Archive for June, 2009
The Informant!
Tuesday, June 30th, 200912 Rounds
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 |
Wrestler John Cena jumps off the ropes to take a shot at action hero stardom as a New Orleans cop in12 Rounds, a Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment release directed by the depreciated action maven, Renny Harlin. Aidan Gillen portrays an Irish terrorist who kidnaps the hero’s wife and makes him do all sorts of crazy things to get her back, often forcing him to rush at blazing speed from one end of town to the other. There is a method behind the villain’s madness, however, and it is this plot turn that changes the 2009 production from being just a mindless display of high-energy activity to being an enjoyable mindless display of high-energy activity. As for Cena, he’s a little too smooth and sculpted to make a believable cop (that was one thing Bruce Willis always had going for him-he was tough, but paunchy), but he still tackles his role gamely and performs his stunts without losing his character. Advantageously, the film has a minimum of special effects work to back up its crashes and falls, so it sustains the feel of the small, brisk thriller it wants to be. There are a few plot points that don’t quite hold up to close inspection, and until the twist, the villain’s manipulations seem absurd to the point where a viewer might not be interested in sticking with it, but on the whole the film is busy enough to hold one’s attention and clever enough to make that attention worthwhile.
Two versions of the film are presented, the theatrical version, which runs 108 minutes, and a director’s cut, which runs 109 minutes. Since the film was designed for general audiences, the additional moments mostly involve character development, and just a little bit of extra blood. The picture is presented in letterboxed format only, with an aspect ratio of about 2.35:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The color transfer is okay.
The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound is not overly pumped, but supports the action effectively. There are alternate French and Spanish tracks in standard stereo, optional English and Spanish subtitles, a 5-minute ‘gag’ reel consisting mostly of behind-the-scenes hijinks, a good 10-minute segment on the film’s numerous stunt sequences and two minutes of slightly altered endings.
The film and the alternate endings have two commentary tracks, one from Harlin, and one from Cena and screenwriter Daniel Kunka. Harlin’s talk is very good, constantly describing aspects of the production process and how he achieved his goals in each sequence. He has, seemingly, no appreciation of cinema in his art. He mentions that the film has more than 3000 edits, which means that the camera never lingers on anything long enough to establish an appreciation. The greatest action directors could thrill you but still convey an aesthetic sensibility blended with the action. At 3000 edits, however, you never get beneath the surface, and it is that superficiality that has prevented Harlin from landing bigger gigs, despite his technical proficiency. Kunka and Cena supplement his talk with more anecdotes and a more relaxed assessment of the narrative. Cena also enjoys debunking some popular high-tech film clichés. “When you write a movie about a guy on a cell phone, everybody’s like, ‘Well, can’t you just track him on the cell phone?’ It’s funny. We met with the FBI and we’re like, ‘Hey, can you track cell phones?’ And they’re like, ‘Nah, not really. Sometimes. If we’ve got the number. If we don’t, we really can’t.’”
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Who Killed Cock Roger?
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009That’s what I get for believing the NY Daily News gossip section… not to mention paying any attention to what Roger Friedman is “telling everyone.” The guy can’t help but lie even when he is telling his own story.
The lawsuit that was filed yesterday has only one mention of Scientology in it – more on that in a bit – and a rather more bizarre (didn’t know that was possible, did you?) at all to any motivation on Murdoch’s part for the firing.
There is a repeated refrain about the video that Friedman “saw a film called Wolverine on the internet,” but that “Friedman did not download Wolverine.” How exactly does that work?
Has The Bruno Basher Outed Himself?
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009Richard Day is quoted in a Movieline EXCLUSIVE today, sounding an awful lot like the phantom e-mailer who got both Sharon Waxman and Nikki Finke to launch hyperbolic competing hypefests about Bruno’s “gay problem.”
In fact, Movieline (and others, including me) mocked the dueling drooling when it happened.
But today, using his real name, Richard Day hits some of the same notes, including the shrill argument that “the film has not been screened for a large number of gays” and that “the reaction from gays has been almost uniformly one of alarm.”
The film has been shown to GLAAD and widely screened for hetero and homo sexuals in the industry alike. There has been little alarm since.
Not coming up much anywhere is also the fact that there is what would be an NC-17 version of the film that was screened for international exhibitors that was considered by most to be much more shocking than the final version… though not on the basis of gay content.
