Basement Blog

Not long ago I discovered the Bicycle Film Festival on MySpace. What a great idea! From their intro:

“The Bicycle Film Festival celebrates the bicycle. We are into all styles of bikes and biking. If you can name it-Tall Bike Jousting, Track Bikes, BMX, Alleycats, Critical Mass, Bike Polo, Cycling to Recumbents- we’ve probably either ridden or screened it. What better way to celebrate these lifestyles than through art, film, music and performance? We bring together all aspects of bicycling together to advocate its ability to transport us in many ways. Ultimately the Fest is about having a good time.”

In 2006 over 35,000 people attended the Bicycle Film Festival in New York, LA, Minneapolis, Chicago, London, SF, Sydney, Tokyo and Milano.

The seventh annual Bicycle Film Festival 2007 — a celebration of bicycles through film, art and music — just started today in New York City and will take place until Monday, May 21. If you are in the area you might not want to miss this event! I would love to be there but I’m afraid NYC will be a bit too far for a bike-ride all the way from Baltimore. Check out their website for news, infos, the festival program and tickets!

I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts and impressions of the films we saw this year at the 9th annual Maryland Film Festival. Perhaps you share some of my views—perhaps it helped you to discover some new interesting films you didn’t know before but might enjoy as much as I did. Perhaps you didn’t get anything from my reviews, except a massive waste of time.

This year I really wanted to write about the films we saw and I enjoyed writing about them in the course of the last few days. Sometimes it was difficult to come up with something to write, and I didn’t want to take every single film apart and look too closely or academically at every single technical or creative detail. Other people already did it or will probably do it eventually.

Films that touch me and make me think often leave an very internal impression on me, so internal I don’t feel like talking about it after leaving the theatre. Generally I also don’t feel like talking about films I did not enjoy because what more is there to say? This really makes me the wrong person to write film-reviews. To me personally, these reviews are nothing more than aid to memory. In the previous festival years we watched a similar amount of films we really enjoyed, but if you squeeze so many films into a short period of only 3 days you are bound to forget about them. It was good to step back, give it a distance of a few days, recall the films again and remember what I liked about them. Writing always helps. And if I still forget some of them in a few months, I will be able to return to my reviews.

The tent village with the series of interesting presentations was a wonderful addition to the festival. As mentioned earlier they all looked very interesting and I would have loved more time to attend at least a few of these lectures. The filmmaker’s lounge was moved to a different building this year. I really liked the new location and the way tables and seats were set up. Food and drinks were very good again like in the previous years. Also new was a computer corner. I think this festival was a great success and had a lot more to offer than in the previous years without sacrificing the overall atmosphere.

It was a great pleasure and we had a lot of fun at the festival this year. It’s always a wonderful highlight we both, Alice and I, look forward to as our “vacation” every year. I am already curious and excited about its 10^th anniversary in 2008.

Last but not least I want to thank everybody who made this festival possible and brought such a great selection of independent films to Baltimore again! And if you really read all of this from top to bottom: Thank you for joining me on this festival-odyssey!

Directed by Jeffrey Blitz

With Reece Daniel Thompson, Anna Kendrick, Nicholas D’Agosto, Vincent Piazza, Margo Martindale, Aaron Yoo, Josh Kay, Stephen Park, Maury Ginsberg, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Denis O’Hare, Lisbeth Bartlett

Website at www.picturehouse.com

“Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson) attends a high school that prizes its debate team the way some schools prize a top sports team. The coolest guys and the most knockout girls participate, talking at blinding speed. Hal confines himself to that corner of the high-school world where observation is safer than getting involved, thinking that you can’t get hurt if no one knows you’re there. His family doesn’t offer much help, and his older brother Earl (Vincent Piazza), while pretty lost himself, gives Hal a lot of bad advice. Oh, and one more thing — Hal stutters.As he takes solace in his usual secret place (the janitor’s closet), Hal is attacked by debate superstar Virginia Ryerson (Anna Kendrick). She is ferociously competitive and WILL NOT let the debate team lose another state championship. She’s decided obstacles help hone the best debaters, so Hal and his stutter are perfect for her purposes. Since Ginny’s as attractive as she is aggressive, Hal decides her plan is worth trying.” (from the filmfest-guide)

