My favorite film of the festival, Billy the Kid is an absolute joy. It’s not the best-made film—not by a long shot—and it doesn’t deal with big issues like most of the other documentaries I’ve seen. It merely focuses on a 15-year-old outcast named Billy, who lives with his mother and younger brother in a small little place in Maine. He attends high school and has very few friends. There is nothing truly dramatic to his situation, and there’s very little arc in the story from beginning to end. And yet, this one’s my favorite so far.

It’s my favorite, basically, because of Billy. He’s one of the greatest characters I’ve encountered in a movie in a long time, and the whole experience of watching Billy the Kid is made all the better knowing that he’s a real person living out his life exactly how we see it on-screen. He has opinions on everything, tries his best to fit in, loves his mother, and is starting to get interested in girls. He is one-hundred-percent open to the camera with his feelings about all these issues, and he is deliriously lovable.

The movie is funny, sad, maddening, enthralling. It’s funny to hear what Billy will say next but sad when he feels hurt by what he said. It’s maddening when he can’t seem to make an impression on anyone or find anyone to take him in as a friend, but enthralling to see him when he does succeed and does get a friend, when he does get a girl to like him. This is a special movie about a unique individual that I won’t be able to get out of my head for a long time.

The Buffy Musical: Once More With Singing! A Big-Screen Interactive Extravaganza

Okay, Buffy fans, this is a little something called Heaven on Earth. We have waited for an event like this for years, in which fans of the show could finally come together and unite as one! The Buffy Musical Extravaganza, which is touring the country and not just playing this once in Los Angeles, is a lot of fun and a real delight for any fans of the show.

The festivities begin with the receiving of a goodie bag, which has such treats as poppers, kazoos, and monster finger puppets. When everyone was seated, the master of ceremonies, Mr. Clinton McClung, introduced the pre-show. Comprised of two music videos, a trivia section, and a clip that comprises seven seasons of Buffy down into about a minute, the pre-show flew by in a jiffy. McClung then went step by step outlining the rules of the Buffy Sing-a-Long. For Example, when Tara reaches her climax of her song, “I’m Under Your Spell,” use the popper. During Dawn’s ballet, fill the air with bubbles. Holds hands with a neighbor during “Where Do We Go From Here.” This audience interaction during the episode, my favorite of the series, was a blast, and it completely lent itself to making the episode all the more entertaining. I’ve never taken part in any sort of Buffy communal activity, so it was a real kick to finally sit in a room filled with rabid fans of the show, all there completely out of love.

After the show, McClung announced that a special guest was in the audience, and he brought writer Marti Noxon to the front of the stage. One of the better writers of Buffy, she also appears in Once More With Feeling, as the parking ticket lady. As much as I love Noxon, I was a little disappointed nobody else could be there. I was hoping for at least a cast member to show up. What about Amber Benson? What’s Emma Caulfield up to? It was then with great shock when Noxon announced, “ladies and gentlemen, Joss Whedon.” I jumped up out of my seat along with everyone in theatre and broke out into loud screams and applause. It was truly touching to see Mr. Whedon look clearly emotional (and baffled) at the rabid fan support for not just the Buffy sing-a-long but for him and the show in general. He made the night a truly memorable one. The Buffy Sing-A-Long was a blast!!

The Cool School

The most bland documentary of the festival, The Cool School is mostly a showcase for old artists to talk about their past work and their frustration at the lack of art in the Los Angeles area. I really didn’t find much of interest in this movie, and I found myself drifting off from time to time. The most pleasure I got from the film was seeing a Blue Velvet re-union, in which Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell are interviewed together to talk about the art movement of yesteryear. There really isn’t much to like or recommend about the film, and it’s really only worth seeing if you have a strong interest in the subject matter. If you enjoy hearing old men talk about art, go right ahead and seek out this movie. If you’d rather look for more daring, unique documentary subject matter, may I suggest any other documentary I saw at the festival.