Day’s quotes today sound like the continuing story of someone with an ax to grind, whose first efforts didn’t take. Movieline oversells the story in its headline, suggesting a dramatically different ending to the film, when in fact, the difference, according to the angry accuser, is basically that the earlier version further extends the gay bashing that still happens in the film to a physical injury. The fact that the passive sidekick of Bruno would be victimized and take it without anger is hardly outside of the overall theme of the film nor does it seem to further anything about the gay elements of the film. They picked a gentler ending. But the joke was the guy who would get himself beat up for his employer who repeatedly treats him like shit, not that a gay man was bashed.
How bitter is Day that no one but him seems to be enraged by this film?
Circle Of Jerk
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009The News Releases/BREAKING NEWS Of The Day:
Clooney and Heslov land at Sony – The crazy thing is that much of the media seems to have missed that Clooney (and Soderbergh), who produced via the now deceased Section Eight which was primarily responsible for the birth of the also deceased Warner Independent Pictures, has been out of Warners for a while already.
Since Michael Clayton, Clooney has not had a film at WB. Leatherheads (U), Burn After Reading (Focus), Up in the Air (DW), Men Who Stare At Goats (Overture), The Fantastic Mr Fox (Fox), and A Very Private Gentleman (Focus). Soderbergh’s only film at WB since Ocean’s 13 is The Informant, a $21 million Matt Damon film coming this fall, a leftover from Section Eight… but he’s basically been out for years already.
Paramount Seeks DVD Production Business Share With Others – It may seem like a big deal, but it really, really isn’t. It’s the same idea as the Paramount/MGM/Lionsgate pay-tv venture that never got off the ground. It’s like all the distribution deals that Paramount has, which have created big grosses for media stories and a dangerous combination of light profits on massive hits and a decimated production business (which has NO movies scheduled to start before next year).
This is not a deal to merge libraries or anything like that. It is an effort to save money on infrastructure, just as studios that distribute through Fox or WB do… and not actually a bad idea at all, though I don’t know the hard numbers.
Firings at Paramount – All inevitable. I’m not sure why people are so surprised.
What would be SHOCKING is other Par firings that are being rumored today around town. Some of these choices, if they turn out to be real, would be suicidal, as they go right to the heart of the some of the very few parts of Paramount that actually work right now.
You want to travel blind: portraits
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
An exhibition of portraits of film figures and friends is running in Chicago through July 26 at the Rainbo Club. The address, more information and other pictures are here. [Takeshi Kitano; Azita Youssefi; Michael Ondaatje]
Wilmington on DVDs: My Dinner with Andre, Two Lovers, Do the Right Thing and more…
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW
Two Lovers (Three-and-a-Half Stars)
U. S.; James Gray, 2009
Joaquin Phoenix, in various weird ways, has suggested that James Gray‘s Brooklyn romance Two Lovers may be (more…)
Images: Julie & Julia
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009“The only real stumbling block is fear of failure.
In cooking you’ve got to have a ‘What the hell?’ attitude.”
- Julia Child
Hitler Gets Pissed… Again
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009But it’s still more insightful than a 7 hour block of CNN this last week… or perhaps, it is insightful ABOUT any 7 hours of CNN this week…
The Academy 134
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009The results of the annual ritual of inviting new members into The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences were officially announced this morning. 134 new invitees.
Most of what is interesting is along the lines of “what too so long?” For instance, Paramount’s head of marketing, Megan Colligan or long-time in-house big brain David Kaminow or screenwriter John August or producers Kathy Conrad, James Lassiter, and Paula Wagner or execs Dan Battsek and Claudia Lewis or documentarian Rachel Grady or Danny Boyle or cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle or the Supporting Actress nominee of last year, Amy Ryan.
Quietly leaping in is Russell Smith, who didn’t get blackballed – as I worried – after the public whining about him not getting in last year. (He deserved the slot then, as he does now.)
The Acting Branch seems to have gotten the message that it has been overly cautious about invites – last year inviting only 7 actors to join and 16 the year before – went in for 20 new members, half of whom have never been nominated.
It clearly pays to be an Apatow regular, as his cache put Michael Cera, James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Paul Rudd into the Academy this year. Jonah Hill must be depressed.