Next to John Water’s pick of the year, the 3-D movie pick and the silent film with live music another of our must-do traditions of the Maryland Film Festival is the closing night party with a screening of a movie that was shot entirely or in large parts in Baltimore or Maryland. This year’s closing night screening was Rocket Science, a film about high-school loves and dreams, nerds and friends, debates and overcoming fears and limitations. The story plays in Trenton, New Jersey, but it was predominantly filmed in the Baltimore area.

The story seems simple, but it was very well written and brilliantly told with many unexpected moments and twists that kept you interested from beginning to end and that made every single minute very enjoyable. All the actors were outstanding and impressive, creating convincing stutter problems, incredibly fast paced debate speeches or bringing the characters to life in a very fluent and natural way.

Back in my German highschool days I never witnessed and had no idea there were debate competitions in which the candidates squeeze whole books of arguments into a speech of a few minutes. I have never seen or even heard of them before and couldn’t believe it wasn’t just a fun fictional subject for a movie. I still find it very fascinating. America never fails to surprise me Very impressive, I have to express a special praise to the actors.

I just looked at the IMDB user ratings for this film and was again shocked at how other people voted. There are unbelievable 45 votes (of 160) with a rating of 1 and 2! That’s outrageous and insane—nothing about this film deserves such a bad rating. The unbelievable amount of hate and unfairness of people really sickens me. And every day there seem to be more of those in our society, not only the movie database. I give it an imdb-rating of 7/10. But be sure to form your own opinion and go watch it in August when it comes to a theatre near you.

The Bread Squeezer

Directed by Kasia Kowalczyk

With Sarah Falkenburg, Nathan Mobley, Corin Rogers II, Tal Harris, Mary Lynn Owen, Kristen Garner, Rebecca Dutton

“After Andrew’s parents die in a tragic Christmas tree accident, he leads an unremarkable life full of chronic disappointments — until one day, when everything goes horribly wrong and horribly right in the bread aisle of Pickles Grocery Store.” (from the filmfest-guide)

A story about love, obsession and bread. I loved this charming, entertaining, beautifully crafted modern-day fairytale and its well acted characters. My imdb-rating: 8/10.

The Listening Dead

Directed by Phil Mucci

With Peter Scriba, Sarah Hund, Karen Miller

“In this gothic fable, an obsessed composer and his seamstress wife are haunted by the spirit of a mysterious young woman. One night, feeling ignored and rejected by her husband, the wife unknowingly inflicts him with a horrible curse. By doing so, she invokes the wrath of the unseen ghost, who takes matters into her own hands.” (from the filmfest-guide)

If you love silent films like Nosferatu, you have to love The Listening Dead as a wonderful modern silent film. It was a creepy, haunting, chilling, visually stunning, somewhat lovecraftian ghost-story with a wonderful piano-score. It even featured a short musical opening with a sequence by Dead Can Dance. I’m very impressed by how well it turned out and how well the seemingly dead silent film genre works even today. I’m very glad I saw this film and would love to see more classic or modern horror stories or weird tales brought to film in a similar way—as silent films working with light and shadow, camera angles, environment, atmosphere and music. I think it’s the perfect medium for so many stories in this genre. My imdb-rating: 9/10.

Replacing Delphine

Directed by Kasia Kowalczyk

With Amelia Hanson, Frank Roberts

“Twenty-five years after losing his daughter in a house fire, Professor Paroux begins to lose his way in this haunting fairytale about love, loss and taxidermy.” (from the filmfest-guide)

Another beautiful, but darker fairytale by Bread Squeezer director Kasia Kowalczyk. I enjoyed this film and thought it was very well done, but I wasn’t sure what it was about. I haven’t read about this film before I watched it, but it was only after I read about it when it began to make sense. Perhaps my cold and overall exhaustion affected my alertness… I wish I could watch it again to re-validate my first impression and make sure it wasn’t me who just missed something being too tired to follow the screen, but I still enjoyed it and therefore give an imdb-rating of 7/10.