Does Your Soul Have a Cold

This film takes an intimate look at a group of people in Japan suffering depression, so intimate in fact that I fell asleep about ten minutes into the movie and didn’t wake up until the credits rolled. From what I saw, this was a decent, quiet look at people dealing with a disease that they can’t shake in their every-day life. I can’t give a proper critique of this film, however, given that I slept through the most of it. The director seemed nice. The opening credits were stellar. Japan looked pretty. The seats in the Majestic Crest theatre are soooo damn comfy.

The Great World of Sound

This well-acted but rather mundane and visually blasé movie doesn’t really leave much of impression. Pat Healy plays Martin, who answers an ad about training to become a record producer and sign musicians who come off the street to audition for him and his partner. Even though he does fairly well at the job, it starts to become a little too much, and he soon realizes that the enterprise for the most part is a complete scam. Great World of Sound would’ve worked better as a short film or in written form, because as a full-length movie, the whole thing just gets monotonous after awhile. Healy does a pretty solid job, and Kene Holliday, who plays his partner Clarence, is by far the best thing about the movie. When the movie ends, however, you’re left with next to nothing, and overall, the journey is not worth taking.

The Hottest State

I won’t lie, I expected very little from this movie. I always get worried when actors become directors, especially one who is tackling material based on his very own novel. Thus, it is with great surprise to say that Ethan Hawke’s new film The Hottest State is a terrific movie.

It doesn’t hurt that Hawke got Catalina Sandino Moreno, one of the most beautiful and talented up-and-coming actress, to play the lead female of the role. The film is about an actor named William (Mark Webber) who meets a local singer (Moreno), and the two begin a tumultuous relationship that will put them both through a variety of emotions. She goes to him with Mexico on a film shoot and has an amazing time, but she starts to pull away after she gets back, fearing his ultra-fast and intense commitment to her.

The beauty of the film is in its rich dialogue and attention to detail. The film is clearly semi-autobiographical to director Hawke, and he allows the story to unravel slowly and take its time. The performances are all solid, with Webber and Moreno believable romance that becomes more and more tortured as the film goes along. Laura Linney pops up later in the movie in a glorified cameo that marks another great turn from her, especially in a dinner scene that feels reminiscent to many other dinners we all have experienced with our mothers. Hawke appears in the movie, too, and he gladly dials down his performance to suit the apathetic nature of the father character. Visually Hawke doesn’t go overboard a la Kevin Bacon in Loverboy, and he smartly allows for an ambiguous ending that doesn’t make any promises for either of the two main characters. The Hottest State is being released by ThinkFilm later this summer, and it’s definitely worth checking out.

How to Rob a Bank

Fast-moving but instantly forgettable, How to Rob a Bank nonetheless offers two solid performances from stars Nick Stahl and Erika Christenson. Almost the entire movie takes place inside a bank vault, in which Jinx (Stahl) and Jessica (Christenson) have been thrown into a situation out of their control and locked themselves in the vault. A bank heist has commenced, and they have to talk it out between each other what they need to do to get out.

There’s nothing in this movie we haven’t seen before, and there is nothing to really stick around for. The pay-off isn’t all that satisfying, and the characters outside of the vault are fairly one-dimensional. The joy of the movie, which isn’t quite enough to recommend it but enough to not come down too hard on it, is watching Stahl and Christenson chew the scenery, and each other. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Christenson this good or this sexy, and Stahl, who looks happy to take a break from more action-oriented films like Sin City and Terminator 3, is immensely watchable. Together they make a pedestrian movie far more entertaining than it would’ve been with lesser actors not up to the challenge.

Interview

Steve Buscemi directed this fine film that stars himself as a political journalist named Pierre who is forced to interview a B-grade movie actress Katya (Sienna Miller). What starts as an awkward sit-down interview in a restauarant culiminates in an evening spent together in her apartment. He discovers a need to actually get to know her outside of the work he has to do for the interview, and she has skeletons in her closet that she feels comfortable enough to reveal to Pierre.