LAFF 2009 Review: Ponyo
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo is, very loosely, based upon the Hans Christian Anderson tale The Little Mermaid, but with some bizarre twists that mark it as a Miyazaki film. I’m a huge fan of Miyazaki’s work, but I’ve found in general that I very much prefer his films in the original Japanese with English subtitles than re-dubbed in English with American actors. There’s almost always something lost in the translation with Miyazaki’s films when they’re dubbed: cultural references lost, or the way in which particular characters say things, or the emphasis put on this or taken away from that.
I realize that American audiences often find subtitles difficult to swallow, and further realize that in trying to market Miyazaki’s films to younger audiences, studios are targeting a demographic that might not be able to read subtitles anyhow, so I appreciate the necessity of dubbing Miyazaki’s films for this market. But that doesn’t mean I have to like the end result, although I can hope that seeing dubbed Miyazaki might eventually serve as a gateway of sorts to encourage older kids and adults to explore Miyazaki’s work in the original Japanese.
Because I recognize that I have this preconceived prejudice against Miyazaki dubs, I’m not going to judge the film completely until I can see a subtitled version. This dubbed version, though, is the one that you and your kids are more likely to see, so it’s only fair that I share some thoughts about it.
Animation-wise, it’s as gorgeous as one would expect a Miyazaki film to be. I heard a lot of “oooohs” and “ahhhhs” from little voices around the Mann Village Theater during the closing night screening, and the adults around me seemed to be as delighted by it as the kids. As with much of Miyazaki’s work, there are some dark and scary moments, but I don’t think there’s anything in this film that’s too much for younger kids to handle (and certainly, there’s nothing that’s any scarier than the evil sea witch in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, who I thought was pretty terrifying).
Story-wise, I can’t say I liked Ponyo as much as my favorite Miyazaki films, Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbor Tortoro and Howl’s Moving Castle, or even as much as Princess Minonoke and Spirited Away, which I rate very slightly below those. Ponyo for me falls below all those films in terms of story and even the animation itself, but it’s still so much better than just about any animated fare offered to families by anyone other than Pixar that I’d still recommend it.
Certainly I’ll want my own kids to see it, though I want them to see both the Americanized version and the Japanese dub. In the meantime, all this talk of Miyazaki makes me think the long holiday weekend might be a perfect time for a family Miyazaki marathon. Subtitled, of course.
Watchmen: Maximum Movie Mode
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009The Watchmen BluRay (out in July) includes a Maximum Movie Mode feature …
DP/30 -Soul Power dir Jeffrey Levy-Hinte
Monday, June 29th, 2009
Soul Power just won the Doc Audience Award at the LA Film Festival. The film is an extension of the Oscar-winning doc When We Were Kings, that film focusing on The Rumble In The Jungle fight with the remarkable concert that also happened as a side story. This film brings that concert of 35 years ago in Kinshasa, Zaire to life. Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, established indie producer and first-time director here sat down for a 30 minute chat…
The complete video interview in QT after the jump…
Isn't It Enough…
Monday, June 29th, 2009… that CNN Is going wall to wall with Michael Jackson coverage… which I almost understand. I mean, we’ve been here before with the world-changing Anna Nicole Smith saga… so at least this guy actually added something other than tits to the culture.
But do they need to keep claiming that every word that falls out of anyone’s mouth is “BREAKING NEWS?”
I’m pretty sure that live footage of American troops invading Iraq is Breaking News. I’m pretty sure that a newly announced Supreme Court ruling is Breaking News. I’m pretty sure that there may be some breaking news in a presidential press conference, though not always. But people – mostly ghouls and leeches – speculating about a dead superstar without any new news breaking for many hours… not.
Weinstein Butt Boy, Roger Friedman, Angles For A Settlement
Monday, June 29th, 2009The irony of Roger Friedman’s idiotic suit against Fox News/News Corp is that by looking away from Roger’s incredibly porous journalistic standards for so long, the many reasons other than the Wolverine foolishness to fire Roger can’t really be brought into play in defending this claim.
It’s a very similar road to the one that Nikki Finke took years ago when she sued The NY Post for firing her for cause – on a fact which she still doesn’t admit she was wrong about, but was, 100% – and claimed that Disney was colluding with the paper to have her fired. The case was not quickly thrown out of court, and after a few years, quietly settled. Nikki claims to have “won,” but as with all things Nikki, the facts about her actions are not available to anyone other than her and she is free to spin them into whatever variation of the truth she likes. (Only recently have other journalists been so comfy selling the hype… as they want, as the old When Harry Met Sally joke went, what she’s having. The joke was funny, even if the orgasm was fake.)