The Saddest Boy In The World

Directed by Jamie Travis

With Benjamin B. Smith, Kirsten Robek, Hailey Conner

“Timothy Higgins, the saddest boy in the world, prepares to hang himself at his ninth birthday party. More darkly humorous and visually impeccable work from the director of The Patterns Trilogy.” (from the filmfest-guide)

Maybe my cold didn’t affect me after all, because the saddest was also the funniest boy in the world. This short was one of the funniest I have seen on this festival and deserves a straight imdb-rating of 8/10. Superb!

The World Outside

Directed by Josh Lind and Kevin Phillips

With Ben Collins, Martha Allen, Lew Tate

“A young lever-pulling factory worker finds reason to escape the tedious daily routine of industrial manual labor after meeting a bright-eyed young lady who works at the factory across the street. After deciding to make his move, he is faced with the task of tremendous complexity as he tries to disguise his identity, fool both factories, and avoid the watchful eyes of the building officials to get closer to the one girl he could love. Fans of Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton take note.” (from the filmfest-guide)

This film really reminded of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, which is one of my top-favorites for many years. Behind all the ridiculous machinery in a nonsensical system of factories, patents and competition you are there to witness how a quiet love story unfolds and overcomes the established borders of the systems or societies they were part of. I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but the film’s satirical scope may even be wider with an underlying political message drawn in red and blue colors. It was beautifully made, entertaining and clever…I enjoyed it and give The World Outside an imdb-rating of 8/10.

Directed by Friederich Wilhelm Murnau

With Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder, Alexander Granach

“Born in Germany in 1889, Friederich Wilhelm Murnau studied art history at the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, joined the great Max Reinhardt’s theater school, and learned film by making propaganda films for Germany in WW I. His first great work was Nosferatu, an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which he made in 1922. Shortly after, the young film industry in California hired him, first at Fox and then at Paramount, where he won great acclaim (his Sunrise was nominated for several Academy Awards) before he was killed in a car accident in 1931. He stands alongside D. W. Griffith as one of the giants of the silent era. Banned in Sweden until 1972, Nosferatu tells a classic vampire tale. A young real estate agent, Hetter, is sent by his strange boss, Knock, to the Land of the Phantoms to close a deal with the mysterious Count Orlok. Along the way, Hetter is warned about the Count — normal drivers won’t even take him all the way to the castle — but he continues undeterred. Through breathtakingly bold cinematic techniques and a legendary performance by Max Schreck as Count Orlok, F. W. Murnau delivers a seminal piece of filmmaking.” (from the filmfest-guide)

Another annual festival tradition is the screening of a silent movie accompanied with live music performed by the Alloy Orchestra. This year we got to see a very special jewel with 1922’s Nosferatu. Everybody is familiar with the famous Dracula story Bram Stoker published in 1897, but not many might be familiar with the story behind Nosferatu, which is as fascinating as the film itself.

When Murnau’s studio was unable to obtain the rights to the story he decided to still create the film he envisioned, but make slight changes to the story, names and titles. So, for example Count Dracula became Count Orlok, and the title Dracula became Nosferatu. Bram Stoker’s wife who was still alive sued Nosferatu’s film company and won. Nosferatu became the first and only film of the Prana-Film company which had to declare bankruptcy and was ordered to destroy all existing prints of Nosferatu. Luckily, a few copies had already been distributed, so it managed to survive throughout the decades.

Nosferatu was indeed banned in Sweden until 1972 due to excessive horror, and it is still banned in Finland today. As another interesting bit of trivia: After 85 years, all of the exteriors are still intact in the German cities Wismar and Lübeck. I might have to go and visit one day.