The movie is worth seeing for the two electrifiying performances by the lead. It’s especially rare to see Buscemi in such a commanding leading role, and he never falters for a moment, always keeping us guessing if he truly is a caring guy or a sleezy journalist. Sienna Miller is just as good and keeps up with the main man as a Lindsey Lohan-type who is clearly lonely and unhappy. This could’ve been a clichéd role from beginning to end—a spoiled brat of a movie star who actually has a heart of gold and is just looking for a friend—but Miller keeps us guessing and never allows the character to get one-dimensional. At first it’s hard to believe that this kind of person would allow a journalist—even a seemingly good guy journalist—so close to her within just minutes after meeting her, but we soon discover her insecurities and realize that she really just needs someone relatable in her life.

Visually the movie is very simplistic, with the camera usually just hovering around the characters like a voyeur. Buscemi smartly doesn’t make the movie too cinematic and instead just allows the performances to unravel on-screen. There is a shocking amount of material in Katya’s giant apartment—at least seventy-five-percent of the movie—but the strong material and excellent blocking by the director keeps the events moving. Interview is well-worth seeing, particularly for the solid acting and both funny and poignant writing.

Join Us

This creepy little documentary, in the same vein as last year’s masterpiece Deliver Us From Evil, takes us to an evil place where parents are brainwashed into thinking the only way their children are going to get into Heaven is if they do horrible things deemed right by their minister. Filmmaker Ondi Timoner is given instant access to the parents after the fact, as well as the minister himself, who doubts that he’s ever done anything wrong. He took advantage of these innocent people and their children out of his own bizarre satisfaction, but in every capacity he tries to make himself look like the good guy. It seems bizarre from the get-go when specialists refer to the minister’s practice as a cult, since the parents all seem to be reasonably sane and look perfectly normal. However, that’s exactly what it is, because the man took these people and slowly morphed them into his children, so to speak, to let him do whatever he wanted with them. The only thing the film lacks is a focus on just how these people managed to be manipulated in such a drastic way, but other than that, this is an interesting, eerie film.

Jump!

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Going against what I said before, there’s nothing wrong with the competitive documentary genre. I was merely happy that Resolved didn’t just become that, because there was a lot more to explore in that film. Jump, however, is a purely competitive kind of movie, and it’s all the better because of it. This is a surprisingly exciting look into the sport of jump roping. Coming from a first-time director, this was clearly a film made mostly in the editing room. It never stops to take a breath—we move fast from team to team around the country as they prepare for national competition, and we get swept up in the stakes for each participant. We’re taken through nationals, all the way to the world championship, where even more is up for grabs. Especially moving is the story behind a little girl who suffers from a mild form of asthma, who nonetheless dedicates herself every day to jump roping. The arc of her story is really special and the heart of the movie. I see Jump having a pretty bright future with audiences down the line.

Kabluey

Here is one of the strangest, funniest surprises of the festival. Salmon, played by the film’s writer-director Scott Prendergast, has it rough—he’s homeless and broke. To make ends’ meet he has to stay with his brother’s sister Leslie (Lisa Kudrow) and baby-sit her kids, which sounds far easier than what occurs on-screen. They are the biggest brats on the planet, and they’re bound and determined to kill him any chance they get. To make matters worked, he finds and takes a part-time job that is just about the most ridiculous, pointless position on the planet.

I had trouble at first trying to accept a movie that had serious undertones about the Iraq war but also tried to make us laugh from beginning to end with other subject matter, but the combination works surprisingly well. The comedic aspect of the movie definitely works better than the serious aspect, because the tone of the movie is just so absurd. There is a fairly powerful moment when Leslie takes a long walk and starts breaking down crying over her current stressful situation. This moment, while fairly powerful in this movie, would’ve worked a lot better in a more serious movie. However, it’s commendable for Prendergast to even attempt the kind of comedy-drama dance he does here, for the most part, effectively.

