Adventureland

Adventureland had me hooked with a brief scene about twenty minutes in. Leads Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart are driving home from the amusement park where they work. She is giving him the lift and it's the first time that they have bonded. All of a sudden Stewart cranks up the car stereo and Husker Du comes on playing "Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely." And she turns the volume up. That was me in 1987, which is when Adventure land takes place.
Correct in look and music Adventureland pays homage to an era (a generation ago) that rocked out and got stoned after work without the aid of cell phones and the internet. As directed by Greg Mottola Adventureland recalls Dazed and Confused mixed with the self deprecating humor of Woody Allen films. The film's protag James (Eisenberg) acts in the manner of a nebbish. Mottola himself has played directors in Allen's Celebrity and Hollywood Ending. The link to Dazed may be tenuous but the core cast parties like it's the last day of high school even though they're about four years older and the action takes place over a summer where family traits are cemented and futures are gleamed.
James wants to travel in Europe before starting grad school but his parents (a well cast Jack Gilpin and Wendie Malick) inform him that they're downsizing, especially since dad just lost his job. This also impacts on his potential future education. James finds a short term solution by getting a summer job where fortunately a similar group of like minded misfits. There's a totally likable Stewart as Em a free spirit who quickly establishes friendship with James, along with a jock type, some other nebbish dudes, a childhood friend who lives only to punch James' nuts each time he appears on screen, and a hot babe.
Mottola also gives Ryan Reynolds his coolest role ever, the park maintenance guy, slightly older, who always carries his guitar to work. He's the kind of stud character who exists for all the other characters to emulate. It's not hard to see Ryan, Stewart and Eisenberg involved in a romantic triangle of sorts before long.
There's a tendency in coming of age films like Adventureland to concentrate on the kids to the exclusion of adults. But here the parents are thought out creatures who have their moments, bits where their traits are what we've seen mirrored in their offspring. The park managers (Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader) are used sparingly, which is good since they seem to be channeling a different, more modern and crass, sense of humor.
Adventureland tends to be predictable if you just want to know how it ends. But the atmosphere it creates becomes a timeless place where you feel comfortable just watching.

The Betrayal

The Betrayal refers to broken promises. But The Betrayal isn't a revenge genre film, say something like Kill Bill. The Betrayal is a documentary and the title refers to how our country dropped the ball.
It may come as a surprise but probably not so much that the United States fought a war in Indochina commonly referred to as the Vietnam War. It was a war this country lost, and if nothing else this is a country that knows how to live by the popular phrase "cut your losses." Thavisouk Phrasavath, a co-director of The Betraytal along with distaff cinematographer Ellen Kuras, was one of the losses.
His father worked as an informer of sorts for the CIA during the Laotian phase of the Vietnam War. When the war was over the formers supporters of the U.S. effort were own their own in their own land. Phrasavath and his family (in particular his mother and sister) after being separated and after a few years find themselves transplanted to a Brooklyn tenement, next to crack dealers and with gang violence rife. The Betrayal attempts to put his viewpoint, and the feelings of his mother, across to the audience. The first generational immigrant experience if you will washes over you along with imagery of the present neighborhood as well as Laos.
The film comes alive from archival footage of Laos being bombed into the stone age. It's a misleading statement but true that the U.S. dropped more tonnage by air on Laos than all the bombing raids of WWII. By contrast there are endless shots that look like Hi-8 footage of anything (the yard, traffic going by) that only serves as a visual to Laotian prayers and wise and sage thoughts. This part of the film tends to drag, and it occurs a lot.
Stating that The Betrayal was shot over a period of 23 years leads the audience to conclusions that aren't supported by the filmmaking. Some of the footage shows an 80s teen Thavisouk hanging with his gang. This part of the film works. Yet other set-ups are so artfully composed it's obvious that its staged and not verite. It's an odd juxtaposition that The Betrayal never overcomes. The film offers too many meditative thoughts and not enough real drama.
Be that as it may, The Betrayal pays off with intimate mother-son moments where the lad's life must take a positive spin or their family and relatives, seemingly separated forever from their true homeland, will cease to exist as a nuclear unit. The Betrayal is playing exclusively at the Angelika Film Center.

