Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Whatever Robie says about me... he lies. Besides, he can't talk about people and what they do while they sleep. There have been things coming out of Robie in his sleep all week so far that even Amnesty International wouldn't tolerate. Anyway... here's AICN's soon-to-be-TIGER BEAT pinup model, JOHN ROBIE...
I’m caving. I had intended to write up each film in a separate report, but then I realized that if that’s what’s going to happen then Ain’t-it-Cool-News is going to turn into Ain’t-We-Just-About-Had-Enough-Of-Robie’s-Bits-And-Pieces-News. And trust me, ain’t no one had enough of Robie’s bits and pieces. In fact, this little philly just the…okay, I’m sorry. I can’t tell a lame joke because I have to tell you what’s going on right now. Moriarty is sleeping on the bed next to me alternately snoring and calling out something that sounds like, "I wanna munky funk, I wanna munky funk." If I knew what that was, I’d get it for him. A few times he’s thrashed about as he says this. I’m getting scared, and he’s getting louder. I want to crawl into a corner until he stops. I’m already curled into a fetal position and rocking back and forth, which is making it very tough to type. Mommy make bad man go away, mommy make bad man go away, mommy…
I already talked about Raw Deal, the first film we saw on our second day at Sundance. Saw three other films that day, and all three were excellent. And all three warrant big, long, loving peons to their wonder and grandeur. I’d love to do that, but the basic fact is that I’m short on time and Moriarty and I am sharing a laptop and he demands that I clean it up real good before giving it back. Keys get sticky. So no big long odes to greatness. Shorter odes to greatness, and all three right now.
While I was waiting for The Company of Strangers to start up yesterday an elderly couple came into the theater and sat down behind me. Rich old folks. You could tell. They had just gotten out of a showing of Chain Camera, the new documentary about teenagers from Kirby Dick. "What was the point of that," the man asked what I presumed to be his wife, "why would anybody want to see that?" "I don’t know," she said, "it’s just a bunch of filthy kids. What’s the merit in showing them…they’re so vile. I know they really talk like that but why show it? It’s not that important." Thankfully I know the meaning of restraint or I’d be typing this from a jail cell right now. Chain Camera is one of the best looks at young people that I’ve ever seen.
Dick’s first film – Sick: The Life and Times of Bob Flanagan, Supermachochist – was a strong, humbling character study, a real examination of why a man would put himself through so much pain and be able to find pleasure – relief actually – in things that would shake most of us to our bones. Chain Camera doesn’t quite delve into sadomasochism but it could have; the teens that it profiles are going to shock a lot of people. The idea for the documentary is brilliant in its simplicity; give a bunch of high school kids video cameras and tell them to tape their lives for a week. When that week is up, the kids give the cameras to different kids and by the end of the year the cameras have worked their way around the school like little chain letters. From all these video diaries Dick picked sixteen. Each is presented individually, each announced simply by each kid’s name.
Getting the footage is the easy part. Editing the footage down into concise, ten-minute character studies is the tricky part, and Dick does an incredible job of painting each of these kids. One of the things that it’s so easy to forget is how sophisticated high school kids can be. Hell, I haven’t been out of high school ten years and it still shocks me to hear teens putting together well-constructed intelligent thoughts. Maybe that’s because I myself have so much trouble doing it. What you get out of Chain Camera is a sense of real living breathing kids, of kids going through things both awful and wonderful and sometimes both. That praise, though, is just a little too obtuse. Why is Chain Camera so wonderful? Because each of the kids profiled is beautifully unique, there’s a sense of true personality with each one and they all have points of incredibly and sometimes moving sincerity. Through we see many of them with tear stained eyes and hear about a lot of the awful things they have to go through they still manage to find a semblance of happiness. This is the kind of thing you show people who say that the youth of today are a sad, sad breed. Oh really? Well then watch this and try to tell me there’s no hope.
And on top of all of that, the film is funnier than hell. And also, there’s one kid whose sole purpose is to show that his dick can talk. Though he’s very sincere, I don’t think he’s too sad. If mine could talk I’d be on cloud nine.
