2004 Florida Film Festival Coverage
"Off The Map" - a drama directed by campbell scott (who was present afterwards and did a Q&A with the audience). a gentle, bittersweet story of the trials of a family who lives "off the map" in the throes of the new mexican desert.
"Neverland: The Rise and Fall of the Symbionese Liberation Army" - a fascinating documentary about the SLA. while their hearts were in the right places in the beginning, their entire movement eventually degenerated into self-righteousness.
"Intermission" - ireland's answer to "amores perros". starring colin farrell and cillian murphy (the lead actor from "28 days later"), it's a multilayered romantic dramedy/crime caper which takes place in suburban dublin. lots of people get drunk and cathartic, and colin punches several women in their noses. good times.
"Words" - i guess you could call "words" a documentary of the human experience. it uses the example of a game of telephone (ie: one person whispering a word to someone else, down a row, to see what the word becomes by the end) to illustrate spirituality, sexuality, death, and the interconnectedness of everyday life that we so often take for granted.
"Madness and Genius" - oh, hell. the first movie of the festival that i didn't enjoy. i wouldn't say i hated it; i've seen better and i've seen worse, i guess. it's a very dry character about 3 people (a professor and 2 students) whose lives are each uniquely affected, negatively, by their intellect. i know enough people who have suffered their entire lives for being 'brains', so it wasn't much fun to sit through 2 hours of that.
"I Vitelloni" - kino international, who arranged 2002's re-release of 'metropolis', have now released a brand new 50th anniversary print of federico fellini's first international hit. setting the stage for movies like 'american graffiti' and 'diner', it's the story of a group of guys in their mid 20s coming to terms with their encroching adulthood in an italian seaside village.
"Bukowski: Born Into This" - a documentary on the life of charles bukowski, featuring over an hour of interview footage of hank from the 1970's. and for some reason, an interview with bono.
"The Hot 8" - a great little documentary about a ghetto just outside of new orleans from which rose nearly all the great names in 20th century southern jazz. it profiles a band called the hot 8, a teenaged funky brass band, and the local established musicians who snipe at them for not adhearing to a more 'traditional' sound.
"A Certain Kind of Death" - i had to leave this one early. it was very upsetting. it's a cold, emotionally bereft doc about what happens to people when they die and leave behind no next of kin.
"Noise" - an interesting medium psych horror movie by tony spiridakis, starring fashion model trish goff and indie alumnus ally sheedy. goff is the new tenant of a beautiful manhattan apartment, and sheedy is her incredibly noisy upstairs neighbor. a seemingly tepid premise, but as is the way in these movies, nothing is ever as it seems on the surface.
"Jockey" - a documentary produced for HBO films, coming out later this summer. in it are profiled three professional jockeys; a young buck, a grizzled veteran and one who is near deaths door as a result of the toll that riding has taken on him. it's a pretty dour world of uneducated people who mostly force themselves to vomit and complain about riding.
"Young Adam" - a dry scottish melodrama starring ewan mcgregor. ewan plays a migrant barge worker who sleeps with his bosses wife, whose life is thrown into turmoil when he discovers the body of a dead woman. good festival fare, i suppose. but i wasn't too impressed.
"Good Bye, Lenin!" - this sweet, hilarious movie came out in germany in 2002, but we are now just getting it over here. so far it's my favorite movie of the festival. a fervent socialist in east germany has a heart attack and slips into a coma just months before the reunification, and her son takes it upon himself to make it seem as if communism never disolved after she regains consciousness.
"Zombi 2" - from 1980, the late lucio fulci's two-fisted rip-off of romero's zombie genre. lots of gratuitous violence, lots of gratuitous nudity, and a scene in which a zombie fights a shark. and wins!
"Dogville" - this was the highlight of the festival, for me. a movie that has already left a trail of controversy in it's wake, this experimental film by danish auteur lars von trier ('dancer in the dark') is a 3 hour long study in morality and human ethics. shot entirely without sets (all streets and buildings were drawn on the floor of a single soundstage with chalk), nicole kidman plays a woman on the run from the mob during the dust bowl of the american midwest, and is taken in by the residents of dogville, population 15. at first they are receptive, but the situation degenerates into a bold statement on the fallacy of human nature and shows us how cruel we can be to one another when we're not first honest with ourselves. please, if you have a chance to see it, don't miss it.
"Code 46" - a boring, faux-orwellian sci-fi tome, directed by michael winterbottom ('24 hour party people', which i loved) and starring tim robbins and samantha morton. it's part 'gattaca' and part 'lost in translation' and not at all fun to watch.
fin
thanks to john, marie and AJ for another great festival
"Off The Map" - a drama directed by campbell scott (who was present afterwards and did a Q&A with the audience). a gentle, bittersweet story of the trials of a family who lives "off the map" in the throes of the new mexican desert.