If Friedman is suing for $5 million, you can be sure that he and Martin Garbus are looking to walk away with something a million dollar settlement, paid to make it go away. He likely picked the Scientology angle because their organization doesn’t much like to be forced into the public eye. And by angling his case by positioning a wealthy Scientologist – who recently lost a child and wants to be out of the public eye – as his victimizer, he’s probably hoping that $1 million means so little to The Travoltas that they will pay to make it go away.
Roger is scum. Has been for as long as I’ve known of him. His very first spoken words to be were outright lies and scurrilous attacks. Little has changed. May he receive all that he deserves.
BYOB Monday Pre-Indy Day
Monday, June 29th, 2009Eye Off The Prize
Monday, June 29th, 2009I am amazed that the drum keeps getting beaten for the idea that Google and aggregation in general is what is killing Old Media.
The formula for fixing this, as much as it can be fixed, is incredibly simple.
Syndication of content leads to an uncontrolled spread of page views on your copyrighted material. Want to read an AP story? Every paper they syndicate to has a website and as an aggregator, you have the choice of who you are going to give page views to every time you create a link. If the AP wants to stop that and wants to take advantage of views of their material, they need to stop syndicating… or at the very least, force the use of their copyrighted materials behind locals walls in each market and only offer a national link via a site of their own.
Now, the direct result may be that local news organizations place a lower financial value on the AP wire than before and they try to make deals for similar content with Reuters or other content providers. But that is business competition.
I am completely sympathetic to the fact that these businesses got to make money coming and going in recent years, facing no serious competition outside of one or two major competitors, with whom they split the giant pie. But that is over.
The second major step is to push a very specific set of rules that the Old Media companies feel constitutes Fair Use. But it needs to be a fair set of rules.
My suggestion is 500 characters that includes the original headline, a byline, and a date and time of publication, as well as a link to the original material. That would be something like:
Impressionist Fred Travalena dies at 66
BY ZACHARY R. DOWDY
zachary.dowdy@newsday.com
9:23 PM EDT, June 29, 2009
Travalena died Sunday at his Encino, Calif., home of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was 66.
By some counts, he could mimic more than 150 famous people.
The Associated Press reported that Travalena, who also sang and acted, reached headliner status at the Stardust Resort and Casino in 2001, a year before the lymphoma first hit. He beat cancer twice but succumbed to the latest attack, which resurfaced about eight months ago, said his publicist, Roger Neal.
If you wanted to use a pull-quote without the rest, max 150 characters:
Travalena died Sunday at his Encino, Calif., home of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was 66.
By some counts, he could mimic more than 150 famous people. (Newsday/AP)
Real simple.
Vassup, Bruno
Monday, June 29th, 2009 |
Note: this column treads into spoilery territory. So if you want to stay pure forBruno, then avert your eyes!
When Da Ali G Show premiered on HBO, I remember where I was and who I was with. It was a seminal comedic moment in my life, changing the verynature of what I thought humor could do. Sure, I’d seen The Daily Show mock the news before, but this was more aggressive and dangerous; if Jon Stewartwas Bill Cosby, then Sacha Baron Cohen was Richard Pryor.
Cohen made a game of seeing how people would react to the buttons he pushed in his various guises. What did people’s reactions to him say about them and their values? More than that, what do their reactions say about the country we live in? Not the usual questions brought up by a half-hour comedy show.
With the spin-off film Borat, Cohen tackled the very real issues of being a foreigner in America — how to fit in and how easily one can be taken advantage of. The most terrifying and hilarious aspect of that film was the way in which people felt like they could espouse their opinions to this simpleton, hoping to impress upon Borat their own worldview. It wasn’t that they genuinely wanted to teach Borat how to be an American, but how to be a real American like them so that this foreigner would be less threatening.
The aim of Bruno is a bit different. Of course, it is still about trying to point out hypocrisy and intolerance, but the character of Bruno is also a lot more in-your-face and confident. Where Borat mumbled politely, Bruno yells proudly. If Borat was about fear of the “other” in the form of an “Arab-looking” man, then Bruno is about that very same fear in the form of a flamboyantly homosexual and shallow man. Both of these characters are far from innocent, but compared to some of the people they encounter, they almost seem wholesome.