The doc was filmed at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. The place is huge – over four thousand students composed of 41 different ethnic origins. It’s a true mix of races, cultures, values and morals. Shit, it’s America, and the profiles we get of these kids are lasting. Tim lives in a house that’s got iron plates on the windows. Keeps the bullets out. If that was all he was – and lesser docs would’ve dwelled on that – we’d have been cheated as an audience. But it’s not all he is. He’s the kid holding up a sign that says, "I’m single," that’s never had a girlfriend, that had the balls to put the camera on himself and talk about his mom (dad’s gone) and talk about how she’s the best thing in his life. When you’re 16 you don’t want to cry on camera. Are you kidding me? Fernando is a gay Latino kid that hangs out with his macho, straight friends. Wait a sec…aren’t the macho, straight kids supposed to beat up the gay kids? Isn’t that what happens? Kids couldn’t actually be understanding and compassionate, could they? Sometimes – a lot of times – yes. Sometimes no. Jesse is a kid that eats other people’s discarded food as a political statement and comes home every night to a drunk mother (not anymore, though; we’re told at the end of his piece that she gave up the sauce). And he was an addict too for a long, long time, and now he’s active in political action organizations. Amy is a pixie on overdrive, hyperactive and only wanting to kiss her boyfriend on the cheek and of course we’ve all known girls like her and it’s goddamn hilarious when her boyfriend asks her about masturbation. Winfred gets the biggest laughs in the movie, though. Some of the biggest rip your heart out stuff, too. There’s a scene where he looks up into the camera, tells everyone to look into his eyes and tells them that he’s going to make it. It’s funnier than hell and honest. ‘Course it’s tough to get sentimental about it when the kid kicks into an awfully off-key rendition of "I believe I can fly," but no matter. And then there’s Ethan, the shy, uncomfortable, nerdy kid, the kid that’s still in the throes of puberty and that everyone makes fun of. The kid that doesn’t know what virginity is, that says hi to all the girls around him and is greeted with curt, slightly annoyed waves, the kid that we all know and that we’ve all probably felt like at one time or another or a lot. Ethan is so innocent that he doesn’t realize why the other kids picked him Homecoming Prince. Maybe, he figures, it’s just because he’s a nice guy, because they’re his friends. Jesus it’s heartbreaking, but the great thing is that it isn’t all he is. He’s also got a strange, goofy sense of humor, he’s got a sense of purpose, he’s the kid up there on the school announcements doing crazy editorials that he takes extremely seriously, the one kids laugh at but that make them realize that hey, Ethan just might make it. Optimism and despair in equal measures.
The film’s a great, true look at youth, at what kids go through and why they go through it, and it’s not a documentary that’s hindered by its one location. It’s not just a LA teen story. What those old people sitting behind me in the theater didn’t realize is that it’s not just this particular high school; these kids exist in every school in every town. There’s no hope? There is, and here’s why.
Aw hell, didn’t I say I’d keep this short?
Hedwig and the Angry Inch. I saw it right after Chain Camera, and for the first couple of minutes I was worried. It’s a rock opera about a transvestite punk rock star, Hedwig, attempting to find fame as he and his band follows the tour of ex-lover Tommy Gnosis and damn…I don’t think that any one-line description of the film can do it justice. I certainly did a crappy job right there. In the end Hedwig is a story about finding yourself, and though those first few minutes are a little iffy – they’re not filmed all that well and the song Hedwig performs is pretty nondescript – the next hour and a half is incredible. Good Christ I didn’t expect this. This is simply one of the most staggering pieces of work from one man – John Cameron Mitchell plays Hedwig, wrote the film AND directed it – that I’ve ever seen.
The film says some wonderful things about love and about whom we are, about how we search for things in life and what we need to take and to give to other people to make us whole. It’s not just a gay love story, not at all. Hedwig is an incredibly compelling character. He’s not just a guy in a wig; you’re not quite sure if he’s ugly or beautiful. I’m going to lean towards the latter, and not just because Mitchell makes a mean chick. It’s because Hedwig is so honest, because he’s so funny and sad and just genuinely wanting to find a little happiness. It’s not all hopey dopey, of course not. He’s angry too, bitter and pissed, but underneath it all there’s the broken soul of a man trying to complete himself.
