I hate not being up in Toronto. So many films to see, but alas I'm here in Austin getting ready to begin the judging process on the Austin Film Festival. I'll be going through some 15 or so films in the next week or two. So it's like a festival but without all the interaction. Hey, that's in a couple of weeks. Anyway Here's the Report....
Saw two films yesterday, neither of which had any big stars or big budgets. The first was an aussie flick called Praise and the second a Canadian show named Rupert's Land.
Praise sucked. At 98 mins it was longer than Titanic in viewing time. The story is abou two twenty-something kids who meet each other in a small town. He is a apathetic asmatic who lives in a shitty boarding house with old men, she is a big city girl with real bad all over body exema and a hunger for sex with anybody. They get involved. They like each other. Then they don't. Then the guys fantasy girl he grew up with shows up for no reason. The couple fight. Blah blah blah. It was a first film and it showed. It was shot beautifully but had no sense of timing. The actors were of the Cronenberg school, deliver in monotone and as slowly as possible. It was just a big waste of time.
Rupert's Land was marginally better, but not by much. Two half brothers are reunited for their asshole father's funeral. Much ballyhoo erupts as they drive up the B.C. coast to Prince Rupert (get it?). People show up and leave for no particular reason, just to provide comedy relief but without real motivation for their existence. The film was funny but it too wore thin and ran too long. The one bright point was George Wendt who played the brother's kinda uncle figure, the dead father's best friend. He filled the role of the pot-smoking, hydro-ponics farmer in the deep woods quite well and keptyour attention in his scenes. This film is journeyman and unremarkable, making it fit in perfectly with most of Canadian cinema.
The general buzz I have heard here is that a large chunk of the films playing are just not good if not sucking outright. The films I and my friends have seen thus far seem to prove this but the festival is not over yet. I'm seeing The Imposters this Sat, Stanley Tucci's new one and I'm hoping its good. I'll let you know.
Ciao,
Darvin
