Turkish director Mahmut Fazil Coskun’s Wrong Rosary is heartbreaking, meditative and very, very slow.
Paring down your Calgary International Film Festival options is never an easy task. Fortunately, that’s what we’re here for: With a little help from our sister paper See in Edmonton, Fast Forward’s film writers have done the heavy lifting for you, compiling capsule-sized reviews of some of the fest’s most interesting flicks. The following reviews only cover about a tenth of what CIFF has to offer, though, so be sure to peruse the festival’s online synopses at calgaryfilm.com, too.
AN EDUCATION
(U.K., 2009)
Dir. Lone Scherfig
Sept. 30, 7:15 p.m., Eau Claire
Adapted by writer Nick Hornby from a memoir by Lynn Barber, this Sundance fave has generated plenty of award buzz for Carey Mulligan’s lead performance as Jenny, an almost-17-year-old coming of age in early-’60s London who falls for a fella twice her age. Mulligan is indeed as plucky as one could hope but the movie around her is frustratingly muddled. Director Lone Scherfig is unsure whether to treat Jenny’s story as an upbeat period piece, a proto-feminist cautionary tale or something else entirely. It even comes to feel like an Ian McEwan-like exercise in English unease, what with the icky presentation of the dashing older beau – Scherfig so clearly flags David (Peter Sarsgaard) as Not What He Seems that the character might as well be a vampire. Amid all this confusion and a second half that flags badly, Mulligan’s charm only goes so far. (JASON ANDERSON)
BE GOOD
(France, 2009)
Dir. Juliette Garcias
Oct. 1, 6:45 p.m., Plaza
Dark and uncomfortable, Be Good is the kind of film that is absolutely no fun to watch but still carries a substantial emotional and intellectual reward. Eve (Anais Demoustier) is a beguiling young woman who has just arrived in a small French town to take a job delivering baguettes. It immediately becomes clear, however, that Eve is weirdly distant, a pathological liar and stalking a local (and married) man. As the film unfolds, the reasons for Eve’s disturbing behaviour become clearer, but none of these reasons make Be Good any easier to swallow.
Demoustier is brilliant as Eve — she’s gorgeous to see on screen, but gives such a sense of creepiness to the character that it can be difficult to watch. The film itself is slow and maddening in its ambiguity, but that ambiguity is what makes it so strong. Not for the faint of heart, Be Good is a brave, unsavoury, but ultimately very powerful film. (ELIZABETH CHORNEY-BOOTH)
BEESWAX
(U.S.A., 2009)
Dir. Andrew Bujalski
Sept. 27, 12:30 p.m., Eau Claire
Beeswax is not a film of broad strokes. There are no big twists or dramatic reveals, no careful setups or payoff, no familial histrionics of screaming and tears. It’s a film of warmth and gentle humour, unconcerned with plot, opting to just go along with the ebb and flow of the lives of twin sisters (played by real-life twins). There’s Lauren (Maggie Hatcher), who drifts away from love and work, and the passive-aggressive Jeannie (Tilly Hatcher), the paraplegic sister trying to avoid a lawsuit by her business partner over their vintage clothing store.
In his latest and most assured film, mumblecore pioneer Andrew Bujalski works in tiny details. Lauren absent-mindedly plays with her sister’s foot in the way only sisters do. The camera is always mindful of how people wait in a scene when removed from the action or how a joke changes a room when nobody laughs. Conversations wind their way around lived-in spaces, inarticulate and tripping over pauses. Bujalski builds upon these details to create such sharply defined relationships and characters. Much like the director’s previous work, the beauty of Beeswax is in how completely uncinematic it is, its humble and unadorned esthetic giving itself over to its characters. The film may seem to end abruptly, but Bujalski trusts in the intimacy he has built with his characters to carry us through those closing moments. (ALAN CHO)
BEST WORST MOVIE
(U.S.A., 2009)
Dir. Michael Stephenson
Sept. 27, 9:15 p.m., Plaza
Is Troll 2 the worst film of all time? Probably not, but it would be hard to argue against the film’s utter incompetence. In the hilarious documentary Best Worst Movie, director Michael Stephenson (who also co-starred in Troll 2) traces the film’s history from little-seen disaster to cult classic.
