Hey folks, Harry here in Vegas... I'm letting Quint take center stage here at CineVegas this year, because well I'm in Vegas... and there is simply no time to write when there are beautiful unicorns walking around with feathers coming out of their 6'1" foreheads and there was a least 5' of legs on these upright unicorns... I must capture me one. That's the primary reason to be here... heheheh... I kinda saw John Sayles' SUNSHINE STATE. I remember the film lasting about 55 minutes or so, thought the books say it is around 2 hours and 21 minutes, so obviously they're wrong, because I never fall asleep in movies due to absolute exhaustion and extreme old age. Never. Folks... Never... ever, stay awake for nearly 22 hours without food before watchin SUNSHINE STATE... that scenario doesn't have a happy ending. The end result is unfortunate confusion and aggravation, so I'd trust Quint's take over mine this time... The bastard was freshly rested and fed. I hate him. So after stumbling from the screening, I went to my room and slept. In fact, I just woke up long enough to post this and maybe one more, then I'm sleeping again, because I am very fond of the sleep world. buh byebye now...
Ahoy, squirts. Everybody's favorite crusty ol' seaman, Quint, here with the first live report from the CineVegas film festival.
It's been a weird trip so far. I left Austin late last night after watching Goonies in a cave (complements of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema) and just before boarding the plane I found myself face to face with another spy... slightly shorter than I.
Daryl Sabara (alias Juni of Spy Kids fame) and his mom and (I assume) brother were on my flight. They had just been in Austin doing looping for Spy Kids 2. I asked him if he'd heard Robert Rodriguez's score for the film yet and he eagerly hummed me a bit of Gary and Gerti Giggle's theme. Very cool. We went our separate ways, you know, to keep our profile low and avoid enemy detection. He ended up jumping into a spy plane, leaving me in coach. I changed planes at DFW and headed for Vegas... After dealing with the taxi line the size of which would rival the world's biggest rollercoaster's line on opening day, I got to my hotel, The Gold Coast, and promptly slept.
This morning was spent hoofing it over to Caesar's Palace for a meet and greet brunch thing for filmmakers at Spagos. While there, I chatted with Don Coscarelli a bit about Bubba Ho-tep and was pulled away by one of the press relations ladies. She was told to bring this Quint guy over to Brett Ratner's table.
Now I was sweating a bit because I was the one who broke all that Red Dragon stuff a while back, including Ratner being booked as director. Was he going to grill me for my sources? Smack me across the face for all the negative talkback that resulted from the news I broke?
Not at all. He was very warm and welcoming... He's here promoting Rebecca Gayheart's directorial debut short film Me & Daphne, but we mostly just talked Red Dragon. He's editing it right now and is very happy with it. Looks like I'll be getting an interview with him in the very near future, folks, so I'll be back with more info regarding Red Dragon soon.
Both Ratner and Coscarelli invited me to stay and eat the great looking Spago's free food, but unfortunately I had to run to the Palms Hotel and Casino to get my press credentials and catch Sunshine State. I don't wanna hear anybody saying I sold out after passing up a free 3 course meal (I am a poor writer spending 10 days in Las Vegas, paying all my own expenses, after all) and continuing Hannibal Lecter conversations to go see John Sayles' new movie.
So, what'd I think of Sunshine State? I really enjoyed it. It's a very slow, methodical character study of a film that seems to be Sayles' trademark. Mainstream audiences won't go for a film like this, but filmlovers and the fans of Mr. Sayles will really dig this movie.
It follows a bunch of different people in a small Florida town. You got Edie Falco, running a motel and restaurant, working a job she hates out of respect for her father, who was forced to retire when he started going blind. You got Timothy Hutton playing a nice enough guy who happens to be working for the corporation that is buying up all the beach front property they can get their hands on, but on an innocent level. He's merely a landscape architect, hired to "undress" properties and put a value on the land. Though they're on different sides, there's an attraction.
