Independent Film Festival Boston 2014.03: Big Significant Things, Palo Alto

As I look through Amazon to look at products to pair with the reviews to break the text up a little, it strikes me that the film industry as a whole will be missing a chance at genuine whimsy if Roadside Attractions does not pick Big Significant Things up for distribution.



Speaking of Big Significant Things, that's director Bryan Reisberg on the left and producer Andrew Corkin on the right. Corkin, it turned out, had another film he produced in the festival, the very funny Wild Canaries, so he's having a good year.

Reisberg, meanwhile, talked about how Harry Lloyd and Krista Kosonen were the only people who were not cast locally, with some of the cast coming together because one had his wife and daughter along at the audition, and pulling them in gave the convenience store that the main character stops in its vibe.

Not mentioned: That Harry Lloyd is English and of no relation to silent film star Harold Lloyd, although it made me wonder whether he would have had to choose a stage name had the two been around at the same time. I wonder if anyone else in the room liked silents enough for it to be disconcerting.

No guests for Palo Alto, just some in-jest "whose ready to meet James Franco? Tough, he's not here!" I must admit that I was kind of surprised at just how many second-generation Hollywood types were involved in this. I didn't recognize Emma Roberts at first - as I mentioned in the review, I spent much of the movie wanting to know just who she was before realizing she was something of a veteran at 22 when the credits rolled - but did recall that Jack Kilmer was Val's son. A little more digging through the IMDB revealed that one character was played by Michael Madsen's boy, and it made me really start to wonder if there was some sort of club, clique, or network that celebrity kids got together in that Gia Coppola could draw from.

Also: Val Kilmer has a small role as the stepfather of the girl that Jack Kilmer has a crush on. That's got to be right next to the line where this sort of casting is kind of gross, right? As in, if he had played April's birth father rather than stepfather, the audience would not have been cool with it.

Big Significant Things

* * * (out of four)
Seen 25 April 2014 in Somerville Theatre #4 (Independent Film Festival Boston, digital)

There are many ways to have a good road trip; you can do it by sticking close to a map and itinerary, let your whims guide you, or do something in between. There are many ways to mess one up, too, and while looking down on the places you go and people you meet there doesn't exactly ruin things, it can make the experience kind of hollow in retrospect. Not having that attitude, I think, is what makes Big Significant Things a small gem; it's not about putting anybody in their place.

The fellow making the road trip is Craig Harrison (Harry Lloyd), a young man from New Jersey about to move to San Francisco with his fiancee Allison. She's already out there looking at houses, but he is driving through the South, on his own despite telling her he's chauffeuring people for work. And while he's kind of enjoying just looking at several World's Largest Things, what really winds up catching his eye is Ella (Krista Kosonen), a Finn playing guitar and singing at a bar's open mic night who seems just as put off place as he does.

Craig has a specific end point in mind, although it looks like his brother Joel (like Allison, heard on the phone but not seen) is not going to meet him there. That's important; it marks him as trying to get back to something as opposed to escaping while also highlighting that he's struggling with something that neither he nor his loved ones quite understand. Maybe his life just seems to be moving too fast; the graduation tassels hanging from his rear-view mirror are only three or four years old. Or maybe he's worried about how this move will make him a part of her life rather than the other way around, considering where their families live. Writer/director Bryan Reisberg never addresses Craig's primary issue directly, but he also doesn't do much to hint that Craig is running from something especially terrible, and making it easy to project ones own anxieties (present or remembered) onto the situation doesn't hurt.

Full review at EFC

Palo Alto

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 25 April 2014 in Somerville Theatre #5 (Independent Film Festival Boston, digital)

That James Franco always seems to have more ambition than one would think should have stopped surprising me a few of his less mainstream projects ago, but it hasn't. It should no longer shock to see another member of the Coppola clan making movies, either, but there seems to be a near-inexhaustible supply. So we probably shouldn't raise our eyebrows at Gia Coppola making a movie from Franco's Palo Alto Stories collection - although if you want to resent that it turned out pretty good, I imagine people will understand.

