What a blast! This is the third year I’ve attended the festival, and it’s the third year the festival has taken over the wonderful Westwood Village for a week in late June. I saw big premieres, small indies, fresh comedies, and a handful of glorious documentaries, and of the twelve films I saw this week, only one was disappointing. I was extremely impressed with the work I saw at this year’s festival.

Opening Night Film: Wanted

I walked into Wanted expecting absolutely nothing, and I walked out giddy and breathless. The most popular movies of the last couple summers have been big bloated blockbusters like the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, which, for my money, had next-to-no entertainment value if it hadn’t been for Johnny Depp. A movie like Wanted is the crazy bad-ass action movie we’ve all been waiting for. It’s got the movement of Speed and the idiocy of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, all wrapped up in one neat package. The film truly has it all. An identifiable and unlikely protagonist, a simple but electric storyline, and one incredible action scene after another. It’s also a blast to watch Angelina Jolie having fun in a movie that takes itself far less seriously than the lame Lara Croft movies, but still allows her some exhilarating physical action. The first half of Wanted is perfect; the second half isn’t quite as good. But this is still one helluva ride, with director Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch) making a sensational U.S. debut. ***1/2 (out of ****)

Closing Night Film: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Guillermo Del Toro is a visionary in every sense of the word, and in no other film has he shown such depth to his imagination. While I’d be more partial to his quieter, more lyrical films The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army is, unlike anything I’ve seen this summer, an absolute feast for the eyes. From beginning to end there is one inventive creature after another, all inhabiting not one but two worlds, a mythical world and our world. Opening with a very cute scene with Hellboy as a young boy being told a story about the title’s very own golden army, the plot sets in when an ambitious leader of the spiritual world Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) targets our world to conquer, but Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and his comrades gang up to stop him. The plot, though, is almost beside the point because you’ll be going to this movie for the visuals, and there’s wondrous eye candy to be had here. The film took me back to 80’s fantasy like The Neverending Story, where we as an audience are transported into strange lands filled with various mythical creatures. The performances are all pretty good, with Perlman at his witty best and Goss coming off as a creepy and fairly threatening villain. Some things are a little forced, especially a subplot involving fiery Liz (Selma Blair) welcoming another young one to the clan of misfits. But there’s nothing like watching Del Toro, who for sure had a big fat budget to work with on this film, go absolutely crazy for two hours. This guy’s the real deal, and with Hellboy II, he promises even more great things for his future work. If Hellboy II looks this good, just imagine what The Hobbit is going to be like. ***

Summer Preview: Man on Wire

My favorite film of the festival, this documentary delves into the story of tightrope walker Phillippe Petit and his daring, ambitious, and absolutely frightening attempt to perform a high-wire routine performed between the two World Trade Center buildings in the summer of 1974. Director James Marsh (The King) smartly tells the story going back and forth between new recreated footage detailing the hours leading up to Petit’s feat and documentary footage retrieved from the trunk of one of Petit’s old cars showing Petit with his friends as he grew up learning to love the high-wire act. Marsh got interviews with everyone involved as well, and what plays out is more like a tense thriller than a documentary. Most of all, the joy of this film is in the enthusiasm of Petit himself, who recounts the event like a kid at the world’s largest candy store. ****

Summer Preview: Frozen River

The best narrative film I saw this week was the Sundance Film Festival winner of the Grand Jury Prize, a mesmerizing drama called Frozen River that features award-worthy performances and a tense storyline. Melissa Leo (21 Grams) plays a mother of two named Ray whose husband has just ran out on her. She’s working a dead-end minimum-wage job at the local 99 cents store, just desperately trying to keep up with payments on her house. Living on the Mohawk reservation between New York State and Quebec, Ray discovers a fast money scheme in which she takes illegal immigrants over the border. The film can be slow-moving at times, but director Courtney Hunt has such a strong grasp on the characters that we become immersed in their stories and relationships to the point of not wanting the film to end. Where the film goes go in the end is entirely unexpected and hugely satisfying. It’s really tiny films like this one that need the push, and if you were to see any of the films I’ve mentioned thus far, definitely keep an eye out for this one. ****

