My Cucalorus 5 (in 5 words or less)

Here are my picks for this year's Cucalorus Film Festival and why they're must-see films, in five words or less.

#1: The Square. Arson, murder, adultery. Australian Fargo.
(11/12, 7:45 PM, Lumina)

#2: Big Fan. Patton Oswalt goes nuts.
(11/12, 10:45 PM, Lumina)

#3: The House of the Devil. Satanists terrify innocent '80s babysitter.
(11/13, 10:45 PM, Lumina)

#4: Americatown. America, abridged. With crazy legs.
(11/13, 4:30 PM, City Stage)

#5: Calvin Marshall. Funny, great soundtrack. Plus baseball.
(11/14, 7:15 PM or 11/15, 10:30 AM, Lumina)

For your consideration, here's all the trailers:

Hall of (Not So) Awesome: The Worst Films of 2008

I'd like to say I did a fairly good job of weeding out the bad movies beforehand, thanks to sites like The A.V. Club and Rotten Tomatoes. But I still found myself subjected to some truly horrible movies this year, and though I was thankfully spared from dreck like The Happening and Witless Protection (the A.V. Club's top two worst movies of the year), I was still able to find five films unworthy of the celluloid they were printed on...

5. Hancock (dir. Peter Berg)

Let me begin by saying that Hancock itself was not a bad movie. Rather, the second half of Hancock is a bad movie. For the first hour, we are presented with a wildly funny, wholly unpredictable look at a reluctant superhero being molded into something more presentable by a struggling PR man. That PR man is played by Jason Bateman, who needs to be in more movies, the opposite of which can be said about Charlize Theron, who is practically invisible throughout the first half, but sadly dominates all of the second, going so far as pushing star Will Smith out of the spotlight. While more of the blame needs to go to the screenwriters for making Theron spout all this unnecessary back story and superhero mythology, claiming that (SPOILER) she and Smith are immortal alien lovers, even though nothing resembling chemistry occurs between the two actors. Bottom line is Hancock was one or two rewrites away from being a solid superhero movie. Close, but no cigar.

4. Saw V (dir. David Hackl)

I got to hand it to the Saw guys; they keep finding imaginative ways for Tobin Bell to reappear in films, even though he was killed off in the third one. His demise came too early, anyway; he always seems to be the only good actor to appear in these new installments. Saw V certainly didn't do anything to change that theory, with Costas Mandylor taking over Bell's role as the new Jigsaw killer, making Shawnee Smith the 2nd Most Boring Person to Replace Jigsaw (there have only been two). It doesn't help that the killer and the protagonist (Scott Peterson) look a lot alike, and are both equally flat actors. The film does a nice job revisiting the haunted house motif that made Saw II tolerable, but it's simply a case of too little, too late. Just reanimate Bell's corpse already!

3. Mamma Mia! The Movie (dir. Phyllida Lloyd)

Yes, I somehow found myself in a screening of Mamma Mia!, which brought the average age of the audience I was with down about 20 years. It was a clear mistake, too, as a film in which Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan walking to the bank to deposit their paycheck for working on this film would've been much more entertaining. They would've retained their dignity, anyway, as Mamma Mia! required most of the cast to flail around like idiots (and not just during the dance numbers), scream incessantly whenever meeting someone, and in the end credits, donning the most misguided costumes ever conceived:


I know I wasn't the target audience for this film, but then again, I wasn't the target audience for Hairspray either and I loved it.

2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (dir. Steven Spielburg)

I almost feel sorry for including this movie on the list; haven't Spielburg and Lucas suffered enough for their crimes?

No, no they haven't. As long as this film contains CGI prairie dogs, nuclear bomb-proof fridges, sword-wielding Russian psychics, a failed attempt at a sidekick franchise, and the award for Worst Use of John Hurt in a Movie, no punishment will be too harsh for this disaster of a film, not even South Park's scathing attack on Lucas and Spielburg in the episode "The China Problem":



1. Deadgirl (dir. Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel)

If I had seen this film during my time as a programmer for Cucalorus, I would've given it a bad mark and that would've been that. But somehow this film went through our screening process unscathed and was given a prime midnight slot at this year's festival. Anticipation was high and everyone was excited about seeing the next word in American horror movies. Well, we're still waiting for the next word, because all we saw were two guys having their way with a female zombie in an abandoned insane asylum. That's the entire movie.