SXSW Film Festival 09 wrap

The South By Southwest Film Festival and Conference just keeps getting bigger and better with every year. Films screen in several categories: major studio releases out-of-competition; narrative features; high school shorts; documentaries; special events; Canadian films that rarely get a US release; and even midnight madness.
The film festival reflects the current state of domestic affairs. Publicists are coming out of the woodwork in an effort to attract the dwindling number of print media and internet outlets that still cover cinema. New film entities are actively exploring and promoting alternative means of distribution, particularly bypassing DVDs with internet downloads.
One film, Alexander the Last premiered at SXSW even as it was offered online through IFC Festival Direct. Alexander the Last, besides being mumblecore at its best, stars Jess Weixler (Teeth) who remains unknown to auds at large but with her acting chops and screen charisma will no doubt be a major star in due time.
An example of studio fare included premieres of Observe and Report (April 10); I Love You, Man; Adventureland; Moon (mid June from Sony Pictures Classics). The latter film, directed by Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie) plays with sci-fi conventions yet takes the viewer to unexpected realms. The realistic look at mining Helium 3 on the moon is so timely that Jones also came to Houston because NASA had requested a special advance screening of the film for its scientists. SXSW also hosted a rough cut showing of Sam Raimi’s return to horror with Drag Me To Hell. Not even connected to SXSW was Universal Studios screening for free a 20-minute clip from the new Sasha Baron Cohen movie Bruno (that’s the short version of the title).
As always I managed to catch some gems that are indicative of the quality of entertainment on the festival route like Canadian director Bruce McDonald’s Pontypool. This art house zombie film keeps all the violence off screen (except for one blood spewing sequence) as three people hold out in a radio station and relay incoming reports of an infectious disease that has broken out in their small Ontario town. A couple of other Canadian docus that explore graphic and stencil artists, Roadsworth: Crossing the Line and Died Young Stayed Pretty, seemed to destined to only play to their select crowd, alternative artists.
Other eye openers were The Yes Men Fix the World (scheduled to open in the fall) and Ondi Timoner’s (Dig!) compelling internet docu We Live in Public. Timoner edits images that suggest the influence of the world wide web, even though many of the clips are from now-camp 50s era training films and the soundtrack's overdubbed. In particular We Live in Public addresses the way humanity has sublimated its need for personal contact in lieu of electronic relations. The Yes Men stage a fake press interview with the BBC where they pose as Dow Chemical (corporate owners of Union Carbide) spokesmen and announce a mea culpa for the Bhopal incident that results in a huge stock price loss for Dow. The Yes Men have a grace that similar agitprop figures like Michael Moore lack. Speaking of agitprop New World Order merely enforces the notion that Alex Jones has some great ideas but nobody will ever pay attention until he stops screaming.
Two other docs that garnered audience awards were Mine and Motherland. Mine simply breaks your heart with its depiction of pets that were lost or abandoned during Hurricane Katrina. Motherland follows the path of a group of diverse women who’ve all lost children. If Mine played well theatrically by taking the viewer on a journey that included the aftermath of a natural disaster, Motherland seemed like a Lifetime cable program by ignoring theatrical sensibilities in place of a story solely focused on emotional recovery.
The one film that stands above the others, for me anyway, was For the Love of Movies: A History of American Film Criticism. Intelligently researched and lovingly made by Boston Phoenix film critic Gerald Peary the film contains a wealth of information about pre-WWII movie critics of which most people are simply unaware. For the Love of Movies celebrates writers who formed modern day movie reviews like Otis Ferguson (who died in WWII), Robert Sherwood and Frank Woods, and takes us to up the present day where movie critics for major papers are being forced out of their jobs as they daily newspaper industry (itself a house of cards) buys out staff on a weekly basis.
There’s no way a person can see even a quarter of all the films offered at SXSW. It always remains a challenge to seek out the nuggets that will never get a true theatrical release.

The Great Buck Howard

The Great Buck Howard allows John Malkovich to carry the film as a celebrity mentalist while the other leads, Colin Hanks and to a lesser extent Emily Blunt, just get by on their good looks. Maybe Colin gets by on nepotism since Tom Hanks produced and makes a brief appearance.
Hanks the younger plays Troy a dissatisfied law student who drop out of school to become Buck Howard's road manager. In the words of the famous spear holder in Shakespeare plays who never had a speaking role: "What, quit show business?" Buck Howard, a character loosely based on the Amazing Kreskin and with a touch of Uri Geller, represents the low rung on the ladder of stardom. Howard likes to extoll his past glory when he appeared over 60 times on the Tonight Show. Howard makes a point to indicate that he belongs to the Johnny Carson era, and that Jay Leno is the great Satan. Later in a more confidential mode Howard confesses that he's bothered about not being invited back during Carson's last decade.
Yet Howard does have one audience trick that never fails, he promises to give up his nightly fee if the audience can successfully hide the money. Time after time Howard nails the exact spot where the dough's been hidden. This was a signature trick of Kreskin. It's here too that the film recalls Geller as that Israeli mentalist went on Carson's Tonight Show in the 1970s and tried to bend a spoon with his mind only to fail.
Other than Malkovich's wild mood-swinging performance the rest of the movie offers no surprises. Hank's Troy wants to be a writer but he comes off as more introverted than extro. Even when he hooks up with publicist Blunt in a Cincinnati stopover the sparks only float platonically. It's in Cincinnati that Howard intends to re-invent his persona with a new trick. A public relations snafu ensures that Howard both misses and achieves his goal.
Director/writer Sean McGinly keeps the proceedings moving along with plenty of cameos of similar forgotten one-timers (One time you'd heard of them.) like Jack Carter or Michael Winslow, and a healthy dose of entertainment television style reportage of Howard's career. The Great Buck Howard won't magically become a comic hit but its insistence on being a realistic human comedy, and not a gross body fluid dominated yuckfest, ensures that its laughs are earned.