There is a bit in Bruno, where the main character is talking to parents of toddlers about what is and is not acceptable if Bruno chooses their kid for a possible photo shoot. “Does your child like lit phosphorus?” “He loves it!” Around the time when one mother says that a week is plenty of time for her toddler daughter to lose ten pounds and that she’d be open to liposuction to get those last few pounds off, it dawned on me that this was not funny. I don’t think Sacha Baron Cohen thinks it’s funny either. It’s amazing the way he gives these parents enough rope to hang themselves, gently prodding them off a cliff like lemmings; I would be surprised if Child Protective Services doesn’t contact a few of the parents from this scene. But, I was amazed at the way in which my laughter started to become more of an uncomfortable giggle as the scene progressed from one that was strictly humorous to one that makes me say, “holy shit, my country is damaged.”
There are quite a few moments like this in the film and to spoil them all would sap a lot of the enjoyment from you. The wonderful thing about the film, however, is that it’s hard to tell sometimes who is in the wrong. At first, it seems as if Ron Paul is being homophobic and unnecessarily angry when he feels he is being hit on by Bruno; however, when Bruno finds himself in a similarly uncomfortable situation later on at a swinger’s party, we see the other side of it. Of course, this does not excuse some of the language that Ron Paul uses.
There seems to be a lot more scripted action in this film than there was in Borat, rather than extended scenes of Bruno just talking to regular folks. But as in Borat, the film excels when Bruno is playing the interviewer. Whether he is confusing “hummus” and “Hamas” while interviewing an ex-Mossad agent and a Palestinian politician or he’s convincing Paula Abdulto sit on some Mexican…uh, “chairs,” the film really makes its most cogent points in these scenes. When the Israeli and the Palestinian both agree that hummus is healthy and delicious, Bruno astutely points out that they were finally agreeing on something. And as idealistic as it may sound, perhaps that’s the real trick, to find what makes us the same rather than what sets us apart.
There’s been some outcry lately that Bruno is a caricature of homosexuality and that he is doing a disservice to the cause of equality. I would have to disagree vehemently with that assessment; Bruno is a fool, to be sure, but it’s the people around him that come across as most foolish. Nothing should make straight Americans more embarrassed than the scene at the end of the film, set in a wrestling ring. People get angry enough that they get violent rather than turning away from what they don’t want to see. It reminds me of every time I heard someone say, “I don’t care what they do in their own homes, but not on my streets!” Well, maybe it’s because I live in New York City, but I always felt like nobody was forcing me to see anything. We have the option of turning away if we see something we don’t like.
But the character of Bruno is clearly not representative of all homosexuals and the fact is that he’s buffoon that happens to be gay. I don’t think anybody with half a brain will walk out of this film and say to themselves, “yep, that’s what all them gays are like.” Nor do I expect anyone to become more homophobic as a result of seeing this film. In fact, because of the way Bruno talks with a “gay converter,” it may actually convince some folks of the pointlessness of being homophobic.
All that political stuff aside, this film is seriously hilarious. I found it to be funnier than Borat in almost every conceivable way. Not only were the jokes more hit than miss, but I laughed harder at them. The film covers a lot of ground in 82 minutes, dissecting celebrity, the fashion world and homophobia. You may have noticed that I haven’t discussed the “plot” of the film; well, that’s because it’s barely there. Basically, Austrian TV host Bruno becomes an embarrassment in the European fashion world and comes to America to be a celebrity, with the help of his assistant’s assistant Lutz (Gustaf Hammarsten), who has an unrequited crush on Bruno. Hammarsten nearly steals the movie too, providing enough pathos and soul to remind us of the wonderful work he did in Lukas Moodysson’s Together and I couldn’t wait to get home to make sure it really was the same actor.
Sacha Baron Cohen is in a league of his own as a comedian and a performer and where he goes from here is difficult to judge. It would seem nearly impossible for him to make another film in this vein again, as he’s far too recognizable at this point. It will now be interesting to see him make the transition into a regular film star in a scripted movie. Clearly, he has the talent to do it and an amazing ability to stay in character no matter what, but I also think maybe it’s possible for him to make another one of these. If there’s anybody smart enough to figure out a way how, it’s him.
10 Best Picture Nominees
I just wanted to say something briefly about the Academy’s decision to double the number of Best Picture nominees to ten. My first thought was: that is unbelievably stupid. But now that I’ve thought it over, I’ve come to the following conclusion: it’s not like the Academy is in the habit of making “smart” decisions. I can’t really get up in arms over this when the Academy nominated at least one terrible movie every year when there were only five nominees. Now, you could say that they will nominate even more terrible movies, but I’m not so sure. If the Academy had ten Best Picture nominees last year, then I’m sure films like Doubt andRevolutionary Road and maybe even Let the Right One In or Wall-E would have been nominated and that wouldn’t be such a terrible thing.