The guys stumble across the titular character, one of them decides to keep her as his sex toy, and mayhem ensues. At no point does the audience sympathize with anybody (except maybe the poor actress playing the dead girl), and directors Sarmiento and Harel keep creativity and originality to a bare minimum as they bombard the screen with all manner of sex and violence, ultimately signifying nothing. Some of the women in the audience were enjoying themselves, apparently finding some misguided sense of empowerment from scenes in which the dead girl gets her revenge on the male protagonists, but by that point, I simply wasn't up to watching the rest of this bloody train wreck, so I ended up leaving the theater, ashamed that the people I worked for and trusted had decided to screen this horrible excuse for a movie.

Cucalorus Watch '08: The Aftermath

Well, Cucalorus 14 is said and done. Thanks to the recent political sea change, the mood at this year's festival was decidedly chipper and optimistic. As a result, politically charged documentaries like Crawford and Secrecy were skipped in favor of more lighthearted fare, such as Good Dick, a comedy about a young video store employee who becomes obsessed with the girl who stops by and rents nothing but porn, and We Are Wizards, a documentary delving into the wide span of Harry Potter fandom.



The eccentric characters of Chicago were represented in a pair of documentaries, one of whom was present for this year's festivities. Vincent: A Life in Color, directed with an experienced eye by first-time filmmaker Jennifer Burns, follows Vincent P. Falk, who takes breaks during his programming job to dress up in flamboyant suits and dance on the bridges of the Windy City for the benefit of passing tour boats. Burns premiered the film at Cucalorus, and brought Vincent (as well as her editor, Christine Gilliland) with her. Vincent proved to be a fascinating figure, both on film and at the festival. He and Burns frequented many of the films my friends and I did, including Wesley Willis's Joyrides, a doc about a similarly eccentric Chicago figure, albeit with a somewhat more tragic story. Willis achieved modest success for his mathematically-precise artwork, but it was his disjointed and offbeat music (which has appeared in Super Size Me and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law) that made him a star of the underground rock scene. Directors Chris Bagley and Kim Shively spent equal time focusing on Willis's art and his music, as well as the strange circumstances that turned this sometimes-homeless, borderline-schizophrenic into a household name, until his death in 2003 due to leukemia.

4 Films (and 5 Shorts) You Should Probably See At Cucalorus 14

The 14th annual Cucalorus Film Festival has arrived and, as with the presidential election, change is in the air. Unlike last year, which focused more on big studio releases with an indie slant (Rocket Science from HBO Films, Control from The Weinstein Company), this year promises more truly independent productions with a larger amount of attending filmmakers to discuss their work. Some of the bigger names in attendance are Jason Ritter, the star of the quirky comedy Good Dick; Emily Hubley, director of the breakthrough live-action/animation hybrid The Toe Tactic; and Kelly Reichardt, the director of Old Joy, the hit of Cucalorus 12, and this year’s entry, Wendy and Lucy. But the real meat-and-potatoes of Cucalorus has always been the films themselves, and with that in mind, here are four features (and one block of shorts) that I think will be more than worth your time.

Deadgirl (dir. Marcel Sarmiento & Gadi Harel)
When two young men discover a female corpse in the basement of an abandoned asylum, they decide that she is a prize worth keeping in this sick and twisted hybrid of horror and black comedy. Cucalorus’s website promises this one will be the most talked-about film of the festival, and with both of the directors present to give a Q&A, it’s the one film you can’t afford to miss.

Deadgirl will be shown with short film Ashes Friday, November 14, Midnight, in Thalian Hall, Main Stage.

Lightning Salad Moving Picture (dir. Kenneth Price)
If you attended any screening at Cucalorus last year, you’ve probably met The Superkiiids, a trio of improv comediens who specialize in absurdist humor and bizarre sketches. Well this year, they are proud to present their feature-length debut, in which the Kiiids are faced with the challenge of creating Back to the Future Part IV. It’s a premiere screening that’s guaranteed to be insane, with director Kenneth Price and The Superkiiids on hand afterwards for a Q&A.

Lightning Salad Moving Picture will be shown with the music video “Me-I” by TV on the Radio Saturday, November 15, 4:30 PM, in Thalian Hall, Black Box.