So what's going on in Palo Alto? Well, Teddy (Jack Kilmer) has a crush on April (Emma Roberts) that seems to be reciprocated at least a little. The thing is, Teddy hangs out with Fred (Nat Wolff), and while he doesn't need Fred's help to get in trouble as when he's involved in a fender-bender that gets him a hundred hours of community service, Fred certainly facilitates it. April, meanwhile, is babysitting for her soccer coach (Franco), whom the other girls say has designs on her besides making her the team's striker.

There are a fair number of second- and third-generation Hollywood folks in this movie: Gia is the granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola, while Jack Kilmer's father Val has a part as April's stepfather. And yet, despite their being relatively new to this, it might be the veteran of the legacies, Emma Roberts, who is the biggest surprise: This is probably the meatiest role she's had in a career that stretches back to when she was ten, but she plays it effervescently, easily charismatic enough to deflect other characters' cynicism and come off as down-to-earth despite being the prettiest girl in a competitive environment, but she's also good enough to impress with April's insecurities and implosions without coming across as simply neurotic. It's the sort of performance good enough to have me asking "who is that?" throughout the movie so that I could make a note for later only to be surprised by a name I'd seen associated with lesser parts.

Full review at EFC

Fantasia 2008, Day Sixteen: Handle Me With Care, Cryptozoologie, Le Tueur, and Special Magnum

Sometimes, having a media pass works against you - if I had bought a ticket, I would have gotten into Repo! The Genetic Opera, but it was so sold out and popular with the media/VIPs that about half of us were left out. Not that I think it's unfair - I got the email about the press screening, which I passed on of my own free will in order to see An Empress and the Warriors and May 18, and it would be downright churlish to act like I haven't made out like a bandit seeing dozens of movies over the past few weeks and often being first in line to get seats. Besides, it gave me time to have a late dinner, and that was a pretty good steak and baked potato.

Also, it helps to speak French. I sat through the La Bête du Lac Q&A hoping in vain for someone to either ask a question in English of for my 15-years-dormant high school french to suddenly kick in, but to no avail.

Today's plan is to camp at the Hall theater, where the movies are somewhat spread out: Island of Lost Souls, Seven Days, 4bia, Sasori, and Midnight Meat Train (with Ryuhei Kitamura present). If you're here, I can recommend The Rebel highly, Le Grand Chef with reservations, and wish I could make Triangle work for me.

Kod (Handle Me With Care)

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 18 July 2008 at Concordia Theatre J.A. de Seve (Fantasia Festival)

When you're born with a third arm, losing your tailor is far more traumatic than losing your girlfriend.

At least, that's the impression one gets from Kwan Traithep (Kiatkamol Latha) at the start of Handle Me With Care. His high-school girlfriend Lin is getting married, and his current girl Ann has just broken up with him, but it's the sudden death of "Uncle" Tawee, the tailor who makes his special three-sleeved shirts, that apparently pushes him to take a Bangkok clinic up on their offer to amputate his extra left arm. Getting there from rural Lampang will be something of an adventure - his car is busted, so he winds up hitching a ride with his friend Lorlee, who is delivering a bus there. On the way, they meet up with Na (Supaksorn Chaimongkol), also on her way to Bangkok to find the husband who she hasn't seen for a year.

Take away the whole third arm thing, and what's left is still quite the entertaining road movie. Writer/director Kongdej Jaturanrasamee plagues Kwan, Na, and Lorlee with a series of disasters that are more challenging than dangerous, and shuffles Lorlee off the stage once he starts just being an interruption to the scenes with Kwan and Na (and it becomes clear that the bus would make things too easy). They meet up with some interesting people, but the emphasis never shifts too much from them getting to know each other.