The film follows Troll 2 star George Hardy, now a dentist living in small-town Alabama. He’s surprised to learn that what he thought was a universally reviled movie has begun to find momentum it never had when first released in 1990. Soon, Troll 2 stars approach Stephenson and offer their own divisive comments on the film. Hardy himself is happy to revel in the film’s awfulness, but not everyone associated with the film is as generous: one actress won’t list it on her resumé and Italian director Claudio Fragasso takes particular affront to the film’s rancid reputation, calling it “a ferocious analysis of today’s society.” Uh, sure.
Stephenson is aided by a bit of documentarian luck, with all of his subjects being uniformly bizarre and willing to expose their lives to the camera. Despite its source material, however, the documentary isn’t exploitative — it shows a genuine love for cult cinema and its fans, with a series of scenes featuring Troll 2’s “greatest hits” thrown in as well. It’s fascinating to see the machinery of low-budget cinema at work, where a film’s success is driven by dedicated fans.
In one hilarious scene, Hardy asks a video store clerk if they have Troll 2, and she points them to a special section reserved for such films, dubbed “Holy Fucking Shit.” That’s pretty accurate — and for horror fans, a sure sign of Best Worst Movie’s awesomeness. (BRYN EVANS)
BROKEN EMBRACES
(Spain, 2009)
Dir. Pedro Almodóvar
Sept 27, 9:15 p.m., Eau Claire
The latest melodrama from Pedro Almodóvar is the story of a tragic love triangle between a movie director (Lluís Homar), his producer (José Luis Gómez) and the producer’s mistress (Penélope Cruz). Along the way, characters are variously struck blind, pushed down staircases, betrayed, avenged and visited by long-lost children. Tears fall onto tomatoes, call girls become movie stars and cinema acquires the power to ruin lives and then reshape them. In less skillful hands, these elements would seem contrived or overripe, but Almodóvar tells this story so masterfully, teasing us for as long as he can before he even reveals how the various characters are related, that it becomes the purest pleasure simply to watch it all unfold. Early critical reaction to Broken Embraces has been respectful but underwhelming, but they’re selling this one short. It’s prime late-period Pedro. (PAUL MATWYCHUK)
COLE
(Canada, 2009)
Dir. Carl Bessai
Sept 26, 9:30 p.m., Globe
Oct. 4, 5 p.m., Eau Claire
If “Canadian film” can be said to be its own genre, Edmonton’s Carl Bessai is one of the genre masters. His latest, Cole, is a taut drama set in the beautiful yet malevolent Interior B.C. town of Lytton. Shot on location, the geography of the former mining town sets the stage for a narrative that is both heartwarming and brutal, enhanced by photography that is nothing short of stunning. Cole is an aspiring writer who must choose between the dire straits of his family life and the prospect of a university education in the city. All the tensions in his life build to a heated climax. Cole addresses such age-old Canadian issues as racism and multiculturalism, the ever-shifting national identity and the claim to artistic integrity in the North. The film’s charm lies in exactly what makes Canadian film so special: its quietness, nervousness and self-deprecating sense of humour. A strong entry in the canon of films that demonstrate how sour things can turn up here in the North. (THOMAS PATRICK PRINGLE)
THE DAMNED UNITED
(U.K., 2009)
Dir. Tom Hooper
Sept. 26, 7p.m., Plaza
You don’t have to know anything about British football — God knows I don’t — to enjoy this dramatization of Brian Clough’s disastrous 44-day tenure as the manager of Leeds United. That’s because this is less a sports drama than the personal story of how Clough’s obsessive rivalry with his predecessor, legendary manager Don Revie, both instigated his success and nearly ruined his entire career. The film was written by Peter Morgan (who also wrote The Queen and Frost/Nixon) and stars Morgan’s usual leading man, Michael Sheen, as Clough. Sheen is terrific as usual — especially in the scenes where Clough’s too-cocky-by-half personality gets the better of him. With Timothy Spall as Clough’s invaluable assistant Peter Taylor, Colm Meaney as Revie and Jim Broadbent as a tightwad team owner, the cast is practically an all-star team of ruddy-faced Irish and British character actors. Minor, but very entertaining. (PAUL MATWYCHUK)
EVERYONE ELSE
(Germany, 2009)
Dir. Maren Ade
Sept. 30, 9:15 p.m., Eau Claire
This German film focuses on a couple, Chris (Lars Eidinger) and Gitti (Birgit Minichmayr), whose relationship begins to implode while vacationing in Sardinia. Chris is a talented young architect whose artistic ideals prevent him from getting any actual jobs and Gitti is his eccentric, cutting-edge girlfriend. The two enjoy a sexually charged vacation until they run into one of Chris’s more successful colleagues, who leaves them wondering if they’d be happier if they were just more like “everyone else.”