Los Cronocrímenes (Timecrimes) (dir. Nacho Vigalondo)
Director Nacho Vigalondo introduced himself to America with a short entitled 7:35 in the Morning, in which he stars as a man who holds a café hostage and forces the customers and staff to put on a musical number in order to impress a pretty woman who frequents the place. It was simultaneously hilarious and poignant, and ended up getting an Oscar nomination for best live action short. His feature-length debut promises to dispel with the dark humor in place of brooding suspense and twisted imagery as a man accidentally travels an hour into the past and must deal with his former self who is trying to kill him.

Los Cronocrímenes will be shown with short The Mark Thursday, November 13, Midnight, in Thalian Hall, Main Stage.

Wendy and Lucy (dir. Kelly Reichardt)
Old Joy director Kelly Reichardt returns with this heartfelt look at the relationship between a young drifter (Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams) and her dog (played by Reichardt’s real-life pet labrador). Produced by I’m Not There director Todd Haynes and featuring gorgeous cinematography by Sam Levy, Wendy and Lucy is an American indie classic. Reichardt will be giving a Q&A after the screening.

Wendy and Lucy will be shown Saturday, November 15, 7:30 PM, in Lumina Theater at UNCW.

Glass Coffin Shorts
A police deputy and his passenger stumble upon an insane aslyum where the patients have taken over. Four young friends go on a holiday that soon turns into a macabre nightmare. A culture war is set off in a miniature train shop. An epic 1988 clay animation film is given a much-deserved revival. What more can be said about this amazing block of exceptional short films? Oh, how about all of them have Q&As afterwards?

Glass Coffin Shorts will be shown Friday, November 14, 10:00 PM, in Thalian Hall, Black Box.

Keep in mind that this is just a fraction of the awesomeness at this year's festival. There's also The Toe Tactic (Thurs. 3:45 PM), Good Dick (Thurs. 7:30 PM), Wesley Willis's Joyrides (Thurs. 10:30 PM), We Are Wizards (Fri. 10:15 AM), A Good Day to Be Black and Sexy (Fri. 7:15 PM), The 27 Club (Fri. 9:45 PM), Nerdcore Rising (Fri. 10:15 PM), Absurdistan (Sat. 7 PM), Linkeroever (Sat. 9:45 PM) and tons more. Also, don't miss my short documentary Firewall of Sound as part of the UNCW Visions '08 collection of student films, Wed. at 2:45 PM in Jengo's Playhouse.

Cucalorus Watch '08: Lessons Learned from Being a Programmer

It's official. The 14th annual Cucalorus Film Festival is one week away, and I am more than excited to see this year's films. This year, I was invited to be a programmer, and ended up watching over 50 feature-length films from every corner of the globe, from South Korea and Australia, to Germany and Austria. In the end, only four films I saw actually ended up in the festival, giving you a good example of how competitive it is (over 1,000 entries, shorts and features, were submitted this year, but only 145 will be screened). Coming away from the experience, I have amassed a list of do's and don'ts (mostly don'ts) for aspiring filmmakers, based on the majority of the films I had seen:

1. Avoid spelling things out. Take out blatant exposition and let the audience deduce things out on their own. They’re smart. They’ll figure it out.
   
2. Avoid “realistic” conversations if they don’t advance the plot. Quentin Tarantino wrote the “royale with cheese” bit, not you.
   
3. Make sure you record your dialogue well. It doesn’t matter how good the quality of the picture is. If the sound sucks, you’ve lost your audience.
   
4. Don't exploit a tragedy. If your lighthearted comedy can’t work without copious references to the ’92 L.A. race riots, then it can’t work.
   
5. Don't namedrop all your favorite movies into your characters’ dialogue. I don’t care how much you love Full Metal Jacket. Having your character recite the entire “This is my gun” speech isn’t going to help your movie.
   
6. Avoid having a character say the title of your movie unless it’s absolutely necessary to the script.
   
7. If you’re the director, don't put “a (your name) film” at the beginning. That privilege is reserved for people who actually have an Oscar nomination.
   
8. Don't insert a blooper reel into your end credits. You’d be surprised by how many people actually did this. Adding one is the same as saying “I know you hated my movie, but look at how much fun we had making it! Surely that must be worth something, right?”
   
9. Don't waste a lot of time and effort on the DVD sleeve. The best movies I saw came in unmarked slipcases and the discs had nothing but the title and the running time on them.
   
10. Don't use label-makers. Thick paper stickers make the discs hard to read in regular players and nigh on impossible in slot-loading players.
    