Summer Preview: Baghead

The Duplass brothers, who previously directed The Puffy Chair, return with this very unusual and surprisingly effective drama-horror-romance-comedy about a group of four actor friends who decide they will go to an isolated cabin for the weekend to sit around and brainstorm ideas for a movie they can all appear in together. While at the cabin, a certain creepy someone wearing a bag over his head looks to be stalking them during the night, but is it really someone threatening, or is it just one of the four friends playing a silly game? If one can get past the queasy camera movement, there’s a lot to like in this film. The performances and dialogue are all extremely natural, given that the four actors didn’t apparently have to memorize the screenplay’s dialogue and instead use it as a base to spring from. Each direction the movie takes is always surprising too, as the way the movie opens doesn’t necessarily dictate the direction it takes after the first few scenes have passed. The strangest aspect of the movie is how naturally funny it is for the first half or so, but we as an audience start to suspect something suspicious is going on with the figure outside the cabin, and the movie actually starts to become scary. The comedy earlier in the movie allowed us to get to know and like these characters. When their lives are potentially in danger, we’re scared for them. This little movie definitely isn’t for everyone, but it’s unlike anything I’ve seen before, and that’s saying a lot. ***1/2

Summer Preview: Choke

This unique and very funny comedy, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, and directed by first-timer Clark Gregg (an actor most recently seen in Iron Man) isn’t successful at all times, but it succeeds due to the fine performances. Sam Rockwell, who still somehow hasn’t been catapulted to the A-list, delivers yet another fine performance as Victor Mancini, a sex-addicted colonial park tour guide who like to meet people through choking in restaurants and having others save his life. His mother (a superb Anjelica Huston) has been committed to a mental institution, and he finds himself dividing his time between his job and visiting his mom. At the institution he meets a nurse (Kelly MacDonald) who may be the first girl in a long time he’s met that he actually may like and want to pursue. The film covers a lot of territory in its short running time, and it works best when it sticks to the tender relationship between Victor and his mother, especially in some flashback scenes that demonstrate how far his mother goes to keep him happy, and, well, keep him. Some of the outlandish material at the colonial park gets tired, as does the ongoing joke that all the old broads of the hospital look up to Victor like Jesus Christ. However, there’s a lot of worthwhile stuff here. It’s not Fight Club good, but it’s a very good film. ***

Summer Preview: The Wackness

In a film that feels like a dirty younger brother of Choke, The Wackness is a filthy, rambling, episodic, and hilarious trip into 1994 New York City (can this already be considered a period piece?), where young Luke (Josh Peck) develops a friendship with his therapist Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley) and an even closer relationship with his stepdaughter Stephanie (Juno’s Olivia Thirlby). It’s a summer-long coming-of-age tale, with Luke a drug dealer and Dr. Squires the drug buyer, and the two bond over endless nights and weekends trying to fight the boredom and insecurities they have in their lives. The movie would merely be a solid effort, no better, if it weren’t for the remarkable and joyous performance by Kingsley, who clearly has a whole lot of fun with his character. The movie lives or dies by his performance, and he is fantastic in this. The supporting cast all do fine jobs, even if they’re sometimes under-used, especially Mary Kate-Olsen in a weird and thankless role, and Famke Janssen as Kristin Squires, who smokes and squints through the majority of the movie saying a line of dialogue here and there. ***

Summer Preview: Encounters at the End of the World

This new documentary by the legendary Werner Herzog takes us to Antarctica and it’s as much about the journey Herzog took himself making this film as it is about the climate of Antarctica itself. There are moments of pure beauty, like when we’re taken down underneath the surfaces of the dark blue oceans to see some truly remarkable creatures of the deep, and there are hilarious moments like when Herzog asks a penguin expert, “is there such thing as insanity in penguins?” We’re taken to a small industrial town that doesn’t please Herzog very much, all the way to a giant living, breathing volcano that is only one of three of its kind in the world. It all amounts to not very much, but it’s enjoyable while it lasts. **1/2