Everyone Else’s power lies in director Maren Ade’s ability to capture the mundane tragedies that lurk in every failing relationship. Chris and Gitti’s journey isn’t particularly exciting, but it is very, very real. This doesn’t necessarily make for a pleasant viewing experience, but both principal actors are so likable that you end up rooting for them to work it out, even when she is acting like a shrill child and he’s being an aloof jerk. Ade resists the temptation to end the film conventionally, which only adds to its punch. (ELIZABETH CHORNEY-BOOTH)
GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH
(U.S.A., 2009)
Dir. Damien Chazelle
Oct. 1, 7:15 p.m., Eau Claire
Shot in grainy black-and-white 16mm film, Guy and Madeline exudes a deliberate seriousness that belies its roots in early MGM musicals. Following the eponymous pair of lovers — Guy (Jason Palmer) and Madeline (Desiree Garcia) — after their breakup, the film is largely an exploration of their post-relationship wandering. But writer-director Damien Chazelle’s first feature film is an odd hybrid, including a handful of musical numbers and largely improvised dialogue that can only be called mumblecore, and the result is ultimately unwieldy.
The musical numbers themselves are conspicuously rough, save for a tightly choreographed tap number that springs out of a house party with surprising speed. Generally, however, the world they spring from is one of inarticulate, directionless chats.
The scene that predicates the breakup is the movie’s strongest, a moment of silence that actually heightens its intimacy. Facing each other in a crowded subway car, Guy and Elena (Sandha Khin) are drawn closer and closer together, their hands gradually grazing until the contact grows into an embrace. In isolation, the moment is poignant and simple, but faced with 80 minutes of the same it gets difficult to continue to try and project yourself into the silence.
In trying to marry the esthetic sensibilities of early MGM musicals with the hyper-realism of improvised dialogue, Chazelle has created a singular piece. Somewhere in all the intensity, though, everything else feels gratingly unclear. (JEFF KUBIK)
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF LITTLE DIZZLE
(U.S.A., 2009)
Dir. David Russo
Sept. 28, 7 p.m., Eau Claire
Good Lord, where the hell did this come from? I’m entranced, appalled, giddy, mesmerized and I might have just formed a lasting emotional attachment to something too weird and inexplicable to ever tell anybody about! The above reaction is actually something experienced by one of the characters in the new film The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, but it also applies to the film itself. This movie (comedy/drama/ non-narrative/arthouse/romance/ fantasy/WTF?!) is unexpectedly weird and terrific.
Dory (Marshall Allman) quits his data-entry job in a sudden fit of anger and joins a slightly bizarre group of young janitors. He adapts easily to the unconventional janitorial lifestyle, learning how to speed-clean a men’s room and how to scrounge goodies out of trash bins. There is illicit after-hours boardroom sex; a market research meeting involving chemical-laden self-heating cookies; a toilet-themed art display... actually, never mind about the plot. This flick hops back and forth between fascinating mundanity and equally fascinating insanity with more skill than I ever thought possible.