11. Finally, the goofy little shorts you made with your friends may have been a big hit on YouTube, but so was “2 Girls 1 Cup.” Neither have any place at a film festival.

Alright, that was the end of my ranting. I'll be posting a list of movies to see this year, so stay tuned.

Oh, and one more time for those who missed it: VOTE!

Spotlight on Cucalorus: Three Movie Reviews in 75 Words or Less

Dirt Nap
(Director: D.B. Sweeney; Cast: John C. McGinley, Paul Hipp, D.B. Sweeney, Ed Harris, Moira Kelly, Pat Hingle, Janet Jones, Mark Moses, Rex Linn, Ned Bellamy, Vanna White; dirtnapmovie.com)

Road movies always have their share of clichés and obligatory scenes. Dirt Nap takes those preconceived notions and turns them on their collective head. When three middle-aged slackers decide to take a trip to Florida for a football game, their whole world gets turned around, and their lifelong friendship is placed under close scrutiny. A fine cast all around, and an especially fascinating cameo appearance by Ed Harris as an amputee carnival owner.

Old Joy
(Director/Writer/Editor: Kelly Reichardt; Co-Writer: Jonathan Raymond; Composer: Yo La Tengo; Cast: Will Oldham, Daniel London)

Quiet, provocative filmmaking. People think a movie like this should be boring, but it is anything but. Two men who haven’t seen each other in years spontaneously decide to take a trip to the mountain springs of Oregon. While no major revelations are made, the characters re-evaluate their relationship, and start to realize just how far they’ve come in the many years they’ve known one another. Beautiful cinematography, gorgeous score by Yo La Tengo.

Shortbus
(Writer/Director: John Cameron Mitchell; Original Score: Yo La Tengo; Cast: Sook-Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, Lindasy Beamish, PJ DeBoy, Raphael Barker, Peter Stickles; shortbusthemovie.com)

A sexual revolution has begun, and writer/director John Cameron Mitchell is its muse. From a story developed by his cast, Mitchell gives us sex as a joyous combination, not only of body, but of spirit. Hearts are broken and mended again. New sexual heights are reached. All who enter the Shortbus salon are freed from the depression and anxiety of a post-9/11 New York City. Once again, Yo La Tengo delivers the perfect musical accompaniment.

An excellent review of Shortbus may be found here.

Spotlight on Cucalorus: 13 Tzameti

The first narrative I've seen at Cucalorus, and also the most unsettling. In this French film, a poor roofer stumbles across a drug addict's plan to make some big money fast. Fortunately, the addict overdoses before he has the chance to collect, and the roofer is left with a striped envelope containing a train ticket and a hotel reservation. What follows is a sick and twisted multi-player game, where the winner is handsomely rewarded, but the losers...well, you can probably guess what happens to them:



Even though an American remake is already in the works (of course), I'm really glad I saw the original first. I'm sure any American studio would jump at the chance to jazz up 13 Tzameti's ridiculously simple, but riveting storyline. The only problem is the story needs no jazzing up. The film's low-budget, black-and-white production only adds to the look of the film's dark and dingy locations, especially the rooms in which the game takes place, where a single light bulb is the only indicator of whether you will live...or die.

Spotlight on Cucalorus: Al Franken: God Spoke

Day 2 of Cucalorus, and the documentaries keep on coming. The Al Franken biopic God Spoke was definitely more lighthearted fare compared to last night's proceedings, but it was still a very fun and very entertaining movie.

When Saturday Night Live alum Al Franken became the target of right-wing radio and TV personalities (maybe it's 'cause he named his first book Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot?), it set off an endless string of debates and yelling contests, usually between Franken and any combination of Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and Bill O'Reilly. Especially Bill O'Reilly. After O'Reilly and Fox News raised a ruckus over what they believed to be copyright infringement (Fox claimed a trademark on the words "fair and balanced," which were part of the title of Franken's new book), the courts threw out the case and Franken laughed all the way to the bank as the free publicity shot his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, to the top of the Amazon.com Best Sellers list.

The film begins with the release of Franken's book and the backlash it received, follows Franken as he haphazardly jumpstarts the first liberal radio station, Air America Radio (which, sadly, has since declared bankruptcy), and as he follows the Kerry campaign during the election of 2004. It's hard to watch the scenes where Franken seems so optimistic about Kerry's certain victory, knowing what surely lies ahead. And filmmakers Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus pull no punches. They show Franken's meltdown after Bush's re-election, ultimately leading to his decision to possibly run for Senate in Minnesota during the 2008 elections.