There's Angela Bassett, a small time actress who left the town years before in a flury of controversy who has returned with her new husband to visit her mother. There's Dr. Lloyd (played with great cool by Bill Cobbs), an elderly black man who seems to be the only person in the community willing to stand up against the corrupt local government lining their pockets with under the table deals with the yuppie developers. There's tons more characters that play a sizeable role in the grand scheme of things.
If you love John Sayles, this movie is for you. If you hate John Sayles, then you won't like this film. It's got all of Sayles' favorite themes and trademarks. It's intimate, a true character study of real people and just like in real life things don't end up all wrapped up in a pretty package with a bow on top. There are things that are set up and not completed... sound familiar? Just like real life. There are characters that in any other movie would have jumped in at the last minute and somehow made everything work out alright for everybody, but not in this one.
It's long, intimate, unconventional, but not boring. Sure, it's slow. I wouldn't go into this film after, say, more than a day without sleep. It'd be easy to lose track of the characters and the criss-crossing paths they weave that way. I dug it. If you want an anti-mainstream movie, one focused solely on character, than keep your eye out for this one.
The other movie I saw today was SPUN, the story following a meth freak (played by Jason Schwartzman) through a period of drug-extended consciousness... Could be 3 days or 4. Maybe even 5. He's not sure, you're not sure, nobody's sure. This movie is fucked up in a very good way. It's crazy, filled with fast edits, super microscopic close-ups and weird, funny, raunchy, brilliant bits of animation, not to mention an outstanding cast all playing varying levels of high. There's John Leguizamo as low level dealer Spider Mike... Leguizamo rules (as usual) in this movie. He so hopped up through the whole movie that you're just waiting for him to explode.
There's Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous) as the acne faced doped up trailer trash kid who's constantly hanging out at Spider Mike's house playing this badass lookin' Mortal Kombat style fighting game, except you're playing as a monkey... Very likeable character, played perfectly by Fugit. Then you got Mickey Rourke... Scary, scary Mickey Rourke... He kicks ass in this movie. Known only as The Cook, he's the source of the meth and the shadow that looms over the whole movie. You don't want to fuck with this guy. Rourke gives a speech in the film (in a porno shop, actually) that got the audience to erupt in applause. This is the best Rourke has been in a very long time and it's also the best material he's had to work with in a long while.
There are so many strong performances in this movie... Mena Suvari is great as Spider Mike's constipated woman. Peter Stromare (Big Lebowski, Fargo) is fucking awesome as usual as a mullet-headed cop. Alexis Arquette is a damn chameleon! He's cool as Stromare's partner. Eric Roberts gives a career best (small) performance as... well... a "fan" of Rourke's character.
I just love a movie that takes great character actors and puts them to good use. Again, this is so not a mainstream movie it's not even funny. It is a movie, however, I feel the indie watching world will eat up like there's no tomorrow. It's very stylistic, very unconventional, very bleak. A true indie film. Billy Corgan (of Smashing Pumpkins fame) did a fantastic score for the film, the music a perfect compliment to the washed out visuals... and this is coming from somebody who could give a flaming shit about The Pumpkins.
SPUN is a way out there movie about druggies shot in a way that you feel like you've become one yourself. Washed out visuals, super-enhanced use of sound, whacky editing... all make you feel like you're truly seeing through the eyes of a meth addict. You'll feel dirty after watching this movie... It's very grimy. But also very funny.
I have no idea when you folks will be lucky enough to see this film. It deserves a rather large indie theater release. I don't know if you'll get it, but it'd be a shame to lose this movie. Then you folks won't get to see Leguizamo playing a whole, long scene wearing nothing but a single sock or see Mena Suvari try to squeeze out a small turd or Rourke's amazing speech which deserves to be memorized and respoken by a new legion of film geeks.
I would write more, squirts, but I'm falling asleep at the keyboard. Busy day tomorrow. I should be back with some interviews and a few more reviews... and maybe a pic or two, by this time tomoorow night. 'Til that day, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
