Hey folks, Harry here... Apparently Warren Peace has found a film festival at the bottom of Lake Travis in the old Mud City Auditorium! Attending along with our hero are 500lb catfish and crawdads the size of a hobbit's foot... Darn tootin this murky fest sounds fun!
Hey Harry,
Hi from here in Mud City. I'm sure you know that the Mud City Film Festival is going on right now. I don't know if you'll be able to make it to any shows or if you're still laid up, but I'll be going to as many movies as I can. I've got reviews of two movies that I saw Thursday night. Here you go:
THE BUSINESS OF STRANGERS
I read a blurb about this movie in The Daily Texan (the University of Texas newspaper) that described it as a female version of IN THE COMPANY OF MEN. It's a semi-accurate description, but not a perfect one. That movie examined what men are capable of and how they are frustrated with their constant demonization by society. THE BUSINESS OF STRANGERS looks at this from the other side of the equation, but delves more deeply into the relationship between its two main characters. Stockard Channing plays Julie, an aging businesswoman who, believing she is about to lose her job, takes out her frustrations by firing Paula, a young underling (Julia Stiles). To her surprise, she is instead promoted to CEO, so she is in a good mood when she later runs into Paula in the lounge of an airport hotel where she is staying. Feeling sorry for being so harsh, she buys Paula a drink and sits down to talk. Thus begins a series of power games, word games, and conversations about being a woman in the male-dominated world of business. There are a lot of interesting discussions, especially one in which Julie describes the first time she had a hot flash. The generation gap between the two is also examined, as Julie is an aging woman who has given her life to her career and is finally achieving her goals, while Paula is a young up-and-comer, although she describes herself as a non-fiction short story writer who is just doing this because it is a 'money job.' The plot takes a darker turn when they encounter a headhunter who Julie had consulted about her expected career change. He has past connections with Paula (I won't give away all the details), and ends up bearing the brunt of their frustrations about how women are treated in our society. A movie like this lives or dies by the performances, and thankfully, this movie lives. Stockard Channing is excellent, giving her character a sense of determinedness, with a hint of regret for what she gave up in order to be successful. Julia Stiles gives the best performance of her career, which may or may not be saying much, depending on how much you like teenybopper movies. Here, she expands her range of expressions beyond the two she usually uses (gigglingly happy and smolderingly stern) and actually plays a character with some depth. The only complaints I would have would be the generic (for this type of movie) score and the unnecessary coda which adds a contrived twist ending. But that's not enough to make this a bad movie. I definitely recommend it for those who like dialogue-based character films.
THE DUO
This looked like it could be lots of fun. A mockumentary about two bumbling wannabe superheroes could be a really good source of goofiness, and, in part, it was. The Terrific Two, Best Man and Buddy Boy, are a couple of deranged losers who are obsessed with dressing up in silly costumes and trying to fight crime. They could be a great source of comedy, using their 'powers' badly and always failing miserably in fighting crime. Instead, we get a silly barrage of jokes that aren't even funny enough to make it on SNL (maybe they could make it past the Mad TV quality control guys). The first third of the movie consists of the documentary crew interviewing people on the street about whether they believe superheroes exist. Lots of stale jokes here, when the interviewees all turn out to be lame stereotypes: the Jesus Freaks, the gay guys, the new age hippy girl, and the stoner. Har dee har. We also get to meet the guys at the comic book store that the Duo frequents and a psychologist at the local mental hospital. Inexplicably, throughout the movie we keep cutting back to the comic guys to hear them say, once again, that the Duo is weird and to the psychologist to hear him repeat that they are deranged, or schizophrenic, or psychotic, or whatever. Eventually, we finally meet the Terrific Two, who lounge around their house wearing their costumes. The crew starts delving into their lives, and we see their training, preparations, marketing (they've sold six T-shirts on their website!), and equipment. We spend an inordinate amount of time following them around their boring lives. There are a lot of scenes in which we see through their eyes. They believe that they live in a glorious fortress, surrounded by scantily clad women. That's slightly funny, but isn't this supposed to be a documentary about them? Why are we seeing scenes out of their heads? We see them bicker with each other and learn their origins, which leads to flashbacks that also shouldn‚t be in a documentary-style movie. There's the obligatory scene in which they get pissed off at each other and split up, only to be reunited later in a flood of tears and hugging. Finally, in the last ten minutes or so of the movie, they try to fight crime and stop a bank robbery, with predictable results. Yawn. This should have ended the movie, but afterwards there is an incredibly long scene in which the documentary director tries to get Buddy Boy to demonstrate his power, The Stare (don't even ask). Then the movie ends. Overall, it‚s a long series of pointless, predictable gags. To make matters worse, there are frequent bumpers in between scenes in which a CG-animated Terrific Two logo spins, or bounces, or rolls across the screen.
Obviously, somebody wanted to demonstrate his animation skills. Good for them, but next time I hope he sticks to screen savers. This movie might get a little attention at the Mud City Film Festival because it was shot locally and there are some scenes of recognizable Austin locations, such as Sixth Street or The Yellow Rose (a famous local strip club). Okay, I've spent too long talking about this movie. Don't see it (unless you‚re drunk).
There you go. Tonight I'm planning to see Novocaine and either Liam or America So Beautiful. It'll depend on what mood I'm in. I was planning to see the former, but Massawyrm just put up a good review of the latter, so now I'm conflicted. Oh well, I'll let you know. Later this week I'll see Brotherhood of the Wolf, The Devil's Backbone, and lots of others. I'll let you know about those too. See you later! WarrenPeace