What I enjoyed most about this film is what I enjoy most about Franken: his sense of humor. He can always turn any depressing political situation into a scathing, satirical one-liner. Even when he's calling out radio personality Michael Medved or going one-on-one with Sean Hannity, he keeps his cool and lets the facts do the talking. Especially hilarious are his bits from Saturday Night Live, notably one in which Franken, as his Stuart Smalley character, consoles a depressed, post-election Al Gore. Also worth mentioning are his USO appearances in Iraq, one of which appears in the film. Franken, dressed as Saddam Hussein, tries to hit on JAG actress Karri Turner. Unfortunately, not much more of his USO tour is shown in the film, which is sad, because if his article about the tour, "Tearaway Burkas and Tinplate Menorahs," is any indication, there's a lot of extra material that's a whole lot funnier. I highly recommend anyone interested in more information on Franken to read that article, which can be found in the 2005 edition of The Best American Nonrequired Reading.

Overall, a solid documentary about a very funny man. For more information on the film, visit www.godspokefilm.com.

Spotlight on Cucalorus: The Trials of Darryl Hunt

Today marks the kickoff of Wilmington, North Carolina's premier independent film festival, Cucalorus, now in its twelfth year. The film that opened this year's festivities was the documentary feature The Trials of Darryl Hunt, and I can already tell you, it's going to be very, very hard to top this picture in terms of emotional impact from an audience.

The film relays the story of one Darryl Hunt, a 19-year-old black man who, in 1984, was convicted of raping and murdering a white woman in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. What followed were ten sad and horrifying years of judicial corruption, police incompetence, and outright bigotry, in a scandal that, if it hasn't yet rocked the judicial system of North Carolina to its very core, this film most certainly will. Even after DNA evidence proved Hunt's innocence in 1994, he still remained in prison for an additional ten years, due to the district attorney's stubborn belief that the DNA evidence was either contaminated or inconclusive, even though there was no evidence that either was true. Finally, on Christmas Eve of 2003, Darryl Hunt was released from prison and now walks free. The state gave him compensation for their wrongheadedness, but no amount of money can take back the 19 years of wrongful imprisonment this man has faced.

The Trials of Darryl Hunt is most certainly the best documentary I have seen all year. Yes, better than An Inconvenient Truth and Wordplay. I have always believed that, when the story and its people are handled with the proper respect and admiration, a documentary can be ten times more powerful than any narrative film could ever be. The only reason this film won't be nominated for a Best Documentary Feature Oscar is because it has not enjoyed even a limited release in select cities, a requirement that must be fulfilled before the end of the year. The general public is stuck with having to search far and wide for any film festival where this production is being screened. It's worth the time to look, believe me.

However, my screening of the film was unique, in that Darryl Hunt himself, as well as defense attorney Mark Rabil were present to answer any questions following the screening. The two did not appear until after the screening, prompting one person to ask if Hunt has the strength to view this film again. "No, I don't think I have it in me," he exclaimed. Countless questions were asked, emotions were charged. Hunt took questions asking for his future plans, his feelings toward the whole debacle, and Rabil answered questions relating to the litigation and specifics of the case, which Rabil had worked on since the court appointed him to the case in 1984. One interesting question was why there is no accountability when it comes to district attorney's making cases on fraudulent evidence or withholding evidence altogether, something that Hunt and Rabil experienced during both times their case went to trial (the second trial was in 1990). Rabil said that the three most important things people can do are to vote, serve in a jury, and support causes like Hunt's, who created the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice to help individuals, like him, who have been wrongfully accused of crimes, and to educate the public about flaws in the justice system.

Out of all of this, what struck me the most was how kind and pleasant Hunt seemed. Even while district attorneys were frothing at the mouth, begging juries to send down a life sentence, Hunt's face remained stoic. A man with a strong faith in God, as well as a strong faith in his peers, his friends, and his family. Surely, no stronger man has lived.

The Trials of Darryl Hunt did make the Academy's shortlist for Best Documentary Feature, but ultimately was not nominated for the award, in favor of films focusing on more current events, such as global warming and Iraq.

The film will, however, be shown on HBO in April 2007.