It combines a ground-level look at a commonly disregarded blue-collar job with preposterous sci-fi elements and a nice cult movie sensibility, so I suppose it’s kind of related to Repo Man, but it’s as radically different from that film as Repo Man was to anything that came before it. The characters are great, the visuals are amazing and the whole thing is entertaining in a completely original and unexpected way. (JOHN TEBBUTT)
IT MIGHT GET LOUD
(U.S.A., 2009)
Dir. Davis Guggenheim
Sept. 25, 9:30 p.m., Eau Claire
Promised as both an ode to the electric guitar and a roundtable discussion/jam session between three decade-defining rock guitarists — Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2’s The Edge and The White Stripes’ Jack White — Davis Guggenheim’s It Might Get Loud is really neither. Most of the documentary is straitlaced biography told in the musicians’ own words: We hear all about their cherished first guitars and the songs that changed their lives, then accompany them back through their old haunts. The high point comes when Guggenheim gets them to recount the class struggles they sprang from, like The Edge’s violence-riddled 1970s Ireland and White’s left-for-dead Detroit in the ’90s. But there’s almost nothing about their respective musical rebellions, and that’s just as important. Then again, it’s not hard to see why they stay so awkwardly polite on camera: The Edge was rebelling against people exactly like Page, and White against people exactly like The Edge. They’re less successors to rock’s crown than a string of usurpers, now forced to chat with the people they meant to kill off. (MICHAEL HINGSTON)
LESLIE, MY NAME IS EVIL
(Canada, 2009)
Dir. Reginald Harkema
Oct. 1, 7 p.m., Globe
If Jean-Luc Godard and Roger Corman had joined forces to make a Manson Family movie in 1972, it’d look and feel a lot like this. And chances are that this imaginary opus would’ve pissed people off just as much as the Monkey Warfare maker does with his ballsy attempt to re-invoke America’s psychotic reaction to the twin assaults of the Manson murders and the My Lai massacre. At the centre of the madness is an almost-romance between cheerleader-turned-killer Leslie (Kristen Hager) and Perry (Gregory Smith), a young silent-majority member who’s a juror at her murder trial. Perry’s own beliefs are challenged by what he learns of Leslie’s ill-fated encounters with the charismatic Charlie (Ryan Robbins). Since the film is more whacked-out melodrama than spoofy satire, the shifts in tone are as potentially alienating as the sitcom-like artificiality of the sets and Harkema’s use of rear-projection and stock footage. Deeply weird, very hostile but endlessly inventive, the result is the most gleefully gonzo Canadian feature in recent memory. (JASON ANDERSON)
MIDGETS VS. MASCOTS
(U.S.A., 2009)
Dir. Ron Carlson
Sept. 29, 9:15 p.m., Plaza
Oct. 4, 9:30 p.m., Eau Claire
How on earth did this worthless, witless comedy — a mock-documentary about a team of little people competing against a team of losers in foam costumes in a humiliating month-long battery of competitions to win a million-dollar inheritance — ever get accepted into this festival? It’s hard to pick out the lowest point: The “milk chug” contest, which concludes with the contestants upchucking all over the dinner table? The bit where they all go to a restaurant and refuse to stop loudly listing racial slurs — much to the horror of the African-American customers sitting nearby? The cameo by Ron Jeremy? The depressing, paycheque-collecting presence of Gary Coleman? The contest’s Chinese referee, an insulting Asian stereotype of the type we haven’t seen since the days of Long Duk Dong? Crass, exploitative and repugnant — stay far, far away. (PAUL MATWYCHUK)
MUST LOVE DEATH
(Germany, 2009)
Dir. Andreas Schaap
Sept. 26, 11:30 p.m., Plaza
Sept. 27, 12:30 p.m., Plaza
In an effort to make a genre-blender of a film, Andreas Schaap comes off looking confused with Must Love Death. The movie shares its basic premise with gore-porn franchises Hostel and Saw, and its central character, Norman (Sami Loris), is portrayed as a hopeless romantic and manic-depressive. One scene that takes place in a gym shows him to be an unhinged sociopath, a character trait that appears and is forgotten with equal hurriedness.
Half of the film’s action takes place in a cabin in the woods where Norman believes he’s joined a suicide pact with a group of strangers. Instead, it turns out he’s walked into the arms of a group that intends to torture and kill him. The other half is set in a flashback love story where Norman meets the girl of his dreams only to find out she has a cartoonishly alpha-male boyfriend. The boyfriend is so overacted by Phillip Rafferty that many audience members will likely be searching for suicide pacts of their own.