Nosferatu is without doubt one of the greatest and most important movies of the silent era and I’m very glad and lucky I have seen it on the big screen with the wonderful live score performed by the Alloy Orchestra. It’s my favorite of all the festival’s silent films of the past few years. Next I would love to see Metropolis or Man with a Movie Camera with live music — maybe during next year’s festival? I find Nosferatu, the Symphony of Horror essential, and as a piece of cinematic history I give it an imdb-rating of 10/10.

Directed by Alex Orr

With Mike Brune, Anna Chlumsky, Katie Bowlett

Website at www.bloodcar.com

“In a future world not far removed from our own, gas prices have rocketed to $40 a gallon, converting any guy who can afford to fill his tank into an automatic stud. Yet eco-minded elementary teacher Archie Andrews’ has the purest intentions in his obsessive quest for an alternative fuel source — a quest that has him making bulk wheatgrass purchases at a health-food stand run by the bookishly cute Lorraine (My Girl’s Anna Chlumsky), who thinks Archie’s a dreamboat. An accident in Archie’s makeshift lab reveals that his experimental motors hunger not for wheatgrass, but for human blood — a discovery that lands Archie in the sack with the vampishly attractive woman who runs the meat stand across from Lorraine. But sex and bloodlust are a volatile mix, and drive the once-vegan Archie to murderous lengths he never would’ve dreamed possible.” (from the filmfest-guide)

What a wonderful way to conclude a wonderful festival-Saturday! There is not much to analyze about Blood Car. It simply was completely well-done, great all around, hilarious, a silly and fun movie with a lot of blood, horror, humor and satire. I loved the actors and characters, and everything just worked perfectly together. Finally, a bloodthirsty horror-film I could totally enjoy! Really funny, and so sad at the same time considering today’s society already is one of murdering, blood driven cars. This film has cult-potential and may belong in my video-shelf to be played on more than one occasion…that’s why I give a fun imdb-rating of 8/10.

Bruno

Directed by Sam Goetz

With Sam Goetz, Mike Goetz, Timothy Gannon, Carla Tassara

“Bruno is the story of Derek Brown, an asthmatic youth who has one love: bicycling. He is nihilistic and angry at the world. He loves nobody and nobody loves him. He is a knife salesman, he hates women, and despises his cousin Bruno. Bruno cries while watching sitcoms, and quits basketball in favor of his true passion, classical piano. He passes out at the sight of blood and doesn’t understand how animals have sex. Together they co-exist, looking out for each other while navigating young-adulthood.” (from the filmfest-guide)

Hahaha… I think that does say it all, doesn’t it? I haven’t laughed like that in a very long time. This definitely was one of my favorite short films this year. Very well done, and incredibly funny! My imdb-rating: 8/10. Hmm.. No—let’s give it a 9/10, I probably could watch it over and over again.

Cactus

Directed by Albert Birney

With Sam Goetz, Mike Goetz, Timothy Gannon, Carla Tassara

“A man goes looking for love and finds nothing but strawberries.” (from the filmfest-guide)

This was quite a hefty little psychedelic trip into the land of odd. To be honest, I had some difficulties in getting something out of Cactus. I personally didn’t like it very much, but I did recognize an artistic value I don’t want to give it a bad review. There were some things I did like about it, others I didn’t care about at all. I don’t really know how to rate it, and there is no IMDB entry… perhaps a 5/10?

Chronicles of Impeccable Sportsmanship

Directed by Erika Tasini

With Julie Alexander, Alessandra Daniele, Jonathan Newhall

“A little girl, her parents, a ball. The endless contentions between two competitive parents — seen through the curious eyes of a perceptive and enterprising little girl.” (from the filmfest-guide)

It was a good little, simple, lightweight and amusing film. It does not only work in the given set of a girl and her parents, but also symbolically for so many other situations related to questions of sportsmanship, fairness, consideration or egoism you may confront at one point or another in life or relationships. It’s good and above average, but I’m not sure it it was good enough for a 7/10, that’s why I gave it a rating of 6/10.

