Father Geek here, we've got a new reporter down in Brazil, The Flu, and he's going to be spreading himself across the fun-tastic RIO FILM FEST like his namesake, covering every aspect of the Fest for those of us who can't make it down this year...
Y'know, every damn year is the same thing: whenever the Rio Film Fest is
about to start, the tension builds up. This year, no different. As the
Festival got came closer and closer, the waiting for The List, with all the
movies shown, is torture: this year I was expecting less, to tell the truth.
There's gonna be a lot of great stuff, like Spider, Bowling For Columbine,
11''09'01, Das Experiment, Spirited Away, Pumpkin, Heaven, Irreversible, The
Gathering, 24 Hour Party People and Igby Goes Down, which is the one I'm
most looking forward to. Amongst other things.
But I'm not all satisfied with The List: I'm really missing Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys. I was really counting on its presence on the Festival. Shaolin Soccer is another one I was hoping to watch. I can't really understand why it didn't come, especially considering the subject in matter.
Anyway, with the Fest starting this friday, the run for advanced tickets became a battle. There were technical difficulties all over the place. I had planned to watch 25 movies, and, in the first day of advanced ticket sales, I managed to buy only 6. I went back to the ticket central the next day and then I was able to buy another 12. Still not enough. This happens every goddamn year! You think those idiots would learn from their mistakes...
But this year they did manage to do one thing right: there are great directors coming to publicize their new movies. Great names like Roman Polanski, Costa-Gavras, Neil Labute and, yes, Tom Tykwer.
The great thing about the Rio Film Fest is that it's actually a lot of showings, each with a different subject. Example: there's gonna be a showing only with German movies, including Tykwer's Heaven and Das Experiment. My favourite is Midnight Movies. It's sorta like alternative movies, all of them showed around midnight (duh!). Last year, for example, the best movie of the Fest was in the Midnight Movies: Ghost World.
For the next two weeks, my social life is to be considered dead. I will be going straight from college to the movies, only to go home after a Midnight Movie. Lunch? I won't know that word during the Fest. Sleep? Nope. No meaning at all for me.
The Fest has officially started thursday, but that was only for guests. In the biggest and oldest movie theater in Rio, they were able to watch Almodovar's Hable Con Ella. Sniff, I wish I was there...
So today, first day of the Fest for me, I was a bit worried. I had no idea of what I was about to watch. I mean, I had only read synopses, but they don't really help much.
I got out of college and went to the first film of the 25 I'm gonna watch during the next two weeks: Crazy, a german movie from director Hans-Christian Schmid. Well, it isn't a brilliant movie, but... It's rather good. It tells the story of Benni, a 16 year old who has his left arm and leg paralised, who has just moved into a boarding school. He and his roommate Janosch end up falling in love with the same girl. I don't know why, but I didn't feel very compelled to feel anything for each of the characters, specially for their friendship. Sure, the actors are good, even though Robert Stadlober (Benni) often forgot he was playing a crippled kid and walked completely normal, but the duo didn't really have a friendship that was close enough so I could actually care. Okay, maybe the constant problems the projection had took a little bit of compassion from me, but it happens. This is really your average teen drama...
Next up was Manic. I have no clue as to why it took so long for this movie to get here, but it finally did. Most of you guys have probably already seen this movie, so I'm gonna make myself brief. I really liked this film. It reminded me a bit of Bicho de Sete Cabeças (Brainstorm). They both took place in mental institutions, but the two are actually quite different. Manic is more about the patients problems, whereas Bicho... is focused on the horrible conditions of such institutions. Manic is truly a great film, which took me by surprise, with a Joseph Gordon Levitt totally different from what I was used. Don Cheadle, which I'm really too fond of, was also pretty damn good. Manic is a good film, but it doesn't really get you thinking about it, despite being quite disturbing.
And then, finally... I had the great pleasure of watching... 24 Hour Party People!! My God, what a movie! The best of the year! I thought The Doors was the best music-related movie I've seen, but I can't even begin to compare! 24 Hour Party People is just plain smart entertainment. It's not a very deep movie, nor is it a shitstorm like some comedies. It's sorta like High Fidelity, but without all the romance. This is the true story of Tony Wilson, founder of Factory Records and The Hacienda, from the 70's all the way to the early 90's. It's just brilliant to see how the movie shows Wilson's downfall as the music he manages get less and less popular with time. And here there are no boundaries: the guy wants to buy a 30 grand table even though he's broke, he just goes and fucking does it! If life was fair, this movie would be getting awards all over the place. Steve Coogan, if it was for me, you'd be getting a Best Actor - Comedy Golden Globe (Golden Globes rules! Fuck the Oscars!) any day of the week.
