Film Festival Report

(Click on photos for full size.)

Until this year I have been at work when my little town’s film festival occurred. I’ve been to film festivals in big, medium and small cities. I don’t think population correlates to quality. A small town festival can sometimes risk showing edgier films, and the special guests are more unusual choices. The 16^th Annual Port Townsend Film Festival just ended. In three days I saw a dozen features, an equal number of shorts and hosted screenings with Beau Bridges, Chris Cooper and Marianne Leone Cooper.

Essential Cuban Films You Should Know

Sad Thoughtful Mysterious Intimate Reverent Merry Redeemed

2013 Christmas Clip Show

Controversial Films (Pt. 3)

Sex! Violence! Politics! (The Late Sixties)

In the 1960s, a number of factors converged to produce changes in what were acceptable subjects for filmmaking.  In America, the studio system was in sharp decline, and the self-censorship rules known as the “Hays code” were abandoned.  There were “new wave” movements in England and France as well as the U.S.  Independent films made with smaller budgets and crews were finding larger audiences.  These kinds of movies covered topics rejected by the more risk-averse studios.

UNconventional

Sidse Babett Knudsen, as PM Birgitte Nyborg

Ah, politics.  The fakeness, lies and weasel-words.  The facade of assumed importance.  The grand parade of lifeless commodities.

The Avengers Disassembled

I didn’t see any of the past superhero movies based on Marvel Comics characters in theaters.  It takes a lot to get me to go to movie theaters so I can listen to strangers eat like cows in order to view a screen larger than my TV.

Films for At-Risk Youth

When I was a lonely, nerdy little boy in peril, I learned important survival tips and got cheap therapy from seeing movies about other young ones who were having a hard time.

Homage Fromage

Two mutts at breakfast.

The Artist, this year’s most-nominated film, is simultaneously reverent and cheesy.

The Curse of Catwoman

I became an actor to help pay the rent.  I didn’t have a full-time job at the time, and temping as an actor pays better than temping as a file clerk.  People outside the biz don’t realize that nearly all actors are part-timers.

Yet Another Reason

…to remain invisible.

I ran into this by accident when looking for something else.  I had completely forgotten it.  Well, it was 25 years ago.  This was my first “union” job in Hollywood, after I had earned the SAG card.  I got paid a few hundred dollars to shout “YAY!” in the background

Why I Know

There’s an underbelly to show business that’s every bit as ugly as all those stories you might have thought were urban legends.

Return of the Son of Bad Movies

An Antidote for Awards Season

Bad art dissolves the hairballs in my overworked heart.  It is normally made with good intentions.  It’s just that somewhere in the process things go screwy.

I Hated It, and I’m Right

What do you mean you don’t think this is great acting? I’m not moving, not blinking and I’m speaking brilliant sarcasm as fast as humanly possible.

The Joy of Rituals

The long-simmering kettle of universal spirit reduces varied traditions down to their elements.  This produces a stock for the making of future soups.  I just sang in the choir (and was a shepherd) in an Epiphany pageant marking the end of the twelve days of Christmas, the triumph of wisdom over ignorant forces, and the passing of the life force from the old year into the new.

It’s called the Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival.  Like Christmas, it has come to us from many different times and places.  The origins are pagan, Roman, Viking, Christian and Medieval, all at once.

All Things New (and Doctor Who)

As of next week I will have been blogging for a year.  Since this time last year I’ve moved to a new home thousands of miles from the previous one, begun a new profession, and published over 100 thousand words in this space, but that’s not all.  I’ve also become a WHOVIAN, a fan of the British (BBC Wales) TV show “Doctor Who”.

Long Shadows

Film styles reflect the historical times they emerge from, and the cultures in those times.  That’s why genres get named after they happen.  When a new trend is first happening, the audiences and filmmakers are too close to see it in a broad perspective.  Sometimes it’s an effect of public concerns, like the way fear about the danger of the atomic bomb got translated into all those movies about GIANT BUGS and GODZILLA.

Bon Voyage

I wrote a few words about Peter Graves just four days before he died, as part of my articles on the film Number One with a Bullet.  Here are a few more, to celebrate him.

Fly on the Wall (Part Four)

Watching the Actors

As I wrote before, I hadn’t ever worked for the duration of an entire feature film, so I was fascinated watching the actors in Number One With a Bullet.

Fly on the Wall (Part Two)

The Workman

Telling this man’s story is a way to repay the debt I feel I owe to him.

Oddest Jobs Ever (Part Three)

There are vast industries dedicated to servicing our “animal” desires.  In this country we aren’t able to face our desire for sexual gratification very honestly.  By that I mean our culture as a whole.  Certainly some individuals can handle it better than others.  Those who can view it more dispassionately can live pretty large off providing fantasy to the adult public.