Must Love Death has been categorized as a dark comedy and a horror spoof, the only problem being that the movie isn’t funny. Neither Norman’s romantic interaction with Jennifer (Manon Kahle) nor the childlike interaction between the torturers provokes any laughter, so the lighthearted approach to driving nails through forearms just seems incongruous. Loris does a commendable job as Norman, having to carry a movie that is never quite sure what it means to be. (NATHAN ATNIKOV)
MY DOG TULIP
(U.S.A., 2009)
Dir. Paul and Sandra Fierlinger
Sept. 25, 7:30 p.m., Eau Claire
Narrated genially by Christopher Plummer and animated in a loose, sketchy style, Paul and Sandra Fierlinger’s My Dog Tulip is as warm and inviting as a steaming cup of Earl Grey on a drizzling English morning. Adapted from J.R. Ackerly’s book of the same name, the film follows the relationship between a fiftysomething Ackerly and the young dog Tulip who inadvertently comes into his possession.
The film has a relaxed, ambling approach to its story, allowing the Fierlingers to employ beautiful animation tricks and make some charmingly simple observations. This relaxed tone doesn’t always serve the film, though. My Dog Tulip does drag in places, largely because its conclusion is inevitable from its first moments. The filmmakers also spend a large chunk of their modest 83-minute runtime focusing on the scatological elements of being a dog owner, though this could be the Fierlingers remaining faithful to the source material.
Despite its dull moments, the sweetness of My Dog Tulip ultimately wins out. It’s a decidedly understated film lovingly rendered by everyone involved and the care they put into their craft is plain to see on the screen. (GARTH PAULSON)
SUMMERHOOD
(Canada, 2008)
Dir. Jacob Medjuck
Sept. 27, 2:15 p.m., Eau Claire
Oct. 3, 3 p.m., Plaza
I didn’t like Summerhood very much, but my major criticisms basically amount to a description of the film: It’s an overly sentimental, nostalgic coming-of-age summer camp movie set to the sounds of “Solsbury Hill” and “Spirit in the Sky” and about a million other songs we all remember from growing up. It has stretches that are a lot of fun, but ultimately it collapses under the weight of its own affectedness. Even within the confines of its genre, though, Summerhood really should have eased up on the all-knowing, overly eloquent, quick-witted, precocious children. They can test your patience as a token kid sibling in the best of movies, but a camp literally full of them can become outright unbearable. Obviously you can’t just have kids talk like kids because that would be, well, horrible, but that doesn’t mean they have to pick up girls with lines like: “I’m nine. You make me feel like I’m 10.” I wish I could be that smooth now. (LUKE DE SMET)
TRICK ’R TREAT
(Canada-U.S.A., 2008)
Dir. Michael Dougherty
Sept. 25, 11 p.m., Plaza
Trick ’r Treat is a horror flick in the Tales from the Crypt mould, featuring four terror tales chopped together and bookended by a grisly reminder of Halloween etiquette (remember kids: don’t smash a stranger’s jack o’ lantern).
Like any anthology, some segments are better than others: Dylan Baker hams it up as a serial killer getting into the true spirit of Halloween and Brian Cox gains some laughs as a nasty old man whose secrets (and a demonic pumpkin boy) come back to haunt him. Unfortunately, Anna Paquin as a modern Red Riding Hood (imagine An American Werewolf in Ohio) falls flat, and the tale of a group of sadistic teens whose Halloween prank turns on them is equally dull.
Director Michael Dougherty cribs details from a number of flicks (Halloween, Scream, Pumpkinhead), but the results don’t really cohere — the idea of a town set upon by the spirit of Halloween itself is novel, but Dougherty settles for cheap shocks, and worse, the gore is almost non-existent. Still, though it’s a modest genre effort, it’s fun to see a director steering away from torture porn to create a fun throwback to goofier (if slighter) ’80s horror fare. (BRYN EVANS)
UNMADE BEDS
(U.K., 2009)
Dir. Alexis Dos Santos
Sept. 30, 9 p.m., Globe
If I didn’t have writer-director Alexis Dos Santos’s word to the contrary, I would have believed that the Bohemian world of Unmade Beds was an impossible fantasy of sex, drugs and vintage clothes. He insists his second feature film is an attempt to capture the sense of anomie for ex-pats living in London’s notoriously cheap East End, which appears to be a pretty wild place.
