The 2007 Miami International Film Festival

[Johann]

Cavite annoyed me.
I appreciated the effort (it was the filmmakers' first film (2 guys whose names I can't remember- they introduced the movie before the screening) but it was just too....amateur.

It went on and on. The guy has a cell phone on his ear for practically the whole damn movie and the guy who's telling him what to do has a grating voice coming thru the receiver. I didn't really believe the story. The acting didn't convince me. The audience clapped because the filmmakers were in the theatre, but I bolted when the credits were rolling. Didn't hang around for the Q & A.

40 Shades of Blue interested me, but it did have a very sombre tone. It seemed like a dead-stop to my mind when I went to see it.
I may have had other movies on my mind too.
That happens at festivals.
You'd be sitting waiting to see a film just after you watched something powerful, something you're still thinking about.

Even when you're watching the movie, thoughts of the other one enters your head.
Ah, festival madness...

Hell I remember liking but it is definitely
NO K. Kieslowski. I remember wondering what he would've done with the story. Kieslowski was posessed. He was consumed by his filmmaking, like Kubrick.
Nothing he made didn't have the stamp of utterly personal genius on it.


Tristesse is a mood movie, a very specific STYLE. It left me with a euphoric appreciation for the style, the overall luxuriousness and just plain "good quality movie" aspect.
Masterpiece is a word i understand somebody using to describe it, but it's not a quote unquote "masterpiece". It's just a really good studio film. (with David Niven sashaying & lounging around in his swimming trunks)

[oscar jubis]

*I'd like to watch Bonjour Tristesse in a theatre. It's really good. Just had a chance to watch Malle's Elevator to the Gallows on the big screen. Becket, with O'Toole and Burton, is playing here. I have to check it out.
*Perhaps I'll pass on Cavite then.
*I'm going to the SFIFF site to learn about the films showing as soon as I finish this post.
*If I go to the Sarasota festival, I'll write notes in between screenings to get my thoughts about a movie out of my head before the next screening starts. Perhaps that'll relieve "festival madness". I'd be watching 3 or 4 films a day.
*I still want to watch Hell.
*Might do two MIFF "Best of" lists: one for commercial and one for art films. I'll start with the awards list then a list of what I missed. Here's the last review:

COLOSSAL YOUTH (Juventud em Marcha)

[Johann]

Notes are essential to me at a festival.

I'd never remember a damn thing, never write a review:
So what film did you see, Bob?
I can't remember.
C'mon Bob, you must remember something!
No not really...There were people in it....and a dog...
Oh Bob, you are such a wacky guy...

[Chris Knipp]

Johann

I may have had other movies on my mind too.
That happens at festivals.
You'd be sitting waiting to see a film just after you watched something powerful, something you're still thinking about.

Even when you're watching the movie, thoughts of the other one enters your head.
Ah, festival madness...

When all is said and done I am not crazy about festivals. One movie a day is enough and if I have to write a review of it one a day is too much, though even when I'm just on my own in NYC I often see two or even three a day, but then, I'm free to take a day off or go to a museum, or for a walk, or do nothing. At a festival while it's on there's no letup.

Notes--Nonetheless I don't have that much trouble keeping movies separate in my mind, and besides, when you have a press kit you don't need notes, or you can jot them on the press kit. During the French series this time I used the press kits to jot down French vocabulary . . My ideas often come in the writing process though, not in the theater. I probably am weak in concrete details due to this.

I liked what you said about Kieslowski. I would consider Danis Tanovic's Hell a Kieslowski knockoff. He'd have been better off doing something entirely of his own. I have to say I was underwhelmed by No Man's Land. LIke a lot of new directors when they can get hold of the money or even when they can't, he shows great technical accomplishment, but I'm not sure he has found himself as a director, going by those two.

Oscar

I'm going to the SFIFF site to learn about the films showing as soon as I finish this post

And again please let me know any suggestions or comments on the list. What I did last year was I just went to all the press screenings. They're just a fraction of the whole. Then I went to a necessarily selected few of the public screenings, letting my young friend pick a lot of them. He can't go this year, so I guess I'll pick on my own.

Noticias Lejanas and Play were press screenings. I saw Los Muertos in the previous year because my young friend saw it with his dad and said it was great. Who knows if I would have chosen to see them? Yet they were the highlights that I remember now. I also suffered thorough some dim productions at the press screenings too though. Every time it's a very mixed bag. That's why I like the NYFF. At least in the minds of the jury, its selections are not a mixed bag, but the best of the best.

Now that I see far more movies in theaters than on home video and not the other way around as it was a decade or so ago, I consider the theatrical experience overwhelmingly superior. The DVD/tape is only a useful tool to study or catch up, but that's the main reason why I perhaps won't see Cavite now--if it was in a theater and I had the time, I'd go see it still to see if I agree with what Johann says or not.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
And again please let me know any suggestions or comments on the list.
I'm on top of it. List will be made publicly available tomorrow.

Every time it's a very mixed bag. That's why I like the NYFF. At least in the minds of the jury, its selections are not a mixed bag, but the best of the best.
I've noticed that they save most of the truly adventurous fare for "Film Comment Selects" and "New Directors/New Films".

MIFF AWARDS

[Chris Knipp]

I've noticed that they save most of the truly adventurous fare for "Film Comment Selects" and "New Directors/New Films".

