (for no more than $150) before flying to San Diego to present their baby to a group of judges.
The film follows six teams from schools in Saddle Brook, New Jersey, Brighton, Michigan, Harlem, New York, West Hartford, Connecticut and Washington, D.C. Early on, we watch as each class breaks up into teams to conceptualize different ideas. If it's a board game, what kind of board game? What color? How big are the pieces? What's the shape of the board? The fascinating part of this process was in watching these kids try to dissect what other kids (of the same age) enjoy. Not only is it a wicked fun activity for kids, but it also teaches them to think outside the box at a very young age. But this isn't some birthday party activity -- it's a national competition, and it doesn't take long for the drama to kick in.
If you weren't in Austin for South by Southwest -- or even if you were, and your schedule, like mine, was so incredibly packed with films and parties, that you missed out on catching some of the many panels there, you're in luck. For your listening convenience, the SXSW website has podcasts of the panels up. There were panels on just about every topic imaginable at the fest, from "Animation and Digital Effects on a Budget," to "The Porn Police: Know the Rules" (that one featured the never-shy-about-baring-his-all Joe Swanberg), to journalist Sarah Lacy's "controversial" interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's, which just about descended into all-out chaos.
I've heard the entire interview, watched parts of it on YouTube, and read heaps of blog comments ripping Lacy to shreds, and I gotta say, I don't see what people were so riled up about in that room, or why the audience turned on her so harshly there toward the end. Yes, it was a conversational-style interview, not a hard-hitting smackdown.
Up With Me is proof that you can make a good film out of old ideas. All it takes is a different approach, some reinvention to give the familiar themes a new twist. In fact, the only real shortcomings in "Up With Me" occur when the film tries too hard to be creative. As backward as it may sound, the film is at its best when it sticks to the situation that we've seen a thousand times before, for the simple reason that its technique gives it new life.
The film was created by the East Harlem Tutorial Program, with non-actors filling the roles and a do-it-yourself mentality governing every aspect of it. Written by Maeve McQuillan and Greg Takoudes (with help from some of the kids) and directed by Takoudes, it's about a kid from Spanish Harlem named Francisco (Francisco Vicioso) whose academic excellence has earned him a scholarship to a fancy upstate prep school. His girlfriend, Erika (Erika Rivera), misses him, knows it will be good for him, and frets that they will be divided by his new education. His best friend, Brandon (Brandon Thorpe), on the other hand, is openly bitter about Francisco's departure, seeing it as a betrayal in the immature way that teenagers see everything as a betrayal.
I can't believe I saw two movies about racial politics in Alabama at SXSW this year -- not what I would have expected. Both approached the issues in different ways, and both films were good. While The Order of Myths (which I reviewed already) focused on Mardi Gras in the Gulf Coast city of Mobile, the documentary Bama Girl takes us further north to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa to examine a tradition popular at many American universities: the selection and crowning of the Homecoming Queen.
Bama Girl focuses primarily on Jessica Thomas, a senior at the university who is determined to win Homecoming Queen. The problem is that a number of the white fraternities and sororities plus other unnamed organizations have formed a covert group known on campus as The Machine. The way in which the Homecoming Queen is elected on campus favors The Machine, which is why no African-American woman has won the crown since the rules change. This all sounds like paranoid fantasy and crazy student rumors, but when you see a staff member in the Dean of Students office talking seriously about The Machine, you start to wonder. Anyway, Jessica isn't going to let any secret society keep her from what she wants. She and her sorority sisters get to work to get her elected.
On the subject of the death penalty, there are reasonable arguments to be made on both sides. But even those who support capital punishment in theory must concede that it's perilously difficult to administer it in practice. It's only defensible if there isn't the slightest doubt whatsoever that the person is unequivocally guilty -- and how many cases are that clear?
The documentary At the Death House Door doesn't take a firm stance against the death penalty altogether, but it sure makes a strong case for exercising caution. It does this through the poignant, heart-rending story of Rev. Carroll Pickett, a soft-spoken Texas man who served for 13 years as chaplain at the notoriously execution-happy Huntsville Prison. Here he counseled with 95 prisoners during their final hours, and the experience changed his life.
It's risky to make a film with only three characters. If the audience dislikes even one of them, that's 33 percent of the ensemble gone. In the case of Yeast, a three-person mumblecore debacle by Mary Bronstein, I hate all three of them. How am I supposed to enjoy a film when I dislike 100 percent of the characters?
Something tells me Bronstein would be pleased by this reaction, and part of me admires the chutzpah required to make a film so blatantly cringe-inducing. The wife of Ronald Bronstein, whose similarly aggravating Frownland is currently making the rounds, Mary Bronstein has achieved something notable with Yeast. It's a sort of litmus test: Whichever character you hate the most says something about you.