They're a nice pair to meet for the audience as well. Both of them tend to draw looks for their appearance (many comments are made about the size of Na's breasts, although she seems more generally curvy than notably busty), leaving them more alienated as they feel nobody pays attention to them as whole people. Latha plays Kwan as having a chip on his shoulder for much of the movie, although he's charmingly awkward at other times. Chaimongkol tends to present Na as more extroverted and likely to joke around, but shifts gears to lonely and sad well enough to make it abundantly clear that being seen as sexy isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be. The simple and heartfelt way she pays off a sort of annoying series of comments about having a great ringtone is kind of wonderful.

Full review at EFC.

Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie

* * * (out of four)
Seen 18 July 2008 at Concordia Theatre J.A. de Seve (Fantasia Festival, Documentaries from the Edge)

I missed this one at IFFB, so I was glad to catch up with it here. It doesn't quite clock in at feature length at a mere 62 minutes, but does fill that time with an intriguing portrayal of two men trying to do something extraordinary amid their ordinary lives. Director Jay Delaney walks a nice tightrope here, looking at their claims in a way that's not quite skeptical but lets the evidence (or lack thereof) speak for itself, without being too harsh on his subjects.

La Bête du Lac

* * (out of four)
Seen 18 July 2008 at Concordia Theatre J.A. de Seve (Fantasia Festival, Documentaries from the Edge)

I couldn't find myself nearly as intrigued by Nicolas Renaud's half of the Cryptozoology double bill, though. It drew plenty of local interest by taking part in a Quebec community near the Maine border, but despite being even shorter than Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie, sometimes felt very stretched out. There are some nice bits of underwater photography, and a couple of interesting storytellers, but when you get right down to it, it's kind of repetitive: People say they've seen the lake's monster fish, but can't offer any evidence other than "if you've seen it, you know", even though, as one resident says, when one person says they've seen a monster, everybody starts looking for them.

Le Tueur (The Killer)

* * * * (out of four)
Seen 18 July 2008 at Concordia Theatre J.A. de Seve (Fantasia Festival)

Le Tueur is the very image of what the phrase "French film" often brings to mind. It's alternatively talkative and quiet, casually sexual, and deals with matters of life and death with what seems like emotionless detachment. What makes it notable is that it manages to scratch beneath that surface without seeming arch or self-satisfied about it.

We start out with Leo Zimmerman (Gilbert Melki), a reasonably successful financier, doing some shopping with his beautiful daughter Alana. He seems nervous, as if he can sense the man following and filming him. That footage winds up in the hands of Dimitri Kopas (Gregoire Colin), an assassin who has been hired to kill Leo. When Kopas visits Leo in his office, he knows his number is up, so he confronts him and asks a favor - let him live until Saturday, so he can pull off one last big deal and make sure Alana is taken care of. He knows his wife Sylvia (Sophie Cattani) is having an affair with his partner Xavier Franzen (Xavier Beauvois), and the idea of Franzen raising his daughter makes him blind with rage. Kopas agrees - why not? - using the free time to strike something up with Stella (Melanie Laurent), a model he meets in the hotel lobby.

There have been hundreds of cinematic hitmen, so often played as cool to the point where it's become almost impossible to avoid self-parody. Gregoire Colin doesn't quite sidestep that, but he handles it. He's got the cool exterior (and interior, for that matter), but there's something awkward about his isolation from regular people. He trips over his own tongue when hitting on Sylvia, and seems to become keenly aware that he doesn't have much of an existence outside of his job. He is so conditioned to leave no trace of his presence that he sometimes seems likely to disappear entirely.

Full review at EFC.

Special Magnum (Strange Shadows in an Empty Room)

N/A (out of four)
Seen 18 July 2008 at Concordia Theatre J.A. de Seve (Fantasia Festival)

Damn, I wish I hadn't nodded off during this one. Not just because it's apparently not available on DVD, and was only issued cut on VHS, but just because it is a really crazy action movie. The big car chase in the middle of the movie really needs to be seen to be believed (especially since it was apparently filmed without permits of any kind), and even on the 16mm print the Montreal locations looked gorgeous. I really hope this comes out on DVD or Blu-ray soon; I want to catch up.