They sure do. But "truly adventurous" is a very value-laden phrase. I hope your statement is not meant to imply that nothing in the NYFF is adventurous, or that the other smaller series are of higher quality. Neither is true. There are just so many overlaps. The NYIFF goes for high quality, and it contains "truly adventurous" entries. And some of the "Film Comment Selects" and "New Directors/New Films" are unsuccessful, this year from reports especially the former series had some dogs in it. I wouldn't take on the trouble and expense of spending a month in New York to see "Film Comments Selects." But maybe I should go to Toronto, or Berlin, or Cannes. I dare say now you, Oscar, will say you'd rather go to Rotterdam. "De gustibus..." We do what we can do. And there are those overlaps. If you went to all the big festivals, there'd be plenty of films you could skip because you'd already seen them, and that goes on for over a year for them.

[oscar jubis]

WHAT I MISSED AT THE 2007 MIFF

Films that have distribution deals
Red Road (Scotland)
Chronicle of an Escape (Argentina)
Manufactured Landscapes (Canada)doc
The Valet (France)
First Snow (USA)

Films likely to have distribution in one form or another
Banished (USA)doc
Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa (USA)doc
Padre Nuestro (USA)
Ghosts (UK)

Films unlikely to get distributed (the ones that got away):
The Dog Pound: Uruguayan drama about a 20-something slacker.
The Silence: Cate Shortland's follow-up to her amazing Somersault. Made for TV.
U:Animated film opened in France to copious praise.
The Only One: Belgian drama about an octogenerian struggling to maintain his independence.
The Boy on a Galloping Horse: arty Polish b&w film.
Living with Hannah: German drama about a traumatized young woman.
Red Like the Sky: Italian psychological drama about a blind man.

[Chris Knipp]

The Valet AKA La doublure was in the Rendez-Vous series and I wrote a review. It's a very conventional and old fashioined romantic comedy and you didn't miss anything by not seeing it--except a beautiful blonde babe.

You used the word "arty", I consider that a kind of breakthrough.

[oscar jubis]

*I read your review at the time you posted it and I noticed your lack of enthusiasm for La Doublure. This director's films are enjoyable but certainly not important or particularly accomplished. It wasn't screened for the press and it has distribution so I didn't see it at the fest.
*First Snow has already been released in a couple of markets. I will try to alert readers when other festival films are released comercially.
*Manufactured Landscapes will be showing in Sarasota. I'll probably watch it there because the "captures" look amazing.
*Haha! I thought of using "painterly" instead of "arty". Reviews I read praise the visual qualities of the film over other aspects.

[Chris Knipp]

This director's films are enjoyable but certainly not important or particularly accomplished.

Francis Veber's films surely are influential, and that makes them important. He has been remade in Hollywood--another sign of influence. La Cage aux Folles and The Closet are particularly notable, not to mention The Man with One Red Shoe, the interesting The Dinner Game, and others. At film comedy, he is accomplished. Though I don't think this one is as good as earlier ones, still La Doublure is a well-oiled machine. The fact remains, nobody in this crowd necessarily needs to run out and see it. But one can't say he's not important or accomplished just because one doesn't like his work particularly. His work is not particularly to my taste either, but I can't dismiss it quite that easily. No big deal, though, I'm just being picky, as usual.

[oscar jubis]

BLACK BOOK has now been released in NYC and Los Angeles by Sony Pictures Classics. The new film from director Paul Verhoeven will expand to other cities shortly.

[Chris Knipp]

Yes, it was reviewed last week in TimeOut New York.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Johann
Cavite annoyed me.
I appreciated the effort (it was the filmmakers' first film (2 guys whose names I can't remember- they introduced the movie before the screening) but it was just too....amateur.
I also appreciate the effort. These guys basically had $7000 and NO CREW and they managed to get their film distributed in the US. Of course, $7000 doesn't pay for explosions so when these happen the screen just goes black for a few seconds.

It went on and on. The guy has a cell phone on his ear for practically the whole damn movie and the guy who's telling him what to do has a grating voice coming thru the receiver.
Right. There are two characters. One is Filipino-American played by one of the directors who's made to pay dearly for the "sins" of his father and for being a lapsed Muslim out of touch with his country of origin. The other is a leader within the Muslim Separatist movement in the Philippines who has kidnapped his mother and sister.

I didn't really believe the story.
I didn't believe the terrorists could possibly keep an eye on the guy as he is moving around the city in all kinds of motorized transport and walking in and out of places. But I most definitely appreciate the tour of the working class and poor sections of Greater Manila and the immersion in the living conditions there.

The acting didn't convince me.
The director has a limited range as an actor. No doubt.

Didn't hang around for the Q & A.
I'd love to question the directors about the political stance of the film which is absolutely provocative and probably wrong-headed.

[Johann]

So you saw it.

It has jumpy, grainy camerawork that is very "guerilla", but I just didn't buy the story. A great effort, and they did achieve a degree of success with it. They made something from pretty much nothing and that's always to be commended.

[Chris Knipp]

Cavite--As mentioned, I wanted to see it. It showed both in the Bay Area and NYC but I missed it both times. Despite the flaws you have been both discussing, it sounded interesting enough to see, had it been convenient. It never was.

The Valet/La doublure is showing here now or coming.

First Snow has been here briefly and I saw and reviewed it (as I did Valet earlier this year in connection with the NY Rendez-Vous).

Red Road has been showing in NYC and LA lately; do not know if it will continue on to here.

Padre Nuestro was made by a friend of my goddaughter from Oberlin College and she just emailed me her excitement at its winning the prize at Sundance. It has gotten very bad reviews though so its future seems uncertain, but the prize should mean some further opportunities for Christopher Zalla.