In the blurry London night, everyone is drunk, interesting and constantly engaged in either deeply entangled sex acts or aimless, introspective wandering. The film’s two protagonists — a mop-topped ragamuffin named Axl (Fernando Tielve) and a soft-spoken bookseller (Déborah François) — are able to meander through the same colossal London squat with only passing exchanges between them. Axl, a young Spanish ex-pat, comes to the city looking for his father, a British real estate agent (Richard Lintern), while Vera tries to avoid meaningful attachment to a handsome late-night rendezvous (Michiel Huisman). They do it with style and, of course, a lot of sex.
Visually, Unmade Beds is a lush assortment of the kinds of colours you’d expect to find cast off in a colossal artist collective. The only sustained contact between the erstwhile roommates happens during a music video shoot where anthropomorphized animals dance around and guzzle seemingly bottomless quantities of booze. It’s a Bohemian fantasy about existential love in a beautiful city where even the melancholy is tinged with beauty. Even if it is a fantasy, it’s an appealing one. (JEFF KUBIK)
VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL
(Japan, 2009)
Dir. Yoshihiro Nishimura and Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Oct. 1, 11:15 p.m., Plaza
Oct. 3, 1 p.m., Plaza
Blood does not “splatter” anywhere in Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, it drenches. Fire hoses are hidden all over the set and they blast juicy red fluid all over everything whenever one of the film’s super-powered schoolgirls waves anything vaguely sharp at another character. Fortunately, it’s much, much too ridiculous to be really ghastly.
What we’ve got here is another ultra-gory Japanese splatter-comedy in the vein of The Machine Girl (2008) and Tokyo Gore Police (2008), but done with a (somewhat) lighter touch that is quite welcome. The title characters are competing for the affections of the class hunk, and things quickly spiral into a messy (oh, so messy) love triangle in which the guy’s feelings take a back seat to all of the ultra-violent acts of one-upmanship (one-upgirlship?) going on. We see swords made out of hardened vampire blood, enemy skulls stacked up neatly as they’re removed and a droplet of vampire blood scurrying away from a broom like an insect.
Not every gag works and many of them go on too long. All of the scenes involving the wrist-cutting club or the ganguro girls, for example, are terrible and require knowledge of the fringes of Japanese youth culture to make any sense at all. Don’t let that dissuade you, though — if you’re keen to see this movie, chances are you won’t be put off by tasteless humour. Besides, where else can you see Frankenstein Girl bolt her own severed limb onto the top of her head, and use it as a helicopter propeller? (JOHN TEBBUTT)
THE WAY WE GET BY
(U.S.A., 2009)
Dir. Aron Gaudet
Sept. 27, 4:30 p.m., Eau Claire
Sadly, when aged folks appear in films, it’s usually as the butt of a joke. The Way We Get By, which honestly depicts the experiences of the elderly, is a refreshing and touching little gem following a trio of octogenarian citizens of Bangor, Maine, a town notable for being the entry and exit point for most American soldiers who fight in the Middle East. Writer-director Aron Gaudet’s three subjects are part of a makeshift crew that greets every single flight. (At the time the movie was made, they’d greeted over 750,000 soldiers.) The film’s premise could easily be executed in an overly sentimental manner, but rather it’s a quiet look at the realities of aging and the emotional symbioses of a community. The film does acknowledge the obvious dilemma that its characters face, wanting the war to end and yet relying on it for their personal fulfilment. This is used as a jumping-off point for the subjects to meditate on their futures, which is a lovely send-off, acknowledging that bit of road that’s left as you near the end. (CLARA LOGINOV)
THE WHITE RIBBON
(Austria-Germany-France-Italy, 2009)
Dir. Michael Haneke
Sept. 26, 6:30 p.m., Eau Claire
Set in a small town in Northern Germany in the year leading up to the First World War and narrated by the town’s schoolteacher (one of the film’s few sympathetic characters), The White Ribbon is less about its individual characters than the tensions, suspicions and class conflicts that eventually lead to atrocities. Director Michael Haneke has described the film as discussing “the origin of every type of terrorism, be it of political or religious nature,” and viewed in that light, its nearly non-stop miserablism is understandable and even necessary. Still, the methodical pace, a number of reprehensible characters and Haneke’s emotionless directorial distance make for difficult viewing, and the director doesn’t provide his usual moment of catharsis to put it all in perspective.