Two-Lane Blacktop

Wow, this is probably the easiest a review has come to me in a while, going from start to end in a couple hours with the TV on for half of it. My usual method is grabbing an hour or two on the bus rides to and from work, so just sitting down and writing one is a novelty.

Of course, it's probably easier to ramble on about what you figure a film's philosophy is rather than actually break down whether or not it's actually a good film and why. But I figure movies like Two-Lane Blacktop resist that anyway; it's uninterested in plot or really a whole lot of character development. Director Monte Hellman just needs to keep things interesting enough to keep the audience's attention, and he does a fine job with that.

Two-Lane Blacktop

(out of four)
Seen 7 January 2008 at the Brattle Theatre (Staff Picks)

Two-Lane Blacktop is an oddity, no question about it. It stars two musicians in their only acting roles, playing characters without names or much in the way of dialog. It's a strange, abstract experience - and art-house picture disguised as a grindhouse flick.

In California, there's a pair of car lovers drag-racing in their custom 1955 Chevrolet. The driver (James Taylor) and mechanic (Dennis Wilson) know it inside out, and are able to win races in part because their fifteen-year-old ride doesn't look like much. They opt to head east, getting on the bad side of a middle-aged man in his new Pontiac GTO (Warren Oates), whom they decide to race cross-country to Washington DC with their pink slips as stakes. They also pick up a teenage girl (Laurie Bird) who, as any girl introduced in this situation is wont to do, will throw the balance of these two men off.

Like many films set on the open road, Two-Lane Blacktop is as much about the idea of freedom that it represents as it is about its characters - in this case, probably more so. The history of The Driver, The Mechanic, The Girl, and "GTO" aren't important; in fact, if they were individuals it might undermine the film's message: To be truly free, you have to be willing to let go of everything. Not just material possessions, but attachments to other people, and to your own history.

GTO doesn't have much trouble with the latter part. Every time he meets a new person, he spins a different version of his life story. Maybe the first is true, but he contradicts it right away, refining it or changing it wholesale with bits he picks up from the environment - while throwing one male hitchhiker out of the car for getting a little too close, he drops little bits of innuendo with the next. Oates manages the right combination of bluster and patheticness; he puts a lot of pride in his car and likes to speak authoritatively, but underneath he feels a need to be accepted. He won't change his persona once he's introduced himself to someone, and his attempts to win over the Girl, young enough to be his daughter, are kind of sad.

He's doomed, of course, because The Girl knows how to be unattached from the very start. We first see her walking out of a camper and settling into the Chevy without introduction, and she eventually moves between the Mechanic and Driver with ease. She's chattier than they are, but just passing the time. It's a shame that Laurie Bird would only appear in two other films before quitting acting; she is nigh-perfect as The Girl, playing her as not especially knowledgeable or wise, but nevertheless the embodiment of the film's idea of freedom.

The Driver and The Mechanic are a perfectly matched pair to start out; The Driver at one point states "you can never go fast enough" and The Mechanic knows every inch of their custom car by heart. They work together seamlessly whether in a race or at a service station, barely seeming to confer even when there's a complicated scheme coming up. Jealousy and envy rear their ugly heads when The Girl is introduced into the equation; for all their talk of just going where the road takes them, they each have a little trouble with the other having The Girl or The Girl having the other, depending on the moment. Taylor plays The Driver as quicker-tempered, while Wilson's Mechanic is more detail-oriented. Despite neither apparently having other acting experience, they still make for compelling characters.

Somehow, director Monte Hellman knew what to do to get just the right notes out of his three first-time actors (Oates was a frequent collaborator); they all give matching natural performances. He also has a real knack for photographing the back roads of America and staging the drag races so that they're fast and exciting, but also dirty and far from glamorous. He edits his own film, and paces things so that the silence from his leads never seems oppressive or unnatural.

He's also clever with the ending; although it may seem that the film just stops without reaching the previously agreed-upon endpoint, the important lesson has already been given five or ten minutes earlier, and while the end of the film may frustrate some, the message is that you've got to let go of everything - including expectations.

Also at eFilmCritic, along with one other review