Jett and Gareth really hit their stride this afternoon with the third live broadcast of The Film Talk from the Nashville Film Festival. The guests were Geoff Edgers, the protagonist from the documentary Do It Again about a man who tries to reunite the rock band The Kinks, and James Bigham and Javier Pena, the director and star from the documentary For Once In My Life about the creation of the GoodWill band.
Here are my mini reviews of the three films I saw on day 3:
Climate Refugees — Knowing the subject matter, I felt for sure that Michael Nash’s film about the very real effects of climate change was a shoe-in for the Reel Current Al Gore award. The film didn’t win (at least it wasn’t announced at the first screening), and when I finally viewed the film, it was easy to see why. The film deals with very serious issues, and I don’t mean to downplay their implications. My problems are with the snail’s-pacing, the choice of interviewees, and the generally educational-film production. I wonder why they would choose to interview Newt Gingrich who acted as if he never tried to downplay global warming (are our memories really that bad?). Why would they choose 911-truther Ed Begley Jr. as a responsible social advocate? And why is the phrase “global warming” never once used in the film? P.R. moves? You bet. I also wonder why they go through a list of things you can do to help combat climate change without mentioning the two most important: eat less meat and use condoms. I definitely feel they were tailoring the message for their target audience, and indeed in the Q & A they said they were going to screen the film in churches throughout the country. 2.5 out of 5
The Complete Works of Jamie Travis — As the title suggests, this is a collection of shorts by the young Canadian filmmaker Jamie Travis. Comprised of the films Why the Anderson Children Didn’t Come to Dinner, The Saddest Boy in the World, the Patterns Trilogy, and the Armoire, the collection is an artfully-designed business card of a director with a big future. Someone in the audience compared him to David Lynch and Guy Madin, and he does occupy the same universe of quirky ineffability; but I see more of Stanley Kubrick in his obsessive-compulsive eye for details. The rooms seem bigger stars than their inhabitants with every detail meticulously designed (Travis also did the production design) from the colorful wallpaper to the knick knacks on the shelves. There’s a lot to wonder about in these movies, but I get the sense that we aren’t meant to cloy for meaning. Rather, like looking at an expressionist painting, we should enjoy without cross examining. Travis himself admitted that he didn’t know why he made one character say a particularly nonsensical line. It just sounded right. And the films feel right. Watch for Travis in the near future. 4 out of 5.
Queen of the Sun — A much prettier-to-look-at documentary than Climate Refugees, Queen of the Sun explores the global bee crisis that threatens extinction of a multitude of species. I enjoyed myself throughout the film, but I grew irritated at the director’s tendency to let a bunch of people give theories and solutions without sorting out the real causes. (To be fair, the causes are not entirely understood.) We’re told about the very likely causes of Varroa mites and migratory beekeeping, but the directors also give air time to Vandana Shiva, who seems hell bent on blaming everything on genetically modified crops. (There is no evidence that GM crops are causing bees to disappear.) The film goes off the rails in the end and stops being about the global bee crisis and becomes a diatribe against big business and GM foods. Mild recommendation. 3 out of 5.
Saturday Night — I’ll have to hurry this up as my first screening for day 4 starts in 25 minutes. Saturday Night is James Franco’s inside look at the making of an episode of Saturday Night Live, this one hosted by John Malkovich. I enjoyed the film in the same way I would enjoy a backstage pass, but the direction didn’t lift it above anything more than satiated curiosity. I was intrigued at the way extremely funny sketches get progressively less funny as they go from the reading to the taping. 3.5 out of 5.
Today I’m screening Lourdes, The Sound of Insects (again), The Documentary Showcase, and Cleanflix. I’ll tell you all about them (as well as today’s taping of the Film Talk) in tomorrow’s update.
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