Sunday. Mother’s Day.
The Mother’s Day weekend was dedicated to the Maryland Film Festival for as long as I can remember. I think only once it took place a week earlier or later. I have been lucky because my mother lives in Germany and six hours ahead of our time-zone. But not everybody is so lucky. Other people have mothers here, who may want to spend their day with their children, and who may not be interested in movies. This has always been a problem…it never felt right to ignore Mother’s Day in favor of our movie habit.
So this time we made a compromise: We skipped our first movie and had a nice Mother’s Day breakfast instead before we started our festival day in the early afternoon. We missed our traditional silent movie with live-music — this time it would have been probably the most important film of the silent era: Man with a Movie Camera — but I think we made the right decision and it all worked out very well. I have seen this film several times before anyway, with Cinematic Orchestra’s soundtrack being one of my all-time favorites.
Our first screening was a short film program called These People Have Issues [MFF] including:
- Butthole Lickin by Kanako Wynkoop
- Cold Turkey by Kyle Spleiss
- Countertransference by Madeleine Olnek
- FaceMouth by Dave Kratz
- Hungry for Love by Ruckus Skye
- Imminent by Randall Good
- Power Mini Ultra Flex Turbo by Better Hollywood
All of these short films were amusing to some degree. Some were funnier or sillier than others, some were darker than others, some were more dramatic than others, but I thought they all were solid and pretty well done. I did enjoy watching them to some degree, but I have to admit that I found none of them really that outstanding, extraordinarily great and groundbreaking. Something was missing in this short film program…but I’m not sure what.
Maybe the title promised more than the candidates were able to deliver? Maybe I expected something like the On The Edge shorts we saw last year or something more dark-comedic? I don’t know. The films presented in These People Have Issues had a few humorous moments, but they didn’t grab me that much. Compared to other short film programs we have seen in the past regardless of whether it was comedy, narrative, animated or documentary, this selection felt incomplete, unfinished or perhaps just uninspired. At the same time it wasn’t bad either! I have seen a lot worse before. Perhaps I just entered this screening with the wrong expectations.
Our next screening was The Overbrook Brothers, directed by John Bryant, starring Nathan Harlan, Mark Reeb and Laurel Whitsett [IMDB][MFF]. The screening took place in the large theater 1 of the Charles which usually finds a rather large audience. The Overbrook Brothers, however, didn’t seem to attract a large audience at all, which really surprised me. It’s possible that it was because of Mother’s Day, or a lot of people were already done with the festival, or those who were interested already saw the first screening on Friday.
The Overbrook Brothers are Jason, a sensitive writer and Todd, who is cruel, immature, abrasive, and pretty much the opposite of Jason knowing just how to push his buttons. When they find out why they have always been the least favorite children of the family they both go on a trip to find their true origins.
This movie is a feature adaptation of John Bryant’s earlier short film, Momma’s Boy, which screened at the 2006 Maryland Film Festival. I haven’t seen it back then but I would be very curious to find out how they compare. I loved The Overbrook Brothers, Todd’s character and the dynamics between him and Jason. I have rarely seen a character that is so sinister, manipulative and at the same time very cool and likable. The only one I could think of is Rob Lowe’s character in Bad Influence, but they don’t really have that much in common. Mark Reeb who played Todd was really wonderful bringing this character to life, but I kept wondering: “Is he somehow related to Eric Roberts?”. Haha, of course he isn’t, but I felt like there was a slight resemblance. With a really nice mix of dark comedy and drama I absolutely enjoyed The Overbrook Brothers! Unfortunately, there is no trailer for it yet.
Matthew Modine and Jed Dietz
After a short break it was time for the last movie of the festival and the closing night party. The movie and its director were introduced by Matthew Modine who played Pvt. Joker in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket back in the 80s. I saw him earlier in the filmmaker’s lounge — dressed in all white he lightened up the tent — but I couldn’t place him at all until his introduction when he spoke about filming Full Metal Jacket. Wow… that’s so long ago. After I checked his long film career on IMDB and noticed that I’m not familiar with any of the movies he was involved in since then… no wonder I wasn’t able to recognize him first! Hm, so I was in the same room with somebody who worked closely with Stanley Kubrick, the master himself? What an awe-inspiring moment!
But it was not him who was involved in the following movie, but Kathryn Bigelow who created with The Hurt Locker [IMDB][MFF] a war action-drama about a bomb expert and his work in the chaos of the Iraq war. Constantly living on the edge and having his hands on explosives that could go off any moment while often under sniper fire from insurgents, he not only remains calm, collected, curious and easy, but also develops a resistance against and an addiction to the unimaginable dangers that surround him on a daily basis.
I liked about this film that it mostly focused on an individual and the nature of his job, and how this war affected him or not. Thanks to an extraordinary camera and editing job it also illustrated how everybody lived in a constant state of alert and uncertainty, surrounded not only by bombs but also people in every angle who may or may not pose a threat to them. In the wide open landscape she managed to create a very claustrophobic atmosphere as if you were locked in a small room. This was captured very well and something I don’t think I have ever seen in a movie before.
Having said that, I felt it lacked some depth portraying the characters, especially Saff Sergeant William James. It fell a bit flat for me. I was hoping to get more insights about him, how the war affected him and how his brain works. I’m not a huge fan of war films, but I remember some great films with Oliver Stone’s Born on the 4th of July or Heaven and Earth that succeeded in this regard. But maybe there was not more than we were supposed to see. After all he was addicted to war and rather divorced from the normality of a safe and secure life.
Mark Boal, Kathryn Bigelow and the press
If I take this film as a war drama and action thriller I think it was a good and solid film for its genre. It’s not a movie I normally would have chosen to watch, but once I was in, I stayed interested from beginning to end and didn’t get bored. I liked that this film stayed non-political, non-propagandistic and not overly patriotic unlike some other movies or Army commercials. Kathryn Bigelow, by the way, also directed Strange Days and Wild Palms back in the nineties, both of which I loved.
After The Hurt Locker we spent a few minutes at the closing night party and headed back home. That was the end of an exhausting but very wonderful and exciting movie weekend.
It was a wonderful year for the Maryland Film Festival. The line-up included so many great movies. I especially appreciated the foreign movie choices even though we were not able to see all of them. I hope we will find such a nice selection again next year.
The filmmakers lounge was moved to the tent village across the Charles again like once before. I love this location. I liked this setup much better than the other venues of the past few years.
I loved the opportunity to purchase the All-Access passes at a lower price this year. Overall, this festival felt very close to what made me fall in love with it back in 2002 when I visited for the first time.
I like some of these equally as much, so it was nearly impossible to give them a fair spot in my list, but here it is! My top-11 of all the feature length movies seen on Friday and Sunday:
- Modern Love is Automatic
- Love Songs
- Invisible Girlfriend
- Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
- Strongman
- The Overbrook Brothers
- Stingray Sam
- Lake Tahoe
- World’s Greatest Dad
- The Hurt Locker
- Seventh Moon
The MFF2009 Crew
Last but not least I would like to thank everybody who made this festival possible! We had a fantastic time — thanks very much!!
Maryland Film Festival 2009