Documentary Competition: Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story

This informative and exhaustively researched film tells the story of Republican political operative Lee Atwater who worked on the campaigns of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in the 70’s and 80’s and did all he could to make these men succeed no matter the cost, until a sudden brain tumor made him start re-thinking his values in life. Director Stefan Forbes claimed in the Q&A that this film is as indie as they come, as it was brought to life by Forbes over the course of months and months on his little old laptop. His work is astonishing, with tremendous archival footage (some of which even details some of the work young George W. Bush did for his father during the 1988 campaign). ***

Documentary Competition: Paper or Plastic

Proof that the newly named “competition documentary” genre, which features such titles as Spellbound and Mad Hot Ballroom, can literally be about any activity, Paper or Plastic has a competition about bagging grocery bags as its focus. Yes, bagging grocery bags. I walked into this film very leery of its subject matter, ready to be possibly be bored out of my mind. Instead, I found myself just dumbfounded at how involved I became with the contestants’ dreams, fears, weaknesses, and hopes. Paper or Plastic clearly proves that great saying that a movie isn’t necessarily what it is about but how it is about it. In the wrong hands, this could’ve been a dreadfully dull movie. However, directors Alex D. da Silva and Justine Jacob managed to find some really compelling contestants and allow them plenty of time to just explain how life led them to grocery bagging. For the first half-hour, my mouth was dropped open just in the amazement that I was watching a movie with this subject matter. By the end, I was having a great time and looking forward to the outcome of the competition. ***

Narrative Competition: HottieBoombaLottie

The only movie this week that didn’t really work for me, HottieBoombaLottie (the annoying title should’ve warned me) works more as a “look-at-me” showcase for its 25-year-old writer-director-star Seth Packard. The movie is mostly an unoriginal and not very funny look at a high school teenager in love with the perfectly sweet Madison Sweet, who, upon returning from a summer vacation, he discovers is dating his older brother. The film has its share of cute moments, and Packard proves he could be a good actor in a film with a strong script, but here he just goes through the motions and offers little surprises (aside from quite a few underwear shots). The film also has some amateurish qualities about it, with some of the most obvious foley work I’ve seen in a long time. Not a big deal, but, hey, when that crap takes me out of a movie, I’m going to notice it. HottieBoombaLottie probably won’t be coming to a theatre near you anytime soon. **

Tribute Screening: The American President

The one special event I attended this week was a screening of the American President, preceded by a sit-down conversation with director Rob Reiner. While I feel like Reiner’s work of the last decade has been downright pathetic, he had an enormous successful run of great films in the 80’s and early 90’s that would make any modern filmmaker jealous, as, not only are they all good and great films, but they are also all over the place in terms of genre. Between 1984 and 1992, Reiner made This is Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, A Few Good Men, and my two personal Reiner favorites, When Harry Met Sally and Misery. After that great run, things got a little muddled with his effort entitled North, but he still had at least one more great film in him, and that film is The American President. I somehow managed to never see the film before this screening, and I absolutely loved it, particularly the great chemistry between Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. Reiner did reveal some interesting tidbits in his pre-screening discussion, which was done oddly enough with the mega-quote-whore-critic Pete Hammond (who, according to Criticwatch 2007, had a quote on a major new release for 24 straight weeks). He talked of how hard it was for him to transition from a TV actor to a film director, which, in the 70’s was a big no-no. He also told a funny story about Billy Crystal getting hit on by another man on the set of When Harry Met Sally, and how he and the marketing team had absolutely zero clue how to market The Princess Bride before its release. He also said that he’s been inundated with people over the last few months telling him how much they loved The Bucket List and have been watching it over and over again. I don’t know if I believe that last one. But boy, was it great to see this director in person. It’s time to revisit Misery again…