From surface appearances, Intimidad is an exceedingly modest affair. Filmmakers David Redmon and Ashley Sabin, who also made the well-received Kamp Katrina, followed a young married couple for four years as they diligently worked to save up enough money to make a down payment on a piece of land they could call their own. If they lived in the United States, Camilo and Cecy might be described as living the American dream. Their story is more universal, however; like people everywhere, they simply want to provide for themselves while maintaining their personal dignity.
Camilo and Cecy are both 21 years of age and have an infant daughter named Loida. They are living in Reynosa, Mexico, across the border from McAllen, Texas. Reynosa is primarily a factory town with a population of half a million people, and both Camilo and Cecy are gainfully employed. Camilo works assembling fire hydrants for Wisconsin-based Johnson Controls, while Cecy makes bras for Victoria's Secret. (She gets paid about 18 cents per bra.) Together, they bring in about $500 per month, but expenses eat up most of that, leaving only $15 that they can put aside for their future home. It's not like they're splurging on anything -- they don't even have electricity, spending their evenings and early mornings illuminated only by the dim flames of candles.
Heavy Metal in Baghdad, which had its US premiere at SXSW, follows Acrassicauda, Iraq's only (yes, only) heavy metal band, as they try to stay alive and keep making music through the fall of Saddam Hussein and the growing insurgency in the aftermath of the Iraq war. This is the kind of film that makes me tremendously grateful to live in a country where I can freely write about film, or pick up a camera and make one. I can pick up a bass and start a rock band, and I can dress how I like and wear my hair how I like without fear of being shot or arrested.
The members of Acrassicauda, before they moved out of Iraq to Syria and then Turkey, did not have those priveliges. For them, the mere wearing of at Metallica t-shirt, or growing their hair long, or even wearing a goatee, could mark them for harrasment, imprisonment, or death. Filmmakers Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi follow the band from 2003-2006, capturing the band's hopes, dreams, and attempts to keep the band together amidst mortar fire, car bombs, and the ever-growing threat of persecution for embodying Western ideals through their music.
Watching Battle in Seattle is like being jabbed in the belly with a police baton, and not in a good way. Written and directed rather ambitiously by the actor Stuart Townsend, who has never written or directed anything before, it uses fictional characters to tell a true story but gives us no reason to care about the people, their lives, or their political causes. The riots that occurred at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999 may well have been historically significant -- but you wouldn't know it from watching Battle in Seattle, which insists on telling us how important the issues are rather than showing us.
Townsend gives a cursory explanation of what the WTO is and tells us that many oppose it for its lax policies on human rights and labor standards. The details aren't important to him, though. He seems to take it as a given that we already dislike the WTO, even though most viewers' response to WTO is "WTF?" It's a massive, complicated international organization that deals with stodgy, unsexy issues like trade and commerce, and I guarantee the vast majority of the audience isn't nearly as interested in it as Townsend is. And if the point is that we should be interested in it, he fails to explain why.
SXSW 2008 from mikehedge on Vimeo. Oh, my, this made me smile. Mike Hedge has a fantastic video montage of his time at South by Southwest, from the road trip to Austin from California and back, and capturing all the little moments that make the fest so special from beginning to end. This little video is a great example of beautifully edited short filmmaking; there's better edits here than I've seen in many a fest film, and he does a great job of telling a story without a line of dialog or voiceover. If you were at SXSW, you'll enjoy reliving your own fest memories by watching it, and if you weren't, well ... it'll make you want to be there next year.
Well done, and thanks, Mike, for so perfectly capturing what's so great about SXSW.
I've seen a lot of documentaries in the past few years about the decline of small towns and rural areas, how the population has dwindled and local businesses have closed shop and so forth. So it was strange to watch the opening sequences in the documentary Crawford, where the small Texas town starts to flourish when George W. Bush (then-governor, now President) buys a ranch in the area.
Crawford examines the effects on the town and its residents from the day Bush bought the Prairie Chapel Ranch in 1999 through 2007. At first, everyone in the town couldn't have been happier, especially once Bush became U.S. President. Businesses thrived as tourists and media flocked to the town, the local school band traveled to Washington, DC to perform at the inauguration, and the minister of the Baptist church felt confident that any day now, the First Family might join his congregation. However, a lot of things can change in half a decade, and Cindy Sheehan's 2005 protest in Crawford triggers even more radical effects.
Quick, raise your hand if you're a Harry Potter fan. Yeah, there are a lot of boy wizard fans, which is probably why a documentary about Harry Potter fandom sounded like a great idea. We Are Wizards, though, is not so much a documentary about Harry Potter fandom in general, as it is about the "Wizard Rock" bands that have grown up around the franchise, and a couple of the bigger Harry Potter fan sites.
The film introduces us to some of these Wizard Rock bands, including Harry and the Potters (brothers Paul and Joe DeGeorge), Draco and the Malfoys (brothers Brian Ross and Bradley Mehlenbacher), and The Hungarian Horntails, headed up by seven-year old punk rocker Darius and his four-year-old brother, Holden, who write songs they call "dragon rock."
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