The musical numbers get better and better – I’ve been humming a couple of them for the past two days – but it’s the writing of the film that really blew me away. This is amazing stuff, from Hedwig and his band to Hedwig and Tommy to (especially) young Hedwig growing up in Germany. Mitchell’s voice comes out in a soothing buzz, and he’s compelling, just earnest. Of course there are going to be people that can’t see past the gay stuff and the songs and hell, there’s going to be people that just don’t care for the music. Hedwig is so well made, though, and so innocent in a lot of ways that I can’t see how this doesn’t find at least a little mainstream success. It doesn’t assault the viewer; it bleeds out bit by bit. That’s not to say it’s boring; it’s not. It’s not because the songs get really, really great (and, for the punk numbers, thankfully good fast and not goofy fast) and because Mitchell has an excellent eye as director. The scenes are composed extremely well, and whenever the story dips into symbolism or metaphor (scary words in the hands of bad directors) it totally clicks. After a big fight during a show Hedwig basically flies out the door, and instead of being goofy it’s graceful. The end of the film can be interpreted a number of ways. Giving away that ending would spoil the fun, but I will say this; it’s one of the best uses of lavish imagery to explain exactly what a character is going through that I’ve ever seen.
Mitchell finds beauty in trash, in a pile of tires or in clothes hung up to dry. A good director understands the grace of movement, and Mitchell understands it. There’s a kiss scene here between Hedwig and Gnosis that takes place in a trailer that is so well done, so perfectly executed, that I’m willing to bet it’s the most striking and lovely thing I’ll see at the festival if not all year. The one thing I’m really looking for in films at this festival is honesty. I’ve seen some ripe, ripe bullshit, and I’ve seen things that are only halfway there. Yes Mr. Godard, the camera lies 24 times a second. Prickly fucker. If it can speak to us of things that reverberate in real life, though, it’s of worth, and the more it touches us the more golden it gets. Hedwig, aside from being one hell of a lot of fun, glows so brightly it’s blinding.
Boy…I’m sick at the thought of that last line. I mean it’s right but hell, doesn’t it sound like pr-firm baiting "put it on the poster" bullshit? Ew, I’m a whore. Christ, sorry about that guys…but I still think it’s true.
So the lights go up and Moriarty and I grabbed a beer in the lounge, talked to a few people, I made eyes with a number of lovely ladies, I got shot down by said lovely ladies, and Moriarty and I walked into Dogtown and Z-Boys.
Now here’s the thing; this was one of the best movie days of my life, and it’s because this last flick capped it off. Dogtown rules the fucking Earth. It rules the sun and the moon and the stars up above and all down below and it kicks the living hell out of most any other skating documentary I’ve ever seen. Why? Because it’s one of the only documentaries I’ve ever seen that – in how it’s constructed – exudes the feelings of the thing it’s documenting. It’s confrontational, it’s energetic, it’s beautiful and it’s graceful in how aggressively pop-pop-pop-flicker-the-images-cut-to-the-talking-head-cut-to-the-boarder it is. Fucking rules, man. This isn’t MTV fast cut bullshit. It’s fast for a purpose, so fast that it nearly self- destructs and shit, I think that it does in a couple of parts.
It’s a documentary about the Zephyr skate team from Dogtown. Dogtown is down near the Pacific right there next to Santa Monica, a real dump back in the ‘70s and the breeding ground for the group of men and women (boys and girls at the time) that revolutionized skateboarding and turned it into what it is today. Skateboarding isn’t important, huh? That’s the criticism the film will get. In this regard it’s very much like Scratch, another excellent doc at Sundance that I looked at before. Scratch is about the guys that work the turntable, and if you’re not a fan of scratching then why should you care about a movie about scratching? If you’re not a fan of skateboarding then why should you care about a movie about skateboarding? Well, aside from the fact that just maybe it might open up your itty bitty little head to a lifestyle different than your own, both movies are about truly talented people doing something out of the purest sense of love. What the Zephyr boys and girls did changed the face of skateboarding, and that in turn played into music and popular culture. Blame the Dogtown boys for the state of things if you’re a prick, fine, but at least watch the movie and revel in the incredible grace and talent of these skaters. Watch the film because it’s a superb look at ‘70s California, watch the film because of the unflinching yet loving looks at where the Zephyr team members are today, watch the film because it’s narrated by Sean Penn and watch the film because director (and original Zephyr team member) Stacy Peralta is smart enough to include Penn fucking up the narration. Why? Because that ties into the whole deal with the documentary being made with the whole skate aesthetic in mind; it’s as much about doing something new and kicking ass as it is in having fun in fucking up.
Anyone that says that this is a bad year at Sundance needs his or her heads checked. Moriarty is starting to stir again, so I’m going to go and see if I can find him some munky funk. Arrevaderci baby.