The black-and-white cinematography is gorgeous, though, recalling the crisp composition and stark contrast of turn-of-the-century photography. The lack of any emotion makes The White Ribbon a frustrating experience, but there’s no question that it’s the work of a masterful director. (PETER HEMMINGER)
WHO KILLED NANCY?
(U.K., 2009)
Dir. Alan G. Parker
Oct. 1, 9:30 p.m., Eau Claire
The titular “Nancy” is murdered punk rock hanger-on Nancy Spungen, who was stabbed to death in New York’s Chelsea Hotel in 1979. The answer to the title’s query has traditionally been her boyfriend, Sex Pistols bass player Sid Vicious. Or so we thought. Alan G. Parker’s documentary tries to present Spungen’s murder and Vicious’s subsequent fatal heroin overdose under the lens of good old conspiracy theory. The problem is, most of his theories are scattered, half-baked and relegated to either the very beginning or the very end of the film. What we get instead are several interviews with Spungen/Vicious insiders interspersed with animation and re-enactment footage of the deceased couple.
Who Killed Nancy? does offer some interesting first-hand insight on the couple and serves to fill in some holes left by the 1986 dramatization of the saga, Sid & Nancy. Parker also raises some interesting questions — for example, what happened to the wads of money believed to have been in Nancy’s possession before she was killed, and why did the police simply drop the investigation after Vicious died? Unfortunately, these loose ends cannot be neatly tied up, so Parker (and his audience) is left with speculation and not a whole lot else. (ELIZABETH CHORNEY-BOOTH)
WINNEBAGO MAN
(U.S.A., 2009)
Dir. Ben Steinbauer
Sept. 27, 7 p.m., Eau Claire
If you’re a fan of watching dumb things on the Internet, you’ll be familiar with the “Winnebago Man” video, a series of outtakes from a sales training video featuring Jack Rebney, “the angriest man on Earth.” It shows Rebney trying to discuss the merits of a late-’80s Winnebago. That is, when he isn’t totally losing his shit and letting loose with a series of hilarious and bizarre invectives. So bizarre, in fact, that the video made the underground rounds pre-Internet, dubbed and passed around between friends, and showing up at the Found Footage Festival before it eventually landed on YouTube.
Director Ben Steinbauer had such a fascination with the video that he decided to track down Rebney, now living in the mountains of Northern California. Though it seems like a thin premise to base an entire film around, Steinbauer finds a compelling subject in Rebney, and the resulting tale is very strange and very sad. He also uses the film as a way to explore the popularity of viral video and how anonymous grumps like Rebney become cult heroes. The film plays as part Internet video greatest hits (Star Wars kid, etc.), cultural study (interviews with theorists like Douglas Rushkoff) and all around freak show. Do me a kindness and check it out. (BRYN EVANS)
WRONG ROSARY
(Turkey, 2009)
Dir. Mahmut Fazil Coskun
Oct. 1, 9 p.m., Plaza
Heartbreaking, quiet and incredibly slow-moving, this Turkish movie reflects its stories’ central characters. Musa (Nadir Saribacak) is an Islamic muezzin (the mosque’s prayer-caller) who has just landed in Istanbul. His next-door neighbour, Clara (Gorkem Yeltan), is an orphan who has been raised by Catholic nuns. While the two don’t have a religion in common, they do share a tendency to keep to themselves. After many moments of painful shyness, they eventually develop a measured friendship.
Wrong Rosary is beautiful to watch and the characters, non-verbal as they are, are very likable. With long moments of silence and very little pushing the story forward, the film unfolds as more of a subtle meditation than a cinematic adventure. More to the point: It is slow. Really, really slow.
Wrong Rosary makes for an excellent period of reflection, but if you’re looking for witty dialogue, a complicated plot or anything resembling action, this is the wrong ticket. (ELIZABETH CHORNEY-BOOTH)
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