I’m writing things as I go along. These are just various impressions I got from going to the festival. Hopefully I’ll have time to write full reviews later for some of these movies.
Friday, 9:20 pm, Alamo South parking lot
I just saw The Chumscrubber. This was not what I thought it would be. I was worried it would involve people dealing with a decomposing corpse or something.
The summary I read was misleading because it listed all the name actors, who are older—Glenn Close, Ralph Fiennes, Allison Janney, etc. However, the main characters in this movie are all teenagers (I guess the teen actors aren’t as well known; I didn’t know them, but I am out of touch with them kids today … gads, what a terribly old-farty thing to say). [After checking IMDb on Saturday] One looked very Culkin-ish, and sure enough, Dean’s little brother was played by Rory Culkin. And I am very much out of touch, because Jamie Bell, the lead, also played the title role in Billy Elliot.
I’m in my car right now because it’s a bit chilly outside and I don’t want to stand in the Film Passes line for all that long. There were plenty of seats left for The Chumscrubber and I am assuming it will be that way for The Aggressives. (I know, I’ll be sorry if I am wrong.)
The Chumscrubber is a movie about twisted teen drama, which might remind you at some points of Heathers (the first five minutes particularly) or Donnie Darko (the mayor particularly) or Dick (the casserole particularly).
I liked this movie, despite part of my brain saying that geez, not another weirdo teen movie, is a big rabbit going to show up? Who’s going to die? Does Glenn Close only take roles where she goes bananas these days?
What I liked about The Chumscrubber is that there are obviously two worlds in this movie: the world of the children/teenagers and the world of the parents. (There aren’t any non-parental adults in this movie.) The parents cannot understand what is going on with their children even when the children tell them plainly. They are entirely clueless. The women walk around with glasses of wine plastered to their hands. No one listens. Everyone has his own agenda. No wonder the kids are all taking drugs, and no wonder they go crazy when the source for their drugs is gone.
There is a dead body (although thankfully we do not see it decompose or anything dreadful) … Troy, the best friend of the main character, the guy who keeps all the high-school kids happy by supplying their drug needs, whom the main character finds has hanged himself. This is the event that starts the action of the movie.
I saw this movie at Alamo South, which is very nice and has lots of parking. I had the Asian Chicken Salad for dinner, which was extremely good (they are doing some very nice salads at this Alamo) although I am not sure that a spicy peanut dressing is a good idea in a theater where it is difficult to get drink refills in a hurry.
I got some good advice from someone else attending the film about how to get from theater to theater for the festival: she suggests parking somewhere convenient to the Dillo (S. Congress on the weekend or after 5), and you can use the Dillo to get to the Paramount, Alamo Downtown, and ACC. A very smart idea.
The only thing I regret is that I didn’t stash a water bottle in my car, or bring one with me to the UT class earlier today, because I was feeling somewhat dehydrated after walking to Jester from my parking spot off Congress.
Oh, and I almost regret not getting a film badge just because of the gorgeous canvas bags for the film conference attendees this year. The bags have Daniel Johnston’s frog on them. Is it possible for me to buy one of these somewhere? Because I am dying to have one.
Saturday, 9:30 am, chez Jette
The second movie I saw last night was The Aggressives, a documentary about a lesbian subculture group of African-American, Hispanic, and Asian women who prefer who dress as men. They identify strongly as women, but they feel like they should be able to look the way they want, and that means buying suits from men’s stores, getting very short men’s haircuts, and in one case, strapping down the boobage (in one scene, she used duct tape … ow).
I had especially wanted to see this documentary, which was why I started the evening at Alamo South (apparently I missed the very funny My Big Fat Independent Movie, but hopefully I’ll have a chance to see it later in release). I was not disappointed, either. I guess I am drawn to movies about women who self-identify as aggressive or as wearing the pants in the relationship. Hm. I have no idea why that would be.
I sat in the front row again, because I really like that spot at Alamo South. You can duck under the little table to get out of your seat quickly instead of having to maneuver down a row full of people. And it is far enough back from the screen (it’s actually not the front row, it’s the first row from the entrance) that you’re not staring straight up at the movie.
It turned out to be very lucky of me, because I ended up sitting next to Daniel Peddle, the director. I knew the guy wasn’t from Austin, he was asking some of us questions about how Alamo worked and so forth, but then suddenly, out of the blue, he said something about being nervous and then I found out, oh, he’s the filmmaker! This is yet another advantage of sitting in the front row during special events at Alamo South (we sat a few seats down from the Soup Peddler on Thursday).
It was quite interesting to see the theater manager and the house manager and the woman who introduced the film, all coming up to ask and answer questions about how the filmmaker should be introduced, how the Q&A after the film would work, if the film had been tested beforehand to make sure everything was okay.
Anyway, The Aggressives is playing one more time, I think next weekend, and I highly recommend seeing it. Apparently the only other place it has been screened so far was at Mardi Gras in Sydney.
I’m not going to write a full review now, but I was impressed to see a documentary that told these women’s stories so well without resorting to the Voice of God narration, or the filmmaker inserting himself into the documentary, or other documentary devices that can get very tiresome after awhile. The stories seemed to unfold quite naturally and without much directorial interference.
Okay, time to head to the Paramount. More later.