"Neverland: The Rise and Fall of the Symbionese Liberation Army" - a fascinating documentary about the SLA. while their hearts were in the right places in the beginning, their entire movement eventually degenerated into self-righteousness.
"Intermission" - ireland's answer to "amores perros". starring colin farrell and cillian murphy (the lead actor from "28 days later"), it's a multilayered romantic dramedy/crime caper which takes place in suburban dublin. lots of people get drunk and cathartic, and colin punches several women in their noses. good times.
"Words" - i guess you could call "words" a documentary of the human experience. it uses the example of a game of telephone (ie: one person whispering a word to someone else, down a row, to see what the word becomes by the end) to illustrate spirituality, sexuality, death, and the interconnectedness of everyday life that we so often take for granted.
"Madness and Genius" - oh, hell. the first movie of the festival that i didn't enjoy. i wouldn't say i hated it; i've seen better and i've seen worse, i guess. it's a very dry character about 3 people (a professor and 2 students) whose lives are each uniquely affected, negatively, by their intellect. i know enough people who have suffered their entire lives for being 'brains', so it wasn't much fun to sit through 2 hours of that.
"I Vitelloni" - kino international, who arranged 2002's re-release of 'metropolis', have now released a brand new 50th anniversary print of federico fellini's first international hit. setting the stage for movies like 'american graffiti' and 'diner', it's the story of a group of guys in their mid 20s coming to terms with their encroching adulthood in an italian seaside village.
"Bukowski: Born Into This" - a documentary on the life of charles bukowski, featuring over an hour of interview footage of hank from the 1970's. and for some reason, an interview with bono.
"The Hot 8" - a great little documentary about a ghetto just outside of new orleans from which rose nearly all the great names in 20th century southern jazz. it profiles a band called the hot 8, a teenaged funky brass band, and the local established musicians who snipe at them for not adhearing to a more 'traditional' sound.
"A Certain Kind of Death" - i had to leave this one early. it was very upsetting. it's a cold, emotionally bereft doc about what happens to people when they die and leave behind no next of kin.
"Noise" - an interesting medium psych horror movie by tony spiridakis, starring fashion model trish goff and indie alumnus ally sheedy. goff is the new tenant of a beautiful manhattan apartment, and sheedy is her incredibly noisy upstairs neighbor. a seemingly tepid premise, but as is the way in these movies, nothing is ever as it seems on the surface.
"Jockey" - a documentary produced for HBO films, coming out later this summer. in it are profiled three professional jockeys; a young buck, a grizzled veteran and one who is near deaths door as a result of the toll that riding has taken on him. it's a pretty dour world of uneducated people who mostly force themselves to vomit and complain about riding.
"Young Adam" - a dry scottish melodrama starring ewan mcgregor. ewan plays a migrant barge worker who sleeps with his bosses wife, whose life is thrown into turmoil when he discovers the body of a dead woman. good festival fare, i suppose. but i wasn't too impressed.
"Good Bye, Lenin!" - this sweet, hilarious movie came out in germany in 2002, but we are now just getting it over here. so far it's my favorite movie of the festival. a fervent socialist in east germany has a heart attack and slips into a coma just months before the reunification, and her son takes it upon himself to make it seem as if communism never disolved after she regains consciousness.
"Zombi 2" - from 1980, the late lucio fulci's two-fisted rip-off of romero's zombie genre. lots of gratuitous violence, lots of gratuitous nudity, and a scene in which a zombie fights a shark. and wins!
"Dogville" - this was the highlight of the festival, for me. a movie that has already left a trail of controversy in it's wake, this experimental film by danish auteur lars von trier ('dancer in the dark') is a 3 hour long study in morality and human ethics. shot entirely without sets (all streets and buildings were drawn on the floor of a single soundstage with chalk), nicole kidman plays a woman on the run from the mob during the dust bowl of the american midwest, and is taken in by the residents of dogville, population 15. at first they are receptive, but the situation degenerates into a bold statement on the fallacy of human nature and shows us how cruel we can be to one another when we're not first honest with ourselves. please, if you have a chance to see it, don't miss it.
"Code 46" - a boring, faux-orwellian sci-fi tome, directed by michael winterbottom ('24 hour party people', which i loved) and starring tim robbins and samantha morton. it's part 'gattaca' and part 'lost in translation' and not at all fun to watch.
fin
thanks to john, marie and AJ for another great festival
VIEW 19 of 19 COMMENTS
thefuckingdaddy:
I KNEW dogville would rock... Lars Von Trier is my idol.... seriously, ask anyone.
henrimiller:
what did anyone think of short "pretty dead girl" or the "trapped in the elevator (not sure of title) with wendy malick ?