It’s also just a treat to see Kudrow again. Since Friends ended, she’s only appeared in one film—Don Roos’s Happy Endings. She is a welcome addition to any movie, and it’s a delight to see her again here.

The Last Winter

Never before have I seen such a great movie falter so much in the final ten minutes that everything that came before seems almost not worth congratulating. Directed by Larry Fessenden, the film has a lot of tension and atmosphere throughout its running time, and the majority doesn’t rely on any sort of computer-generated effects.

Set in the Arctic region of Alaska, the film tells of an oil company’s advance team who are sent to a small camp to establish a drilling base. The group of six or seven begin to hear strange noises from outside, and, when one of the team ends up frozen to death outside, they all begin to become suspicious of each other and dread the possibility of what may lie outside their camp.

Fessenden does a terrific job racketing up the tension. What begins as a glorified Sci-Fi Channel movie becomes better and better as it progresses, with a handful of brilliant scary moments. The actors are all pretty good, and the sense of dread is almost unbearable by the time the third act rears the corner. In the final few minutes, however, we finally see the creature that lurks outside, and the outcome of the two main characters is finally determined, and it’s about as effective and scary as an episode from the fourth season of the Goosebumps television show. It undermines what otherwise is a pretty stellar horror film.

Prison Town, USA

This quiet and affecting documentary is set in Susanville, California. The town used to be filled with possibilities, with jobs in the lumber mills and dairy farms, but now, people have just one major job prospect—employment at one of the four prison facilities in the nearby area. Prison Town, USA, not only explores the problematic economic issues but also gives us glimpses into the lives of various families who are faced with the town’s limited possibilities. The most moving story involves a family of five, whose father stole twenty-eight dollars worth of groceries and was sent to prison for 16 months. His wife barely manages to feed her kids while he’s gone, and when he is released, he struggles to find work in Susanville outside of the prison system. The filmmakers also got access to the prisons themselves, where we see up close the relationship between the prisoners and prison guards. It’s obvious not many of the guards want to be there—they simply have no choice but to work at this job and be able to feed their families. It’s an eye-opening, heart-breaking film.

Resolved

An exhausting but fascinating look at high school debate, Resolved moves faster than most action-adventure movies. The film looks at different groups of debaters, starting with prominently white schools, but the film changes focus and becomes all the better for it when Richard and Louis, two African-American debaters, become the forefront in the material. Knowledgeable and intelligent, but also filled with far more experience than any of the other debaters, they come to the stand with courage and passion, outlining their points not based off of a piece of paper but from memory and heart. It’s no wonder they keep winning debate after debate and ultimately become the #1 debaters of their state—they’re about more than just the strategy.

Director Greg Whiteley, who directed the similarly excellent New York Doll, doesn’t fall into the clichés of making one of those competitive documentary films, a la Spellbound and Wordplay, but instead focuses on the characters and issues at hand. He’s not interested in who wins or loses the debates, and neither should we. While the actual debates themselves get a little tiring after awhile, this film has a lot to offer and is well-worth checking out.

Rocket Science

Succeeding about half as much as the documentary on the exact-same subject matter, the previously mentioned Resolved, Rocket Science is a nonetheless entertaining look at a shy boy who joins his high school debate team. The performances are universally great here, particularly lead Reece Daniel Thompson, who is immensely likable and vulnerable. Nicholas D’Agosto, the cutie from Election, shows up here in the beginning and end of the film and leaves an impact, playing a master debater who suddenly quit and disappeared. This film is definitely trying to be Napoleon Dynamite and it works much better when it just tries to be honest. Having premiered at Sundance, the film definitely has that Sundance mentality, that quirky independent feel. But unlike Little Miss Sunshine, this one doesn’t stay with you for very long. It’s a good film, just not a great one.

Shorts Program #3

This shorts program featured an eclectic group of six films, with one masterwork, one disaster, and four decent others. The film to seek out from this group is an animated short called Love and War, a dazzling little stop-motion animated short that features animals singing opera while a tragic love story unfolds. It’s absolutely gorgeous and features a haunting musical score. I don’t know if this one’s on the Internet anywhere, but definitely try to find it.

