Seventeen screenings at the Austin Film Festival, and I’m still going strong. It’s the cinematic equivalent of eating a one-pound bag of M&Ms. Although I’m not pushing myself as hard as I usually do at these things. I’ve been getting sleep and everthing! Here’s the four films I saw since last posting about this.
Kabluey
This is probably the most sophisticated movie about a guy in a plushie suit that I’ve ever seen. The premise is this kinda shlubby loser guy moves in with his brother’s family to help take care of the kids while the brother is away in Iraq. In his bumbling struggle to win the respect of his sister-in-law and his nephews he takes a job wearing the creepy blobject mascot suit of a failing austin dot-com website (NexEion: Your gateway to Nectivity). Kabluey takes its humor from the futility of emptiness: the emptiness where the National Guard serving father ought to be, the emptiness inside the head of a corporate trademark suit, the emptiness where the dot-com bubble used to be, and the simple emptiness of a thermos bottle. Also, it’s damn funny to watch a grown man try and do things in a costume that has no hands or face. Scott Prendergast wrote, directed and starred in this film. And when he did the Q&A and the screening, did he use a moderator? Hell no! It’s the Scott Prendergast show! He can moderate his own damn self. Word on the street is that you’ll get a chance to see this movie, I’m guessing next summer as the fun alternative-film family-comedy of the month, the same ecological niche that "little miss sunshine" occupied last year. And don’t worry, the war will still be going on, so it won’t have lost its cultural resonance.
A Bloody Aria
Sometime when none of us were looking, South Korea became the world nexus of cool film. Anime, Hong Kong, and those moody Europeans are all old news, and Bollywood has another ten years to complete its development. It’s odd, because Korea has always been the Michigan of Asia, a place with some industry and occasional riots that nobody really notices. A Bloody Aria is an exceptionally well-plotted film, dealing in issues of violence, social corruption, and authority. Every character is established with nuance and power, and then blossoms in unexpected directions. In the beginning of A Bloody Aria a music instructor takes his hot asian schoolgirl student to a secluded bend in a river. Inappropriate advances are made. And then the locals show up. Reminiscent of Attack the Gas Station in terms of its ensemble-based humor.
The Ungodly
Throughout the course of my life, I have only walked out on two movies. Last night, this became number two. So, here’s the complete failure of imagination premise: A documentary filmmaker follows a serial killer and comes to embrace the darkness within blah fuckin blah blah blah. How many times have we seen this premise? A zillion times? Two zillion? Is it physically possible to make a more un-original film? If you actually photocopied somebody else’s script and put your name at the top in ballpoint pen, could that be as lazy as this? And oh my god, the sheer overblown melodrama of it all. He stabs women and takes their eyes (how many times has that been done?) yet he’s a sensitive and sophisticated dude who takes care of cancer kids. That’s not a fascinating duality. That’s just silly. I had to leave shortly after the "killer" said "If only the seeds of darkness hadn’t been planted before I lost the innocence I never had." A parody of this genre would have the exact same lines as this screenplay. At this point there are more movies about serial killers than there have ever actually been serial killers. And what the screenwriters want them to be has absolutely no bearing on historical reality. Jeffrey Dahmer fucked corpses up the butt, while wearing a condom. He didn’t stand around mouthing philosophy and using the word "darkness" in every sentence like a high-school goth. He was a seriously broken individual and every aspect of his life reflected that. There was no goddamn paradox of character. I’m glad that the writer/star of this film, Mark Borkowski, didn’t show up for a Q&A, I might have booed him to his face.
The Rebel
Dear Dustin Nguyen:
Dustin, I just wanted to take a little time to let you know just how awesome I think you are. If the whole world appreciated your awesomeness as much as I do, you would be the president of the United Nations. You would be the first UN president to bring peace to the world through sheer kick-ass kung-fuing excellence.
Dustin, I just saw your Vietnamese production "The Rebel". I don’t think there’s anyone else who grew up in St.Louis who could play the toughest character in a martial-arts period piece, speaking both Vietnamese and French. You are indeed a renaissance man. Some people might think that you’re the villain of this movie, just because you play the part of the secret service chief who helps the French maintain colonial rule. But I know better. I like how the so-called heroine has the kung-fu chops to cut through collaborator henchmen like they’re pho noodles. She can break colonial French necks with her thighs. But when she attacks you, you barely stoop to blocking her puny attacks. Fists and blades bounce off your three-piece suit. Even blades can’t mar your perfect Hollywood skin! I suspect that’s just your impenetrable shield of awesomeness. Thanks to your character, Vietnam slaved under colonial oppression for another fifty years. The low international cost of bauxite is your legacy to us all.
Dustin, please continue being this awesome in the international film industry. Say hi to Val for me.
Love:
Matthew Bey