Semper Jack

Directed by Jesse Rose-Smith

“The next step in human evolution is discovered among a band of survivors in a post-apocalyptic outpost. Not for the timid.” (from the filmfest-guide)

This one was well done and I enjoyed watching it. At first glance the idea may not appear very original, but it does have a twist you wouldn’t have expected. This is another film without IMDB entry, so I can’t really vote for it, but I would give it a 7/10.

The Wake

Directed by Matthew Byrne

“In this Southern Gothic suspenseful drama, an old lady mysteriously starves a young boy. Her bizarre method is seemingly without cause — but all becomes clear in one stunner of a climax.” (from the filmfest-guide)

I really liked this film. It was extremely well done, captivating and very scary. In the end it all came together. I remember that I once read about this bizarre method before, so I shouldn’t have been surprised… but this film managed to leave me absolutely clueless until the very surprising end. Great work! I would love to give it an 8/10, but unfortunately there is no IMDB entry.

Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

With Nantarat Sawaddikul, Nu Nimsomboon, Sophon Pukanok

Website at www.strandreleasing.com

“The film begins decades ago in rural Thailand, where a pair of young doctors (inspired by the director’s parents’ own story of meeting) hesitantly embark upon a cautious love affair. The romance and humor here are genuine, and will strike a chord with fans of the stylishly shy courtships in the work of Wong Kar-wai. Before long however, this gentle starting point diabolically folds in upon itself, yielding to stories-within-stories, a modern retelling of the original courtship in a sterile Bangkok hospital, and, eventually, a stream of haunting sci-fi imagery worthy of Kubrick’s 2001 and Antonioni’s Eclipse.” (from the filmfest-guide)

Hm.. No, I think describing it as a “stream of haunting sci-fi imagery worthy of Kubrick’s 2001” may be very unfortunate and misleading, because there is no haunting sci-fi imagery, there are no spaceships and there are no psychedelic journeys, retro-futuristic sets or other sci-fi visions. The only thing 2001 and Syndromes and a Century may have in common is perhaps the way how different passages in time were weaved together with a matching element. In the famous 2001 scene Stanley Kubrick links the dawn of mankind with the modern age of space exploration by throwing a bone into the air which in the next scene becomes a spaceship of similar shape. In Syndromes and a Century two different points in time are elegantly and carefully woven together by using common or similar colors, situations and dialog sequences. However, it still feels like a bit of a stretch to mention Kubrick in a sentence about Syndromes and a Century. This film deserves to be recognized as a quite unique piece of filmmaking.

Syndromes and a Century is a film about the director’s parents who were both doctors and his memories about growing up in the hospital environment. It is set in two parts. The first part focuses on a female doctor set in a not so distant past of perhaps the 60s or 70s. The second part focuses on a male doctor and is set in a more contemporary hospital environment. This film has no traditional story line from beginning to end. It is a composition of impressions, pictures, memories, everyday life moments, fragments, “syndromes and peals of wisdom”. Just like real memories, these impressions may overlap throughout very different times and situations, they may appear connected and common, or disconnected and unique, or unknowingly familiar deja-vu experiences.

This film was composed very carefully with a close attention to time, pace, dialog, colors, as well as the environment and architecture with its natural but also sterile, personal or majestic proportions. The result was a very personal, quiet, shy, fragile, charming, extremely beautiful and innocent journey I thought was very refreshing and should be treated very softly. As another of my festival-favorites this year Syndromes and a Century deserves at least an imdb-rating of 8/10.

Directed by Lew Landers

With Edmond O’Brien, Audrey Totter, Ted de Corsia, Horace MacMahon, Nick Dennis, Dayton Lummis, Dan Riso, Shepard Menken, John Harmon, Ruth Warren

“Edmond O’Brien stars as a former gangster who undergoes experimental brain surgery in hopes of curing his criminal tendencies and wiping out all memory of his past misdeeds. Unfortunately, his old gang is interested in recovering one particular forgotten memory – the location of their stashed loot – and they’ll stop at nothing to get it. A high stakes game of cat-and-mouse ensues, eventually ending up in an amusement park and climaxing with the film’s famous roller coaster scene.” (from the filmfest-guide)

One must-see highlight of the film festival we wouldn’t want to miss is the 3-D movie each year. When do you ever get to see a movie in 3-D? In the past few years we watched films like The Mad Magician, Gorilla At Large and House of Wax. This year’s 3-D movie pick was 1953’s Man In the Dark by Lew Landers and presented by the festival’s resident expert on 3-D movies Chris Kaltenbach, who also brought the previous years’ 3-D choices to the festival.

