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Film Festival
Mar. 16th, 2004 12:00 pmThis year I got a South by Southwest Film Festival pass for the first time. Which means that for fifty bucks I get to watch all the movies I want for the whole week. I'm taking off Wednesday through Friday this week, and I've already seen six movies (not counting the one I watched at my sister's house yesterday).
I have to tell you that I am getting really tired of the following common movie themes: 1) making fun of people, 2) making the moves on other people's spouses, 3) jumping to conclusions about your friends. On the other hand, I have also learned a valuable lesson: Don't confuse the documentaries with the narratives. Yes, I already knew this from the whole "War of the Worlds" incident, but I went directly from "A League of Ordinary Gentlemen," a documentary about professional bowling, to "Mail-Order Bride," a fictional documentary, and got confused. It would have seemed a lot funnier had I known that the people were being stupid and horrible only for the humor value.
Best movie so far: "Saved!" This movie will open nationally, but probably not in many theatres because people are afraid that it's a Christian-bashing movie. Actually, it's only tangentially about Christianity, being set in a Christian high school. It's your basic coming-of-age movie where the characters deal with universal issues such whether to tell parents what the parents don't want to hear, how to deal with the fact that things aren't always black and white, and how hard it is to tell whether you are just rationalizing that what you want to do is actually the right thing to do. The director said the target audience is teenage girls, and there's plenty of teenager innuendo humor, but it's all deadpan, so you have to be paying attention. Which you may not be doing, because it's easy to get sucked into the stories of things going awry in serious ways despite one's best efforts. You know you want to see how Jesus might recommend premarital sex (Jena Malone), how to tap dance in a wheelchair (Macauley Calkin), and how to divert attention when necessary with a born-again episode (Eva Amurri).
Journal entry of the day - Guidelines for People Using the Grocery Store Self Checkout Line in Front of Me by Sour Bob - Half rant, half newbie FAQ. Warning: crude, filthy, and violent. But also funny, cathartic, and educational. "What you do not want to do here is either a) take the thing out of the bag (the machine hates that) or b) hit "Enter Store Code." Didn't I tell you about the [ahem] "Enter Store Code" button? You don't [ahem] work here, [ahem]. You touch that button even one more time and I'm going to grab that bag of Sun Chips off the impulse buy rack and I'm going to shove it so far up your [ahem], you'll be able to name the flavor."
I have to tell you that I am getting really tired of the following common movie themes: 1) making fun of people, 2) making the moves on other people's spouses, 3) jumping to conclusions about your friends. On the other hand, I have also learned a valuable lesson: Don't confuse the documentaries with the narratives. Yes, I already knew this from the whole "War of the Worlds" incident, but I went directly from "A League of Ordinary Gentlemen," a documentary about professional bowling, to "Mail-Order Bride," a fictional documentary, and got confused. It would have seemed a lot funnier had I known that the people were being stupid and horrible only for the humor value.
Best movie so far: "Saved!" This movie will open nationally, but probably not in many theatres because people are afraid that it's a Christian-bashing movie. Actually, it's only tangentially about Christianity, being set in a Christian high school. It's your basic coming-of-age movie where the characters deal with universal issues such whether to tell parents what the parents don't want to hear, how to deal with the fact that things aren't always black and white, and how hard it is to tell whether you are just rationalizing that what you want to do is actually the right thing to do. The director said the target audience is teenage girls, and there's plenty of teenager innuendo humor, but it's all deadpan, so you have to be paying attention. Which you may not be doing, because it's easy to get sucked into the stories of things going awry in serious ways despite one's best efforts. You know you want to see how Jesus might recommend premarital sex (Jena Malone), how to tap dance in a wheelchair (Macauley Calkin), and how to divert attention when necessary with a born-again episode (Eva Amurri).Journal entry of the day - Guidelines for People Using the Grocery Store Self Checkout Line in Front of Me by Sour Bob - Half rant, half newbie FAQ. Warning: crude, filthy, and violent. But also funny, cathartic, and educational. "What you do not want to do here is either a) take the thing out of the bag (the machine hates that) or b) hit "Enter Store Code." Didn't I tell you about the [ahem] "Enter Store Code" button? You don't [ahem] work here, [ahem]. You touch that button even one more time and I'm going to grab that bag of Sun Chips off the impulse buy rack and I'm going to shove it so far up your [ahem], you'll be able to name the flavor."