The rest of the shorts aren’t really worth writing home about. The best one next to Love and War is Dear Lemons, which doesn’t really go anywhere but features terrific performances from its child actors. The director clearly has a knack for interesting characters, and I was delighted to hear in the Q&A afterward that she was expanding this short into a feature. Mariel Hemingway appears in a short that has a neat concept but goes on far too long, and a film entitled Happiness left me with none of that by the time the credits rolled. The only real dog in the bunch, however, is a pretentious short called English Language (with English Subtitles). I felt its intentions were noble, but the one-joke scenario doesn’t support the flat story. Without the gimmick of having subtitles tell us what all the characters are thinking, there wouldn’t be much to sustain our interest in the actual story. And it’s LOOONG.

Trigger Man

The big giant turd of the festival, Trigger Man gives horror a bad name. The film tells of a group of three friends who go out to the woods to hunt for deer, when, suddenly, they become the hunted, with a sniper taking shots at them. Okay, I know what director Ti West is trying to do with the movie, trying to capture the reality of the situation through long takes and moments where people don’t talk and nothing seems to be happening. And I’ll even give West a little credit for succeeding as much as he does with the limited resources.

But this is a bad film. It’s a 10-minute movie stretched to 80 minutes. You don’t care about any of the three main characters, so it’s hard to get worked up when they started getting whacked. West seems more interested in having the audience member put himself in the position of the characters’ struggle for survival, but that noble idea can only go so far. There is a moment toward the end where we follow a character walk with his gun at his side, in one very long take, where nothing happens except for noises behind heard here and there. This is an effective visual and auditory idea for the scene in question, but it goes on FOREVER, and after awhile, the suspense starts to dissipate and all we’re left with is boredom. This can’t possibly be the strongest horror film that the Los Angeles Film Festival has to offer. There’s no fucking way.

What We Do is Secret

This loud, annoying biopic thinks it’s far more important than it actually is. The film tells the story of Darby Crash, lead singer of the punk bad The Germs in the late 70’s, who lives his life fast and dangerous, never looking back. The majority of the movie is comprised of concert footage that doesn’t really add a lot to the proceedings, and, for those who don’t really care for the music on display, the film becomes a hard sit after awhile. There are solid moments here and there filled with energy and spark, but they never amount to much. The supporting cast, including Bijou Phillips and Tina Majorino, is mostly forgettable, and the faux-documentary format, which has become tiresome as of late, just makes the movie feel extra pretentious.

The only real redeemable quality to the movie is the electrifying performance by Shane West, who sheds everything we knew about him from previous movies like Whatever It Takes and A Walk to Remember and delivers a raw, tortured portrayal. He deserved a better movie.

Wizard of Gore

Oops, I spoke too soon. Trigger Man isn’t the worst movie of the festival.

Wizard of Gore is one of the most unpleasant movies… scratch that… experiences I’ve had in a long time. This is an ugly, repulsive movie with absolutely no redeemable value. How director Jeremy Kasten attracted such actors as Kip Pardue, Bijou Phillips, and Crispin Glover is beyond me, and whoever thought this would be any good?

The script is TERRIBLE. There is nothing to keep you interested on a story level, and there isn’t one interesting thing about any character. Glover is entertaining for about thirty seconds, and then his schtick gets old real fast. I still can’t discern Phillips from other actresses. And Pardue, more bland here than ever, tries to make his character three-dimensional by dressing up as Clark Kent the entire movie.

The plot of the movie, involving a gory magic show that seems to culminate in the “fake” victims actually getting killed later on, could’ve lent itself to a fun guilty late-night pleasure. Instead, we get a disgusting, sexist, boring movie that pushes Trigger Man out of the way to become the bad seed of the LA Film Festival. Wizard of Gore is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, and you can be so lucky to never see it in a theatre near you.