Does this move devalue the worth of having a film nominated for Best Picture? Well, that would mean that there was some value in it to begin with. Aside from the amount of DVDs that can be sold because of a sticker on a box, for me personally it makes no difference if a film is nominated for Best Picture or not; it won’t make me love a film any more or any less. The Academy will still continue to nominated films like The Reader and continue to ignore films like Hunger or Paranoid Park or A Christmas Tale, so I don’t really think all that much is going to change.
- Noah Forrest
June 29, 2009
Noah Forrest is a 26-year-old aspiring writer/filmmaker in New York City.
The opinions expressed in these columns are the writers and do not neccessarily reflect the opinions of Movie City News or any of its editors or other contributors.
LAFF 2009 Review: Weather Girl
Monday, June 29th, 2009
If Weather Girl had been made by a big studio, someone would have had the bright idea to cast Kate Hudson in the lead role of the Sylvia, the “sassy” weather girl on a Seattle morning show who loses it on live television after learning her boyfriend Dale (Mark Harmon), the “talking haircut” who’s the host of the show, has been cheating on her with his co-host.
As it is, Weather Girl doesn’t aspire to be much more than a slight romantic comedy, but Tricia O’Kelley (who also produced) brings a sharp, biting edge to the somewhat predictable plot that keeps it from feeling too sappy. Sylvia moves in with younger brother Walt (Ryan Devlin) and soon finds herself attracted to Walt’s best friend, Byron (Patrick J. Adams), who lives across the hall but seems to be perpetually in Walt’s apartment. Byron’s younger than Sylvia, though, so even though there are sparks flying between them, she deems him unsuitable for anything beyond a sexual dalliance. This is fine with Byron at first, but … well, you can guess what happens once these kids start connecting.
Weather Girl is looking to explore larger issues around women past their early 30s begin to be perceived as running out of time, both in careers and relationships. Faced at the age of 35 with having completely start her life over at a time when YouTube has made her outburst about Dale’s affair fodder for public amusement and mockery (and, in the process, made a mockery of any serious job prospects for her), Sylvia’s at first at a complete loss for how to move forward. A date with a dorky accountant (Jon Cryer) pretty much lays out Sylvia’s situation: she’s past the age of being able to afford to be too picky, and her life has now been reduced to the possibility of considering a business-like relationship with guys like this. Or is it?
The script mostly skims the surface of these ideas, though, never quite delving deep enough to seriously explore these real issues in a comedic or ironic way, instead opting for the safer (though far less interesting) realm of the rom-com, where all life’s problems are resolved in 90 minutes or less. It’s fine for what it is, but there’s nothing terrifically compelling going on here; it’s not quite edgy enough to break any barriers as an indie-type film, not quite shiny enough to be a true Hollywood-style rom-com, which leaves me not quite sure how to classify it.
I’d have liked, honestly, to see the edge a mind like Tina Fey’s or Sarah Silverman’s might have put to this concept, but as a slight, moderately amusing rom-com, Weather Girl’s fair-to-partly cloudy.
LAFF 2009 Review: Convention
Monday, June 29th, 2009
Documentary filmmaker AJ Schnack leads a team of filmmakers behind the scenes of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in his new film Convention. Although the convention was itself an historic occasion, ending with the first nomination of an African-American for the presidency of the United States by a major political party, this isn’t a documentary following Obama’s road to the White House, or even his road to the convention; rather, it’s a behind-the-scenes documentation of the vast amount of work and coordination it took the city of Denver to host this convention while assuring the safety and comfort of delegates, nominees and Denver residents.
With remarkable access behind-the-scenes (particularly given the security concerns), Schack and his team capture the human moments behind the convention machine: the young reporter assigned for her first-ever political beat to cover the convention; the editorial and writing staff of the Denver Post, working their asses off to capture this historic occasion happening in their own backyard while struggling to keep up with and compete against all the journalists from out-of-state; the city officials charged with organizing things at their end while coordinating with the team responsible for the convention itself, and a merry band of protesters there to remind those watching that the first step toward losing your freedoms is failing to use them.