Man In The Dark is described as the first 3-D feature to use a production method in which the film was shot flat first, then projected behind foreground scenery props and re-filmed in 3-D so that only the props would jump off the screen. I thought this really decreased the quality of the 3-D effects and environment if I recall the experience I had with House of Wax or the Mad Magician before. Some effects like the scalpels used in the operation appeared way too busy or strong to be watched from the first rows, and other moments like the roof-top race deserved a much better use of the 3-D effect.

No doubt, it definitely was a pleasure to watch, in a 50s trashy classic sort of way. I struggled a bit between 5 and 6 for my rating but I think being 3-D makes it more than average, so this is why my imdb-rating is 6/10.

Directed by Sean Meredith

With voices by Dermot Mulroney, James Cromwell, Dana Snyder, Martha Plimpton

Website at www.dantefilm.com

“This darkly satirical update of the 14th century literary classic follows Dante (voiced by Dermot Mulroney) as he awakes hung-over and lost, and seeks help from the first person he sees. That person is Virgil (voiced by James Cromwell), an ancient Roman poet now sporting a mullet and wearing a bathrobe. Rather than help him find his way back to a familiar area of town, Virgil takes Dante on a voyage through the all-too-familiar-looking nine circles of modern-day Hell. There they encounter a wide assortment of well-known religious leaders, dictators, mass murderers, pop-culture icons, and politicians — some not yet dead, but having already lost their souls. The souls in Hell are all condemned to spend eternity suffering punishments which fit their own personal sins, including having their heads sewed on backwards, being forced to dance to never-ending techno music, and receiving oral sex that lasts forever. Culminating with a visit to Lucifer himself, Dante is determined to find his way home and never return to Hell.” (from the filmfest-guide)

This was our last screening on Friday and I was very much looking forward to Dante’s Inferno after we had been so lucky with our four wonderful selections that day. The idea sounded really great to me: Take the old 14^th century classic, merge it with the hell we are living in nowadays, and present the results with a similar amalgam of contemporary live-action graphic novel and classic Victorian-era toy theater. During the opening of Dante’s Inferno I was very pleased and impressed by how beautifully the intricately drawn puppets performed on these miniature sets. The lighting, perspective, shadows, and camera work was really nice… the modern-day hell of used car lots, strip malls, gated communities, airport security checks, presidents, politicians, popes was a neat idea and I would have loved it…if this film had not too much fallen in love with itself.

All the good ideas and intentions got lost in an extremely long, boring, dry and monotonous sounding dialogue that eventually began to sound too self-impressed at times, at other times it was convulsive and trying too hard to be clever. I kept wondering if the love for the visual and technical aspects of the miniature set and puppetry prevented Sean Meredith from cutting it shorter. Much of the dialogue sounded very forced, as if the filming had been done before the writing. After sitting through an seemingly endless time some monty-pythonesque music and dance interludes appeared out of nowhere, but they were as dry and stiff as the previous parts and didn’t feel amusing at all.

I do understand that satire is not always witty and funny and that its primary purpose is not humor but clever criticism of events, people or groups, and perhaps Dante’s Inferno wasn’t meant to be funny, but was it meant to be dry, monotonous and boring? Maybe, if it was supposed to lead the audience into a viewing-hell of its own. Too bad—I really wanted to like it, but I didn’t, not at all. I think it could have been a great short film, but 77 minutes are way too long, unless somebody would rework the entire dialog and musical passages. Eventually I was so tired of it, I just wanted leave the theatre before it was over and that’s why I have to give it an imdb-rating of 3/10. Sorry.