Hey folks, Harry here... Monki has been doing a dang good job this year at SXSW of keeping you folks up to date on some of the films playing this year. Currently I'm working up a story on a perfect day of film that I had on Monday here, where I saw 5 outstanding movies in a row (THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED, DUMMY, FLAG WARS, ROBOT STORIES and MARVIN GOES TO DINNER), but of course that's a lot of material for a long winded bastard like me to talk about. Today I caught just PHONE BOOTH, which is Joel Schumacher's first absolutely perfect film. There isn't a single thing I'd change. Watching it with that Paramount Audience tonight, over 1200 strong as the movie played them perfectly (and that includes me). Saw THE EYE at Sitges last year and loved it. You couldn't pay me to see the Pauly Shore movie and LUBBOCK LIGHTS has some great homegrown music acts in it... After a weak start for me, the festival has really begun to find its legs this year. Here's Monki...
Monki here with some more SXSW reviews. Today was an overall intense day; intense thrills, intense music, intense eeriness, and intense laughter.
I started off the day by checking out the film Lubbock Lights. This is a documentary about the music that has been borne in the town ofLubbock, Texas. Now, for you out of state folk, Lubbock is a pretty desolate town. The president of the Texas Film Commission summed it up nicely by saying, “Lubbock is one of the only places where you can watch your dog run away for a week.”
I’ve been to Lubbock, and I have to admit, the town is amazingly boring. Fortunately for the audience, the movie was much more interesting. The film discussed the town and how the emptiness of it really created this amazing opportunity for musicians to grow and prosper. We learn about the beginnings of the Flatlanders and listen to their stories throughout the entire movie.
It was an entertaining film with a lot of music interspersed, a lot of really great interviews and overall a really fun time. I enjoyed it a lot and if you like good ole country music, definitely give this one a look.
After that was theU.S. premier of Phone Booth. Holy crap. This movie grabs a hold of your nuts and doesn’t let go until the credits roll. Good lord. Seriously though, Colin Farrell just owns in this movie. If you don’t know the plot, it’s about a man who is trapped by a sniper within a phone booth. The twist is that he isn’t allowed to let anyone else know who he is talking to or else he will be killed. As most of you know, this movie was postponed due to the sniper attacks in the D.C. area a few months ago.
I have to say that Kiefer Sutherland has probably the creepiest voice put on film ever. His sniper character scares the shit out of you one second and then makes you laugh the next.
Everyone else does a decent job in the flick with Forest Whitaker being the badass he usually is. This is a must-see movie.
After that was one of the funniest independent films I’ve ever seen in my life. Pauly Shore (yes, Pauly Shore) has directed a film about what happened to him after his failed FOX sitcom. It is called You’ll Never Weiz in This Town Again or Pauly Shore is Dead. If you think you could write a better movie about ripping on Pauly Shore, you are horribly wrong. What Pauly has done is steal the thunder of everyone who has ever made a joke at his expense. He tears himself and his career apart in this film, and he does it with the aid of a LOT of Hollywood stars; some 40+ cameos by major players.
I find it really hard to explain this movie, but imagine Rico Suave standing on the side of the road selling oranges with a child who keeps screaming “Chicle! Chicle!” Or how about Pauly buying drugs from Corey Feldman to plant on a dead body, or Heidi Fliess cursing at Pauly for not paying his hookers enough. All of this and more is in the film.
This is a great flick and it sounds as though it will make its rounds at festivals and smaller theatres, so definitely check it out if you can. I’m sure it’ll end up on DVD eventually but it was amazing with an audience. Check this one out.
To wrap the night up I caught The Eye, an incredibly frightening movie by the Pang Brothers. It has been reviewed on the site a few times and I won’t go in to too much detail about the plot other than the lead female, named Mun, regained her sight she lost by a cornea transplant. But things go weird when she starts to see odd things, namely, dead people.
This may sound a lot like a Sixth Sense rip-off but it really succeeds where that film left off. Remember that creepy feeling you got when Haley Joel Osmet was looking at the bodies that were hanging in the school? Pump that up by about twenty and you get a decent appreciation of this movie.
I’m not usually freaked out by films, but there were certain scenes in this film that really F’d with my mind. The elevator scene comes to mind. Good lord that was incredibly eerie.
Anyways, I enjoyed the living hell out of this one. Apparently a remake is in the works? I can understand how this film wouldn’t really gel with a lot of “normal” American viewers. A lot of realistic charred bodies and mangled ones as well. Some people wouldn’t be able to handle it, I guess.
Definitely check this one out though before Tom Cruise (are you kidding me?) remakes it.
That was it for Tuesday, tomorrow I’ll be seeing A Mighty Wind and Bubba Ho-Tep, so stay tuned for more!
-Monki
